Lady Colin Campbell's New Book

The new book out about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle looks to be something of a page turner. You can buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meghan-Harry-Lady-Colin-Campbell/dp/1916131719

A review of the book said this: "Meghan and Harry will end up as a tragedy...or the greatest success story of our time."

Facebook Boycott

I don't belong to Facebook, haven't got the time. But this boycott craze that's kicked off is a double edged sword. Some companies jumping on the bandwagon are known to resent Facebook, they're likely trying to bring them down to size. This could have the effect of reducing business sales,  and therefore employment numbers across a range of sectors. This can't be good as we're in the middle of a Depression.

Then we have Woke and Joke, aka Harry and Meghan Markle, aka the Harkles, jumping on the back of the truck for a ride. They missed out on that whole BLM thing, so this will do I suppose. Yes, I have a jaundiced eye when it comes to that pair of entitled twits.

My message; be careful what you wish for. No doubt you can find some pretty nasty stuff on Facebook, but it could come in handy when you really need to get the word out. If Facebook is compromised, then you may find your hard fought freedoms impacted unduly and that'd be worse than wading through conspiracy theories.

COVID-19 - The World Economy After Lockdown

The Hustle of the Harkle Hoaxers

Found this website, called Harry Markle, it contains a useful timeline of what has happened to date in the ongoing shambles that is Megxit. 

https://harrymarkle.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/the-hustle-of-the-harkle-hoaxers/

What emerges is a clear pattern that everything was planned beforehand. Interesting.

Prince Harry Back in the UK?

Word coming in is that Harry has been sighted arriving back in the UK. He is said to have taken a private jet and was picked up at the airport in a car with blacked out windows. I wonder, is this the beginning of the end of Woke and Joke?

It could be visa issues, he may have to leave the US before applying for a spousal visa. Or they're getting a divorce. If the latter then this is exactly the timeline I've outlined. Meghan Markle has to move Harry out and be up and running again in Hollywood before she turns 40. After that date she's over the hill in Hollywood, so she has to get a deal or some major endorsements of cosmetic labels and the like before then. Harry would just be in the way. Crudely put, she can't be constantly worried about what the Royals think of things.

Two predictions: Meghan Markle will never set foot in the UK again, and if Harry is back in the UK, his friends and family will go to work to turn him off his wife and it'll be over anyway, even if she hasn't thrown him out. Oh and watch the narrative, Meghan will frame everything so she's the victim, Harry just had too many issues. You know how it works.

WWII: Pearl Harbor Civilian Pilots

A little history note, if you've ever seen the 1970 movie Tora Tora Tora, about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, then you may recall the scene early in the movie where a female flight instructor is teaching a male student how to fly in her trainer biplane, when what do you know, but Japanese warplanes heading in to attack fly right past them. The instructor takes control and dives the plane out of the way. Most of the scenes in the movie are based on fact, this scene is pretty accurate. There were actually two women flying that day, they and other civilian aircraft were attacked, you can read about it here:

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/december/07/civilian-pilots-under-fire-at-pearl-harbor

Australia Under Cyber Attack

We all know this is China attacking Australia, Australia are too polite to say it. Thing is, 60% of China's iron ore comes from Australia so it's about time Australia cut them off. Team up with India and give China a lesson in diplomacy. Oh and cancel the lease on the Port of Darwin that China holds while they're at it. Things are definitely heating up.

Biggest Ever Social Experiment

Funny, I was having a discussion with someone over the weekend, and she asked me; was the global response to COVID-19 the biggest ever social experiment?

I was a little surprised to hear someone put it like that, although I had certainly thought so privately. I paused and replied, yes, it is the biggest ever social experiment. It's the only explanation available I'm afraid.

And what do we now see? Riots, some industries wiped out (airlines), massive unemployment, you name it. No doubt this will be replaced by regime change. Either the world has gone mad, which is very likely, or someone very clever and scheming cooked the whole scenario up, which is unlikely as people are never that clever. But who knows, all I do know is a lot of people are much poorer in 2020 than they were in 2019.

