Before the Next Pandemic Arrives

Four years on from the height of the pandemic panic, one might assume we would now have a calm, measured, fully transparent assessment of what actually happened.

We don’t.

A recent and very detailed review published by TrialSite News titled “Adverse Health Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines: An Updated Review of the PubMed Literature” attempts to step back from the noise and examine what the peer-reviewed literature actually says about the safety and efficacy of the COVID mRNA vaccines.

It is a long and technical piece. But stripped of jargon, its message is simple:

The story is more complicated than we were told.

And we still haven’t properly reckoned with it.

What the Review Actually Did

This wasn’t a new clinical trial.

It was something arguably more important: a structured review of published studies indexed in PubMed, looking at reported adverse effects, safety signals, and evolving evidence around vaccine effectiveness.

In other words, it examined what the scientific literature itself has accumulated since mass vaccination began.

The review drew together:

• Phase 3 clinical trial data

• Post-marketing surveillance reports

• Observational studies

• Published analyses of adverse event databases

• Research on waning immunity and variant performance

Rather than focusing on a single dataset, it looked at the broader body of evidence.

And when you step back and look at the whole picture, nuance appears.

The Efficacy Narrative — What Changed?

At the beginning, the vaccines were presented as extraordinarily effective — particularly against symptomatic infection.

But those early claims were based on relative risk reductions measured over short trial windows under emergency conditions.

Over time, several realities became clear:

• Protection against infection waned.

• Effectiveness against emerging variants declined.

• Booster doses became necessary to sustain protection.

None of this makes the vaccines “useless.” But it does mean the early messaging — implying near-complete control of transmission — did not hold up in the real world.

That matters.

Because public trust depends on proportional claims.

Safety Signals — Rare Doesn’t Mean Irrelevant

The review also addresses adverse events.

Regulators have consistently described serious side effects as “rare.” Statistically, that may be true. But when billions of doses are administered, even rare events can affect large numbers of people.

The literature now documents associations with:

• Myocarditis (particularly in younger males)

• Thrombotic events

• Neurological and autoimmune-related conditions

Causality in every case is complex and debated. But the point is not that every reported event was vaccine-caused.

The point is that the safety picture is not binary.

It never was.

And long-term surveillance was, by necessity, limited when mass rollout began.

The Real Issue: Process, Not Panic

The most important section of the review is its final reflection.

It argues — correctly in my view — that we have not yet conducted a thorough, independent, society-wide evaluation of:

• How emergency authorisations were granted

• How trial data were interpreted

• How dissenting voices were treated

• How risk communication was handled

• Whether safety monitoring systems were adequate

During a crisis, speed was prioritised.

That is understandable.

What is not understandable is the ongoing reluctance to conduct a serious, transparent inquiry into what worked, what didn’t, and what should never be repeated.

The Lesson for the Next Pandemic

There will be another pandemic.

When it comes, we will again face urgency. Again face fear. Again face pressure to act quickly.

If we do not honestly assess the COVID response — including vaccine policy — we risk repeating:

• Overconfident messaging

• Compressed testing timelines

• Suppression of debate

• Regulatory groupthink

Scientific uncertainty should not be treated as settled science simply because urgency demands clarity.

Trust is not built through censorship or dismissal. It is built through openness and accountability.

A Serious Inquiry Is Not Anti-Science

It is pro-science.

Holding authorities to account is not an attack on medicine. It is a safeguard for it.

If mistakes were made, they must be acknowledged.
If risks were under-communicated, that must be examined.
If benefits were overstated in public messaging, that too must be scrutinised.

The alternative is silence.

And silence guarantees repetition.

Final Thought

The pandemic demanded rapid decisions. That much is true.

But urgency does not excuse the absence of review.

The next crisis will test not only our medical systems — but our honesty.

If we are unwilling to seriously examine the COVID mRNA vaccine rollout now, we will have learned nothing at all.

And that would be the most dangerous outcome of all.

Climate Alarmism's Dirty Secret

For decades we have been told to “trust the science.” It is a powerful phrase, designed to end debate rather than invite it. But science, real science, does not fear scrutiny. It welcomes it. And that is precisely why the growing evidence of weather and climate data manipulation should concern everyone — including those who genuinely care about the environment.

A recent YouTube presentation (linked below) lays out, in clear and troubling detail, how historical weather data has been altered, adjusted, homogenised, and in some cases outright rewritten to manufacture a narrative of accelerating climate catastrophe. The presentation is uncomfortable hearing not because it is radical, but because it is meticulous.

This is not a denial of climate change. The climate has always changed. It always will. The issue here is whether the data we are shown has been massaged to fit a predetermined conclusion, rather than conclusions being drawn from unaltered data.

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From Measurement to Manipulation

Weather stations used to be simple, consistent instruments. Many were placed away from urban heat sources, measured manually, and maintained with care. Over time, however, measurement practices changed:

• Weather stations were relocated closer to urban areas

• Surroundings became increasingly built-up

• Measurement techniques changed

• Historical data was “adjusted” to align with modern models

Each of these changes introduces bias. Taken together, they can dramatically distort long-term temperature trends.

Yet instead of clearly flagging these limitations, climate authorities routinely retroactively cool the past and warm the present, exaggerating warming trends. There are multiple examples where raw historical data shows modest or flat trends — until it is “corrected.”

Corrected for what, exactly? Often, the justification is vague, opaque, or circular.

The Vanishing Past

One of the most damning aspects highlighted is the systematic disappearance of inconvenient data.

