Apr 302022
 
 April 30, 2022  Posted by at 8:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Dante Gabriel Rossetti Monna Vanna 1866

 

Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia (Escobar)
Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card (Escobar)
Patrushev Goes Triple-X Unplugged (Escobar)
Pentagon Spokesman Chokes Up While Talking About Ukraine (Hill)
Ukraine: The Real Zelensky (GZ)
‘Donbas Is Not Ukraine’: In Industrial East, Hopes For Russian Rule (Y!)
UK Wants ‘Global NATO’ Capable of Defending Pacific (LI)
The Sweet Sound of Censorship (Turley)
Naomi Wolf Eloquently Deconstructs the Terms Dis, Mis, and Malinformation (CTH)
Vaccinated Had Fewer N Antibodies Even After Covid Infection (Blaze)
Moderna Montreal Factory Will Make Canada An mRNA ‘Leader’ – Trudeau (CTV)
“This is This” (Kunstler)
The Shanghai Lockdown: a Memetic Analysis (Ugo Bardi)
Why the Yen Fell While the Dollar Rallied (Mises)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nailed it

 

 


Chinese state television channel CCTV map showing which countries would receive the territories of the Scoto-Russian federation after its collapse.

 

 

Quite a bit of Escobar today. He knows the territory better than just about anyone. History lesson:

Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia (Escobar)

The apparently monolithic liberal west itself also cannot be understood if we forget how, historically, Europe is also a two-headed beast: one head may be tracked from Charlemagne all the way to the awful Brussels Eurocrat machine; and the other one comes from Athens and Rome, and via Byzantium/Constantinople (the Second Rome) reaches all the way to Moscow (the Third Rome). Latin Europe, for the Orthodox, is seen as a hybrid usurper, preaching a distorted Christianity which only refers to St. Augustine, practicing absurd rites and neglecting the very important Holy Ghost. The Europe of Christian Popes invented what is considered a historical hydra – Byzantium – where Byzantines were actually Greeks living under the Roman Empire.

Western Europeans for their part see the Orthodox and the Christians from the East (see how they were abandoned by the west in Syria under ISIS and Al Qaeda) as satraps and a bunch of smugglers – while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders, the Teutonic chevaliers and the Jesuits – correctly, we must say – as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest. In the Orthodox canon, a major trauma is the fourth Crusade in 1204 which utterly destroyed Constantinople. The Frankish chevaliers happened to eviscerate the most dazzling metropolis in the world, which congregated at the time all the riches from Asia. That was the definition of cultural genocide. The Frankish also happened to be aligned with some notorious serial plunderers: the Venetians. No wonder, from that historical juncture onwards, a slogan was born: “Better the Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.”

So since the 8th century, Carolingian and Byzantine Europe were de facto at war across an Iron Curtain from the Baltics to the Mediterranean (compare it with the emerging New Iron Curtain of Cold War 2.0). After the barbarian invasions, they neither spoke the same language nor practiced the same writing, rites or theology. This fracture, significantly, also trespassed Kiev. The west was Catholic – 15% of Greek catholics and 3% of Latins – and in the center and the east, 70% Orthodox, who became hegemonic in the 20th century after the elimination of Jewish minorities by mainly the Waffen-SS of the Galicia division, the precursors of Ukraine’s Azov batallion.

Pepe Escobar and Danny Haiphong; Russia, China, and the Post-Dollar World

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I split this summary into two parts. Part 2 is just below.

“Totalen Krieg proceeds in parallel to the engineered controlled demolition of the EU’s economy..”

Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card (Escobar)

Especially since the onset of GWOT (Global War on Terror) at the start of the millennium, no one ever lost money betting against the toxic combo of hubris, arrogance and ignorance serially deployed by the Empire of Chaos and Lies. What passes for “analysis” in the vast intellectual no-fly zone known as U.S. Think Tankland includes wishful thinking babble such as Beijing “believing” that Moscow would play a supporting role in the Chinese century just to see Russia, now, in the geopolitical driver’s seat. This is a fitting example not only of outright Russophobic/Sinophobic paranoia about the emergence of peer competitors in Eurasia – the primeval Anglo-American nightmare – but also crass ignorance about the finer points of the complex Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

As Operation Z methodically hits Phase 2, the Americans – with a vengeance – have also embarked on their symmetrical Phase 2, which de facto translates as an outright escalation towards Totalen Krieg, from shades of hybrid to incandescent, everything of course by proxy. Notorious Raytheon weapons peddler reconverted into Pentagon head, Lloyd Austin, gave away the game in Kiev: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” So this is it: the Empire wants to annihilate Russia. Cue to War Inc.’s frenzy of limitless weapon cargos descending on Ukraine, the overwhelming majority on the road to be duly eviscerated by Russian precision strikes. The Americans are sharing intel 24/7 with Kiev not only on Donbass and Crimea but also Russian territory.

Totalen Krieg proceeds in parallel to the engineered controlled demolition of the EU’s economy, with the European Commission merrily acting as a sort of P.R. arm of NATO. Amidst the propaganda dementia cum acute cognitive dissonance overdrive across the whole NATOstan sphere, the only antidote is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed. The West ignores them at their own collective peril.

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Part 2 of the same article.

“So far, on Operation Z, the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery.”

Patrushev Goes Triple-X Unplugged (Escobar)

let’s move to an extremely detailed interview by Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where Patrushev sort of went triple-X unplugged. The key take away may be here: “The collapse of the American-centric world is a reality in which one must live and build an optimal line of behavior.” Russia’s “optimal line of behavior” – much to the wrath of the universalist and unilateralist hegemon – features “sovereignty, cultural and spiritual identity and historical memory.” Patrushev shows how “tragic scenarios of world crises, both in past years and today, are imposed by Washington in its desire to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world.”

The U.S. goes no holds barred “to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it would not play by the imposed rules.” Patrushev could not but stress how War Inc. is literally making a killing in Ukraine: “The American and European military-industrial complex is jubilant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine, it has no respite from order. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to delay it at least to the last Ukrainian.”

And that mirrors the psyche of American elites: “You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate other people’s lives. Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed the Serbs with radioactive munitions, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine (…) As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one.”

In a subtle reference to the work of Sergei Glazyev [..] Patrushev hit the heart of the current geoeconomic game, with Russia now actively moving towards a gold standard: “Experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a two-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble, which should be secured by both gold and a group of goods that are currency values, to put the ruble exchange rate in line with real purchasing power parity.” That was inevitable after the outright theft of over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves. It may have taken a few days for Moscow to be fully certified it was facing Totalen Krieg. The corollary is that the collective West has lost any power to influence Russian decisions. The pace of the game in the new chessboard is being set by Russia.

[..] So far, on Operation Z, the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery. The pain dial is set to go substantially up – and with the total liberation of Mariupol and the resolution one way or another of the Donbass cauldron there is nothing the hysteria/propaganda/weaponizing combo deployed by the collective West can do to alter facts on the ground.

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“I don’t want to make this about me.”

Pentagon Spokesman Chokes Up While Talking About Ukraine (Hill)

The Pentagon’s top spokesperson became emotional Friday after he was asked whether he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a “rational actor.” “It’s hard to look at what he’s doing in Ukraine, what his forces are doing in Ukraine and think that any ethical, moral individual could justify that,” press secretary John Kirby began before appearing to become choked up and pausing for several seconds. “It’s difficult to look at some of the images and imagine that any well-thinking, serious, mature leader would do that. So I can’t talk to his psychology. But I think we can all speak to his depravity,” Kirby added. Kirby later apologized for becoming emotional, saying “I don’t want to make this about me.”


