Worshippers left 'in tears' as Cambridge dean claims Jesus was TRANSGENDER after row over Christ's wound having a 'vaginal appearance'


A work of art is no authority on truth. Nobody knows what Christ's wound looked like. But the C of E is not Christian anyway. They are the Devil's mockery of Christianity. The Bible tells us that homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord but the C of E even has homosexual bishops. Their actual religion is Leftism, not redemption. We can expect nothing Holy from them

Church worshippers cried 'heresy' at the Dean of Trinity College as they left a sermon claiming Jesus may have been transgender 'in tears'.

But the view of a transgender Jesus is 'legitimate', according to Dr Michael Banner, the Dean who stepped in to defend the claim made at a Sermon last Sunday that Christ had a 'trans body'.

Dr Michael Banner, the Dean of Trinity College, was backing up junior research fellow Joshua Heath, who displayed Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion depicting a side wound that he likened to a vagina in front of the congregation.

The side wound 'takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance', said Heath, whose PhD was supervised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

'In Christ's simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,' claimed the researcher.

Heath used the 1400th-century painting Pietà with the Holy Trinity by Jean Malouel, on display in the Louvre, to illustrate his point, according to The Daily Telegraph.

French artist Henri Maccheroni’s 1990 work 'Christs' also appeared during the sermon, as did the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg.

In a letter to the Dean, one worshipper said: 'I left the service in tears. You offered to speak with me afterwards, but I was too distressed. I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.

'I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ’, a new heresy for our age.'

Others said they felt unwelcome in the church, adding that the children attending were visibly uncomfortable.

But Banner wrote a letter defending the sermon, seen by The Telegraph, saying: 'For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism.'

He said however that he would not issue an invitation to someone who he thought would deliberately seek to shock or offend the congregation, or who he anticipated would speak against the Christian faith.

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Abo teen gets her just desserts


It's true that she herself was probably victim of a lot of violence. Abo men are very hard on their women and children. I have seen it myself.

There has been no admission in the media (that I have seen) that she was Aboriginal but pictures of her assault clearly show the skinny brown legs of an Aborigine

image from https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/11/23/23/64882109-11463749-image-a-27_1669247786617.jpg

Note that the assault was in Perth. Black/white relations are notoriously bad in Western Australia


A 15-year-old girl who violently attacked a pregnant mum by slamming her to the ground with her hair as she pushed her two toddlers in a pram will spend at least a year in jail.

The teenage girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced Perth Children's Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery following the September 5 attack.

Judge Hylton Quail described the attack, which was captured on CCTV footage, as 'sickening'.

The girl was charged with six other offences in Ashfield, Midland and Midvale areas between August 30 and September 5 - including an attack on an 11-year-old girl.

The 15-year-old girl admitted to trying to rob the woman but claimed she was coerced into a series of crimes by her cousin while high on marijuana, WAtoday reported.

During the sentencing, Judge Quail addressed the normalisation of the girl's violent and anti-social behaviour caused by her dysfunctional upbringing.

'From very young she was exposed to a high level of alcohol and substance abuse,' Judge Quail said.

'She experienced a great deal of neglect and has been hospitalised on a number of occasions for serious injuries as a result of that neglect.'

The 15-year-old was sentenced to 12 months behind bars.

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The Evolutionary Reason Why There Is So Much Infidelity in Society


A reasonable theory below. Is it however needlessly complex? Would it not be sufficient to say that infidelity arises because the characteristics we like are usually found in more than one person? if some set of characteristics is so attractive to us that we marry the person having them, would not a similar set of characteristics in another person also be strongly attractive to us? -- JR

We all seem to want monogamy but infidelity is rampant — here is why we can’t escape our unwanted friend, along with an idea for how we can

It’s a fair bet every one of us wants a partner who is faithful to us, even those who want open relationships still want a faithful partner — cheating still happens in open relationships. However, it’s believed that upwards of 80 to 90 percent of people will commit at least one act of infidelity over their lifetime.

Considering how much infidelity there is, the question we are left with is why the hell don’t we all just give up on one-on-one relationships and instead be like bonobos, where everyone sleeps with anyone they want?

The answer is, children. Children sit at the heart of everything, and children are believed to be the main reason why one-on-one relationships have become the norm in human society. Many even postulate that pair bonding between men and women is the greatest human innovation of all time simply because monogamy works better when it comes to raising children.

Children are likely the reason we evolved monogamy
Nobody knows for certain why the males and females of our ancestors several million years or so back started pair bonding, there are many theories out there, and nobody has a clue which if any is closer to the truth. But the theory that most resonated with me actually came from a friend of mine who is obsessed with anthropology.

He theorises that the females of the time realised that having a loyal male that they could rely upon increased the chances of a child surviving into adulthood. He postulates that they came to this realisation perhaps because males lower down the pecking order started showing them loyalty in an effort to increase their chances of mating, and this gradually from the bottom up led to males and females eventually evolving to form full-blown pair bonding as we know it.

Whether this is how it happened we will likely never know, in the end, how it happened is irrelevant, what matters is that the benefits of pair bonding when it comes to creating a safe and stable environment for raising children are inescapable. A man and a woman who are loyal to each other and work together will trump any other setup, especially if those men and women are part of a group of paired-up men and women.

For example, if you have a tribe of male-female pairs, not only do you have a cooperative team of men and women working together to create a safe environment for children, you also have a stable grouping because the men and women will not be competing with each other over who to mate with — because each man and woman will be paired up.

In a way it’s the ultimate win-win, not only is a man and woman working together a brilliant setup for raising a child, by men and women giving loyalty to each other, and all accepting men and women who are paired up as off-limits, it creates greater unity and stability which further enhances the child raising setup.

As such, pair bonding and monogamy bring immense benefits to human advancement and survival chances — there is a reason we are the only advanced race, and it is because one day men and women agreed to start giving each other loyalty and working together in the fight to keep children alive.

Considering this though, it would beg the question of, if pair bonding and monogamy are so beneficial to human advancement and survival, why the hell do so many find it impossible to remain faithful?

The sexual reproduction based downsides to monogamy
Human evolution and as such survival are reliant on three primary factors, one, stable and resource-rich environments for raising children in, two, the strongest passing on their genetics to the most people, and three, large amounts of genetic diversity. Each of these elements is just as important as the other.

Here is the thing though, to ensure the strongest pass on their genetics, people have to compete, and competing typically eventually leads to fighting. If both men and women end up fighting amongst their respective selves to prove their genetics the strongest, the men and women who would be left over would be so few in numbers that the human race would swiftly die out.

This is why females of any species seldom compete against each other by fighting violently to prove that they are the strongest, the fact they have the children makes them too important, but at the same time, it is why males frquently do. Somebody has to fight between themselves to prove they have the best genetics, because one male can impregnate many females, that makes males substantially more expendable than females.

The reality of this can be seen across the animal kingdom, in our past, and in the modern day, and I’m not talking just the dating scene. For example, I’ve heard it argued many times that war is a prime example of male competition over females ending up in violence, and I’m starting to buy into this theory. Whether it be Genghis Khan, the Vikings, even the Russians in World War II, even the Russians in Ukraine today, the idea of kill all the men and rape all the women stubbornly remains, and it very well could be that a root cause may be linked to the instinctual human desire to prove which males are the strongest.

Regardless of the reason, because of the endless competition, the majority of the animal kingdom is not very stable when it comes to keeping offspring alive. Humans on the other hand, despite the frequent outbreaks of war, have become more stable and monogamy through pair bonding is one of the main reasons why, if not the main reason.

This would beg the question of why, if monogamy is such a powerful tool for creating stability, we struggle to practice it to the point society is always ripe with infidelity. The answer of course is absolute monogamy hinders the main essence of sexual reproduction, which is the strongest pass on their genetics to the most.

There is no escaping it. The essence of sexual reproduction is those with the best genetics pass it on to the most, monogamy creates a spanner in the fight to ensure this happens. Infidelity provides the solution.

To explain, in perfect monogamy everybody would only ever have a child with one other person. That creates a lot of genetic diversity but not in a very good way — at least not for a species that desires and needs to continually rapidly evolve. To rapidly evolve, you need the best genetics passed on in the largest amount at all times, which requires competition and promiscuity.

But in a world where the best genetics are always being passed on in the highest number, there is a lot of instability. This is because in such a world males and females will be constantly competing amongst themselves to prove that they have the best genetics, and the male side is likely to more often than not end up in violence — which is what happens. This creates instability, which is the enemy of progress.

