I’m pro-vaccination, but…

Posted on 27/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

Another day, and another excellent article points to the signs of developing problems with the COVID vaccination programme. At the same time, statistician John Dee provides an alarming presentation of ONS data showing how (factoring in obvious things like the number of tests) the positivity rate of PCR tests has escalated since mass vaccination was rolled out, even as you’d expect it to wane:

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More on green single-use plastics

Posted on 25/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

It’s appalling exegesis, I realise, but I can’t get out of my head the idea that, at the moment, the “three unclean spirits like frogs” that come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet in Revelation would do for the three big lies of COVID, Identity Marxism and Climate Emergency. As a biblical interpretation it’s rubbish, of course, unless you can identify the three satanic figures of the end times as separate sources for these plagues. But you have to admit it’s a graphic illustration of the areas in which truth is most under pressure just now.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 1 Comment

Gambling with my life (with loaded dice)

Posted on 23/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’m at an interesting age. COVID’s lethality, when you’re 69, is beginning to be significant enough at around 1% to be worth considering, and that rate is beginning to increase rapidly into the 70s, which is also significant as the virus becomes endemic. And that’s why I and Mrs G made the calculus that the short terms risks of vaccination seemed low enough to get double-jabbed back in May.

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Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Ban single use plastics!

Posted on 22/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

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The price of slavery

Posted on 19/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

Re-reading Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative I paid too little attention to a passage in which the enslaved African is negotiating the price of his manumission in the late 1760s. I noticed the human interaction involved with his generally benevolent Quaker owner (which was what Equiano intended as an author), but glossed over the actual monetary values, simply because to my modern eyes they seemed small.

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What really happened AFTER Wuhan?

Posted on 17/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just finished Sharri Markson’s excellent and thorough book on the lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, whose reality I believe she establishes beyond reasonable doubt through testimonies from whistleblowers at the lab to Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State under the last US president, as well as through examining the science of SARS-CoV-2 itself.

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Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | 4 Comments

I’m not religious, but…

Posted on 15/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

It was interesting, and not totally surprising, to hear that Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and one-time candidate for the Anglican Primacy, has given up on the Church of England and defected to Rome. His reason, as you probably guessed, is the liberal wokeness of the present C of E, and the desire to be in a church which clearly teaches the faithful the apostolic doctrine rather than fashionable intersectionality and environmentalism.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Heavenly battles fought in England

Posted on 12/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

A reader has pointed me to the blog of another retired UK doctor, who evidently shares my conviction that the current unusually disordered state of the human world has an element of the demonic to it. In fact he expressed surprise that things have deteriorated less quickly than he predicted last year. Interestingly he attributes the present easing here to the role of Christians, as opposed, sadly, to the general response of denominations and church leaders both to COVID in particular, and the rise of what James Lindsay usefully labels “Identity Marxism” in general.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 5 Comments

Can’t get no worse

Posted on 05/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

This week has seen the Conservative Party Conference here, and there has been surprisingly little comment about the slogan on the wall that is intended, I suppose, to inspire farmers in the shires and the newly-won working class in the north to support Boris Johnson in these difficult times.

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Posted in Politics and sociology | 4 Comments

The social psychology of oppression

Posted on 04/10/2021 by Jon Garvey

Olaudah Equiano, the 18th century African slave whose autobiography became an important part of the anti-slavery movement, is in the news again. This is in part because of a “woke” introduction to a new edition of this book, and also because he was mentioned in the press as heavily featured in the National Maritime Museum’s Slavery gallery, which is to be “de-colonised,” initially in the form of notices in the gallery by the management saying how white supremacist the exhibit is.

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