Sep 012021
 
 September 1, 2021  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Vincent van Gogh Ward in the hospital in Arles 1889

 

Who’s Really Being Hospitalized? (Margulis)
60% of Those Older Than 50 Who Die From Covid Are Double Vaxxed (Mercola)
‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy (Pfeiffer)
There’s An Off Ramp – But It Has A Price (Denninger)
The Case For Covid Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished (Fee)
Key Vaccine Leaders Departing FDA As Covid-19 Booster Questions Linger (FPhar)
Greek Health Ministry Bracing For ‘Great Exodus’ (K.)
Pharmacy Customers Refuse To Say What Ivermectin Prescription Is For (G.)
Zero Covid, A Once Wildly Popular Ideology, Quietly Faces Extinction (Subs)
Singapore Gives Up Goal of Zero Covid Despite High Vaccination Rate (Gizmodo)
Obama Officials’ Lies About Edward Snowden and Russia (Greenwald)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stories are collapsing.

Who’s Really Being Hospitalized? (Margulis)

After a battery of testing, my friend was diagnosed with pancreatitis. But it was easier for the hospital bureaucracy to register the admission as a COVID case. Let me explain. This patient had none of the classic symptoms of COVID: No shortness of breath, no fever, no chills, no congestion, no loss of sense of smell or taste, no neurological issues. The only COVID symptoms my friend had were nausea and fatigue, which could also be explained by the surgery. However, nearly three weeks earlier, a COVID test had come back positive. The mainstream media is reporting that severe COVID cases are mainly among unvaccinated people.

An AP headline from June 29 reads: “Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated.” Another, from the same date: “Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC News survey finds.” Is that what’s really going on? It’s certainly not the case in Israel, the first country to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against the virus. Now it has one of the highest daily infection rates and the majority of people catching the virus (77% to 83%, depending on age) are already vaccinated, according to data collected by the Israeli government. After carefully reviewing the available data, including the safety and efficacy profiles of the mRNA vaccines, my friend had taken a cautious approach. Though a medical doctor who gives vaccines in the office every day, my friend opted to wait and see.

According to WebMD, a “huge number” of frontline hospital workers have also chosen not to get the vaccine. Indeed, various news reports, from California to New York, confirm that up to 40% of health care workers have decided the risks of the vaccines do not outweigh the benefits. After admission, I spoke to the nurse on the COVID ward. She was suited up in a plastic yellow disposable gown, teal gloves, and two masks underneath a recirculating personal respiratory system that buzzed so loudly she could barely hear. The nurse told me that she had gotten both vaccines but she was feeling worried: “Two thirds of my patients are fully vaccinated,” she said. How can there be such a disconnect between what the COVID ward nurse told me and the mainstream media reports?

For one thing, it is very hard to get any kind of accuracy when it comes to actual numbers. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have publicly acknowledged that they do not have accurate data. As reported by the Associated Press, “The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.” At the same time, data collection is done on a state by state basis. In most states, a person is only considered fully vaccinated fourteen days after they have had the full series of the vaccine. This means that anyone coming into an American hospital who has only had one dose, or who has had both vaccines but had the second one less than two weeks prior, will likely be counted as “unvaccinated.”

So when the South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control released a report about COVID severity on July 23, 2021, they reported higher morbidity and mortality rates in the “not fully vaccinated.” Are these people who have had one vaccine and gotten sick, two vaccines and gotten sick, or no vaccines at all? Without more details, it is impossible to know what is really going on. “We don’t have accurate numbers,” insists Dr. James Neuenschwander, an expert on vaccine safety based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But what we do know, Neuenschwander says, is that the vaccines are not as effective as public health officials told us they would be. “This is a product that’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to stop transmission of this virus and it’s not doing that.”

Read more …

“…breakthrough cases are now multiplying at breakneck speed. “There are so many breakthrough infections that they dominate..”

60% of Those Older Than 50 Who Die From Covid Are Double Vaxxed (Mercola)

The oft-repeated refrain right now is that we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” meaning those who have not received the COVID jab make up the bulk of those hospitalized and dying from the Delta variant. For example, August 20, 2021, England’s chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty tweeted: “Four weeks working on a COVID ward makes stark the reality that the majority of our hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated and regret delaying. Some are very sick including young adults. Please don’t delay your vaccine.” Curiously, if you take the time to actually look at the data, you’ll find that this blanket statement is rather deceptive. Here’s a graphic published in the Evening Standard, sourced from Public Health England:

As you can see, as of August 15, 2021, 58% of COVID patients admitted to hospital who were over the age of 50 had actually received two doses of COVID injections and 10% had received one dose. So, partially or fully “vaccinated” individuals made up 68% of hospitalizations. Only in the 50 and younger category were a majority, 74%, of hospitalizations among the unvaccinated. Whitty, however, completely neglected to differentiate between the age groups. The same applies to deaths. Unvaccinated only make up the majority of COVID deaths in the under-50 age group. In the over-50 group, the clear majority, 70%, are either partially or fully “vaccinated.” It’s also unclear whether hospitals in the U.K. (and elsewhere) are still designating anyone who is admitted and tests positive with a PCR test as a “COVID patient.” If so, people with broken bones or any number of other health problems who have no symptoms of COVID-19 at all might be unfairly lumped into the “unvaccinated COVID patient” total.


In Israel, where vaccine uptake has been very high due to restrictions on freedom for those who don’t comply,4 data show those who have received the COVID jab are 6.72 times more likely to get infected than people with natural immunity. The fully “vaccinated” also made up the bulk of serious cases and COVID-related deaths in July 2021, as illustrated in the graphs below.8 The red is unvaccinated, yellow refers to partially “vaccinated” and green fully “vaccinated” with two doses. By mid-August, 59% of serious cases were among those who had received two COVID injections,9 mirroring the data coming out of the U.K.

In an August 16, 2021, Science article,10 Israeli Minister of Health Nitzan Horowitz is quoted saying the nation has entered a “critical time” in the race against the pandemic. Horowitz allegedly was given a third booster shot August 13, 2021, the day they began offering a third dose to people over the age of 50. From Public Health England’s data, it seems clear that the COVID shots are failing to protect people over the age of 50 in the U.K. as well, so it’s probably only a matter of time before booster shots are rolled out there too. And, provided the COVID injections are the same irrespective of country, there’s every reason to assume the same trends will emerge in other countries, including the U.S.


According to Science magazine, breakthrough cases are now multiplying at breakneck speed. “There are so many breakthrough infections that they dominate and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated,” Uri Shalit, a bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology told Science. Nearly 1 million Israelis over the age of 50 have now received a third booster of Pfizer’s mRNA shot. Time will tell whether this will worsen the rate of breakthrough cases or tame it. Dvir Aran, a biomedical data scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology doesn’t seem very hopeful, telling Science the surge is already so steep, “even if you get two-thirds of those 60-plus [boosted], it’s just gonna give us another week, maybe two weeks until our hospitals are flooded” again.

Read more …

“Existing drugs could have relegated COVID to a manageable outpatient disease by the first half of 2021.”

‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy (Pfeiffer)

Throughout COVID, the media has stepped into line like good soldiers in a war on disease, failing, in the process, to do its job. It gave government a pass on the dearth of outpatient care. It fostered the fiction that aggressively treating COVID is a right-wing construct. It dismissed vaccine side effects as rare. It enabled vast censorship. News outlets might be excused for initially minimizing falling vaccine efficacy in this dynamic situation. But it cannot be excused for its politicization of and disdain for generic early treatments. As a mainstream community journalist for decades, with two books and many awards, I am appalled at what this profession has become.

Existing drugs could have relegated COVID to a manageable outpatient disease by the first half of 2021. We have promising generics: ivermectin primarily but also fluvoxamine, hydroxychloroquine, budesonide and protocols that employ them with zinc, Vitamin D and the like. They have been suppressed around the globe, as countries – mainly, but not all, in the first world — have caved under pressure to conform to the U.S.-hatched strategy. In the white-hot frenzy of pack journalism, doctors’ licenses have been threatened, and reputations imperiled, including of a prison doctor who used ivermectin and kept inmates out of hospitals. Will nursing home practitioners, who told me of their own ivermectin success, be next in this witch hunt? Indeed, somehad used it to control scabies and found a remarkable drop in COVID.

