544 Responses to Midweek 19 January 2022

  1. MarkyMark says:

    “Radio 4 has become so right on.”

       4 likes

  2. vlad says:

    As usual the BBC give their man in the White House an easy ride, as the Imbecile-In-Chief puts his foot in it over Ukraine, signalling that a ‘minor incursion’ by Russia would not get a response from the West.

    The muddled git even admitted that the West couldn’t agree on a response: “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do etc.”

    The cretin even doubled down on his gaffe. When asked if he meant to give Putin permission with “minor incursion” line, he said: “good question, it did sound like that… ”

    The Leader of the free world can’t even read a teleprompter or put a coherent sentence together. Putin must be trembling in his boots, especially as the useless Brandon has already weakened the West’s position by reversing Trump’s tough stance on Nord Stream 2.

    DT: “Joe Biden accused of giving Putin ‘green light’ to invade with gaffe over ‘minor incursion’.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/01/19/russia-has-almost-completed-troop-buildup-invasion-says-ukraine/

       15 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      Boris Johnson says Peppa Pig World ‘very much my kind of place’

      The prime minister told the CBI conference that “no Whitehall civil servant would conceivably come up with Peppa” as he praised the “power of UK creativity”.

      Boris Johnson referenced the TV cartoon pig as he talked about the UK economy as he asked delegates who else had been to Peppa Pig World.

      Published22 November 2021SectionBBC NewsSubsectionUK Politics

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-60065967

         3 likes

    • digg says:

      Why oh why cannot US citizens see that this man has clearly lost his marbles?

      He is a danger to the US and the West!

         17 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        Digg, Increasing numbers of them do see him for what he is, a senile ex fraudster manipulated by the far left and propped up by the MSM. The question which interests me is how far has the credibility of the MSM been undermined by the last five or six years of their constant lying to the people. Of course we have much the same problem in the UK with the BBC , excepting that we are forced to pay for our very own woke foghorn.
        If the people realise that they were lied to about President Trump’s alleged this and alleged that , about Biden , about the election not being rigged, about George Floyd etc etc etc, then surely they will decide , just as we on this site have done with the BBC, that the sensible starting point is to disbelieve everything that the MSM say or show about just about anything.
        Once that happens then the Democrats , the green agenda , prolonged covid is, the benefits of mass migration etc etc are well done toast.

           4 likes

  3. digg says:

    I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw the BBC and the rest of the left wing media proudly quoting Biden re. Russia invading The Ukraine.

    “They will pay a high price says Biden”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60061300

    Surely they have not forgotten how the US ordered by Biden scrambled out of Afghanistan with their tail between their legs leaving some raggedy arsed blokes in 4×4’s a huge heap of their arms and hardware worth billions!

    Putin with over 125,000 tough as nails real troops in place and God knows what lethal hardware must be pissing himself, The US military is now a joke, concentrating as it does on LGBT and diversity before National Security and strength.

    What does Biden expect them to do? Scratch the Russian troops eyes out or pull their hair maybe?

    I rather think that if push comes to shove that it will be the same ordinary enlisted blokes from the UK who had to sort out WW2 who will be thrown into the fray again with the US rolling up eventually to grab the Honours.

       23 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      Trans US veterans to be offered gender surgery for first time
      Published20 June 2021
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57545395

      Former President Donald Trump banned trans Americans from serving in the military in his first year in office. President Joe Biden repealed the ban in January.

         11 likes

    • vlad says:

      I honestly believe Putin could march into Ukraine tomorrow and seize the whole country, and Biden and the West would do absolutely nothing, not even economic sanctions now that Russia has us over a barrel with their gas supplies.

      At most they’d pass some mealy-mouthed UN resolution, deploring in the strongest terms bla bla bla.

         17 likes

  4. Up2snuff says:

    TWatO Watch #2 – Lead item was William Wragg’s (MP Con) claim – without evidence – of coercion and blackmail by the Government’s Whips Office over the Partygate Affair. Who is to say William Wragg MP is not a liar as some accuse the Prime Minister.

    Churchill famously said: “Politics is foul.”

    Today it became even more foul.

