It was not my intention to run for election to the Scottish parliament from a hospital bed in Caracas, but sometimes we have to take what life gives us.
I went to a clinic a week ago feeling dizzy and was immediately rushed to hospital. My heart rate was fluttering and below 20 bpm. I have since had an emergency procedure to fit a pacemaker.
Long-term followers of this blog (and readers of Murder in Samarkand or The Catholic Orangemen of Togo) know that I am dogged by long-term heart problems which I have to work through. I try to avoid hospitals because such is the apparent seriousness of my condition it is very hard to get out of them again.
In 2005 I was given three years to live with pulmonary hypertension, but I am still here and still fighting for good causes. Now with electronic enhancement.
I can’t however type much as both my hands look like this.
I am not withdrawing from the election, as I believe it is essential to give voters in Edinburgh Central the opportunity to vote for someone genuinely committed to Scottish Independence and who intends to do something about it.
You cannot believe both that Scotland is a nation with the right of self-determination and that London should have a veto.
London cannot afford to lose Scotland’s vast resources and will never agree. Independence will not be given to us, we must take it. When Independence comes, it will be in contravention of UK domestic law. Scottish Independence is therefore a revolutionary cause or it is nothing.
With opinion polls routinely showing a majority for Independence, the SNP will handily win this election on the pretence they will work for Independence. But they have no intention of actually doing so – still less have the neoliberal, Freeport-supporting Scottish Greens.
What will happen is that they will beg London for a referendum, which Starmer has made crystal clear he will refuse, and then they will claim to have tried. The SNP will then yet again forget Independence until the next election needs a slogan, while going back to pocketing their large salaries from the British state for running the colonial administration at Holyrood.
With US bombers taking off from British airports loaded with 2,000 lb bombs for the destruction of children in Iran, with the RAF giving targeting intelligence to the Israelis for the Genocide in Gaza, there is a moral urgency to breaking up the UK. Scotland needs at least some people in its Parliament who feel that urgency.
That is why I am giving people a chance to vote for me as part of the Alliance to Liberate Scotland – an umbrella group for all who support Independence, with other policy choices left to the individual. The party is precisely eight weeks old.
(I had intended to stand for Your Party, which decided firmly in favour of Scottish Independence, but it is not fighting these elections).
Were I able to campaign I would have a good chance of being elected. Scottish parliamentary elections are run under the D’Hondt system. This is a form of (not very) proportional representation in which there are FPTP constituencies, grouped into regions. The voter has two ballots, both marked with a simple X.
The first ballot is a standard FPTP constituent vote. On the second you vote for a party of your choice. This is used to make the regional vote roughly proportional, subtracting the constituency seats won from each party’s vote share, then electing individuals from a party ranked list.
It removes the individual voter choice you get with STV and is not as proportional.
The Alliance to Liberate Scotland commissioned a 2,500-person, properly weighted poll from Find Out Now. This found that – and this is an essential point – when prompted with the existence of Alliance to Liberate Scotland, 7% of voters across Scotland would vote for ATLS and 8% would vote for me, by name, in Edinburgh and Lothians (and similar for my friend Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow).
As I am number one on the list for ATLS in the Edinburgh and Lothians Region that figure would almost certainly see me elected.
BUT real voters are not prompted with the existence of ATLS, and of course the media will keep it that way. That is why an active campaign was so essential and it is so frustrating to be stuck here in hospital in Caracas.
I have not, though, given up. My colleagues are fighting a great campaign and I will get back to join in as soon as I can fly.
Finally, there is really interesting news about the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action, and I will post on that when able.
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Published by Craig Murray on behalf of the Alliance to Liberate Scotland, Oxgangs Road, Edinburgh EH10 7BD
You do so much travelling, campaigning and reporting, it’s easy to forget your heath has not been the greatest for a number of years.
I hope the pacemaker helps and you feel better soon.
Oh gosh, that sounds terrible.
I suspect your low heart rate is due to your medication. (my personal experience)
Hope you have a speedy escape from hospital.
My very strong advice, for you long-term, is to spend more time with your beautiful and loving family.
Looking forward to seeing you back and fully recovered!
Dear Craig,
It’s very likely that the care and the type of treatment you’re getting in a hospital in Caracas are much better and more effective long-term than what you might have received had you fallen unwell back in your home country.
To say nothing of how long you’d be allowed to stay in the Caracas hospital and what the medical staff would recommend you do after leaving compared to what would typically happen post-surgery in the UK or in most other Western nations. And then there is the bill that comes in the electronic or physical mailbox!