As the globe is buttressed by new variants, vaccine efficacy is being tested and so is that of ivermectin. Leading proponents are adjusting doses and adding to treatment cocktails as part of a logical ongoing effort: Use emerging science and clinical experience to learn what works. Although off-label use of approved drugs is well established — accounting for 21 percent of office prescriptions and half of oncology drugs – doctors have instead been told to follow only a few, patented, government-sanctioned treatments, available only in hospitals. Who could blame them, in this heated environment, for not practicing medicine but following orders? Nonetheless, the forces of commerce and incompetence that have pushed a false narrative and demonized treatment for COVID must be held to account.

Read more …

“The fifth jab would put the risk of getting screwed at ten percent, which is approximately the rate of death from the original SARS and the sixth would be odds-on as literal suicide.”

There’s An Off Ramp – But It Has A Price (Denninger)

[..] all of the current vaccines deliberately produce that spike protein, which by itself causes disease, specifically clotting-related disease, in your body. Deliberately causing your body to produce that pathogen (which then elicits the antibody response) is how all of them work. This means there is no safe way to vaccinate against this disease because introducing the spike into your body, no matter how you do it, inherently runs the risk of serious clotting-based disorders. You might or might not get nailed but there is no avoiding the risk. That same risk is what kills you, most of the time, if you actually get Covid-19 and die but the premise that you avoid that risk when taking a jab is a lie.

You cannot; the risk is inherent in introducing the spike into your circulation and there is no way around that with an IM injection because the muscles of the body are very well-perfused (that is, there’s a lot of blood flow in them) even if the person who performs the injection does not hit a blood vessel, and they might. These facts are not up for debate on a scientific basis any longer. They also fully explain the myocarditis, pericarditis and myriad other so-called “rare” events that occur with these jabs such as strokes, heart attacks and other clotting-based disorders. In addition the data is that the 2nd shot in the 2-shot series is much more dangerous than the first, which implies an exponential expansion of risk. Whether that expansion of risk bleeds back off over a couple of months or so is entirely unknown as it has not been studied.

Without a data set of hundreds of thousands (so as to get statistical significance) and both baseline and follow-up d-Dimer testing, at minimum, we will never be able to put numbers on this, nor get a decay rate on the risk if it decays, and nobody is doing those studies. That’s the bad news; if you take repeated shots and the risk does not bleed off then eventually you will kill yourself. If, for example, the risk on the first shot is 1/100,000 (extremely rare), on the second 1/10,000 (that’s a bad pattern) and the risk does not bleed off over the space of three or four months then the risk from the third is 1/1,000 (that’s 0.1% and quite nasty) while the risk from a fourth jab rises to 1% at which point you’re in the ballpark for a severely morbid person when it comes to Covid-19 infection itself killing them.

The fifth jab would put the risk of getting screwed at ten percent, which is approximately the rate of death from the original SARS and the sixth would be odds-on as literal suicide. How many jabs did you say you’re willing to risk taking again? You cannot get your health back if you ruin it by being stupid. The younger you are the worse the risk is in terms of years of enjoyable life lost. To take that sort of risk when you’re 85, fat, diabetic, you have an almost-10% risk of death in the next year from all causes and the Coof is 10% likely to kill you is very different than to take that same risk to your health when you’re 17, male, have a BMI under 25, there’s not a damn thing wrong with you medically, your all-cause risk of death (most of it by violence) is 7/10,000 and your risk, by the CDC’s numbers, of Covid-19 killing you if infected is approximately 1/100,000.

Read more …

Never was one.

The Case For Covid Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished (Fee)

A newly published medical study found that infection from COVID-19 confers considerably longer-lasting and stronger protection against the Delta variant of the virus than vaccines. “The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a ‘Don’t try this at home’ label,” the Scientific American reported Thursday. “The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.” Put another way, vaccinated individuals were 27 times more likely to get a symptomatic COVID infection than those with natural immunity from COVID.

The findings come as many governments around the world are demanding citizens acquire “vaccine passports” to travel. New York City, France, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and British Columbia are among those who have recently embraced vaccine passports. Meanwhile, Australia has floated the idea of making higher vaccination rates a condition of lifting its lockdown in jurisdictions, while President Joe Biden is considering making interstate travel unlawful for people who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19. Vaccine passports are morally dubious for many reasons, not the least of which is that freedom of movement is a basic human right. However, vaccine passports become even more senseless in light of the new findings out of Israel and revelations from the CDC, some say.

Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff said research showing that natural immunity offers exponentially more protection than vaccines means vaccine passports are both unscientific and discriminatory, since they disproportionately affect working class individuals. “Prior COVID disease (many working class) provides better immunity than vaccines (many professionals), so vaccine mandates are not only scientific nonsense, they are also discriminatory and unethical,” Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist, observed on Twitter.

Read more …

Very odd moment: boosters.

Key Vaccine Leaders Departing FDA As Covid-19 Booster Questions Linger (FPhar)

Two key vaccine leaders will leave the FDA this fall, just as the agency faces key decisions over COVID-19 booster shots and as variants take a bite out of the shots’ efficacy. FDA Office of Vaccines Research and Review Director Marion Gruber, Ph.D. and Deputy Director Phillip Krause, M.D. will depart the agency. Both have been with the agency for decades and have been pivotal in the United States’ effort to authorize COVID-19 vaccines to fight the pandemic. The news was first reported by Biocentury. Gruber will leave the agency on Oct. 31 and Krause’s last day will be sometime in November, according to a letter shared by the FDA with Fierce Pharma. The letter was signed by Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, under which the vaccine research office sits.

Marks will serve as acting director of the OVRR for now as a search begins for a new chief. An acting director will be announced later. “[Gruber’s] contributions throughout her career have been immeasurable, but never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Marks said. “Her leadership in the center’s efforts to authorize three COVID-19 vaccines, and more recently to approve one of those vaccines, ensured that the vaccines met the high standards the public has come to expect from FDA, and has positively impacted the public health in the U.S. and across the globe.” [..] For his part, Krause was responsible for liaising with public health officials around the world to “address critical vaccine-related issues,” according to Marks. “His keen insight and experience in addressing a wide variety of challenges will truly be missed,” the letter said.

The departures are the latest high-profile officials to leave the key federal agency that still lacks a permanent leader. Janet Woodcock is leading the agency on an acting basis and will not be considered for the commissioner job permanently. Nevertheless, the FDA expressed confidence that the vaccine work would go on. “We are confident in the expertise and ability of our staff to continue our critical public health work, including evaluating COVID-19 vaccines,” an FDA spokesperson said. Gruber and Krause are leaving the agency following criticism of the White House’s decision to leap frog over the agency to recommend COVID-19 booster shots. The move to start boosters next month has been blasted by the World Health Organization, which questions the data to support the need for a third shot—especially as poorer nations continue to struggle with getting first shots to people.

Read more …

Note: in the top article, WebMD is cited as saying in the US, up to 40% of health care workers have chosen not to get the vaccine. But Greece claims “more than 90% of the doctors and 80% of the nurses had been vaccinated”.

Greek Health Ministry Bracing For ‘Great Exodus’ (K.)

With the deadline for the mandatory vaccination of health workers expiring on Wednesday, the Heath Ministry is preparing for an imminent “great exodus” of staff due to the suspensions that will ensue with a wide array of preemptive measures to fill the gaps and to ensure that services are fully operational. These measures include a reshuffle of healthcare workers within hospitals, mergers of clinics and departments, the replacement of those suspended with auxiliary staff and partnerships with the private sector for support services such as catering, care etc. Wednesday is the last day for staff to get at least the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 so as to avoid suspension as of tomorrow. The government has insisted the relevant legislation for mandatory vaccinations will be strictly implemented.