    Bravo to the Conservative MP who boldy went on air on TWatO and said he had encountered none of this ‘blackmail talk’ while talking to fellow MPs in the course of work and in the ‘tea room’.

       16 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      Barry Gardiner to lose £45K if he says the wrong thing?

      ame of donor: Christine Lee & Co
      Address of donor: 86 Holloway Head, Birmingham B1 1NB

      Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: the services of a Parliamentary Assistant for 5 days per week from 1 June 2018 to 31 May 2019, approx. value £45,298
      https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10220

         9 likes

  5. dafydd says:

    WOW…!!!!!!

    BBC says that Boris Johnsons popularity has fallen with the public, wonder why..??

    Talk about stating the bloody obvious.

       15 likes

  6. Guest Who says:

    Sometimes media take a punt for hits.

    Can work. Often not.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-we-still-need-the-bbc

    #CCBGB

       4 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Via the Speccie, sources say.

         19 likes

  7. Guest Who says:

    #tellitoftenenough BBC.

    Trust.
    Impartiality.
    Integrity.
    Professionalism.

       18 likes

  8. Guest Who says:

    A few on the collapse of the last vestiges of politics and political reporting, as Compass tries to dredge up more outrage.

    A roll of dishonour..

       6 likes

    • Bulldog says:

      Guest

      “SKY News – Downing Street insiders ‘worried’ that Sue Gray investigation has come across damaging evidence and are now doubtful report will ‘clear’ Boris Johnson”.

      Any bets Dominic Cummings has held back coup-de-grace information and handed it to Ms Gray at his meeting? SKY, beeb etc getting ready to put in their Krug orders.

         4 likes

  9. Guest Who says:

    Still you gotta laff.

    HIGNFY likley not the place to find it.

    Ian and Paul rolling in the corridors with the rest when Blair won?

       7 likes

  10. Guest Who says:

    Kay Burley a bit simplistic for this age range surely?

       15 likes

  11. Guest Who says:

    Pretty sure most did years ago, but OK.

       25 likes

  12. Guest Who says:

    Found his voice?

       5 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      Indeed – before they just blamed the EU – now they have to shoulder the responsiblity.

         2 likes

  13. Guest Who says:

    An hour is now a long time in politics.

    What gets issued, then reported, then happens, or doesn’t and not reported….

       14 likes

  14. Guest Who says:

    Go on, guess who did what to get The BBC a ‘story’ it lives for…

    BBC News

    A “disgraceful” reaction has come from “a minority” of people, they said.

    One clue for now: pure, luvvie PR punt of color.

       10 likes

  15. Guest Who says:

    Now might be a good time to see which hacks got excited, how excited, when, and hit Twitter…

       6 likes

  16. Guest Who says:

    BBC peroxide victims.

    They are uniquely funded, you know.

       4 likes

  17. Guest Who says:

    Phew. The camera is on her.

       4 likes

  18. Guest Who says:

    Sopes? No. Flogging another book.

       4 likes

  19. Guest Who says:

    Graun weighs in. All six of them.

       5 likes

  20. JohnC says:

    Hats off to you all who can stomach the BBC at the moment while the front page is led by their increasingly desperate campaign to topple Boris. I simply cannot stand it and close the window immediately.

    My disgust at them using their public funding to push their political agenda to try to reverse Brexit and keep their license fee is completely off the scale. I have never seen hypocrisy and double-standards on such an epic scale.

    They are like spiteful children who have decided it’s all or nothing now and have abandoned any facade of impartiality.

    Hopefully they will soon realise how ridiculous they look and things will go back to their ‘normal’ where I can hold my nose and dig in to look for their agenda-based lies. In the mean time I will just sit content in the knowledge they are using all their rope to hang themselves

       32 likes

    • G.W.F. says:

      I honestly felt sorry for that presenter – Chakrabbati?? – on BBC 5pm News who was under sustained pressure to milk alleged bullying by the Boris supporting whips. She had her pieces of paper in her hands but kept looking downwards to the left before asking her follow up questions.
      Are these interviewers being fed some kind of Biden style script?

         20 likes

  21. Guest Who says:

    BBC SOP.

