Apr 022022
 
 April 2, 2022  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Leonardo da Vinci First anatomical studies c1515

 

EU Warns Ukrainians Against Compromise (ZH)
Ukrainian Update #9 (Paul Craig Roberts)
Russia, Ukraine and the Law of War: War Crimes (Ritter)
Germany Says Putin Agreed To Keep Payments For Gas In Euros (DW)
The Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy (VF)
Ioannidis: ‘We Must Declare the End of the Pandemic’ (RCS)
Heart Damage Found in Teens Months After Second Pfizer Shot (CHD)
War, Disease, Surging Gas Prices Will Probably Not Deter Hospitality (Bisnow)
“Jettison the Animals!” (Kunstler)
The Cancellation of Tchaikovsky (BI)

 

 

 

 

They don’t want peace. No neutrality for Ukraine.

“France and the UK in particular, are urging the Ukrainians against compromise until Russian troops withdraw from the country.”

EU Warns Ukrainians Against Compromise (ZH)

On Friday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow is preparing a response to Ukraine’s prior proposals issued in Istanbul early this week on reaching a ceasefire, as the next round of dialogue is currently underway via remote link. His statements were generally in a positive direction, saying that in light of Ukraine of late showing “more understanding” as to the Crimea and Donbas issues, Moscow stands ready to engage on Kiev’s proposals on neutral and non-nuclear status for the country, according to Bloomberg. However, France and the UK in particular, are urging the Ukrainians against compromise until Russian troops withdraw from the country.

Following days of outside speculation in the West over just how “constructive” toward a potential breakthrough the talks in Istanbul were, France – which has been closely involved in pushing a diplomatic resolution hard, particularly through repeat Macron-Putin phone calls – has weighed in pouring cold water on any optimism. “I don’t see any signs indicating a real and long-term change in Russia’s position,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a French newspaper Thursday. “Even though its troops are moving slower than the Kremlin expected, I don’t currently see any significant retreat or a ceasefire,” Le Drian said. “The so-called regime of silence that Russia announced for a few hours in Mariupol yesterday was clearly not enough,” he added, in reference to the announced humanitarian evacuation corridor opened Friday at French and German request.

The city has been in Russian hands since early this week, but Ukrainian civilians still remain. “Around 2,000 civilians are on evacuation buses heading from the coastal city of Berdyansk to the Ukrainian government-held city of Zaporizhzhia, carrying civilians evacuating from the besieged city of Mariupol,” CNN reports. “The evacuation convoy left Berdyansk for Zaporizhzhia,” the city of Mariupol announced on Telegram via its council. “Many private vehicles have joined the 42 buses escorted by Red Cross and SES (State Emergency Service) vehicles. Today we expect the arrival of a record number of Mariupol residents.”

Le Drian also acknowledged that Kiev’s Western backers (France among them) are pushing hard for Ukraine’s negotiators to hold a tough line, even as it’s the Ukrainian people under the bombs: “We have a very clear objective, to not give up anything and to intensify our efforts until a total ceasefire across the whole of Ukraine’s territory and real negotiations,” the French top diplomat said. He further repeated by now familiar calls for Europe to boycott Russian hydrocarbons. “While we don’t all have the same dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, we will have the same interest in exiting them (in Europe),” he said.

Read more …

“Most of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine is focused on clearing Ukrainian and neo-Nazi forces out of Donbass. This is the reason for Putin’s go-slow war that rules out heavy weapons use on civilian areas. The civilians are Russians, and, as Putin said, “we went in to liberate these people, not to kill them.”

Ukrainian Update #9 (Paul Craig Roberts)

Just as everything you were told about Covid by the media and health and government officials was false, so is everything you have been told by the same propagandistic liars about Ukraine. Americans have had nothing but lies since the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, of his brother, US Senator Robert Kennedy President-in-Waiting, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam war, 9/11, Saddam Hussian’s nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” Iranian nukes, the extraordinary lies about Kaddafi, Covid pandemic, Russian invasions. The entire Western World lives in The Mattrix, a world created by propaganda. The vast majority of people in the West have no idea of the reality in which they live. This makes them impotent and completely unable to protect their freedom. They are sitting ducks for tyranny which is fast enclosing around them.

Take the Ukraine narrative, for example. The story as presented to the public by the Western media has no relationship to reality. The Ukraine narrative has collapsed as completely as the Covid narrative. There will be no going back to it. The narrative will simply be dropped as the next crisis–inflation perhaps or a newly released pathogen–takes the front page. There was never a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian military focus was on the Donbass region in east and south Ukraine. Inhabited by Russians and part of Russia herself until Soviet leaders transferred it, like Crimea, into Ukraine for their reasons. When the US overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and took control over Ukraine, the Crimean and Donbass Russians voted overwhelmingly to be reunited with Russia. The Kremlin accepted Crimea but not Donbass.

This was a strategic blunder demonstrating a lack of awareness on the part of the Russian government. Immediately the neo-Nazi remnants in west Ukraine, whose forebears had fought for Hitler against Russia in WW II, began abusing the Russian population in the Donbass region in the east. The American puppet government in Kiev followed up by banning the use of the Russian language. To protect themselves, the Donbass Russians declared their independence in the form of two republics, the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics. Ukrainian troops and neo-Nazi militias began attacking these “breakaway republics.” They have been shelling with artillery Donbass villages, towns, and cities for 8 years, killing thousands of civilians, and the Ukrainian forces, although twice defeated by hastily assembled forces in the Donbass, managed to gain control over large areas of the breakaway republics.

