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The announced easing of travel restrictions between the US and citizens of the UK get us going – but our producer, “Evil Brian,” isn’t sweating it because James will still need the double-jab to show up at his front door.
On the international front they cover (or stumble through) the Canadian Parliamentary election, the AUKUS security deal, and whether James is contaminating Toby’s “brand” by making people think he’s an anti-vaxxer.
In Culture Corner, James raves about The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros.) while Toby praises American Crime Story: Impeachment (FX in the US, BBC airdate TBA).
This week’s opening sound is French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian opining on the Australia-US-UK submarine deal.
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I’m curious as to why Toby thought Biden would be an isolationist. Is that how the international press was portraying him? The topic of foreign policy didn’t come up during the campaign. I thought Trump was seen as a bit of an isolationist and Biden would be a return to military engagements around the world.
James holds forth with his theory about the vaccines being “death shots” that will began killing people around about fall or winter.
Is he serious about this? Where did he get this idea? What will James say if vaccinated people don’t start dropping dead?
Toby once tried to get James to pick a number of deaths that would prove — or disprove — his hypothesis, but James preferred to leave it completely vague, so he can claim vindication no matter what happens.
I’m not sure I should treat anything James says on this subject seriously. “I’m not a right-wing crackpot but I play one on my podcast!”
I assure you James is sincere in his beliefs. He relies on the opinions of some folks who may be viewed as contrarians inside the pharmaceutical industry, such as Michael Yeadon, a former VP of the Allergy and Respiratory Research Division at Pfizer, and Robert Malone, whose pioneering work in mRNA technology made the Covid vaccines possible.
My point was, if James is “sincere in his beliefs”, then he should be willing to “put his money where his mouth is”, by making testable predictions. For example, when is this “mass depopulation event” supposed to take place, and what will it look like when it happens? That is, who will die and how? But he refuses to let himself be pinned down, making his hypothesis unfalsifiable.
BTW, Malone’s heterodoxy, as I understand it, consists in believing that vaccinating the young is not worth the risk. He is not an anti-vaxxer otherwise.