OTG for WE 16 Mar 25

Who is the architect of Europe's downfall!

Europe is in a downfall. It is not just me saying it, but most European leaders admit the serious problems they face. The demographic problem, the energy problem, the inability of Europe to defend itself, the widespread and increasing social dislocation. 

So why has this happened? After all, Europe has been at peace for 75 years. By any measure, Western Europe is rich, and even Eastern Europe fares well compared to most of the world. The answer must be mismanagement.

Over the past two decades, we have seen the economically strongest countries, Germany, France, and UK, mismanage two vital components of the well-being of a country: energy and immigration. Climate Change zealotry has increased the cost of energy, which has decimated manufacturing industries, mostly exporting them to countries not conforming to the decarbonization dogma. Uncontrolled immigration has seen an influx of large numbers of African and Middle Eastern migrants who become a drain on the economy and stress social cohesion. These migrants have been very slow to integrate into European culture, and this has resulted in increasing crime rates, including terrorism. This, in turn, is causing the rise of right-wing anti-immigration parties and may lead to vigilantism.

Who is to blame? In democratic countries, the problems can rarely be attributed to a single individual. However, Germany's Angela Merkel has been the major architect of the policies that have led to the sad state in which Europe finds itself. At least, that is the conclusion historian Victor Davis Hanson has proposed in his video titled " Germany is falling apart before our eyes. "

He makes a compelling case, well worth a view.

Australia's Energy policies are bonkers!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I will let the meme tell the story.

Australia's energy policies are bonkers. QED!

Alberta's Pandemic Report recommends against COVID vaccination

I have seen so many of these that I am becoming reluctant to include them in the weekly posts. Yet, having listened to it, it is compelling. Not so much for the conclusion (spoiler alert, that COVID vaccination is not recommended), but the insights into the way bureaucracies operate to suppress the truth. The shading of facts, the misinformation on treatments like Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin and even vitamin D. are all quite absurd and, in my opinion, criminally negligent. 

Well worth viewing this interview of Dr Gary Davidson by Jan Jekielek as part of the Epoch Times' American Thought Leaders program. 

CC the Grift of the Century

In the first of what is a 2 part in depth review, The Gatestone Institute has focused a critical eye on Climate Change,which it has labeled "the Grift of the Century". One would say "you had me at the title". My first response was, Wow, the tables have turned. Such headlines would have been unheard of just a short pre-Trump while ago. While these analyses are overdue they are welcome. We need to have this type of analysis come from the left-leaning media too. I can see that will be slow, but hopefully they too will return to some proper analysis, sometime.

The article is well worth  read, but to whet your appetitie here are some of the summary points; - 

• "Perhaps the climate hoax is actually not about saving the environment? What is it, then?

• Climate change is largely caused by solar flares. So far, at least, there is not a blessed thing anyone can do about them. Many industries offer grants for papers that support the efficacy of their products that relate to climate change. Solar flares, regrettably, do not offer grants.

• (In) 2015 Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."

• That would mean the destruction of capitalism and the world economy, however long that takes.

• When the global elites arrived in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023 to discuss the urgent need to declare climate emergencies, they did so using more than 150 private jets.

• Any journalists or commentators who dare to question or oppose the climate change orthodoxy are immediately shunned as "climate deniers" and met in the legacy media with an instant end to their careers.

• "What is, in my view, even more dangerous, is the quasi-scientific form that their many times refuted forecasts have taken upon themselves." — Former Czech President Vaclav Klaus, The New American, December 22, 2009.

• "For the last 16 years, temperatures have been going down and the carbon dioxide has been going up and the crops have got greener and grow quicker. We've done plenty to smash up the planet, but there's been no global warming caused by man.... I still say it's poppycock! If you believe it, fine. But I don't and there's thousands like me." — David Bellamy, English botanist and former BBC broadcaster, The Daily Mail, January 22, 2013.

• It is no wonder that the climate change scam won the day. Few people have been willing to risk their livelihoods to fight against the manipulation."

Now , read the full article at "'Climate Change': Grift of the Century? Part I Dismantling Capitalism, Transferring Wealth, Dismantling the West"

HRC report too little too late!

Australians were hit hard by the COVID pandemic! No, the virus did very little damage, and we fared better than most Western Countries, but this is a big BUT!. The unprecedented extreme overreach of both state and federal governments, the medical fraternity, the media broke all the norms in a free society. 