In the meantime, get plenty of rest and take things easy. Wishing you the best for a good recovery and better health!
And see if the food and the hygiene in the Caracas hospital are anywhere near as bad as what this Agence-France-Presse article says about hospitals in Venezuela.
In Venezuela’s hospitals, eat at your own risk
“Hardly anybody likes hospital food but in Venezuela, it’s so awful — monotonous, starchy diets cooked in filthy conditions, and newborns fed intravenous solution for lack of baby formula — that experts call it an actual health risk.
Take Carla Lopez, 40, who has been hospitalized for three months to treat open wounds on her foot as a result of diabetes. Lopez should go easy on pasta and rice — but that’s all she gets. “I eat whatever they give me,” Lopez said as she waves away flies buzzing over a plate of rice and lentils at University Hospital in Caracas. It is pretty flavorless stuff as the hospital is out of salt. An excess of starch causes her blood sugar levels to shoot up. Even if she were out of the hospital, she could not afford, say, a kilo (2.2 pounds) of chicken, which costs 1.5 times her monthly salary in this oil-rich but economically ravaged country saddled with runaway inflation. Lopez says that for breakfast, she gets a kind of cornmeal patty known here as an arepa, and for lunch, it’s either pasta or lentils with rice. “In the evening, they serve you another arepa — a small, skimpy one,” said Lopez.
Back in better times, this hospital used to have different cooks for different medical problems, said nutritionist Gladys Abreu. Now, everybody gets the same fare, and not much of it: 40 grams of rice and 25 grams of legumes. “That is hardly enough for a small child,” said one staffer in the hospital kitchen. Another hospital employee who asked not to be named complained that garbage piles up at the facility, an imposing 11-story building that is 60 years old. Indeed, a nearby trash bin overflows with detritus.
The National Hospital Survey, published in March by the opposition-controlled National Assembly and by an NGO called Doctors for Health, said 96 percent of Venezuela’s hospitals fail to feed their patients adequately, or do not feed them at all. The poll covered 104 state-run hospitals and 33 private ones.
Intravenous solution as milk
At the Concepcion Palacios maternity clinic, also in Caracas, doctors stopped providing formula for newborns because there was no money for it. Parents can provide their own, but one mother, Yereercis Olivar, who just gave birth to her second child, cannot afford formula. She could not nurse the baby, either, because they were separated to protect the child from the chicken pox that Olivar came down with while pregnant. It has left her skin covered in blisters. Olivar was desperate, so she started trying to extract milk from her breasts with a syringe. It took three days for that excruciating method to kick in and provide milk. During that time, the baby lived “only on serum” — the kind used in intravenous solutions to keep adults hydrated. It was fed to the child from a baby bottle. Baby formula, like so many basic goods in Venezuela, is available only on the black market and a can of it costs around 50 million bolivars, or $15. That is nine times the average monthly salary. The hospital survey said 66 percent of Venezuela’s maternity wards have no formula to give to babies. The decline into hellish health care conditions has been swift in recent years, said Olivar, whose first child was born at the same hospital in 2016. It was better back then: she could not nurse her child, but there was baby formula. Now, “there are cockroaches in the area where they prepare the baby bottles,” said Silvia Bolivar, a nurse with 25 years on the job. From holes in the walls and ceiling, water leaks and rodents scamper, she added. The health ministry ignored a request from AFP for comment on this story.
Patients going hungry
On the sixth floor where she is being treated, Olivar says she has heard nurses protesting for the past six weeks to demand better pay and working conditions. Posters on the wall say nurses also want better food for sick people. President Nicolas Maduro said the crisis in Venezuela’s hospitals has been aggravated by US sanctions against his government. He says this punishment prevents the country from buying medical equipment and medicines, 80 percent of which are in short supply, according to labor unions. “It is hard when patients come to us, trembling and on the verge of fainting, to say they are hungry,” said nurse Bolivar. At the maternity clinic, the baby bottles smell bad. There is no soap to wash them and the sterilization machine is broken. Dark mold covers containers of rice and pasta that is fed to mothers. Both there and at the University Hospital, the floors and bathrooms are dirty. There is no disinfectant. Cleaning is done with water and rags. Lopez, the lady with complications from diabetes, does not know how much longer she must remain in her decrepit hospital room, which is furnished with broken chairs. Her foot is not getting any better. But it’s not all gloom: her hospital roommate gave her a bouquet of sunflowers to brighten things up. A relative takes care of a loved one at hard-strapped University Hospital in Caracas A woman pushes a food trolley in a corridor of the University Hospital in Caracas — for patients, rice, grain or pasta is all there is to eat Health care advocates say almost all of Venezuela’s hospitals fail to feed patients properly, or do not feed them at all.”