Stations showing little or no warming are quietly removed from datasets. Older records that contradict modern alarmism are re-interpreted or discarded. Meanwhile, newer stations — often located near airports, asphalt, air conditioners, and expanding cities — dominate the averages.

This is not how honest science behaves.

If the climate case is as overwhelming as claimed, it should stand on raw, transparent data. Instead, we see gatekeeping, obfuscation, and appeals to authority.

Models Over Reality

Another key issue raised is the elevation of computer models above observed reality. Models are useful tools, but they are only as good as their assumptions. When observations diverge from models, the models should be questioned.

Instead, what we increasingly see is the reverse: observations are “adjusted” to better match the models.

That is not science. That is narrative enforcement.

Why This Matters

This manipulation matters because it underpins policies that affect every household:

• Rising energy costs

• Reduced reliability of power grids

• Increased cost of living

• De-industrialisation and offshoring

• Reduced national resilience

If societies are being asked to accept economic pain, reduced living standards, and sweeping government intervention, the justification must be rock-solid. Not politically convenient. Not selectively curated.

When data is manipulated to scare the public into compliance, trust is destroyed — not just in climate institutions, but in science itself.

Skepticism Is Not Heresy

Questioning data is not denialism. It is the foundation of science.

The disturbing reality exposed in this presentation is that dissent is no longer debated — it is silenced. Critics are smeared rather than answered. Data is hidden rather than defended.

That should worry everyone, regardless of where they sit on climate policy.

Because once data becomes a political tool, truth is no longer the goal.

Watch the Full Presentation

I have included the full YouTube video at the bottom of this post. I strongly encourage readers to watch it in full and judge the evidence for themselves.

If the climate narrative is as robust as we are told, it should survive transparency.

If it cannot — then the real crisis is not the climate, but the corruption of science itself

Weekly Roundup - Top Articles and Commentary from Week 7 of 2026

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Iran has Lost All Legitimacy - The Free World Must Act
• Australia's Mass Immigration Causing Lower Living Standards
• Reality vs Gender Dogma
• "Towards Heaven or Hell?"
• It's Time to Say "Enough is Enough!"
  
• Climate Alarmism's Dirty Secret

We welcome all feedback; please feel free to submit your comments or contact me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or on X at @grappysb

It’s Time to Say “Enough Is Enough”

Every now and then someone says out loud what millions are thinking but feel pressured not to voice. This week, Rowan Dean did exactly that.

In his Sky News monologue, “It’s Time To Say Enough Is Enough,” Dean gives voice to a growing, simmering frustration felt by many Australians — not anger for its own sake, but exhaustion. Exhaustion with being told that the country you were born into, contributed to, paid taxes for, and loved somehow no longer belongs to you. Exhaustion with being lectured, shamed, and silenced for holding views that were once entirely uncontroversial.

Dean’s message isn’t subtle, and it isn’t meant to be. He speaks about the steady erosion of everyday Australian culture — the easy camaraderie, the larrikin spirit, the freedom to speak plainly without fear of professional or social punishment. He calls out the relentless indoctrination in schools and universities, where young Australians are taught to despise their own history and heritage rather than understand it honestly.

He rails against the hypocrisy of elites who preach tolerance while showing nothing but contempt for ordinary Australians. Against councils and institutions obsessed with symbolism while basic services deteriorate. Against mass immigration policies that demand cultural surrender in the name of “multiculturalism,” while insisting that long-standing Australian norms are somehow offensive or obsolete.

Most of all, Dean rejects the idea that free speech must be sacrificed for “social cohesion” — a trade-off no Australian ever agreed to. When did speaking your mind become an act of rebellion? When did loving your country become something that required an apology?

You don’t have to agree with every line Rowan Dean delivers to recognise the truth at the heart of his argument: a society that constantly tells its own people to sit down, shut up, and feel ashamed will eventually hear a collective response.

Enough.

The full video is well worth watching — not because it’s polite or carefully calibrated, but because it’s raw, honest, and reflective of a mood that Australia’s political and cultural class continues to ignore at its peril.

👉 Watch Rowan Dean’s full monologue below:

https://youtu.be/Vged8LF3s0Y?si=-rR48qv8PhEH7tc-

Reality vs Gender Dogma

For years now we’ve been told something that flies in the face of common sense: that men and women are essentially the same, and that any differences we observe are merely the result of “social conditioning”. If only parents, teachers and society behaved differently, boys and girls would turn out the same.

Anyone who has raised children of both sexes knows this simply isn’t true.

John Stossel’s recent video tackles this taboo head-on, and it’s refreshing precisely because it says out loud what most people quietly observe. From a very early age — long before schooling, media influence or “gender norms” can reasonably explain it — boys and girls behave differently. They gravitate toward different toys, different types of play, different levels of risk and competition. These are not moral judgements. They are observations.

The argument that these differences are entirely “learned” collapses even further when you look beyond humans. Baby monkeys, raised without pink aisles or toy trucks, display sex-based behavioural differences almost immediately after birth. If that’s “societal conditioning”, then society has extended itself remarkably into the animal kingdom.

Stossel revisits decades of research that has been quietly sidelined because it conflicts with modern ideology. On average — and averages matter at a population level — men are more risk-taking, more competitive, more drawn to novelty. Women, again on average, are better at reading emotions, more nurturing, and more risk-averse. There are, of course, exceptions in every direction. But pretending the averages don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear.