       17 likes

  22. Up2snuff says:

    Anyone here read the Daily Mirror? I’m puzzled by the big black blank in the top right corner of the front page today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-60063134

       4 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      BBC Subs’ Careers Matter?

         2 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      Black box says “Katie Price ex quizzed over sex assault on underage teen”
      .. a story a Mirror broke this story last night
      Another preview service had it at 10:46pm …
      The BBC page came out an hour later
      and was rewritten at 5am

      The Mirror may have itself kept it off the BBC preview copy
      or maybe the BBC did it

         5 likes

  23. Guest Who says:

    BBC steers to new territory…

       5 likes

  24. Guest Who says:

    The word has gone out.

       3 likes

  25. Guest Who says:

    BBC Steve gets expert input.

    Hope she makes it.

       5 likes

  26. Guest Who says:

    Now, where could this be going?

       5 likes

  27. Guest Who says:

    Best of luck.

       3 likes

  28. Foscari says:

    What a hard choice it is for me and my wife what to
    watch on BBC TV at 18.30 each evening lately. I mean
    we can watch the Londonistan Programme with
    Riz Lateef, Asad, Ahmad, Alice Bhandhukravi, Tolu Adeoye .
    Victoria Hollins and a few others on occasion slagging
    off the Metropolitan police, The” bosses” of the National Health,
    the “bosses” of Transport for London and the Toreeees .
    From autocues written for them by their anarchist Marxist
    editors. OR I can watch Rick Steyn the esteemed
    restaurateur and chef showing us around his beloved
    Cornwall. What a choice!! To be honest I am very much
    surprised BIG BROTHER from the diversity department of the
    BBC allowing the Rick Steyn programme. Give it a year or two
    and I expect this kind of programme will be included in the
    cancel culture madness in the world we now live in.

       14 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      em accidental truths ..slipping through ?
      Tonight is the penultimate episode of Rick Stein’s Cornwall
      he visits Looe to learn about a time
      when the Cornish were taken as *slaves* by pirates
      and joins one of the last fishing boats in St Mawes

         15 likes

  29. tomo says:

       12 likes

  30. Guest Who says:

    Pesto deploys all the techniques a career at the BBC can bestow.

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      So much explained.

         3 likes

      • MarkyMark says:

        ME TOO Who is Charlotte Edwardes? Boris Johnson ‘thigh squeeze’ journalist and girlfriend of Robert Peston
        Christy Cooney
        21:05, 2 Oct 2019Updated: 21:10, 2 Oct 2019

           4 likes

  31. digg says:

    I am speechless…

    Fox News…

    “Vice President Kamala Harris faced a tough line of questioning Thursday during a contentious interview on NBC’s “Today” addressing potential Russian aggression toward Ukraine, as well as President Biden’s suggestion the results of the 2022 midterm elections could be “illegitimate.” ”

    So Trump was an A****hole for suggesting an election was rigged after it happened while Biden is claiming that an election not yet held and which he will certainly lose WILL be “illegitimate”.

    The words of course are coming from his shady back room team who must be now getting terrified that he is going to get absolutely walloped come mid-terms so are trying to tarnish the whole process before it even begins. I know they are currently trying to change election rules so the Democrats NEVER lose again but this is just obscene. These people are stark raving bonkers and need to be gone or Democracy will be gone!

    I know US politics are shady but the Democrats are nothing less than a gang of mobsters!

       25 likes

  32. StewGreen says:

    8pm World Service Radio : The Syrian killers hiding in European refugee programmes
    ..seems some of them are being put on trial.

    Seems similar to today’s R4 11am prog
    .. Ah it IS THE SAME prog ..just different branding
    “Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For some Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war there, that is exactly what’s been happening.”

       12 likes

    • digg says:

      That will be Sweden then where they have all gone GaGa national suicide.

      Swedish children should be allowed to sue the government and police for gross neglect before they are raped.

         7 likes

  33. taffman says:

    Message to the “British” BBC and our ‘so called’ government. We are being invaded on a large scale .
    Hiding or censoring the figures involved is a serious neglect of duty in defending the people of Great Britain.
    The government needs to take control of our borders before we hear the usual pathetic ‘lessons to be learned’ .
    That was one of the reasons why we voted for BREXIT.