Those who are exempt from the precepts of the legislation are obviously those that have already been vaccinated and workers who have been infected with the coronavirus within the last six months. Those who do not fall into these categories and have not received approval for exemption due to health issues by the competent committees will be suspended. Moreover, as clarified by the former deputy minister of health, Vassilis Kontozamanis, based on the payroll system in the public sector, which provides advance payment of earnings every two weeks, the government will request that they return this amount of salary as unduly paid. Speaking on the radio station 9.84 on Tuesday, Secretary General of Health Services Yiannis Kotsiopoulos estimated that about 10,000 health workers will not continue working in the National Health System. According to the most recent data, more than 90% of the doctors and 80% of the nurses had been vaccinated against Covid-19, while the percentages are lower for the rest of the staff.

Read more …

The Guardian campaign vs ivermectin. Check the picture they use.

Pharmacy Customers Refuse To Say What Ivermectin Prescription Is For (G.)

Australian pharmacists have reported an increasing number of people arriving with prescriptions for the drug ivermectin, but refusing to say what it will be used for. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia said its members were encountering resistance from some customers when asked why they were seeking ivermectin. “PSA is aware that some pharmacists have experienced an increase in presentations of prescriptions for ivermectin, including where the patient is unwilling or unable to discuss what they are being used for,” a PSA spokesperson said. The Therapeutic Goods Administration on Monday said there had been a shortage of Stromectol 3mg ivermectin tablets in August.


The drug is typically used in humans for treating river blindness, scabies and roundworm infections, but has increasingly been sought as a treatment for Covid-19, despite not being approved for that use in Australia. The TGA also noted there had been a tenfold increase in detections of the drug being imported into Australia, prompting the regulator to warn against using the drug for Covid-19 treatment, stating there is “insufficient evidence” that it works and it may be dangerous to health. The university behind the initial lab trial for ivermectin used to treat Covid-19 has also warned against people self-medicating with the drug or buying drugs meant for livestock. Much of the initial focus on the drug as a Covid-19 treatment stemmed from an April 2020 lab trial at Monash University in Melbourne, where ivermectin was found to have killed the Covid-19 virus in a cell culture within 48 hours.

Read more …

“New Zealand is fully trapped in the Zero COVID death spiral, and it has no way out of it for the foreseeable future.”

Zero Covid, A Once Wildly Popular Ideology, Quietly Faces Extinction (Subs)

The Zero COVID ideology began with a Chinese government lie. Zero COVID once recruited almost unanimous advocates in world governments, “global health” organizations, and “public health experts” far and wide. Yet today, just 18 months after its first implementation, the Zero COVID ideology is so rare and so unpopular that you have to travel to remote parts of Oceania or within the confines of an elite American liberal arts university in order to find it. Zero COVID, the idea that demands the total elimination of a virus from a nation state, was spawned as part of a disinformation operation by the Chinese Communist Party in Wuhan, China. In early 2020, Chinese authorities declared the virus that causes COVID-19 had been successfully eliminated from the population through brute force restrictions such as lockdowns, masks, and using the power of a Police State to force people to stay inside their homes for an indefinite period of time.

When COVID-19 spread far and wide, almost every nation in the world (other than rare holdouts such as Sweden and Belarus) implemented the aforementioned draconian policies in an attempt to “stop the spread” and eliminate the virus from the world. In the beginning, even questioning these baseless, pseudoscientific ideas was tantamount to being something of a bioterrorist. Through much of 2020, yours truly was constantly castigated by actors across the political spectrum for asking about the wisdom of using the power of government to wage an elimination war against a submicroscopic infectious particle. Zero COVID was science. Zero COVID was truth. Zero COVID superseded every constitutional protection out there, because no right was too important when a virus was out there.

In 2020, COVID Zero’s membership roster was probably in the billions. Now, the adherents of the COVID Zero ideology are facing imminent extinction. The 18 month effort to contain COVID-19 was not only unsuccessful, it brought unprecedented economic and societal disaster in addition to the unconstrained virus problem. Today, few, if any governments have fully owned up to their failures. Most have taken the scapegoat approach, and without evidence, have blamed “the unvaccinated,” the “highly contagious” Delta variant, or some combination of the two to justify their catastrophic blunders. Over the past few months, the remains of the Zero COVID damn broke in the few nation state holdouts where rulers still adhered to the Zero COVID ideology.

In Australia, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, and elsewhere around the world, the lid on the pressure cooker came flying off, and local populations saw skyrocketing COVID numbers. Now, every country in the world but one has quietly, through their own policies, accepted the failure of the “global elites’” Zero COVID virus elimination strategy. Read some of the media stories that lauded Zero COVID “success story” nations, and you’ll find that they’ve come to age like months-old milk. New Zealand, the one Zero COVID country that remains, is currently under another hard lockdown, which has recently been extended until at least mid September. The country is now almost 2 years into its self siege, in which the government has decreed that the vast majority of citizens cannot enter or exit the country. As for a reopening timeline, Auckland no longer has one. New Zealand is fully trapped in the Zero COVID death spiral, and it has no way out of it for the foreseeable future.

Read more …

Bit late.

Singapore Gives Up Goal of Zero Covid Despite High Vaccination Rate (Gizmodo)

Singapore has decided to give up on the dream of covid-zero and will instead learn to “live with the virus,” according to the country’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday. The decision comes despite the fact that Singapore has one of the highest covid-19 vaccination rates in the world, with 80% of the adult population fully vaccinated—second only to the country of Malta’s 82%. Singapore, a country of roughly 5.7 million people, has been among a handful of countries that have pursued a strategy of completely eliminating covid-19, rather than just suppressing the virus. Other covid-zero countries over the past year have included New Zealand, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and Australia.

“It is no longer possible to bring covid-19 cases down to zero, even if we lock down for a long time. Therefore, we must prepare for covid-19 to become endemic, like the flu or chicken pox,” Lee said on Sunday during a speech to commemorate the country’s National Day, according to a transcript from the Strait Times. “Fortunately, with vaccination and added precautions, we can live with the virus and become ‘Covid resilient’,” Lee continued. Singapore has done exceptionally well during our global health crisis, reporting roughly 67,000 cases of covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, and just 55 deaths. And Singapore was reporting fewer than 30 cases per day for much of 2021 until a surge of cases in July that saw the country averaging 150 cases per day.

But Loong promises his government isn’t giving up on suppressing the virus, they’re just abandoning the covid-zero model. “We may have to tap on the brakes from time to time, but we want to avoid having to slam on the brakes hard. So in the next phase, we will move step by step. Not in one big bang like in some countries but cautiously and progressively, feeling our way forward,” Lee said. That “big bang” is likely a veiled reference to countries like the UK, which celebrated a “freedom day” in July where all covid-19 restrictions were lifted, only to see a surge in cases and deaths. Case numbers in the UK have started to plateau again, thanks largely to the vast majority of people in the region having covid-19 antibodies either through vaccination or previous infection, but cases are still very high at roughly 25,000 per day. The U.S. has also seen a surge of infections recently, with a seven-day average of about 157,000 new cases each day.

Read more …

“It is hard to overstate how dispositively Rhodes’ own book proves that Obama officials generally, and Rhodes specifically, lied blatantly and cavalierly to the public about what happened..”

Obama Officials’ Lies About Edward Snowden and Russia (Greenwald)

Ever since Edward Snowden received asylum from Russia in 2013, Obama officials have repeatedly maligned his motives and patriotism by citing his “choice” to take up residence there. It has long been clear that this narrative was a lie: Snowden, after meeting with journalists in Hong Kong, intended only to transit through Moscow and then Havana on his way to seek asylum in Latin America. He was purposely prevented from leaving Russia — trapped in the Moscow airport — by the very Obama officials who then cynically weaponized his presence there to imply he was a civil-liberties hypocrite for “choosing” to live in such a repressive country or, even worse, a Kremlin agent or Russian spy.