It was the deployment of a 100,000 or more Ukrainian force on the shrunken borders of Donbass for an invasion to reconquer the territory that provoked the Russian intervention. Washington’s refusal to give the Kremlin a security guarantee was a second reason for the Russian military intervention. Russia told Washington in completely clear language that Russia would not permit Ukraine to be a member of NATO. Nevertheless, Washington persisted in its provocation. Most of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine is focused on clearing Ukrainian and neo-Nazi forces out of Donbass. This is the reason for Putin’s go-slow war that rules out heavy weapons use on civilian areas. The civilians are Russians, and, as Putin said, “we went in to liberate these people, not to kill them.”

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“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

Russia, Ukraine and the Law of War: War Crimes (Ritter)

“Based on information currently available,” Blinken said, “the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine. “Our assessment,” Blinken added, “is based on a careful review of available information from public and intelligence sources.” According to Blinken, “Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded. Many of the sites Russia’s forces have hit have been clearly identifiable as in-use by civilians.” Blinken declared that this category “includes the Mariupol maternity hospital” as well as “a strike that hit a Mariupol theater, clearly marked with the Russian word for ‘children’ — in huge letters visible from the sky.”

Blinken’s accusations echo those made by the Ukrainian government and organizations such as Amnesty International. Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has announced that his office will begin investigating allegations of Russian war crimes committed during its ongoing military operation in Ukraine. The narrative that paints Russia and the Russian military as perpetrators of war crimes, however, runs afoul of actual international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The issue of jus in bello (the law governing conduct during the use of force) set forth a framework of legal concepts which, when allied to specific actions, help determine whether an actual violation of the law of war has occurred.

Jus in bello is derived from treaties, agreements, and customary international law. Two sets of international agreements, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, serve as the foundation for the modern understanding of jus in bello, regulating, respectively, what is permissible in the execution of war, and the protections provided to non-combatants, including civilians and prisoners of war. “Grave breaches” of jus in bello can be prosecuted in courts of relevant jurisdiction as war crimes. Starting from the proposition that war is little more than organized murder, the issue of how to define what constitutes murder sufficient to be categorized a being of a criminal nature is far more difficult that one might think. Michael Herr gave voice to this reality in his book, Dispatches, about America’s war in Vietnam, when he observed that, “Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

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Their euros don’t buy oil. They buy rubles. Twist it any way you want it. Which means Russia banks stay open, and dollars and euros keep pouring in.

Germany Says Putin Agreed To Keep Payments For Gas In Euros (DW)

Germany’s government said on Wednesday it has received assurances from Russia that Europe would not have to pay for Russian gas supplies in rubles. Olaf Scholz’s office said Russian President Vladimir Putin told the German Chancellor that European companies could continue paying in euros or dollars. In a phone call with Scholz, Putin said the money would be paid into Gazprom Bank and then transferred in rubles to Russia, a German statement said. The bank is not currently subject to sanctions. “Scholz did not agree to this procedure in the conversation, but asked for written information to better understand the procedure,” the statement added.


Putin said last week that Moscow would only accept rubles as payment for gas deliveries to “unfriendly” countries, including European Union nations. According to a Kremlin statement, Putin told Scholz that “the decision taken should not lead to worsening of contractual terms for European importer companies.” He also sought to justify Russia’s demands for ruble payments, saying that “in violation of the norms of international law, the foreign exchange reserves of the Bank of Russia were frozen by the member states of the European Union.” The Kremlin said the two leaders agreed that experts from each country would hold further discussions on the matter.

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Very good in Vanity Fair. “..genomic sequences mentioned in a published paper from China had somehow vanished without a trace”

The Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy (VF)

Bloom’s paper was the product of detective work he’d undertaken after noticing that a number of early SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences mentioned in a published paper from China had somehow vanished without a trace. The sequences, which map the nucleotides that give a virus its unique genetic identity, are key to tracking when the virus emerged and how it might have evolved. In Bloom’s view, their disappearance raised the possibility that the Chinese government might be trying to hide evidence about the pandemic’s early spread. Piecing together clues, Bloom established that the NIH itself had deleted the sequences from its own archive at the request of researchers in Wuhan. Now, he was hoping Fauci and his boss, NIH director Francis Collins, could help him identify other deleted sequences that might shed light on the mystery.

Bloom had submitted the paper to a preprint server, a public repository of scientific papers awaiting peer review, on the same day that he’d sent a copy to Fauci and Collins. It now existed in a kind of twilight zone: not published, and not yet public, but almost certain to appear online soon. Collins immediately organized a Zoom meeting for Sunday, June 20. He invited two outside scientists, evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen and virologist Robert Garry, and allowed Bloom to do the same. Bloom chose Pond and Rasmus Nielsen, a genetic biologist. That it was shaping up like an old-fashioned duel with seconds in attendance did not cross Bloom’s mind at the time. But six months after that meeting, he remained so troubled by what transpired that he wrote a detailed account, which Vanity Fair obtained.

After Bloom described his research, the Zoom meeting became “extremely contentious,” he wrote. Andersen leapt in, saying he found the preprint “deeply troubling.” If the Chinese scientists wanted to delete their sequences from the database, which NIH policy entitled them to do, it was unethical for Bloom to analyze them further, he claimed. And there was nothing unusual about the early genomic sequences in Wuhan. Instantly, Nielsen and Andersen were “yelling at each other,” Bloom wrote, with Nielsen insisting that the early Wuhan sequences were “extremely puzzling and unusual.” Andersen—who’d had some of his emails with Fauci from early in the pandemic publicly released through FOIA requests—leveled a third objection.

Andersen, Bloom wrote, “needed security outside his house, and my pre-print would fuel conspiratorial notions that China was hiding data and thereby lead to more criticism of scientists such as himself.” Fauci then weighed in, objecting to the preprint’s description of Chinese scientists “surreptitiously” deleting the sequences. The word was loaded, said Fauci, and the reason they’d asked for the deletions was unknown. That’s when Andersen made a suggestion that surprised Bloom. He said he was a screener at the preprint server, which gave him access to papers that weren’t yet public. He then offered to either entirely delete the preprint or revise it “in a way that would leave no record that this had been done.” Bloom refused, saying that he doubted either option was appropriate, “given the contentious nature of the meeting.”