       29 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      About us (UK Home Office)

      The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure. The Home Office has been at the front line of this endeavour since 1782. As such, the Home Office plays a fundamental role in the security and economic prosperity of the United Kingdom.
      https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/about

         10 likes

      • taffman says:

        MarkyMark
        “The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure”.

        Allowing 28000 + to enter our nation illegally and of unknown background is not keeping our citizens “safe”. It is not something we voted for .
        Conservative MPs must be aware of this ? We cannot afford any lessons to be learned.

           15 likes

  34. StewGreen says:

    ITV just now viewer letter
    “I was living without Universal Credit , then applied and got £700/month”
    That makes it sound like she could survive without that £700 from the taxpayers
    is that £8,400/year far too generous ?

       9 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      BTW Foodbank Britain
      At the shop I bought 10 items : milk, bread, veg, ready meals
      10 things ..total £1.95
      eg Pack of 12 Chicken sausages for 25p ( 2p each)

      One supermarket was selling off well in date mini-Mars bar packs
      3p per mini-bar
      worked out at £1.50/Kg
      Normal bars work out at ten times more.

         13 likes

      • MarkyMark says:

        £159 saved on BBC TV Tax.

           12 likes

      • BRISSLES says:

        Ready Meals – ha ! the scourge of the Home Economics /cookery classes. Most of those born since 1980 believe all meals come in a square box from outside the home.

           4 likes

  35. taffman says:

    Question:
    Is Al Beeb becoming disillusioned with Joe Biden ?

       8 likes

  36. Nibor says:

    The Briefing Room Radio 4 eight o clock with Aarronavitch , who is a statist globalist .

    It’s about the best way to fund the BBC .

    It has our old friend Professor Barwise on , one of the authors of the book The War Against The BBC .

    It concluded that the best way to fund the BBC is via the licence fee/tax .

    [ I will one day resume my critique of his book , the problem is that it’s written like a BBC program and you could criticise almost every line on the pages . A lot of work] .

       11 likes

  37. Sluff says:

    Unbelievable.
    They are now trying to boot out the PM because the whips are pressurising wavering MPs to vote in a certain way.

    Like this has never happened before.
    Or because in new woke Britain, such behaviour is no longer permitted.

    Utterly pathetic.

       18 likes

    • digg says:

      They need to be told in no uncertain terms that this is the UK Government and not Mrs nasty look at me on a zoom online village committee meeting…

         5 likes

    • taffman says:

      Stuff
      By “they” do you mean Tory MPs ?

         2 likes

  38. StewGreen says:

    Cadwalladr is a victim

    Guido reckon she immediately contradicted herself in court.

       17 likes

  39. digg says:

    Strange development on BBC news tonight. Giving the Covid figures they said xxxx people have died today who died after testing positive for Covid in the past 28 Days…. then to my amazement added the bit that we have been screaming about for ages… “although SOME may not have died OF Covid”. They couldn’t bring themselves to say MOST instead of SOME but hey ho.

    A very small win against the spinsters of doom and liars at the BBC.

    Gradually the truth creeps out and the BBC take baby steps to try to save their lying hides!

       18 likes

  40. Guest Who says:

    There is what is.

    And then there is the BBC.

    Hard to despise them more.

       9 likes

  41. StewGreen says:

    Hull City Council “Yes Hull is a city of sanctuary ! asylum seekers Welcome”
    Government “OK, well take a second Hull hotel for asylum seekers”
    Hull City Council ‘Hull is being abused !’
    “Our status as a city of sanctuary is being abused by the Home Office”
    .. as reported on 3pm local news

    The council is arguing that the thousands of pounds coming to the city coming in through hotel jobs/services and asylum seekers spending is not enough
    It should have a special top up as well.
    As if asylum seekers are an extra burden compared to normal hotel guests.

    School place funding is done from central government, so such things are not an extra burden for a city council.

       9 likes

    • theisland says:

      Stew – so the Labour Council and three Labour MPs just want more money rather than less (or no) ‘asylum seekers’. What do the residents want?

