*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)
Regular Fare:
Will we see deflation in the next 12 months in the USA?
I’m not worried at this point about a deflationary spiral, but I see what, to my view, is a plausible scenario where the CPI actually goes negative in the next twelve months. I go through the categories and my predictions component by component below, but there are four main items driving the story that I’ll mention here.
…
I can’t claim to have a crystal ball that tells me what inflation in the different components will be over the next year, but there is some basis for making reasonable guesses. So here is my story. …
Today on TAP: As a share of the economy, profits hit an all-time high, and wages for the bottom 90 percent an all-time low.
Dayen: The 1937 Project
Or maybe the 1979 Project. Either way, Democrats are blundering into premature austerity.
… So under current policy, in January, CTC checks will stop, and in February, student loan payments will restart. This double whammy is a form of austerity that might bolster the federal government’s bottom line, but will severely crunch millions of families and young college graduates
… So you have a form of inflation-fighting that won’t actually fight inflation, doesn’t deal with the supply issues at the heart of the problem, and instead stumbles into austerity for no good reason. A combination of overconfidence, reluctant corporate Democrats, and wrong-headed political strategy has Democrats moving in a disastrous direction.
Or maybe the 1979 Project. Either way, Democrats are blundering into premature austerity.
… So under current policy, in January, CTC checks will stop, and in February, student loan payments will restart. This double whammy is a form of austerity that might bolster the federal government’s bottom line, but will severely crunch millions of families and young college graduates
… So you have a form of inflation-fighting that won’t actually fight inflation, doesn’t deal with the supply issues at the heart of the problem, and instead stumbles into austerity for no good reason. A combination of overconfidence, reluctant corporate Democrats, and wrong-headed political strategy has Democrats moving in a disastrous direction.
*** Roberts: The central bankers’ dilemma
It seems that the Fed no longer considers the rise in inflation as ‘transitory’ but likely to hang around for some time, although its median forecast is for the personal consumption inflation (PCE) rate to finish at 5.3% for 2021 but then drop back to 2.6% in 2022 and eventually fall to 2.1% by 2024. In that sense, the Fed still reckons inflation is ‘transitory’ but it will be higher than previously thought, in the short term.
…
Why is monetary policy ineffective? As I have argued in previous posts, it’s because inflation is not a ‘monetary phenomenon’ as the monetarist Milton Friedman argued. Nor is it the product of wage costs pushing up prices – despite attempts by UK government economists to claim so.
…
I remind readers of this blog what I pointed out before. There has never been ‘wage push’ inflation. Indeed, over the last 20 years until the year of the COVID, real weekly wages rose just 0.4% a year on average, less than the average annual real GDP growth of around 2%+. It’s the share of GDP growth going to profits that rose.
…
Instead, the inflation of the prices of production depends ultimately on what is happening to the generation of new value in an economy – and that depends on the rate of accumulation of capital and the profitability of that capital. Inflation rates reached post-war lows in the 2010s despite ‘quantitative easing because real GDP growth slowed along with investment and productivity growth. All monetary policy did was weakly counteract that downward pressure on price inflation.
…
Inflation now is ‘transitory’ in the sense that after the ‘sugar rush’ of consumer and investment spending ends during 2022, growth in GDP, investment and productivity will drop back to ‘long depression’ rates. That will mean that inflation will subside. The Fed is forecasting just 2% real GDP growth by 2024 and 1.8% a year after that – a rate lower than the average for the last ten years. In Q3 2021, US productivity growth slumped on the quarter by the most in 60 years, while the year on year rate dropped 0.6%, the largest decline since 1993, as employment rose faster than output.
OECD predicts Canada will be the worst performing advanced economy over the next decade…and the three decades after that
Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care?
The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths. In addition to this, deeper poverty and less access to healthcare mean Americans at lower incomes die at a younger age than poor people in other rich countries
The labor shortage is a health problem
One in three UK small firms plan major staff cuts, survey reveals
Firms battling pandemic debts consider making 45% of workers redundant after end of furlough scheme, with price rises also likely
Tymoigne: Seven Replies to the Critiques of Modern Money Theory (pdf)
Other Charts: (links: one, two, three, four, five, six)
Other Charts: (links: one, two, three, four, five, six)
Quotes of the Week:
Ian Welsh, in: Meat Packer Profits Up 300%:
“This isn’t caused by supply chain shortages, it’s caused by pure greed operating through an oligopoly which is sure that governments won’t stop them.”
What today's investors view as a strong economy is merely themselves staring back in the mirror. They're fat and happy, so they assume everyone else must feel the same way.
Bubble Fare:
Here Comes Santa Crash
Granted, 2021 has seen the largest wage increases in decades, having lagged productivity growth for decades - all of which gain accrued to corporate profit. And yet shockingly, concern for the middle class vis-a-vis "inflation" only appeared since wages began rising. The REAL inflation in college tuition, healthcare, and housing that has been crushing the middle class for decades has been ignored all along. What we learn in this Supply Side nirvana is that wages as a share of the economy can go down for four decades, but they can't rise for even one year without sparking widespread panic among investors. Nevertheless, the definition of inflation is not a one time unsustainable price increase. As we learned yesterday, retail sales are already beginning to roll over, because "inflation" is weighing on sales. Except, inflation can't weigh on sales because that would imply lower demand. And at the macro level, the definition of inflation is demand that exceeds supply.
COVID-19 notes:
Data Shows Little Improvement in Long COVID Patients After One Year
Scientists see a ‘really, really tough winter’ with Omicron
Another major pandemic wave seems inevitable. The big question is how much severe disease it will bring
Prof. Jose-Luis Jimenez
1/ Why is there such EXTREME RESISTANCE by
@WHO, @CDCGov and IPC(*) to clearly state that COVID-19 is a dominantly AIRBORNE disease?
TLDR: see slide
……
15/ A key issue in this denial of airborne is sociological.
A proud field (IPC) had a foundational error (droplet transmission) for over a century.
And the people pointing out the error to them were mostly outsiders!!
…
19/ My impression of the current reason is that we have an unholy alliance
1) Some @WHO personnel & prominent IPC scientists (e.g. John Conly) DO NOT want to lose face. @WHO gaslights us, saying that they have ALWAYS said it was airborne (yeah, right)
20/ More importantly, governments & hospitals don't want the costs & restrictions that come along with admitting airborne
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
Wall Street Is Close to Triggering a Climate Financial Crisis
And just like 2008, the biggest losers will be those least responsible for it.
Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril
New research shows how rising temperatures have irreversibly altered both the Arctic and Antarctic. Ripple effects will be felt around the globe.
Ice shelf holding back keystone Antarctic glacier within years of failure
Collapse of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf by intersecting fractures.
The industry creating a third of the world's waste
The Scramble for EV Battery Metals Is Just Beginning
Investors See Peak Demand Happening Much Further In The Future
Other / NOT Fun Fare:
Canadians Deserve Truly Universal Health Care
Canadians spend billions on medical treatment not covered by the country’s supposedly universal health care system. Many people are unable to pay for these services and instead forgo the prescription drugs and dental care they urgently need.
Enraged monkeys kill 250 DOGS by dragging them to the top of buildings and dropping them off 'out of revenge' after pups killed one of their infants in Indian village.
Pics of the Week:
The best science images of 2021
Contrarian Perspectives
Extra [controversial or non-market-related] Fare:
*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)
Regular Fare:
Elite US Military Unit Named 'Talon Anvil' "Bombed Civilians At Will" In Syria
Biden's Build Back Better plan could DOUBLE the cost of childcare and act as an up to $30,000 tax on middle class families, study claims
*** Welsh: A Quick Understanding Of Inflation And Current Supply Chain Issues
… When stagflation hit, elites decided that the core problem was “ordinary people are buying too much”, so every since 1979 (42+ years) the Federal Reserve and other central banks have had a policy that whenever people’s wages rise faster than inflation of what they need, they strangle wages… There were, in the 70s, basically two choices: strangle demand, or fix the supply issues by transitioning off carbon based fuels. They chose to strangle demand, and make the rich richer, because it seemed easier and it had the side-effect of making everyone decision makers cared about filthy rich.
What we have right now are supply chain disruptions cause by Covid. Ports in China get shut down when Covid strikes, there aren’t enough truckers, there isn’t enough production of many goods due to disruptions of people being sick or dying or quarantines and so on. Once that begins, folks begin to hoard, and in a “just in time” production and shipping system, there is no slack. Small disruptions cascade across the system as a result and warehouses have to inventory to make up for even slight disruptions in supply.
Most “value chains” to use management and trade speak, are spread out over multiple countries: parts are manufactured in many places then gathered to be assembled. A snarl at any of a number of locations, or in shipping between them, causes delays all down the line.
In other words we have a structural logistical problem caused by our systems being over-engineered for efficiency as measured by profits, without any slack or being designed to make sense. People familiar with the system I talk to tell me that no one understands it; it’s too complicated and dispersed.
But for 42 years we’ve relied, almost completely, on financial solutions to economic problems, run primarily through central banks with finance and treasury departments occasionally assisting. The solution to every problem has been to give rich people and corporations more money and assume that will create “supply”, while crippling everyone else to manage “demand.”
…
… Elites, in other words, would have to understand how the actual economy works and not just assume that printing more money or changing interest rates or selling public facilities will make things OK.
…
Your rulers are impoverishing and killing you, because it benefits them.
Incompetent or evil? Why not both?
Fast food workers are using 911 call logs to draw attention to a hidden “crisis of violence”
Solidarity Economy – a first step
… We start by stopping; if we stop buying some of the things we can do without we can save a little money. This gets us off the road of debt and onto the road of liberation from debt. By doing this we begin to gain economic autonomy and, at the same time, shake off consumerism, cultivating better modes of consumption as we satisfy our needs, aspirations, and desires.
This is actually very important. A person trapped in consumerism and debt is chained to capitalist logic and also dependent on the state and its public services.
Unsustainability / Climate Collapse Fare:
Neuberger: 'If We Want to Tackle Climate Change, We Want Them to Go Bankrupt ... Right?’
Biden too is sabotaging the climate, just like the other guy did
A brief note to say what you already knew and what no one else will tell you when the big bright lights are on — if climate's your issue, Biden's your enemy too, and he's not a soft one.
…
As we've said many times, Biden is as destructive to the climate as Trump was. But as the Dem-friendly alternative, he gets a pass in what passes for the mainstream media.
Net Zero by 2050? Here’s What It Takes To Get It
… you get the basic point: there aren’t enough materials on the planet to achieve this dream. It’s a grand absurd delusion!
A result of the nature of our dilemma/predicament: damned if you do, damned if you don’t; catch-22
Doomberg: California Ditzkrieg
If one wanted to destroy an economy from within, it would be hard to do a better job than what Germany is doing to itself. By systematically shutting down baseload-critical nuclear power facilities and replacing them with intermittent renewable energy, Germany has left itself – and by extension, the entire European Union – vulnerable to shortages of reliable sources of electricity. Not satisfied with that error, Germany has further impaled itself by attacking its suppliers of natural gas – the remaining option for producing reliable baseload power, having ruled out nuclear and coal – turning a mistake into a predictable catastrophe.
Climate Quotes/Tweets of the Week:
Bates: A global population of nearly 8 billion is unsustainable without additional resources, like four more Planet Earths. I could say we are on a collision course with biodiversity, extractable minerals, climate, and each other but we have already collided. It is like watching grey mold grow on an orange. For the longest time, there was none. Then all of a sudden….
I am increasingly coming across too much excellent COVID-related content (with contrarian evidence-based points-of-view!!) to link to it all
Read everything by eugyppius; el gato malo; Mathew Crawford; Steve Kirsch; Jessica Rose!
Lyons-Weiler, Berenson, Chudov, Toby Rogers are also go-to mainstays; I am new to following Andreas Oehler, Metatron, Julius Ruechel, and Paul Alexander, but they certainly seem worth following, too; Denninger worth staying on top of too for his insights, and especially his colorful language; and Norman Fenton; I will of course continue to post links to key Peter McCullough material, and Geert Vanden Bossche, and Robert Malone, and Martin Kulldorff, and Jay Bhattacharya, and Tess Lawrie, and, and, and…
but going forward, my linking to material by those mainstays mentioned above will be reserved for particularly essential posts
COVID Fare:
General COVID Sub-Fare:
**** Lyons-Weiler: Dr. Peter McCullough on The Joe Rogan Show - Links to Resources (Urgent Share)
Links to resources mentioned. We must change allopathy from the outside in. Share w/nurses and doctors. Share everywhere.