This matters because entire institutions are now being reshaped around the denial of these differences. Universities, workplaces and even schools are being redesigned under the assumption that unequal outcomes must be evidence of discrimination. If men dominate certain fields, it must be sexism. If women dominate others, it is celebrated as progress. The possibility that different choices, preferences and temperaments play a role is treated as heresy.

Stossel also highlights a deeper problem: the refusal to talk honestly about sex differences has consequences. Boys are falling behind in education. Merit and excellence are being replaced by quotas and “equity”. Academic freedom is sacrificed to emotional safety. And institutions meant to pursue truth increasingly shy away from it.

None of this is an argument for inequality before the law. Quite the opposite. Equal rights, equal protection, equal opportunity — these are pillars of a free society. But equality does not require sameness. And trying to force sameness, especially by denying biology, ends up harming everyone.

The video is worth watching in full, not because it offers a neat ideological answer, but because it restores something badly missing from the debate: honesty. You don’t have to agree with every point to recognise that silencing discussion about biological differences between men and women is neither scientific nor humane.

Reality, inconvenient as it may be, has a way of asserting itself. The question is whether we choose to acknowledge it — or continue pretending that chromosomes don’t matter, even as the evidence keeps piling up.

(Watch the full John Stossel video below.}

https://youtu.be/HFXRoKzWFR0?si=3OjAPr9S28WG5GiQ

Australia's Mass Immigration Causing Lower Living Standards

For years now, Australians have been told that record immigration is an unquestionable good. It boosts GDP. It keeps the economy “growing”. It fills skills shortages. It’s framed as both an economic necessity and a moral virtue.

Yet for ordinary households, the lived reality tells a very different story.

Both major political parties have quietly embraced mass immigration as a convenient lever to inflate headline economic numbers. More people means more consumption, higher aggregate GDP, and the illusion of prosperity. But GDP growth is not the same thing as rising living standards — and Australians are increasingly feeling the gap between the two.

Falling Behind, Even While the Economy “Grows”

While total GDP has expanded, household income per person has gone backwards. Australians are working harder, competing more fiercely for jobs, housing, and services, yet finding themselves worse off in real terms.

This isn’t accidental. When population growth far outpaces the ability of an economy to provide housing, infrastructure, and productivity-enhancing investment, the result is dilution. Wages stagnate. Bargaining power weakens. Costs rise faster than incomes.

An economy can grow while its citizens become poorer. That is exactly what has been happening.

Housing: The Pressure Point Everyone Feels

Nowhere are the consequences clearer than in housing.

Rents have exploded across the country. In many cities, the average rental cost now consumes around a third of the average weekly income. For younger Australians, single-income households, and renters with families, the burden is crushing.

This is not a mysterious market failure. It is basic supply and demand. When governments import hundreds of thousands of people each year while restricting land release, slowing approvals, and failing to invest in social housing, rents and prices were always going to surge.

Home ownership — once a realistic aspiration for working Australians — is drifting further out of reach. A generation is being locked into permanent renting, not because they are lazy or entitled, but because policy choices have stacked the deck against them.

Infrastructure Strained to Breaking Point

Housing is only one piece of the puzzle. Roads are clogged. Public transport is overcrowded. Hospitals are stretched. Schools are bursting at the seams. Waiting lists grow longer while service quality declines.

These pressures are routinely blamed on “unexpected demand”, yet the demand has been entirely predictable. What hasn’t kept pace is investment — or political honesty.

Instead of planning for population growth responsibly, governments have treated infrastructure as an afterthought, leaving communities to absorb the costs.

Social Cohesion Is Not Infinite

There is another cost politicians are reluctant to discuss: social cohesion.

Australia has been one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world precisely because immigration was historically managed, paced, and broadly supported by the public. That social contract is now fraying.

When people feel ignored, crowded out, and economically stressed, trust erodes. Communities retreat inward. Resentment grows — not necessarily toward migrants themselves, but toward a political class that appears indifferent to the consequences of its decisions.

Importantly, Australians have consistently said — through polling over many years — that immigration levels are too high. These views have been stable, moderate, and persistent. Yet they have been ignored by both major parties.

The Political Consequences Are Now Visible

It should surprise no one, then, that parties like One Nation are seeing a surge in support. When mainstream politics refuses to acknowledge a problem, voters will turn to those who at least name it.

This is not an endorsement of every policy or tone used by such parties. It is a warning sign. A signal that large numbers of Australians feel unheard, economically squeezed, and dismissed as morally suspect for raising legitimate concerns.

Suppressing debate does not make these pressures disappear. It simply drives them elsewhere.

A Choice That Didn’t Have to Be This Way

Australia is a prosperous country with abundant resources, strong institutions, and a history of successful immigration. None of this required the reckless population growth of recent years.

Immigration should serve the interests of the nation as a whole — not be used as a shortcut to pad GDP figures while households struggle. Sustainable migration, aligned with housing supply, infrastructure capacity, and wage growth, is not radical. It is responsible governance.

The real question is not why voters are pushing back.

It is why our political leaders ignored them for so long.

Weekly Roundup - Top Articles and Commentary from Week 6 of 2026

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Australia Day - A Country Worth Celebrating
  
• Russiagate - A Conspiracy to Overthrow the President
  
• Perverse Incentives (Part 2): How Good Intentions Go Bad
  
• Iran has Lost All Legitimacy - The Free World Must Act
  
• Australia's Mass Immigration Causing Lower Living Standards
• Reality vs Gender Dogma
• A poignant exposure by Konstantin Kisin on the silence of the noisy Pro-Palestinian activists on the Trump Gaza Peace plan currently being implemented. Worth the 5 minutes!

