The maths behind why Israel is ahead of the game on stopping Corona Virus Covid-19

Yesterday I recorded a video with Jonny from the UK. He’s a maths and computer modelling wizard and he’s built a very sobering model of the spread of the novel SARS Corona virus 2 and the implications for outbreaks of Covid-19 disease. Overnight Trump took measures that are less drastic than Israel’s but welcome nevertheless.

The spreadsheet is here: make a copy and change some numbers. You really need Chrome or Brave for this to work well. This video is also on YouTube here.

The first time I played with this after watching his videos I immediately understood the actions my government in Israel was taking and those of South Korea and what China belatedly did after waiting way too long.

I’ve spoken many times of my contempt for computer modeling of the Earth’s climate to make predictions of the distant future and claims about man’s influence. In my opinion that use of computer modelling and the way it is reported and manipulated is downright dishonest.

The modeling of the spread of a biological contagion, however, is a very different proposition and is a perfect candidate for this kind of modelling. It’s very clear from the actions being taken by the Israeli government, for example, that they’re using a similar model to the one Jonny has put on Google for anyone to use.

The point here for amateurs is not to get the numbers right, it’s to try changing initial conditions or the speed with which containment measures like quarantine are imposed and see how many people you can save or kill by moving one number.

The big message is that very large numbers of people die when your country run out of hospital capacity. In reality this maybe even more local. When that happens as appears to have been the case in Italy right now, large numbers of otherwise saveable people die. And nobody seems to be counting deaths caused by a lack of access for all other sick people.

Finally I want to mention the idea of levels of security. I believe this drives the way the Israeli government is reacting. The first thing was shutting flights and travel from a steadily growing area until they now force anyone arriving into 14 day quarantine. That’s destroyed our tourist industry.

They haven’t YET closed all schools (because this causes horrific problems with medical staff and other essential workers staying home with their kids). But if there is a credible chance the any given schools has come into contact with a patient, they shut it. They’ve banned large gatherings indoor and called for many other events to be shut down. If this isn’t done voluntarily I have no doubt it will be mandated.

This seems to be working, we have cases, we have transmission but it is quickly stopped and often we’re finding infected people already at home in self isolation. That is very important. If we keep the R₀ number here in Israel down, we beat this.

I’m not sure how we re-enter the world, when it will be safe for us to travel and allow travel from infected parts of the world, but we keep our older citizens alive. Hopefully we get a vaccine, but in the meantime I approve of what my country’s leadership is doing to keep us safe here in Israel.

Podcast explains Pallywood in the UK and Tommy Robinson’s comments about Jew haters

BrianofLondon's Forest Talks
BrianofLondon's Forest Talks
Podcast explains Pallywood in the UK and Tommy Robinson's comments about Jew haters
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In the show art for this show you can see the picture of the kid sleeping on the floor. This shot, meant to show the desperate horrors of the Britain’s state health system, the National Health Services (NHS) and it’s abysmal condition obviously all caused by the Conservatives. I contrast that with the case of Mohammed Al Durah.

If you really want to understand Al Durah, this set of videos by Richard Landes is ground breaking.

At the end Tommy Robinson is on to explain exactly how much respect he has for the alt-right, alt-Reich and the rest of the ethno-nationalists. Precisely none.

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Halal: it’s just not Kosher

Explaining why Halal and Kosher slaughter are different and why they should be treated differently by western nations. If the west is to cope with an increasingly beligerent and growing Islamic minority, nations will face calls to ban Halal. They’ll also want to ban Kosher slaughter too, that would be a mistake and would be stain on centuries of western tolerance of non-threatening minority religious practice. In the end, the west will either chose to discriminate wisely or not.

I wrote this essay back in 2011. It started life as a briefing paper for Geert Wilders. It was subsequently published in an number of places. I think it’s worth republishing it now.

Update: This post was cross posted at Gates of ViennaTundra Tabloidsand New English Review. There were a lot of comments at GoV.

Over the coming months we will see attempts to ban halal slaughter in Europe. But they won’t be worded in such a way to target only halal, they’ll probably go after something nebulous like “ritual slaughter” or “religious slaughter without stunning”. If that happens (as is ongoing in New Zealand) it will more likely than not deprive European Jews of kosher meat and make very little difference to the lives of farm animals.