He then called Putin’s reasons for the invasion in Ukraine “BS.” “It’s hard to square [Putin’s] … BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine, and it’s about protecting Russians in Ukraine, and it’s about defending Russian national interests, when none of them, none of them were threatened by Ukraine,” said Kirby, pounding on the lectern for emphasis. Kirby also listed several “unconscionable” actions by Russian troops, including the reports of civilians being “shot in the back of the head, hands tied behind their backs. Women, pregnant women being killed, hospitals being bombed. I mean, it’s just unconscionable.”

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Natylie Baldwin interviews academic Olga Baysha.

“..cannot be explained apart from the success of his television series, which, as many observers believe, served as Zelensky’s informal election platform…”

Ukraine: The Real Zelensky (GZ)

The basic argument presented in my recent book is that the astonishing victory of Zelensky and his party, later transformed into a parliamentary machine to churn out and rubber-stamp neoliberal reforms (in a “turbo regime,” as they called it), cannot be explained apart from the success of his television series, which, as many observers believe, served as Zelensky’s informal election platform. Unlike his official platform, which ran only 1,601 words in length and contained few policy specifics, the 51 half-hour episodes of his show provided Ukrainians with a detailed vision of what should be done so that Ukraine could progress. The message delivered by Zelensky to Ukrainians through his show is clearly populist.

The people of Ukraine are portrayed in it as an unproblematic totality devoid of internal splits, from which only oligarchs and corrupted politicians/officials are excluded. The country becomes healthy only after getting rid of both oligarchs and their puppets. Some of them are imprisoned or flee the country; their property is confiscated without any regard to legality. Later, Zelensky-the-president will do the same towards his political rivals. Interestingly, the show ignores the theme of the Donbass war, which erupted in 2014, a year before the series started being broadcast. As the Maidan and Russia-Ukraine relations are very divisive issues in Ukrainian society, Zelensky ignored them so as not to jeopardize the unity of his virtual nation, his viewers and ultimately his voters.

Zelensky’s election promises, made on the fringes of the virtual and the real, were predominantly about Ukraine’s “progress,” understood as “modernization,” “Westernization,” “civilization” and “normalization.” It is this progressive modernizing discourse that allowed Zelensky to camouflage his plans for neoliberal reforms, launched just three days after the new government came to power. Throughout the campaign, the idea of “progress” highlighted by Zelensky was never linked to privatization, land sales, budget cuts, etc. Only after Zelensky had consolidated his presidential power by establishing full control over the legislative and executive branches of power did he make it clear that the “normalization” and “civilization” of Ukraine meant the privatization of land and state/public property, the deregulation of labor relations, a reduction of power for trade unions an increase in utility tariffs, and so on.

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Odd take from the MSM.

‘Donbas Is Not Ukraine’: In Industrial East, Hopes For Russian Rule (Y!)

At a market in the industrial town of Lysychansk in east Ukraine — war-scarred after relentless attacks by Russian forces — one woman quietly hopes Moscow’s army will break through. “Technically, we’re Ukrainian. But Donbas is not Ukraine,” Olena confided to AFP, referring to swathes of east Ukraine that Moscow has vowed to capture from Kyiv. “Ukrainians are the foreigners here — not Russians,” she said, giving a pseudonym, concerned that unpopular opinions like hers could land her “in prison”. Olena’s view on the war is not unique in this part of Ukraine where long-standing ties with Russia, nostalgia for the Soviet Union and hopes for a fast end to fighting mean many would welcome a Russian takeover.

For years the Kremlin has accused Ukraine of discriminating against Russian speakers in the Donbas region, which has been partially controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists since 2014. It says it wants to “liberate” parts of the mining and oil hub still controlled by Kyiv. Moscow’s forces are closing in, pounding Lysychansk and seizing villages around it. Ukraine’s army has put up fierce resistance, slowing Russia’s advance, but some wearing blue and yellow patches already feel as if they are in enemy territory. “Even if we do everything possible to hide our positions, residents here give the other side information about us,” a sergeant in the Ukrainian army, Iryna, told AFP. Attesting to that, Kyiv’s army regularly announces arrests of “saboteurs” in Donbas territory it controls and many among the rank and file said they were suspicious of residents.

Iryna, whose unit recently withdrew from Russian-controlled Kreminna north of Lysychansk, described this tale-telling as “very, very common”. “It comes from people who are supposed to be above suspicion — even priests,” she added. Some Ukrainian troops and officials hope that the Donbas residents fleeing fighting towards Russia are the ones sympathetic to Moscow. Still, they worry pro-Russia sentiment is lingering among some who have remained. “These are people who at best don’t mind and at worst are hoping for the arrival of the Russians,” Vadim Lyakh, the mayor of Sloviansk in northwestern Donbas, told AFP. Lyakh, whose city briefly fell to the separatists in 2014, said however that now was not the time to confront the mainly elderly Kremlin-sympathetic residents who long for the Soviet past. “Now is not the time to quarrel with them,” he told AFP.

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Contradictio in terminis.

UK Wants ‘Global NATO’ Capable of Defending Pacific (LI)

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said her government favors the creation of a “global NATO” that is able to guarantee the defense of Taiwan and the broader Pacific region, calling for preemptive action against would-be aggressors. In an address outlining UK foreign policy on Wednesday, Truss said London rejects the “false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security,” instead arguing “we need both.” “I mean that NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats,” she continued. “We need to preempt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with allies like Japan and Australia to ensure that the Pacific is protected. And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.”

Though the official did not elaborate on what kind of support she favors for Taipei or what she envisions for a globally-engaged military alliance, Truss’ speech mirrored remarks by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this year, when he said NATO’s reach must be extended into the Indo-Pacific. Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are already global NATO partners – each designated as a “major non-NATO ally” by Washington – while other security organizations serve similar functions in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quad alliance, consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia, is often dubbed the ‘Asian NATO’ and largely exists to counter China. It has considered allowing other regional states to join to create a ‘Quad Plus,’ among them South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand.

The three-way AUKUS collective, meanwhile, has seen Washington, Canberra and London join forces to bolster the defenses of the region, including through the sharing of nuclear information. Like the Quad, the grouping has also reportedly mulled whether to expand to include additional countries like Japan. In recent months, several members of the NATO bloc have conducted ‘freedom of navigation’ missions in the Pacific to support territorial claims recognized by the United States and its western allies, namely those of Taiwan.

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“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities.”

The Sweet Sound of Censorship (Turley)

President Joe Biden’s new disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz argued online mockery of Vice President Kamala Harris and other women in public life was a threat to national security: “Platforms and governments aren’t doing enough. It’s time to act. Our national security and democracy are at stake.” Jankowicz previously argued that Congress should create new laws to block mockery of women online by reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and including “provisions against online gender-based harassment.” Jankowicz testified before British House of Parliament last year about “gender misinformation” being a “national security concern” and a threat to democracy requiring government censorship. She has demanded that both tech companies and government should work together using “creativity and technological prowess to make a pariah of online misogyny.”

On the Hunter Biden laptop, Jankowicz pushed the false narrative that it was a false story and that “we should view it as a Trump campaign product.” She continued to spread that disinformation, including tweeting a link to a news article that she said cast “yet more doubt on the provenance of the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story.” In another tweet, she added “not to mention that the emails don’t need to be altered to be part of an influence campaign. Voters deserve that context, not a [fairy] tale about a laptop repair shop.” She even cites the author of the Steele Dossier as a guide for how to deal with disinformation. In August 2020, Jankowicz tweeted “Listened to this last night – Chris Steele (yes THAT Chris Steele) provides some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo. Worth a listen.”