Step forth the solution, where if you add monogamy to infidelity, you get the best of both worlds. You get the stability that comes with monogamy, or at least the illusion of it, and you get a world where the strongest still pass on their genetics to the most people, they just do it through a mixture of relationship breakups and infidelity. It’s a total win except of course it sucks.

Is there a solution?

I do believe there is a solution to the infidelity problem, and it is a five-pronged solution:

Number One

We need to start teaching proper social skills at school, including how to communicate while in a relationship. If we did this, it would give people a better chance of finding and connecting with the right person sooner rather than later, which would lower the risk of infidelity.

Also, by teaching people how to communicate so that men and women can again actually start talking to each other again and understanding each other, it would stop many of the cycles that lead people to cheat.

Number two

We need to start countering all the rubbish that men and women are being sold about each other. Extreme feminist rubbish, extreme incel rubbish, all of it, everything that fills the heads of men and women with rubbish that they then unwittingly inflict upon their partners.

Number three

We need to become tolerant of blended families. I’m a firm believer that blended families are the future. For example, they would solve the need to find a life partner before having children, instead, you would just need to find someone you felt happy to have a child with.

No easy task, but easier than finding Mr or Mrs right. Also, if we are more tolerant of blended families, it would stop people being afraid of having children due to the fear of potentially ruining future relationship prospects. Finally, as instinctually we want genetic diversity, blended families create that. So, it’s a win on every level.

Number four

We need to start legitimising sex workers. This one is perhaps controversial (even though it shouldn’t be), but I firmly believe that normalising people allowing their partners to see sex workers, or even sending their partners to sex workers whether for massages or for full sexual experiences, would greatly help reduce infidelity.

Sex is after all primaeval, and as far as I see it, sex work is simply a form of massage, and people are happy for their partners to go to a spa for a massage, so why not a sex worker? I firmly believe if people came to this mindset, it would greatly lower infidelity because it would help solve many sex-based relationship problems, especially in regard to arguments over type of sex, and frequency of sex.

Number five

We need to accept that we are human, and as humans, we are driven by instinctual factors that many of us do not understand and likely will never understand. But the more we try to understand, the better chance we have of creating a world that embraces who we are, rather than suppresses it.

This matters because the reality is, and this is just in my opinion, the main reason many of us end up cheating is that we try to suppress who we are in an effort to be who we are not and will never truly be. So, if we let people be human, and allowed people to truly understand what it means to be human, it would likely greatly reduce infidelity.

Final words

Monogamy creates the illusion that every man and woman will only have a child with each other, that illusion creates stability i.e. it stops men and women from constantly competing amongst themselves over the right to mate with each other.

Infidelity, which can lead to paternity fraud, where men would impregnate other people’s wives and wives would be impregnated by other men, creates genetic diversity of the best kind by allowing the strongest men to still impregnate lots of women — and for the strongest women to still be impregnated by lots of different men. Relationship breakups allow for blended families.

As crazy as it seems, this gives us the best of all worlds. It ticks the box for the strongest passing on their genetics to the most, it ticks the box for genetic diversity by ensuring as many as possible get to pass on their genetics, and it ticks the box for creating stability and the best environment for raising children.

If we want to finally get rid of infidelity, or at least greatly reduce it, we have to create a new way to tick those boxes. Better communication, blended families, the acceptance of sex workers as legitimate workers, and the acceptance that we are human, in my view is the path to doing this. The other option is simply to accept that infidelity is here to stay. I know what option I would choose, but each to their own.

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Underneath most scientific findings may lie a hidden 'universe of uncertainty'


I often complained about this during my research career. Too often what the authors of an academic journal concluded would not be justified by their detailed research results. They would simply conclude what thery wanted to conclude, facts regardess. I stil read research reports at times -- mostly medical journals these days -- and the conclusions are still often junk

A hidden "universe of uncertainty" may underlie most scientific findings, especially in the social sciences, a new study suggests.

When scientists used the same data set to answer a specific hypothesis — that immigration reduces support for social policy — dozens of researchers produced completely different results, according to a new study, published Oct. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The finding suggests it may be very hard to be confident in findings in some of these fields, since even small changes in initial choices could yield dramatically different results.

In the new study, Nate Breznau, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany, and colleagues asked 161 researchers in roughly six dozen research teams to test a common hypothesis: that immigration reduces support for government social policy. This question has been asked hundreds of times in the social science literature, and the results have been all over the map, Breznau told Live Science.

As a baseline, they gave the research teams data from six questions related to government policy from the International Social Survey Programme, a broad data set that tracks policy differences across 44 countries.

Then, they asked the teams to use logic and prior knowledge to develop models to explain the relationship between immigration and support for government social services.

For example, one group might predict that an increased flow of immigrants to a country raises competition for scarce resources, which, in turn, decreases support for social services. The research teams then had to decide what types of data to use to answer that question (for instance, the net influx of immigrants to a country, the gross domestic product, or the average or median income in different regions), as well as what types of statistical analyses they would use.

The research groups' findings mirrored the literature overall: 13.5% said it wasn't possible to draw a conclusion, 60.7% said the hypothesis should be rejected and 28.5% said the hypothesis was correct.

Breznau’s team then used their own statistical analysis to try to understand why different groups came up with such different conclusions.

They found that neither bias nor inexperience could explain the variance. Rather, hundreds of different, seemingly minor decisions may have shifted the conclusions one way or another. Even more surprising, no set of variables seemed to tip the outcomes one way or another, possibly because there simply wasn't enough data to compare the different models. (There was one limitation of the study: The authors' analysis itself is a statistical model and thus is subject to uncertainty as well.)

It's not clear to what extent this universe of uncertainty plagues other sciences; it may be that astrophysics, for example, is simpler to model than human interactions on a grand scale, Breznau said.

For instance, there are 86 billion neurons in the human brain and 8 billion people on the planet, and those people are all interacting in complex social networks.

"It might be the case that there are fundamental laws that would govern human social and behavioral organization, but we definitely don't have the tools to identify them," Breznau told Live Science.

One takeaway from the study is that researchers should spend time honing their hypothesis before jumping to data collection and analysis, Breznau said, and the new study's hypothesis is a perfect example.

"Does immigration undermine support for social policy? It's a very typical social science hypothesis, but it's probably too vague to really just get a concrete answer to," he said.

A more specific or targeted question could potentially yield better results, Breznau said.

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Why was the response to the pandemic so Fascist?


Below is one of many accounts about the bad effects of Covid vaccinations. Before I comment on it, I think I should declare my own status

I had two vaccinations with the British Astra-Zeneca vaccine. I had them under duress. I needed them to be permitted to go to certain places. On both occasions I had zero noticeable effects from the vaccination and I have also not apparently had Covid. So I would appear to be a "success" of the program

I personally don't think I am. I have a very good immune system and I think that was what defeated the harms from both the vaccine and the virus. Everybody I know who had the vaccine reported side effects from their shot: Side effects akin to the flu. And they got Covid anyway. I occasionally get flu symptoms but they vanish within 24 hours.

But in any case, I have no personal reason to be critical of the Covid vaccination programs. I look on with horror at what others have suffered but I have no personal beef

So the major point that I want to make is that the official response to vaccination side-effects was WILDLY out of keeping with the normal official response to medication side-effects. When a drug appears to have only a few reports of serious side effects, it usually gets banned in short order.

A case in point is Vioxx -- a very good nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug that had been used by millions with no problems. There were however a handful of very serious cases attributed to the drug and publicity about that put the manufacturer under great pressure, causing them to "voluntarily" withdraw the drug from the market. By vuoluntarily withdrawing it, they left the way open to re-marketing it if vindication of the drug emerged.

I was at the time critical of the furore surrounding Vioxx. If millions have used the drug with no ill-effects and only a handful of adverse cases have surfaced, how do we know that the adverse effects were due to the drug? Which body of evidence is persuasive about what the drug does: the millions who have used the drug beneficially or the handful who SAY that their illness was caused by the drug? Is it not by far most likely that the adverse cases were mere coincidence? Yet the drug was effectively banned on the basis of those possibly coincidental cases.

And that has long been typical: Only a few cases of adverse effects from a medication are usually sufficient to ban it. If aspirin had been subject to modern approval scrutiny, we would never have had it.

But with Covid vacines the pendulum swung WILDLY in the opposite direction. Far from bad side-effects getting maximum scrutiny, they were actually COVERED UP. Why?

I think it was the Chinese example that ruled the day. When stories emerged about the Chinese authorities actually welding people's doors shut to enforce quarantine, our Left-leaning elites salivated. They saw a golden opportunity to go Fascist. They saw a way of getting the sort of control over other people that they had previously only dreamed of. They NEEEDED the vaccines to be effective and problem-free in order to justify their dreamy descent into authoritarianism. In fact, as it is now clear, the vaccines were NEITHER effective nor safe. So they had to cover that up as long as they could.

