By Jo Nova
We know what secrets they fear the most, by how they overreact
In France, the second largest news network let an economist go on air and declare he thought global warming was a lie and a scam used to justify State intervention. He even went on to say it is a form of totalitarianism. Shockingly (to the regulators Arcom), the CNEWS TV hosts did not contest this, and nor did anyone else in the studio. For this, 11 months later, the TV channel is being fined €20,000.
Too close to the truth then?
A popular French rolling news channel has been fined for broadcasting climate scepticism unchallenged
By Saskia O’Donoghue, EuroNews
During the programme, prominent economist Philippe Herlin shared personal climate scepticism – but was not contradicted by anybody else in the TV studio, including the hosts.
“Anthropogenic global warming is a lie, a scam… Explaining to us that it is because of Man, no, that is a conspiracy, and why does that have so much weight?”, Herlin said. “Because it justifies the intervention of the State in our lives, and it absolves the State from having to reduce its public spending… It is a form of totalitarianism.”
Apparently, the real crime here is not that he said the unthinkable, but that the TV crew didn’t correct him:
After investigation, Arcom found that CNews’ lack of reaction was a “failure” to meet the obligations of the channel …
Perhaps if they’d laughed at him, called him petty names, and treated him like a leper it would have been OK? (No, seriously, there is a razor point here. There are bound to be past examples where the only response to a skeptic was to call them a climate denier, and Arcom was apparently happy with that, since they’ve never used this fine before.) Does Arcom approve of namecalling or social opprobrium as a “balanced response”? Oh. Yes. They. Do.
The regulators go on to explain that the channel:
“…is required to ensure an honest presentation of controversial issues, in particular by ensuring the expression of different points of view”.
Which must be a new requirement since French TV has relentlessly hammered the establishment line in a one sided way for thirty years without needing any balance at all. And Arcom didn’t fine them for shamelessly promoting government propaganda. Perhaps a French skeptic could ask Arcon if controversial government opinions need to be balanced “in an honest presentation” or whether it’s only critics of the government who need to be held to account?
Arcom found that the views shared “contradicted or minimised” the scientific consensus on climate change “through a treatment lacking rigour and without contradiction”.
Since when was it the job of journalists to promote government approved “science”?
The regulator is going out on a limb and sawing off the branch…
Officially, the regulators are trying to pretend they are not punishing the TV channel for putting on a skeptic, which would be a free speech issue, but it’s clearly what they are doing. So they dress this up as a lack of balance, which accidentally exposes that they’ve never cared a jot about balancing opinions before. Immediately, this opens up all kinds of interesting doors: for one, skeptics can start asking where the balance is on controversial government propositions? In most countries about half the population doesn’t agree that mankind is solely responsible for “climate change”. Where is their voice? The government is suggesting that solar panels can stop storms, and EV’s will control floods, why isn’t this a failure of the obligations of a news channel?
Secondly, skeptics can ask when this rule started and why the regulator missed so many past examples. Why aren’t breaches the other way being fined too?
The overreaction IS the news story
Ponder how afraid the believers must be if the mere opinion of an economist is so dangerous. This man is a not a scientist and every person in France has heard the evidence is overwhelming, climate change is real, and 130% of all scientists who ever lived know that CO2 threatens life on Earth. For three decades children have been trained to say that skeptics are funded by Big Oil, and motivated by money, and yet here is one guy who used the word “totalitarian” and they all go off their rocker.
Why, perhaps because it suggests that believers are motivated by a bigger pot of money and power than skeptics ever could be.
BACKGROUND
Arcon stands for theRegulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication
CNews is controlled by billionaire business magnate Vincent Bolloré and has been compared to FOX in the US.
Edit: Approbration corrected to opprobrium. H/t Robert Swan.
In 2010 the co-chairman of the IPCC’s Working Group III on mitigation of climate change, climate economist Ottmar Edenhofer, said in a newspaper interview that “we distribute de facto the world’s wealth via climate policy… One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14th Nov 2010, translated).
Is it OK to quote that?
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How dare you!
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Similar to and agrees with Christiana Figueres.
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It looks like Simon has dropped by to red thumb everybody.
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Reducing sources of skepticism to improve the climate for corporatism.
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It’s not ok to quote that if it’s a real quote. The more true it is, the more it will be frowned upon.