But now we have absolute, definitive proof that Snowden never intended to stay in Russia but was deliberately prevented from leaving by the same Obama officials who exploited the predicament which they created. The proof was supplied unintentionally in the memoir of one of Obama’s senior national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, entitled The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. It is hard to overstate how dispositively Rhodes’ own book proves that Obama officials generally, and Rhodes specifically, lied blatantly and cavalierly to the public about what happened: a level of sustained and conscious lying that can be explained only by sociopathy.

The memoir of Rhodes, now appropriately an MSNBC contributor, is an incredibly self-serving homage to himself that repeatedly attempts to demonstrate his own importance and accomplishments. The passage about Rhodes’ conduct regarding Snowden is very much aligned with those goals. While repeatedly emphasizing how traumatic the Snowden revelations were for the Obama administrations, Rhodes boasts of the crucial role he played in preventing Snowden from leaving Russia as the NSA whistleblower was desperately attempting to do so — exactly the opposite of what people like Rhodes and Hillary Clinton were telling the public about Snowden.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle September 1 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 89 total)
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  • #85940

    Vincent van Gogh Ward in the hospital in Arles 1889   • Who’s Really Being Hospitalized? (Margulis) • 60% of Those Older Than 50 Who Die From Cov
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 1 2021]

    #85941
    a kullervo
    Participant

    Greetings,

    For those here who don’t regularly follow Gail Tverberg‘s Our Finite World, read & weep.

    #85942
    a kullervo
    Participant

    Two things TAE Summary left out from the sharp comment:
    1. The entities behind the current events have real power.
    2. They are going to accomplish a global population reduction.

    The only doubt remaining: will a major armed conflict/destruction be avoided?
    If it can, then TPTB have pulled a fast one – chapeau…

    #85943
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    I hope that I am not the only one but Singapore’s decision to give up “zero Covid” is frightening. They did eradicate the Wuhan variant. But the delta variant is not just killing off old folks but the young are getting sick and dying too. This policy is “let ‘er rip”. “Profits over lives.” Under it everyone sooner or later will catch Coronavirus. Mitigating the virus with mRNA vaccines alone has proven not to work. It is strange that these highly vaccinated nations deny that the mRNA vaccines are involved in their spiking number of cases. Not to mention the side effects from the vaccines themselves.

    Controlling the virus with public health measures continues in China, Taiwan and New Zealand. If there was a treatment that mitigates the virus, lessening some public health measures maybe practical but there is a concerted effort to prevent the use of off-label generic drugs in order to increase Pharmaceutical profits. This is further proof that either the pandemic was intentional or they simply do not know what they are doing. Either case, the current western predatory capitalistic system needs to go.

    #85944
    oxymoron
    Participant

    a kullervo Hyman Rickover’s speech is from 1957! man did he have vision and understanding. Nice one

    #85946
    a kullervo
    Participant

    @oxymoron

    One thing which is possible to infer from Rear Admiral Rickover’s speech is that he was not the only one aware of the facts imparted in the allocution:

    But the most significant distinction between optimistic and pessimistic fuel reserve statistics is that the optimists generally speak of the immediate future – the next twenty-five years or so – while the pessimists think in terms of a century from now. A century or even two is a short span in the history of a great people. It seems sensible to me to take a long view, even if this involves facing unpleasant facts.

    For it is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost, are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account. Oil and natural gas will disappear first, coal last. There will be coal left in the earth, of course. But it will be so difficult to mine that energy costs would rise to economically intolerable heights, so that it would then become necessary either to discover new energy sources or to lower standards of living drastically.
    Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover’s May 14, 1957 speech to the Minnesota State Medical Association (excerpt)

    Preparations have been on the wing at least since the 1950’s…

    #85948
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Fed now discussing the social justice equity, making up new Congressional mandates out of thin air.

    …You know, after fabricating a mandate to make the Dow rise every day forever. Irony is dead as they and their money-printing plan purchase for rich people and prevention of bankruptcy for reckless idiot sons is the main driver of social inequity. Worth a mention.

    This is of course like all the other fabricated laws and mandates on masks, schools, doses, rents, jobs that the CDC invented from thin air, were never laws, never legal. Why? They could have passed them; they clearly own everybody. Because they don’t WANT rule by law, representation, Congress, Parliaments. Like the EU they want an unelected standing bureaucracy run by international corporate oligarchs. The Soviet model. Governments fade and disappear, and the people’s voice with them.

    All eyes off the important and on F-Stan. Keeping them busy, but unfortunately keeping us busy.
    Point running around out there: Joe is massively arming the Taliban while disarming Americans. Wow. Good choice. Freedom. I guess that goes with protecting Afghan non-citizens before or for abandoned Americans ever. 5th day in a row, there are no Americans there, except we keep rescuing the Americans that aren’t there, but wanted to be there, and don’t want rescue, but get on planes and are rescued. Zero left behind = 90% of them are out, or 10% are left, with no control of airport. Russia isn’t having any trouble there: their embassy is open, their people free to come and go.

    Mother of dead Marine pissed at Biden was banned and erased. The desaparecidos, mothers banned even from grieving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_of_the_Plaza_de_Mayo “You’ll get NOTHING, no sons, and you’ll LIKE it. Or else!”

    We’re not done yet: banning and erasing grieving mothers in a wildly pro-war agenda, supporting billionaire oligarchs, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Joe is still our heroes of the Left. Cause we’re for the little people! We fight injustice and for peace! Especially for minorities like Kareem Nikou and Hunter Lopez, clearly white supremacists, as they say all Marines are.

    Similar story: “A ‘Businesslike’ Taliban Helped Americans, Afghans Escape Kabul, Officials Say” See? Taliban are actually heroes! Unlike Marines and citizens, damn them.

    They’re having trouble covering the silver market lately. That is certainly a very weak link in their system. There are tons of gold, almost everywhere, you just need to bomb countries and take it. There is no silver remaining above ground which might be related to the chip shortage. If you had to get it, I’d say the only possibility is India, and the people will sell it. However, only if the price rises a lot, which would make India rich over China, and the point of stealing it is to keep price(s) DOWN. Silver hasn’t risen in 50 years. Every other object for sale on planet earth is higher, except maybe natural gas. Note even viciously suppressed, silver is still the price Gold was in 1933 when this started. $20-odd /ounce. The ratio is also way out of whack, still near 80 instead of centuries-long 16:1. No change, just a reminder.

    Still figuring out why all containers are backing up in South Beach. Nobody likes Chinese imports anymore? Nobody’s putting them on shelves? Nobody’s docking trucks? Nobody’s running trains? How can we not know what the holdup is? The blockage has got to be the size of the blob that ate Minnesota. NOPE! It’s a mystery no reporter can fathom. Or look.

    No Zero for Singapore. World’s dumbest plan anyway. Okay, great, what then? Lock up for 100 years like Japan or China in 1700? Stay non-disease exposed with zero immunity like Native Americans to Smallpox? Genius! Shows how incredibly pin-headed shallow the thinking has become. I wonder if they also have the highest case rates like Israel and Seychelles. If not, why not?

    #85949
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Covid jabs and the case of the collapsing athletes

    “ SPORTS stars are amongst the fittest people on the planet, but in the last three months there have been 15 reports of top-class athletes collapsing and even dying. These are not the bone and muscle injuries you might expect but heart issues, brain bleeds and unexplained collapse. Covid vaccinations have been implicated although not all conditions can be traced directly back to the jabs and some remain a perplexing mystery.”

    OK, it’s only 15 athletes, so far, but the cases are unusual and who’s to say that it ends there?

    Covid jabs and the case of the collapsing athletes

    #85950
    Oroboros
    Participant

    The lies are so rabid and dogmatic and persistent.

    It’s not about money per se and it’s not about control per se.

    And it’s not about an obsessive compulsive behavioral feedback loop.

    All those things play a part.

    The lies feel like they are being driven forward with such single minded psychosis by a Deadline of some sort.

    A Deadline that seems to have been moved forward by a not to distant future event that shifted in the last couple years.