BTW the article I found had not been formatted so I separated the paragraphs and underlined what I thought were headings so as to make the whole mess easier to read.
Agence France Press is every bit as reliable and impartial as, say, the Daily Mail. Probably more so, since it’s 40% French government owned. While things are indeed tough in VZ, the Western MSM is very busy holding a crocodile tears pity party to support US efforts at further regime change. Is it at the same level as the atrocity porn coming from Washington NGOs about Uighurs and Falun Gong? Not yet, but I’d ask France Presse which NGOs it got its stories from. Bet NED and USAID are on the list.
NB This article dates from August 2018 when the USA backed opposition was in the majority in the National Assembly which published the survey along with a shady NGO. Conditions might or might not have improved since they were purported to be then. No doubt we will find out from Craig himself when better. Like everyone else I with him a full recovery.
Hospital food is of course an easy target for any political opposition anywhere not least one with a clear agenda to undermine President Maduro by hook or by crook in 2018 and anti – Venezuela propaganda was rife along with sanctions having a high impact.
If the survey had any validity which I doubt, if food was bad in 96% of the hospitals surveyed, it does n’t say much for the food in the 33 private sector hospitals either which are roughly a quarter of the total hospital provision cited.
Dear Craig
So sorry to read that you’re laid up with a heart problem. I wonder whether anyone has suggested that the stress on your heart would be considerably less if you lost a bit of the extra avoirdupois you’re carrying around. I and a handful of friends lost between 13 and 22 kilos on a low carb diet – easy to stick to, never hungry. Also many swear by intermittent fasting. It may be that neither approach is right for you but I urge you to look into it. We and your family need you. Best wishes.
Indeed. Good advice. Weight is almost certainly part of the problem and that is the best and safest way to lose it. Some of what Mr. Murray has said before suggest to me that he follows (dying) but still unfortunately mainstream advice. Particularly on diet as when he talked about Alex Salmond’s.
Most heart problems have a major metabolic component. Modern diets, especially since the promulgation of dietary guidelines 40-50 years ago, have led to or promoted the consumption of precisely the metabolically dangerous foods – (refined) carbohydrates and vegetable seed oils and processed foods in general. And the irrational demonization of safe, cheap, unprocessed – and hence less profitable foods which have been consumed for millennia or millions of years, and which therefore could not possibly cause the upsurge in chronic disease. Hence the worldwide phenomenon of increasing chronic & metabolic disease, accelerating with the introduction of these mad dietary guidelines. Most specifically, is the completely insane malpractice of pushing carbohydrates and hence excessive blood sugar and insulin on diabetics, essentially all of which would live longer and healthier on the low carb diet universally prescribed before 1950 or so, and frequently for some time thereafter.
But the tide has clearly been turning. The one good thing that Trump & RFK Jr did was the new US Dietary Guidelines. Hopefully, the rest of the world will slavishly copy the good new guidelines, just as they did the old bad ones; but I am not at all sure about that. On the heart in particular, the American Heart Association continues to be a junk food marketing group, pushing refuted theories and diets. But the American College of Cardiologists – the primary group for US physicians only – has come to sanity – and there are many more cardiologists who respect the science now. For instance, the AHA and probably whatever hospitals Craig Murray lands in – continues to demonize saturated fats & thus animal based foods, particularly dairy. This is the most (over)studied hypothesis in human nutrition, but the College of Cardiologists formally recognizes that there is not now and never was any evidence that saturated fat is dangerous to humans in general and the heart in particular.
If anything, natural saturated fats may protect the heart. While the vegetable oils long pushed by the AHA and other organizations as heart-healthy – may very well be a major component of heart diseases and other chronic & metabolic diseases. As it might very well destroy a multibillion dollar industry, this is the most understudied hypothesis in nutrition.
Get well soon Craig. The voice of reason is rare enough in the media already. And your ability to keep slogging even with your health constraints is an inspiration to me to do better with mine.
A report on VZ health care from the coal face would be interesting…
Meanwhile, a very Spockian “live long and prosper” to you. 😉
Warm regards, Jorge
Greetings Craig, still here then? ;O)
I hadn’t heard that you’d been poorly until yesterday so I hope my best wishes get to you a bit faster.