• After instituting extreme lockdown laws without passing them through the normal legislative processes, the police enforced them most aggressively. 
• An old lady sitting in a park on a bench with a mask on was told to move on, 
• The Premier of Victoria castigated citizens for watching a sunset on a beach, 
• The Premier of Queensland prevented critically ill citizens from NSW from attending their hospital: "Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders". 
• Citizens who had left Australia for an overseas trip were not allowed to return to their country even with valid passports,
• Citizens were not even allowed to leave the country. 
• Family members were not allowed to visit dying relatives in hospital,
• police violently attacked lock-down protestors, 
• individuals were arrested and charged with unknown crimes for a social media post advertising a protest.
• Thousands of residents were fined for breaking the most ridiculous ad-hoc lockdown rules, driving outside the nominated 5 km from home, no wearing a mask, not moving fast enough when walking through a park

Do any of these make sense in a free society? But shame on us, we Australians, on the whole, accepted this overreach. Not all of us, mind you. Many did protest, but they were generally cast out, demonized. Yes, demonized by many who should have known better. Our legal fraternity let us down. After all, they should have spoken up about this overreach. Our media let us down; after all, they too should have asked more questions and held these petty dictators to account. Our medical fraternity let us down, as they put no value on the very freedoms that were being denied to citizens. Families with children locked into small spaces for months, with but a few allowed excursions, have a long-term effect on the family. 

And most importantly, Australia's Human Rights Council let us down. They remained stumm. They failed to speak up; they condoned by silence. Now, years after the events, they have produced a report. And yes, they now acknowledge that there was an overreach. Yeh, right! It only took years to say what was evident at the time. This mob has proved themselves useless, and the whole lot should be fired. If only we had a Trump-like overhaul of the bureaucracy, they would indeed be disbanded. But I can only dream.

I was only planning a few words to introduce Avi Yemini's recent video on this subject, but I seem to have dropped into a diatribe. Still, I do feel better getting it out. After all, this site is called Grappy's Soapbox, so you will forgive me an occasional rant.

In the meantime here is Avi Yemini's post WATCH: Human Rights Commission stands up against COVID abuses ... Five years late!

Aid Hypocrisy

Israel recently declared it has suspended all aid entering Gaza. Is this reasonable? Indeed it has received widespread criticism. But as always seems to be the case when Israel is concerned, the truth is somewhat buried. Here is a short video that puts the move by Israel into perspective.

Decarbonization lowers living standards

Slowly, very slowly, the truth about decarbonization, the rapid elimination of fossil fuels, is receiving more attention. Epoch Times has reported that "On March 3, leading UK investment bank Peel Hunt published an analysis that challenges the government claim that there is no trade-off between Net Zero and economic growth." In effect, the UK's decarbonization efforts have left the UK poorer.

With major emitters China, India and the US no longer committed to Nett Zero, the climate dogma has lost momentum. Countries with lower contributions to world emissions are re-evaluating their commitments. Just today, Canada has abandoned Nett Zero ambitions. After all, why would any country sacrifice their standard of living to achieve significant cuts to their emissions when such cuts will not have any impact on global emissions? Watch this space. 

What is the greatest thing AI did for humanity?

We have watched in wonder at the rate of development of AI. Virtually every week, we hear of a technological breakthrough or the release of a new product. AI companies are receiving massive investments, and their stock prices are setting records. Their use is still in its infancy but is growing rapidly.

 I have had a play and have posted at times showing my results (see On the Grapevine WE 9 Mar 25 ). For students, it is like having a personal tutor and a best homework buddy. For any office worker, it is a valuable personal assistant, writing and correcting text, creating images and presentations, preparing proposals, reviewing documents, even developing new ideas. Given their ready availability at zero or low cost, it is no surprise that every single enterprising administrator is already using it. Those who do use it well have increased their productivity. No doubt, this is a growth area.

These are not minor benefits, but the potential is much greater. AI has the potential to increase the rate of scientific discovery, which will greatly benefit all of mankind. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that AI has already contributed to the doubling of the life of lithium batteries (see AI Creativity Challenge). But the most significant contribution to science I have seen so far is AI's success in mapping the structure of proteins. This is a fantastic story, but it is a bit too technical to provide detail. In summary, over the past 5 decades, thousands of scientists have managed to map the structure of about 150,000 proteins. Then, using an AI model specifically designed for the purpose, just 15 scientists have mapped 200,000,000. That is virtually every known protein.  I think this qualifies as the most significant scientific contribution of AI so far. I expect many such breakthroughs in the years to come.

This video tells the story, but it is quite technical and about 25 minutes long.