Too Many Irritations to Screen Out

One of the reasons I stopped watching the ABC was to stop shouting at the telly. It’s unbecoming and completely futile to boot. Raises one’s blood pressure, causes nervous dyspepsia and might well shorten life.

I took to watching Sky News. Sadly, last Thursday evening watching Andrew Bolt interviewing Andrew Clennell, it began all over again; déjà vu, so to speak. Despot Dan’s overreach was being discussed. Fine. Then Clennell, with Bolt implicitly nodding, explained how he had used his vax passport to gain entry to a café and a bookshop. He found it surprising how well-accepted and easily navigable was the arrangement. Said even the unvaxxed can buy books if they wait outside. Glory be!

Think about it. People like Clennell and Bolt are part of the tyranny that they criticise in Victoria. It’s a difference of degree, not principle. Showing a medical certificate to browse a bookshop? Really, that’s acceptable. Why aren’t they railing against it? I dare say navigating the business of life was easy for most Germans in the 1930s. Pity about the Jews.

By the way, Bolt went on to cover Margaret Court but couldn’t resist virtue signalling by saying he disagreed with some of her comments on gays. What comments? I’ve only heard respectful ones. And then he discussed Milo Yiannopoulos. More virtue signalling.  Couldn’t resist saying he disagreed with some of things Milo said. What things?  Milo’s stock in trade is (or was) outrageous, and funny, commentary. It’s like saying that David Walliams and Matt Lucas sailed close to the wind in some episodes of Little Britain. You don’t say.  

Why won’t they please shut up the  bulldust, particularly whenever someone on our side of the fence (the sane side) is being talked about or interviewed?

I remember even the admirable stalwart conservative Rowan Dean protecting his backside before interviewing the marvellously unwoke and outspoken Katie Hopkins. She didn’t let him get away with it. And to his credit he looked shamefaced and acknowledged his (grievous) fault.

Can you understand why I began shouting at the telly. A little while back a reader suggested that I lay off Bolt because he’s one of the good guys. I’m over him. Alan Jones is gone. What the heck do I watch? Who do I watch? Need another channel. Maybe GB News Australia-style. I don’t know. I’m bereft. Can anyone help?

CHANGING the subject, the NSW Health COVID-19 surveillance report for week-ending October 30, noted that of the locally-acquired cases aged 12 and over, 31 percent were fully vaccinated.  At the time, 78 percent of the population aged 12 and over had been fully vaccinated. This means that the population of the unvaccinated at just 22 percent contributed to 69 percent of cases.

On these figures, vaccination offers significant protection from catching the disease. At the same time, it’s not trivial that 31 percent of cases were fully vaccinated. Anything anywhere near to 78 percent would mean, of course, that the vaccines are useless.

It also bears noting that the figures cannot be taken at face value. For example, maybe the fully vaxxed are less likely to get tested. I don’t know, but this would skew the results. Also, as the effectiveness of the vaccines wanes fairy rapidly, its likely in coming months that the rate of infection among those double vaxxed will increase, as appears to be the case in the UK; which I covered in my previous post. Though boosters will increase resistance until, perhaps, their effectiveness wanes.

Gibraltar is an interesting case study. Described as the most vaccinated place on earth, cases have recently surged. In Singapore, too, and Ireland, both heavily vaccinated.

This is WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking on 12 November:

COVID-19 is surging in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in countries with some of the world’s highest vaccination rates in Western Europe.

The tale is unfolding. At this stage the unvaxxed will cop the flack. Once infection rates among the vaxxed can’t be glossed over, who knows what desperate politicians, their health gurus and Big Pharma will do? Admit that they made a mistake of gigantic proportions. I don’t think so.

Meanwhile I am wondering whether the stress of being shut out of cafes and bookshops and the like isn’t contributing to my telly rage.