It’s ok to make up stuff and print it though, because it can be denied.
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Yes, it’s a real quote. Last time I checked, the Zurich (Zürcher) newspaper that published it had put it behind a paywall, but before that happened I personally verified that the interview was on their website, and verified the accuracy of the translation from the German. I’ve often wondered why Edenhofer told the truth; did a reporter get a lot of wine down him and then veritas in vino?
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This is a case of the “Streisand effect.”
A small percentage of the French people and, to the nearest whole number, Zero of the rest of the world knew of this transgression. But for €20,000 [<$22,000] the billionaire's network gets massive publicity, as does the economist Philippe Herlin. A relatively unknown person will get his 15 minutes of fame. I hope, also, he gets many lucrative speaking invitations.
This episode will warm the cockles of many hearts. 💕
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Problem is… how do you find an alarmist who is willing to debate?
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I have been refused. They know better than to engage in debate. In fact I have never seen a debate between scientists on the hoax of man made CO2 driven Climate Change.
My own view is that man made is CO2 is demonstrably false.
After that, questions of CO2 warming are meaningless if we cannot change CO2. And we cannot.
That is also established, which is why no governmkent give CO2 as their metric. They all measure and tax ’emissions’.
$20-$30Tn has been spent trying to change CO2 levels. With zero effect.
Trees don’t change CO2. Coal doesn’t change CO2. Bushfires, volcanoes don’t change CO2. Increase the human population x8 hasn’t changed CO2.
So not only is ‘The Science’ a hoax, an amount equivalent to 2,000 nuclear power stations has been spent to achieve absolutely nothing.
But is has made many people rich.
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They just confirmed Herlin’s argument. And that much is obvious to the average viewer.
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So according to this decision Dr Spencer and Dr Christy are just con merchants who enjoy being shot at in their offices?
Plus Dr Curry and maths guru Nic Lewis are just in it for the fun of being abused by “upside down Mann” etc?
Ditto Steve McIntyre and Dr Ross McKitrick and thousands of other Scientists who are also very dubious of so called dangerous climate change.
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France is a country where, when the progressive left win an election – they riot anyway.
Is anyone surprised the progressive left would punish such dissent?
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Fortunately, democracy and the freedom of speech thrive in France.
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Scepticism is a growing problem in French media, which is a fair indication that all is well.
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This makes me wonder if democracy and freedom of speech deliver what is advertised. Unintended consequences and all that.
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And mass violence, anti semitism, islamism, communism, fascism. The French have more deadly isms than cheeses.
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“Fortunately, democracy and the freedom of speech thrive in France.”
You forgot the /sarc tag.
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Interesting take – longer read. https://vicparkpetition.substack.com/p/young-frenchman-speaks-there-is-no
“In 2 weeks and 3 days, the Olympic Games will open in France. And I tell you, the Government is not prepared for the event’s security. The security of the Olympic Games will be a disaster. There will be much violence that will occur there.
So if a new political leadership takes the reins of power, it won’t be ready either, and the fault will lie with it. Don’t be shocked by what you’ll see during the Olympic Games. The point of no return was crossed a long time ago.
There’s no turning back now.”
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Of course we know that the data proves this is the safest period in Human history and the Human flourishing since 1900 and 1950 is unprecedented.
Also Human deaths from extreme weather events have decreased by at least 95% siince 1920.
And Human life expectancy has increased from 32 years in 1900 to over 72 years today and real per capita wealth by many times over the same period of time.
How come their so called Scientists don’t understand these facts?
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Most are government employed, either directly or indirectly.
Some are the lackies of people who have a lot of money and power at stake.
Many are just afraid to go against the grain and the harm it would do to their public reputation.
Remember the whistle blower on the “Karlization” of the data leading up to Paris? He didn’t blow the whistle until after he retired.
Don’t forget what happened to Peter Ridd.
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BTW the greatest historical Human flourishing has recently occurred on our poorest continent.
The 53 countries in Africa have increased their population from 227 million in 1950 to about 1495 million today and life expectancy from 36.5 years then to about 64 years today.
And they’ve also carried the burden of 90% of the world’s HIV Aids and Malaria deaths over the last 50 years. See OWI Data.