She also joined the panic over the Musk threat to reintroduce free speech values to Twitter. In an interview on NPR, she stated “I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities.” Pitch perfect. Indeed, in seeing how we all “measure up,” Nina Jankowicz “is practically perfect in every way.”

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” Wolf doesn’t waste time debating “misinformation”, “disinformation”, or “malinformation”, instead she accurately just says those things do not exist.”

Naomi Wolf Eloquently Deconstructs the Terms Dis, Mis, and Malinformation (CTH)

All politicians and candidates for office should watch how Wolf responds to the first question from Tucker Carlson, and then makes the better argument. Wolf doesn’t waste time debating “misinformation”, “disinformation”, or “malinformation”, instead she accurately just says those things do not exist. Information stands undefined. From that position there are truth and lies. Her approach is exactly correct. Do not accept the insanity of the Alinsky language effort. A refreshing and really good interview:

On January 13, 2022, the fraudulent and managed autocrat, the installed occupant of the White House, gave instructions to his fellow travelers in Big Tech, and I quote: “I make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets: Please deal with the misinformation and disinformation that’s on your shows. It has to stop.” ~ Joe Biden. It was crystal clear what Joe Biden was telling his allies in social media to do. There is information the Government wants us to hear, and everything else is disinformation or misinformation the U.S. Govt disapproves of. Immediately CTH encountered criticism for our position on information. However, Wolf understands exactly what we have discussed:


…”There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”. There is only information you accept and information you do not accept. You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.”…

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The “vaccines” focus only on S antibodies.

Vaccinated Had Fewer N Antibodies Even After Covid Infection (Blaze)

In a preprint paper posted last week, the NIH researchers studied the N (nucleocapsid) antibody levels of those who participated in the Moderna clinical trial vs. the placebo group upon the unblinding of the participants. Their findings were earth-shattering. m“We analyzed data from 1,789 participants (1,298 placebo recipients and 491 vaccine recipients) with SARS-CoV-2 infection during the blinded phase (through March 2021). Among participants with PCR-confirmed Covid-19 illness, seroconversion to anti-N Abs at a median follow up of 53 days post diagnosis occurred in 21/52 (40%) of the mRNA-1273 vaccine recipients vs. 605/648 (93%) of the placebo recipients (p < 0.001).” Kudos to Igor Chudov for finding this paper that clearly our government agencies are not excited to advertise.

Overall, the study’s authors found, “For any given viral copy number, the odds of anti-N seropositivity were 13.67 times higher for the placebo arm than the vaccine arm.” It’s truly hard to overstate the significance of this finding. These are the actual participants in the Moderna trial, and their levels were checked roughly seven weeks after being diagnosed with COVID, plus this was a study of the original strain of the virus when supposedly the vaccines were more effective. Yet just 40% of those with prior infection among the vaccinated group had anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, while 93% of the placebo group did. To be clear, this means that not only is the vaccine inferior to natural immunity, but it is so inferior that it might inhibit your acquisition of immunity to the nucleocapsid protein of the virus even if you wind up getting the virus, which you assuredly will because the vaccines don’t stop infection.

When you hear the proponents of the shots bragging about antibody titers, they are measuring the anti-spike protein (S) antibodies. The shots code your body to produce the most dangerous part of the virus, but on the other hand you don’t get the benefit of full immunity because your body is trained to recognize only the spike, not the main shell of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The implication of this study would be that the more you vaccinate, the more it erases your natural immunity, so not only do you still get the virus, but you will continue getting it because you can never achieve full immunity, as you might with natural infection without having been jabbed with a gene therapy that primes your body to respond inappropriately. It is an anti-herd immunity shot.

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“People forget Moderna was losing money in 2020..”

Moderna Montreal Factory Will Make Canada An mRNA ‘Leader’ – Trudeau (CTV)

The news leaked a day early, but Canadian leaders and biotech company Moderna officially announced Friday that a new vaccine production facility will be created in Montreal, helping ensure a long-term supply of made-in-Canada vaccines. “Our government promised to strengthen our capacity” for producing vaccines “here in Canada,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an announcement at McGill University in Montreal. Canada has a now-infamous trajectory over the last few decades of building up top-notch vaccine research but dismantling its domestic capacity to actually produce vaccines, leaving it dependent on vaccine facilities in other countries.

The facility, expected to be operational as soon as 2024, will employ 200 to 300 people and will be able to produce up to 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses per year, Trudeau said. But it will also ultimately be able to do research and hopefully produce other kinds of vaccines or treatment based on the same mRNA technology, or messenger RNA, that was first used in the COVID-19 vaccines, he said. “It also will have a significant impact in the research that they’re doing on a range of illnesses. We talked about Alzheimer’s, we talk about cancers, we talk about the range of things that messenger RNA is able to deliver to keep Canadians and people around the world healthy,” said Trudeau. “And Canada, that has long been leaders in research around mRNA, will now be also leaders in delivering mRNA to Canadians and to the world.”

Moderna’s founder and board chair has deep ties to Montreal, where his family fled after escaping Lebanon’s civil war. He attended Loyola College and McGill before going to M.I.T. in Boston. Moderna, which was founded in 2010, is still based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel joined Trudeau and Quebec Premier François Legault for the announcement, saying that Moderna’s path over the past two years has been a dramatic one, as it raced to get its mRNA vaccine developed and approved for the first time. “People forget Moderna was losing money in 2020,” he said. “We didn’t have the financial straps to get this industrial machine going. And Canada was one of only a few, a couple, countries here to help,” by putting in one of the first pre-orders for the vaccine and sending much-needed cash, he said.

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“The Left has exercised a Macumba voodoo death grip on free speech for years now.”

“This is This” (Kunstler)

“This is this,” DiNiro’s character “Michael” famously told Cazale’s “Stan” in The Deer Hunter, explaining the metaphysics of the bullet in his hand, and pretty much everyone watching the movie got the drift of that cryptic utterance. Likewise, Elon Musk’s character “Elon Musk” explained to America’s Maoist managerial legions: “Free speech is free speech” — as if, a week after Twitter’s surrender to Elon, there was some part of the formulation that the Left didn’t understand. (Apparently, all of it.) What a concept! Free speech is free speech. It has bowled over the — what? — maybe twenty-three percent of the country that considers free speech “a threat to democracy.” This is what comes of inverting and subverting language itself for the purpose of mind-raping the nation like Jeffrey Epstein on a 15-year-old. The Left has exercised a Macumba voodoo death grip on free speech for years now.

The deeper the Left’s crimes against the constitution and common decency, the harder they strangled the flow of news, information, and opinion until the mental life of the USA turned into a gibber of shamefully obvious unreality. It’s one thing to lose your dignity as citizens, and another to just lose your country altogether, and that is the circle of hell that the Left has dragged everyone else into since even before Hillary Clinton booted the 2016 election. This tyrannical Maoist managerial mob, grown paradoxically rich beyond precedent, became a tool of the state itself working around the inconvenient first amendment to hog-tie public debate. Will the US government allow Mr. Musk to get away with liberating the new “public square?”

It looks like the DOJ, the SEC, and perhaps other nefarious actors of degenerate officialdom are fixing to go after the rogue Tesla mogul who had the effrontery to oppose totalitarian control of the narratives driving public life. It’s rumored that money-losing Twitter could not exist without the government footing the bill for the vast, backstage server arrays that enable all Twitter’s messaging. In an odd twist, though, the shareholders were not necessarily benefitting from that symbiotic relationship as Twitter’s stock fell from $71 a share in July ’21 to $32 in March ’22. But the C-suite of Twitter’s executives were already too massively rich to care about anything but punishing their political enemies — which they did with sadistic zeal — when Mr. Musk surprisingly stepped onto the scene.

