Academic Freedom

Scott Adams, American cartoonist and commenter on events with a particular view to persuasion and narrative dominance seems to agree. Transcript of key comments: I think I’ve been telling you for some time the obvious way that these protests/riots/looting episodes were going to go. There was only one way that these would go under the assumption that the police would not get more aggressive and that the local government would not let the federal government come in and take care of the violent stuff. There was going to be no adult supervision and that was intentional. The local leadership decided to not have any adult leadership during the protests/riots/looting. So it was obvious that the locals would end up arming Read More ›

In their July 28 seminar, the Frontline Doctors Group led by Dr Simone Gold, have put some plausible mechanisms for HCQ based cocktails on the table. These were noted on in an augmentation to an earlier post, but deserve headlining in their own right: Dr Frieden OP: >>I have found at Bit Chute, a July 28 Frontline Doctors seminar which describes several mechanisms of action. Accordingly, I take liberty to annotate a screenshot, summarising several mechanisms of action described by these Doctors [cf. here for their references], but which are hard to find because of now almost pervasive censorship: I add, that the above suggests a fairly similar viral attack process to the West Nile Virus (which is also an Read More ›

One of the key steps in dismissing evidence of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine-based cocktails in treating early stageCovid-19 for patients in vulnerable groups on an outpatient basis is the use of the premise that such evidence is of low quality as it does not match the “gold standard” of placebo-controlled, randomised tests (often. RCT’s). However, observations are observations, natural regularities are often observable from the first few trials, evidence is evidence, ethical and practical considerations are real, and valid scientific methods do not reduce to applied statistics. It is in that context that we should attend carefully to remarks by Dr Thomas Frieden, writing in NEJM 3 1/2 years ago, in terms that uncannily anticipate our current woes: Despite their strengths, Read More ›

As a FYI, we need to understand the pattern of such diseases, so courtesy Yandex Image search (Google did an obvious results suppression): This leads to the simplified U/L trajectory description. If a vulnerable patient catches, things tend to get worse over several days, potentially leading to a crisis from immunity system over-reaction and/or secondary infection (“complications”). That can lead to flat-lining, the L, death. But if one makes it through the trough, a recovery period extends the disease process, the U trajectory. BTW, to see the U/L, invert the black line that rises with severity on the chart. Shouldn’t a deterioration lead to sinking? U/D, HT Jerry and MedCram/Mina: Let’s look at a plot of viral load vs time Read More ›

Seminal Christian thinker, Francis Schaeffer, often said that “ideas have consequences.” The issue of course, is that good/bad ideas have similarly good/bad consequences. So, we face a familiar dilemma, especially when a culture or community or civilisation is on a dangerous path: This helps us to focus the issue: we are looking at alternatives in a community where balances of power tend to lock in business as usual and tend to marginalise alternatives. So, we will have to look at power structures, polarisation and prudence in decision-making at policy level. Which, as a fairly simple framework, raises the concept of seven “commanding heights” mountains/pillars of influence that uphold and in turn are protected by a dominant worldview and cultural agenda: Read More ›

The American Revolution was a catalyst that showed that a sustainable modern, representational, Constitutional Republic of significant “we the People” democratic character was feasible. It served as a beacon of hope for the world, nowhere better captured than in key words from the American Declaration of Independence, 244 years ago today: When . . . it becomes necessary for one people . . . to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident [cf Rom 1:18 Read More ›