Bureaucrats, Inertia and Desuetude

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Seneca III checks in with a report from the coronavirus-afflicted British Isles.

Bernardo Bellotto, 'Ruins of the Forum, Rome', 1743

Bureaucrats, Inertia and Desuetude

by Seneca III

“In human affairs there is no certain truth and all our knowledge is but a woven web of guesses.”

— Xenophanes

The inbred inertia of the pedantic British Civil Service, including its Medical Mandarins, is disheartening in the extreme. Their insistence that the use of hydroxychloroquine and zinc is forbidden until normal, peacetime, snail-paced regulatory testing has been carried out reminds me of the attitude of our senior officers at the outbreak of WWl.

They refused to accept — or simply did not understand — that the conduct of war had changed since their last outings in the Zulu and Boer wars, and that with the advent and widespread use of highly efficient, belt-fed, water cooled machine guns, cavalry charges or the slowly advancing thin red line of old were no longer a viable strategy.

In this case history is repeating itself, albeit in a different way in a different theatre of war. As in 1914 onwards it is the troops and the junior officers who lead them into battle and the people they are defending who will pay the price resultant from this institutionalized inertia and lack of critical thinking… thus this current demonstration of an innate inability to swift-footedly change standard practices as circumstances change; they seem to not understand that these are very dangerous times indeed.

Essentially, we are at the beginning of a different war and on a different front. Even if this particular treatment turns out not to work, little or nothing will be lost and the search for a viable form of counterattack will continue unabated.

There are times, and this is one, when career self-serving risk-aversion is dangerously counterproductive, so start field testing now. There will be no shortage of willing volunteers who have nothing to lose either way, and perhaps a life to gain.

— Seneca III, in sunny, quiet part of Middle England this 7th day of April in the Year Zero.

For links to previous essays by Seneca III, see the Seneca III Archives.

Everyone Has His Own Personal Border

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

François Lenglet is a French journalist who specializes in economic issues. In the following clip from a TV talk show, he discusses the absurdity of putting everyone in the country into quarantine while maintaining an open-borders policy.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

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Video transcript:

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Well, the Emperor’s Naked

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Many thanks to CrossWare for translating this op-ed from the Hungarian news site Vasarnap.hu:

Well, the emperor’s naked

by Francesca Rivafinoli
March 31, 2020

For the precise news consumer who hard-hacks other articles out of a flood of current infection rates, curfews, and opposition dictatorships, can find such things in the small print today:

The migrants who wanted to enter the EU are turning back from the Turkish-Greek border.

The Polish nurses illegally working abroad are going home.

The European Parliament is limiting its functions to those that are essential.

Some quite serious axioms are failing here, let’s face it.

Here, for example, the European Parliament, which up until now has presented the world every month with sweeping resolutions on cardinal issues such as ‘the situation of LGBTQ people in Uganda’, and threatened to frown on anyone who does not fully comply (even in faraway Oceania) or meet the expectations of the LIBE Committee [European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs] in Brussels. We look now at the agendas that focus on “fundamental” issues curtailed because of COVID-19, and what we see is that all human rights issues have been deleted without a second thought.

From a logical point of view, issues such as ‘equality for women in Vanuatu’ or even ‘intersectional disadvantages for the mesquite LGBTQ community in the Falkland Islands’ are now no longer ‘fundamental’ problems for the European Union. We understand that, too.

Then there is the home of Martin Schulz and Manfred Weber, the superlative Germany, who teach us about European values at all times, and it turns out that they have about 270,000 Polish nurses, 90% of their total guest workers doing their job totally illegally, as is fully known by the authorities. And now, as these women go home to their families, the voice of panic can be heard on the German public television channel about those evil Poles, who left hundreds of thousands of poor elderly Germans without provision. Because these Poles are “not in solidarity”, unlike us Germans, who are full of European values, in solidarity, and who allow them to for care and push our helpless elders illegally, without any registration, and for all this, we pay as little as we can to suck them away from the health systems of countries to the east.

Which arrogance has already broken the barrier with German commentators, who even raise the unorthodox question of whether they should instead stand on their own, rely on domestic, national resources, rather than on the import of shoddy cheap labor. “Guten Morgen”, one could say.

And as if that was not enough of a slap in the face, the pandemic landed another punch on European progressivism where it hurts the most: the mantra that migrants cannot be kept outside the borders of the EU, and masses would lose their lives in the Mediterranean Sea if there were no NGO ships cruising there. For wonders, a single closed border and a sufficient number of Greek border police smoothly dissuaded migrants who desired to land in Europe. And at sea, rescue is in order, although the Ocean Viking hangs around in the Marseilles harbor — the rest of the ships are not abandoning the people, but they are all being taken back to the Libyan coast.