Get well soon Craig. I disagree with you about many things but your voice is needed.
Get well Craig.
Phew good news that you are on an upcurve to better health.
It would be soooo encouraging to hear that your Scottish contingent of blog readers are campaigning for an Alliance first and second vote in the up coming election, giving you some help, when you cant do it.
A bit harder for me here in Norfolk, but it is important that the Alliance gets a shout in Holyrood.
Good luck and dont rush Craig.
But you aver that the Independence for Scotland Pary is Zionist? What on earth are they feeding you through that cannula? Or is there another cannula which we are not permitted to see?
Have you been advised by your managers that we might be dangerous?
Nothing but best wishes for you and yours. Standing for parliament is best for us, you being fit! Take your time, we need you and those like you.
I can’t quite believe they did it – but they did do it.
“Labour MPs voted on Tuesday to pass a law that would significantly restrict the right to protest, granting the UK police sweeping powers to criminalise sustained strike action.
Recurring protests which might have no connection to each other could now be banned by police on the basis of “cumulative disruption” caused by past or future planned protests in the same “area”.
More than 45 civil society groups, including the Trade Union Congress and Greenpeace, joined together to oppose the draconian crackdown on fundamental freedoms of protest and assembly.”
Human Rights Watch previously reported that the UK’s anti-protest laws may be “in breach” of its international human rights obligations, with the potential to undermine the “fabric of democracy”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/labour-mps-vote-through-draconian-law-giving-police-powers-ban-recurring
This might cheer you up a wee bit Craig.
“The UN Secretary General has just received an official report indicating clearly that Scotland is an English colony and must be listed as such.”
https://nitter.poast.org/thomsonchris/status/2044149730482205050#m
Get well soon Craig.
Get well soon.
To echo events from earlier this week; Blessed be the Pacemaker.
I know what you must be going through just now and maybe this is a sign for you to slow down a bit.
Concentrate on your recovery and once you are well enough get back home to your family.
Scotland needs you.
At the moment I think you might be in the right safe place since it appears the USA seems to have declared war on China
We are in a seriously bad place now.
Best wishes, Craig. Get better – we need you!
Dear Craig
implanted cardiac Device technology is superb and you will probably be in much better health than you were previously.
It’s not the size of the man that counts, it’s the size of the heart in the man.
Get well!
“London cannot afford to lose Scotland’s vast resources”: which are not in fact resources at all if we are forbidden to exploit them. Unless, of course, you are referring to all the sunshine we get to power our solar panels.
Take care Craig and get better soon. Remember what is important in life !
Our favorite, impartial PM get a well deserved drubbing from Jonathan Cook.
“From Jimmy Savile to Peter Mandelson, Starmer has followed a trajectory of career-enhancing ignorance. He knows far more than he lets on. It’s the reason, after all, why he was knighted”
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2026-04-17/starmer-excuse-dont-believe/
Stevie Boy.
” I’ve just received an email from the House of Commons saying the govt won’t support a public inquiry into pro-Israel lobbying activity our politics & democracy. Not surprising considering how many cabinet ministers and MPs are bankrolled by pro-Israel lobbyists”
https://nitter.poast.org/DerbyChrisW/status/2045403622679130455#m
Ah well, maybe publicise better books like Ilan Pappé’s Lobbying for Zionism on both sides of the Atlantic (ISBN 0861549163), as Peter Oborne has done. Here’s a presentation by the author.
The dogs in Westminster know better than to bite the hand that feeds them.
One nation under ZOG. At least the iranian crisis is opening a lot of people’s eyes.
Had the same email and I am cheesed off with these spineless weather vanes bending their own rules as they see fit.
Voting themselves a wage rise bringing them well over 100k whilst hand wringingly wanting to cut pensioners and young peoples benefits, pensions they paid into, utter hypocrits and just so they can carry on spending money on arms, from drones to ever more evil ways to kill and control as their Zio handlers demand.
What a sad bunch Starmers has gathered in his cabinet, Netanyahutrump’ s cheerleaders to genocide.
From a relatively decent, functioning country to a banana Republic in less than 30 years !
Poverty on the streets, corruption rife, state oppression and fortunes spent on the military. We just need qweer Starmer to start marching around in jackboots with a chestful of medals and our humiliation and destruction would be complete.
Did people sacrifice over 40 working years to end up in this shithole state ? Where’s the money gone ? Where’s the progress ?