Read more …

We must declare the end of Pfizer.

Ioannidis: ‘We Must Declare the End of the Pandemic’ (RCS)

Ioannidis is sure to court more controversy with a new commentary published to the European Journal of Clinicial Investigation in which he argues that it’s time to declare the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. “This does not mean that the problem is inappropriately minimized or forgotten, but that our communities move on with life,” he writes. “Pandemic preparedness should be carefully thought and pre-organized, but should not disrupt life.” While Ioannidis recognizes that there are no quantitative definitions for the end of a pandemic like COVID-19, he contends that the amount of immunity now present worldwide exceeds the threshold needed to declare SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, endemic – constantly present but not a public health emergency.

“By end 2021, probably 73-81% of the global population had been vaccinated, infected or both,” he says. Pockets of low immunity, such as in places that pursued zero-COVID policies and/or with limited access to effective vaccines, may persist, causing regional outbreaks, but we will likely never see COVID-19 again trigger a global emergency. Declaring the pandemic phase of COVID-19 to be concluded means understanding and accepting a new “normal”. “A decrease of COVID-19 deaths back to typical seasonal influenza levels may not necessarily happen in 2022 or even beyond,” Ioannidis cautions. “With an increasingly aging global population, “normal” may still correspond to higher death counts… This should not be mistaken as a continued pandemic phase.”

Easing out of the pandemic requires a widespread mental shift, as well. This means focusing more on indicators like hospital intensive care admissions to guide policy rather than just infections. “If perception of risk focuses on number of documented cases, the spurious perception of emergency situations may be difficult to quell,” Ioannidis writes. Exiting the pandemic also means reducing fearmongering coverage of COVID-19 in the popular media, the propagation of which undoubtedly contributed to the public’s warped perception of COVID’s risks throughout the pandemic. On average, Americans believed in early 2021 that 8% of deaths had occurred in people under the age of 24. The actual percentage as of today is 0.3%. Moreover, a third of the population has consistently believed that COVID leads to hospitalization in over half of infections. During the most recent Omicron wave, the proportion was 3% or lower.

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1 in 1,000 is not rare. That’s 200,000 US cases of myocarditis.

Heart Damage Found in Teens Months After Second Pfizer Shot (CHD)

A new peer-reviewed study shows more than two-thirds of adolescents with COVID-19 vaccine-related myopericarditis had persistent heart abnormalities months after their initial diagnosis, raising concerns for potential long-term effects. The findings, published March 25 in the Journal of Pediatrics, challenge the position of U.S. health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which claim heart inflammation associated with the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines is “mild.” Researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital reviewed cases of patients younger than 18 years old who presented to the hospital with chest pain and an elevated serum troponin level between April 1, 2021, and Jan. 7, 2022, within one week of receiving a second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine.

While 35 patients fit the criteria, 19 were excluded for various reasons. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the remaining 16 patients was performed three to eight months after they were first examined. The MRIs showed 11 had persistent late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), although levels were lower than in previous months. According to the study, “The presence of LGE is an indicator of cardiac injury and fibrosis and has been strongly associated with worse prognosis in patients with classical acute myocarditis.” In a meta-analysis of eight studies, LGE was found to be a predictor of all-cause death, cardiovascular death, cardiac transplant, rehospitalization, recurrent acute myocarditis and requirement for mechanical circulatory support.

Similarly, an 11-study meta-analysis found the “presence and extent of LGE to be a significant predictor of adverse cardiac outcomes.” Researchers said that while symptoms “were transient and most patients appeared to respond to treatment,” the analysis showed a “persistence of abnormal findings.” The results “rais[e] concerns for potential longer-term effects,” researchers wrote, adding that they plan to repeat imaging at one year after the vaccine to assess whether abnormalities have resolved. “The paper provides more evidence that myocarditis in adolescents that result from COVID-19 vaccines is very serious,” said Dr. Madhava Setty, senior science editor for The Defender.

Read more …

Tons of stories of people with $20 Berlin-Athens return tickets. Hard to deter that.

War, Disease, Surging Gas Prices Will Probably Not Deter Hospitality (Bisnow)

Already grappling with long-term pandemic-fueled troubles, the travel and hospitality industry finds itself confronting yet another adversary: surging fuel prices. The sector had managed to claw its way back to a tolerable recovery in 2021 — and 2022 was shaping to look a little more like the days before the coronavirus. Summer vacations to the beach and further afield were anticipated. Business travel was ticking back up with conferences and in-person meetings on the rise. For a while, things were looking up. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Oil prices are now spiking beyond $100 a barrel, driving sharp increases for gas at the pump and for pricy jet fuel — which, if conventional wisdom holds true, will inevitably mean higher costs for U.S. travelers this spring and summer.

So, less travel and another big knock on the hospitality industry? Maybe not. Travel and hospitality experts told Bisnow this week that they remain optimistic for 2022, citing the fact that bookings are still strong — apparently because last year didn’t satisfy Americans’ demand for travel. Travelers might adjust their plans a bit this year, but mass cancellations don’t seem to be in the cards — yet. “As concerns around omicron subside, we see very strong demand for leisure travel in the second quarter this year and beyond, and are expecting the travel market to continue to recover,” said Hayley Berg, head of price intelligence at Hopper, a booking service for airlines and hotels.

