Well hello there! Now we can add space aliens to the 5G tinfoil hat-wearing covid conspiracy lockdown malarkey!
Like in the X-Files all those years ago….
The truth is out there, man. The truth is out there. Where’s Mulder and Scully when ya need ‘em?
Cú Chulainn
How long before the Star brands them as killer or psycho..?
Ron
Its confirmed unknown aerial phenomenon. Are you that arrogant that you completely disregard the possibility of extra terrestrial life? I feel sorry for people like you.
Rosette of Sirius
Is this an appropriate use of ‘Kittens, etc’? I dunno.
scottser
can it ron.
Rosette of Sirius
And anyways, given that I’m from Quaxxann – a planet that orbits the star Betelgeuse – it’s a big assumption….
scottser
didn’t the police write a song about your planet?
Rosette of Sirius
Not quite. One of our moons and the feckers has everyone walking all over it.
Janet, I ate my avatar
anyone check in to the Abbey Theatre’s Dear Ireland tonight ?
Matt Pilates
+1 Good stuff! Enjoyed learning how to sign a message to the whingers when I’m out jogging (WindowPane)
…thanks Matt…just watched the first 10mins…can’t wait to watch the rest over the day…
Lilly
I saw it, Janet. I loved the one from Owen McCafferty, great performance too. Also liked the Nancy Harris one.
Janet, I ate my avatar
I enjoyed “a difficult woman” :)
Lilly
I really enjoyed that too! It was in my top three. The only one I didn’t like was the first one, the whingey woman in the tent. Fairly banal and pointless.
Janet, I ate my avatar
snap, plus couldn’t get past the eyebrows, but fair play to all, something for everyone, looking forward to next installment
Mé Féin
I notice all the British papers seem to have the same photo on their front pages.
Matt Pilates
Better safe than Zorro
f_lawless
I thought this was a really good essay by former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook – seems very relevant to whats currently playing out here. . Worth a read
Some points points covered-
– why there’s an increasing breakdown of faith in authority
– information overload leading to a disorientation of the majority of people
– how those who are instinctively inclined to dismiss any doubts in authority and reflexively label any expressions of distrust as “conspiracy theory!” are having a detrimental effect on public discourse
– the urgent need for a more independent media
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-04-28/era-great-disillusionment/
“The test of our societies – and the only hope of surviving the coming emergencies, economic and environmental – will depend on our leaders being truly held to account…We need media we can trust to represent the full range of credible, intelligent, informed debate.”
Finnster
Thanks for this, f-lawless. Yes, lately, any dissenting/questioning intelligent voices are aggressively labeled as conspiracy theorists, to shut people up and get the mob going.
SOQ
Interesting piece, thanks f_lawless- the 5G part is very good, especially about the power of the telecoms industry but he misses a crucial point which is- where you start.
If you begin with the view that 3/4G is entirely safe then you are way more likely to assume 5G is too. Except 3 and especially 4G is not safe, there are risks- it has been proven to cause cancers which is something MSM should be highlighting, but they are not so people are rightly suspicious. Is it so unreasonable to assume that 100 to 1000 times more exposure is not going to multiply the risks too? But the EMF message is getting through- I see more and more people holding mobiles away from their ears or using handsets- awareness of the dangers is definitely growing.
As a general point, in some ways, all this information has left us less willing to take consider new ideas instead of more. Salman Rushdie makes the point that those of his students who would consider themselves left\liberal are also the ones who increasingly demand censorship and banning of other views they dislike- that the response is emotional rather than logical.
So what is regarded as the right have grabbed hold of 5G, concerns over vaccines and even free speech but none of those things are actually right wing? The first two are about health and safety and pushing back against big business interests and the last, is a core liberal value.
Cian
@SOQ
You aren’t giving a fair picture here.
1. Studies show that mobile phone use may increase the likelihood of certain cancers. But this needs to be look at
– what cancers? what is the base rate for getting that cancer? how much additional risk is there? (e.g. if the likelihood of getting a cancer doubles, but the base rate is 1:100,000… then your risk is still 1:50,000… or one extra case in Ireland per year).
– are there positive health outcomes? some studies have found rats exposed to phone radiation live longer and are less likely to have certain kidney disease.
– what is the benefit of mobile phones?
2. Why are you saying that 5G will create “100 to 1000 times more exposure”? 5G needs more masts than 4G – but each mast will be lower power. Where is this 100 to 1000 figure coming from?