More like a Monkey Nut Monarchy, but, aye, the decline/degeneration has been shocking in degree and rapidity. We can date the tangible beginnings of this in various ways, eg ascendency of the Mystic Market Knows All Thatcher Gov ( Manufacturing ? Woz ‘at? yr ‘avin’ a laff ain’tcha? shut yr maff n buy these shares ( in what you already owned ) ) ; the 2008 * crash * – which was a * slightly * more dramatic recalibration of periodic Capitalist shock therapy and shedding of dead skin before ( extractive/exploitive ) business as usual was resumed.
For me the onset of ” WTF! Ye kiddin’ me on? ” State overreach was the ” Covid ” period, to be precise….the ” Covid Response/Measures ” period; which, intended as such or not, demonstrated how easy it is to cow an entire population – or as near to entire as makes no difference – if enough fear and control of counter-narratives are applied; which, when that particular shitshow was exhausted led with ” well, ain’t that a coincidence ” serendipity to the Meta Narrative of * Imminent Hyper-Threat of * Putin * – note…not Russia, but Putin and entity so terribly powerful & evil he doesn’t need an army to er…….destroy our Freedom Loving Democracies all on his ownsome: well, at least that’s what we’re relentlessly having rammed down our throats right, eg ” Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine “; ” Putin threatens use of nuclear weapons “; ” Putin threatens Israel ( WHAT!!!???? ); ” Putin stole my girlfriend/coat/cat “.
Then of course we had/have the Proxy War’s running mate, ie The Israeli War On Anything/Anyone It Doesn’t Like.
All this shit, which remember really has nothing to do with England-As-UK, ie represents no ACTUAL threat to our national security, has served to enable the State to impose drastic restrictions on what can be said, done and demonstrated against; spend vast sums of money, eg on Ukraine and lethal weaponry, at a time when many people have to hesitate before putting on heating due to the – constantly rising – fuel costs; whilst filling the public’s head with fear & anxiety.
On present trajectory Europe is fucked, and of all the nations of Europe it looks very much like the U.K is going to be the fuckedest ( neologism ! ).
Well done successive England-As-UK Governments we really couldn’t have arrived at such an almost unbelievably shit situation without y’all. Take a bow ( on the gallows )
All very well, RH, but when you put “covid” in quotes – just as with “climate change” – it makes the person look like a denialist, and… well… a bit of a nutcase. That tends to weaken your credibility and – fairly or not – everything else you say is liable to being dismissed. Just as it would when someone talks about a “round earth” (‘Spherical being a bit much for them, in all likelihood), or “vaccines”, or “electricity”.
Meant kindly. If you’re only interested in preaching to the choir, so to speak, of denialists and conspiracy nuts, carry on.
@ Glenn, I put Covid in quotes, and will continue to do so, when someone can tell me where the common cold & flu disappeared to during that time and also because the * measures * that were imposed in it’s name were more of a psyops nature than a rational response to the deadly threat it was relentlessly portrayed as.
Also, I’ve long since stopped being even minimally influenced/affected by people’s ( mis ) use of the term ” Conspiracy Theory ” to denote their inability to believe something, ie their cognitive dissonance. Yes, ” Climate Crisis ” ditto. I have no problem with the term Climate Change.
Gotta laugh, really, there are people ( you might be one of them? ), supposed intelligent, adult people, who believe humans can change sex, not metaphorically, eg because they feel more comfortable imagining they are the opposite sex, no, actually BECOME the opposite sex – the whole Trans Women Are Women – mind-freezing idiocy: and yr still gibbering self-satisfied trash about ” conspiracy theories “.
” there are more things in Heaven & Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Glenn “
RH. That’s the problem, isn’t it ? If you dare to question the consensus you’re obviously a nutcase and should be ignored/locked up because ‘ten million flies can’t be wrong so lets eat shit’. Line up two metres apart with your face nappies on chanting ‘save granny’, ‘save the planet’, ‘we’re doomed, doomed’. I despair of the average western joe, maybe chinese democracy is what they need, someone to tell them what to think because independent thought is clearly beyond them.
@ Stevie. Indeed – the Comfort of Consensus Compliance. I wish people would take more time to question the nature of these current * consensuses * – how they’re arrived at; whose interests may be being served by their imposition and why dissident voices are being so ruthlessly suppressed.
I bet people like, eg Glenn, have never listened to people like Dr John Campbell – about as far from the bug-eyed paranoid ” tin foil hat wearer ” stereotype imaginable, and a source of calm, reasoned exposition on the whole * Covid * dog’s dinner; likewise Robert Malone; Dr Jay Battacharya; Dr. Karol Sikora among many others – though such was the rigidly enforced narrative-control, you’d never have known there were ” many others “, ie * dissident * voices.
