Aggressive promotion of Remdesivir by Gilead Sciences (GILD) contributed to the campaign against Hydroxychloroqine, the most effective anti-COVID19 drug. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and the fake news media led attacks against HCQ.

The following table shows a surprising concentration of publicly traded shares of Gilead, the Big Tech / (anti-) social media, and the New York Times in the hands of certain 6-8 investment management corporations.

The Vanguard Group and Blackrock are the top holders in all of the mentioned companies (except for the NYT, where it is #3, a hair below Darsana Capital Partners LP). These institutional investors are also among the top holders of many other large public companies.

All holders are selected from the Yahoo lists of the Top 10 Institutional holders. For GILD, the top 7 & the 9th holder were selected, then the respective holdings in other companies were aligned. If the list were compiled out of top 20, 50, or 100 top holders, the overlap would be even larger.

The data spreadsheet: Gilead-Owners.xlsx

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July 28, 2020 at 12:03PM

An eco-warrior administration at Enfield Council is set to become the first elected body in the UK to ban meat in an attempt to tackle climate change.

Buried on page 36 of their “Enfield climate action plan 2020” it is spelt out that from December 2020 onwards, “all events held by Enfield Council where catering is provided [will] offer only vegan or vegetarian options”. Guido will be sure to turn down any Enfield Council soirée invitations in future…

The new plan, written by the Labour council’s Deputy Leader Ian Barnes, clearly took inspiration from some hard left universities like Goldsmith’s, who are currently the only public bodies to have implemented such authoritarian policies. Guido understands the council gave minor lip service to taking public views on the plan, holding a consultation for less than a month in the middle of the Coronavirus lockdown. The council cabinet agreed to the plan on 15^th July…

Mo Metcalf-Fisher of the Countryside Alliance is unimpressed with the move, telling Guido:

“It’s telling that those behind this illogical proposal have sought to bury what they know will be an incredibly unpopular policy deep within a lengthy document. Banning meat is completely the wrong approach and demonstrates no understanding of how meat in this country is produced, which thanks to UK farming practices, is among the most sustainable in the world.

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The post Climate Hysteria On Stilts: Labour Council Bans Meat appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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July 28, 2020 at 11:34AM

For a proper discourse on society’s challenges, we have always needed public forums, from the Pnyx in ancient Athens to the Independent Journal publishing the Federalist Papers. For better or worse, the New York Times has long been one of these important forums. Unfortunately, in recent years, the viewpoints allowed in the paper have rapidly declined, as highlighted by the recent resignations of James Bennet and Bari Weiss.

To promote its groupthink, the Times apparently does not shy away from publishing wildly incorrect hit pieces, exemplified in its review of my new book.

My new book, “False Alarm,” confirms that climate change is a real problem we need to tackle smartly. But it also dares to challenge the false alarm that comes from hyperventilating media. One good example is last year’s claim that 187 million people will be flooded by the end of the century because of climate change. It is correct that sea levels will rise, but only in a world where we do nothing for the next eighty years, will it affect 187 million people. With realistic adaptation such as increased dikes, the real number is 600 times lower.

Similarly, the book has the courage to question the current, expensive climate policies. In times of economic hardship, we need a sensible public discussion on climate policy more than ever. Globally we are already spending more than $400 billion every year on climate and with the Paris Agreement, this cost will surge into trillions of dollars per year.

Joe Biden is proposing to spend $2 trillion just from the U.S. budget over the next four years — the equivalent of $3,500 per taxpayer annually. With the Democrats and Biden suggesting a net-zero target for 2050, these costs could escalate to $5 trillion per year.

Such price tags are easier to swallow if everyone is scared. So, the New York Times asked for a hit piece by reliably liberal commentator Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate in economics for his work on price signaling in markets like the selling and buying of used cars.

Without a whiff of fact-checking, New York Times allows Stiglitz to make 12 — twelve — separate and substantial claims on my book that are all demonstrably false. All falsehoods are documented on my LinkedIn, but take a few examples.

Stiglitz is so worried about global warming, he believes “Wall Street could be underwater by 2100.” This is absurdly wrong. Global warming will cause rising sea levels, but that will only flood valuable land if one ignores adaptation, as any good economist knows. Indeed, repeated studies show — and Holland demonstrates — that with realistic adaptation, Wall Street will not be underwater.

The New York Times allows Stiglitz to claim that climate change leads to more costly extreme weather, although the leading peer-reviewed researcher on that very topic immediately told him on Twitter that he is “just wrong.” Stiglitz correctly says extreme weather cost the U.S. 1.5 percent of GDP in 2017. But it is cherry-picked, because all other years around it are much lower and over the last 30 years, U.S. relative weather costs have actually declined.

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The post We Need Free and Honest Debate on Climate Change Policy appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

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July 28, 2020 at 11:06AM

By Paul Homewood

A week after the Federal Circuit Court overturned an earlier court decision awarding him $1.2m, the marine physicist has confirmed the next front in his legal battle that has already cost more than $1m. Professor Ridd, who has personally spent $300,000 in his fight, has rallied his supporters in a fresh fundraising bid ai

med at amassing $630,000 to bankroll his appeal to the highest court.

The Federal Circuit Court found the Townsville-based university had not acted unlawfully when it sacked their employee of 30 years in 2018 for breaching its code of conduct with his criticism and by breaking a confidentiality direction in discussing the ensuing disciplinary process.

The court ruled that the code of conduct trumped the intellectual freedom provisions in the university’s enterprise agreement.

Professor Ridd told The Australian on Tuesday he had already spent $1.15m on his legal campaign, $860,000 of which came from donations.

For the scientist, 59, the fight is about more than the loss of potential earnings from a stalled academic career. “This is about principle,” Professor Ridd told The Australian. “We’ve got to have it that academics can speak.

“The fact is that because it was justified to fire me, any academic who wants to speak out about the Great Barrier Reef or any controversial issue will know it’s not worth the risk.”

Professor Ridd said his lawyers had convinced him of “numerous strong grounds for appeal”, which he had weighed against the exhaustive mental toll wrought by two years of legal action.

“I don’t take the decision to ­appeal lightly,” he said in a notice to be ­uploaded to his GoFundMe page, which has been the basis of his fundraising effort.

“The financial and emotional costs are high and legal action is fraught with uncertainties.” First, Professor Ridd would have to convince the High Court the case involved “a question of law of public importance”, to be granted special leave to appeal the Federal Circuit Court decision.

The court’s verdict has been praised by the university representative group, the Australian Higher Education Industrial ­Association, which said the verdict “upholds the university’s right to set appropriate behavioural standards in the exercise of those rights” and rejected the premise that the sacking was an intellectual freedom issue. Professor Ridd said the criticism of colleagues was integral to his argument that the university’s climate change science relating to the reef was untrustworthy, driven by emotion and lacking rigorous scrutiny.

“I was fired for being critical of my colleagues … for an academic comment I made about quality assurance in science,” he said.

Professor Ridd said he was “quite encouraged” by federal Education Minister Dan Tehan’s commitment last week to review the new university model code, developed by former High Court chief justice Robert French, aimed at protecting freedom of speech on university campuses.

“Anything he (Tehan) does has to be put into the (enterprise) agreement,” Professor Ridd said.

“As soon as there is any doubt, the university will win because the academic knows they can’t afford the legal battle.”

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Peter’s Fund Raising page is here.

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July 28, 2020 at 10:18AM