As I said from the beginning, the only public health measures that might have been justified emerge from the fact that only a tiny number of deaths were among people aged under 65. So it would have been justifiable to give maximum support to the over 65s to enable them to isolate themselves voluntarily


These days, news of a whistleblower isn’t all that uncommon. It seems to be the only way to get the truth out there in this world full of Fake News. Add the word COVID, and you can practically guarantee a cover-up is in there somewhere.
From day one, Kevin Jackson coined the vaccination a “death poke”, and together we urged people to think twice before allowing that concoction to be forced through their veins. We’ve chronicled dozens of stories about the negative effects of various covid vaccines and boosters.

Most recently, I wrote about the negative reactions patients experienced, as hundreds of thousands of people reported adverse side-effects and sought medical treatment.

Most people who got the covid-vaccine are just good-hearted people who wanted to do their part to keep others safe from this virus that targets the medically vulnerable population. Sadly, those efforts were mostly in vain, as even the big wig CEO’s like Albert Bourla [of Pfizer] tested positive after rounds of vaccination.

However, through the worst of the pandemic, Big Pharma, the CDC, and the Biden Administration continually denied the existence of negative side effects. Yet, we know, without a doubt, this vaccine has ruined countless lives. We have teenagers dropping dead at basketball games because of the death poke, babies that were stillborn, and a ridiculous amount of heart failure in people with relatively good health. It makes no sense. The only common denominator is the covid-19 vaccine.

Even the media played a huge part in covering up the truth. They still blindly push others to put themselves at risk to join the “vaxxers”. Well, call me crazy, but I’m anti-vaxxer all the way. And I’m keeping my kids far away from any kind of covid shot.

According to the Epoch Times’ recent article:
Some 782,900 people reported seeking medical attention, emergency room care, and/or hospitalization following COVID-19 vaccination. Another 2.5 million people reported needing to miss school, work, or other normal activities as a result of a health event after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

The reports were made to the CDC’s V-safe program, a new vaccine safety monitoring system to which users can report issues through smartphones.

The CDC released the data to the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) after being sued over not producing the data when asked by the nonprofit. ICAN posted a dashboard summarizing the data.

“It took numerous legal demands, appeals, and two lawsuits, and over a year, but the CDC finally capitulated and agreed to a court order requiring them to do what they should have done from day one, release the V-safe data to the public,” Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing ICAN in the case, told The Epoch Times in an email.

About 10 million people utilized V-safe during the period of time the data covers: Dec. 14, 2020, to July 31, 2022. About 231 million Americans received at least one vaccine doses during that time.

The V-safe users reported about 71 million symptoms.

The most commonly reported symptoms were chills (3.5 million), swelling (3.6 million), joint pain (4 million), muscle or body aches (7.8 million), headache (9.7 million), fatigue (12.7 million), and general pain (19.5 million).

About 4.2 million of the symptoms were of severe severity.

Users of V-safe filled in data for about 13,000 infants younger than two, reporting over 33,000 symptoms, including pain, loss of appetite, and irritability.

The data produced so far by the CDC does not include free-text responses, according to ICAN. The data covered fields where users checked boxes.

ICAN, founded by film producer Del Bigtree, said that the newly revealed data “reveals shocking information that should have caused the CDC to immediately shut down its COVID-19 vaccine program,” citing the percentage of people who reported needing to get care or missing school, work, or other normal activities, as well as the reported adverse events.

Another shocking fact has come to light. A whistleblower has provided government data documenting 47,465 deaths within 14 days of COVID-19 vaccination among Medicare patients alone.

Now, we get another piece of the puzzle, and it’s actually shocking.

Our Government Knew This All Along!

That’s where Attorney Tom Renz comes in. He actually exposed the DOD after discovering these documents.

According to Renz Law:

Recently discovered DOD stamped documents show the following:

As Delta Variant Surged to over 50% in June, Covid-19 Hospitalizations more than doubled, reversing the prior trend of decreasing hospitalizations since April.

Unlike what Fauci, Biden, and Big Pharma are telling the American public about the safety and effectiveness of the 3 Covid Vaccines, the following DOD stamped document shows 60% of the hospitalized are fully vaccinated.

This DOD stamped document also reveals that the government knows that “prior Covid-19 infection has a major protective effect against breakthrough hospitalization,” which means that natural herd immunity is superior to the vaccines.

Attorney Thomas Renz says “Even with this high of a number, 60%, the real number is absolutely higher due to the skewed methods of how the government determines who is vaccinated. They are not including those that received 1 dose, only those that received 2 doses and a 14 day window has passed, and now Biden is saying boosters plus 2 shots will put you on the “fully vaccinated” list.. If you get covid within the 14 day window of being vaccinated and die like nearly 50K Medicaid patients did, your death is not counted in these statistics.”

Attorney Thomas Renz adamantly adds “This definitively proves that Biden and his cronies at DHHS are outright lying when they claim this is a crisis of the ‘unvaccinated.’ It’s just the opposite. It is a crisis of the poor Americans that believed Big Gov, Big Media, Big Pharma, and Big Tech when they promoted lies that the vaccines were ‘safe and effective.’ It is unquestioningly a manipulative marketing for profit and power scheme, at the expense of Americans lives.”

Tell Us What We Didn’t Know

Of course, we knew these vaccines were bad news all along. This just proves our “leaders” were in on the scam. These fools didn’t even give us the courtesy of making informed decisions. So many people had to be privy to this information, it’s hard to imagine that no one else felt the need to send up the flares. If you ask me, there’s only one thing left to do— Bring on the Class Actions. Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Uncle Sam all need to pay their fair share. It’s hard to put a price on human suffering, and impossible to put a price on human life. But we can force them to pay enough so they feel some kind of pain. In fact, let’s start at the top with Biden and Dr. Fauci. I’d say taking their entire fortunes sounds fair, wouldn’t you agree? Eventually, we all have to pay for our sins.

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New Greenie plan to take gas out of Aussie kitchens


At a time when the electricity grid is under great strain from Greenie meddling, this is insane. I personally remember occasions when my gas stove allowed life to go on unimpeded during an electricity blackout. These days I have multiple oil lamps in addition to my gas stove. I did use them during a late-night blackout recently

I have also noted that most chefs seem to prefer gas stoves. They give immediate and visible temperature control


They’ve been a staple of our kitchens for generations, and it seems Aussies will not give up their gas appliances without a fight.

On Tuesday, property firms Lendlease and GPT Group will come together to help launch the Global Cooksafe Coalition, with plans to phase out gas ovens and stovetops, citing health and environmental concerns.

The property giants have plans to stop installing gas kitchen appliances in new builds in all OECD countries by the end of the decade, and to only do all-electric retrofits in existing properties by 2040.

The campaign has the support of high-profile chefs including Neil Perry, Darren Robertson, Palisa Anderson, Rob Roy Cameron, William Gleave and James Edward Henry. At least one other major Australian property developer is expected to join the Coalition in the next few months, sources said.

But readers have rejected the idea, with a masive majority saying people have the right to use natural gas in their own home.

With more than 1900 readers voting in our online poll by 11.30am AEDT, more than four in five (83 per cent) said they opposed the plan to phase out gas kitchens.

Just 11 per cent said they were in favour of the campaign, while 6 per cent of readers said they were undecided on the issue.

Readers also expressed their opposition to the gas plan in comments, with some labelling it “insane” and “idiotic”.

One reader commented that gas “has been the saviour of many people duting the floods when power was out”, and that “we demonise everything these days”.

Some 76 per cent of poll respondents said they cooked with gas at home - slightly higher than the estimated 65-70 per cent of Australians who use gas domestically.

Chef Neil Perry said electric was “definitely the future of cooking” in both homes and commercial kitchens.

“It’s just cleaner, it’s more efficient and it’s definitely more beneficial for the environment. Everything tends to be neater and cleaner without gas,” he said.

Lendlease Global Head of Sustainability Cate Harris said electrification across operations was “essential” for the company to hit its goal of absolute zero carbon emissions by 2040.

“While the transition to electric cooking powered by renewables will take time, it’s already underway at our new commercial development Victoria Cross Tower in Sydney, and we’re looking forward to working alongside our Coalition partners to drive and accelerate industry change,” she said.

Dale O’Toole from GPT said all-electric kitchens “potentially present financial savings in new developments” and suggested moving away from gas would protect owners from having outdated appliances as the transition to renewable energy picks up momentum.