Exactly the same re the Climate ” Crisis “. What % of the general public have heard of people like Judith Curry; Freeman Dyson; Kiminori Itoh; Will Happer et al. All respected experts in their respective ( relevant ) fields; all ostracised for daring to question the * consensus * and not a ” tin foil hat ” to seen atop any of their heads
Independent thought about SARSCoV2 (a virus, being a strain of SARS) and Covid (an illness, originally called NCIP, “novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia”) is very rare. The term “Covid” could serve as an overall marker, but it’s most often used by those without the wit to distinguish between a virus and an illness, e.g. who say things like “I caught Covid” when they mean they got a bit of a cough and cold for a while, and who have the kind of attitude towards medics (and others who speak with authority to big audiences) that is indoctrinated into three-year-olds. Not many understand that many millions of people caught SARSCoV2 and it didn’t do them any harm whatsoever.
I am not saying nobody got NCIP or died of it, or that nobody got or still suffers from (at least partly) physically-caused brain fog induced in that era, but doubtless the pods who point at people in the street as if they were in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and scream “conspiracy theorist!” will think otherwise.
Re. China, this is a country that should always be in one’s mind if one wants to get a proper handle on what happened in 2020-22 with a view to what’s going to happen in the coming years.
Robots in the Beijing half-marathon in 2026:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vUnusbzNMQ
A huge cull of humanity is on the way.
Robert Hughes, April 19, 13:42 – “I put Covid in quotes, and will continue to do so, when someone can tell me where the common cold & flu disappeared to during that time”
Lockdown clobbered ’em, as you might expect.
There; that wasn’t too complicated, eh? If you’re claiming that “covid” was really caused by cold and flu viruses, you really are proposing an international conspiracy by scientists and medical staff. Doctors in particular know from extensive experience that covid has its own distinctive set of symptoms, especially low blood oxygen saturation and inflammatory markers in the bloodstream.
– “and not a ” tin foil hat ” to seen atop any of their heads”
Freeman Dyson actually believed that he and his team would personally get to explore the solar system in a massive spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs. He actually believed that the US government would pay for his little adventure:
Documentary – To Mars By A Bomb – The Secret History of Project Orion (Nuclear Propulsion) – YouTube
Yep, genius scientists can be nuts; hadn’t you heard?
“
Doctors in particular know from extensive experience thatcovid has its own distinctive set of symptoms, especially low blood oxygen saturation and inflammatory markers in the bloodstream.”Just to concentrate on the claim here, rather than the logical fallacy…
Lots of things can cause low blood oxygen saturation, e.g. as measured by a low score on one of those things you can stick your finger into and it tells you your blood oxygen level and heartrate, which many of us keep in our bathroom cabinets alongside a thermometer.
Your concept of “Covid” is ill-defined. You can’t mean the virus itself, namely the strain of SARS that infected millions of people without causing any symptoms at all, or causing only minor symptoms. Yet nor can you mean the distinctive kind of viral pneumonia, diffuse and double, that was originally called NCIP before its name was changed to Covid, which infected mainly elderly people and the chronically ill.
It is a well-known and true fact that there’s a lot of pneumonia about in hospitals, and many (especially elderly) patients who haven’t got it when they go in manage to get it before they come out, sometimes feet first. This is one of several reasons I stay away from a supposed criticism of the existing “health” system that says there should be more hospitals. (Property speculators and estate management dudes probably don’t mind this kind of “criticism” at all, though.)
@ Clark. I’m not ” claiming ” anything. Lockdown never ” clobbered ” anything, except people’s freedom and capacity to think for themselves. As far as I’m concerned, whatever ” Covid ” was, it was never the humanity-erasing threat it was presented as, that much was known early on.
But still, the Globalist entities- WHO/WEF/EU/UN and previously the Club of Rome that have been trying for decades to latch-on to a situation that would * justify * massive social control: their three main sources have been/are Over-Population ( remember that? now a bigger – actual – threat appears to be De/Under- Population; Climate * Crises *( remember previous ” grave threat to humanity – the ” coming New Ice Age ? ” as breathlessly reported, eg in the Guardian? ); * Pandemics *. In * Covid * they found the Holy Grail of State Control and by fuck they were going to exploit the situation to the max; what halted them, eventually, was the economics of it all and their inability to eradicate counter-narratives completely.