This essay will be general but will draw specific examples from the UK.

Halal, it is not a religious
requirement in the same way
as kosher has been to
Jews for thousands of years

As much as Muslims like to talk about halal, it is not a religious requirement in the same way as kosher has been to Jews for thousands of years. There is conclusive historical and archeological evidence across Israel and anywhere else Jews lived, that the rules of “Shechita” have been followed in an unaltered form for millennia. The mere fact that kosher food is perfectly acceptable to Muslims while halal is not acceptable to Jews shows the Muslim requirement has a certain inherent flexibility born of political expediency. The Jewish laws do not yield for convenience or to achieve other goals. Halal has also been flexible enough to include “light stunning” which has been enough to sidestep a ban in New Zealand. A very large proportion of the lamb consumed in the middle east is actually New Zealand lamb and in the UK this halal lamb is nearly always sold unmarked in big supermarkets.

The global counter Jihad movement is going to face a tough choice over this issue. On the one side is the long respected freedom to practice religion where that freedom doesn’t harm others. On the other will be those who feel the rights of animals need to be elevated to the level or even above the level of humans.

Here are some points to remember:

  • Modern farming methods relating to animals, especially when one is considering mass produced meat at cheaper prices, are not pleasant. It is firmly in the interests of very big aggro-businesses to obfuscate and conceal exactly what goes onto produce the mass produced chicken that can be sold at the very cheap prices we currently enjoy.
  • In order to treat animals as if they were pets, prior to their slaughter for consumption, requires an investment in those animals that is only worthwhile if consumers will pay a hefty extra price for their meat. Some consumers will and people do choose free range or organic meat trusting that the various certification schemes do keep the farmers honest. In the end, however, unless you know the farmer or have some connection to the food production yourself, you’re trusting someone else to vouch that your meat is produced in a way you can accept.
  • That is a similar act of trust that Jews place in the Kashrut Authorities who certify their kosher food has been produced in accordance with Jewish principles of animal welfare and cleanliness.
  • There are a multitude of groups and movements working for better treatement of animals at many points of the spectrum from mildly reproachful to physical dangerous. Just because, on the issue of halal, you may agree with them, does not necessarily mean a movement to educate people about Islam needs to take up their causes.
  • There have been real acts of terrorism, violence and even murder committed in the name of animal rights.

This is the big question: if the global counter Jihad movement wants to oppose the spread of Islam and Sharia into the lives of non Muslims, is it necessary to get involved in the details of animal treatment or is it enough to realise the drive for halal food and its encroachment into public life is the real problem?

Jewish respect for animals

I would put forward that Judaism, as a religion, has done more for the good treatment of animals than any before or since. The militant atheists will argue that all religion is evil but, without being particularly observant myself, I know enough about Jewish philosophy to know they are wrong. I know Islam too and that is where the problem comes in. For example, Judaism has always prohibited hunting for fun which is certainly not something Islam copied. Indeed, the only sports acceptable to the most observant or extreme Muslims all derive from hunting: archery and horsemanship are specifically mandated for good Muslims in the stories about Muhammad! By contrast, Judaism specifically prohibits cruelty (causing pain for pleasure) and it’s clear from many things done in the name of Islam, this is not observed in Islam.

Why do kosher and halal rules appear similar?

What Muhammad stole from the Jews who resided in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century (aside from their wives, daughters, property and lives) were scattered snatches of their stories and oral law. These were mangled and mis-represented to form the Koran. That Muhammad (and don’t get me started on whether he was a single real person or an amalgamated construct) knew to place the Arabs as illegitimate descendants of the slave girl in the Hebrew bible story of Abraham was a stroke of pure genius. In all probability, the Jews had already worked this out as a separation of the semitic people into Jews and others (who would always be more numerous).

Almost every aspect of Islam has it’s roots in Judaism but every time you study the detail, superficial surface similarities hide a complete inversion of right and wrong, and a complete perversion of the reasons for the activity in question. Halal represents an attempt to take over and dominate the food of the infidel. By contrast, kosher is an introverted wish by Jews to honour their creator by following His laws (and some other internal philosophical reasons more observant Jews than myself can explain to you).