While the Global Cooksafe Coalition targets appliances in the kitchen only – so gas hot water or heating in the home would still be possible – several Australian jurisdictions are aggressively pursuing plans to electrify homes completely.

From next year, ACT infill developments will not be connected to the network, while Victoria has plans to take gas out of schools and hospitals, and from 2023 it will drop incentives for gas home appliances.

Why the moves against gas

The moves have been prompted by concerns over the health impacts of gas in the home, as well as the greenhouse emissions caused by natural gas.

Dr Kate Charlesworth from the Climate Council said cooking with gas was estimated to be responsible for up to 12 per cent of the childhood asthma burden in Australia, and a recent California study showed home gas stoves were associated with elevated levels of benzene, a known carcinogen.

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Australia 1.47°C warmer than it was when national records began in 1910, State of the Climate Report reveals


Let's try a little logic here. If the Australian temperature is .37 of a degree above the global temperature of 1.1 degree then a significant part of the Australian warming is NOT due to global influences. That being so, how do we know that ANY of it is due to global influences? Both the global and Australian temperatures could be random fluctuations and probably are. Fluctuations are common in the long-term global record. Temperatures over the last 100 years or so are just a recent uptick from the Little Ice Age

Australia is 1.47°C hotter today than it was just over 100 years ago, putting it ahead of the global trend of 1.1°C of warming, the biennial State of the Climate report released on Wednesday reveals.

The report, from the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, revealed Australia as a whole is 1.47°C warmer than it was when national records began in 1910, although there is a margin of error of 0.24°C.

Most of that increase in warming has taken place since 1950, and every decade since the 1950s has been warmer than the one preceding it, the report stated.

Australia’s warming trend was seen across all months of the year, in both day time and night time temperatures, with a marked increase in the number of extremely hot days.

In 2019 – Australia’s hottest year – there were 41 extremely warm days, which the report said were “about triple the highest number in any year prior to 2000”.

While the temperature trend for the country has been uniform, with regards to rainfall the results are more mixed

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Is Monogamy Realistic in This Day and Age?


Personal comments below from Dr. Paula Paz Matute, a Honduran living in Germany. She raises a hugely important question but can give only opinions as an answer.

I am inclined to think that opinions are all we can aspire to in the matter. "Each to his own", as the saying goes. It does appear that some people are happily monogamous but many are clearly not. No all-inclusive generalizations are possible.

A common solution to the conundrum is one that is very often practiced: Serial monogamy. That means having a series of relationships but remaining "faithful" during each relationship.

I am in that category. I have been married 4 times so it is clear that marriage is my ideal state. And I can and do remain "faithful" during a relationship. My longest marriage was for 10 years and my longest unmarried relationship was 14 years.

Yet in the end the women walk out on me. Though sometimes they do not walk far but remain friends. But after each walkout I have ended up having lots of involvements with lots of fine women. I have enjoyed it all greatly. I can recommend serial monogamy.

I would still like to be married but as I am now in my 80th year, I think I have missed that boat. A considerable compensation is that my present girlfriend is both pretty and smart.


A few months ago, I was having lunch with my colleagues , and the subject came up of how nowadays — at least in Germany — many couples are “opening up the relationship” in which they have been monogamous for years. I was amazed when one of my colleagues said in the most natural way that;

monogamy does not exist, that although nobody accepts it, men and women are primarily unfaithful in a relationship.

My traditional romantic Latin heart found this sad. And it is not that I have not seen infidelities in my close circles or that I am so naive to think that it does not happen. In that sense I could say that I consider myself pragmatic.

A relationship is wrong, we are no longer happy, we feel attracted to other people it is time to communicate it to our partner -maybe not the attraction to other people- but to reflect on ourselves and analyze what is happening with us and our relationship.

The first time I confronted my prejudices on this topic was when a friend commented in our reading circle that she and her boyfriend of nine years had decided to open their relationship.

I had the wrong and overgeneralized idea of people who chose to have an open relationship.

So I thought an open relationship was linked to instability. “It is just another excuse for men to sleep with as many women as they want. It is just another meaningless trend that did not value being romantic”.

But this person standing in front of me, telling me that she and her boyfriend had made such a decision was completely the opposite of the image that my prejudices on this subject had built up.

She is a romantic, hardcore feminist and human rights advocate who loves staying at home and cooking. ( I am not saying that this is the ideal persona or better than anyone else) I just want to emphasize how important it is not to judge others people’s ways of living.

So my prejudice at that moment broke into a thousand pieces, and thanks to this experience I internalized the idea that

monogamy should not be the only option in a relationship.

But don’t get me wrong, at this moment, my Latin and romantic heart could not deal with an open relationship.

I can say, it could not emotionally work for myself.

To think that my husband is kissing another woman, touching another woman, or just flirting with another woman would eat me up with jealousy, and I can not even see it as as an option in our relationship now.

But, of course, no one is saved, and he could be with another person ,without my knowledge at some point in life.

But the terms of the relationship must be established.

So, being with someone else would be, at the moment, for me, a betrayal because the rules of the relationship are broken.

We see these almost every day on the internet. Adam Levine sent “flirty” messages to a lot of models. Justin Bieber always betrayed -my idol- Selena Gomez (I’m a big fan of her, I love her music, and I think she’s the best), Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, and Angelina, we get the idea The list is endless.

So is it then time for us to accept that monogamous relationships are the problem? Could it be that monogamy is not natural for humans?

Could it be that instead of being like penguins that are monogamous animals, we are more like queen bees and rabbits that can have as many partners as they want at the same time?

Some might ask; What about increasing the probability of a sexually transmitted disease by having multiple partners? But I think a lot of people who open their relationship, as in the case of my friend, is not because they want to have more sex or sleep with different men. For her, it was instead the flirtation, the curiosity of the initial stage.

According to what she told us, she was deeply in love with her boyfriend; they had a great relationship, they were both very sure of what they felt for each other, and that allowed them to try new things with all the confidence in the relationship.

As we know, many cultures do not practice monogamy, and everyone is so calm and happy, or at least that is what it seems.

Could it be then that we are approaching an epoch in time when we have to rethink the concept of monogamy?

Could it be then that it is already obsolete? Could it then be time to be open to changes in human relationships? Or is it just a fashionable concept that many want to follow without internalizing its consequences?

Maybe it is time to sit down and evaluate our prejudices in this regard.

Then, should people who are consider as “unfaithful” better be in a polygamous relationship? Would these “unfaithful” people also agree that their partner can do the same?

At the end everything depends on the terms or agreements we have in our relationship. If a person feels comfortable and is happy in polygamy, then excellent. Inner peace and how we are Happy is not the same for everyone.

On the other hand, for some people, the mere thought of their partner being intimate with another person seems the most terrible thing and the greatest betrayal. These emotions are also valid.

Monogamy or open relationships, the most important, should be mutual agreement and what we need and want in a relationship.

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Another unhelpful study of Ivermectin


Once again we have a study that fails to heed the stricture that Ivermectim has to be administered immediately symptoms emerge. Giving it up to 7 days later is pointless and proves nothing. Journal article below

Efficacy of Ivermectin Treatment on Disease Progression Among Adults With Mild to Moderate COVID-19 and Comorbidities (The I-TECH Study)

Question: Does adding ivermectin, an inexpensive and widely available antiparasitic drug, to the standard of care reduce the risk of severe disease in patients with COVID-19 and comorbidities?

Findings: In this open-label randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with COVID-19 in Malaysia, a 5-day course of oral ivermectin administered during the first week of illness did not reduce the risk of developing severe disease compared with standard of care alone.

Meaning: The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

Abstract

Importance: Ivermectin, an inexpensive and widely available antiparasitic drug, is prescribed to treat COVID-19. Evidence-based data to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin are needed.

Objective: To determine the efficacy of ivermectin in preventing progression to severe disease among high-risk patients with COVID-19.

Design, Setting, and Participants: The Ivermectin Treatment Efficacy in COVID-19 High-Risk Patients (I-TECH) study was an open-label randomized clinical trial conducted at 20 public hospitals and a COVID-19 quarantine center in Malaysia between May 31 and October 25, 2021. Within the first week of patients’ symptom onset, the study enrolled patients 50 years and older with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, comorbidities, and mild to moderate disease.

Interventions: Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either oral ivermectin, 0.4 mg/kg body weight daily for 5 days, plus standard of care (n = 241) or standard of care alone (n = 249). The standard of care consisted of symptomatic therapy and monitoring for signs of early deterioration based on clinical findings, laboratory test results, and chest imaging.

Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who progressed to severe disease, defined as the hypoxic stage requiring supplemental oxygen to maintain pulse oximetry oxygen saturation of 95% or higher. Secondary outcomes of the trial included the rates of mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit admission, 28-day in-hospital mortality, and adverse events.

Results: Among 490 patients included in the primary analysis (mean [SD] age, 62.5 [8.7] years; 267 women [54.5%]), 52 of 241 patients (21.6%) in the ivermectin group and 43 of 249 patients (17.3%) in the control group progressed to severe disease (relative risk [RR], 1.25; 95% CI, 0.87-1.80; P = .25). For all prespecified secondary outcomes, there were no significant differences between groups. Mechanical ventilation occurred in 4 (1.7%) vs 10 (4.0%) (RR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.13-1.30; P = .17), intensive care unit admission in 6 (2.4%) vs 8 (3.2%) (RR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.27-2.20; P = .79), and 28-day in-hospital death in 3 (1.2%) vs 10 (4.0%) (RR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.09-1.11; P = .09). The most common adverse event reported was diarrhea (14 [5.8%] in the ivermectin group and 4 [1.6%] in the control group).

Conclusions and Relevance: In this randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, ivermectin treatment during early illness did not prevent progression to severe disease. The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

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More on prehistoric European civilization


As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. And that applies to the development of civilization in S.E. Europe (mostly in the territory of modern Serbia). I wrote yesterday about the elaborate civilization known to archaeologists as Vinca. The degree of modernity in the Vinca culture can be rather startling and the time of its emergence is even more startling. It emerged BEFORE the civilizations of Egypt and Sumeria.

But Vinca did not arise out of nothing. As is usually the case, it evolved from something earlier. And it is an earlier culture I want to mention here: Lepenski Vir. It was obviously much more primitive than Vinca but its remains do entitle it to be called a civilization.

And it is VERY early, much earlier even than Vinca -- starting as early as 9500 BC. So once again we are entitled to say that civilization was a European invention, not an invention from the Middle East. The Middle East is where WRITING that we can decipher originated but the other features of civilization can be found first in "Old Europe"

As a scholarly study of European genetics concluded: "Our study shows that southeastern Europe consistently served as a genetic contact zone between different populations. This role likely contributed to the extraordinary series of cultural innovations that characterize the region"


A fish god sculpture from Lepenski Vir: Half human, half fish. Fishing was a major food source for the inhabitants. Their settlement was on the Danube in a spot good for fishing

There are various theories of where the populations concerned came from but there is little doubt that they were an admixture resulting from several population movements. The admixture was however powerful. Just as the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Danes and the Normans fused to produce the very influentil current population of Britain, so the admixture in South Eastern Europe developed into something much more significant than the various genetic streams from which it originated. They started out as farmers but went on to something much more than that.

We know that when one group moves into an already-populated place, the old population is not normally wiped out. At it worst, all the men may be wiped out but the women will be retained to produce children, a highly desired "commodity" where lifespans are short.

And the most recent move into S.E. Europe was of the Slavs, a very successful population that now controls most of Eastern Europe. So one wonders whether the genetics of "Old Europe" have survived the Slavic hegemony. It seems possible but how much has survived? The study of S.E. Europe mentioned above gives a figure of 5% but that is S.E. Europe-wide. In the heartland of Old Europe" -- Serbia -- the percentage could be higher. Serbs do have claims to be descendants of the world's oldest civilization.

Wikipedia has a very extensive and thorough article on Lepinski Vir so I reproduce just its opening paragraphs:


Lepenski Vir located in Serbia, is an important archaeological site of the Mesolithic Iron Gates culture of the Balkans. The latest radiocarbon and AMS data suggests that the chronology of Lepenski Vir spans between 9500/7200–6000 BC. There is some disagreement about when the settlement and culture of Lepenski Vir began, but the latest data indicates that it was between 9500–7200 BC. The late Lepenski Vir (6300–6000 BC) architectural phase saw the development of unique trapezoidal buildings and monumental sculpture. The Lepenski Vir site consists of one large settlement with around ten satellite villages. Numerous piscine sculptures and peculiar architectural remains have been found at the site.

Archaeologist Dragoslav Srejovi?, who first explored the site, said that such large sculptures so early in human history, and the original architectural solutions, define Lepenski Vir as a specific and very early phase in the development of European prehistoric culture. The site was notable for its outstanding level of preservation and the overall exceptional quality of its artifacts. Because the settlement was permanent and planned, with an organized societal life, architect Hristivoje Pavlovi? labeled Lepenski Vir as "the first city in Europe".

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Civilization goes back a LONG way in Europe


I am going to risk being labelled a white supremacist by my interest in pre-history. What I have found is that Europe seems to be where civilization as we know it first evolved. Egypt and Mesopotamia eat your hearts out!

I am talking about what archaeologists call the Vinca culture. It has left thousands of artifacts so it is in no way obscure. From what we have found of their artifacts, we can deduce quite a lot about them.

The big surprise is how old the objects are. They had been assumed to be more recent that the artifacts from Egypt and Mesopotamia but radiocarbon dating has thrown that into a cocked hat. Vinca predates Egypt by at least a thousand years.

The artifact that tells me most is the one below. It is clearly a type of chariot with very clearly defined and quite modern-looking wheels. It is drawn by birds so is symbolic. The chariot of the Gods is a familiar concept in antiquity (e.g. Psalm 68:17) and it looks like it was thought of in our most ancient European past. See below.



Does it mean that the wheel was invented in EUROPE? It seems likely. Below is another article about Vinca. The original includes images of many Vinca artifacts



There was once a mysterious European culture, which left a legacy in the form of valuable artifacts covered with an unknown, never successfully deciphered script. These artifacts have been excavated from sites in south-east Europe.

Ancient Vinca Culture

The culture that flourished from about 6000 BC to 3000 BC, was named Vinca-Tordos Culture of Yugoslavia and western Romania and derived its name from the village of Vinca located on the banks of the Danube river, only 14 km downstream from Belgrade.

A century ago, a great discovery was made at the Danube riverbank. Panta, an old man from Vin?a accidentally found a strange clay figurine: This mysterious figurine was puzzling to him so he took it to the National Museum in Belgrade in order to find the explanation. The figurine was soon recognized as an artifact that dated back to the late Stone Age.

Since then, a number of archaeological excavations have revealed numerous cultural layers of a civilization and its largest Neolithic settlement in Europe, dating back more than 7,000 years BC.

The Vinca legacy includes among others, curious masks and the most informative costumed figurines depicting women in extremely modern clothes like narrow skirts, and sleeveless upper-body panels, complimented with hip belts, aprons, jewelry, shoes, caps, hairstyles, bracelets, necklaces, and medallions.

There have also been unearthed different kinds of tools and weapons and the remains of prehistoric houses with the furniture and many other objects created in the Vinca region or brought from remote areas.

Since the language of the Vinca still remains undeciphered, unearthed artifacts constitute the only source of knowledge about this culture. Vinca's living style reminds us of our own. They lived in houses that had very complex architectural layouts and several rooms.

The houses faced northeast-southwest and were separated by streets. Vinca people had stoves in their houses, preceding the Romans in using these devices. They used special holes only for rubbish, and had the same tradition as we have, to bury people in cemeteries.

The development of copper metallurgy is evident during the latter part of the Vinca culture's evolution.

Among unearthed artifacts, there have been found a large number of figurines made of clay and other artifacts depicting worshipped deities and women in miniskirts, short tops, wearing jewelry.

It is hard to believe that women that lived several millennia ago wore miniskirts, unless, the cult of Mother Goddess was very widespread and reached both the south-east parts of Europe and ancient India.

Similar, made of ceramic clay, figurines of Mother Goddess, were found in excavations in Mohenjo-Daro, located along the Indus River in ancient India (present-day Pakistan).

Was this kind of clothes popular 7,500 years ago?

The Vinca Culture - Europe's biggest prehistoric civilization - point to a metropolis with a great degree of sophistication and a taste for art and fashion.

Numerous figurines related to the Vinca Culture bear 'markings that clearly indicate clothing, bequeathing a wealth of costume detail. The Vinca culture in the Danube River basin, from the end of the sixth through the fifth millennia B.C., left the most informative costumed figurines.

These images bear deep incisions encrusted with white paste or red ocher emulating fringe, hip belts, aprons, narrow skirts, and sleeveless upper-body panels. The Vinca artisans sans also modeled a variety of shoes, caps, hairstyles, bracelets, necklaces, and medallions...

Figurines with clothing and ornaments appear either bare-breasted or fully clad. Several dress combinations recur persistently on bare-breasted images. Some wear only a hip belt or a hip belt supporting either an apron or an entire fringed skirt. Others wear a tight skirt and nothing else...'