J.K. Rowling Essay

People interested in reading the essay by J.K. Rowling on gender issues can read it here: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

If I was marking this essay I'd probably give it an A-. She loses me when bringing her own experiences of domestic violence into the debate. I don't exactly see how this fits. As an aside, I've only read her first book and did form the impression then that she'd been the victim of abuse. I can't point to any one piece of that work, it's just an overarching feeling that emerges.

Where I think her argument stands up well is her addressing issues around privacy. There are real concerns that any man can now instantly claim status as a woman and turn up in a swimming pool changing shed amongst the girls, or anywhere they like really. Often laws that are now proposed entrench that new right. And what of girls? Do they have no say in any of this, or their parents?

While her essay is a thoughtful work, I'd like to have seen more argument around these gender and sex issues, rather than an account of her own life experiences. Otherwise, a good effort. Note, I'm not saying I agree with her in everything she's saying, just assessing her ability to say it and her absolute right to do so.

Brazil Stops Reporting COVID19 Numbers

Brazil is no longer reporting COVID19 numbers according to news media. It makes sense, there is no need to whip up hysteria. While the virus is serious, it turns out to not be anywhere near as lethal as was first thought. Countries don't give daily press briefings about influenza and nor should they COVID19. If every death or serious illness led the news cycle, there would be panic.

And why the reporting of raw numbers of those infected and those that have died? As a proportion of world population the numbers are actually quite small. When looked at as a raw number the number of deaths look scary. But as a proportion of the world population, the numbers would look inconsequential.

Fred Reed's Warning from 2002

Found this on the internet, please read. It sounds like the world we live in now, especially after the COVID-19 panic:

https://truebluenz.com/2020/06/01/warning-from-2002-doing-the-dc-bob/

In Washington, it’s everywhere, like God and mendacity: The DC Bob. As people talk, in fern bars, in eateries, on the sidewalk, an incorrect thought occurs, something that might upset Them. You know who They are: The racial, sexual, religious, and political groups that One Doesn’t Offend, the ideas and policies one mustn’t mention, the simple observations of fact that one may not make. We all know where trouble lies. And we are careful.

The incipient malefactor leans forward. He’s getting closer to his hearers to avoid eavesdroppers. Next he drops his chin and looks furtively over each shoulder in turn to see who might be listening. This is the DC Bob. It is routine. People don’t even notice that they are doing it.

The heretic whispers, “I’m sick of affirmative-action hires. We can’t get anything done in my office.”

The DC Bob. You have to watch what you say in America.

A while back I attended a party of people in government. I didn’t know them. They knew me indirectly from this column. We clutched Heinekens in the kitchen and chewed cheesy stuff on crackers. Pretending we weren’t, we felt each other out to be sure none of us was with the thought police (another ritual in Washington). The conversation came around to the deterioration of American society. The subject is common. In fact, it is close to inevitable.

One fellow finally said approximately, “I don’t get it. We all know what’s going on. Why can’t we even talk about it? This isn’t the Soviet Union.”

Ah, but, yes, actually, it is the Soviet Union. When people have to look over their shoulders before speaking in public places, when they are afraid to utter reasonable criticism of very questionable governmental policies, we’ve reached the suburbs of Moscow. I’m not trying to be cute about this. Ours is very much the same system of social control, but without the truncheons. It’s cleverly done, so that we have no way of revolting and nothing really to revolt against.

Yes, the penalties for political transgression are here lighter than in the USSR, but methods vary little. If you criticized Stalin, you got a bullet in the nape of the neck. Rubber hoses served their soothing purpose, and there were the Gulag and psychiatric committal. We don’t do these things here.

They aren’t necessary. To enforce conformity, the threat need not be extreme, merely adequate. Here, if you say the wrong thing, you lose your job. The years toward retirement vanish. The press savages you. You don’t get tenure or, if you have it, you are shunned by the rest of the faculty, including those who secretly agree with you but are afraid of the same treatment. This is enough. We don’t need thumbscrews.