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Covid in a Time of Turmoil, Part Two

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Below is Seneca III’s wrap-up of his two-part essay (part 1 is here) on the coronavirus crisis in the UK, with a particular focus on Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“The rules of the world-historical game change from decade to decade, and the dogmas that we have now will probably become obsolete.”

— Freeman Dyson Mathematical Physicist, Polymath and Philosopher, 15 December 1923 — 28 February 2020, a sad loss to humanity even after such a great run.

Covid in a Time of Turmoil

Part II. Covid 19 as an inorganic socio-political enzyme.

by Seneca III

1.		A virus is made up of a core of genetic material, either RNA or DNA, surrounded by a protective coat called a capsid which is made up of protein. Sometimes the capsid is surrounded by an additional spikey coat called the envelope (see above). Viruses are capable of latching onto host cells and invading them.
2.		An enzyme is a substance that acts as a catalyst in living organisms, regulating the rate at which chemical reactions proceed without itself being altered in the process.

Later, for the purpose of this analysis, let us change ‘chemical reactions’ to ‘human interactions’ but first, in a very simple way, let us look at how the enzyme, furin, enables and accelerates the penetration of a living cell by a virus, followed by a short description of how mutations occur, and then a look at vectors.

First, enzymes. Enzymes have a region known as an ‘active site’ that binds to a protein or other substance during a reaction. The envelope proteins (capsids) of viruses such as HIV, influenza, dengue fever, several filoviruses including Ebola and Marburg virus, and possibly SARS-CoV 2 must be cleaved by furin or furin-like proteases to become fully functional. The human enzyme furin is encoded by our chromosome No. 15, band 15q26.1.

Some proteins are inactive when they are first synthesized and must have sections removed in order to become active. Furin cleaves these sections and activates the proteins. Furin is also known as PACE (Paired basic Amino acid Cleaving Enzyme. (Note: see mutations!)

Second, once the virus has penetrated the cell wall, aided and abetted by furin, it injects its own short-string RNA (ribonucleic acid) or DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) into the cell and supplants the cell’s own reproductive function, replacing it with its own and then reproducing itself using the resources of the original cell, thus rendering that cell dead and depriving the infected body of a part of its essential functionality.

Vector is the word used to describe the way in which infections travel (are transmitted) between living organisms. For example, the vector for Yersinia pestis, the Black Death bacterial strain, was the fleas that lived on rats and transmitted that strain to humans by biting them. The vector for malaria is the anopheles mosquito which carries and injects infected blood containing the plasmodium that causes malaria. The vectors for Covid can be personal contact, contact with surfaces with the virus still alive on them, viruses travelling in airborne aerosols from coughing and sneezing, and also from infected faeces. This is why cleanliness in all respects and social distancing reduces or precludes the chance of cross-infection.

Note: The shorter the genetic string of a micro-organism, the harder it is to kill. The converse is why we as human beings with our huge genome are so vulnerable to micro-organisms such as viruses. The human genome has over 3 billion base pairs and is organized into 22 paired chromosomes, termed autosomes, plus the 23rd pair of sex chromosomes, (XX) in the female and (XY) in the male. These large linear DNA molecules contained within the living cell nucleus are open to a variety of attack vectors and what they carry, and the latter can now be bio-engineered via the use of rRNA (recombinant RNA) techniques and other methods… none of which were invented by bats or pangolins!

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Sir Robert Peel Must be Rolling in His Grave

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Our English correspondent Seneca III weighs in on the current UK police state under the ChiCom virus regime.

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

— George Washington

Sir Robert Peel Must be Rolling in His Grave

by Seneca III

Things have come to a sorry pass in this once green and pleasant land. As I look around subsumed by dismay and morbid fascination, I have been forced to come to some appalling conclusions:

A society in which you are investigated for your thinking when you openly question whether men can “be” women is a Sick Society.
A society in which you are arrested for detaining a man who molests your daughter in public is a Dhimmi State.
A society in which tens of thousands of organised sexual crimes against children go knowingly unpunished to avoid the terrible charge of racism is a Conquered State.
A society in which it is bigoted to object to having ageing men dressed as women “twerk” to pre-school children in a public library is a Deviant Society.
A society in which basic observations of reality are forbidden by the use of magic words — “racism” “-phobia” — is a Silenced State.
A society in which you can be ruined for speaking the truth out loud is a Police State.
A society in which the shameful and disgusting are celebrated as virtues is a Failed State.
A society which has replaced the national home with the borderless market of everywhere is a Globalist State.
A society in which an invented grievance is a good career move is a Doomed State.
A society that penalises the talented and the bright in the name of “diversity” is a Suicidal State.

It is no surprise then that UK cops have been knuckling down clearing the streets and public places when there is no necessity to do so under even the latest Covid rules, and even when people were complying with them. They have actually gone to the length of poisoning scenic lakes so that people will not endanger the new status quo by travelling to look at them and enjoy the scenery and the fresh, healthy air.