If we do notdiscriminate and recognise that Islam as a belief system has a dark, supremacist element that is unique to it, we are liable to destroy important parts of the foundations that have made our civilisation the greatest and kindest that has ever been. No civilisation has ever considered the rights of animals to the extent that we do now and this is not an accident. Islam has rarely been kind to people, let alone animals.

What is the purpose of Halal in the Non-Muslim world?

There is another issue here about the real purpose of halal outside of Muslim countries. As a general rule Jews and other groups with special dietary rules have not asked for their food to be served in public places outside their home countries. Jews outside of Israel adapt themselves to the food available in public institutions such as hospitals and schools often by eating vegetarian options. Even in neighbourhoods where Jews form a very high proportion of the population, there are hardly any demands to change the catering in public institutions.

By contrast, halal has made serious inroads into institutional mass catering in the UK. There are now numerous examples where non-Muslims looking for meat are given no other choice but to eat halal food in public institutions such as schools and hospitals. This has never happened with kosher food and nobody has ever seriously forced, for example, a vegan option on an un-willing population.

It’s all about control

There is a significant point of view that says halal food is all about a bid to take over and control the food supply. Animals must have an Arabic prayer said as they are killed and this must be performed by a Muslim. In effect halal mandates that Muslims perform most of the tasks involved in the production of the food.

What would strict labelling mean?

One of the ways that people are calling for some introduction of control on the spread of halal meat is by calling for strict labelling of meat that is not stunned before slaughter. There is a particular issue with halal today because there is a large amount of halal meat in the normal food chain that is not labeled as such. This is not such an issue with kosher meat except in one respect. Fully kosher meat is always much more expensive than non kosher and this reflects the small nature of its market and the care with which it has to be produced. Halal is generally cheaper than non halal. Some parts of kosher slaughtered animals do end up in the non-kosher meat supply, however, because this does help keep kosher meat affordable.

So strict labelling would be a problem for Jews if it meant that producers of meat pies and sausages were reluctant to accept some meat because it would force them to label their end product as containing some parts from non stunned animals.

When was the last time a major nation banned kosher slaughter in Europe?

Today there are some bans on kosher slaughter already in Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries. The last major European nation to completely ban kosher slaughter was, of course, Nazi Germany. The following passage from Melanie Phillips excellent book “The World Turned Upside Down” develops this even further into what some may find a surprising reverance for animal life among Nazis.

Such ecological fixations were further developed in German Nazism. According to Ernst Lehmann, a leading Nazi biologist, “separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations.”(i) The Nazis thus fixated on organic food, personal health and animal welfare. Heinrich Himmler was a certified animal rights activist and an aggressive promoter of “natural healing”; Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, championed homeopathy and herbal remedies; Hitler wanted to turn the entire nation vegetarian as a response to the unhealthiness promoted by capitalism.(ii)

There was top-level Nazi support for ecological ideas at both ministerial and administrative levels. Alwin Seifert, for example, was a motorway architect who specialized in “embedding motorways organically into the landscape.” Following Rudolf Steiner, he argued against land reclamation and drainage; said that “classical scientific farming” was a nineteenth-century practice unsuited to the new era and that artificial fertilizers, fodder and insecticides were poisonous; and called for an agricultural revolution towards “a more peasant-like, natural, simple” method of farming “independent of capital.” Himmler established experimental organic farms including one at Dachau that grew herbs for SS medicines; a complete list of homeopathic doctors in Germany was compiled for him; and antivivisection laws were passed on his insistence. As Anna Bramwell observes, “SS training included a respect for animal life of near Buddhist proportions.”(iii)

They did not show such respect, of course, for the human race. Neither does the ecological movement, for which, echoing Malthus, the planet’s biggest problem is the people living on it. Even though our contemporary era has been forged in a determination that fascism must never rise again, certain völkish ideas that were central to fascism—about the organic harmony of the earth, the elevation of animal “rights” and the denigration of humans as enemies of nature—are today presented as the acme of progressive thinking.