Bookings are still strong now despite gas prices that are about 70 cents higher than in mid-February, at an average of $4.26 a gallon, according to AAA, and $1.37 higher per gallon than a year ago. The price of airline tickets is up as well, with Berg expecting airfare to climb to an average of $360 per round-trip through May, a 10% increase from current prices, though rates will taper off some by the end of the summer, as they do every year. The spike in gas prices has certainly caused pain for many millions of people. That was already the case late last year when gas prices crept up slowly but steadily. Low-income Americans or those on fixed incomes, as well as small businesses that use a lot of transport, are all suffering.

Read more …

“.. the odor around Mr. Garland’s department will be so pungent that prosecutors will have to work the Hunter case wearing industrial-strength, full-face, carbon-filtered respirators.”

“Jettison the Animals!” (Kunstler)

The fabled Hard-drive-from Hell apparently contains evidence of felonious misdeeds other than tax evasion ranging from treason, bribery, and wire fraud, to child sex-trafficking and the use of Air Force Two in the commission of crimes. That leaves AG Mr. Garland on a hot spot of dreadful discomfiture. Does he call off the dogs on that vast bone-pile of perfidy and just “laser focus” on some rinky-dink tax charge — and then face the wrath in ten months of a sure-to-be Republican majority House and Senate capable not just of impeaching his ass, but making criminal referrals on it? Or is compelling evidence of high crimes going to be spewed all over the land by those aforesaid private-sector sleuths poring over Hunter’s hard-drive, in a way that the AG can only ignore at the risk of his own reputation… or maybe even a year in some federal slammer for obstruction of justice?

Kinda depends a little bit on what sort of commotion special counsel Mr. John Durham stirs up if-and-when he gets around to indicting any of the superstars of RussiaGate — many of them former and current DOJ and FBI personnel — because when that happens, the odor around Mr. Garland’s department will be so pungent that prosecutors will have to work the Hunter case wearing industrial-strength, full-face, carbon-filtered respirators.

In short, is the dear Deep State fixing to throw “Joe Biden” overboard in a play for its own legitimacy, as if it is actually looking after the nation’s interests? At some point, even ghouls and spooks have a certain survival instinct. And all that might kinda depend on whether President Vlad Putin of Russia happens to disclose what exactly his soldiers found when they captured the numerous “bio-research” labs that ringed Ukraine’s former eastern provinces near the Russian border. Hunter Biden’s companies had an ownership position in those labs, which were actually run by the US Department of Defense jointly with (who else?) the CIA. The wildest stories are circulating about the labs — like, they were developing horrific designer plagues targeted specifically at genetically Slavic people… to be spread by loosing infected migratory birds into the Eurasian skies… say, what…? When, exactly, did American foreign policy turn into something out of a Marvel Comic?

Read more …

Not the worst things that happened, but surely a symbol of the worst. Until now, only Franco and Hitler banned art.

The Cancellation of Tchaikovsky (BI)

I have an old LP on the turntable now, a 1985 Berlin Philharmonic performance of Tchaikovsky‘s 1812 Overture. Recorded almost 40 years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, almost 40 years after Germany‘s siege of Leningrad, the Berlin Wall still standing, no end in sight, at the height of the Cold War. Great Russian music, composed to the memory of yet another war between East and West, performed by a renowned West German orchestra; the old foes, and by then foes still, but united through art. A few weeks ago, the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra canceled a Tchaikovsky concert, calling it “inappropriate at this time.” Throughout Western Europe, Russian artists have had their engagements canceled and some have even been fired from their jobs.

In a 1984 Granta article, “A Kidnapped West or Culture Bows Out,” Milan Kundera defined European culture as characterized by “the authority of the thinking, doubting individual and on an artistic creation which expressed his uniqueness.“ In contrast “nothing could be more foreign to Central Europe and its passion for variety than Russia: uniform, standardizing, centralizing, determined to transform every nation of its empire … into a single Russian people … on the Eastern border of the West – more than anywhere else – Russia is seen not just as one more European power but as a singular civilization, another civilization.“ The article sparked a debate between Kundera and Russian poet and dissident Joseph Brodsky, who vigorously opposed Kundera‘s views.

The essence of European civilization, according to Brodsky, is not modern Western individualism, a culture which to him has lost the relationship with its roots, but Christianity. The true fight is “between faith and the utilitarian approach to existence.“ We now see this controversy revived; just look at the recent debate between Bernard-Henri Lévy and Aleksandr Dugin. It is the same tension between opposite worldviews and there is little doubt it will grow stronger. For the world is now changing, as we live in interesting times once more. And surely Brodsky‘s view will gain more ground, not without reason; we have seen it too clearly during the past two years how easily the thinking doubting individual, the foundation of free Western society, is replaced by the frightened obeying mass.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 2 2022

Viewing 38 posts - 1 through 38 (of 38 total)
  • Author
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  • #105347

    Leonardo da Vinci First anatomical studies c1515   • EU Warns Ukrainians Against Compromise (ZH) • Ukrainian Update #9 (Paul Craig Roberts) • Rus
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 2 2022]

    #105348
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Leonardo da Vinci First anatomical studies c1515

    The genius of da Vinci is indeed mind boggling…
    The detail of these drawings alone, is evidence of a curious mind coupled with a passion for knowledge and detail way beyond the norm…thus genius…
    Modern medicine likely began with da Vinci’s need to know…

    #105349
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Not the worst things that happened, but surely a symbol of the worst. Until now, only Franco and Hitler banned art.

    • The Cancellation of Tchaikovsky (BI)

    Maybe not; but the beginning of something ugly; not a good omen for the future of human freedoms across the board…

    #105350
    a kullervo
    Participant

    (How does one express gratitude?)

    Every newborn child is just another nail in the human fate.

    What is the human fate?
    – To colonize the Universe;
    – to straighten things out;
    – to rectify the bad, bringing good about;
    – to put an end to randomness, bringing order to a chaotic world, you say?

    (If you do, please come closer: see that bridge over there? It’s a bargain; it will be yours by a very reasonable price: your sanity.)