The government’s first counter-move, under the vividly deliquescing “Joe Biden” — whose treasonous corruption became Twitter’s job-one to conceal — was to concoct a brand-new agency under Homeland Security called the Disinformation Governance Board, to be run by one Nina Jankowicz, “internationally-recognized expert on disinformation and democratization,” who also happened to be a RussiaGate shill and publicist for the fifty national security officials who labeled the Hunter Biden laptop story “Russian disinformation” (turned out: not). In other words, America now has a “truth” kommissar who is a soldier in the War on Truth.

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“My grandmother was not stupid: she was simply applying a tested method to deal with things she knew little about.”

The Shanghai Lockdown: a Memetic Analysis (Ugo Bardi)

A “meme” is a small unit of information that can easily move from one human mind to another. It is the virtual equivalent of a virus in the sense that it “infects” people and influences their behavior. To explain the concept, maybe the best way is with an example: how my grandmother was absolutely convinced that nobody ever should drink a glass of milk without having boiled it first. She was infected with a meme that we could describe as “boil the damn milk.” It was simple and direct, but, unfortunately, completely useless in the 1960s, when pasteurization had become common. My grandmother was not stupid: she was simply applying a tested method to deal with things she knew little about.

The problem is that memes can be (or become) wrong or obsolete, and yet they are very difficult to dislodge. In the photo, you see Colin Powell, in 2003, showing a vial of baby powder while claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed largely on the basis of a meme that turned out to be completely false. The Covid pandemic is another case of a complex story that most of us are unprepared to understand. We should be trained in microbiology, medicine, epidemiology, and more — no way! So, we rely on simplified snippets to guide their everyday activities. “Wear the damn mask,” “stay home,” “don’t kill granny,” “flatten the curve,” and the like. That includes our leaders.

All memes have a story: that’s true for the one that led my grandmother to always boil her milk, and also for the “lockdown” meme. But whereas the first (“boil the damn milk”) was harmless, the second (“lock everybody in their homes”) can do a lot of damage. It did, and it is still doing damage in China with the recent massive lockdowns of Shanghai and other cities. So, where does this meme come from? Its origin can be found in the evolution of the concept of “biological warfare.” But let’s go in order.

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“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.”

Why the Yen Fell While the Dollar Rallied (Mises)

How can we explain that the currency whose issuer has made the biggest inflationary mistake of all during the pandemic is the strongest (the US Consumer Price Index is up over 8 percent year on year), while that where the inflationary mistake if any has been the smallest (the Japan CPI is up less than 1 percent year on year) is the weakest? There lies the puzzle of the present dollar-yen rate. We can find at least part of the solution in a quote attributed to the Prussian and subsequently imperial German “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck. “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.”


Today the “hunt” is the search for yield by investors suffering from a famine of interest income on safe savings; the hunters have convinced themselves and others that persistent high returns obtained from risky assets, often highly leveraged, are the new normal, never mind a decade of economic sclerosis (as evidenced by only weak growth if any in median living standards and sluggish productivity growth). “War” is the military conflict in Ukraine coupled with the West’s economic campaign against Russia; accompanying propaganda is a version of Bismarck’s lies. “Elections” are most prominently the midterms in the US where the lies include Fed propaganda including promises of a soft landing and the total official silence on its disastrous policy mistakes inducing present high inflation.

The near collapse of the yen and fantastic strength of the US dollar (yen/dollar moving from 110 last autumn to almost 130 now) are the outcome of such illusions and propaganda. The essence of the “carry trade boom,” a well-known aspect of the hunt for yield, is investors moving out of a zero or negative interest rate currency into ostensibly higher yield assets whether in high-yield credit or high-interest rate currency markets. Currency carry trades involve short positions in the yen, euro or Swiss franc matched by long positions most of all in US dollars but also commodity currencies. High US inflation could wipe out gains to date. After all holders of US money are subject to at least a 12 percent inflation tax levy through 2021–22.


Yet many of the carry traders act as if the tax is phantom, always to be effaced by exchange rate gains or to now fade away. Some believe apparently the Fed has really changed its spots from inflationmonger to inflationphobe. Yes, top Fed officials are talking aggressively and nonstop—the so-called hawkish pivot—about their promise to bring inflation back down to below 3 percent in 2023 without a recession along the way. This is music to the ears of Democrats who face voter wrath about their number one issue of concern—present high inflation. According to the Fed and the administration, high inflation was not due to avoidable policy mistake but bad luck—pandemic dislocation and “Putin’s war.”

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Brand cash

 

 

More than 30 years ago Fidel said: “The next war in Europe will be between Russia and fascism, except that fascism will be called democracy.”

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 30 2022

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  • #107060

    Dante Gabriel Rossetti Monna Vanna 1866   • Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia (Escobar) • Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 30 2022]

    #107061
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    The part of the world which has America as its role model will vanish, and only a savage world will remain; the world will lose a huge chunk of its charm but it will retrieve some sanity. It could be worse.

    (the secret of happiness)

    ‘I just want them to be as numb as possible.
    They will learn to feed themselves; that’s all.’

    (Curiosity and its bastard sibling, hope, are the archenemies of tranquility.)

    I have no animosity towards you, no feelings for you: you are what you have to be; it’s neither your fault, nor merit.

    Did you build all the things you have used to become the splendid creature you think you are?
    No? Then it’s not your merit. (You’re just a sophisticated scavenger/necrophagous.)
    Did you foresaw all the bad consequences from your deeds?
    No? Then it’s not your fault. (You’re as clueless as the rest of us.)

    (I’m on “this side” because the “other side” is dumb, drab and humourless; being on “this side” doesn’t force me to be a fanatic nor to stop pondering on human nature.
    I’m part of the relevant assets on “this side”: someone who appreciates the ‘pros’ without dismissing/overlooking the ‘cons’.
    If you still want to kick me out from “this side”, it’s all good: being a part of the “undistinguished side”, avoiding the pitfalls of both sides (while coming up with some of our own) is also a valuable experience.)

    (humans are clueless, sophisticated scavengers/necrophagous)

    #107062
    a kullervo
    Participant

    Whenever praising, or condemning, human “achievements”, please remember today’s “old” was yesterday’s “new”, and that today’s “new” will be tomorrow’s “old”: it will help give you some perspective (it will help you accept The Everlasting Dissatisfaction.)

    #107063
    Armenio Pereira
    Participant

    (transient victories/defeats, forever ties)

    The plight of the scientist/rationalist: without enough pills and nuts & bolts, mankind, and the Universe, will never be fixed.

    The Universe: is it recycling (perfect Universe), or is it refining (imperfect Universe)?

    If the Universe is a full-fledged, self-contained recycling unit, then humans (and everything else, for that matter) are a random, disposable feature.
    If the Universe is a self-improving entity then humans are a transient, disposable tool.

    Either way, coping with our transient nature seems to be our greatest conceptual ordeal.

    Anecdotal corollary: There are not enough resources in the Universe to support two eternal entities – God and Man; one will destroy the other, otherwise both will perish. Place your bets, Ladies & Gents.

    What to do?
    Do nothing, nothing at all (in the strictest sense, or just keep doing whatever you do.)
    You either are part of a perfect whole, therefore you’re perfect yourself, or you are an imperfect part of an imperfect whole and if the whole doesn’t know what perfection is, how will you ever?
    (It’s neither your fault, nor merit.)

    #107064
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Barack Obama versus Fidel Castro.