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Here’s African population since 1950 and Macrotrends uses UN Data over the last 74 years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/AFR/africa/population
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Plus ‘the country of Africa’ is the hottest place on Earth this week – along with Iraq & the State of Saud – where parts of Algeria & Mali are baking on/about 50 degrees Celsius (standard for their ‘summer’).
Meanwhile the South Pole is on -68C, it’s snowing, and there’s a -86C windchill howling; providing a median* temp for the planet of NINE BELOW ZERO (-9C) also the name of a great English blues band.
* mea culpa – I’ve been saying ‘mean’ for years when ‘median’ (the middle point) is the correct term.
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I wouldn’t beat yourself over using mean vs median Greg. Median is probably better than mean because it aligns more with personal human observation. Both are poor indicators of many natural phenomena. Rainfall means in most cases are largely meaningless because it’s actually when and how that rain occurs which is more important. Ask any farmer.
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I agree Ross and most Aussie Farmers wouldn’t want to go back to the Aussie rainfall period of 1900 to 1970.
Since that time we’ve had much better rainfall on our dry continent over the last half century.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=6&ave_period=6190
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Here’s African life expectancy since 1950 and up to 2023.
BTW now the African life expectancy in 1950 is 36 yrs not 36.5 years and life exp today is 64.38 years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/AFR/africa/life-expectancy
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“After investigation, Arcom found that CNews’ lack of reaction was a “failure” to meet the obligations of the channel.”
They were probably so shocked, they couldn’t respond. LOL
Perhaps we could apply the same in reverse when their ABC allow a lefty ‘climate expurt’ to tell us porkies and fail to present an alternate view or challenge.
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Here’s African life expectancy since 1950 and up to 2023.
BTW now the African life expectancy in 1950 is 36 yrs not 36.5 years and life exp today is 64.38 years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/AFR/africa/life-expectancy
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Jo,
vocabulary check:
“Approbation” means approval; maybe “opprobrium” was the word you wanted?
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I wonder why someone gave you a downtick for correcting a mistake that Jo made? Don’t they think that words should be used correctly. English has such a wide vocabulary that it is not surprising that even a well educated native speaker might occasionally misuse a word. (Why, even the President of the United States has been known to pick the wrong word!).
I doubt if Jo minds having mistakes pointed out. Most reasonable people want to get things right and are glad to have any errors they make corrected.
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Thank you Robert. I wish I hadn’t been out all day. Opprobrium is definitely what I was thinking of. Post improved.
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I didn’t like Julia Gillard’s politics, but hyperbowl was a slip that I could have done myself.
I have seen it used at least once since, and, if people have any memory it will find use again.
By the way, I saw “Galactic Hyperbole” and another potentially useful term here this week. May I use them?
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Perhaps the French would allow Willis Eschenbach to debate a chosen panel or Dr Steve Koonin who has won 5 debates and drawn with Dr Pielke jr?
Willis is still updating his data for everything about climate change and I’m sure he would easily win.
Here he updates his data to July 2024.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
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You only get flak over the target . What’s interesting is that this happened last year and is only being “noticed” now . Euronews is a propaganda arm of the EU and its curious that they are flagging it now . The recent election has shaken things up .Slowly , then all of a sudden….
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👍👍👍….so true !
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1930s Flak : German, abbreviation of Flieger-ab-wehr-kanone, literally ‘aviator-defence gun’.
But ack-ack was the famous flak gun, the 88mm. Acht Acht
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Umm, no, “ack-ack” was mentioned in an article in 1917, well before the 88mm gun came into being. The Brits introduced the term “anti-aircraft” and abbreviated it “AA” during WW1. to Its origin seems to be the British phonetic alphabet used for voice transmissions of “a-a”.
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To further explain, the British signallers used an early form of phonetic alphabet which was formalised in 1898 as “Signalling instruction”, later updated to “Signalling Regulations” in 1904. A” was “Ak” in the alphabet, then later changed to “ack”.
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Umm, no.
“ack-ack” was mentioned in an article in 1917, well before the 88mm gun came into being”. A German 88mm gun was available in 1917 and before. Throughout both wars, 88 was a unique German calibre.
Consider that there was no need to invent a word for anti aircraft in 1917. They didn’t exist. So AA was used as an acronym before anti aircraft guns existed? Really?
