Australia

Magpie Season

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The Australian magpie is a very intelligent and usually friendly bird. That all changes in late winter and spring when some of them become very protective of their babies during breeding season.

Normally their form of attack is to swoop on people entering their territory, often with their angry noise, but sometimes with no sound at all. They always attack from behind, but rarely make contact, and once you leave their territory they leave you alone.

Sadly, this year, a baby died after her mother dropped her during a particularly nasty attack in Brisbane.

Cyclists are very vulnerable. I think the helmets make the birds think that riders are a greater threat than normal people, and possibly the much higher speed than pedestrians might add to the threat factor.

In Narrabri, magpie season usually starts in the first week of August. The drought the last few years made the winters a little warmer so the attacks started late July. I think also that the lack of food caused by the drought, and perhaps lower survival of the chicks made them more aggressive.

This year the season started about the second week, and have been less numerous and less intense than previous years. In my normal daily ride there are probably only about 2 swooping magpies spread over a distance of 11 km. I am especially glad that the bird we called the “nut job” has disappeared. He lived at the far end of the bridge near our house, and would attack without warning, often making contact with the helmet.

The magpies that live in the trees near our house are usually friendly enough. They had a go at me this morning in my own driveway. I walked out into the middle of the road and took my helmet off and put it back on again a couple of times while maintaining eye contact. The first time I did this, it was in attack mode but veered away when I removed the helmet. I hope they have it worked out now! Tim later went out on his bike and they attacked him, so he might have to teach them who he is with and without the helmet.

Can’t wait for October when the birds should resume normal behaviour. Although peewees, which have similar colouration to the magpies, can be aggressive even through summer.

Australia, the land where everything wants to kill you. 🙂

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR: SPEAK UP AGAINST GOVERNMENT OVERREACH

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Kurt Mahlburg writes:

A commonly-repeated criticism since the beginning of 2020 has been that if you prioritise freedom over safety, you are being selfish. In many Christian circles, it is said to be “not loving your neighbour” if you vocally defend freedom. Such ideas continue to circulate, even as heavier lockdowns and curfews are imposed in Victoria, New South Wales and beyond.

But they mostly miss the point. Such criticisms assume that every measure that could be introduced to protect Australians against covid is by definition necessary and good. They seemingly deny the possibility that any cure could be worse than a disease, or that there is such a thing as going too far.

The executive director of the Menzies Research Centre Nick Cater has expressed sensible concerns about this. He argues that good public policy has been near-impossible to implement over this period because fear has overtaken reason in our risk assessments:

We are caught in a feedback loop, a vortex of fear, where politicians can no longer act sensibly because they have to respond to public fear. If they opened up now people would go berserk and say that it’s not safe to go outside…

I have come to the conclusion that the government has lost control. It has to obey this mantra of fear, and as a result of that it takes no risks whatsoever.

This reflects the broader culture of our times, not just in Australia but in the Western world more broadly. Nobody is prepared to put up with the slightest amount of risk. Wherever risk occurs the government has to deal with it.

Consider, for example, that while daily case numbers of covid reached into the hundreds this week in Australia, daily calls to suicide helplines reached into the thousands. Lifeline has had its three busiest days in history since Monday, with up to 3,500 people calling the helpline per day. And that’s just one of many such services available to distressed Australians.

Surely “loving your neighbour” also means being concerned — and indeed, speaking out — about government policies that are inflicting this level of distress. As Christians, we believe that people are not machines that merely require a certain set of material inputs to get through life. We are made in God’s image. We are relational creatures who survive and thrive through active involvement in our communities, and meaningful work and service to others.

Even the World Health Organization recognises this holistic view of health, or at least it did until recently. While we seem to have redefined ‘health’ to mean the absence of sickness, the WHO’s Constitution, drafted in the 1940s, pushed back against this reductionistic view:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity… Governments have a responsibility for the health of their peoples which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures.