    Human beings are nothing more than state-of-the-art havoc spreaders; they do it using three main vectors: tourism, factories and bombs (alone or in combination, the choice being mainly geography/profits dependent.) And aviation is just the quickest way to spread havoc around.

    Why did Nature came up with such a destructive species?
    Because Nature wallows/basks in change.
    And one simply cannot stop Nature (even when one is somehow able to stop him/herself.)

    (How does one express gratitude?
    By not thinking too much about anything.
    By being as carefree as one possibly can.)

    #105351
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    In Clownifornia, run by & for the Party of Chaos, the sheeple crave totalitarianism:

    The majority of Californians favor keeping COVID-19 restrictions, including requiring proof of vaccination at large events and certain indoor spaces, according to a new poll published Wednesday.

    Though many COVID-19-related restrictions are being lifted and cases remain low in California, more than 6 in 10 Californians are in favor of efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 — even if this means having some restrictions, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll of nearly 1,672 adults statewide conducted between March 6 and March 17.

    A majority of Californians polled, 57%, favor requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination to be able to enter large outdoor gatherings, restaurants, bars and gyms, while 41% oppose this requirement.

    The poll did find a divide based on political party, with most Democrats strongly in favor of controlling the spread and most Republicans strongly in favor of having no restrictions.

    About 71% of Democrats favored requiring proof of vaccination, while 72% of Republicans and a slim majority of independents, 52%, opposed this requirement, according to the poll.

    Support for requiring vaccine proof was also higher among Californians with higher education levels, as well as those with lower incomes.

    At 57%, women were far more likely to favor controlling the spread than men (35%). Women were also more likely to support vaccine verification than men were.

    https://ktla.com/news/california/most-californians-favor-keeping-covid-restrictions-including-vaccine-proof-poll/

    Hook, Line & Sinker…

    #105352
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Their euros don’t buy oil. They buy rubles. Twist it any way you want it. Which means Russia banks stay open, and dollars and euros keep pouring in.

    So, who is converting/selling rubles to Gazprom from dollars & rubles?

    Wouldn’t that be the Bank of Russia?

    Sounds like an interesting way of avoiding sanctions with counterparty U$/EU banks, or is it?

    Nice bumpy road you’ve got there…

    #105353
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    #105354
    a kullervo
    Participant

    According to a new poll, all poll results are misleading.

    new poll

    (Tip of the hat to Scott Adams)

    #105355
    a kullervo
    Participant

    new poll

    #105356
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    OPEC refuses to increase oil output as US announces massive release of crude reserves…

    OPEC and its allies including Russia decided on Thursday to stick with a schedule of gradual production increases as the U.S. weighs an unprecedented release from its national strategic petroleum reserves in an attempt to bring down gasoline prices.

    The oil-producing nations have resisted pressure from the U.S. to pump more crude as prices soar, exacerbating already sky-high inflation.

    The high prices have also helped Russia to offset the pain of Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine last month.

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/opec-refuses-increase-oil-output-us-release-reserves

    #105357
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I recognize that the link to the VF article is in today’s Rattle, but Ms. Younes’s commentary on it is pretty much the same as mine, so that’s why I reproduced her Tweet here.

    #105358
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Leonardo was lucky not to die while dissecting rotting corspes. In jail.

    Adding, these bodies are not in coolers, and the drawings are ‘fake’: anatomic structures are not nearly as clear in person as they are made to appear in books. They pointed this out as his drawing a uterus shows tiny connections that are common to cows, not humans, suggesting he was joining knowledge between multiple autopsies. his is also true of all today’s star and satellite photos — digitally “enhanced” (fabricated) by merging spectrums of light that look the coolest. Also: candlelight? It’s an amazing feat by an amazing artist.

    “Bill of Rights Was Hidden awayfFor Safekeeping During Lockdown and Now No One Can Find It” –BBee

    Also “Rachel Levine is a Man and We’re Totally Sorry.” –BBee. April Fools.

    The Atlantic notes that car accidents and mental behaviour have increased.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/03/antisocial-behavior-crime-violence-increase-pandemic/627076
    It’s such a grab bag of random nonsense I won’t repeat it, just saying that they admit and record it. I continue to see a FAR higher incidence of road-closing car accidents.

    “Fourth booster” Well everyone knows you always get the disease you’re vaccinated from. Like Jen Psaki, this is the second time I’ve got polio this year, and the third time I got tetanus. As the boosters are identical, I know since vaccines 1, 2, and 3 didn’t work, #4 will definitely will do the trick.

    “France and the UK in particular, are urging the Ukrainians against compromise until Russian troops withdraw from the country.”

    Absolutely! The more Slavs they kill, the happier they are. They’ll fight to the last Ukrainian. As UberMench would say: “This is a job…for somebody else.”

    But Western blue-hairs are rolling in, and Ukraine is turning them away en masse now as useless, untrained soy-boys who are a liability to everything they touch, not even useful as cannon fodder. I have to agree. Let’s say a Doctor takes 6 years to learn +2 years residency. They are indeed an expert. No less people who deal with weapons and violence. Cleetus has been shooting and moving in the woods since he was 12, and spends his days hiking and swimming in the river after repairing 4x4s and moving logs. He has 10-20 years of expert training on you. If you’re a suburban fellow playing “Call of Duty” and this is your first gun, stay home if you want to live. You’re too stupid or inexperienced to realize how easily and thoroughly he will tear you apart, then laugh and go eat a taco. And don’t pretend you’re a doctor and practice medicine because you read the Army Medical Field Manual last week. Same thing.

    That Ukraine will refuse to use amusing, ignorant foreigners even for cannon fodder or back-end work shows they’re beyond useless into “every active liability.” Tweeting their location and taking selfies instead of ducking bullets. This is how it is now.