An important question is: Is the legacy of the Vinca culture evidence of the ever known earliest manifestation of the Divine Power and well-evolved and widespread Mother Goddess worship cult?

Many terracotta figurines of the Mother Goddess were recovered in excavations at various archaeological sites of Indus Valley. Naturally, orthodox science proposes a classical explanation to this phenomenon and say that the proto Mother, the symbol of female fertility, is depicted on prehistoric figurines.

Mysterious Vinca Culture Is Among The Most Advanced Prehistoric Societies In Europe

On many of the artifacts excavated from sites in south-east Europe, there have been found the Vinca symbols. Here are common symbols used throughout the Vinca period:

image from https://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/vinmcasymbols.jpg

They probably represent the earliest form of writing ever found and predating ancient Egyptian and Sumerian writing by thousands of years.

Since the inscriptions are all short and appear on objects found in burial sites, and the language represented is not known, it is highly unlikely they will ever be deciphered.

In some way, Vinca's past is both forgotten and lost.

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Gingrich: GOP Got Nearly 6 Million More Votes but Lost Many Races, ‘What’s Going On?’


I had an extended discussion about this with my very conservative son. He says that abortion was the one issue the donks had going for them so that has to be THE issue behind the vote. Anti-abortion attitudes are probably not very important to many who hold such attitudes but PRO-abortion attitudes are probably very influential and will remain so

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been in politics for decades, and never has an election bewildered him as much as the 2022 midterms.

“I’ve never been as wrong as I was this year,” Gingrich, an Epoch Times contributor, said on Nov. 10. “It makes me challenge every model I’m aware of, and realize that I have to really stop and spend a good bit of time thinking and trying to put it all together.”

People from both sides of the aisle were projecting substantial losses for the Democratic Party amid rising discontent over inflation, the economy, and crime. But that expected red wave didn’t happen. ??

The Senate is currently a tossup. And with 211 House seats won against the Democrats’ 192, the GOP is still poised to take charge of the lower chamber when Congress convenes in the new year, but with less leverage than initially hoped.

Gingrich, having previously expressed confidence that his party would score sweeping gains in both chambers, is, like many others, at a loss trying to explain what went awry.

He pointed to a vote tracking sheet by the Cook Political Report, a bipartisan newsletter that analyzes elections, which shows a roughly 50.7 million Republican turnout for the House—outnumbering Democratic votes by nearly 6 million.

Gingrich noted this gap could shrink to 5 million when ballots in deep blue California are fully processed. “But it’s still 5 million more votes,” he said.

“And not gaining very many seats makes you really wonder what’s going on,” he added. “I want to know, where did those votes come from?”

It’s a puzzle that the former speaker hasn’t been able to solve.

Questions and Inconsistencies

Part of what made a difference in this race was how the incumbent lawmakers have fared. In both the 2020 and 1994 House elections, no Republican incumbents lost seats to their Democratic challengers, while 13 and 34 Democratic incumbents, respectively, were ousted. Had the same scenario played out this time, “we’d be six or seven seats stronger than we are now,” he said.

So far, Republicans have flipped 16 seats while Democrats have flipped six— Michigan’s 3rd District, New Mexico’s 2nd District, Ohio’s 1st District, North Carolina’s 13th District, Texas’ 34th District, and Illinois’ 13th District—of which three GOP incumbents lost their seats.

In exit polls by the National Election Pool, about three-quarters of voters rated the economy as weak, and about the same number of people were not satisfied with the way things were going in the country.

On Election Day, Facebook’s parent company Meta said it will cut 11,000 jobs, reducing its workforce by 13 percent, which Gingrich noted as a further sign of economic anxiety.

“But their votes didn’t reflect that,” said Gingrich.

The former speaker said he struggled to reconcile multiple such inconsistencies he observed in this election, particularly in the two races that decided the New York governor and Philadelphia senator, which were won by Democrats Gov. Kathy Hochul and John Fetterman respectively.

“How can you have 70 percent of the people in Philadelphia would say that crime is their number one issue, but they voted for Fetterman even though he had voted to release murderers and put them back on the street?” he said.

“Of the New York City voters, about 70 percent voted for the governor even though she had done nothing to stop crime in New York,” he added. Hochul won the race with a 5.8 percent edge against Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), with 96 percent of the votes counted as of Nov. 11.

“It makes me wonder, you know, what’s going on? How are people thinking?” he said, questioning why people’s attitudes didn’t align with the voting patterns.

“I don’t fully understand how the American people are sort of rationalizing in their head these different conflicting things, and I think it’s going to require some real thought on our part to figure out what to do next.”

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The ‘heroic’ climate book offering some hope for our future


The book review below is not only uncritical. It is positively laudatory. The one thing the review gets right is that the book is heroic -- heroic in ignoring the facts.

Author Gergis is one of the many on the Green/Left who see only what they want to see but Gergis is in fact an extreme case of that. Her research has in fact produced a vivid proof that there is NO long-term global warming. But she sees in it proof of warming.

Judge for yourself. She showed that the temperature was just nine hundredths of one degree warmer in the 20th century than it was in the 13th century. Some warming!

Below is the temperature graph underlying her "research". Going back centuries sure is pesky.



Gergis is the practitioner of a religion, not a scientist. Sadly, she has authored over 100 "scientific" publications on climate. She is a lead author on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, no less. That says a lot about the Warmist fantasy. Anything will do as evidence for it



The problem with climate change is the hot air. A belief, once widespread, was that rational discussion, awareness-raising and political debate were levers that could be pulled to correct an errant course. Today, heave though we might, these levers seem only to vent steam.

Here, Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope by Joëlle Gergis has a special role to play. Gergis is one of hundreds of scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) assessment reports, the gold standard of international scientific collaboration and rigour by which we discover just how much trouble we’re in.

Part of this book describes the report’s creation, an exhaustive and exhausting process of write, review and rewrite, which takes years to compile, the latest running at nearly 3000 pages. It is then flung into the centrifuge of the modern news cycle. Little but a few headlines survive intact. Humanity’s Moment is Gergis’ opportunity to translate the science in a controlled environment, outside the clickbait and pop-ups.

She does so with precision, fidelity and restraint. Our present predicament is harrowing enough. Yet floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Europe are but a taste of the likely future despite the trumpeting of net-zero target figures.

Humanity’s Moment is in three parts: the head, the heart and the whole. The heart is needed because science is simply not enough to fully grasp the loss, both actual and potential. It must be felt. The author intercuts exposition with personal accounts, often at the edge of despair. “We are witnessing the great unravelling; the beginning of the end of things,” she writes in her journal.

Through such entries, email correspondence with other scientists and the author’s bittersweet immersion in landscapes she knows are vanishing such as the Great Barrier Reef or Gondwana rainforest, we understand the price of again spelling out the case on the page. As an act of defiance, it is heroic.

Gergis states that the IPCC’s sixth assessment report released last year will be the last chance that scientists have to make a difference. In the time it takes to produce another, we’ll be too far gone. From here on, it’s politics, and we know how that goes.

Very bravely, she resists such easy cynicism, in which the apocalypse is simply another meme. I had to limit myself to a chapter a night but felt hopelessness long afterward. It’s also not an easy book to discuss with friends, especially those with children.

But in all darkness, there is light, as the opening chapter of the third part states. Here the concept of the tipping point that runs throughout Humanity’s Moment is applied to repair. When change happens, it is unexpected and accelerating. In the whole: social movements, art, technological progress and the teal revolution could be reaching a point at which politicians and businesses with vested interests in the status quo have no option but change.

Many climate books take on this structure but few have a final “hope” section that is believable. Most smack of compromise to an anxious publisher, a counterbalance to the grim forerunners. Yet Gergis has deployed a compelling metaphor, not least of all because things are improving. Denialism has lost mainstream credibility while fossil fuel companies are increasingly resorting to greenwashing, a definite retreat from attacking the science.

The chapter Life Imitating Art, on the growing cultural dimension of the climate movement, is particularly important. It represents the outflanking of vested interests to a place they struggle to follow – culture. A fossil fuel company can create an Instagram account where a guy in a hardhat stands before a seedling but for all its PR budget, it cannot create true art.

Still the BLM and LGBTQI+ movements that Gergis points to as examples of rapid change have never been achieved against the clock or on the global scale required by climate action. The holdouts are the same authoritarian states such as China and Russia needed for success on climate. It is those that reject “Western values” and resist global action the instant it is expedient to do so. Change will require a powerful diplomatic, not just social, justice dimension.