Intimidation depends not just on penalties but upon the certainty, or near certainty, of their application. In the Soviet Union, people knew they would lose if they transgressed. They couldn’t run. The police were faster. They couldn’t hide. The police would find them. They couldn’t even die gloriously to make a statement. The government wouldn’t broadcast it. Hopelessness breeds passivity. People may rebel against long odds. They seldom rebel when they can accomplish nothing.

The same is true here. We can’t win, though the penalties are not grisly, and do not always come from the formal government. If we take the wrong position on the wrong subject, the federal EEO apparatus will crush us. The feds know they can and drag a case out for a decade spend us into submission. Institutions, companies, universities — will force us to apologize and publicly humiliate us. If we go to another university, apply for another job, the word will have gotten around and we won’t be hired.

The fewer the people you can trust, the greater the intimidation. In the Soviet Union, children were encouraged to rat out their parents. Under Stalin, it could be fatal. Things aren’t so bad here. Our kids are only occasionally asked to inform. (“Do your parents have guns?”) But in school, children are steeped unendingly in Appropriate Thought. In communist countries, it was more openly done, being honestly called Marxism-Leninism or Mao Tse Dung Thought. In our schools it’s packaged as immanent self-evident Goodness. The effect is to erect a police wall between parents and children.

Do I exaggerate? Try telling your kid that Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman (whoever she was) were perhaps not the central achievement of Western Civilization, that there is an astronomical lopsidedness by race in commission of crime, or that universal illegitimacy may involve both immorality and irresponsibility. The tad will likely be horrified that you are such a racist. Don’t teachers and the telescreen say so?

And so many parents speak carefully at home, checking to see that the children aren’t listening. As in the Soviet Union, indoctrination is the unspoken purpose of schooling.

Here, as in the USSR, the press — in particular the ever-whispering screen, half-ignored, babbling like a brook, slowly depositing assumptions, views, unnoticed beliefs — is the key to social control. Russians knew they were being lied to, but they didn’t know how much. Our telescreens lie more subtly, and thus more effectively. The principle is that if people absorb one lie in two, tell them three. Soon they will believe, enough. That is all it takes.

American journalism isn’t as controlled as that of the Soviet Union, but it is controlled enough. In the media the punishment for deviationist thought is swift and sure. We in the trade know exactly what we can and cannot say. Criticize the wrong things and you will lose your job and be, for practical purposes, blacklisted.

Many journalists of course know what is going on, assuredly including editors of major publications. But, being intimidated, they intimidate. Thus what we know we don’t write, and what we write we don’t believe. Editorialists and columnists argue pointlessly within understood constraints, like ping-pong balls bouncing between two walls. The walls are there. One doesn’t step beyond.

Yet there is more to it. Editors do not control the content of publications. Advertisers do, advertisers and the owners. If you buy important amounts of advertising, you have veto power.

Sometimes the influence is quietly explicit. A major upper-middle-brow magazine once assigned me a story that might have involved criticism of defense contractors. The editor asked me to go easy on McDonnell-Douglas because it advertised. This is not uncommon. But usually writers just know what They don’t want. And they don’t write it. They are afraid.

Looking over our shoulders, dealing cautiously with strangers, doing the DC Bob.

World War III

Get ready, WWIII is coming soon. This time billions will die through war itself and through starvation. How do I come to this conclusion? Because of the riots happening right now in the USA. Yes, the police officer killing of George Floyd was a terrible event, but feeding into the narrative is the COVID-19 panic and the subsequent lockdowns and house arrest of law abiding citizens.

Initially, China scored a huge victory with its spreading of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Whether the virus emerged naturally or it was manufactured in a laboratory is irrelevant as what we are now learning is that China and its vassal the WHO, spread the virus to the rest of the World. 

The measures taken to control the spread of the virus are having a catastrophic effect on communities; the supply chain in many countries is now broken, crops will rot in the fields as people in cities starve. Food riots have already begun and things hang by a thread. The thin blue line is looking very thin, as when things kick off there is no police force that can stop it. Hence the current riots. Buildings burn and nothing can be done about it. Yes, there is outrage at the killing of George Floyd but underlying that is outrage at the loss of jobs, businesses and lack of income to buy food.