    Similar to Russia conscripting. I disagree. Obviously buck privates from boot camp don’t go into a high-tech sensitive operation. They’d need a lot of training before that. They can fix tanks around Moscow and he’s calling them I think because the West is so unhinged they’re capable of anything. NATO has amassed troops of 30,000(?) on the border, and are slowly getting supplied? They are fully capable of attempting to infantry invade. Putin is calling up conscripts for this contingency, where indeed they would be cannon fodder, holding off the lines as Stalin’s army was forced to in ‘41. I don’t think that will happen, but the only way to be sure is to put 100k troops against NATO to encourage them not to. So he’s doing it, and he does not want them in battle or at the front. Both true.

    “Even though its troops are moving slower than the Kremlin expected.”

    Time #163: HOW do you know what the Kremlin “wanted”? PutinTelepathy™? Seems to me a classic, boring, textbook case of kettling your enemy’s troops, cutting supply lines, and sniping them to pieces while gaining all strategic ground, in this case, the coast. I guess Russia destroyed Ukraine’s army in 30 days with 1/3 the men, but that wasn’t what they “wanted” – it was all a big accident.

    Following the news, still universal blackout on all facts. “Civilian corridors are closed.” By who? Where? “(One Weird) Ukrainian Mom takes several trains to Germany”. So…Europeans travel without incident? “Ukraine Braces for Attacks”. …Meaning there is a war on? Who knew? Every article has key words making you feel you read something: “bus”, “Mariupol”, “intense”, but if asked to describe what the article is about, you can recall nothing. No facts, no story, no context. We’ve reached the event horizon of feelz.

    You had me at “Vietnam war, 9/11, WMD, Syrian Gas”. I already believe everything CNN tells me when I hear those key words.

    This was a strategic blunder demonstrating a lack of awareness”

    Using his PutinTelepathy™. No, I’m pretty sure they knew, they just expected slightly more out of Minsk, like at least some slowdown and a tiny measure of world embarrassment. It was worse than usual, so they had to circle back. But in the meantime, set up gold, hypersonics, and were able to produce radar jammers and new toys en masse, enough for a whole European battlefield. And also clean out Kazakhstan. What? You wanted a war right then Mr. Roberts? Pick up a rifle and go, I won’t stop you. What about ‘You should delay war if you possibly can’? “A bad peace is better than a good war”? He clearly hasn’t been in one.

    Ruble – Gas. Euro – Ruble – Gas. The West wants the PR win, so let them. That’s Russian style. Russia wants the Ruble demand in the REAL world, and the gas cash will be helpful. Breaking the system is what they need.

    the NIH itself had deleted the sequences from its own archive at the request of researchers in Wuhan.”

    That is not suspicious at all. I always erase evidence in the middle of an investigation. After the police let my investigate my own crime scene, which is what happened here.

    “Ioannidis: ‘We Must Declare the End of the Pandemic’ (RCS)”

    You mean a pandemic that kills 0.003% of healthy people, less than Influenza? You’re an embarrassment to all science. Wake me when we have a pandemic.

    “The Cancellation of Tchaikovsky (BI)”

    Shows we are dumber and more intolerant than anyone who came before. But we didn’t cancel Tchaikovsky, we canceled the careers of ACTUAL Russian orchestra members. And shopkeepers and plumbers in Czech.

    #105359
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Why top scientists linked arms to tamp down public speculation about a lab leak—even when their emails, revealed via FOIA requests and congressional review, suggest they held similar concerns—remains unclear. Was it simply because their views shifted in favor of a natural origin? Could it have been to protect science from the ravings of conspiracy theorists? Or to protect against a revelation that could prove fatal to certain risky research that they deem indispensable? Or to protect vast streams of grant money from political interference or government regulation?

    I don’t understand this paragraph in the Vanity fair piece. It says top scientists linked arms to tamp down public speculation – which is – I’m pretty sure – A CONSPIRACY. Then asks the question – did they act to protect science from the ravings of conspiracy theorists? The article is littered with this cross meaning stuff and I wonder why it was published now.. so late in the piece.

    #105360
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Well, it seems that one part of Putin’s declaration created a new bank, within Russia, just to handle the exchange of euros > rubles…

    I wish them luck with that plan, specifically getting financially made whole moving the euros now that they’re blocked by sanctions, or soon will be, from FX markets in the West.

    I’m sure the Russians have a plan, just as I’m sure the EU has one too…

    Time will tell if they’re actually selling gas, or donating it, to the EU via Gazprom 😕

    Either way the EU is going to find it harder & HARDER to export their monetary inflation…

    Putin was holding 4 Aces, but decided to allow the other lying, cheating, thieving players to use IOUs for the hand.

    #105361
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    @Dr. D: WRT Paul Craig Roberts: Indeed. Russia waited as long as they did because they had to prepare to be able to wage and withstand both military and economic warfare. The collapse of communism and the plundering by the West in the aftermath left Russia very seriously hollowed-out, and it takes time for a country that large and complex to recover from such events.

    #105363
    Oroboros
    Participant

    I wanted to re-caption yesterday’s artwork, Rembrandt – The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, as:

    Chairman Powell and the FED committee looking for a pulse in the Empire of Lies economy.

    Today’s Leonardo should be titled: Something That’s not Actually Fake

    .

    #105364
    boilingfrog
    Participant

    Curiously, the same folks ‘demanding’ Clarence Thomas recuse himself from any deliverations regarding January 6th because of conflicts of interest…

    …seem to have no problem with Drs. Fauci and Collins being involved in covid investigation and policy development.

    #105365
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ukrainian Update #9

    Just as everything you were told about Covid by the media and health and government officials was false, so is everything you have been told by the same propagandistic liars about Ukraine.

    Influencers
    What is an influencer? the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience. a following in a distinct niche, with whom he or she actively engages.