    The Digital Panopticon that is being constructed is as much about diverting blame for the coming economic collapse as it is about an all encompassing control fetish.

    As russellnblbs said in a previous post, the Technosphere is having withdrawal symptoms like a smack junkie, except it’s fossil fuel instead of heroin.

    Ah, the contrasting vision of sweet Gaia in a no holds barred Mixed Martial Arts match against the Technosphere.

    Like Godzilla vs King Kong.

    Unicorn Spiritual Rainbows vs the Terminator

    And good old Nate Hagens calls it the Energy Hungry Super Amoeba.

    Not quite a monster, not quite a cuddly little stuffed animal.

    What ever it is and what ever you want to call it, it is showing the signs of clucking Cold Turkey.

    The lies are so rabid and dogmatic and persistent because that’s how a junkie reacts to contraction.

    They will do *anything* to maintain their buzz, including throwing your children and grandchildren into the Volcano.

    #85951
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    What ever it is and what ever you want to call it, it is showing the signs of clucking Cold Turkey.

    I prefer to call it exactly what it is, namely “The Eating Machine”. The problem with feeding TEM is that it always needs more to eat even just to keep things stable. The thing is, one day there isn’t going to be enough “more”, and that day is fast approaching, if it isn’t already here.

    #85952
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    On athletes getting sick: here’s another take. Athletes according to Jon Barron typically have “trashed” (his word) immune systems. I speculate that this is because they push their bodies miles past normal limits and do not compensate/supplement adequately to account for this.

    #85953
    absolute galore
    Participant

    From the State PR Department, aka The New York Times:

    This Is the Moment the Anti-Vaccine Movement Has Been Waiting For

    “Americans hoping to fight the anti-vaccine movement must learn to use the same tools of political rhetoric and mobilization, to speak up against misinformation and to swarm lawmakers’ phone lines to oppose bills that harm public health. Republican legislators must defend the importance of public health more forcefully.”:

    That’s rich. As though the government and the industrial-medical-pharma complex is not using mainstream media, political rhetoric, and every other avenue at its disposal, including censorship, to propagate misinformation. The essay in question being a perfect example, by attempting to conflate the stance of the long-term anti-vaxxer movement with the many people who are not anti-vax but are questioning the current vaccines.

    Don’t the “anti-vaxxers” read the New Yorker? The mRNA stuff is plenty safe enough–a doctor in New Mexico says so!

    Why the COVID Vaccines Aren’t Dangerous
    Many vaccine-hesitant people worry about adverse health effects. They shouldn’t.

    As the Delta variant gains momentum around the country, I’m seeing more and more unvaccinated patients in my E.R. I often ask them why, after the devastation we’ve seen this year, they’ve chosen not to get vaccinated. Sometimes their answers are weird or conspiratorial. But most people say that they’re concerned about something real: adverse effects. They’ve heard about blood clots in women, or about myocarditis in young men, and the prospect of developing one of these frightening conditions has kept them away from the vaccination clinic.

    What’s a “vaccination clinic” by the way? Must be something where the doctor practices waiting until people need hospitalization to treat them with everything except stuff proven to be effective?

    #85954
    deflationista
    Participant

    More than half of all car deaths are people who were wearing seatbelts.

    Are seatbelts dangerous? Of course not- they’re just common.

    A huge number of people wear seatbelts. A small % die in crashes.

    A small number of people don’t wear seatbelts. A huge % die in crashes.

    #85955
    Mr. House
    Participant

    What deep and witty argument can you come up with for this?

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243448

    Is murder people, but don’t worry its only a shower 😉

    #85956
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Kuru. Wendigo. Cannibalism. Always hungry, always more.

    Good to stop it since we DO have energy. A lot of it. Not in the century terms, but you notice they were wrong about natural gas which appears more plentiful than 50 years ago. We essentially haven’t drilled three coasts. The war in Yemen is probably that oil wells do NOT stop at the Saudi Border but maybe-kinda might be there? As they are in UAE and the surrounding states? Russian arctic is undrilled, or at least unpiped. Huge parts of Africa — coincidentally the parts we’re bombing, like Sudan, have oil. Venezuela is locked in. Cuba is untapped, a big prize. Iran is totally embargoed, and it is certain and official they have as much as Saudi Arabia did in 1950, that is, 50 years of world supply.

    Here’s the thing: suppose we DID open it. What happens? Burn 4x more, 4x faster like last time? 4x the population to 25B? See the problem? Having unlimited free energy from technology would be the WORST thing that could happen, and we certainly WOULD cut all the remaining trees and displace all the remaining animals. Starting from London and NY, centers of ecological guilt, and moving out from there. It’s not so bad to lock it in until we can find a plan to use it responsibly, but know it IS in there.

    Problem two with this realization is that although that would be the good thing and good solution, in fact the people with the WORST ecological and human record are the ones jacking prices and harboring the energy for themselves while squeezing supply for the poorest, as in France. They are the ones whose policies forced, by tax law, subsidy, monopoly, every means possible, to FORCE and REQUIRE topsoil to be paved, fish to be erased, overproduction to be built, against the natural will of the people who work smaller and slower. The top oil user is the Pentagon, worldwide. The top CO2 users are the same private-jet oligarchs landing at Davos and Copenhagen, tax-free, mask-free. The top polluter is China, where we outsource our pollution and death, required by tax, medical, OSHA, and import law.

    In short, you’ve got the worst offenders driving the bus. Jimmy-Bob in a 40′ pickup truck has nothing on them.

    Not solutions or advice, but there’s your situtation. Like food, there’s a lot of oil and will be for a long time. What we lack is distribution. On purpose. Because that’s how you CONTROL the price, and the people. Disaster Capitalism (read: “Not” Capitalism). It’s all about control. And murder! So there’s more for me!

    #85957
    zerosum
    Participant

    Alternate reality
    Read em and weep
    3 monkeys ….

    No time
    No interest
    No motivation
    ———-
    • ‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy (Pfeiffer)

    ‘Get Sicker’: Anatomy Of A Failed Policy


    Mary Beth Pfeiffer
    August 31, 2021

    Ivermectin reduced hospitalizations in Mexico City up to 76 percent, while a door-to-door campaign obliterated it in the state of Chiapas. These trends, just after organized efforts, are no coincidence.
    ———
    https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/r93g4/

    Ivermectin and the odds of hospitalization due to COVID-19: evidence from a quasi-experimental analysis based on a public intervention in Mexico City

    AUTHORS
    Jose MerinoVictor Hugo BorjaOliva LopezJosé Alfredo OchoaEduardo ClarkLila PetersenSaul Caballero

    Submitted: May 03, 2021 | Last edited: June 29, 2021
    (SocArXiv is housed at the University of Maryland)
    ——-
    Repeat
    • Zero Covid, A Once Wildly Popular Ideology, Quietly Faces Extinction (Subs)
    https://dossier.substack.com/p/zero-covid-a-once-wildly-popular

    In 2020, COVID Zero’s membership roster was probably in the billions. Now, the adherents of the COVID Zero ideology are facing imminent extinction. The 18 month effort to contain COVID-19 was not only unsuccessful, it brought unprecedented economic and societal disaster in addition to the unconstrained virus problem. Today, few, if any governments have fully owned up to their failures. Most have taken the scapegoat approach, and without evidence, have blamed “the unvaccinated,” the “highly contagious” Delta variant, or some combination of the two to justify their catastrophic blunders. Over the past few months, the remains of the Zero COVID damn broke in the few nation state holdouts where rulers still adhered to the Zero COVID ideology.

    #85958
    chooch
    Participant

    Clever montage.

    #85959
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Here’s the thing: suppose we DID open it. What happens? Burn 4x more, 4x faster like last time? 4x the population to 25B? See the problem?”

    Essentially humanity (not our betters) is bacteria in a petri dish of sugar. We consume and reproduce until the sugar is gone and then we have a die off. I realized this some time ago. But like all things in my lifetime, our betters, must control this and shield themselves from blame. Hence we find ourselves in our current predicament. Changes should have been made since 2008 to avoid this, but then blame would also have been doled out and “fortunes” lost.