Ok, how about those god-given panaceas, ie MRNA * Vaccines *, you want to talk about realities?
My sister-in-law died 2 weeks after taking her 3rd ” jab ” ( note the innocuous naming, not, eg” hypodermic injection into the body/blood stream ” ). Her sister, ie my wife had a heart attack ( she recovered but has never been quite the same ) similarly, weeks after, in her case, a ” booster ” injection; their other siblings – brother and sister, were done-in for months and they too have never been quite the same since. These are all people who never questioned for a second the efficacy & safety of vaccines ( as I myself didn’t, until the advent of these, largely untested/insufficiently tested MRNA * vaccines * ) and now say they will never put another such ” novel ” chemical anywhere near them. Tragically, one sibling will never have the opportunity to follow suit – she is no longer alive.
Do people not yet realise the sheer malevolence of the ” Powers That Be “? Not the collection of nodding donkeys; preening narcissists & and grasping careerists that comprise the political caste, but the shadey entities whose interests they serve, ie the Oligarchs; Deep State ( the so-called ” 3 letter agencies ” ) operatives; the filthy customers of Epstein Island/s; the unelected control freaks of WEF, the whole sorry misanthropic lot of them, in short…..the bastards who humanity must get rid of to have any chance of having a future worth living.
ps Freeman Dyson may have entertained some, let’s say ” eccentric ” ideas: does that invalidate everything else he thought? Remember, the archetypal Scientific Genius ( and he undoubtedly was ) – Einstein was proven wrong about, eg Non-locality – and Quantum Physics generally: does that invalidate his other- revolutionary for human understanding of ” how things are ” – ideas and discoveries?
Er, Brian, it was actually me who first pointed out to you that the virus that causes covid was a type of SARS virus rather than a flu virus, back in the day when Brian Red was N_, so don’t get all “logical fallacy” with me. Yes, other things can cause low blood oxygen, and that’s why we have specialists for complex matters such as health. If you want to argue details, take it to the forums where it belongs, there’s a good daffodil.
Robert Hughes, China contained covid in two months, using lockdown. After a bad start, Australia learned to contain covid outbreaks in between five and fourteen days, using lockdown. “Stay away from me, I don’t want you to catch my cold” etc. – social measures to contain infection have been used for so long that we even have a word for it – quarantine – but nearly all neoliberal governments thoroughly screwed it up; what’s new?
Please stop indulging your contrarian egotistic tendencies by posting on the front thread; take it to the forums.
– “ps Freeman Dyson may have entertained some, let’s say ” eccentric ” ideas: does that invalidate everything else he thought?”
No, but it does earn him a tinfoil hat 😀
(sorry mods, couldn’t resist.)
Ooh I missed this one:
– “I bet people like, eg Glenn, have never listened to people like Dr John Campbell…”
Twenty quid? (tip – you’ll lose.)
RH: “… when someone can tell me where the common cold & flu disappeared to during that time …”
I’ll be happy to help. But you will have to be respectful (as will I), and put in the effort to learn, and not run away.
If you can agree to this, we can start.
Re: ‘Freeman Dyson actually believed that he and his team would personally get to explore the solar system in a massive spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs. He actually believed that the US government would pay for his little adventure’
Why shouldn’t he have done? The US government forked out billions for the moon landings, whose participants included a scientist with no military background (Harrison Schmidt). Coming more up to date, it’s possible that within a decade a private company that didn’t exist 20 years ago will land humans on Mars – albeit using chemical rockets, and thus subject to the tyranny of Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation. Dyson may have been a little eccentric, but he certainly wasn’t nuts.
Re-lapsed Agnostic:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/04/post-modernity/#comment-12902
– “I had one-on-one chats with Freeman Dyson a number of times, and while I found him to be clever/imaginative, I would put lots of things he said in the myth category: not a reliable authority, in my book.”
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/05/how-far-are-stars/#comment-13035
– “In my own interactions with Freeman Dyson, I found him to be a quick thinker, very creative, friendly, and often totally out to lunch.”
“Nuts” is a subjective, ambiguous term, and indeed, I didn’t actually say Dyson was nuts, I said that genius scientists can be; we’ve all heard the meme of the mad professor.
(Please don’t thank me for my reply.)
Your first quote doesn’t match its link, Clark.
Correction to previous comment: ’20 years’ should read ’25 years’. SpaceX was founded earlier than I thought.
Oops. Correct link (I hope):
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/04/post-modernity/#comment-12900
So, over a week has passed, and none of the contrarians want to discuss this on the forums? Unless they can parade their pretensions to fearless intellectual independence here where lots of people might be watching (by advocating for the second most published narratives rather than the first), they’re just not interested?