    What a perfectly delicious juxtaposition for the end of the post…

    #107066
    Dr. D
    Participant

    @BBC, why did they let this young man speak rather than vetting and cutting him off as usual? Since they only have 100% lies, what new lie is this? The lie that they care?

    “Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia (Escobar)”

    Because atm Europe is insane and Russia isn’t. As for the article and distant past: I guess? But people don’t fight for 1280ad, they fight for bacon.

    “the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery.”

    I guess they underestimated Ukraine and lost then. Bogged down. RussiaRussiaRussia. Btw, that phrase whenever used is indicative of that OTHER Geopolitical MacKinder: that the U.S. and RUSSIA would unite together against the REAL oppressors of both. The Derp State. It’s equally vital that Russia be perceived as an intractable enemy so the people don’t realize how much we have in common, which is everything. But of course that plan is working great since the Americans will swallow anything.

    “Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing.”

    Yes, but I think he means Cleveland and Detroit. Even the hottest spot in Brooklyn, Williamsburg, looks like the arson south Bronx of 1979. Cages and graffiti, unsafe after 9. That’s the TOP of America now, what used to be far past the worst neighborhood by Skid Row, but they’re not done yet.

    In the article about Mariupol, Russia had the largest army at their rear in Donbass and Mariupol. So what if they clear them, will we see them just saunter across the Dnieper and take Odessa like it’s a lollypop then? See what I mean? The territory is not the army on the territory. And I am amazed at the $33B from Sniffin’ Joe. The weapons sent, like 70 tanks? I’m lost on how in 2022 they wouldn’t level all 70 with a single missile. Do they think it’s WWI and we’re spotting with biplanes and silk balloons? Russia can see the tanks and their GPS on TV in Moscow. They just push button – dink – and tanks go boom. Maybe a better military expert can explain to me what they: Germany, the U.S., Poland, think they are doing here. Will they divide up tanks one-by-one and surround them with a parcel of schoolchildren-on-a-rope? Literally, what? I need to come up with an insult beyond sniffing glue.

    Pentagon Spokesman Chokes Up while Talking about Ukraine (Hill)”

    Nothing says “strength” like generals crying. He should have worn his high heels.

    “It’s hard to square [Putin’s] … BS that this is about Nazism in Ukraine,”…that the NY Times reported on. What Nazis? The ones the BBC and CBC interviewed on camera with grandma? With handshakes, holidays, slogans, and full-size portraits of Nazis?

    “reports of civilians being “shot in the back of the head, hands tied behind their backs. Women, pregnant women being killed, hospitals being bombed. I mean, it’s just unconscionable.”

    Yes, but to be fair, he was talking about Chicago.

    They took not only Zelinsky from the body of actors, but his CABINET from a body of actors. Since it was all funded by said oligarch, what does that tell you? That the NY Times has an IQ of 50 to fall for it?

    “nostalgia for the Soviet Union” This seems impossible but Ukraine is so corrupt that the Soviet era looks rosy in comparison. There was SOME food, not none, SOME law, not none.

    “For years the Kremlin has accused Ukraine of discriminating against Russian speakers” Phrased in the usual false way. Kiev LITERALLY outlawed LITERAL language, against UN law I believe, as well as killing them by the thousands. That’s not an “accusation” Mr. Yahoo, it’s a literal legal fact and you know it.

    “Ukraine’s army has put up fierce resistance,” Kind of, but the West seems incapable of “thinking” or “asking anybody”. Russia could missile the whole Ukrainian Army location and kill 90% of them in 15 minutes. They may have put up admirable resistance, but that’s only because Russia has cut them off, let them starve, and needs to snipe them so they waste ammunition and surrender without HAVING to pocket-nuke them in 5 minutes. …And now you see why Russians at home do NOT like this plan and are mad at Putin for being too soft. How many Russians have to die so Ukrainian soldiers can live? Certainly the weirdest war I can think of: killing your own civilians by millions first, defending antique tanks with children, and trying to SAVE the enemy, not kill them, but here we are in Aquarius.

    “UK Wants ‘Global NATO’ Capable of Defending Pacific (LI)”

    Yes, there’s nothing you can say to this. Besides that UK carriers are useless, can’t float and don’t have planes, so I guess they really mean the United States will be defending the whole Pacific. Alone. Again. Good thing they elected our President for us, or I don’t see how we’d agree to it.

    “I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities.”

    Uh, yeah: unclear on the concept. It would mean marginalized communities would have absolute free speech? Unlike now, apparently?

    Jankowicz testified before British House of Parliament last year about “gender misinformation”

    Now that is simply ridiculous: Jankowicz is not a biologist, how would she know what a woman is? Stay in your lane. You can’t have violence against women because there is no such thing as “women”. Duh. What a bigot. Everybody knows this.

    “The implication of this study would be that the more you vaccinate, the more it erases your natural immunity, so not only do you still get the virus, but you will continue getting it because you can never achieve full immunity,”

    “People forget Moderna was losing money in 2020”

    They also forget: wasn’t Moderna Vaccine banned in 7 countries? Safe and effective!

    Why the Yen Fell while the Dollar Rallied (Mises)”

    I was going to bring this up but it’s incredibly complicated. Essentially, if the USD is the world reserve currency for contracts, then the USD is a planet-wide dollar-short position. That has extremely strange effects it would take too long to explain. But IF the Fed ever tightens at all – check – then USD will be in a shortage – check – Eurodollars will crash Europe and break the system – check – and the U.S. will harvest Europe instead of the other way around, which was why Europe attempted to create a free Euro in the first place. So the Fed can Inflate incredibly, by trillions – check – but the USD will STRENGTHEN, not weaken. Or not at first. Things have steps, and steps take time. Why? When the shortage and financial pinch occurs, Europe and Japan will simply print FASTER than the US. So relative DXY – which is almost exclusively Euro and a useless measure at this point – the dollar will still be terrible but better than them.

    You might more accurately measure the USD against real things and not equally-dead and dreadful currencies, so compare USD to Oil and Nickel – check – against which the USD has been cut in half.

    Can we test this dollar-short theory? Yes. Because like a tidal force it’s always out there, but we can look at locations where it’s relevant. Turkey has official inflation of 60% !! Which, like all government numbers is an appalling, transparent bare-faced lie: it’s actually 150%. So their bonds give you 30%, gold in Lira gives you 60%, and US stocks and Treasuries? Yeah, you see the problem now. Yes, they are falling, but less than in the home currency, and what’s your choice? Turkey is known to be pretty far down, so has this synthetic dollar short finally reached Japan? It might seem so. Then the next weakest, then the next? Until it sinks Europe and the whole western banking system? And yes, then the U.S. collapses LAST. The center collapses LAST. That means the periphery collapses FIRST, and you can only wait for it to get through its steps using time.

    As an American, I can’t say that’s good for me: REAL money, like oil, food, etc are still going up faster, but it’s remarkably less-bad than in Europe and Japan, as their money-people donate their lives and sacred honor to make our gasoline cost slightly less, and our stock market slightly stronger. They could stop, but they won’t because that’s how the machine is constructed right now. But yes, if you kick off the reversal of the Yen-carry trade you’ll see the crater it makes in the financial system from the moon. Here we are! It’s begun.

    They’re picking on the singing of the new Disinformation Minister. That’s too bad, I kind of liked it, it was clever and well done. If completely wrong. However we can’t get around how they managed to find someone who believed literally every wrong thing the media has put out over the last five years. And has no awareness. It’s like “All the cool girls at the cafeteria table just KNOW that Judy is a slut.” The End. What more needs to be said or investigated? We know. It never occurs to her, or apparently anyone that such certainty of truth literally does not exist. When reporters on the front lines report what they see, they are not sure. When investigators spend half a year down in records piecing it together, they are not sure. But we 10,000 miles away, reading about it in 500 words ARE sure? Very, exclusively sure? Such that when a second war reporter on the front lines says something else, we censor him just because he’s second?