• Almost 10 years ago now, I posted a piece titled "Towards Heaven or Hell?" It covered the age-old debate about the direction of our future: are we heading for a better future, or will the many threats to our civilisation become a reality? Even after 10 years it remains worthy of a re-read.

We welcome all feedback; please feel free to submit your comments or contact me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or on X at @grappysb 

Iran Has Lost All Legitimacy — The Free World Must Act

There comes a point when moral ambiguity ends.

Iran has crossed it.

Following weeks of demonstrations by tens of thousands of Iranian citizens across multiple cities, the regime did what it always does when its grip on power weakens — it turned its weapons on its own people. Soldiers and security forces were ordered to fire on unarmed civilians. Protesters were hunted, arrested, disappeared, and executed.

A government that murders its own citizens forfeits any claim to legitimacy.

The exact death toll is deliberately obscured by the regime. Official figures whisper “a few thousand.” Independent reports, leaked footage, eyewitness accounts and intelligence assessments suggest the number may be far higher — possibly multiple tens of thousands. As always with totalitarian regimes, the truth will emerge slowly, but the direction is unmistakable.

This was not law enforcement.
This was not crowd control.
This was mass political violence.

Once a regime uses its military to murder its own people, it has no right to sit among the community of nations. In an ideal world, such a regime would be instantly isolated. Trade would cease. Diplomatic recognition would be withdrawn. The leadership would be removed, and the people freed to decide their own future.

But we do not live in an ideal world.

Authoritarian regimes survive precisely because they know democracies hesitate. They rely on process, delay, hand-wringing, and the fiction that “stability” is preferable to justice. Iran’s rulers have mastered this game. They chant about sovereignty while exporting terror. They demand non-interference while executing children in the streets.

At some point, hesitation becomes complicity.

Iran’s regime is not merely oppressive at home — it is a global exporter of terrorism. Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, Shiite militias across the Middle East — all funded, trained, and directed by Tehran. The same hands that pull triggers in Iranian streets arm proxies that murder civilians abroad.

This is not a regional problem. It is a civilisational one.

The buildup to decisive action has been relatively fast, and it is now largely in place. Militarily, politically, strategically — the window is open. What remains is not capability, but will.

The United States and its allies face a stark choice: continue pretending that sanctions and statements will restrain a fanatical theocracy, or finally accept that the Iranian people cannot free themselves while the regime controls the guns.

History is unkind to those who watched and did nothing.

Saving Iran’s people does not mean occupying their country. It means removing a murderous regime that has proven it will never reform, never moderate, and never stop killing to preserve power. The Iranian people have shown extraordinary courage. They have done their part. They have risen, knowing the cost.

Now it falls to the free world.

I do not make this argument lightly. War is always tragic. But there is a difference between war and surrender — and allowing a terrorist regime to butcher its own citizens while we issue statements is surrender by another name.

Once a government wages war on its own people, it becomes an enemy of humanity.

The mad mullahs are clinging to power through bloodshed. The Iranian people deserve better. And for once, the world has the opportunity — and the responsibility — to act.

I, for one, am voting for action.

Perverse Incentives (Part 2): How Good Intentions Go Bad

In the first post of this series, I introduced the idea of perverse incentives — situations where rules, rewards, or pressures push individuals or institutions to act in ways that ultimately harm the very people or outcomes they were meant to serve.

The concept is simple but powerful.

When incentives are misaligned, rational people will pursue their own interests in ways that produce irrational outcomes for society. Importantly, this does not require bad people or evil intent. Quite often, it is entirely predictable behaviour responding to a flawed system.

Perverse incentives sit quietly beneath many of today’s most contentious issues: political dysfunction, declining trust in institutions, poor public policy outcomes, and social fragmentation. They are rarely discussed because doing so often exposes uncomfortable truths about how our systems really work.

To make this concrete, below is a non-exhaustive list of perverse incentives operating across politics, law, media, business, academia, and public administration. The examples are varied, but the pattern is consistent.

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A Catalogue of Perverse Incentives

Person / Group	Perverse Incentive	Consequence for Society
Elected politicians	Prioritise re-election over long-term policy	Short-termism, growing debt, unresolved structural problems
Judges elected by voters	Appease public opinion to win votes	Compromised justice and unequal application of the law
Political parties	Pander to vocal minorities for electoral gain	Policy capture and loss of majority representation
Bureaucrats	Avoid risk to protect careers	Inaction, box-ticking, and policy paralysis
Public servants	Spend full budgets to avoid future cuts	Wasteful or unnecessary expenditure
Media outlets	Maximise clicks and outrage	Polarisation, misinformation, loss of trust
Journalists	Align with ideological peers	Homogenised narratives and suppressed dissent
Universities	Chase government funding and rankings	Ideological conformity, erosion of academic freedom
Academics	Publish fashionable conclusions	Biased research and declining credibility
NGOs / advocacy groups	Inflate crises to secure funding	Distorted priorities and perpetual alarmism
Corporations	Focus on quarterly earnings	Underinvestment in innovation and workforce
CEOs	Inflate share price for bonuses	Long-term damage to company health
Tech platforms	Optimise engagement algorithms	Addiction, social division, radicalisation
Social media influencers	Reward controversy over accuracy	Cultural coarsening and misinformation
Activist organisations	Escalate demands to remain relevant	Social division and zero-sum politics
Law enforcement leadership	Manage optics over enforcement	Declining public confidence and deterrence
Human rights bodies	Expand mandates to justify existence	Mission creep and politicisation of rights
Welfare systems	Disincentivise work unintentionally	Long-term dependency and intergenerational poverty
Immigration policymakers	Maximise intake without integration	Social fragmentation and infrastructure strain
International institutions	Avoid accountability to member states	Democratic deficit and public disengagement

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None of these outcomes are mysterious. They follow directly from the incentives in place.