    The Ultimate List of Top Influencers on Social Media


    (I looked. I did not recognize any one. I’m out of it.)

    The entire Western World lives in The Mattrix, a world created by propaganda. The vast majority of people in the West have no idea of the reality in which they live. This makes them impotent and completely unable to protect their freedom. They are sitting ducks for tyranny which is fast enclosing around them.
    ———–
    Wake me when we have a pandemic.

    Wake up…… opioids
    https://ccsa.ca/opioids#:~:text=%20The%20current%20opioid%20crisis%20is%20a%20result,individuals%20to%20whom%20they%20are%20not…%20More%20

    #105366
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazprom-halts-gas-shipments-europe-critical-pipeline
    Gazprom Halts Gas Shipments To Europe Via Critical Pipeline
    Tyler Durden
    Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

    #105367
    deflationista
    Participant

    1 in 1,000 is not rare. That’s 200,000 US cases of myocarditis.

    More RFK propaganda.
    Maybe read the study.

    #105368
    zerosum
    Participant

    What you should know
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/if-ukraine-joins-eu-it-will-be-poorest-member-far
    If Ukraine Joins The EU, It Will Be The Poorest Member By Far
    https://mises.org/wire/if-ukraine-joins-eu-it-will-be-poorest-member-far
    03/31/2022Ryan McMaken

    The response of many EU members to Ukraine membership has been “ok, but not yet.” This response is understandable from anyone with familiarity with the actual economic situation in Ukraine. Ukraine is very close to being the poorest country in Europe, and would bring very little to the EU in terms of economic productivity. Rather, Ukraine would likely become a drain on the EU’s development and poverty-relief programs which have already spent more than 20 years flooding the poorer parts of the EU with wealth produced in the richer parts. That is, wealth has flowed for decades from the north and west of Europe into the east and the south.

    #105370
    zerosum
    Participant

    Mercenary ….
    WWIII weapons

    What are the ‘Switchblade’ Suicide Drones US is Now Sending to Ukraine?


    What are the ‘Switchblade’ Suicide Drones US is Now Sending to Ukraine?
    Technology Unconventional Warfare US Military | March 22, 2022 | Paul Crespo

    As part of the $800 million military support package of new weapons being sent to Ukraine by the U.S., there is mention of 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems.” This, in addition to nearly 10,000 anti-tank weapons, 800 man-portable Stinger anti-aircraft systems, and thousands of rifles
    With the Switchblade, the Ukrainians will have a small but powerful weapon to supplement the anti-tank Javelins and NLAWs, and the Punisher and Bayraktar TB2 drones. The relatively small number being sent could mean they will be provided to select Ukrainian special forces only to protect their sensitive tech.

    #105371
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    I just listened to this interview:

    Transhumanism, Biofascism Are Tools of the ‘Technological Elite,’ Author Tells RFK, Jr.

    and thought it was a good overview of the current rising techno-fascism. It began with several clips of Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, the “ideological commissar” of the WEF, spouting his trans-humanist doctrine. The guy is a true physicalist, and therefore believes in nothing higher than himself. He discounts religion in all its forms as quackery and “fake news”, rather than the spiritual kindergartens of humanity, even though highly simplified, down-scaled, and dogmatized for the masses. I’m guessing that he lives completely in his brain and worships mentality as his idol. This would explain his over-infatuation with AI. I would further guess that he has no connection with his heart center, and is therefore dissociated from his humanity, unbalanced, blinded, and insane.

    Their discussion on Trump Derangement Syndrome was particularly clarifying, since it exemplified how strong emotions like hatred and fear can be used to easily manipulate the masses. As in the recent Covid experience, its effects can cause even normally intelligent, educated people to stampede to the opposite side of the boat, so that long-held principles such as bodily autonomy and free speech are easily jettisoned under its influence.

    #105372
    zerosum
    Participant

    What did you expect ….

    Out of Ukraine’s six oil refineries only one is functioning currently, the Kremenchug Refinery, even though at a mere 10% utilization rate.

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/04/02/ukraine-russia-attack-oil-refinery-kremenchuk/9201648901125/

    April 2 (UPI) — Russian forces attacked a major oil refinery Saturday in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, Russian officials announced.

    The Russian military targeted the major oil refinery in the central Ukrainian city in a series of strikes, including “high-precision long-range and sea-based weapons,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told CNN. The strikes destroyed storage facilities holding gasoline and diesel fuels for Ukrainian troops in the country’s eastern and central regions.

    Russian forces also used high precision air-based missiles to hit military airfields in cities to the east of Kremenchuk, including Poltava and Dnipro, Konashenkov added.

    Firefighters have since put out the blaze engulfing half of the fuel tanks at the terminal, in Russia, according to the Russian News Agency TASS, and no casualties resulted from the incident.

    “Ukrainian forces continue to advance against withdrawing forces in the vicinity of Kyiv,” according to the latest British Ministry of Defense update. “Along the northwestern axis, Ukrainian forces’ attempts to advance from Irpin towards Bucha and Hostomel are ongoing. Russian forces are reported to have withdrawn from Hostomel airport, which has been subject to fighting since the first day of the conflict. Along the eastern axis, Ukraine has re-taken several villages.”

    #105373
    BoomerDoomer2
    Participant

    Re: All studies are misleading…

    A little humor… Many decades ago, I was a real estate representative for a well-known fast food chicken company. The story at the time was that a competitor had paid $25,000 for a demographic study that revealed that blacks like chicken. For whatever reason, the company’s founder showed up at the board meeting when the results of the study were revealed. Reportedly, he said something to the effect that he could have saved the company the $25,000. Jesus Christ, he said, I and everyone else could have told you that blacks like chicken… I’m sure repeating this story makes me a racist.