Another issue only glanced at is social media, another blocker. Now the sole news source for almost 50 per cent of people and lacking necessary bandwidth and nuance to convey the challenge, it’s the echo chamber filtering out challenging beliefs that truly allows misinformation to fester. Traditional media has had little choice but to mirror the dynamics of their ersatz distributors. All this justifies the need for a book. Hence Humanity’s Moment.

I have been told by those in the know that books on climate change, even those with high-profile authors, simply do not sell. I’m sure Humanity’s Moment sparked intense conversations before commissioning. Credit, then, to a publisher that has opted for urgency and gravity over entertainment and, of course, to an author who refuses to mollycoddle but instead provides genuine hope.

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Media, Democrats question intelligence of Americans who are voting Republican: 'Aren't very bright'


My girlfriend often tells me I am being illogical when I disagree with her so I think the same sort of thing is going on here. Democrat devotees think that disagreeing with them indicates lower intelligence.

In case anyone is interested in the facts, the usual finding is that Leftists do have a very slight advantage over conservatives in average IQ. But which way does the causal arrow point?

It's likely that more intelligent people are more attuned to what is currently "correct" and so are better able to follow the mob in their beliefs. Conservatives, by contrast, may be more independent minded and hence less likely to follow the intellectual fashions. Being intelligent may simply help make you a better conformist in today's Left-dominated society


Liberal media figures and Democratic politicians are questioning the intelligence of Americans who are voting Republican, befuddled by the idea that some could put economic issues over concerns about the state of U.S. democracy.

While voting rights and threats to democracy are key voting issues, especially among Democratic voters, polling has repeatedly shown that issues such as the economy, inflation, crime, and abortion often outperform the former. However, this has not stopped media figures and Democrats from blasting their warnings about Republican lawmakers across the airwaves.

Over the weekend, left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore gave his final push to vote Democrat ahead of the midterms, but in doing so, claimed that 80 to 90 million Americans "aren’t very bright."

"No offense to any of you watching that aren’t bright, but that’s—you’re watching MSNBC, so I’m making an assumption that you know what’s going on," he said.

He also expressed confusion at the idea of women "giving up their rights" because of their alarm over the price of gas or the price of food.

On November 3, "The View’ co-host Sunny Hostin was widely condemned for comparing White suburban women voting Republican to cockroaches voting for insecticide. Some critics even called for the host’s firing.

"What’s also surprising to me is the abortion issue. I read a poll just yesterday that White Republican suburban women are now going to vote Republican," Hostin said, appearing to refer to surveys showing White women backing Republicans in 2022. "It’s almost like roaches voting for Raid [roach spray], right?"

The condescending attitude towards voters leaning Republican in the midterm elections continued on ABC, with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel appearing to mock voters whose troubles have pushed them to vote red.

"The midterm elections are on Tuesday, and we have a tough decision ahead. On the one hand our democracy is being threatened by extremists who want power over at all costs even if it means burning us to the ground. On the other hand, gas is four dollars a gallon now, so," Kimmel sardonically quipped.

Similar conversations could also be found on social media, with liberal journalists appearing to mock Americans concerned about inflation and the price of gasoline.

"I don’t get the obsession with ‘high’ gas prices," Reuters reporter Patricia Zengerie tweeted, alongside a picture of gas at a Shell station being sold at $3.49 a gallon.

Another Twitter conversation saw BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh promote an article she wrote detailing a coalition of Republican candidates who falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen. The tweet also claimed that the group’s founders had connections to the far-right QAnonconspiracy theory.

"But cereal is kinda pricey, so I dunno," The Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols replied to the post.

The contemptuous tone of media personalities toward Republican voters also revealed itself on MSNBC during two separate installments of "The ReidOut."

During an interview with Hillary Clinton, host Joy Reid asked if she was concerned that voters are not "putting the pieces together," regarding how Republican control of the House could embolden fringe theories and an election denier mentality.

"I don’t think people are really able to grasp that—but more importantly I’m not sure they really understand the threats to their way of life," Clinton replied.

A week earlier, MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd joined Reid’s show, where he likened Americans voting Republican to German citizens helping to bolster the rise of Nazi Germany.

Reid prompted Dowd by stating that people who sit back and think that a Republican-led Congress won’t be that bad might be as dangerous as the "radicals" vying for public office.

"It certainly sounds very familiar to what happened in Germany—which is a bunch of citizens, Adolf Hitler gets a third of the vote," Dowd said. "Nobody thought it could happen there. They kind of went along because they said he was going to solve the economy and fix inflation, those sorts of things. And then lo and behold a few years later they lost their democracy, and they’re all like ‘how’d that happen here?’"

A New York Times/Sienna poll released in mid-October showed that a whopping 71% of the 792 registered voters questioned say "American democracy is currently under threat."

Among those who fear for democracy, 84% of them, or roughly 60% of all registered voters, view "mainstream media" as some sort of threat. A majority, 59%, call the media a "major threat to democracy" while an additional 25% call it a "minor threat to democracy."

President Biden urged Democrats last Wednesday to show up at the polls during next week's midterm elections or "allow the dark forces that thirst for power" to chip away at American democracy.

One day later, Biden gave a final address ahead of the midterms, pleading with Americans to vote against Republicans, and accusing the party of suppressing access to vote, denying elections, and encouraging political violence.

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Traditional Women are Often Chicken Frying Snakes in Disguise


The article below by an ethnic lady is most unusual. What she describes probably happens within her own society of origin and maybe it happens in our society too -- among the less educated, perhaps

"Gold-diggers" are a known female phenomenon in a our society. I have met a few. So what the author describes is partly familiar. Using a pretence of extreme femininity as part of that is a somewhat novel idea, though


She will use her Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Good Sex to Manipulate the Dizzy Man of her Choosing

Dating is hard enough, but you should at least know who you’re dating, and who they really are. Traditional gender roles have truly confused a lot of people. They have left them believing that duties are who someone is inside, and duty really means nothing. There are men, and in my observation young men being the majority, that often believe a woman performing “traditional wifely duties” (cooking, cleaning, consistent sex, silence, forgiveness, etc.) is a “good woman”. That isn’t necessarily the case. What is this woman like? What is her true character. A fascination with traditional gender roles often leads young men, and anyone else engaging in love and relationships, astray.

Does it really matter that the person you’re dating is a liar? No, really, have you noticed that she lies her ass off, or were you too busy eating her homecooked meals? Did you possibly pass over a sweet honest girl who occasionally burns the macaroni and cheese just to date a snake that keeps a clean house and hot pot of grits and cheese on the stove? Did you ignore a kind girl with a heart of gold for a “loyal” woman who smiles in your face but quietly fucks your friends when you are out of town? I know men who have done it. They allowed the shallow to overshadow the deep, the real, the truth.

Character often falls way low on the list when sexism and male entitlement are a man’s primary lens for viewing women, and the more sexist, misogynistic, and entitled the man, the less likely he is to notice the character of the woman he’s courting. He wants to feel powerful, “masculine”, in control, dominant, special, like a King of sorts. A woman who understands this, a woman who has been taught this from youth, a woman who may very well be of piss-poor character, will exploit this. She will file “traditional wife skills” under “feminine wiles” and use those feminine wiles to facilitate a passive-aggressive “capture” of a blind man who actually believes he is in control.

She will use her garlic mashed potatoes and gravy to distract him from the lies she tells, the business of his she shares with friends and associates who never even asked. She will give him all the sex he can and cannot handle, though she doesn’t even enjoy it (but pretends to), and may be secretly sleeping with someone else on the side … just to ensure he continues to bring his paycheck home. That is the sort of “opportunity” that “traditional gender roles” often provide the sinister. Sometimes, poor character finds a great place to hide in “traditional gender roles”. This is why misogyny, sexism, and sometimes, even religion, can be dangerous.

People are people. They are full, complex, and complete. They are evolving, and unique. They have character and layers. We are not just “archetypes”. No one is simply, “an archetype”, and it is understanding this truth that allows us to move forward in relationships with not one, but both eyes wide open. Who is this person? What are their likes? What do they love? What is their definition of friendship? When you find the right person, a good person, male, female or non-binary, you are lucky, blessed, favored.

A good person can learn to cook, provide, clean, protect, have more sex, listen, have fun, or whatever will make their partner happy. They are honest, pure, and excited to be in a loving relationship. They aren’t some creepy Stepford imitating biblical standards of gender perfection for kudos, pats on the back, or to hide all of the betrayals they are levying at their significant other. They are trustworthy, trusting, kind, thoughtful, considerate, loving, healthy, and well-meaning before anything else.

Use your own mind to choose your partner, because choosing a partner based on gender roles, tradition, and what “they” say may actually pave your way to a long-term relationship with a virtual stranger … who makes great pot roast.