When judges must campaign, justice becomes political.
When media revenue depends on outrage, outrage becomes the product.
When institutions are rewarded for expansion rather than outcomes, they expand — regardless of effectiveness.

The tragedy is that these systems often began with good intentions. Transparency. Representation. Compassion. Inclusion. Yet without careful incentive design, good intentions can rot into harmful results.

The uncomfortable implication is this: many of our social problems persist not because we lack solutions, but because powerful actors benefit from the status quo.

In the next post in this series, I will turn to the harder question: how do we reduce or neutralise perverse incentives without creating new ones? That is where reform becomes difficult — and unavoidable.

Understanding the problem is the first step. Fixing incentives is the only path forward.

Russiagate - a conspiracy to overthrow the President

Perhaps this story is getting stale, but lets not forget what happened in the relatively recent past. Here are two PragerU videos on the Russia-gate scandal. It has been described as "the Biggest political scandal in US History, there is no close second", certainly much more serious than the original Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of a President. Russia-gate was a conspiracy to prevent the Republican candidate Donald Trump from winning office, then, after he had won the popular vote, to tarnish his Presidency. The conspiracy involved the highest officials of the Obama administration, including the President himself.

We have heard snippets of this story for years, yet the mainstream media, admittedly complicit through their lack of analysis and reporting, have avoided it. It has taken the right learning outlets to expose the truth. 

Well worth revisiting the story in PragerU's short videos.

Follow the links below.

Russia-Gate part 1: https://www.prageru.com/videos/russiagate-the-real-scandal-part-1

Russia-Gate Part 2: https://www.prageru.com/videos/russiagate-the-real-scandal-part-2

"Russiagate was in essence a non-violent coup attempt, A brazen plan to overthrow a duly elected President. The scary thing is it almost succeeded," Lee Smith, Author of "The Plot Against the President"

Weekly Roundup - Top Articles and Commentary from Week 5 of 2026

 

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Adelaide Writers' Festival Cancels Itself

• Trump's Economic Impact Over His First Year
  
• Wikipedia, Bias and The Corruption of Truth
• Must see video of self-confessed Climate Activist explaining why she has dropped Climate Catastrophism for Climate Realism 
• Australia Day - A Country Worth Celebrating
  
• Russiagate - A Conspiracy to Overthrow the President
  
• Perverse Incentives (Part 2): How Good Intentions Go Bad
  
• Iran has Lost All Legitimacy - The Free World Must Act
  

We welcome all feedback; please feel free to submit your comments or contact me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or on X at @grappysb 

Australia Day - A Country Worth Celebrating

Like many Australians, I was not born here.

My family arrived as refugees, welcomed by a country that did not ask where we came from, what religion we followed, or what language we spoke. Australia simply opened its doors, gave us safety, opportunity, and the dignity of being treated as equals under the law.

For that, our family has been forever grateful.

Australia — and Australians — have long been a welcoming people. We built a society based on mutual respect, strong institutions, and a legal system that does not distinguish between citizens by race, creed, or origin. Long before “diversity” became a political slogan, Australia was already living it.

Has Australia been perfect? Of course not.

No country is. And I have spent much of my time criticising governments when they fall short. But criticism, when it comes from a place of wanting to improve, is very different from tearing a country down.

Measured against most of the world — past and present — Australia has done remarkably well.

We are prosperous, yes partly blessed with natural resources, but also because we have had generally sound governance, stable democracy, the rule of law, and a culture that rewards effort. Millions of migrants came here for one simple reason: this country works.

Yet each year, as Australia Day approaches, the noise grows louder.

We are told that we should be ashamed. That our national day is offensive. That modern Australians must atone for the sins of their ancestors.

I reject that completely.

No person today is responsible for what happened generations ago. And it makes no moral sense to demand that people who did not commit injustices should “pay” people who did not personally suffer them.

Justice must be individual, not inherited.

The same logic applies to the growing obsession with symbols. Australia has one flag — and it represents all Australians. The creation and promotion of separate flags for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people does not unite us. It suggests division. It implies that some Australians are not fully represented by the national flag.

One country. One people. One flag. Equal under the law.

That principle — equality before the law — is one of Australia’s greatest achievements. It is precisely what allowed migrants like my family to thrive, without special treatment, without quotas, without grievance politics.

Of course Indigenous Australians, like all Australians, deserve fairness, opportunity, and respect. But permanent grievance, permanent division, and permanent compensation will never heal anything. They only entrench resentment.

And for those who truly believe Australia is an irredeemably racist, oppressive, hopeless country, I have a simple suggestion: look around the world.

There are very few places that offer the freedoms, stability, prosperity and tolerance that Australians enjoy. If someone genuinely believes they would be happier elsewhere, they are free to go.

I, for one, will not apologise for loving this country.

Australia may not be perfect. But it is the best country for me.

And today, on Australia Day, I choose gratitude over grievance. Pride over resentment. Unity over division.

In 1968, a simple advertisement was shown celebrating Australia and proposing a national anthem. It reflected a country confident in itself, optimistic about its future, and proud of who it was becoming.