But the 88mm naval cannon was common. So ack-ack related to naval guns before 1917 and land based guns in 1917. There was no AA in 1917. My point exactly.
The first such 88mm German gun was introduced in 1917, using the 8.8 cm caliber already common in the Kaiserliche Marine (navy).
The 88 was banned by the Geneva convention in 1918 if not explicitly. And produced by Germany in the 1930s. It was easily the best gun of the war not only as a very high velocity and very fast firing anti aircraft gun, but as Rommel worked out in North Africa, a rapid fire tank killer. It shot horizontally like a rifle, not ballistically and high velocity was better than payload for penetration.
After losing WW1, Germany had been forbidden under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles from procuring new weapons of most types. Nevertheless, the Krupp company started the development of a new gun together with Bofors of Sweden. Krupp had the majority ownership in Bofors since 1921. The original design was a 75 mm model. During the prototype phase, the army asked for a gun with considerably greater capability. The designers started again, using 88 mm caliber. I would suppose the legal people could claim it was an old weapon at that calibre. There was a lot of dodging of Versailles restrictions, as with the pocket battleships and two engined bombers which were supposed to be passenger aircraft. Later two engined bombers proved a real problem with bomber speed and range where the British had no such restriction.
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And the destruction of allied bombers would have been much greater if the Germans had mastered the proximity fuse which remained an allied master technology in both Europe and the Pacific war. No one else mastered this technology in anti aircraft shells. It was a game changer and little known. The idea was a very short distance radar which detonated the explosive when an echo was detected.
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The secret was tightly controlled. It was amazingly effective against V1 buzz bombs.
“The effectiveness of the Americans’ 90mm guns in particular amazed British air raid officials who were not privy to the secret. One member of a British Home Guard antiaircraft battery, which was used to firing thousands of rounds at the V-1s with minimal effect, told how they watched an American 90mm gun and crew set up and shoot down four buzz bombs with eight shells. When they asked the U.S. battery commander how they had managed it, he replied facetiously that his crew was made up of Tennessee natives who were crack shots.”
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I guess the French govt has the benefit of luxury beliefs while sitting on a strong nuclear powered base. The havent suffered, but must have observed the stupity going on in Germany, but in that case (and the UK) they profit from energy exports.
They are probably reacting ideologically, but also are a good example of maintaining the hysteria for profit.
Happily they have fallen on their feet and can claim to have virtuous “low carbon” energy, even if that had nothing to do with why they went nuclear decades ago.
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“decades ago” puts you in 2005 territory, which was yesterday.
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All the French government does is destroy its credibility. It’s no different than with governments and health authorities over the handling of the Wu Flu. If people don’t listen to you. If they don’t engage. Then you can’t communicate with and influence them. If you have no credibility then you are totally out of the picture. Just look at the damage to science over the last 30+ years. And the damage to government and democracy. People are street smart. They have strong BS detectors and once those are triggered the authorities are totally banned to the wastelands.
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I’m very sure that the French so called Scientists would fail the Co2 Scientist’s long and very accurate quiz. But most of Jo Nova’s bloggers whould get a high score.
If a very poorly educated bloke like me can score 100%, then anyone can.
But of course they must first understand real data from our real world and not their silly fantasy world.
But why is reality so hard for lefty loonies to understand?
https://co2coalition.org/quiz/us-air-quality-is-becoming-less-and-less-healthy/
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It’s hard to believe that it’s 7 years ago in 2017 when Dr Roy Spencer reported that their UAH office was fired at.
Of course the police checked it out but weren’t really interested.
And I’m sure the marching Earth Day girls and boys were such little darlings. SARC.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/04/shots-fired-into-the-christyspencer-building-at-uah/
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A related note about censorship is:
Tweet from Elon Musk.
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In the “post-truth” era, that’s how it works.
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This will be the future if the Climate Cult has its way
On 24 September 2014, a former psychologist Mohsen Amir Aslani was hanged in a prison near the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, where he had been in detention for eight years, for “corruption on earth and heresy in religion”. Aslani had taught religious classes; according to authorities, his teachings on the Koran diverged from established interpretations. He was also accused of insulting the Prophet Jonah: he is alleged to have stated that Jonah could not have emerged from the whale.