SOQ
Cain I don’t mean to be rude but I have already posted links to reputable studies. From memory- cancer of the ear, cancer of the brain, cancer of the skin and cancer of the breast plus infertility in men. I have no data on the rate of occurrence but it is enough to recognise a clear pattern in each case and that is only from mobile phones.
Fully rolled out 5G requires a router (for want of a better word) every couple of hundred meters. The amount of data being transmitted and received will undoubtedly increase by that amount if not more- that is the whole point? Levels of EMF exposure are most definitely going to skyrocket and as magnetic beings we will be affected. 5G may be safe but it needs to be proved as such which is not an unreasonable position to take.
Now I am open to debate on these things but what bugs the hell out of me is when IT geeks start their discussions on 5G in the same way as if it was a new phone. That anyone who has concerns need to be convinced or dismissed a crank when in fact THEY have no clue what they are talking about- how could they?
Since when did IT people or even journalists study the effects of radiation exposure on the human body? It is a classic example of attempting to shut debate down.
Cian
yes – you have posted some link – which is a good start. However you also post a lot of rubbish and that makes it hard for me to take you seriously.
you say “100 to 1000 times more exposure” but don’t explain what that means: just because 5G can transmit more information per second doesn’t imply that it will cause 100 to 1000 more cancer.
You ask for “may be safe but it needs to be proved as such” but you can’t prove anything is safe: you can only show something is harmful (so it is not safe), or show that “in these tests no harm was detected”… Hell, you can’t prove red wine is safe and we’ve been drinking that for millennia.
You then said “as magnetic beings we will be affected [by EMF]” – I don’t even know were to start. What on earth does “magnetic beings” mean? I’m not magnetic: Iron doesn’t stick to me. This sounds a lot like woo and mumbojumbo.
Cian
This is interesting. For me the point that ” we will need media we can trust to represent the full range of credible, intelligent, informed debate” is really important.
The difficulty, as I see it, is
(a) who decides which of the following items (he listed) are actually worthy of debate: “5G, vaccines, 9/11, aliens and lizard overlords” and which can be simply dismissed – although it isn’t a binary decision – it should be how much effort should be allocated to each.
(b) How do we remove/referee/judge the untrustworthy, unintelligent, ignorant from the debate?
(c) the media is either profit driven – so will balk at upsetting business (how much do the phone companies spend on advertising), or is government funded (e.g. RTE/BBC) and will follow the government line?
For me the problem is that individuals aren’t used to thinking for themselves. They are more swayed by emotion than logic. They don’t have the knowledge to interpret the data themselves and need to rely on ‘experts’. They have no way of evaluating the ‘experts’. They want simple black/white, good/bad, right/wrong choices – but most are nebulous.
SOQ
OK look what happened yesterday- two experienced doctors in Calafronia held a press conference on their experience with CoVid-19.
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly issued a very brief high handed statement condemning them but have refused to be drawn as to what exactly the doctors said which was wrong. It is likely they are the reason why YouTube banned the video.
The two doctors in question were only giving their opinions- take it or leave it- and yet, they were silenced and their professional reputations attacked. For anyone who hasn’t seen the video, it’s still on the internet.
sidhe
Probably something to do with how 4G causes cancer.
Nigel
Having your video taken off YouTube after holding a public press conference that is shared and dicussed, at minimum, on the other side of the Atlantic and presumably beyond is far from being ‘silenced’ by any actual, workable, useful definition.
Cian
ACEP-AAEM Joint Statement on Physician Misinformation
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.
COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of ACEP and AAEM are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. ACEP and AAEM strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.
Lilly
I misread that at first as ‘an increasing breakdown of faith’. Are many religious types losing faith as a result of Covid, I wonder?
dav
Anyone watch “Normal People” on Rte last night?
Gabby
I am not normal and didn’t watch it.
Rosette of Sirius
BBC iPlayee Sunday. Not sure about it being my cuppa tea. Very well made tho and top marks for trying to make the ga look ‘high school’ sexy. The Yanks will love it when it hits Hulu later today. And the cailin does a decent Irish accent to be fair to be sure. Only watched the first one though.
Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop
I read the book on holidays last year, have it recorded.
Can’t be dirtying the private hospitals with plebs now can we?. But no problem filling Goodmans and O’Briens boots with millions of euro. At every hands turn, when there’s a handout available, who shows up?