    Non sequitur: I would be interested in knowing the background of TAE’s deflated poster. A poster at PeakProsperity.com by the name of Doug has a very similar aversion to anything that challenges the elite narrative. He has indicated that he was a long-time federal government employee and that reveals volumes about his personality. I wonder if the deflated one is also a long-time government employee. Perhaps he/she/it is Doug?

    #105374
    Oroboros
    Participant

    This piece of propaganda that keeps floating around that Russia is conscripting this ‘huge’ number of men this year is pure bullshit.

    Anyone saying this doesn’t know a thing bout the Russian military or Russia law.

    Russia has two conscription calls a year for at least the last 20 years, pretty much the same number of men for the last decade.

    Russian General Staff reported conscripting 127,000 people for the fall 2021 draft and 134,000 people in spring 2021.

    The number of conscripts is relatively consistent year on year, with

    261,000 in 2021

    263,000 in 2020

    267,000 in 2019

    Etc…

    Spring of 2022 is about 168,000, approx a whole 20% higher than the Spring of 2021

    Wow, the Russians must be up against the wall to increase their untrained manpower a whopping 20%!

    OMG they’re in trouble!

    So the Spring 2022 conscription of 168,000 is right in the NORMAL RANGE for the Russia draft.

    But according to some breathless Karen’s that number is dramatically high, Not.

    They are the only ones who are high on their own hubris.

    Andrei Martyanov, who actually has served in the Russian military after graduating in military science from one of their naval academies, has pointed out that this Spring’s conscription is in the totally normal range but that the Empire of Lies propagandists and Western ‘military experts’ are idiots. Amen brother.

    So all you armchair generals, pause a moment to educate yourselves and do some due diligence instead of feeding the RussiaRussiaRussia fake news cycle.

    And at least ordinary Russia’s have some ‘skin in the game’ at the local family level with their sons in the military, where as the Empire of Lies does not and the PMC and Yuppies Scum in the USSA has almost NO ONE in the military because it’s ‘beneath them’ to serve their country, their ‘brains’ are to valuable to ‘waste’ on such things.

    .

    #105375
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

    #105376
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Curiously, the same folks ‘demanding’ Clarence Thomas recuse himself from any deliverations regarding January 6th because of conflicts of interest…

    …seem to have no problem with Drs. Fauci and Collins being involved in covid investigation and policy development.

    Same people that answered in the poll I posted that they want medical apartheid in Clownifornia…

    Most polls I find skewed, but that one is right on the money in my experience ~ The mass psychosis is so complete with a large segment of “Americans” that if MSNBC Madd-Oh announced the “Purge” was starting tomorrow, all hell would break loose & “American” blue cities would burn to the ground.

    The same moronic drones that want nuclear war (no-fly zone) in Ukraine…

    Democrats in 2022 > Nazis in 1939 😕

    #105377
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Zerosum thanks for PCR article and updates. Good work 😊
    Maxwell Quest – I agree with your points especially the physicalist mindset these egos have, sad.

    #105378
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #105379
    Oroboros
    Participant

    “……footage of the battle for the Azov base from military commander Andrey Filatov. The footage shows the abandoned headquarters of the national battalion with weapons and equipment.

    #105380
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Eurotards showing their stuff.
    Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words

    .

    #105381
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Rublegas is the commodity currency du jour and it isn’t nearly as complicated as NATO pretends. If Europe wants gas, all it needs to do is send its Euros to a Russian account inside Russia.

    … anyway, Pepe Escobar explains all that:

    ‘Rublegas:’ the world’s new resource-based reserve currency

    https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8638

    #105384
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Thank you Maxwell Quest for comment #105371

    T.J. Coles Ph. D.
    Plymouth University’s
    Cognition Institute in UK.

    I purchased his just released book
    Biofascism: The Tech-Pharma Complex
    and the End of Democracy
    today and I hope my dad will read it after I do.

    The video had some sound quality problems so I looked for a better source but the RFK JR / THE DEFENDER PODCAST podcast was the same.

    around 37 minutes in “we enter into this biofascist order because it is not only being told that you have these products injected into you, it is also the enforcement mechanism”

    “under the cover of public health emergency they have control over our bodies and this is a total inversion of what used to be sort of left liberal values as you say my body, my choice, but unfortunately many on the left or liberal progressive side, they convince themselves that the individual has to abide by these mandates for the greater good but they never actually gave a good argument.”

    “The whole vaccine quote unquote issue was just absurd. For my safety you have to be vaccinated. If I am vaccinated why do you need to be vaccinated too? So it did not make any sense at all.”

    Regarding overwhelming public hospitals, they have been privatized and sold off.

    “So it is just a circular argument, circular logic and the abandonment of this critical thinking and these critical facilities because I think two things have happened. One is fear and the second is as we have said this dielectric thinking where anything associated with Trump or Republican is bad so therefor we have to go to the opposite side even if it is into the arms of big pharma, the traditional enemy.”

    “At the third injection I think people realized this was a con.”

    #105385
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Michael Reid

    “At the third injection I think people realized this was a con.”

    Nope! My sister is going for the 4th shot…I asked her not too and she flatly refused to skip it…

    Thanks for this post…
    My experience has shown fear userps critical thinking by a very large margine…
    The fear mongers are well trained and very effective; that scares the hell out of me more than any f*&k8#g flu bug…

    #105386
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    V.A.
    Above is a note re most powerful weapon, information, who controls it and what it controls. This should be engraved on every mirror made and carved into every headstone and memorial.

    #105387
    Formerly T-Bear
    Participant

    Addendum to V.A:,
    Oh Hell, given the ephemerality of memory today that should be inscribed over every door lintel as well.

    #105397
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ Formerly T-Bear
    Oh Hell, given the ephemerality of memory today that should be inscribed over every door lintel as well.

    You’ll surely get no argument from me…
    Spot on, IMO…

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