This is no surprise, really, as it is axiomatic that the more power given to any police, the more they will abuse it. That is a law of nature, has ever been thus, and is one which in this particular case is exacerbated by three factors. The first is that their officer class is, on the whole, populated by graduate Common Purpose drones and ambitious box-tickers who appear to have nothing but contempt for Peelian principles. I doubt if they’re even taught anymore at Bramshill* (or whatever they’ve restructured and renamed it in the name of PC progress since 2015).

The second is that the collective IQ of the beat constabulary is now not, shall we say, particularly high for reasons iterated below, and thus thinking things through pragmatically in the light of observed reality is not really their forte. This leads them to function as a type of pre-programmed automata in accordance with the vague instructions given to them in their last briefing from the drones and box-tickers who have even less of a clue about what is happening in the real world.

The third and final — and the one with perhaps the most detrimental effect on the front line — is the introduction of ‘Affirmative Action’ over the last few decades and the consequent lowering of physical and mental entry qualifications in order to meet politically mandated quotas, many of such recruits having ideological motivations not in keeping with those of the majority population they exercise power over.

These powers are not something they or the government will willingly give up, and it is not out of the question that come the day — in approximately six months by my reckoning when they should do so by self-relinquishing these powers through the ‘Sunset Clause’ recently appended to the enabling legislation — they may not, but extend instead.

Consequently, for the time being, when being questioned or having your thoughts corrected, being fined or arrested, just smile sweetly, be polite and always use English with as many three or more syllable words as you can muster. There is little else you can or should do until the moment of truth re the Sunset Clause — and if it is extended, then…

Basic Rules for Guerrilla Warfare

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You’re Doing it Wrong!

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Our Hungarian correspondent CrossWare sends this report on the ankle-biting of the Hungarian Left in these virus-crazy times:

Here in Hungary, the opposition (Uncle George Soros’ paid team) is in a hysterical frenzy trying to find some way to block or at least criticize Viktor Orbán and his handling of the Chinese virus crisis. So far they have not been able to find anything. They tried the good old solution of calling his government “Nazi”, for asking for more power to execute emergency tasks. They simply compared his actions to Hitler’s rise to power, or called it a coup. Of course sounds a bit weak, saying the PM is preparing a coup against his own government, which holds a super-majority, to what? Replace himself and be PM with super-majority…?

This stupidity caused even some of the Leftists to start thinking, and the opposition dropped in the polls, while Fidesz (Mr. Orbán’s party) became a bit stronger.

Obviously the opposition in the USA and in Hungary (and everywhere else) are working from the same script when it comes to criticizing the (right-wing) government steps against the coronavirus outbreak. Nothing is good enough for them; everything the government is doing is wrong, blah blah blah. The “people of the Internet” of course immediately created a short meme about this, which I would like to share with you.

The “it” that they want to close down or open up refers to the borders, the economy, the schools, businesses… — you name it; everything.

Here is an image of the meme, with a translation to follow:

So the opposition suggests: (in USA those are the DemocRATs; here in Hungary the paid lackeys of Uncle George):

1. Close it up.

2. Close it up, but not that way.

3. Close it up, but leave it open.

4. Open it up, because it was closed incorrectly; screwed it up; start again.

5. Why the heck was it closed up; open it up immediately!

6. Open it up, but not that way.

7. Open it up, but definitely keep it closed, because teachers are people, too.

8. Do not waste time with teachers, but do not collapse the economy.

9. Close it up, because he failed; it would be best if he immediately steps down, so it can be opened up.

So there you have the Left’s whining points, applicable everywhere in the world, wherever a right-wing government is in power.

Praying Muslims Defy the Coronavirus in Bangladesh

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Nothing stops salat (Islamic prayer), not even the ChiCom virus. The following video shows more than 10,000 Muslims at prayer in Bangladesh. They know the coronavirus cannot harm them unless Allah wills it.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video link

Video transcript:

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Religion vs Religion

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

In his latest essay, our Israeli correspondent MC wades into the deepest swamps of the Culture Wars.

Religion vs Religion

by MC

Perhaps my love of America and all things American has its roots in the regular supply of US comics sent to my brother and me by various relatives in the ’50s and ’60s, and amongst which was the occasional edition of MAD magazine.

Much of MAD was over my young head, but Spy vs Spy was always amusing and sticks in my mind, especially their pointed snouts clamped together when investigating a box (trap) from opposite sides.

However, Religion vs (political) Religion is not so amusing, nor is it confined to ink and paper, for the successful side of Western culture is defined by its (Christian) religion, and its demise is defined by the political religions which seek to destroy Christianity and all that goes with it.

The Christian revolution (I am not a Christian but I believe in the Bible) occurred when the Bible was translated into local languages and printed for all to read, and the Church was dragged out of its roots of feudalism (slavery) into what became democracy and even republicanism.