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The French government fines T.V. news,
For not defending its views,
Letting a skeptic off the hook,
Whom they failed to rebuke,
Likely fearing a stand they would lose.
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I am taking this single red bomber as a badge of honour. I guess it’s Saturday so the Clean Energy department people are not at work.
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So would the French authorities fine a TV network for airing climate alarmist views which go unchallenged? I suspect this happens all the time without any imposition of fines. I think things are going to get much worse for the French people if the ‘New Popular Front’ has any influence. They want to demolish reliable nuclear power plants and replace them with the expensive, unreliable bird-chomping monstrosities.
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Amazing African paradox that the continent has enjoyed record Human flourishing in the last 0.1% of history, but has also suffered over 90% of all global HIV AIDs deaths since 1980.
This OWI Data graph tells the true story. IOW , Europe and the USA are just a straight line.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-deaths-aids?country=USA~OWID_WRL~Sub-Saharan+Africa~OWID_AFR~European+Region+%28WHO%29
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[…] By Jo Nova | July 13, 2024 […]
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How about we personally fine Australian Broadcasting Commission on air TV & radio presenters for not allowing the expression of different points of view?
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And African deaths from Malaria are over 90% of global deaths and only a small decrease since 2000.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-malaria-deaths-by-world-region
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I think the African malaria deaths since 2000 are a lot better than I stated.
In fact the African population has increased by 542 million from 2000 to 2020. Unbelievable but true.
It’s impossible to find any dangerous CC or existential threat etc in our poorest continent.
The data is very easy to find but nobody wants to tell us the truth.
Isn’t the actual data a better choice than wasting 234 + trillion $? See Bloomberg’s teams latest estimate for so called global net zero.
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Ofcom, the far-left government censorship body in the UK has done this sort of thing to the conservative/right GB News a number of times.
Needless to say, the BBC and other left-wing channels get a pass.
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[…] Jo Nova – French government fines TV news for allowing a skeptic to speak without being challenged […]
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Who cares about the fine. The other side of the coin is that the focus of attention has been on the episode again, if only briefly, which added to the exposure the interview had.
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I am wondering if this scam will end as suddenly as the Joe Biden is just fine scam? Once the media start to have the strength to speak up for the extremely obvious.
After all, $30,000,000,000,000 in cash has not changed CO2 at all. Nor has the weather changed much in my lifetime. If anything it is much cooler. And the seas have not risen in my lifetime. I remember every beach. Identical today. The old piers, the buildings, the sand level. If anything, the water is slightly lower.
No one has drowned from cliamte change or died from heat stroke from the fires of Hell. And the mass migrations are definitely not for cooler weather. Ask the 30,000 Haitians dumped in a small town in Ohio by Joe Biden.
The polar bears are fine. Penguins and caribou and coral reefs as well. And in France you will be prosecuted or fined if you say so.
But once the tide starts to run out on Climate Change, it will go out quickly. Especially if Donald Trump is elected. And two major wars will be over in a day.
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On the other hand we are being told that Joe Biden will be reelected, even if he is completely senile. Now that’s equity for you. Senile people are the victims of great discrimination. Especially as airline pilots and surgeons.
The US really does not need a continuing known to be senile President, as they have had for the last three years. Maybe he can deputize Jill or Hunter to cover his day to day appointments? Apparently they already do. Except Hunter needs his laptop back if he is going to look after the Big Guy. And there is cocaine in the White House already, as found by the secret service. They should mind their own business.
It’s a terrible position and could get worse. All due to three and a half years of deceit at the highest levels in US administration and in the US press. No one was really surprised, just upset that weekend at Biden’s is shown to be the sham it was. And unless they use Amendment 25, they are stuck with Joe Biden.
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My point is that an economist said the unthinkable on French television, that Climate Change is a scam. Sure, there was a fine. But he said it. That creates ripples. We had a lot of this in the last decade with Joe Biden, but most of the media ignored it. However it has an effect, which is why they were fined, to discourage reoffending. But that raises a major question if the hosts agree with the statement. What are they supposed to say? Really?
I cannot see how fining the television studio does anything to repair the damage. In fact it highlights it!
This is known in the US as the perverse “Streisand effect” on social media where trying to cover something up actually causes massive searches on the subject.
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An important post.
We need to be aware of these facts about censorship.
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