(i) Staudenmaier, “Fascist Ecology.”

(ii) Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, pp, 385–87.

(iii) Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century, p. 204.

What does this mean for the Counter Jihad?

We need to decide if fighting a battle for what some believe is better treatment of animals has any place in resisting the spread of Islam and Sharia. Just as with the issue of immigration we ask is the counter Jihad about immigration in general or only about Islamic immigration with a goal of eventual domination?

It’s my belief that people interested in taking up the cause of animal rights should do this distinctly from the cause of resisting Islam and Sharia. However, for the counter Jihad, halal slaughteris not an issue of animal treatment. It is an issue of an attempt to take over and dominate the food of infidels and impose on them, against their will, submission to the laws of Islam. That is unacceptable and should be resisted without infringing the legitimate rights of real religious practice.

Greater Manchester Policing in Oldham with Muslims and Tommy Robinson was more serious than Hillsborough

That’s an inflammatory title, but when you get toward the end of this podcast and video you’ll find I make this point. This builds on Tommy’s explosive video of what really happened at his Oldham rally on Saturday.

The Greater Manchester Police, by not stopping the gang of Muslims from the self proclaimed Muslim Defence League, are behaving as hostages to Islam: Dhimmis. This is submission to Islam and the will of Islam in advance of the country actually falling under its rule.

I’m not joking at the end when I say this is a more serious breakdown in policing than the Hillsborough tragedy. The number of dead people isn’t the only measure of how serious an event really is. I don’t want anyone to think Hillsborough wasn’t the enormous tragedy that it was. What I’m highlighting is that Hillsborough was a disastrous combination of incompetence and cover up. What we saw in Oldham was a disastrous policy of submission and deference to Islam.

The exposure of the massive failings of the policies and actions of the police at Hillsborough was investigated and acknowledged. Nobody seriously believes the Police set out to kill football fans that day. In Oldham the Police seem to have a deliberate policy of bringing Allah Huakbar shouting crowds right up to non-Muslims listening to a political speech! How can that deliberate act be thought of as being benign or accidental?

Here are the tweets from Greater Manchester Police which I reference in the video.

https://twitter.com/gmpolice/status/1130148566855561217

Jew hating UK Labour Party’s direct attack on Tommy Robinson and freedom of speech

On Friday the UK Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Digital Censorship and banning any speech that isn’t both Sharia compliant and politically correct, Tom Watson, issued a chilling public letter to the Chief Executive of Google (YouTube). He put this out as an image (which is annoying as hell) but I’ve turned it into text and will publish it in full here with my comments back to Mr Tom Watson.

Dear Mr Watson

Dear Mr Pichai

I am contacting with you regard to the use of your YouTube platform by a violent, racist, Islamophobic campaigner called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known in the UK and globally as Tommy Robinson.

I’ll skip over the grammatical issues, as usual you appear to make a big deal out of Tommy Robinson’s “real name”. Most people quickly come to terms with why people stepping into the public eye chose to use pseudonyms. This is especially true when others who have challenged Islam have been murdered or are under continuous death threat (Pim Fortuyn or Salman Rushdie are just two examples). Tommy himself has had a number of serious attempts to take his life with multiple Islamic terrorists currently in UK prisons for attempting to blow him and other to kingdom come in the past.

On Tuesday Facebook and Instagram removed his page, related pages and materials from their platforms for breaching their “Organised Hate” policies. However, as is quite clear from the comments threads on stories documenting this decision, Yaxley-Lennon supporters are transferring over their virulent hate to YouTube.

This paragraph is also filled with grammatical disasters, we’ll just take it as read from here that this letter is something I’ll be showing to my kids as an example of how not to write. Yes, Facebook caved to far-left pressure and deleted Tommy Robinson’s wildly successful Facebook page 24 hours after the posting of his devastating Panodrama documentary and it reaching more than 1 million views on Facebook. Why did this devastating exposé of the BBC trigger such a swift response from Facebook?