    #85960
    absolute galore
    Participant

    The Digital Panopticon that is being constructed is as much about diverting blame for the coming economic collapse as it is about an all encompassing control fetish.

    While there will be much diverting of blame, pandemics, increasingly draconian social control, economic destruction, power concentration, debauchery and general coarsening of social mores, are all part of the typical decline scenario.

    Good to stop it since we DO have energy. A lot of it.

    Yes, estimates have us at around the halfway point with oil.Two problems: 1. To keep economies growing (which by current design they must) requires increasing energy inputs. And more importantly, 2. The energy required to extract the energy is becoming unsustainable–there is not enough left over to run the economy effectively. We see this in the drastic and every increasing oscillations of fossil fuel prices. At some point, most of the stuff left will not be extractable because it will be economically untenable.

    And 3. as I posted a few days back, the energy source does not matter in the end (see Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity). Too much energy per capita ends up with the destruction of free society.

    #85961
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Little interest in vaccines. NBC and pals finally rappel down from the tower to ask why:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/grocery-workers-were-frontlines-pandemic-so-why-do-so-many-n1277682
    Didn’t learn anything mind you, but they asked. Tells me it doesn’t have the uptake they claim, and certainly what they want. Anybody know what rate, since 34%, 60%, and 70% are all still constantly referenced without evidence or citation.

    #85962

    Are seatbelts dangerous? Of course not- they’re just common.

    You’re absolutely set on making it easy, ain’t you? Seatbelts have been tested, vigorously, and what was found is that they not only protect people, they also don’t kill those who wear them.

    If we would find that most people who wear them die when in a accident, we would not wear them. That’s what we face when most people who die of Covid in the UK are double jabbed. The stats are presented as “60% of people over 50 who die of Covid”, but that’s just to hide the fact that 97% of deaths are over 50 anyway.

    And there’s no way all of them die only of Covid, and not of the vaccines.

    #85963
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Fine, but Ilych, how much is too little? I see the height of the West being Edwardian, Belle Epoch, with electric, new materials, immense beauty. After, it was Brutalist, Absurdist, anti-human school. But that was on an massive energy rise. Unless tribalism or Medievalism is the height you’re looking for.

    The energy is a problem, but we can’t un-invent it. What’s the solution? I mean besides their published plan of murdering 7.5 billion people?

    #85964
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    I conducted a little social media experiment yesterday. I have an account on Nextdoor.com (similar to facebook.com, but for neighborhoods.) A lady had made a post about how the hospitals were all so overwhelmed, and we should all just stay home, etc., etc. I responded and pointed out that India’s percent per million that was infected by covid was much less than the delta wave currently going on in Israel, the UK, and the US, so maybe we should take a look at what they did?

    Yeah…the original poster did not like my comment. She retorted that it was “all over the media” that “7%” of India’s population had died from the delta wave. That was too outrageous to not continue to respond. I pointed out that based on the cumulative dead from covid stats in ourworldindata and the population of India from 2019, total dead from covid in India was 0.03% of the population.

    Well, the original poster had to go back to her sources, and apparently “all over the media” is actually saying that the excess death was 0.07% of the population. (That’s more like it.) I pointed out again that India suffered fewer covid cases per million people, citing the graph on TAE posted by Raul three days ago, suggesting folks go to OurWorldInData on their own — and, with that being the case, we ought to use the scientific method to figure out why that is. Do the Indian people get more sun than the peopel of Israel/UK/USA? Are the Indian people less obese than the people of Israel/UK/USA?

    Poster’s response: “There could be physiologic differences-interesting to consider.” But she mostly attributed it to lacking ability in India to track cases, etc. I would have loved to point out that India’s delta wave is over…but by morning I am no longer able to respond to the thread…I have been censored from posting more. (Not sure if this was just to me, or if it was done to the entire thread.)

    However, because I spoke up another woman disagreed with the trope that the hospitals are struggling — one person said “there are no elective surgeries in hospitals once again” — another responded that elective surgeries were still going on at the hospital where she worked. And the original poster shared that a friend of hers who works on the “extreme life support” part of a hospital is hesitant to get the vaccine.

    It was a fun little exercise while it lasted. I never contradicted anything said — except for the wildly wrong statistic, which I used accurate statistics to refute. My purpose was to “let in a little bit of light” — just to get some light through the chinks in the minds of the brainwashed. *sigh* It is what I would do if my church had in-person meetings…some of the time, afterwards, (when I wasn’t making music with others on the patio,) I’d sit and chat with people and point out facts that don’t quite jive with their worldview, and then see how the conversation unfolds. It’s a way for me to deal with the frustration of being surrounded by people with uninformed opinions. Sometimes, I’d encounter someone who knew more on a subject than I did, and *I’d* learn a thing or two, expanding my own understanding. I miss that.

    #85965
    John Day
    Participant

    Mandatory Borg Membership
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/09/mandatory-borg-membership.html

    The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations — Should We Rethink the Policy?
    Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits.
    Methods: We calculated the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNTV) to prevent one death from a large Israeli field study. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions database of the Dutch National Register (Lareb) to extract the number of cases reporting severe side-effects and the number of cases reporting fatal side-effects. Results: The NNTV is between 200 and 700 to prevent one case of COVID-19 for the mRNA vaccine marketed by Pfizer. NNTV to prevent one death is between 9,000 and 100,000 (95% confidence interval), with 16,000 as a point estimate. We observed strong variability in the number of Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSRs) per 100,000 vaccine doses across all EU member states. The estimate for the number of ICSRs per 100,000 vaccinations derived from the Lareb database was approximately 700. Among those, there were 16 serious ICSRs, and the number of ICSRs reporting fatal side-effects was at 4.11/100,000 vaccinations. Thus, for 6 (95% CI 2–11) deaths prevented by vaccination, there were approximately 4 deaths reported to Dutch Lareb that occurred after vaccination, yielding a potential risk/benefit ratio of 2:3.
    https://cf5e727d-d02d-4d71-89ff-9fe2d3ad957f.filesusr.com/ugd/adf864_8c97b2396c2842b3b05975bfbd8254cb.pdf

    Tessa (Fights Robots) What Does The Word “Unv-d” Mean?
    Let me get to the heart of it. My policy research over the years makes me believe that, under the guise of COVID, we are being groomed to become life-term subscribers to “in-body artificial immunity as a service”—or an attempt at it anyway…
    ​ ​And, and… the artificial immunity thing is not just about COVID and boosters! The manufacturers are actively working on a number of adult v-es for every real and imaginary malaise there is and isn’t (including the literal plague). And, I believe, the intense emotional barrage around the COVID shot is designed to set a psychological and legal precedent for the creation of a captive market and for enforcing a subscription to “artificial immunity as a service.” From the COVID mandate, we are likely to move on to illnesses that have been up until now considered mundane, then to real and imaginary mental health issues, etc. etc.
    https://tessa.substack.com/p/unvaxxed