Of course, covid is deadly. But so are many things — including some of the measures our governments have implemented in the name of ‘health’. We have allowed fear to redefine our most basic understanding of what it means to live and function as a healthy human being.

To protect their health, Australians have been told to not talk to their neighbours, not to engage in outdoor recreation, not to attend church, not to watch sunsets, not to leave home for more than an hour a day. In all this time, we are yet to hear a single public health official or minister promote exercise, good diet, sunlight, weight loss or vitamin supplements. All of these simple, everyday strategies are important aspects of health, and are known to boost our immune systems and reduce our chances of suffering the most debilitating impacts of the virus.

Meanwhile, measurable deadly impacts are now linked to government lockdown policies. Australian data shows an 87 percent increase in couples separating and an 86 percent rise in the number of people seeking help for addiction. Stay at home orders saw NSW chart historic highs in homebound sexual assaults, and Victoria find that one in ten of its citizens contemplated ending their life.

Is this healthy? Is it “loving our neighbour” to stay quiet?

Read the rest of the article here

People deficient in Vitamin D are 14 times more likely to get severe Covid

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From jo Nova comes this encouragement to get out and enjoy some sunshine.

People deficient in Vitamin D are 14 times more likely to get severe Covid

How badly do our Health Ministers want to reduce Covid infections and deaths? Not much. If they were at all serious — before they hand out free vaccines, they’d hand out free Vitamin D supplements.

In a study conducted in a Galilee hospital, 26 percent of vitamin D-deficient coronavirus patients died, while among other patients the figure was at 3%.  — Times of Israel

If only black lives mattered?  Dark skins are so much more likely to be deficient, this is one of those absolutely easy wins for any politician, yet none of them are doing it?

Nearly half the people in the study were deficient, and half of those who were seriously deficient in Vitamin D would go on to develop a severe case. These were the people with levels below 20 ng/ml. Of all the people above that, only 10% would get a severe case. And just being “above 20ng” would still be classified as moderately deficient by many measures, yet it made such a huge difference.

It was a life and death thing — the mortality rate was 25%, fully five times higher for those who fell below the 20ng/ml bar.

The Israeli study looked at the Vitamin D levels of 1200 patients in their medical records before they got infected with Covid. This is important because although studies like the Indonesian study last year showed that people with low levels of Vitamin D were much more likely to die of Covid, those patients weren’t assessed until they turned up at hospital when  they were already sick. We couldn’t be sure that something about  Covid itself wasn’t chewing through the Vitamin D levels and causing the deficiency. So an Israeli team looked back through their records for up to 2 years to see what their last blood tests showed.serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels before hospitalization, Vitamin D3, Covid, Graph.

People with the lowest Vitamind D levels were the most likely to get severe Covid.

It’s a retrospective study, so the blood levels of D might have changed, yet despite that, the results still pop out of the data. Ideally we’d measure them just before they got sick.

Don’t wait til you’re in ICU to fix that deficiency. And definitely don’t wait for the CDC or Anthony Fauci to suggest it. 

The biggest disadvantage with Vitamin D is that there’s no money in  it.

As I’ve said before:

Vitamin D deficiency is so common it’s an epidemic affecting a billion people around the world.

Vitamin D levels also correlate with lower rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease, dental caries, preeclampsia, autoimmune disease, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Vitamin D influences over 200 genes. It’s so crucial, it was likely the reason northern Europeans evolved whiter skin. The lack of sunlight and the introduction of grains in diets (as opposed to eating liver and whales) meant that Europeans weren’t getting enough D from either food or sun. The selective pressure was so strong that lighter skin rapidly took over all the northern communities. Eskimos didn’t need to go white — they were still getting D from offal and plenty of fish.

