Off-Guardian – Oct 21, 2024

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly (or, in this case, four-monthly) chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. All our problems could be fixed if we just gave Big Pharma more money

We covered Labour’s incredibly dystopian plan to accept bribes from Big Pharma to inject the unemployed with experimental drugs a few days ago.

But the pro-weight loss injections propaganda doesn’t stop there, on October 14th Sky News headlined:

Thousands denied weight loss jab due to slow NHS rollout – with some having to wait two years

And goes on to report:

Thousands of people with severe obesity are being denied access to effective treatment because the NHS rollout of the weight loss jab Wegovy is happening far more slowly than planned, research by Sky News shows.

Freedom of Information requests reveal that just 800 people had been prescribed the drug through hospital weight-loss services by the end of April – despite estimates by the Department of Health that 13,500 should have started treatment by then.

I’ll finish this section with a question: Why does this article exist? Is it…

a) Because Sky News really empathizes with overweight patients and wants them to be healthy and happy?
OR
b) Because the owners of Sky News have shares in Big Pharma and want to rake in that sweet sweet NHS funding while making people compliant permanent patients reliant on drugs and injections to function?

2. Yet another meat scare

Tons of food have been recalled and destroyed across the US following a “suspected” listeria infection.

The AP reported two days ago:

Listeria recall grows to 12 million pounds of meat and poultry, some of it sent to US schools

Here’s a fun game to play at home – read the AP article, and drink a shot every time they use a word like “potential”.

The good news is that the potentially massive listeria outbreak has yet to cause a single illness, and the CDC isn’t planning to investigate.

…almost like it’s just about programming people to believe meat = dangerous, and conditioning them to accept sudden shortages of certain foods.

But maybe I’m paranoid.

3. Child murder and “smacking” are not the same

Following the death of Sara Sharif and the arrest of her parents and uncle for murder, a Guardian columnist has taken to her keyboard to ask:

How many more children like Sara Sharif will be killed before smacking is banned?

The problem with this question is that Sara Sharif wasn’t “smacked”. She was – allegedly – tied to a radiator, burned with cigarettes and beaten to death with a cricket bat.

…all of which is very much illegal already. Hence the trial.

None of that is the same as “smacking”. It really shouldn’t need to be said, but nevertheless, here we are.

Now, that’s not to say I’m in favour of indiscriminate physical punishment of children, but as with all suggested new laws the reasons they shouldn’t exist are important.

In the age of the overreaching government attempting to undermine the family unit, alongside the ever broader definitions of “assault” and “violence”, a law which could permit frivolous prosecution of perfectly decent parents is a really bad idea.

BONUS: “They’re making fun of you” moment of the week

It might seem like a perverse joke from a different age, but the UK is still trying to engage people on the Skripal narrative.

This week the ongoing inquiry was told that Sergei Skripal was lucky enough to survive an attack with the “deadliest nerve agent to ever exist” – a chemical thought to be purely theoretical prior to the Salisbury attack – because the paramedic accidentally gave him some nerve agent antidote by mistake.

They really do think that little of us.

It’s not all bad…

OK, the election is a sham. And OK, the media misfires are likely orchestrated to embarrass the candidate destined to lose. But still, this is just funny…