Yaxley-Lennon had 294,000 subscribers as of Wednesday. Since then, with YouTube his only remaining platform of global significance, his subscribers have leaped to 325,000. Recent videos he posted have been watched by between one and two million people. He is also using YouTube to move his supporters over to a website www.globalaim.co.uk and encouraging them to make donations to keep his movement alive.

Instead of becoming the UK’s new thought police, do you want, perhaps, to consider why so many people in the UK and world wide are eager to hear what he has to say? You’ve got a problem now: if you truly believe Tommy Robinson represents an ultra-extreme position, why are so many people watching his videos so soon after they’re published?

YouTube’s policy on hate speech prohibits content which promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes including religion, race, immigration status or nationality. Many of his videos are clearly in breach of this policy.

Which videos on his YouTube channel today breach policies? Why haven’t they been taken down already? Clearly, if you believe it to be “many” you’ll have found them and will be able to provide them to us all as an appendix to your letter. I will be calling your office on Monday morning and asking for this list. I am in touch with Tommy and will take up any complaints you have directly with him and consider if any of his videos should be withdrawn.

If you believe Tommy Robinson has breached any of the UK’s draconian, anti-free speech laws, which have been enacted in recent years, why has he not been arrested? As you well know, I’m sure, he was wrongly imprisoned for speaking outside Leeds court. That case was overturned by the highest court in the land, last year, and his wrongful conviction quashed.

I understand YouTube suspended all adverts on his channel in January, cutting off significant revenue stream. I am now writing to implore you as a matter of the utmost urgency to follow the lead that has been, belatedly, set by Facebook, and remove forthwith all “Tommy Robinson” and related pages from your YouTube platform.

Advertiser friendly and contravenes YouTube’s community standards are two totally different categories, for now. Rational people who value free speech hope this remains so.

As the UK’s Shadow Digital Secretary I have recently been making the argument that the social media companies have failed to regulate hate speech and harm on their platforms. It is clear, as I am sure you are aware, that UK legislators are now moving rapidly towards introducing legal regulatory powers to deal with this those who seek to use the garb of freedom of speech to, instead, preach violent hate with the aim of damaging and undermining our society.

I hope UK voters can see that however bad restrictions on what was once considered “free speech” by the “mother of parliaments” are under the current Theresa May Conservative regime, they would be much worse if your Jew hating, Corbyn Labour Party ever seized power.

Tommy Robinson YouTube views – geography

It is also the case that 30% of Tommy Robinson’s YouTube views come from outside the UK. What right does an out of power politician from the losing political party at the last UK general election have to determine what viewers in America can see?

The public interest is demanding an end to the laissez-faire approach to regulation not just in the UK but globally. However that should not mean that the social media firms avoid their responsibilities in the meantime to take action where it is clearly and vigorously required.

It would appear, seeing as how the Labour Party lost the most recent UK election, the last time this proviso was actually tested before the electorate, they chose the least bad option with regard to destruction of the necessary freedoms for maintaining a recognisable democracy. Freedom of speech, even unpleasant speech, is absolutely necessary to a functioning democracy. The freedom to challenge, with speech, a violent and aggressive ideology would appear to be a basic right you wish to remove from UK citizens like Tommy Robinson and the millions who wish to watch and share his videos.

I would ask that you immediately close down all of Yaxley-Lennon’s sites on YouTube before the virus of his views grooms countless more followers via your platform. I should also inform you, as a matter of politeness, that I will be releasing this letter to the media.

Fortunately the truth is sometimes a particularly virulent virus while the lies you peddle (such as “Islam is a religion of peace” for example) must be reinforced by draconian laws and repeated until the slaves understand the cost of challenging them is too high. Fortunately a few brave people exist to challenge your totalitarian dictates, people like Tommy Robinson.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely

Tom Watson MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

I hope Google has the sense to resist this, I don’t have a lot of confidence. I look forward to hearing all the specific details of videos on Tommy Robinson’s channels which you have painstakingly identified to be “hate speech”. I shall be contacting your office by telephone on Monday (I’m working here on Sunday in Israel because we Jews start our week while you’re still in Church or at the mall). As a matter of politeness, I wish to inform you that I too have released this letter to the world.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Brian of London
Indigenous Jew, Israel