Results:

Results Of 1176 patients admitted, 253 had VitD levels prior to COVID-19 infection. Compared with mildly or moderately diseased patients, those with severe or critical COVID-19 disease were more likely to have pre-infection vitamin D deficiency of less than 20 ng/mL (OR=14.30, 95%, 4.01-50.9; p < .001); be older (OR=1.039 for each year, 95% CI for OR, 1.017-1.061; p< .01), and have diabetes (OR=2.031, 95% CI for OR, 1.04-3.36; p= 0.038). Vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher rates of mortality (p<0.001) and comorbidities.

Half of the people were severely deficient:

Of the 253 individuals with pre-infection VitD levels, 133 (52.5%) had a level less than 20 ng/mL, 36 (14.2%) had 20 to less than 30 ng/mL, 44 (17.3%) had 30 to less than 40 ng/mL, and 40 (15.8%) had 40 ng/mL or greater  (Table 1). Mortality among patients with sufficient VitD levels was 2.3%, in contrast to the VitD deficient  group’s 25.6% mortality rate (p-value<0.001).

Vitamin D is measured in two  different units:

Patients’ 25(OH)D levels were divided into four universally accepted categories: deficient (below 50 nmol/L or 20 ng/ml), insufficient (50 nmol/L to 75 nmol/L or 20 -29.9 ng/ml), adequate (75-99.75 nmol/L or 30-39.9 ng/ml), and high-normal (above 187.5 nmol/L or 40 ng/mL).

REFERENCE

Dror et al (June 2021) Pre-infection 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels and association with severity of COVID-19 illness, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.04.21258358

Here Be Dragons

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In ancient times map makers would write in Latin “Here be lions” to mark the unknown land beyond the borders of the map. In medieval times they would draw dragons and other fearful mythical creatures to warn the traveller that unknown dangers lurked off the map. Other cartographers would write “Terra incognita” or unknown land.

Today, politicians talk of “the regions” in the same way. “The regions” are scary places outside of “Greater Sydney” where they elect strange people like Barnaby Joyce, wear funny hats and stand in paddocks all day watching sheep and cows graze. To these people, the people who make the rules that govern our lifestyle here in “the regions”, there is no difference between Byron Bay and Broken Hill, Mudgee and Moree, Narrabri and Nambucca.

That explains why in Narrabri, where there has never been a single case of Covid within 100 km of us, we have to wear masks and limit the number of visitors we can have in our homes. Apparently if somebody coughs in Katoomba we could catch it in Narrabri. You can’t be too careful.

Every election time, the Nationals come out and tell us that they are the only ones who can represent country voters in the NSW Government. That is working out well for us. When John Barilaro makes his empty promises about relaxing the rules “in the regions” you can tell he has been captured by Sydney.

In Goondiwindi, and right through Western Queensland there are no mandatory mask rules. In Boggabilla on the NSW side of the border, of course they have to wear masks indoors. It is a sad day when a Labor Queensland Premier understands her state better than the Liberal/ National leaders do in NSW.

To be honest, I don’t care too much about politics, but I am worried when our elected leaders and their unelected advisers continue to impose rules on the 95% of NSW that is not “Greater Sydney” with such little knowledge and even less concern.

Great Barrier Reef growing at record rate

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Jo Nova writes:

What climate disaster? The Great Barrier Reef has more coral growing on it than ever recorded

The coral cover as sampled by AIMS across the entire Great Barrier Reef is not just good, but better than it has ever been in the 36 years they have been studying it. If the reef is in danger — it’s from being overgrown with coral. Climate Change, such as it is, has caused no trend at all.

If anything, in the spirit of modern-media-science, climate change causes record coral growth.

Tonight the UN scientists decided not to list the reef as “in danger”. The ABC and every Green group who normally follow UN scientists slavishly said that was “only because of lobbying”.

Record Coral Cover on the Great Barrier Reef.

The new AIMS report on Monday showed the Great Barrier Reef had a remarkable recovery, but the graphs were of three different sections of the reef (North, central and South). Peter Ridd obtained all the data and combined it to make one graph and discovered that the coral cover of 2020 was a new all time record high.