    And now that the spotlight is on her, a long interview appears of her saying how the executive should never do such a thing, it’s deeply disturbing and she would never be a part of it. Seems pretty Janky to me.

    $33 Billion for Ukraine while we have more Bidenvilles than ever, bridges are collapsing, and no clean water. What can you say to that? “”the $20 billion military assistance package is more than the total defense budgets of all but 13 countries in the world.”

    P.S. we’re not in the war. We are but an innocent bystander, a delicate flower, not doing enough.

    From yesterday, no one will enforce the law: In 2020, President Donald Trump proposed and the Biden Administration finalized the transparency rule whereby hospitals were forced to open their books and post their prices for healthcare services online and in real time. Blatantly, though, hospitals are refusing to comply. As of January 1, 86-percent of hospitals were not complying with the transparency rule”

    We keep passing them, no one is following them. That includes re-passing laws about speech, guns, warrants that are already among the first 10 Federal laws ever passed. After we re-pass them, nobody follows them then either. Too busy enforcing laws we DIDN’T pass.

    Part of the problem for hospitals is that they don’t know either. They no longer know what the prices are or should be, they just make it up. Since the accounting hasn’t been real at least since the Feds got involved in 1990, they have lost all mooring with reality. Band aids cost $1000. Heart Surgery costs zero. This is the “unit of account” function of money. We number-ize things so WE can tell if a grapefruit or a pumpkin costs more, i.e. is harder, takes more effort and energy to get. That way we can accurately measure should we use more bandaids or more tape? Should we stent or open surgery? When the costs are inaccurate and fabricated not only to the patients, but to the institution itself, then IT becomes inefficient, unable to deploy resources, and becomes only a source of endless waste and loss.

    So an important part of making them post prices is to have the HOSPITALS account for THEMSELVES. That is, if you make them post prices where an aspirin costs $500 but the surgery room also costs $500, they can notice there is a clear problem and fix it. Also if your surgery costs $50,000 but the hospital in the same city is posting $5,000, somebody also knows there’s a problem. Short of going to a cash system, this is supposed to cause this distress to them so they can straighten it out, re-connect prices to reality and action. Their response to leaving fantasy and re-connecting to reality? We refuse. That’s it: we refuse. I like fantasy, the voices know me here.

    Note this is a teeeeeeeny-tiny reform, barely irritating the larger system, not interrupting profits at all, and they both fight it as a mortal threat, and refuse to do it despite actual force of law.

    But! It’s the law to wear masks! You should be arrested! No. It’s not. No laws were ever passed. On the other hand, the President and Congress DID pass a law to make you merely post prices. That’s it. I want to know what I owe and why. Can’t obey. Don’t care.

    Non-laws exist and are arrested, ACTUAL laws are ignored, and not arrested. Got it? The only law is POWER, and you don’t have any, so shut up and do what you’re told.

    “Elon Musk says part of the reason for free speech being in peril is that the Democratic Party “has been hijacked by extremists.”

    Yes but leftists like Jimmy Dore argue that they have been hijacked by the RIGHT, authoritarians, and not the “Left” as we all knew them, pot-smoking, sharing-caring hippies. I disagree as the Left worships government, but I understand his point and value it. The Democratic Party is clearly hijacked by insider, corporate war-mongering neo-Libs, masquerading as the “Left”, a bargain made after Mondale lost (because nobody liked their ideas). The only group censored that aren’t conservatives are the REAL left, the Anti-war left like him. Also in Musk’s illustration is very very generous to the Left (as usual). The Right now believes in gay marriage for instance. Trump is the first President to do so, Barack being against it. So the Right has not only NOT moved further Right, they moved noticeably LEFT by almost every measure. And STILL the Left has gone so far to the horizon that the pro-Gay-marriage party are considered cattle-car Nazis. Pretty far out. Over the horizon into madness far out.

    The essential problem we need to solve for is that “Right” and “Left” mean nothing anymore. There is no definition and no cohesion, they simply mean “I don’t like you.” Basically because 95% of the population and 100% of the reporters and schoolteachers are liars. 100% of the time. So where WOULD you get a historical definition of Left-Right from, if Merriam-Webster and School, College and the NY Times all lie like a rug about it with every word, thought, and deed? Your friends and family then don’t know either? We’re not having a real debate, and that’s by design. If there’s no reason, no definition, no logic, then the only law is POWER. The purpose of power is more power. Do what you’re told: the world exists for me.

    #107067
    Dora
    Participant

    Jimmy Dore.
    Trump Ruined Lying! Says NBC Policy Expert

    #107068
    zerosum
    Participant

    Democracy and Demonstration and Freedom
    My way or the Hyway
    Certainty of truth literally does not exist.

    ——–
    https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/30/americas/ottawa-rolling-thunder-bike-rally-arrests/index.html
    Ottawa police make 7 arrests and tow 24 vehicles during Rolling Thunder bike rally weekend
    By Michelle Watson and Andi Babineau, CNN

    Updated 5:46 AM ET, Sat April 30, 2022
    ———
    https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/we-cannot-let-this-go-unchallenged-unwelcome-party-planned-to-send-message-to-rolling-thunder-ottawa-event-1.5880846
    ‘We cannot let this go unchallenged’: ‘Unwelcome Party’ plans to send message to Rolling Thunder Ottawa event

    Leah Larocque
    CTV News Ottawa Multi-Skilled Journalist

    Published April 28, 2022 3:22 p.m. PDT
    Ottawa residents are planning an “unwelcome party” Friday to send a message to the “Rolling Thunder Ottawa” motorcycle convoy.

    “We cannot let this go unchallenged,” says Brian Latour, one of the organizers of the rally.
    The “unwelcome party” is planned for 5 p.m. at Strathcona Park in Sandy Hill. It will include a rally and march.

    —————-
    https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-police-outline-exact-route-for-rolling-thunder-biker-ride-1.5879488
    Ottawa police outline exact route for ‘Rolling Thunder’ biker ride
    The entire route has been designated as a no-stopping zone. Officers will be along the route directing traffic and ensuring the bikers “safely and expeditiously leave the area with as little impact as possible on residents,” Bell said.

    Bell said police also have a plan in place in the event that people don’t follow their directions to move along.

    He did not specify the location on Coventry Road where bikers plan to gather.

    “We aren’t engaging in any sort of coordination of the event. The information that we have is that organizers are planning to muster in and around that area,” he said.

    But messages on social media say the bikers are planning to muster at the St. Laurent Shopping Centre.

    ———–
    Ukraine conflict – controlled demolition by your leaders
    https://thesaker.is/empire-of-lies-eager-to-receive-mr-sarmats-business-card/
    “The collapse of the American-centric world is a reality”

    “The American and European military-industrial complex is jubilant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine, it has no respite from order. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to delay it at least to the last Ukrainian.”
    ———–

    #107069
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    • Vaccinated Had Fewer N Antibodies Even After Covid Infection (Blaze)

    This is huge. This “oopsie” resulting from experimental tinkering with the human immune system was known by “The Science” in early 2021.