The USA and the rest of the World are not going to forget this. China is in deep trouble. Regime change is called for and I'm picking China to be smashed achieving it. 

Kylie Jenner Rich But No Billionaire

Oh dear, busted. Turns out Kylie Jenner is not worth as much as she and her family have claimed. Kylie Cosmetics does not have the sales touted for so many years. Read Forbes on the subject:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2020/05/29/inside-kylie-jennerss-web-of-lies-and-why-shes-no-longer-a-billionaire/#2808dd6825f7

Things Will Get Worse

I've been a prophet of doom the last few years, but finally my prediction is coming true. Don't go buying stocks right now as things will get worse before they get better. The latest stocks to avoid are the financials; banks in other words. With people out of work, they're going to want to access their money yet they don't have income to replace those savings with. This is going to be challenging for banks and I predict a few failures. The big ones will be bailed out, but small institutions will disappear or be gobbled up.

This hysteria over COVID-19 is massive theft of Millennial and Gen-Z inheritance. The epidemic could have been handled better that's for sure. Watch out, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Peter Hitchens Conversations 2018

Peter Hitchens before the COVID-19 panic, seemed to predict what would happen.

Harry and Meghan on Beverly Ridge

It has been reported that Harry and Meghan Markle are holed up in Tyler Perry's house on Beverly Ridge in Los Angeles. Since the trails near the home have reopened, screens have been erected to prevent walkers from seeing into the property, see the below photo:

Source: Daily Mail, image in the public domain and is reproduced here by direct link

It did occur to me; are they really there? The videos they've presented show the pair may be living in much more humble surroundings. I wonder if this address is the future site of a reality TV show involving the Markles. The screens, to prevent rival cameras recording what goes on. What do you think?

And one other observation, people may have seen a different Harry on one of those videos. This was a Harry with different colour hair. It wasn't a body double as some have suggested, no, I think this was Harry dying his hair in an attempt to be able to move around LA without being detected. My guess is such attempts would be unsuccessful; he'd be ignored if they did recognise him as royals in that part of the world aren't real celebrities.

Stuff For Sale

The New Zealand media company, Stuff is for sale. It's a silly name and an even sillier company. Their main rival, NZME has offered $1 for it. I'll go $10, don't say I'm a skinflint. What do you say eh? C'mon Stuff owners, give me a call.

Why is Stuff going bust I hear you ask. People like to say it's because of technology, the age of television and the internet. While Stuff does have a busy website, they rely heavily on newspapers. Yes, that's part of the story, but their failure has to do with other factors as well; a lack of professionalism, no local news, lack of analysis, and a tendency to fawn and suffocate over who happens to be in power at the time. Stuff has become a sycophantic weasel and no-one trusts them. I don't blame the readers shunning them and these days never buy their newspapers myself.

COVID-19: You Are Here

Have you seen the below Venn diagram?

We've arrived, but I think what we're experiencing is closer to Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. We now have everyone equal but some are more equal than others, a world where the police chase people off beaches and out of parks rather than fight crime. Then finally all is not as it seems, the WHO is really the Chinese Agency for Spreading Epidemics (rename WHO to CASE). The United Nations exists to promote undemocratic rule by whatever means.

Planet of the Humans

An interesting watch this, reveals how full of it many Green claims are, and how corporate Green interests are taking over. At the 49 minute mark the documentary addresses issues I raised in Snob's Guide to New Zealand; that Green is a kind of new religion.

COVID-19: US Response Heating Up

Latest news is that Donald Trump is once again saying the USA is looking closely at China's actions regarding COVID-19 and the spread of the virus. Remember the WHO and others saying no way was the virus man-made? But now, whether the virus originated in a laboratory or not is being examined. Expect this matter to start heating up very fast. One thing is certain, you hit the US economy hard, they hit back hard.