Following Dr. McCullough’s jaw-dropping appearance on The Joe Rogan Show, I asked him for his slides so I could locate the resources he cited.
Dr. McCullough is experienced. He is precise. He is humble. He and others like him are saving lives. His protocols and messages should be required curriculum for all medical students and continuing medical education for all practicing physicians and nurses.
This article contains links to the resources he mentioned to Joe. Click on each image for the resource. …
Kunstler: Where Do You Stand?
… In fact, Dr. Fauci is likely responsible for a preponderance of the total 802,000 US Covid deaths — putting aside the number of people who actually died from highway accidents, cancer, diabetes, old age, and other causes, but were listed as covid deaths by hospital accounting personnel avid for federal subsidy cash.
It was Dr. Fauci who organized the suppression of easily marshaled and inexpensive early treatments for the disease, namely hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, azithromycin, monoclonal antibodies, Vitamin D, etc. It was Dr. Fauci who promoted the protocol of sending sick patients home from the ER without any treatment to await the further development of fatal clotting in their lungs. It was Dr. Fauci who designated the drug remdesivir — which he developed years ago for hepatitis-C (it did not work) with a financial stake in the patents — as the primary inpatient treatment for Covid-19. And then it turned out that remdesivir destroys patients’ kidneys and is ineffective anyway in late treatment of the disease when viral loads wane and spike proteins have already created the fatal capillary clots in the alveoli of the lungs and in other organs.
It’s Dr. Fauci who is responsible for the emergency use authorization on the mRNA “vaccines” that may have killed hundreds of thousands more Americans — based on the CDC’s VAERS system and statistical analysis of its inherent under-reporting at only 2.2 percent of all actual events— and you can add multiples more in non-fatal adverse reactions, including permanent disabilities. It’s Dr. Fauci who finagled the inadequate and botched trials of the mRNA vaccines in order to rush them into use. And now it’s Dr. Fauci who wants to vaxx up all the children in America, despite evidence that the mRNA shots permanently disable children’s innate natural immune systems and can cause lasting heart, blood vessel, brain, and reproductive damage, and also despite the fact that few children are susceptible to serious Covid illness in the first place.
The omicron moment may be the power-mad little weasel’s last stand.
…
By the way, while Dr. Anthony Fauci may represent the leadership of the corrupt US public health bureaucracy, we cannot let the medical establishment itself off-the-hook for this epic fiasco of crisis mis-management. There are roughly a million doctors in America, and all but a tiny fraction of them have gone along with Dr. Fauci’s wrongful and harmful edicts.
Rose: 'The BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 reprograms both adaptive and innate immune responses'
It's all in the title...
A brand new medRxiv pre-print study entitled: “The BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 reprograms both adaptive and innate immune responses” has graced our world. This paper is so important and it provides evidence to support what many prominent immunologists and vaccinologists have been saying for a long time, including myself. These COVID-19 mRNA injectable products are causing, yes, causing, immune system dysregulation - and not just in the context of the adaptive system, but in the context of the innate system. Not only that, but these findings provide very good reasons as to why we are seeing resurgences of latent viral infections and other adverse events reported in VAERS (and other adverse event reporting systems) and perhaps more importantly, why we should under no circumstances inject this crap into our children. Children are fine in the context of COVID-19 (for the 80 millionth time - this is well documented)….
UK Gov. released a report confirming the Fully Vaccinated account for 4 in every 5 Covid-19 Deaths in England since August
Alexander: Must We Segregate the Unvaccinated from the Vaccinated?
Governments around the world have encouraged and enforced a new form of segregation based on vaccine status. This is not only dangerously inhumane; there is no scientific basis for this. The science, if they would bother to consult the science, questions this policy given the breakthrough infection we are seeing in the vaccinated and the capacity to transmit virus.
There seems to be an underlying presumption here that the unvaccinated are unclean (regardless of natural immunity) and their presence will spread disease. What if, however, existing studies reveal that there is little to no difference between the COVID vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of becoming infected, harboring the virus (viral load in the oral and nasopharynx), and transmitting it? We present evidence below that points to this.
Oehler: More Nails in Coffin of Official Narrative About mRNA Vaccines' Mechanism of Action
New iron-clad evidence that high titers of antibodies post "vaccinations" are caused by circulating S spikes in the "vaccinees" - a cause for concern, not celebration.
***** Mercola: The COVID Shots Are Killing People
***** includes video of interview with Dr. Peter McCullough
and includes notes on Early Treatment Options
Epidemiology of myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA vaccines in Ontario, Canada
Alexander: Myocarditis from COVID virus versus myocarditis from the vaccine: the latter (from vaccine) is far more dangerous
COVID infection results in myocarditis with elevated troponin, while vaccine myocarditis has elevated troponin, abnormal EKG, chest pain, hospitalization (90%) and potential heart failure
Alexander: COVID-19 vaccines for children, our young children who bring statistical zero risk to the table, is all risk & no benefit, no opportunity for benefit and only opportunity for harms, thousands can die
Fauci and Walensky and Francis Collins and Pfizer CEO Bourla and CDC and NIH and public health officials and all advocating for this are criminal, any scientist or doctor, we risk killing thousands
Vanden Bossche: The alleged ‘case’ for experimental C-19 vaccination of children is merely based on silo mentality and immunological ignorance
New Study finds the Covid-19 Vaccine is to blame for 98% of cases of Myocarditis among Children
The American Heart Association has published a new study which has found that 98% of all cases of Myocarditis among children are due to the mRNA Covid-19 injections. The new study was conducted by dozens of doctors and scientists from several Universities, Children’s Hospitals, and Schools of Medicine across the USA and was published on the American Heart Association’s (AHA) journal ‘Circulation’ on December 6th 2021.
Young People 40 Times More Likely To Die From Vaccines Than From COVID
A major Japanese medical bulletin has warned that the risk of dying from the COVID-19 vaccine for people in their 20s maybe 40 times higher than the disease itself. It was found that the risk of death of the vaccine might even be as astronomically high as 40 times more for the young, This was claimed by a review in the latest issue of Med Check which is a bimonthly bulletin published by the Japan Institute of Pharmacovigilance (NOPJIP) as a member of the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB)
The FDA approves boosters for minors – without testing boosters on minors
Age group testing? Zero.