    #85966
    John Day
    Participant

    Julian Assange’s Warning: Humanity’s Last Stand
    As the U.S. loses face in the Afghanistan debacle, a video of Julian Assange speaking in 2011 about the goal behind the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan went viral on social media.​..
    ​“While the internet has brought about a revolution in our ability to educate each other, the consequent democratic explosion has shaken existing establishments to their core. Burgeoning digital super-states such as Google, Facebook and their Chinese equivalents, who are integrated with the existing order, have moved to re-establish discourse control. This is not simply a correction action. Undetectable mass social influence powered by artificial intelligence is an existential threat to humanity.”​ …
    ​ ​In the middle of 2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced their plan for a better world to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. WEF, together with the United Nations, business sectors and civil society, aims to build the foundations of the world economic system on the Internet of Things, and implementation of AI technology and robotics.
    ​ ​The key idea behind this initiative is transhumanism. Dubbed as Humanity +, transhumanism is a loosely-defined global intellectual movement that has developed over the last decades. With a view that humans are nothing more than complex biological machines, transhumanists aim to enhance human conditions beyond biological limitations through genetic engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.
    ​ ​Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of WEF, in his book “The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” articulated that transhumanism is a process that brings radical change in our lifestyle, opening a new chapter in human development. He described the goal of the Great Reset as creating a post-human society through a “fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity”.​ (​”​Borg​”​?)​ …
    ​ In her interview by the Investigative Corona Committee Germany, investigative journalist Whitney Webb shed light on hidden motives of the tech companies in censoring content related to Covid-19. She talked about how Google, which is a parent company of YouTube, has investment in the AstraZeneca vaccine via Vaccitech, and ties between the U.S. government, the military and Big Tech companies.
    ​ ​Webb reported that mRNA technology used in vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna was started with large investment from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. She described a push by the tech sector to remake the health care system, moving into telemedicine as a route to changing the current paradigm of medical care.
    ​ ​Webb talked about how companies like Google and Microsoft are now engaged in efforts to replace doctors with apps. Through the use of AI, they create “Precision Medicine”, gene edited medicine targeted to the individual. She pointed out how those developments are not made for profit but to use health care as a way to implement AI and create a technocracy.​..
    ​ At the beginning of 2021, Silicon Valley’s tech companies, in partnership with healthcare companies and the Commons Project Foundation that was established with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, launched the Vaccination Credential Initiative. Together, they are creating digital COVID-19 vaccination records – a global certification system that validates lab results based on their designated authorities.
    ​ ​Naomi Wolff, feminist author, journalist and CEO of a tech company spoke out about the danger of this “proof of vaccination” system that is designed to be used for the purpose of regulating cross-border travel and commerce. Wolff, who authored “The End of America” which outlines the 10 steps those in power can use to close down democracy, warned that this will not stop at Covid or vaccinations and that it heralds the death of liberty in the West. She emphasized that this vaccine passport is “the same platform as China’s social credit system that now enslaves 800 billion people through surveillance and facial recognition technology”
    ​ ​This requirement to show digital proof of one’s health status creates a two tier society, where the unvaccinated are treated as secondary citizens, barred from buying food at supermarkets, eating at restaurants and using public transportation. Around the vaccine passport, the infrastructure for the WEF’s digital economy is now being built.
    ​​ In April 2021, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who joined the initiatives of the Great Reset, stated that “vaccine policy is economic policy”. They are now preparing to roll out Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) that have the capability to control funds, monitor and trace transactions, linking them to personal IDs with a record stored in a massive database.​..
    ​ The monstrous force being unleashed in cyberspace begins to enslave humanity. This is exactly what Assange warned us about, when he decried how the internet has been transformed into the dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism.​..
    ​ Now, in this pandemic, a national security state is quickly morphing itself into a biosecurity state. Public health is weaponized by the authorities to advance their political agendas. With mainstream media fear-mongering and suppressing successful and early treatments of Covid, governments around the world uniformly engage in a global mass vaccination campaign.​ (There are gaps opening in the “uniformity”.)
    ​ ​The fight for free speech now intensifies with doctors and scientists being on the frontline of this battle. By risking jobs and professional licenses, whistleblowers inside medical institutions courageously come forward to uphold the public’s right to know.​..
    … Cardiologist and leading medical expert Dr. Peter McCullough recently criticized the U.S. government’s efforts to force vaccination on its citizens, saying that it “will go down as one of the most deadly, one of the most injurious and costly in human history.”​…
    ​ As the threat to human freedom increases, a man who gave us notice of what is now coming remains in prison, slowly dying. The Covid-19 crisis has hurt Assange immensely. Government imposed restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus made it difficult to hold normal court proceedings, and was used as an excuse by the UK government to deny the public access to the court. The extradition hearings took place within an almost total media blackout. Also, the lockdown in the Belmarsh prison restricted visitation from his family and made it almost impossible for Assange’s lawyers to meet their client and prepare their defense.​..
    ​ The struggle that we are now engaged in is not political. It is not left vs. right, or one nation against another. This is a battle of humans against the machine and it can be only won through each person’s defiance, united in solidarity with others to stand up for what it means to be human.
    ​ ​We have been told that we are at the Eleventh Hour. Now this is the Hour. This is humanity’s last stand and we are its only hope. If we fail to claim our own freedom, there will be no more resistance. The future of humanity depends on our uncompromising courage.

    Julian Assange’s Warning: Humanity’s Last Stand

    #85967
    John Day
    Participant

    ​ ​It’s amazing how you can lie with statistics when you don’t provide context and/or leave key information out of your false narrative.
    ​ ​ As of July 4, the entire covid fear narrative was dying out, with cases crashing to new lows and the Big Pharma vaccine profit machine sputtering. That is when those controlling the media narrative began running the stories about the Indian variant and the imminent tragedy. As cases soared over 350,000 per day, the MSM was predicting bodies piling up in the streets​ ​They failed to give context that India has 1.4 billion people, four times the population of the U.S. On a cases per million basis, India’s surge was still 70% lower than the U.S. peak in January. And then the cases collapsed by 75% in a matter of weeks, with no mass rollout of vaccines. But they did distribute copious amounts of ivermectin. Must just be a coincidence. Everyone knows ivermectin is only for cows and horses, per the “experts” at the FDA.​
    ​With the Indian case collapse, the purveyors of fear needed to give the Indian variant a new scary name – Delta Variant. So India, with a 10% vaccination rate has seen a complete collapse in cases. Meanwhile, the UK and Israel, with some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, 64% and 60% respectively, have seen huge surges in Delta cases. It’s almost as if the vaccines have created the Delta surge.​..
    ​ ​The current all hands on deck campaign to discredit ivermectin is a sign of desperation, as they have only been able to coerce and scare just over 50% of the population to have this Big Pharma concoction injected into their bodies. With cases peaking at 155,000 per day, the desperation of Fauci and his acolytes is visible for all to see.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jim-quinn-critically-thinking-person-might-look-delta-data-conclude

    #85968

    phoenix,

    It feels a bit odd not to bring up ivermectin in a discussion like that. There are huge differences between Indian states who use it and who don’t. It’s not as small as the US, after all.

    #85969
    deflationista
    Participant

    Texas has seen nearly 9,000 COVID-19 deaths since February. All but 43 were unvaccinated people.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/21/coronavirus-texas-vaccinated-deaths/

    #85970
    John Day
    Participant

    Getting ready to bike to work at the clinic. These days are numbered.
    I mourn in my heart when seeing my patients.
    I m coming under harsh institutional scrutiny for giving people real information about vaccine risks/benefits, and now for prescribing ivermectin based treatment.
    My days might be even shorter…

    #85971
    a kullervo
    Participant

    Cuban oil, eh?
    Wonder why those pesky communists don’t drill it to their hearts’ content (not to mention why did the soviets skipped the chance)… not even the ‘Muricans did it whilst Cuba was just another protectorate… saving it for future generations, maybe?

    #85972
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #85973
    userzeroid
    Participant

    a kullervo – an optimistic rebuttal to the peak oil scenario The Fusion Revolution (National Review)

    I know bringing fusion energy up here is sure to get the ire of several commentators due to their knowledge and specialisation in energy, ecology and economy. I also appreciate fusion technology is still *being tested* and has (still) no practical application yet. All the same, it offers *the possibility* of lasting change and an end to “resource wars”. Now there’s something uplifting that is not totally beyond the realms of possibility.

    #85974
    Mr. House
    Participant

    If you believe the jab numbers, we only need about 8% more to get to deagels 2025 prediction

    #85975
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Regarding C19 false-positive PCR test results…
    I don’t wish to be a crank, but I wish that better information were available. For example, if we just *knew* the cycle count for each test, then we could make a comparison between whether or not symptoms were present, and how many cycles it took to return a positve.

    My son was quarantined for C19 exposure in Spanish class last week. By Saturday night he had a runny nose, Tuesday morning at 4 am he vomited. Now…the runny nose could be allergies, and the vomit could have been because he insisted on eating a large quantity of VERY spice food just before going to bed. They also could be legitimate symptoms of C19 infection. Who knows? So I tested all three kids Monday morning, PCR tests (as that is what the insurance covers.)