An important part of this process was the separation of Church and State; the Church having been responsible for many abuses that had held the communities of Europe in thrall for over a thousand years.

The feudal system over which the Church held suzerainty was a typical product of tyranny: a small elite, the aristocracy, owning most of the people as serfs, to do with as they please, and a tiny middle class of tradesmen to manufacture those things consumed by their betters. This was just a slight variation on the ‘warlord’ culture that has run most of the world from time immemorial and to this day in some places.

In the UK the feudal system was broken first by the Black Death, which killed off some 30% of the workforce. The subsequent competition for labour destroyed the idea of ‘ownership’ of people. Secondly, and as a consequence of this pandemic, a growing equality of opportunity was provided by increasing access to quality education. Ex-slaves and serfs used their newfound freedom to better themselves.

Under the feudal system, the church provided education and the higher-IQ peasant children were syphoned off into the cloisters. To a great extent this provided the stability required as potential peasant leaders were ‘kidnapped’ into religion (Janissaries, anybody?). Heresy invited a death penalty and life was cheap. In feudal times the Church was very much a political religion, and the Pope reigned over all the monarchs of Europe.

All this emerging freedom from under the tyranny of political religion, however, took hundreds of years to get to the idea of individual liberty. The cultural and economic impacts were minimised by being spread over such a genteel timescale. My paternal grandfather was a boy coalminer at age 12, but his sons went to grammar schools, receiving a quality education, and his youngest son even got a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

But do not think that the ‘elites’ did not fight back. Their main ploy was to create another politicized version of the feudal system that the church had failed to sustain. This took the form of ‘socialism’ where the elite claimed to be working in the best interests of the ‘working class’ by controlling all aspects of their lives. This was yet another political religion, of which we have now seen quite a few forms. Each causes its own mayhem, because there is no separation between political religion and state, and thus there is nothing to stop the killing when it inevitably starts.

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A Member of the Bundestag Calls for a Law Guaranteeing Funding for Antifa

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

I’ve often said that violent Antifa groups in various European countries have at least the tacit support of the governments in those countries. Well, now it’s official, at least in Germany: the support is public and out there in the open. And not only that, we now know that the German government has actually been funding these Antifa groups for years. This fact was mentioned in passing on the floor of the Bundestag by a member of the Green Party who was calling for a new law to guarantee funding for the Antifas.

The following video is a report by a German vlogger whose channel is called “Home Team”. Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

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Video transcript:

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Jimmie Åkesson: We Must Make Sure It Isn’t 2015 All Over Again

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

Jimmie Åkesson is the leader of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna). As reported here a couple of days ago, he recently visited the Turkish side of the border between Greece and Turkey to hand out leaflets to migrants telling them that Sweden is full, and that they should not try to go there.

The video below is an audio-only interview with Mr. Åkesson. Many thanks to Kronans Martell (Ullis News) for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

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A Few Bricks Shy of a Load

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

The following video features Alexander Gauland, the co-leader of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). Mr. Gauland’s remarks were made in the Bundestag last year, but they’re still relevant (and amusing).

The German idiom “a few shingles loose” is roughly equivalent to “a few screws loose” in English.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

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Video transcript:

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Solders of Allah

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Baron Bodissey

I find myself at a loss for words concerning this news story from Modern Multicultural Sweden. I can’t even think of something flip to say — and you all know how unusual that is for me.

Many thanks to LN for translating this article from Nyheter Idag:

Boys are circumcised with a soldering gun — “Doctor” is prosecuted

“Doctor’s” tool. Photo: Police

March 12, 2020

GÄVLE / SÖDERHAMN — A man in his 30s is now being prosecuted for having circumcised nine boys in Gävle and Söderhamn — without anesthetic and with a soldering gun as a tool. So reports Helahälsingland.

The man charged is said to have received nine months of medical training in Syria, and has had no such training in Sweden. The reason he used a soldering gun during the operations, he explains, is that it “has so much heat that all possible bacteria die”.

The man himself thinks he is good at performing circumcisions, but does not have the permits required to do so in Sweden.

According to the prosecution, he circumcised nine boys, seven of whom have had complications that in some cases may need to be corrected with surgical procedures.

The parents paid for the operation with Swish and were under the delusion that it was all legal and safe. They unanimously stated that the person who organized the circumcisions was in charge of the now-closed Muslim preschool Bilaal in Söderhamn, and that the man was perceived as reliable.

According to the parents, this man must have been active in the operations and held the children. He himself says that he only participated as an interpreter. He is not suspected of any crime.

“He did not know that this person did not have a permit, therefore it is not possible to prove that the suspect had the intent required for the procedure to be criminal,” the prosecutor Micael Dahlberg told Helahälsingland.

The “doctor” is charged with assault, causing grievous bodily harm, and violation of the law on circumcision of boys.