… That’s it. That’s the rigorous studies that now meet FDA standards. Given the self-imposed and purposeful limitations the FDA has placed on its own information, it has the audacity to conclude:
…
This is the FDA making a cost/benefit calculation without knowing the costs or benefits.
Metatron: England & Wales - Pandemic of the Vaccinated
Dead people don’t lie.
In fact, they can tell you a lot of truth from the grave.
Like, the course of the COVID epidemic in England & Wales and the impact that mass “vaccination” has had on deaths across all ages.
…
Mercifully, COVID-19 has had no impact whatsoever on child mortality. On the contrary, deaths in 1 to 14 year olds have been substantially lower than the previous few years during 2020 and most of 20211.
Unfortunately, that trend stopped on 23-Sep-21. Coincidentally, that was the time that COVID vaccines were given to 12-15 year olds but like I say, it’s just a coincidence. Since then, deaths have risen from 28% below average to 2% above. But perhaps we’re just playing catch up.
The 15 to 44 year old deaths give us a better overall picture of the impact of COVID and COVID vaccinations.
…
where we do see a significant inflection, signifying a particular exogenous event, is on 07-Jan-21. Again, this is coincidental with mass vaccinations. Two coincidences now then in different age groups at different times. Perhaps, time to investigate causality properly?
This increase in excess mortality has continued to climb to the present date with another observable inflection on 23-Sep-21, concomitant with the roll out of boosters for eligible people.
Joomi Kim: What leads to more spike protein in the body: the vaccine or virus? Part 2
A mini-review of what we know
Kory: Studies Proving Generic Drugs Can Fight COVID Are Being Suppressed
Why do repurposed drugs require numerous trials prior to an agency recommendation, while high-profit, novel, patented drugs get routinely approved after only a single trial?
Alexander: Asymptomatic transmission and COVID-19: overhyped and overstated and we were misled by the COVID-19 Task Force to drive lockdowns and masking
Asymptomatic transmission is not a driver of epidemics/pandemics and they knew this; Fauci knew this
… This is basic immunology and should have come as no surprise to anyone and should not have been changed for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Yet it was used as a key impetus for lockdowns.
We had illogical, irrational, hysterical, and absurd COVID lockdown lunatic policy makers driving the populations into fear and sheer panic, and daily. Yet there was no evidence. They gave us no data. Fauci gave us no evidence. We are being emphatic in saying there is no evidence of asymptomatic spread.
…
A seminal study published in the journal Nature (which we thought would have properly informed the debate and put to rest the concept of asymptomatic spread) found no instances of asymptomatic spread from positive ‘asymptomatic cases’ among all 1,174 close contacts of the cases, based on a base sample of 10 million persons. Among all! “There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases”. AIER’s Zucker responded this way “The conclusion is not that asymptomatic spread is rare or that the science is uncertain. The study revealed something that hardly ever happens in these kinds of studies. There was not one documented case. Forget rare. Forget even Fauci’s previous suggestion that asymptomatic transmission exists but not does drive the spread. Replace all that with: never. At least not in this study for 10,000,000”. Haynes of Life site news reported similarly.
Alexander: Three nosocomial hospital type outbreak studies showed us: 1) double vaxxed nurses can become infected 2) double vaccinated nurses can transmit virus 3) that they have >250 times viral load
1. In a hospital outbreak investigation in Israel, Shitrit et al. observed “high transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant among twice vaccinated and masked individuals.” They added that “this suggests some waning of immunity, albeit still providing protection for individuals without comorbidities.”
2. Reporting on a nosocomial hospital outbreak in Finland, Hetemäki et al. observed that “both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections were found among vaccinated health care workers, and secondary transmission occurred from those with symptomatic infections despite use of personal protective equipment.”
3. Chau et al. (Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh) looked at transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant among vaccinated healthcare workers in Vietnams. Of 69 healthcare workers that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, 62 participated in the clinical study, all of whom recovered. For 23 of them, complete-genome sequences were obtained, and all belonged to the Delta variant. “Viral loads of breakthrough Delta variant infection cases were 251 times higher than those of cases infected with old strains detected between March-April 2020”.
*** Berenson: The light at the end of the Covid
One way or another, the Pandemia is ending in the United States. Europe may have a longer road...
first this hopeful analysis: don’t let the rise in case numbers fool you. Culturally and politically, the United States appears to be putting Covid in the rear-view mirror.
And since Covid was always much more a cultural and political problem than a existential threat - or even a medical threat to almost anyone in halfway decent health - spring is coming. Omicron will likely accelerate this trend, unless the South African data are completely wrong..
Chudov: New Large Study: Ivermectin cuts deaths in Half
Used only as a preventative -- not even as treatment
I have always been unsure if Ivermectin is, or is not, helpful in treating Covid. I spent several days reading all I could find, but still could not make up my mind beyond reasonable doubt. So, I always sidestepped Ivermectin, unsure if I should put my voice behind something that I was not certain worked.
I always wondered, if Ivermectin was such a possibly helpful treatment, why aren’t our health authorities, who should be so concerned with keeping us healthy, undertake a reasonable sized trial to determine this? This was a puzzle to me for a long time.
Finally, two pieces of information made me fairly certain that Ivermectin works, and the campaign against is the most vile and anti-human endeavour of the government, the corporate press, and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Here’s a new study: Ivermectin prophylaxis used for COVID-19 reduces COVID-19 infection and mortality rates: A 220,517-subject, populational-level retrospective citywide.
…
…
The Ivermectin story is extremely messy. There are powerful forces opposing it. Despite obvious promise, the United States did not conduct a single large trial of it. There is every logical reason that they should conduct a trial — but they did not, and said that vaccines are the solution. We know how that worked out.
Omicron Sub-Fare:
Chudov: Boris Johnson's Biggest Blunder
Boosting opens a unique vulnerability window at the worst time
… Boris looked scared and desperate. With much drama, he said that we are facing a “tidal wave of Omicron”. This is absolutely correct, because Omicron is as contagious as chickenpox and may be as deadly or deadlier than Delta. In addition, as Denmark’s data shows, Omicron actually prefers and seeks out vaccinated people, raising concerns of ADE (see below).
…
So up to 0:35 seconds in his speech, he was totally right. Then Boris said something amazing: “And I am afraid that it is now clear that two doses of vaccine is simply not enough to give the level of protection”. Well, duh, not only it is not enough, the vaccinated are getting preferentially infected!
