Mailman,
Interesting times ahead to be sure. A montage of the last few years, from "let's get it done" to Sunak's sodden announcement, would make a good illustration for the word letdown.

tomo,
I've occasionally wished our representatives were chosen like juries instead of the ridiculous climbing the slippery pole capers of the parties, but I didn't know that it was called "sortition", or that it was used long ago in Athens. Now I do. Thanks.

What's the context of that tweet Ridley's responding to? You say it's in virus world, so I guess it's not the old climategate stuff.

Fauci story isn't very surprising. As I said in yesterday's lengthy harangue, better to catch him in the act rather than catch up with him later, but good if he gets his in the end.

On some other news, we are just over a month away from a Labour Government coming in to power and a sudden inability for anyone in Government to say what a woman is.

rhoda klapp,
I agree that it would be good to clear their locker of old scandals as distractions, and get onto the COVID stupidities now, not later. I also agree about the vaccines, and argued quite firmly here against the rush to develop them. It never made sense, and substantial harm from applying them universally seemed likely.

That was hardly a deep insight on my part and I'm sure some high-ranking health officials put that position and found it faced strong headwinds from the higher-ups. This was the underlying sin, the subsequent coverup is certainly wrong, but hardly surprising. I would prefer the system to be hardened against that first sin; cracking down on the coverup culture is missing the target.

One early 2000s (IIRC) TV documentary series that I cherish was Disaster. Each episode focussed on a particular disaster: the Piper-Alpha oil rig, the Severn Tunnel train crash, and so on. In most episodes they brought the whole thing down to one or two people making a key decision on which the tragedy hung.

In truth, I cherish the series mostly for this recurring theme. I only *really* remember one episode well: the Challenger space shuttle disaster. The "villain" in the piece was the lead engineer at Morton Thiokol (don't remember, but I'll call him Mike). He and the other engineers were concerned about the O-rings, and that their problems were related to temperature. Then we get to see the meeting where they have NASA on conference call, and Mike is the only engineer present. He raises the concern (the next day is going to be a not-too-common below-freezing morning in Florida), and the NASA people are not well pleased. The launch has already been delayed a couple of times, and a teacher in space is great PR — NASA funding may be threatened if it's one fizzer after another. The Thiokol bosses aren't happy either: it might mean their contract is terminated.

Then comes the scene where his boss is saying "Ok Mike, it's time to make a *management* decision. Take off your engineer's hat and make a *management* decisions. Are we good for launch?"

This is a point that was reached in nearly every episode of Disaster. The *wrong* choice was made, and disaster ensued. What the show never did, but I couldn't resist doing, was to look at the alterative reality where Mike said "No way". Mike won't be a hero. Nobody will know the disaster he averted. He will almost certainly be out of a job. NASA might terminate the contract, so all his colleagues will be looking for work too. His name will surely be mud. Very very understandable that he would kick it down the road in the hope that things will go ok with tomorrow's launch or, better still, *something*else* will cause a further postponement.

Anyhow, back to the point: the subsequent cover-up was insignificant in comparison to the initial stuff-up. I want to see efforts made to prevent the managerial interference in life-and-death decision making. Not that I have concrete suggestions but, *if* there was the will for it, I think the problems are no harder than the ones largely addressed in flight-deck rules in airliners. Who knows, maybe just a voice recorder and data recorder would make all the difference. I don't imagine politicians and bureaucrats would like the idea of their every word being live-fed to the internet, along with every "control input", but it might help them focus on their responsibilities.

Mailman,
Yeah, we got that here too. I think the ABC was taking its cues from the BBC. First reports I heard talked of a plunge of 6,000ft. Whatever that is, it's not turbulence, but I suspect it was a mistake by the reporters (I'm a little sceptical about the turbulence story too. Not a flight attendant leaning on a button again!)

There are plenty of things climate change can't do. It can't do anything good.

I dont know why I do this to myself but somehow I found myself watching the news on tv last night about the Singapore Airlines plane that ran in to turbulence on the way to Singapore from Heathrow. What particularly got my heckles up was a casual reference to how turbulence like this is becoming increasingly common due to....f99king wait for it..."CLIMATE CHANGE according to some scientists"!!!

Is there nothing climate change is not responsible for? Its like how everyone from early history was black and how everything tastes like chicken!!!

Robert,
Let's take covid vaccine harms as an example. You may believe the claims of caancer, organ damage, heart disease and death to be true but if you don't it still works. Many claims have been made right here on the internet. You might have seen nothing on it on the MSM. We had a sparsely attended debate in parliament, it went unreported. Some of the people who have spoken out have been cancelled, fired, investigated and generally vilified. What should happen is that the claims should be reported and investigated. Relevant government data should be released for all to see. Then we might know if there is a problem today, not in twenty years when all involved are gone. BUT if one can see the tactics of cover-up being employed right in front of us all, what are we to conclude? It's a cover-up. It's policy. There must be a real issue being covered up. To my way of thinking everyone involved in the cover-up, regardless of individual motives, is participating in a little bit of evil. It's going on right now and the folks who are supposed to tell us, the MSM, are being evil by staying silent on it. Lak of evil intent doesn't matter.

rhoda klapp,
It's certainly a worry that we might be being herded: when things are getting a little hot, bring up a past scandal as a distraction. But the past scandals are real enough and deserve to be addressed. The public are surely capable of seeing more than one thing at a time; it's the media who hold to one monomania until another comes along.

I don't think it's on the money to describe it as "policy". They don't *want* to be evil; the evil is emergent.

Joanne Nova has a nice turn of phrase now and then. In today's post on the Netherlands she captured the drab reality pretty nicely:

The Netherlands won’t have to pursue stronger environmental policies than the rest of the EU so their leaders can show off at cocktail parties and get jobs with the UN.

And when I consider that Jo Nova herself was in favour of COVID alarm, and worked hard to rationalise her irrational fears, theories of intrinsic evil give way to the more mundane problem of human failings.

Blood scandal? Post Office. Scandalous to be sure and shameful for the nationn. But historical for all except for compensation to pay.

What matters is what is happening right now in which similar mechanisms and institutions are misbehaving in the same way. Of course I refer primarily to Covid. The ongoing health issues caused by the vaccine (allegedly), the suppression of the mere thought that something might be wrong carried out by the MS|M, backed by OFCOM and big tech.

Also emerging in the Scottish branch of the covid enquiry is the treatment scandal, where heroic doses of midazolam were given to old folks who tested positive to kill them comfortably rather than try to help them get through the illness.

Do we really want to ignore this one for thirty years like the others? If we do, then it looks like that is not an unfortunate accident, a train of misunderstandings, but a POLICY.