    Results: all three are negative. Seriously, I’m begining to believe that these three kids are impervious to C19. Maybe their innate immune systems are just so primed C19 gets zapped into non-existence so fast…! I’d really just like some sort of proof that they are immune — but the innate immune system doesn’t do that (if I’m understanding this correctly). My daughter tested negative for antibodies in the spring, and the T-Detect test is not something I want to splurge for right now. I think the next time any of them need a blood test for some reason I’m going to ask the doctor to include antibody testing.

    The “so many false positives to the covid PCR test” trope doesn’t correspond to the lived reality of my own household. Between 5 people we’ve had about 21 PCR tests in the past 12 months — only two came up positive, and those were for the two individuals who tested with obvious covid symptoms — fever, and the whole nine yards. Maybe the labs in Phoenix, AZ don’t run as many cycles as labs in other places? Who knows — they aren’t including cycle counts in the results. It’s hard to say, but IF the labs around here are running cycles past 35, up to 40, and IF it is correct to say that 95% of positives at 35 cycles and beyond are false positives, then out of 19 PCR tests of my household when we had either no covid symptoms or mild maybe covid symptoms — that is a large enough sample for 95% — a false positive should have squeaked through. It bugs me to have insufficient data.

    Other data regarding C19 *does* pan out. For example, if the jabs are as wildly dangerous as they are reputed to be, then I should be seeing some people in my own social circles who are exhibiting vaccine injuries. This is happening: there are 6 people in my social circles that are exhibiting medical problems that are consistent with C19 vaccine injury.

    Another area of C19 data: C19 does kill a few people, but most people survive it just fine, although a small number get long covid. This pans out — I know one person who has died, my mother knows one other. I know a several dozen people who have had covid who survived it just fine. I know of two who contracted “long covid” — tellingly, both have co-morbidities.

    I don’t as yet know anyone who is double-jabbed who has contracted Covid. However, there are probably only two or three dozen people whose have been vaccinated that I know received the vaccine, that it isn’t just a suspicion. Of those, maybe a couple dozen do I know well enough that they would tell me (or, they are extended family, and I’m sure such knowledge would get gossiped through the grapevine), that they had covid after vaccination. Based on the stats out of Israel and the UK, I expect that I’ll eventually get anecdotal evidence of this in my own social circles.

    #85976
    zerosum
    Participant

    Key words
    change the narrative
    moving of the goalposts
    follow the bouncing ball
    a carrot on a string
    a return to normal
    ———-
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/enough-enough-narrative-around-returning-normal-and-herd-immunity-has-been-brazenly

    https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/enough-is-enough-the-narrative-around
    Enough Is Enough: The Narrative Around “Returning To Normal” And Herd Immunity Has Been Brazenly Inconsistent

    How long are we going to sit idly by and ignore people like Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, who claims that the vaccines are creating the new variants instead of stopping them? From Zerohedge:

    Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated.”

    “This already explains why the WHO’s mass vaccination program is not only unable to generate herd immunity (HI) but even leads to substantial erosion of the population’s immune protective capacity,” he continues. “As the ongoing universal mass vaccination program will soon promote dominant propagation of highly infectious, neutralization escape mutants (i.e., so-called ‘S Ab-resistant variants’), naturally acquired, or vaccinal neutralizing Abs, will, indeed, no longer offer any protection to immunized individuals whereas high infectious pressure will continue to suppress the innate immune defense system of the nonvaccinated.”

    #85977
    zerosum
    Participant

    ht tps://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=Reproduction+rate&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=ISR~SWE~USA~CAN~MEX~IND
    Compare countries
    USA
    Mexico
    Isreal
    India

    #85978
    zerosum
    Participant

    Nothing but the truth – therefore delete
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-administration-erased-afghan-weapons-reports-federal-websites

    According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.

    #85979
    Noirette
    Participant

    I recently learned that in Guadeloupe and Martinique (F overseas territories) where dengue fever is endemic, dengue was announced as over, vanished / vanquised or whatever, on May 21, 2021.

    Dengue season is mid-May to mid-Oct in that region. Dengue fever symptoms are very general and can easily be attributed to many other conditions, and no specific agreed-on treatment exists, afaik. From the top of Goog:

    https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/symptoms/index.html

    See for ex. > the link is to an F. GVMT. site, announcing the end of the dengue epidemic in Guadeloupe. Yes, it was considered an epidemic. in F: https://bit.ly/3DGcogS

    Cov. cases, etc. Guadeloupe from worldometers.

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/guadeloupe/

    This is really getting ridiculous.

    —> see also Mr House above, other links between dengue, HIV…

    #85980
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Re Hyman Rickover’s speech
    Hence my desire to move from Phoenix, AZ…it is easier to warm indoor space without electricity than to cool indoor space without electricity.

    @ Raul, regarding ivermectin
    I agree, however, ivermectin is being hounded by the mainstream right now. If I bring it up with people who don’t know me, who are indoctrinated by the mainstream, I am likely to be immediately branded as “one of THOSE people,” and everything that I say will be discounted and ignored. My goal was to open windows a sliver…I was a Mormon missionary, trained, and rule #1 is to “build relationships of trust.” They won’t listen to me until a relationship is established.

    …That is why in the song I wrote about ivermectin verses 1-3 describe the track record of ivermectin, the bridge relates that the inventors received a Noble prize and compares it to penicillin and aspirin, and THEN comes verse 4 explaining that it broke the back of the delta wave in India, followed by reiteration of the comparison with penicillin and aspirin. If the song goes straight to verse 4, those who have heard ivermectin is “just a horse medicine” will experience cognitive dissonance and will tune out the rest of the song. Because of the trashing of ivermectin, it is necessary to establish it firmly as a significant human medication before bringing up that it treats Covid.

    Dr D
    “ Having unlimited free energy from technology would be the WORST thing that could happen, and we certainly WOULD cut all the remaining trees and displace all the remaining animals

    Reminds me of someone I met in Colorado last month who was sure that functional “free energy” devices exist and are just around the corner in becoming mainstream. Eh…the non-polluting aspect (no fossil fuel) sounds nice, but I concur with dr d that we need a braking system to unchecked growth, because unchecked growth will eventually destroy us. Humanity needs to learn to live within its resources sustainably…we need to change our myths and narratives to do this. “Free energy” is just another drug to fuel our mass energy addiction.

    @
    deflationista
    “Texas has seen nearly 9,000 COVID-19 deaths since February. All but 43 were unvaccinated people.”

    Considering the timeline of vaccinations, and the vaccine immunity waning at a rate of 40% per month, I would expect that. Can you shorten the timeline and find accurate stats for Texas from just June and July?

    #85981
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    A hat tip to TAE Summary’s Covid Chess piece. Well done!


    @phoenixvoice

    Great post, and very instructive. In my younger years I would typically “turn on the fire hose” when discussing any topic of which I felt knowledgeable. Then walk away frustrated because my words not only fell on deaf ears, but would more often invoke a “Shields up!” response.

    Your strategy to “let in a little bit of light” is the key. Using my own growth as an example, it is the best way to bring the average person from darkness into the light. Bit by bit, here a little, there a little. Too much too quickly and the psyche rebels.

    As kids we used to enjoy eating Turkish Taffy when we could get our hands on it. And like all curious imps, we played with it at the same time. At first, the slab of taffy was so hard that a firm smack on the floor would shatter it into a hundred pieces. Later, we discovered that by warming it, one could slowly stretch it into long ribbons. But if you pulled too quickly it would snap. Even in its softened state, a sharp rap would still cause it to shatter.

    It has been a useful metaphor for psychic growth, as well as setting expectations for my own level of influence, either through words or actions. We should consider it a success if we can move someone from A to B, and shouldn’t expect or desire to move them from A to C while skipping over B, as developmental gaps are not healthy or wise.

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