Then he said what really is total nonsense: “our scientists are confident that with the third dose, the booster dose, we can bring our level of protection back up”. Really? So, if something makes things worse, more of it will make things better?
All of this “confidence of scientists” is based on one, small, in-vitro study by a very fine scientist Alex Segal, and self serving statements by Pfizer and Moderna. I do not doubt that Alex Segal is an outstanding researcher, but what he study really found is that effectiveness of Wuhan based antibodies against Omicron is decreased by 41 times.
…
The main problem is that vaccinees, after a shot, have a several week period when they are uniquely vulnerable to infection. This is the reason why the “fully vaccinated” status is given two weeks after the second or third vaccine dose.
Conveniently, infections during first two weeks post-dose are not counted as infections in “fully vaccinated” by health authorities, as if the vaccine should be “forgiven” for making its recipients uniquely prone to infection within the first two weeks. Since these recent vaccinees are not considered “fully vaccinated”, their infections and deaths are, bizarrely, NOT counted against vaccine effectiveness.
…
The graph A looks so horrible that I suspect that it has some sort of a mistake. Terrible NEGATIVE effectiveness for 10 weeks? This raises ADE concerns (see below)
Even with Pfizer being boosted by Pfizer, effectiveness of this — under the most charitable assumptions of UKHSA — is almost instantly dropping and amounts to meager 30% for weeks 15-25. However, the disease course is likely to be worse due to immediate immune system damage from the mRNA vaccine and destruction of innate immunity.
Applications of boosters during periods of explosive growth of Omicron is likely to make people more prone to infection, and supercharge this growth, as opposed to slowing it.
Boosting the UK during Omicron wave is like pouring gasoline on fire.
…
This situation may be described as “SHTF”, the “S” being Omicron and the “fan” being boosters
Is this Fear Porn and Lockdown Advocacy?
No. I do not believe that a lockdown will help much against a virus as contagious as Omicron. Unless we are willing to nail our homes shut from the inside, and tape all cracks, and let the economy collapse completely, at least 50-60% of the population will have to work, getting infected and bringing illness to their households. If Omicron is truly airborne, persons living in multifamily housing will not have a chance.
The masks are totally worthless as well and there is no point belaboring this.
Vaccinating against Omicron specifically is also a very stupid idea, as Geert Vanden Bossche is saying.
We have go through a rough time and the best approach is
· Let it rip
· Shield the most vulnerable as much as possible
· Finally give people early treatments that work
· Tell everyone to take their Vitamins and Vitamin D3
Wait, what about other vaccine skeptics
Many other vaccination critics say something like “Omicron is mild and it will end the pandemic”. Well, this is what I WANT this situation to be — but I am afraid that Omicron is not mild.
· If Omicron rips through our population like Delta ripped through unvaccinated India, yes it could peter out quickly
· The theory that we will get herd immunity after everyone gets Omicron, assumes that mRNA vaccinees, who were given multiple shots of untested immune-suppressing mRNA shots, are actually capable of developing such immunity.
I hope and pray for a speedy end to the pandemic at a minimal cost — but I also am afraid that the cost will turn out to be substantial.
Vanden Bossche: Will mass vaccination against Omicron give the final blow?
Given the continued ignorance and lack of understanding of the pandemic & detrimental consequences of mass vaccination by public and global health authorities, the chances that the disaster I’ve previously alluded to can be prevented are slim (3). The scientifically corrupt narrative is likely to be further nurtured by more and more cases of disease that are likely to occur in vaccinees once they will have acquired short-lived Abs directed at Omicron’s spike protein as a result of previous mild infection. The latter can more easily outcompete innate Abs in vaccinees, the training of which was stalled as a result of their immune suppression by vaccinal Abs. Rapid re-exposure to the highly infectious Omicron variant could then make them much more susceptible to disease.
Alexander: Rise in infections in US, UK, globally has ZERO to do with the type of variant (Delta vs omicron vs anything else); has do with the immune system working wrong and thus allowing respiratory infection
Because the initial exposure was to vaccine and a non-sterilizing one, but that too is not the issue, the issue is the immune system gets biased toward the vaccine 'antibody' response
Malone: Omicron Today
Top Science News this Week: Below are five articles that stand out as being among the most important regarding Omicron this week….
Kirsch: Why Omicron might soon become very deadly
Here’s my guess for how this is going to play out:
1. Health officials use fear of Omicron to scare people into taking the booster now.
2. The booster temporarily suppresses your immune system, making you more susceptible to getting Omicron.
3. You get Omicron
4. You die due to the vaccine
5. Omicron is perceived to have killed you.
6. Go to step 1.
El gato malo: there's something antigenic in denmark: boosters show negative vaccine efficacy for cases
denmark has begun providing very specific daily case counts split out for the omicron variant. i think many are misinterpreting this data due to an idiosyncrasy of how it is presented. below i will address this issue and provide what i believe is a way to mitigate it.
cliff notes:
· vaccines, including boosters are showing strong negative efficacy vs omicron
· this is consistent with omicron being as OAS enabled escape variant
· omicron continues to show evidence of mildness relative to past variants
for this analysis, i relied upon the danish national data published HERE and HERE.
Omicron Surge is Mostly Due to Ramping Up Testing and May Already Be Peaking, Data Shows
Berenson: Omicron: such a joke that South Africa is about to dump all contact tracing and quarantines
Yes, the scientists advising the government of South Africa - where Omicron is now the dominant strain - say tracing and quarantining the contacts of infected people is a waste of time.
This cool-headed advice is exactly the opposite of the panic in wealthy European countries (and certain blue states)
Back to General COVID Fare:
Alexander: VACCINE Mandates dropping like flies: "Boeing drops vaccine mandate for U.S. workers, joining Amtrak and other major federal contractors so I ask why?????????
t tells you why these cannot hold up in court with proper filing for the data and science is clear…there is no difference between vaxxed and unvaxxed and in fact, the unvaxxed has to fear the vaxxed in terms of shedding/transmission. There is zero reason to segregate the vaxxed from the unvaxxed. Zero, in this condition.
1. https://brownstone.org/articles/16-studies-on-vaccine-efficacy/
2. https://brownstone.org/articles/must-we-segregate-the-unvaccinated-from-the-vaccinated/
Yes, its because lawyers are showing them the 36 or so studies I compiled for Brownstone showing the vaccine has failed on Delta and Omicron and there is no difference between the vaxxed and unvaxxed becoming infected, colonizing this virus, and transmitting it to the vulnerable unvaxxed.