         6 likes

  42. digg says:

    There is no doubt that the Government are shifting the “newcomers” to the North in the hope that Northerners are too thick to realise they are being shat on!

    Plus the “newcomers” will have all the assistance of the mosques and Islamic institutions now deeply embedded in the north that the government have turned a blind eye to and encouraged in northern towns,

    It is nothing less than an invasion, a Trojan horse that will eventually take its toll on all of British society.

    These people are aliens who hate our way of life and will eventually work hard to try to smash it.

    All I can say is, you elites, don’t think these people will not one day come for you too once they have achieved a critical mass!

       13 likes

  43. StewGreen says:

    Do Labour fire their own Covid rule breakers ?

    Name some they fired.

       12 likes

    • dafydd says:

      I remember Steven Kinnock MP (Labour) driving from London to South Wales to see his dad on his birthday, taking a birthday cake then driving all the way back after spending 3 hours with Neil Kinnock.

      This was at the same time as that knob Cummings, hardly a mention in the media. When he was eventually confronted he said it was an essential journey.

      Hypocrisy as usual from Labour

         14 likes

  44. tomo says:

    Which is the more chronic condition neurotic covid-o-phobia or TDS?

       2 likes

  45. taffman says:

    “Covid in Wales: Fans to return to stadiums as rules ease”

    It looks like Rugby got the better of Drakeford and his ‘COVID power control’.

       8 likes

    • harry142857 says:

      Would the six nations be starting in two weeks time? 😉

         3 likes

    • dafydd says:

      taffman….

      I’m delighted having spent a fortune on my tickets for all Wales home games..

      Drakeford had no choice, the public would have strung the idiot up..

      Whatever the Government did Drakeford would have done the opposite just to try and make political capital

         10 likes

  46. taffman says:

    “ Ukraine tension: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss urges Putin to step back”
    Could she take over from Bo Jo? My money is on her.

    She had better not touch Brexit other than get it completed.
    After all that’s why non Tories voted them in with their huge majority

       10 likes

  47. Zephir says:

    This is perhaps the most important perversion of the woke marxist liberal brigade for us to challenge, for the future of western society:

    unqualified “disinformation” idiots at the bbc are promoting the idea that scientists who do not toe the party line be cancelled, and this is in fact now happening regarding this virus

    So, we have kidult morons like Mariana Spring (BA in French and Russian) pontificating about the latest scientific research and theories.

    The kind of moron that would have been at the head of the queue to arrest Copernicus for daring to propose the Earth was not the centre of the solar system, or Charles Darwin etc:

    please see below for examples of those the bbc would have cancelled under Spring et al.

    does this sound eerily familiar ?

    “In February 1616, Copernicanism was banned, and Galileo was “to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it… to abandon completely… the opinion that the Sun stands still at the centre of the world and the Earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”

    “Lister: His ideas were condemned by the establishment, and the prestigious medical journal The Lancet even published warnings against Lister’s practices. ”

    5 Times People Thought a Science Idea Was Crackpot, And Were Proven Spectacularly Wrong

    Science has the power to change the world, but it’s not always an easy path to enlightenment. At many junctures throughout history, proponents of revolutionary ideas have come up against criticism and pushback from the establishment.

    Science is all about experimentation, trial, error, and evidence. It may have taken years, but each of the following five ideas, once considered preposterous or silly, has now been accepted as correct.

    Continental drift

    On 6 January 1912, 32-year-old German geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed an extraordinary idea. Based on his observations, Earth’s continents had once been a single landmass that had drifted apart.

    He noticed that the continents could be more or less fit together, like a puzzle; and that there were fossil plants and animals that spanned multiple continents. Besides, there were geological features that matched when the continents were put together, such as mountain ranges in America and Scotland, and rock strata in South Africa and Brazil.

    Oh, how the world howled! He was accused of having contracted “moving crust disease and wandering pole plague,” his work dismissed as “delirious ravings,” according to the Smithsonian. The idea was roundly scorned as geologists clung to the notion that the continents had been connected by land bridges, and the mountains created by a shrinking Earth.