Big announcement by Boo Harris about the state taking over private hospitals, and we find that they are almost empty while patients from public hospitals were moved to nursing homes and the like. SOP.
Well hello there! Now we can add space aliens to the 5G tinfoil hat-wearing covid conspiracy lockdown malarkey!
Like in the X-Files all those years ago….
The truth is out there, man. The truth is out there. Where’s Mulder and Scully when ya need ‘em?
How long before the Star brands them as killer or psycho..?
Its confirmed unknown aerial phenomenon. Are you that arrogant that you completely disregard the possibility of extra terrestrial life? I feel sorry for people like you.
Is this an appropriate use of ‘Kittens, etc’? I dunno.
can it ron.
And anyways, given that I’m from Quaxxann – a planet that orbits the star Betelgeuse – it’s a big assumption….
didn’t the police write a song about your planet?
Not quite. One of our moons and the feckers has everyone walking all over it.
anyone check in to the Abbey Theatre’s Dear Ireland tonight ?
+1 Good stuff! Enjoyed learning how to sign a message to the whingers when I’m out jogging (WindowPane)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owu9uvduEXs
it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owu9uvduEXs
…thanks Matt…just watched the first 10mins…can’t wait to watch the rest over the day…
I saw it, Janet. I loved the one from Owen McCafferty, great performance too. Also liked the Nancy Harris one.
I enjoyed “a difficult woman” :)
I really enjoyed that too! It was in my top three. The only one I didn’t like was the first one, the whingey woman in the tent. Fairly banal and pointless.
snap, plus couldn’t get past the eyebrows, but fair play to all, something for everyone, looking forward to next installment
I notice all the British papers seem to have the same photo on their front pages.
Better safe than Zorro
I thought this was a really good essay by former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook – seems very relevant to whats currently playing out here. . Worth a read
Some points points covered-
– why there’s an increasing breakdown of faith in authority
– information overload leading to a disorientation of the majority of people
– how those who are instinctively inclined to dismiss any doubts in authority and reflexively label any expressions of distrust as “conspiracy theory!” are having a detrimental effect on public discourse
– the urgent need for a more independent media
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-04-28/era-great-disillusionment/
“The test of our societies – and the only hope of surviving the coming emergencies, economic and environmental – will depend on our leaders being truly held to account…We need media we can trust to represent the full range of credible, intelligent, informed debate.”
Thanks for this, f-lawless. Yes, lately, any dissenting/questioning intelligent voices are aggressively labeled as conspiracy theorists, to shut people up and get the mob going.
Interesting piece, thanks f_lawless- the 5G part is very good, especially about the power of the telecoms industry but he misses a crucial point which is- where you start.
If you begin with the view that 3/4G is entirely safe then you are way more likely to assume 5G is too. Except 3 and especially 4G is not safe, there are risks- it has been proven to cause cancers which is something MSM should be highlighting, but they are not so people are rightly suspicious. Is it so unreasonable to assume that 100 to 1000 times more exposure is not going to multiply the risks too? But the EMF message is getting through- I see more and more people holding mobiles away from their ears or using handsets- awareness of the dangers is definitely growing.
As a general point, in some ways, all this information has left us less willing to take consider new ideas instead of more. Salman Rushdie makes the point that those of his students who would consider themselves left\liberal are also the ones who increasingly demand censorship and banning of other views they dislike- that the response is emotional rather than logical.
So what is regarded as the right have grabbed hold of 5G, concerns over vaccines and even free speech but none of those things are actually right wing? The first two are about health and safety and pushing back against big business interests and the last, is a core liberal value.
@SOQ
You aren’t giving a fair picture here.
1. Studies show that mobile phone use may increase the likelihood of certain cancers. But this needs to be look at
– what cancers? what is the base rate for getting that cancer? how much additional risk is there? (e.g. if the likelihood of getting a cancer doubles, but the base rate is 1:100,000… then your risk is still 1:50,000… or one extra case in Ireland per year).
– are there positive health outcomes? some studies have found rats exposed to phone radiation live longer and are less likely to have certain kidney disease.
– what is the benefit of mobile phones?
2. Why are you saying that 5G will create “100 to 1000 times more exposure”? 5G needs more masts than 4G – but each mast will be lower power. Where is this 100 to 1000 figure coming from?