…
I feel sorry for Jen Psaki (Press secretary). My view is you cannot but feel sorry. You may have your views etc. I wont go there. Not my business as not into gossip. I feel sorry for the sheer depth of incompetence and stupidity she has to daily come out there to defend and with a straight face…and to defend Uncle Joe and the idiots in his administration who talk garbage. And actually engage in actions that are damaging to the US. To also have Tony Fauci in a major role in his COVID response shows how out of lunch he and they are when Fauci and Birx are the two principle architects of the damage POTUS Trump suffered in his pandemic response. Fauci in my opinion is the most inept incompetent irrelevant bench pipette scientist…I challenge anyone to produce one statement from him since Jan 2020 that is correct and credible…you can find none and nothing he says is backed by science.
Tucker: Who Will Be Held Responsible for this Devastation?
If the pandemic policy response had taken the form of mere advice, we would not be in the midst of this social, economic, cultural, political disaster. What caused the wreckage was the application of political force that was baked into the pandemic response this time in a way that has no precedent in human history.
…
This happened in the US and all over the world. The madness achieved nothing positive because the virus paid no attention to the edicts and enforcers.
…
How precisely are the unvaccinated the problem? Because, he writes,“it is possible to control the virus and mitigate its spread, if more people are vaccinated.”
This is plainly untrue, as we’ve seen from many countries’ experiences around the world. Look up Singapore or Gibraltar or Israel or any high vaxx country and see their case trends. They look the same or worse than low vaxx countries. We know from at least 33 studies that the vaccines cannot and do not stop infection or transmission, which is precisely why Pfizer and people like Anthony Fauci are demanding 3rd and now 4th shots. Shots without end, always with the promise that the next one will achieve the goal.
Mr. Blow is propagating falsehoods. Why? Because there is an appetite out there to tag someone or something with the fault for the wreckage. The unvaccinated are the scapegoats to distract from the real problem of discovering and holding to account those people who undertook this experiment without precedent.
Roche: Deaths in Children
You can see here the reported deaths in children in the US. Note how few, if any, have no other serious illness. Note also that CV-19 actually has nothing to do with the death in most. Like drownings and poisonings. Really, how can the CDC be taken seriously when it lists these as CV-19 deaths.
Roche: Masks Work, for the 2000th Time
Yet more evidence on just how much difference masks make, or should I say don't make.
Germany requires masks and has all kinds of other restrictions. Sweden has been rational and doesn’t have any of that nonsense. Like to see the explanation from the mask nuts for the chart.
Alexander: Dr. Hotez: Airline CEOs Objecting to Masks on Planes Have ‘Emotional Intelligence (EI) of a Doorknob’
Yet what he does not understand is that the CEOs are more informed that him on masks and I show the science below (most updated) and he is duplicitous; he is the one with EI of the doorknob
If COVID vaccines are supposed to save lives, why aren't they saving lives?
Deaths in calendar year 2021, after mass vaccinations aren’t lower than 2020 before vaccinations.
In fact, they are higher.
Substantially higher.
In every age group, especially the younger ones.
In every state except New York City (yes, I know it’s not a state so you could say there are no exceptions).
And pretty much every state experienced an acceleration of deaths in the middle of summer?
And yet, no-one is asking how this could be? Not the media. Not even (especially?) public health authorities? Weird?
COVID Tweets & Quotes of the Week:
Ilargi: A huge amount of material today. And a creeping feeling that we need to step up our game. We get held back all the time by the one-sided, one-dimensional “reporting” in the mainstream media, but it has become too dangerous not to counterbalance that. When everyone starts inoculating kids, while the jabs are of no benefit to them, but a great risk, we have gone too far. And are very much responsible for them.
Metatron: I’m going to focus solely on all-cause mortality. This is the single most important metric, not COVID mortality. What if the reason why the vaccinated die less of COVID because the vaccine gets them first? Anyone in public health stop to consider this? Or were they too busy sweeping vaccine injury under the carpet,
Metatron: What really piqued me to write is the reaction she got out of Myskow when she suggested that perhaps she doesn’t know all the facts because she does not look outside of her echo chamber. I would go further and suggest that both Vine and Myskow also exemplify the Dunning Kruger effect
El gato malo: i mean, how many restaurants full of unmasked can one sit in or planes with people taking 3 hours to eat a bag of pretzels can one fly upon become realizing this is all a scam that has zero epidemiological relevance?
Ilargi: They are literally telling us that we must get vaccinated because omicron is vaccine resistant.
el gato malo: we’re clearly going through a round of “the vaccines don’t work so you need to take more vaccines” or even more hilarious and wrongheaded “omicron is vaccine evading, so you need boosters.”
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Marty Makary: "There will be unintended harm" from "blanket policy" of giving COVID boosters to young people.
Alexander: This is just pure malfeasance by government people plain and simple. Power over us and drink with it! There is no basis for any of the restrictions…NONE! The science does not support it and if it did, I would be trying to share and inform…like the vaccines: if they had worked, if they were needed and if they were safe and properly developed, I would have supported it. They do none of what was just said. NONE!
Metatron: One of those things about the COVID (longest-running) pandemic (ever) is that those who have bought into the folly that vaccines are “safe and effective” think that by repeating these pithy mantras enough times it makes them true. Alas, data doesn’t care for pithy mantras. Instead it yearns to be examined when it teases with indications of peculiar goings on.
“We now know it’s the seniors who die with the vaccine … 50 percent of these deaths occur within 48 hours, 80 percent within a week.”
“Many people are dying from cardiopulmonary collapse due to their body’s overwhelming production of the spike protein, whilst others are dying from a thromboembolic or blood clot-related death within a few weeks of getting vaccinated. He said in these cases it’s very clear that the jabs are responsible for the deaths.”
Mueller urged that “People, who sit on the throne of their wealth,” are seizing an “opportunity to push through their agenda.”
this ruling is, frankly, trash. it’s rooted in politics, pseudoscience, and outright hallucination. … there are so many fallacies, misstatements, and overreaches just in this first paragraph as to beggar belief.