    Igor Chudov has a good article about it:
    “Moderna Knew Vaccinated People Will Never Acquire Proper Immunity After Breakthrough Infections”

    This inability to obtain broader natural immunity is the reason for endless covids: a covid infection in [most of] the vaccinated does not result in lasting immunity and acts similarly to an almost-worthless booster shot. A “breakthrough infection” adds a large number of temporary S-antibodies to the obsolete Wuhan virus. Whereas, the unvaccinated obtain numerous antibodies to all sorts of facets (epitopes) of the virus that infected them

    The implications of the failure of vaccinated people to acquire full immunity are enormous. As a result of haphazardly tested vaccines, the vaccinated cannot become naturally immune after first, second, or any further infection.

    Thus, any kind of herd immunity, successfully reached by low-vaccination countries, is impossible in the highly-vaccinated countries.

    Endless Covid infections are NOT harmless, because Sars-Cov-2 infects immune cells and acts as a battering ram against our immune systems. Repeated blows of this “battering ram” are extremely deleterious to the immune systems of the vaccinated…

    The timing of events suggests that Moderna had access to the N antibody data a very long time ago. In my opinion, a well-intentioned person who had this data, would quickly conclude that the general public deserves to be informed about OAS concerns. However, this was not done.

    The data was available in or around March, 2021

    https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/moderna-knew-vaccinated-people-will?s=r

    #107070
    Kassandra
    Participant

    Wow, Naomi just nails it! I honestly never thought of “misinformation” in that way. It’s so TRUE.

    This is why I have come here daily for more than a decade now (I think, when did TAE start?). I don’t suppose her point should have been an ah-ha moment for me (kind of embarrassing) but it really was.

    Could Tucker really be controlled opposition and allow discussion like this?

    #107071
    Noirette
    Participant

    I had to look up Nina Jankowicz, never heard of her before.

    Ms. Jankowicz has advised the Ukrainian government on strategic communications under the auspices of a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship. (…) She is a frequent television and radio commentator on disinformation and Russian and Eastern European affairs. Prior to her Fulbright grant in Ukraine, Ms. Jankowicz managed democracy assistance programs to Russia and Belarus at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

    https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/nina-jankowicz

    Google search entries describe her as a “Disinformation Expert.” I.e. a lower-level Establishment Flunky, filled with hubris and crazed hyper-opportunism…

    She made a lucrative career choice… by accident, or being roped in, or a meeting of the two.

    Because the ppl recruited are in themselves of no interest or importance, they are just figures put forward on media etc., join the club, go on TikTok, the pay is good, many ppl admire you, etc.

    Ukraine was the ‘big territory next to Russia’ for the Biden ‘big guy’, recall Obama could not / did not wish to control this part of the world, and tossed it as a favor to a section of the Dem Mafia (> criminal rapacious inner cricle.) The Biden shenanigans in Ukraine (Hunter, and his buddies, Devon Archer, the Burisma co., the pay offs to the big guy, etc.) were quite successful.

    Nina J was chosen, anointed, because of the Ukr. connection.

    Ukraine is an obsession of the Bidens. Which is (in part) the reason for the present War. The BidAdmin (imho) provoked, boosted, organised, the –somewhat real / semi fake— the expected blitz attack by Ukr. forces on the Donbass, thus pushing the Russkies to make the first move, and INVADE.

    #107072
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Could Tucker really be controlled opposition and allow discussion like this?

    If he weren’t controlled opposition, I really couldn’t imagine him having a show on a major cable news channel.

    #107073
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Today’s selection, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Monna Vanna 1866 is masterfully implemented.

    The hands are some of the most beautiful ever painted. Delicate and graceful. The scale, the proportions. The skin tone is perfection. Add a lovely face and eyes, and an interesting neck. Portraiture is a very high art.

    The hair detail is amazing, creating a flowing and fluffy wild mane – tamed by perfectly placed, silver-pearled spiral adornments.

    I won’t stop reminding you how difficult is it to paint fabrics with emphasis on prints, here it is done with great perfection.

    Her accessories are stunning. How about the detail in that hawk-tail and breast down feather fan!? The green rosettes and the green stone ring are well-placed accents. The choker necklace is a mystical piece while the weighty, red coral beaded strands coil and fall effortlessly around her; they are soothing to hold and to roll around in your fingers. Abundant feminine implements and energy move in a circular motion swirling around her – consuming this viewer.

    The Roses. I love their casual, painterly look. With so much going on here….why were they added to the scene?

    Art is an experience. LOVE for the Heart and Soul. Thank you Ilargi.

    #107074
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Ambassador Michael McFaul: ‘Putin has lost his war in Ukraine’” –MSNBC

    That’s it then. All we need to do is fly the Junior Explorers in on American Airlines and occupy them. Actually the video is pretty startling: https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/amb-michael-mcfaul-putin-has-lost-his-war-in-ukraine-138893381809?cid=referral_taboolafeed They say jawdropping things all the time, but this is stellar.

    #107075
    Rover
    Participant

    Thanks, Susmarie 108, for such a well curated description of the work ….. I’ve had to jump back and forth from the art and to your words, from desktop to cellphone … and everything else going along through the times in between…🤔….😊❤️

    #107076
    zerosum
    Participant

    Elon Musk should be feared because he might bring back some of the taboo from when we were growing up.
    1. long kiss in the movies
    2. black man kissing white woman in movies
    3. Woman nipples in magazines
    4. Two people sleeping together in the movies
    You can search your own memories and come up with all kinds of harms that was done to your young mind.
    The Rolling Thunder bike rally is being shown continuously with commenters telling me how bad it is.
    Should Elon Musk ban those programs from Twitter?

    #107077

    The MSNBC clip pf McFaul is unspeakable. Yet I think I detected a note of “dreams come true” when he mentions his the money.

    #107078
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    OK, as a public service I’m coming out of “retirement”, to speak on this deluded point-of-view concerning the “grand illusion” of cancelling century’s old definitions:

    All politicians and candidates for office should watch how Wolf responds to the first question from Tucker Carlson, and then makes the better argument. Wolf doesn’t waste time debating “misinformation”, “disinformation”, or “malinformation”, instead she accurately just says those things do not exist. Information stands undefined. From that position there are truth and lies.

    OK, so if there is only “truth and lies”, what is the lay person going to believe when the “authorities” + their legalized “media” proclaim psyops & propaganda (lies) as “official” real reality?

    It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is…

    Is it not “misinformation” when the gatekeepers publish dishonest info (fake news) to sway the public, who has not the wherewithal to discredit, creating “The Narrative”?

    mis·in·for·ma·tion
    /ˌmisinfərˈmāSH(ə)n/

    noun
    false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive

    There are innumerable examples of where officialdom has effectively fibbed & hoodwinked the masses, for example:

    A key inflection point to move the American public and Congress toward supporting war in Iraq was the gruesome 1990 testimony of a Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah, who described how Iraqi troops killed 312 babies.

    Two months after Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl appeared before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill, a body established by Reps. Tom Lantos and John Porter in 1983 to raise awareness of human rights abuses worldwide.

    Problem was, Nayirah’s story was made up.

    The caucus — which wasn’t an official congressional committee, despite its name — introduced the girl as 15-year-old Nayirah, her last name withheld to protect her family in Kuwait. Nayirah recalled the trauma of watching Iraqi troops storm into Al Adan Hospital in Kuwait City, where she volunteered as a nurse. Live on air, she said the Iraqis had removed 312 babies from incubators and left them to die on the cold floor.

    “If my nephew was born prematurely, he would have died that day as well,” Nayirah told a room of reporters, her voice quavering.

    WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

    Because fake news (mis/dis/malinformation) has consequences.

    A key inflection point to move the American public and Congress toward supporting war in Iraq was the gruesome 1990 testimony of a Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah, who described how Iraqi troops killed 312 babies.

    Problem was, Nayirah’s story was made up.