You can watch it here:

Perhaps it’s time we recovered a little of that spirit.

Happy Australia Day.

https://youtu.be/htLn41erNSg?si=o_WSLHmKv-hLCFcy

Wikipedia, Bias, and the Poisoning of Our Future Knowledge

For years we were told that Wikipedia was the great democratiser of knowledge. A free, open encyclopedia written by volunteers, corrected by the wisdom of crowds, and guided by the noble principle of “neutral point of view.”

That comforting myth is now collapsing.

Two recent pieces — a detailed academic paper Toxic Truth: How Wikipedia Poisons Global Knowledge and an investigation by HonestReporting — lay bare what many of us have suspected for some time. Wikipedia is no longer a neutral reference work. It has become a highly politicised gatekeeper of “truth”, shaped by activist editors, ideological capture, and in some cases by foreign state interests.

And the danger is no longer confined to Wikipedia itself.

Today, Wikipedia is one of the primary training sources for large language models — the very AI systems that will soon answer our children’s questions, write our news summaries, and provide “authoritative” explanations on everything from history to medicine to geopolitics.

If Wikipedia is biased, then tomorrow’s AI will be biased — permanently, invisibly, and at scale.

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Captured From Within

The Toxic Truth paper documents something deeply troubling. Wikipedia is not shaped by millions of casual contributors. It is controlled by a relatively small group of highly motivated editors who dominate sensitive political topics.

These editors decide which sources are “reliable,” which viewpoints are “fringe,” and which facts are “undue.” In theory this is meant to protect quality. In practice it allows ideological activists to quietly rewrite history.

On contentious subjects — Israel, terrorism, race, gender, climate, COVID — the same pattern appears. Critical voices are removed. Alternative perspectives are downgraded. Language is carefully adjusted to frame one side as legitimate and the other as suspect.

This is not censorship by force. It is something more effective: narrative control disguised as neutrality.

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Foreign Influence and Qatar’s Shadow

The HonestReporting investigation takes this even further.

It reveals how Qatar — a regime that funds Hamas, hosts extremist clerics, and runs the propaganda network Al Jazeera — has built deep influence inside Wikipedia’s editorial ecosystem.

Editors linked to Qatari interests have shaped articles on the Middle East, terrorism, and Israel for years. Sources hostile to Israel are elevated. Israeli perspectives are minimised or framed as propaganda. Terror groups are softened into “militants” or “fighters.”

All while Wikipedia continues to present itself as a neutral educational charity.

This matters because Wikipedia is no longer just an encyclopedia. It is becoming the backbone of global digital knowledge.

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When AI Learns From a Corrupted Source

Here is the truly alarming part.

Modern AI systems are trained on massive datasets, and Wikipedia is one of their core reference sources. Not one of many. One of the most important.

That means every distortion, every omission, every ideological framing embedded in Wikipedia today will be replicated tomorrow across countless AI platforms.

Future students may never read Wikipedia directly. But they will read AI summaries trained on Wikipedia.

If Wikipedia teaches that Israel is uniquely evil, that Western democracies are colonial oppressors, that Islamist violence is “resistance,” or that certain scientific debates are settled beyond discussion — then that becomes the default worldview of artificial intelligence.

And unlike Wikipedia, AI will not show its sources. You won’t know what has been filtered out.

Bias will become invisible.

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The Greatest Danger: Monopoly on Truth

The real problem is not that Wikipedia contains errors. All reference works do.

The problem is that Wikipedia is rapidly becoming the single source of truth.

Schools rely on it. Journalists consult it. Search engines rank it at the top. AI systems ingest it wholesale.

When one platform becomes the foundation of knowledge, ideological capture becomes catastrophic.

A biased newspaper can be challenged by another newspaper.
A biased academic can be challenged by another academic.
But when the reference layer itself is compromised, the entire knowledge stack above it becomes distorted.

That is not just misinformation.

That is civilisational risk.

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A Warning We Cannot Ignore

The authors of Toxic Truth and the investigators at HonestReporting are not arguing for censorship. They are arguing for transparency, pluralism, and accountability.

Wikipedia must not be allowed to present activism as neutrality.
AI developers must not be allowed to train on politically contaminated data without disclosure.
And governments, universities, and educators must stop treating Wikipedia as an unquestioned authority.

Because if we allow one ideologically captured platform to define reality for both humans and machines, we will not be living in an information age.

We will be living in an engineered one.

And once artificial intelligence learns a poisoned version of truth, correcting it later may prove impossible.

(I strongly recommend reading the attached paper. This is not an academic curiosity. It is about who controls knowledge itself. https://honestreporting.com/wikipedia-qatar-and-the-future-of-knowledge/ )

Trump's Economic Impact Over His First Year

Donald Trump commenced his second presidential term exactly one year ago. It has been a whirlwind, with ne'er a day without some controversy. Everyone has a view on Trump and will readily voice their support or opposition to one or more of his edicts. He has done more, much more, than any other President, certainly in recent history. Given this is a critical year with the mid-terms due in less than 11 months, we can look at his impact on the key drivers of November's vote.

I have gathered the following graphs from a recent article on The Epoch Times titled Trump's First Year by the Numbers

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Adelaide Writers' Festival Cancels Itself

Once again, cancel culture has devoured one of its own — and this time, I’m not shedding a tear.

The Adelaide Writers’ Festival, long a comfortable home for fashionable left-wing causes and anti-Israel rhetoric, has imploded in spectacular fashion. What began as a belated attempt at moral clarity ended with mass walk-outs, the resignation of its director, and the cancellation of the entire event. It would be hard to script a better example of progressive self-destruction.