Strangely none of the government agencies or paid Professors discovered this. You have to be unemployed to discover record coral growth.

Science and media doomsayers ignore good news on reef

Peter Ridd, (The Professor that JCU sacked for being “non-collegial”) The Australian

Like all other data on the reef, this shows it is in robust health. For example, coral growth rates have, if anything, increased over the past 100 years and measurements of farm pesticides reaching the reef show levels so low that they cannot be detected with the most ultra-sensitive equipment.

This data is good news. It could hardly be better. But somehow, our science organisations have convinced the world that the reef is on its last legs. How has this happened?

The only thing the reef is plagued with is “experts”:

It was reasonable in the ’70s to be concerned about these plagues and they ultimately precipitated AIMS’s long-term monitoring of coral and starfish in the ’80s. I was working at AIMS when this important work started, and it is interesting to look back on what has changed. The coral cover is no less, the number of starfish is no more, but the number of scientists and managers working on the reef has exploded. Perhaps this is the problem.

Record coral cover means there was no disaster on the reef. The only disaster is the quality assurance at the science organisations.

In the last few hours the Great Barrier Reef barely escaped being labeled as “in danger” by a branch of the China-friendly-UN. Instead UNESCO will leave it at “critical” and decide again in a year if the 340,000 square kilometer reef is in danger of turning into a calcium-carbonate quarry.

The Australian ABC has already decided this was only because the Minister played games and pulled some tricks on a “whirlwind diplomatic effort” to override the UN body’s scientific advisors. Apparently the science advisors of the UN are so corrupt they can be bought off with a few rushed phone calls from a minor Australian minister, but these same advisors would never be influenced by the giant Chinese Communists with their billion dollar Belt and Roads, debts and honeypot traps.

Remember the UN experts are always right except when they’re not.

But China still wins this round of sabre rattling. By leaning on the UN to tell Australia off, the Australian government is still  tying itself in knots and spending millions to save a reef that has already saved itself.

We’ll have to hand in our homework report again as soon as February 2022. And the hack-media are not reporting on why UNESCO don’t care about China’s concrete-the-reef approach.

Greenpeace et al, who would have told us how horrified they were if the reef was listed as “in danger”, said they were disappointed it was not.

UNESCO would not get away with these absurdly transparent games if the Western media and most universities did not provide continuous running cover for their hypocrisy.

REFERENCE

The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s (AIMS) Long-Term Monitoring Program – Annual Summary Report on Coral Reef Condition for 2020/21

Latest Great Barrier Reef Condition Report

Covid check-in data accessed by police in criminal investigations unrelated to public health

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What a surprise! The fact is that whenever Governments store data, somebody will want to use it

 

Covid check-in data accessed by police in criminal investigations unrelated to public health

Friday, 09 July 2021

Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 12.28.04 pm

Police across the country are attempting to access personal data from mandatory COVID-19 check-in apps for reasons other than contact tracing, despite promises that the data would only be used for public health reasons.

Police in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria have all owned up to trying to access logs of data created by Australians using check-in applications as part of their investigations, and enquiries by Crikey suggest that police in other states could also access this data using a warrant.

Privacy advocates have slammed state governments for lying to Australians about what the data would be used for.

“We were told this data would only be used for contact tracing. Police made that a lie,” Electronic Frontiers Australia’s Justin Warren told Crikey. “People will remember that next time governments want us to give them data about ourselves.”

One of the major tools in fighting the spread of COVID-19 and managing outbreaks has been contact tracing, which has been aided by various tech solutions.

When the federal government first proposed the contact tracing app COVIDSafe (which used Bluetooth to log close contacts), it responded to fears of a mass surveillance state by announcing the data would not be used by police.

But adoption of a QR code check-in system — the widely used, low-tech alternative now mandatory in many places around the country — was left to states to implement. As it turns out, these states did not assume the same protections for their citizens, meaning that data volunteered in the name of public health has been accessed for other reasons.