    It wasn’t until the 1960s, when a new generation of scientists found evidence of seafloor spreading and tectonic plate movement. Wegener didn’t live to see it, having died tragically in 1930 – but now his basic idea is the accepted science, and we call his massive early continent Pangaea.

    Evolution

    When biologist Charles Darwin released his book On the Origin of the Species in 1859, the world exploded into an uproar. Darwin’s proposal seemed preposterous – that life had common ancestors, and that evolution was a process of slow change due to the passing down of heritable traits that adapted the species for survival.

    Darwin had done his homework – literally decades of careful observation and research – and his science was solid. Where he found most resistance was within the religious community, which had a hard time accepting that humans had an evolutionary origin, and were not simply plopped on Earth by a god.

    But religious institutions are powerful, so there was a period of ridicule and criticism before things settled down. By the 1870s, evolution was accepted as mainstream in scientific circles. Natural selection took a little longer, but now we can literally see it in action.

    Heliocentricity

    Although the theory of heliocentrism, that Earth goes around the Sun, (rather than the Sun orbiting Earth, or geocentrism) had been variously proposed throughout ancient history, in the Middle Ages much knowledge was lost.

    The concept reappeared with a bang when Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus put it forward in the first half of the 16th century. It was met with scholarly interest, but it wasn’t long before religious leaders such as Martin Luther and the Catholic Sacred Congregation began criticising the work.

    So it came to pass that most of the educated world continued to believe in geocentrism, until the cause was picked up by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century.

    Using observational evidence, he presented his case for what was then known as Copernicanism, which brought him to the attention of the Inquisition for his heretical views – according to the Bible, the world could not be moved.

    In February 1616, Copernicanism was banned, and Galileo was “to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it… to abandon completely… the opinion that the Sun stands still at the centre of the world and the Earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing.”

    It turned into a whole big rigmarole, especially when he inadvertently insulted the Pope. A book he had written in 1632 came under fire for implicitly endorsing heliocentrism, and he was called to stand trial. In 1633, Galileo was convicted of heresy and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It wasn’t until Isaac Newton came along with his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1697 that the issue was resolved.

    Of course, now we know that all those ancient scholars along with Copernicus and Galileo were correct. However, the Vatican didn’t apologise or pardon Galileo until 1992.

    Antiseptic

    Nowadays, a surgeon wouldn’t dare open up a patient without first making sure they’re as sterile and germ-free as possible. But it wasn’t always that way; and, in fact, surgery could be more dangerous than not, simply because of the risk of death from infection.

    The idea that the world was filled with tiny organisms we can’t see had been floating around for some years, but attempts to connect it to health interventions had not been particularly successful. Surgeon Joseph Lister spent many years applying the microbiological work of Louis Pasteur in a hospital setting to develop an antiseptic to reduce post-surgical mortality.

    His ideas were condemned by the establishment, and the prestigious medical journal The Lancet even published warnings against Lister’s practices. It was only after he was able to demonstrate, with hard evidence, that antiseptic technique worked, and to teach it to a generation of students unbiased by old ideas, that his research took hold.

    Reaching the stars

    If you have any interest at all in space exploration, you know the name Goddard. It appears in the name of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center research lab and Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The namesake of those institutions, Robert H. Goddard, is today hailed as a revolutionary who kickstarted the space race.

    But during his time, he was the butt of mockery. Why? Because he thought he could get a rocket into space. In 1920, a New York Times editorial excoriated him.

    “That Professor Goddard, with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution,” it read, “does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react – to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”

    Goddard was undeterred. Although he experienced failure after failure, he kept at it, and on 16 March 1926, he achieved the first successful flight with a liquid-propellant rocket. That historic flight achieved an altitude of 41 feet and only lasted 2 seconds – but he proved it could be done.

    On 17 July 1969 – three days before the first humans landed on the Moon – the New York Times retracted its editorial.

    As he once responded to a reporter, “every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realised, it becomes commonplace.”

    https://www.sciencealert.com/5-times-everyone-thought-science-was-crackpot-only-to-be-proven-spectacularly-wrong

       13 likes

    • JohnC says:

      It’s nothing less than left-wing fascism. Again.