Celia Farber: I consider the main imperative to be breaking the first layer of the spell, namely: “They’re just trying to protect us from the virus.” That’s where the majority of the population likely are still hovering, and that’s where people are unconsciously sacrificing themselves and their loved ones to the official agenda and adjacent algorithmic protocols which kill people.
yeah, but did your PM go on national television to officially announce that *checks notes* orgies can resume?
Toby: The blue check bourgeoisie is very sad right now. The reasons are numerous. They want to be in control, they want to be looked up to, and they are watching as their entire worldview and standing in society slips from their grasp and goes down the drain.
Mythinformed MKE: Dr. Peter McCullough explains to Joe Rogan, that in order to make people more willing to take the Covid vaccine, there was a concerted effort to not have a protocol for Covid treatment.
Brian Lenzkes, MD: For those who don't understand, what @P_McCulloughMD did on @joerogan was the equivalent of a 5 star general taking the hill without cover while the infantry hides in foxholes. His courage and self sacrifice should inspire all physicians to be better doctors and people.
*** Ben Carson: “Let’s throw the politics out. We could solve this problem pretty quickly.” “Let’s open this thing up to all the different mechanisms,” “Let’s look around the world at things that work. Let’s look at the fact that on the western coast of Africa, there’s almost no COVID. And let’s ask ourselves, why is that? And then you see, it’s because they take antimalarials, particularly hydroxychloroquine. Let’s study that. Let’s see what’s going on there. Let’s listen to these physician groups who’ve had incredible success with ivermectin. Let’s look at the results with monoclonal antibodies. Let’s look at all of these things. Let’s put them all in our armamentarium so that we don’t have a one-size-fits-all system.”
*** Hartmann: There's a scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where a US soldier fights a Nazi soldier, hand-to-hand in small room. It quite intense 😳
At first it seems like the US soldier could win, but soon the Nazi starts to get the better of him.
It is a well-acted and powerful scene. …
CO-VIDs of the Week:
Six years ago, Sharyl Atkisson hit the nail on the head
It is as if she spoke yesterday
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Pravda…. Everywhere You Turn
Interesting short segment from Sky News interviewing the smiling U.K. Health Minister Gillian Keegan about the intense U.K. response to the Omicron variant and the new restrictions announced by government officials. Great Britain is preparing for hundreds-of-thousands of Omicron cases.
Video prompted to 05:42 just watch for around 45 seconds. No commentary from me needed. WATCH:
Anecdotal Fare:
*** 3 min video: Nurse - Hospitals Full of Patients With Adverse Reactions From The Covid Jab
Compelling testimony concludes with:
“This is not something easy for me to come up here and speak about. But I feel deep conviction about speaking truth about what the nurses are seeing inside those hospital walls. ... and when I look back on this in 20-30 years, I have to know that I did everything I could. And I am asking you to please ponder this: what side of history will you be on? I have to know this madness has to stop!”
Ex-Pro Demands Probe Into Soccer Players Suffering Heart Problems
“Now I’m sorry, but if anybody can look at what’s happening now in the world of sport and say it’s normal for all of these people to be having heart issues, in football matches, cricket matches, basketball matches, any sport you wish, these people, the amount of people that are suffering is going through the roof,” he added.
Le Tissier says he is calling for an investigation with the caveat, “It might not be to do with the vaccine, it may not be, but let’s have an investigation to find out what it is.”
“Even saying that deems you to be some kind of anti-vaxxer, which is absolutely disgusting,” said Le Tissier, referring to the treatment of people who dare raise the issue.
“I want just some information, I want people to take a look at what is happening in football, have a proper investigation and give us some answers as to why so many sports people are suffering with heart issues – it’s not difficult,” he concluded.
Kirsch: Stories from the vaccine injured
The press isn't interested in covering stories of the vaccine injured. I'm going to add to this article over time so check back for more.
Why are so many airline pilots dying…
Farber: Ashleigh Wilson Tells Full Story Of Her Fiancee Rory James
Who Died 12 Days After Injection
Rory James from was 26 and healthy, when he died, following heart pain and palpitations, 12 days after a Pfizer shot, taken impulsively. Yesterday’s report here.
There may come a time when it simply gets too dark and heavy, and I stop posting these raw testimonials, like Ashleigh’s, in New Zealand…
Kirsch: The new normal: dying in your sleep
Just the latest of a string of healthy people who die in their sleep after the vaccines/boosters rolled out.
Healthy young people generally don’t die in their sleep. Ryan was not out on a run. He was sleeping.
With the COVID vaccines, these events are occurring now on a regular basis now, so watch out for them. They are happening to very young, healthy people as well. All of these people have one thing in common: a recent vaccination.
Two top soccer players, Napoli midfielder Piotr Zielinski and Man United defender Viktor Lindelof both left their game Sunday due to chest pain/breathing problems.
Watch: Third Pro Soccer Player In A Week Experiences Severe Chest Pain During Game
All things COVID Pushback Fare:
Greenwald: Corbyn Leads British Left In Opposition To Vaccine Mandates As Anti-Worker And Repressive
Watch: Rand Paul Warns COVID Mandates Are "About Conditioning The American Individual To Submit To Government"
***** el gato malo: wow, i agree with the new york times!
(but probably not with how they meant this)
…
if you grant near unlimited power to governments during emergencies, they will produce an endless cavalcade of hobgoblins and crises to get at them. emergency will become the norm.
… rehearse thinking for yourself instead of uncritically swallowing the technocratic impositions of agencies and experts that have been revealed to be political puppetshows run by villains and fools.
the only social inoculum against this miasma of mendacious muppetry is to slap it down. if there is no price for this misbehavior, it will never stop.
… so stop being scared.
the next one will come. it will, like this one, really not be that big of a deal if you don’t let it be (or such a big deal it does not matter a whit what we do).
Crawford: Organizing Resistance Through Education: Operation Uplift
"Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it." -Howard Mumford Jones
Resist Who?
Resist the Pandemicists, that's who.
Who are they?
They are whoever follows the Kunlangeta in their task of erecting a fully authoritarian reich from behind the facade of medical authority. The sometimes appear as academics, bankers, physicians, and also mobs of Woke Karens.
Operation Uplift is a group of volunteers who came together to resist the pandemonium.
COVID Conspiracy / Corporatocracy Fare:
The vaccine gold rush and the damning ivermectin tape.