Couldn’t possibly be an ego thing, mmm?
Mr. Murray, I can’t pray for you; this is the moment when one regrets not being religious. It would be a relief to say codified words and be confident they will work miracles, improving your health.
As a rational person, I hope you carefully follow the doctors’ recommendations. Please treat this as a job that needs to be done, regardless of your mood.
And I also send you warm greetings and best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Please take good care of yourself, too many people on this planet need you.
Tatyana, good to see your post! Hope all is well with you and your family including the cats, of course. It is hard to keep up with Craig, I didn’t realise he was back in Venezuela!
Wish you a speedy recovery.
Wishing you a speedy recovery, and back on your feet again soon.
Mr. Murray, have a speedy recovery and don’t try to do too much too soon. Always remember, your family have first call on you and they need you far more than you need us.
Those khaki military trousers have a high waistline 🙂 We need a caption competition to cheer you up!
Get well soon Craig and return home safely.
At least one organ of the Scottish MSM has finally caught up with Craig’ s exposure of SNP corruption and conspiracy against Alex Salmond.
(The Sunday Mail is not to be confused with the Scottish edition of the Mail on Sunday).
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/plot-against-alex-salmond-exposed-37036786.amp
I hope this is of comfort to Craig in his present troubles and helps secure his election to the Scottish Parliament.
Thanks Cynicus, if I remeber rightly, it was the daily record who dare not mention that Craig got rumbled, and then chimed in with those cheering at Craigs sentence.?
That sounds like journalistic ethics.
The timing must surely be because of the coming general election.
The Daily Record has traditionally backed SLAB? It’s under the same ownership (Reach plc) as the Daily Mirror, to which it is quite similar, and the Daily Express, to which it isn’t.
One suspects that the participants to the Salmond stich up are more widely know that generally perceived. Additionally one perceives that the names are continuing to be more widely known. Too many perpetrators and others to keep the lid on this for ever.
And now I suspect there will be those who will be getting the sweat on. The truth always outs as sure as night follows day. Its coming yet, for all that. Just taken a bit of time.
If the truth always outs, who killed JFK and Princess Diana, and who removed Harold Wilson and Boris Johnson?
Yes, whenever something momentous happens, the ‘truth’ is what the mainstream media say it is. As was shown with the covid debate here earlier, most people are highly resistant to believing that the state and media systematically lie to them on matters of national importance, and also bully and bribe those lower down to toe the line. Today, with the Easter school holidays over, and the Iran war failing, it’s the ‘dead cat’ of the Mandelson ‘story’ dominating the British media again!
Get well soon, Craig.
– “As was shown with the covid debate here earlier, most people are highly resistant to believing that the state and media systematically lie…”
No, Tom, that’s not what it shows. As much as you’d like to think that everyone who disagrees with you is either evil or a moron, all it shows is that I have a third perspective, which is neither mainstream nor denialist. Try some humility, it can bestow great clarity of mind.
I take it that you don’t believe that the respective right answers are Lee Harvey Oswald, nobody, the electorate and Tory MPs, so what would you have in their place? Let me guess: the KGB, MI6, capitalists, and the last one shall be a mystery forever. 😁
So you believe the ‘magic bullet’ theory ? I guess Scotty was also wrong when he said, ‘you canna change the laws of physics Jim’ ?
@ Stevie Boy
‘magic bullet’, you’ve lost me there. As I recall (from an illustrated magazine for children in the 60s), Lee Harvey Oswald was an outstanding marksman. Is that what you’re referring to?
Where “a bit of time” may turn out to be several millennia. Maybe money can’t do everything, but it does a pretty good job of suppressing wrongthink.
With all best wishes Craig. I am no doctor but as I understand it a pacemaker can deliver fantastic results. My wife has an 86 year old friend who has had one for something like 12 years.
Wouldn’t make light with a joke about the Duracell bunny but keep the head up. Good stuff health wise can and done. And yes, you’ve done a fair bit galivanting these last years – so life in the old dog yet.
Hi Craig, very sorry to hear you are laid up in Caracas. I expect their medics are trained by the Cubans and very good! I hope you are up on your hind legs and back in the good fight very soon, the world needs you and I need my Scottish passport before I die!. Sending thoughts for your quick recovery!
Being in Caracas could be a blessing in disguise. With Craig in an NHS hospital bed, there would be no need to fake a suicide.