      The people pushing it are low-IQ idiots who are convinced by group-think they are intellectually superior to those who disagree. It’s given them a confidence way beyond their ability.

      In my world of engineering, they are the most dangerous people of all. You need to have some self-doubt to question everything you do.

      The problem is that I don’t see a way to stop it other than some kind of revolution. They are going to gradually degrade Western society until it either triggers a revolt or it collapses completely and we are displaced by those laughing at our stupidity.

      I have a theory that all advanced civilisations are inevitably doomed to destroy themselves. We are witnessing how it happens. They forget the reasons they got so advanced in the first place.

         13 likes

      • theisland says:

        “You need to have some self-doubt to question everything you do.”
        Well said.

           8 likes

    • G.W.F. says:

      There is a problem with the claim that scientists who were later proven to be correct were mistreated at the time. Very often a new research programme does not have the power and evidence to support it, and so the scientists take short cuts, use propaganda. Galileo, for example, did not have an alternative theory of motion when he argued the case for Copernicanism. When Cardinal Bellamino of the Inquisition asked him to explain tidal motion Galileo took to thinking on his feet, arguing that the Earth tilted one way then the other so that the sea sloshed back and forward. Others supporting Galileo when asked to explain how there were four tides each day in some areas maintained that heat from the moon caused the sea to move like boiling water in a pan.

      Great pioneers performed blood transfusions which today save many lives, but their work was premature and they were put on trial for homicide when blood from a mild animal, a lamb, was given to patients suffering from violent mental disorders, who then died.

      Antiseptic. Remember Semmelweiss who was ridiculed for insisting that doctors wash their hands before examining patients. Well, he showed them. He had students plunge their hands into cancer ridden corpses and then without washing their hands delivered babies. Big success The women died proving that hand washing was a good thing.

      I could go on. But my point is that the pioneers of science do not usually start with sufficient evidence and we can expect a skeptical response.

      What we may be seeing with the virus is the political hegemony of scientists who lack sufficient evidence and coherent theory – backed by questionable computer modellers – establishing by means of censorship a research programme which needs a thorough examination.

         4 likes

  48. Guest Who says:

    The BME does mention Ukraine, but steers clear of the Sleepy Admin Kennedy Touch* in handling it.

    Meanwhile a true cause for BBC concern…

    Where have the French left-wingers gone?

    Pity the French left-winger as he or she contemplates the upcoming presidential elections.

    For the first time in living memory, there is not a single candidate from their camp among the front-runners ahead of the April vote.

    The highest-ranking leftist, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is in fifth place at about 9% in the polls, outperformed by a centrist President Emmanuel Macron, a conservative in Valérie Pécresse and two far-right wingers in Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour.

    As things stand, the chances of a left-wing candidate making it through to the second round – let alone winning the election like François Hollande in 2012 and François Mitterrand years before – look like a pipe dream.

    Read full analysis >

    Hugh Schofield
    BBC Paris correspondent

    ***
    Maybe they all joined the right, Hugh, given what is happening there?

    *sharing interns for stress relief. Don’t fancy the chances of any in Veep’s office if she goes full Bubba.

       4 likes

  49. Guest Who says:

    The Springster with this one strong is.

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Rob Burley found her email?

         2 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      JESS PHILLIPS (£80,000-A-YEAR) IMPLIES SHE CAN’T AFFORD A PRINTER
      https://order-order.com/2019/09/04/jess-phillips-80000-year-implies-cant-afford-printer/

      Jess Phillips stood up in the House of Commons yesterday to declare she doesn’t own a printer and has to visit her mother-in-law every time she wants to print something. Right…

      Philips charged the taxpayer £24,000 for her office costs last year. Is she seriously saying she couldn’t find a spare £20 for a printer? Perhaps she could have found it within her annual £80,000 MP salary, book royalties, or the up to £160,000 she paid her husband in staff expenses.

      Last year Philips claimed £4,090.97 in travel expenses. Guido wonders if that includes the mileage of driving to her mother in law’s every time she wants to print something…

         10 likes

  50. Guest Who says:

    And all the beauties passing on their instructions in lieu of reporting.

       8 likes