The controversy centred on Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, a long-time anti-Israel activist who had been scheduled as a featured speaker. Following the Bondi massacre — in which 15 Jews were murdered in an Islamist terror attack — festival organisers quietly removed her from the program, citing “cultural sensitivity concerns.”

Those concerns were hardly imaginary.

As HonestReporting documented in a recent presentation, Abdel-Fattah had mocked Israelis fleeing the Nova music festival on October 7 while Hamas terrorists were still rampaging through southern Israel. The following day she made an image of Hamas paraglider terrorists her social-media cover photo. More recently, she was filmed teaching Australian schoolchildren to chant “Israel is a terrorist state” and “From the river to the sea.”

Let’s be clear: that isn’t education. It’s ideological indoctrination and the normalisation of hate.

These were more than sufficient reasons to conclude that she had no place on a public literary platform, particularly only weeks after Australian Jews were massacred on their own soil. Yet the moment she was removed, a predictable backlash erupted.

Other writers rushed to her defence. Zionists were blamed. “Cancel culture” was invoked. The removal of a Hamas apologist was framed as censorship rather than basic moral hygiene. Incredibly, the protesters portrayed her as the victim — not the Jewish community that had just buried its dead.

The protest escalated into a boycott by participating writers. Under mounting political pressure — including from South Australia’s Labor Premier — the festival director folded. The result? A mass walk-out, her resignation, and the cancellation of the entire festival.

And then came the final insult: the organisers rescinded their original statement and announced that Abdel-Fattah would be reinvited for next year’s festival.

You couldn’t make this up.

This was never about “cultural sensitivity.” It was about whether an institution funded by the public should platform someone who openly glorifies terrorists, mocks massacre victims, and teaches children to chant genocidal slogans. The real question is not why she was removed — it’s why the Adelaide Writers’ Festival ever thought she belonged there in the first place.

For years, the festival had no problem hosting anti-Israel speakers. It even “uninvited” a pro-Israel speaker in the past after pressure from activists. So when, for once, it showed the faintest flicker of moral awareness, its own ideological tribe turned on it.

The result is poetic justice.

Either you believe in open dialogue and pluralism — or you don’t. Either all opinions are allowed — or only the approved ones. The Adelaide Writers’ Festival tried to straddle both worlds. In the end, it chose none.

Good riddance.

If this is what passes for “literary culture” in 2026 Australia — censoring one side, platforming terror apologists, and collapsing into hysterics the moment minimal standards are applied — then perhaps the country is better off without it.

I will include the HonestReporting video below this post. It’s worth watching. It documents, in grim detail, how a supposedly enlightened cultural institution managed to disgrace itself in record time.

Sometimes cancel culture doesn’t just cancel speakers.

Sometimes it cancels itself.

https://youtu.be/fwzrJs3dTvc?si=Ya-8pS7iP4lmmRKR

Weekly Roundup - Top Articles and Commentary from Week 4 of 2026

 

Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Perverse Incentives: How Good Intentions Go Bad
• Iran Revolts. The Media Turn Away.
• Why Aren't They Marching for Iran?
  
• UN Censoring Criticism of Climate Agenda

• A Normal Day in 2040 and How Robots Made It Better
  
• Adelaide Writers' Festival Cancels Itself
  
• Trump's Economic Impact Over His First Year
  
• You think your Cost of Living is high? The latest comparison of 479 cities in the world is out. Zurich is the highest. at relative 118, with New York at 100, and no 479 is Combiatore, India on 17.6. Check out your city at https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp
• Wikipedia, Bias and The Corruption of Truth
  
• Must see video of self-confessed Climate Activist explaining why she has dropped Climate Catastrophism for Climate Realism 

We welcome all feedback; please feel free to submit your comments or contact me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or on X at @grappysb 

A Normal Day in 2040 — And How Robots Made It Better

Much of the public conversation about humanoid robots is framed in fear. Jobs will disappear. Humans will become obsolete. Society will unravel.

It’s a familiar pattern. We said the same about tractors, washing machines, personal computers and the internet. In every case, technology didn’t end work — it changed work. And it made everyday life better.

So instead of dystopian speculation, let’s imagine something far more radical: an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary family in 2040.

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6:30 AM — A Calm Start to the Day

Mark and Sarah wake up to a quiet house. No frantic rushing. No piles of laundry. No sink full of dishes from the night before.

Their household robot — a standard, affordable humanoid assistant now as common as a dishwasher once was — has already done the overnight maintenance. It folded clothes, cleaned the kitchen, charged itself, restocked groceries ordered automatically the previous evening, and prepared breakfast.

Coffee is ready. Toast is warm. The kitchen is spotless.

Sarah skims the news while eating. Mark checks his schedule. Neither of them has lifted a finger yet — and that’s the point.

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8:00 AM — Work, Still Human

Mark still works — just not in a factory or warehouse. He’s a project coordinator for a renewable energy company, managing teams, planning infrastructure upgrades, and solving problems that still require human judgment, creativity and accountability.

Sarah is a speech therapist, working with children who have learning difficulties. No robot can replace empathy, nuanced communication, or the trust built between a therapist and a child.

The robots didn’t eliminate meaningful work. They eliminated drudgery.

Both parents leave the house knowing it will remain clean, secure and running smoothly all day without human effort.