Cain I don’t mean to be rude but I have already posted links to reputable studies. From memory- cancer of the ear, cancer of the brain, cancer of the skin and cancer of the breast plus infertility in men. I have no data on the rate of occurrence but it is enough to recognise a clear pattern in each case and that is only from mobile phones.
Fully rolled out 5G requires a router (for want of a better word) every couple of hundred meters. The amount of data being transmitted and received will undoubtedly increase by that amount if not more- that is the whole point? Levels of EMF exposure are most definitely going to skyrocket and as magnetic beings we will be affected. 5G may be safe but it needs to be proved as such which is not an unreasonable position to take.
Now I am open to debate on these things but what bugs the hell out of me is when IT geeks start their discussions on 5G in the same way as if it was a new phone. That anyone who has concerns need to be convinced or dismissed a crank when in fact THEY have no clue what they are talking about- how could they?
Since when did IT people or even journalists study the effects of radiation exposure on the human body? It is a classic example of attempting to shut debate down.
yes – you have posted some link – which is a good start. However you also post a lot of rubbish and that makes it hard for me to take you seriously.
you say “100 to 1000 times more exposure” but don’t explain what that means: just because 5G can transmit more information per second doesn’t imply that it will cause 100 to 1000 more cancer.
You ask for “may be safe but it needs to be proved as such” but you can’t prove anything is safe: you can only show something is harmful (so it is not safe), or show that “in these tests no harm was detected”… Hell, you can’t prove red wine is safe and we’ve been drinking that for millennia.
You then said “as magnetic beings we will be affected [by EMF]” – I don’t even know were to start. What on earth does “magnetic beings” mean? I’m not magnetic: Iron doesn’t stick to me. This sounds a lot like woo and mumbojumbo.
This is interesting. For me the point that ” we will need media we can trust to represent the full range of credible, intelligent, informed debate” is really important.
The difficulty, as I see it, is
(a) who decides which of the following items (he listed) are actually worthy of debate: “5G, vaccines, 9/11, aliens and lizard overlords” and which can be simply dismissed – although it isn’t a binary decision – it should be how much effort should be allocated to each.
(b) How do we remove/referee/judge the untrustworthy, unintelligent, ignorant from the debate?
(c) the media is either profit driven – so will balk at upsetting business (how much do the phone companies spend on advertising), or is government funded (e.g. RTE/BBC) and will follow the government line?
For me the problem is that individuals aren’t used to thinking for themselves. They are more swayed by emotion than logic. They don’t have the knowledge to interpret the data themselves and need to rely on ‘experts’. They have no way of evaluating the ‘experts’. They want simple black/white, good/bad, right/wrong choices – but most are nebulous.
OK look what happened yesterday- two experienced doctors in Calafronia held a press conference on their experience with CoVid-19.
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly issued a very brief high handed statement condemning them but have refused to be drawn as to what exactly the doctors said which was wrong. It is likely they are the reason why YouTube banned the video.
The two doctors in question were only giving their opinions- take it or leave it- and yet, they were silenced and their professional reputations attacked. For anyone who hasn’t seen the video, it’s still on the internet.
Probably something to do with how 4G causes cancer.
Having your video taken off YouTube after holding a public press conference that is shared and dicussed, at minimum, on the other side of the Atlantic and presumably beyond is far from being ‘silenced’ by any actual, workable, useful definition.
ACEP-AAEM Joint Statement on Physician Misinformation
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.
COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of ACEP and AAEM are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. ACEP and AAEM strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.
I misread that at first as ‘an increasing breakdown of faith’. Are many religious types losing faith as a result of Covid, I wonder?
Anyone watch “Normal People” on Rte last night?
I am not normal and didn’t watch it.
BBC iPlayee Sunday. Not sure about it being my cuppa tea. Very well made tho and top marks for trying to make the ga look ‘high school’ sexy. The Yanks will love it when it hits Hulu later today. And the cailin does a decent Irish accent to be fair to be sure. Only watched the first one though.
I read the book on holidays last year, have it recorded.
Thought this was funny….
https://twitter.com/amyohconnor/status/1255048161732804608?s=20
watched a bit. student drama
Can’t be dirtying the private hospitals with plebs now can we?. But no problem filling Goodmans and O’Briens boots with millions of euro. At every hands turn, when there’s a handout available, who shows up?
Big announcement by Boo Harris about the state taking over private hospitals, and we find that they are almost empty while patients from public hospitals were moved to nursing homes and the like. SOP.