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Australia's average life expectancy jumps to third globally behind Monaco and Japan, ABS data shows


It looks like the vastly "incorrect" diet most Australians live on -- sausages, burgers, steak, meat-pies etc -- cannot be too bad after all. We seem to thrive on what the wise-heads say will kill us

The life expectancy of Australians has continued its steady rise with the country now ranked third in the world, up from sixth last year.

New figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show life expectancy at birth is now 85.4 years for females and 81.3 years for males.

The combined male and female figure is 84.32 years, putting Australia behind only the principality of Monaco, and Japan, according to global data from the United Nations.

ABS director of demography, Emily Walter, said it is the highest ranking the country has achieved.

"That takes into account the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and shows really that Australia's life expectancy has remained strong through that period," she said.

"It's important to understand though what that's showing is not only improvements or changes in life expectancy [here], but also changes in other countries' life expectancy."

The statistics cover 2019 to 2021 – so do not take into account this year, which has been Australia's deadliest period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Head of the Australian National University's School of Demography, Professor Vladimir Canudas Romo, said based on mortality numbers so far in 2022, he expects life expectancy at birth will fall by about six months in next year's figures.

"It's actually OK news compared to the two years that they lost in the US, about the same in Spain," he said. "That said, I pay my respects to all the families that sadly lost relatives."

According to the ABS, life expectancy at birth estimates represent the average number of years that a newborn baby could expect to live "assuming current age-specific death rates are experienced through his/her lifetime".

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Does Preexisting Immunity Mean that SARS-CoV-2 Has Already Been with Us?


I am inclined to go with the theory that prior infection with other coronaviruses gave the immunity observed. I had a lot of cold/flu viruses early in life and have had no sign of infection with Covid despite being elderly and despite being in contact with infected people

A preexisting immune response can be seen in adults who have not been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Dr. Paul Alexander, COVID-19 Consultant Researcher in Evidence-Based Medicine, quoted a research study in his Substack blog titled “Making the case that COVID-19 virus was NEVER ever ‘novel’ or new, it was circulating for many years and we had some level of cross-reactive immunity.” According to research, it is more likely that preexisting immunity represents a form of cross-reactive immunity instead of meaning that SARS-CoV-2 was already with us before the pandemic.

Playing a very important role in adaptive immunity, T cells and B cells are formed as a result of encountering a pathogen. With these soldiers, our immune systems produce antibodies that attack foreign substances to protect our bodies from infections and learn how to fight better and faster for the next encounter.

This system works in the same way following exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, it has been revealed in the intensive research on this subject that there is no need for exposure to SARS-CoV-2 for these cells to form. In some individuals, preexisting T and B cells can emerge without exposure to the virus.

Current Study and Main Findings

In 2021, a study published in JCI Insight was conducted by Abdelilah Majdoubi, PhD. from BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and colleagues to investigate the extent of the preformed immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in the Canadian adult population. They also investigated whether this immune response could be explained by existing coronaviruses or direct exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The research was funded by the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Intramural Research Program of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and also in part by the Canadian government via its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.

This study revealed that most adults in the Canadian population show antibody reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 antigens. However, the authors concluded that it is highly unlikely that this immune response was formed from direct exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There were relatively low cases of COVID-19 after the first wave in the British Columbia region. This greatly reduces the likelihood of a pre-existing and asymptomatic circulation of COVID-19. Also, pre-pandemic sera from adults and sera from infants younger than one-year-old revealed a similar antibody reactivity, which bolsters arguments for cross-reactivity.

Possible Sources of Cross-Reactive Immunity

If COVID-19 was not circulating before the pandemic, then what is causing this immune response? It is widely known that a strong immune reaction, in the form of antibodies or T-cell responses, occurs when the virus itself is encountered or by vaccination. Interestingly, upon exposure to cross-reactive antigens from different viruses, bacteria, vaccines, and even certain food proteins, antibodies can also be formed to create an immune response.

It is hypothesized that exposure to coronaviruses predating COVID-19, particularly common cold coronaviruses, may have created reactive T-cell responses against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Implications and Conclusion

The fact that immunity has pre-formed in individuals who have not been infected with COVID-19 does not necessarily mean that SARS-CoV-2 is not a newly emerged virus. However, these findings still have important implications.

The presence of cross-reactive antibodies in some people and their absence in others may cause differences in the severity of the disease in different people. The heterogeneity of COVID-19 disease, which is more severe in some people and milder in others, may be a result of cross-reactive immunity.

It is also important to note that pre-existing immunity does not always provide a protection advantage. More research is needed to investigate the extent to which this cross-reactive immunity provides protection against disease.

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Rental property hard to find in Britain? Blame the government attacks on landlords


In 1998, Mrs Thatcher de-regulated private landlording to good effect, with "assured shorthold tenancies". It led to a big rise in private provision of rental accomodation. But her work has steadily been undone in various ways by more recent British governments

Governments worldwide get enthused from time to time about steps they might take to "help" tenants. Sadly, what they often come up with (restrictions of various sorts) makes life more difficult for landlords, which is pretty brainless. If you chase landlords away, you make it harder for tenants to find a place to stay. And what remains will inevitably cost more. You can't lower prices (rents) by reducing the supply. Only a Leftist would think you can


Anita Parkinson has been a landlord since 2009. The 62-year-old used to own six properties but she started selling them off three years ago. She is now waiting for her remaining tenants to move out so she can get rid of her last two.

Ms Parkinson, who asked for her last name to be changed, said the “final straw” was a proposed change that would require all newly rented properties to have a minimum Energy Performance Certificate rating of C by 2025. She said upgrading her properties to meet the standard would cost between £14,000 and £17,000.

“It got to the point where there was so much legislation that it was just becoming untenable,” she said. “I’m absolutely done.”

Ms Parkinson is part of a growing wave of landlords selling off rental properties, hit by increased regulation, soaring mortgage rates and spiralling upfront energy efficiency costs. Some 16pc of all property sellers this year were landlords, according to estate agents Hamptons. In London, the figure was 19pc. These are the highest levels since 2018.

Even those heading for the exit face punitive charges. Landlords will lose thousands of pounds in sale profits under proposals. Thousands who cashed out reaped the benefits house price growth, but the Government is now poised to take a bigger slice of their profits.

The number of rental properties on the market is at its lowest level in three years, according to research firm TwentyCi, indicating landlords are divesting – with a knock-on impact on renters. The total number of rented homes fell by 258,000 between 2016-17 and 2020-21, equal to 5pc, Hamptons found.

Ms Parkinson initially became a landlord to supplement her income, but said she is no longer making any money because of the Government’s crackdown on buy-to-let. She started selling her properties after requirements were brought in for new electrical checks. She had to spend nearly £6,000 upgrading the wiring on one of her properties, which wiped out her profits.

“I have a small pension but this was my income,” she said. “In the last two years, unfortunately, there has been nothing because every single penny that’s gone in has come back out in costs.”

Ms Parkinson, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, is also terrified of plans to ban no-fault evictions which would make it difficult for her to remove troublesome tenants. She said she is fed up with the demonisation of good, responsible landlords like herself, whom she describes as “social pariahs”.

“I just feel as if the Government’s out to destroy me,” she said. “I feel incredibly upset.”

For other landlords, it is rising interest rates that are proving to be the final straw.

Karen Smith, 36, from Esher in Surrey, bought a second property with her husband during the pandemic and started letting out their first home. They had secured a fixed mortgage rate of 1.75pc, which has ended recently. They have now moved on to a variable rate.

“It’s going up and up and up,” she said. Ms Smith, who asked for her last name to be changed, said her payments have been increasing by £100 a month because of soaring interest rates. Her tenants are moving out in December and she is anxious to find a buyer before they leave. She cannot afford to keep paying the mortgage if the flat is empty.

“I can’t be in a loss situation; it’s really stressful,” she said.

Another reason she decided to sell was because she feared that new tenants would end up in arrears. Ms Smith, who works in PR, said she has been lucky but has heard “horror stories” of tenants owing thousands because they cannot pay.

“Because of the rights that tenants have, it’s very difficult to take action,” she said. “I’m not a property portfolio person – I have a job, I just happen to have a property that I rent out. I simply would not be able to afford two mortgages just because somebody can’t pay their rent.

“I know that means that a rental property is being taken off the market in a housing crisis, but it’s not fair that everyone is expecting landlords to have deep enough pockets to pay mortgages endlessly.”

David Fell, of Hamptons, said landlords selling up is likely to mean higher rent payments as the same number of tenants chase fewer properties.

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