    Two months after Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl appeared before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill, a body established by Reps. Tom Lantos and John Porter in 1983 to raise awareness of human rights abuses worldwide.

    The caucus — which wasn’t an official congressional committee, despite its name — introduced the girl as 15-year-old Nayirah, her last name withheld to protect her family in Kuwait. Nayirah recalled the trauma of watching Iraqi troops storm into Al Adan Hospital in Kuwait City, where she volunteered as a nurse. Live on air, she said the Iraqis had removed 312 babies from incubators and left them to die on the cold floor.

    “If my nephew was born prematurely, he would have died that day as well,” Nayirah told a room of reporters, her voice quavering.

    Nayirah’s testimony struck deep. Major publications such as The New York Times and rights groups like Amnesty International echoed her disturbing eye-witness account. But the American public remained divided about whether to deploy troops to liberate Kuwait. Gallup polls in 1990 found that in August, only 17 percent of the American public had supported immediate military intervention. In December, that jumped to 41 percent.

    The Democrat-dominated Congress was also divided, yet Nayirah’s story may have tipped the balance prior to a vote on Jan. 12, 1991. That day, the Senate voted 52 to 47 to authorize U.S military force in Iraq, with seven senators citing Nayirah’s testimony to justify their stance. The vote gave President George H. W. Bush the political backing he needed to save Kuwait … and valuable oil fields.

    Just a decade earlier, the U.S., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had financed Iraq as it battled the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran for eight years. After the war, Kuwait demanded that Saddam Hussein — known as a ruthless tyrant who had gassed his own people — pay back his war debt. Hussein refused and invaded the country instead.

    The Iraqi leader was now a villain to his former allies — and to many Americans, despite their ambivalence over sending in U.S. troops. Americans might have been less conflicted had they known that the baby incubator story was a hoax.

    Despite the multimillion-dollar efforts, many Americans were still apprehensive about sending their boys to a faraway land. After all, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, and Americans were told that the free world was finally secure.

    Enter Nayirah — who was actually the daughter of Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.

    Nayirah, for her part, never spoke publicly again. She also wasn’t punished for lying, since the Congressional Human Rights Caucus — now called the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission — amounts to little more than a political PR arena.(Think Tank)

    https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-great-lie-of-the-first-gulf-war/271486/

    Now enter Carlson + Wolf; By declaring there only exists truth & lies, that mis/dis/malinformation is a non sequitur, that “opinion” effectively muddies the waters for the avg. Joe Schmo, who then feelz they possess the ability to discern the difference, when the psyop/propaganda process is often difficult to counter, done piecemeal over decades, in a relentless push to accomplish “The Narrative”…

    There are more genders than just Male/Female!

    Instead of the citizenry looking for honest, sane & dependable leadership (needle-in-the-haystack already), they turn to TPTB/TBTF agent provocateurs that emote lies & MISINFORMATION that appeals to their sector of mass psychosis brainwashing…

    Controlled dissent FTW! 😕

    Jankowicz testified before British House of Parliament last year about “gender misinformation” being a “national security concern” and a threat to democracy requiring government censorship.

    Now, They’re taking it to the ultimate goal; Officialdom will now CONTROL “information”, so that the only Their “misinformation” will be accepted into “The Narrative” for a majority of the low information public…

    Looks like Their total successes with duping the public regarding the 2020 election, Jan. 6, COVID+vexes, Ukraine et al. have emboldened the NPD sociopaths to no end.

    Grifters always gain the confidence of the mark before the ultimate deception.

    I’d think twice before allowing someone to redefine & nullify a word, or prefix, from your vocabulary 😕

    Especially an American feminist author, journalist & party of chaos (d) consultant on a “news” entertainment show 😆

    My opinion stands: Tucker Carlson is controlled opposition…

    #107079
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Ukraine the real Zelensky article was a great find. Thank you

    #107080
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #107081
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Susmarie108 said

    Today’s selection, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Monna Vanna 1866 is masterfully implemented.

    I am no expert but this painting looks freaky to me: is she a woman or a snake, that small head perched on the top of that very long neck, too long a neck.

    #107082
    aspnaz
    Participant

    @Veracious Poet said

    OK, so if there is only “truth and lies”, what is the lay person going to believe when the “authorities” + their legalized “media” proclaim psyops & propaganda (lies) as “official” real reality?

    You have inadvertently highlighted the problem: there is asolutely no need for a binary decision.

    It is much more helpful to attach a level of confidence to the information you have heard? Instead of accepting information as true or false. One of the biggest problems when talking to progressives is that they just believe most of what they are told by TV and are they determined to defend that position as if they knew something about the subject matter. It is a sign of mental retardation that you accept information either as 100% fact or 100% lie, the truth has to occupy the middle ground, even the question of whether you exist at all cannot be 100%.

    Part of this problem is the insecurity associated with being undecided: people see it as a weakness to be undecided. This insecurity then feeds their defence of their own adopted opinion. This they feeds into their belief that everybody should behave the way they behave, that everybody should do what they do. It is a mental disease and it would be very interesting to know why and how it comes about.

    For example: On the evidence I have seen, the probability is that the Covid virus does not exist. I am happy to see actual evidence that it does exist, but that has not been forthcoming. It is not a reflection on me as to whether Covid exists or not, it is a reflection of the evidence I have seen. Now, I could just put all my faith in Fauci and decide that it 100% exists because Fauci says it exists, but that is the sort of response I would expect from a dog: you pretend to throw the stick, the dog runs after it then becomes puzzled, wondering where the stick is, only to be happy again when you reveal that it was hidden behind your back all the time.

    #107083
    John Day
    Participant

    @WES: Thanks. I took the test after a week of solid and sustained study, and 6 months without seeing patients, then I spent 4 hours in spiritual study.
    Where are we and whither go we?


    @Aspnaz
    : I had COVID for Christmas/New Years, Delta, and I had “believed” in it from mid December 2019, when it didn’t-exist-at-all officially, but that Chinese Ophthalmologist got heavily bullied for his wrong speech, before dying of it in January.

    All of our models of reality are simplifications. It’s the best we can do. useful simplified-abstract-models can be really useful, or destructive, or useful to me and destructive to you…

    I like to sell people those models…

    I absolutely agree about holding “facts” in abeyance until they are given time and opportunity to “fit” or “clash” with the world model that I keep as a work in progress, always revising and updating…

    I don’t have a better approach to truth than that, holding a jigsaw-puzzle piece to the side if I’m not sure that it actually goes to this particular puzzle that I’m trying to piece together into a coherent whole..

    I saw something peak in global finance/economy in the third quarter of 2018. I was not the only one.
    Gail Tverberg thinks it was associated with the peak in global crude oil production. She makes a good case for that, and for that being what’s behind the need for lockdowns and an expandable-world-war.

    The world has a major crude oil problem; expect conflict ahead

    #107085
    aspnaz
    Participant

    John Day said

    I had COVID for Christmas/New Years, Delta, and I had “believed” in it from mid December 2019, when it didn’t-exist-at-all officially, but that Chinese Ophthalmologist got heavily bullied for his wrong speech, before dying of it in January.

    I have a few friends who also claim to have had Covid. It amazes me how nobody claims to have flu these days. I have one friend who believes his uncle died of Covid. Without reliable tests, I take all these stories with a pinch of salt. Until I see evidence of why flu has been eliminated, I am inclined to take the boring approach and assume all the people claiming to have Covid probably just had flu. I am fairly certain that scientists could have put together an accurate test over the past 24 months, but that does not seem to have happened. Instead we have a set of rubbish tests which franky cannot be relied upon.

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