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9:00 AM — Education, Transformed

Their two children, Emma (12) and Leo (9), start school — a mix of in-person classes and individualized learning supported by AI tutors.

The robots don’t teach values or replace teachers. They handle repetition, pacing, practice drills and personalized feedback. Human teachers focus on critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and emotional development.

Homework no longer means frustrated parents or late-night meltdowns. The kids work through lessons with a patient, adaptive tutor that never gets tired or irritated.

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1:00 PM — Care for the Elderly, With Dignity

Mark’s mother lives nearby. She’s 82 and still independent, but needs help with mobility, medication and daily routines.

Her humanoid assistant helps her get dressed, prepares meals, reminds her to take medication, and monitors her health in real time. If anything unusual happens, Mark and Sarah are notified instantly.

She still has human carers visit for companionship and medical checkups — but the robot ensures she’s safe, supported and never alone.

This alone has transformed aging from a crisis into a manageable, dignified stage of life.

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5:30 PM — Dinner Without Stress

The family arrives home.

Dinner is ready. Not frozen meals or synthetic paste, but fresh food cooked to their preferences. The robot adjusted the menu because Sarah mentioned she felt like Italian that morning.

There’s no arguing about whose turn it is to cook. No mess. No cleanup afterward.

The kitchen stays clean while the family eats together.

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7:00 PM — More Time to Be Human

Instead of collapsing onto the couch exhausted, the family goes for a walk. They talk. They laugh. They play a board game.

The robot quietly handles the evening chores in the background.

This is the real revolution: time.

Time for relationships.
Time for health.
Time for creativity.
Time for rest.

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The Bigger Picture

Humanoid robots didn’t replace humans. They replaced unpaid labor, repetitive work, physical strain, and logistical chaos.

They didn’t destroy jobs. They shifted them upward — toward roles that require judgment, compassion, creativity, and responsibility.

They didn’t make people lazy. They made them freer.

Cleaner homes.
Safer streets.
Better care for the elderly.
More personalized education.
Lower costs for basic services.
More time for living.

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A Different Kind of Future

The future with humanoid robots isn’t Blade Runner.

It’s closer to something far more radical and far more threatening to pessimists:

A calmer, healthier, more humane society.

And when people look back at 2025 and ask why we were so afraid of machines that fold laundry, cook dinner and help grandma walk safely down the hallway, the answer will be the same as it always is.

We were afraid of change.

And we were wrong.

UN trying to Censor All Criticism of the Climate Agenda

The United Nations likes to present itself as the guardian of truth, scientific integrity, and the common good. Its leaders talk grandly about peace, prosperity, and shared global challenges.

But a shocking whistleblower reveal suggests something very different: that the UN — in partnership with other global elites — is now actively trying to censor criticism of the climate agenda, shutting down debate rather than fostering it. (Gatestone Institute)

The claim comes from Desiree Fixler, a former member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Responsible Investing and a sustainability officer at a major bank. According to Fixler, during her time inside climate policy circles, she saw firsthand how dissenting views are not just dismissed — they are effectively suppressed. What’s more, she argues that power brokers within the UN and the WEF have no interest in debating the assumptions underlying climate policy — because the narrative serves broader agendas of control. (Gatestone Institute)

At the COP30 climate conference in Brazil in 2025, leaders pushed a “Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change,” billed as an effort to fight misinformation. On its surface, that sounds reasonable — who could oppose accuracy in science?

But the problem is deeper than accuracy. According to the whistleblower, this effort is less about truth and more about controlling what people can hear, read and think about climate change at precisely the moment when some platforms like Meta are rolling back heavy-handed “fact check” censorship. (Gatestone Institute)

Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, warned that when taxpayers are asked to spend hundreds of trillions of dollars on poorly conceived climate policies, there should be open debate, not suppression of dissent. Yet this is exactly what appears to be happening. (Gatestone Institute)

Fixler didn’t mince words in describing this environment. She said people who raise objections to the prevailing climate narrative are often dismissed as “denialists” without engagement with their arguments. They are not encouraged to present evidence; they are shut down. (Gatestone Institute)

She has argued that the global push for “net zero” emissions and the broader climate agenda is not merely about protecting the planet — it is also about consolidating power through mechanisms like stakeholder capitalism, a WEF concept that mixes corporate and state influence in ways critics say erode traditional free-market principles and democratic accountability. (Gatestone Institute)

According to Fixler, the people most affected by climate policy — ordinary citizens struggling with high energy costs and stagnant economies — are nowhere to be found in these discussions. Instead, the debates are dominated by elites who repeatedly claim authority based on consensus lines written into speaking notes rather than on robust, independent engagement with evidence from the real world. (Gatestone Institute)

Meanwhile, the UN continues to push the narrative that “the science compels climate action,” with leaders like Secretary-General António Guterres reiterating calls for dramatic emissions cuts and accelerated transitions — assertions that carry moral weight precisely because alternative views are being sidelined. (Gatestone Institute)

This is not a small disagreement among experts. It is a problem of incentives: when powerful institutions become arbiters not just of policy but of acceptable thought, dissent is no longer just unwelcome — it is excluded.

That’s not debate.
That’s censorship.

Whether one agrees with Fixler’s conclusions or not, the underlying issue she raises demands scrutiny: who gets to decide what counts as acceptable climate discourse, and why should a single international body have the authority to shape that decision for the entire world?

In a free society, even unpopular or uncomfortable ideas should be debated openly. When powerful institutions try to suppress questions instead of engaging them, the real casualty isn’t climate science — it’s trust in the institutions that claim to lead us.