The Last Interview the Sirotkins Will Ever Give
Because they are all whores, accepting dollars to cover-up the worst crime against humanity in history. I think it’s very, very important to be extremely explicit about what is going on here – everyone from Nicholas Wade to Alina Chan to Josh Rogin and back to Tony Fauci are all very, very willingly and knowingly being paid lots and lots of money – signing book deals on top of their paychecks - to cover up for billionaires who are determined to play God. Millions and millions of innocents are going to die because all of these people believe in their own inherent superiority over the general public.
…
As far as I can tell absolutely everyone in the public eye and mainstream media for this is part of the cover-up, wittingly or not. I don’t know enough British acronyms, but over here we obviously have DARPA and the NIAID, I guess it’s the Wellcome Trust or something over there? Not sure how those sorts of groups connect to your intelligence community, here they appear to own ours pretty much entirely.
So I’m not sure how to distinguish between the UK and US side of the cover-up, based on the communications between Jeremy Farrar and Tony Fauci and others it seems like it was coordinated across both sides of the pond.
Kirsch: OK, I admit I was wrong about the Democratic party
Over the years, I've given $20M to help Democrats win. But they don't share any of my core values at all anymore. Is it time to jump ship or try to fix it?
Here are the things I believe in:
1. Freedom to speak the truth without censorship
2. Science
3. Facts
4. Medical freedom/choice
5. The Nuremberg Code / informed consent
6. Allowing the public to hold people accountable
7. Open discourse and debate to settle differences
8. Caring for those who the government has injured
The Democrats believe (written from the perspective of the Democratic party):
1. The truth should be censored if it conflicts with the narrative….
2. It’s not about science; it is about expert opinion from the authority we are paid to trust …
3. ..
4. ..
5. ..
6. Accountability isn’t necessary or desired.
When will the pandemic end?
As we finish out yet another year of hysteria, masked kindergarteners and 24/7 vaccine talk, thinking people are wondering, “How much longer could this possibly go on?”
I think I know the answer, only because I believe Bill Gates’ role in the pandemic was to seed society with outrageous ideas that would soon be mandated on us, while pretending to be the lovable, frumpy, genius billionaire who just wants to save the world.
…
But when will this end? It was September 2020 when Bill Gates declared that the pandemic would be over in two more years. No explanation given, just acted like he was going off a worldly-view hunch. And just the other day, he said it again! Clearly omicron can’t get in their way of ending the pandemic right on schedule.
But what’s the real reason it will end? Elections, of course!
Oehler: Going for Jugular
The four Horses of Apocalypse identified, along with Apocalypse itself.
Finally getting to the roots. Bear with me! It will all make sense by the end.
Alexander: Time to take away the hall pass we gave doctors and scientists...time to hold them fully responsible for the disaster we faced with lockdowns and these vaccines...their complicity allowed it
Had it not been for the likes of McCullough, Fareed, Zelenko, Tenenbaum, Oskoui, Urso, Littell, Malone, Vanden Bossche, Yeadon, Ryan Cole, Kulvinder Gill, Francis Christian, Trozzi, Phillips, Palmer, Hodkinson, Bhattacharya, Heneghan, Kulldorff, Bridle, Mallard, Bernstein, Risch etc. to me, take the whole lot of the million doctors and fire them all…every one damn of them, they have caused this by being silent and being on the take…yes, I know many from CDC and NIH and even FDA who told me they cant speak out because of fear of losing their appointment and grant…yes, this be about money…grift and graft…they have all benefitted and of course the top dog Bourla of Pfizer with his buddy Fauci…imagine this grifter Bourla saying we are criminals because we question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines…this piece of untermensche s***….
The Canadian and UK and American doctor, yes Kuntsler, have shown themselves to be among the most dweeb, pusillanimous, weak, cowardly, craven, money hungry, grifters, stiff necked idiots and fools…money whores to the pharma…selling out the good populations for benefit to yourself…you sick twisted set of doctors…you dont see it yet but your gravitas id now DOA…and you did it to you. you had it all and now are worth nothing. you helped destroy your careers, your name, EBM, research, all of it…you did this…you joined a devious scheme and history will recall and remind you always of what you did. you are utterly corrupt and I tell you in your face here…corrupt untermensche
Best Read of the Week:
Metatron: What really piqued me to write is the reaction she got out of Myskow when she suggested that perhaps she doesn’t know all the facts because she does not look outside of her echo chamber. I would go further and suggest that both Vine and Myskow also exemplify the Dunning Kruger effect
El gato malo: i mean, how many restaurants full of unmasked can one sit in or planes with people taking 3 hours to eat a bag of pretzels can one fly upon become realizing this is all a scam that has zero epidemiological relevance?
Ilargi: They are literally telling us that we must get vaccinated because omicron is vaccine resistant.
el gato malo: we’re clearly going through a round of “the vaccines don’t work so you need to take more vaccines” or even more hilarious and wrongheaded “omicron is vaccine evading, so you need boosters.”
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Marty Makary: "There will be unintended harm" from "blanket policy" of giving COVID boosters to young people.
Alexander: This is just pure malfeasance by government people plain and simple. Power over us and drink with it! There is no basis for any of the restrictions…NONE! The science does not support it and if it did, I would be trying to share and inform…like the vaccines: if they had worked, if they were needed and if they were safe and properly developed, I would have supported it. They do none of what was just said. NONE!
Metatron: One of those things about the COVID (longest-running) pandemic (ever) is that those who have bought into the folly that vaccines are “safe and effective” think that by repeating these pithy mantras enough times it makes them true. Alas, data doesn’t care for pithy mantras. Instead it yearns to be examined when it teases with indications of peculiar goings on.
“We now know it’s the seniors who die with the vaccine … 50 percent of these deaths occur within 48 hours, 80 percent within a week.”
“Many people are dying from cardiopulmonary collapse due to their body’s overwhelming production of the spike protein, whilst others are dying from a thromboembolic or blood clot-related death within a few weeks of getting vaccinated. He said in these cases it’s very clear that the jabs are responsible for the deaths.”
Mueller urged that “People, who sit on the throne of their wealth,” are seizing an “opportunity to push through their agenda.”
this ruling is, frankly, trash. it’s rooted in politics, pseudoscience, and outright hallucination. … there are so many fallacies, misstatements, and overreaches just in this first paragraph as to beggar belief.
Celia Farber: I consider the main imperative to be breaking the first layer of the spell, namely: “They’re just trying to protect us from the virus.” That’s where the majority of the population likely are still hovering, and that’s where people are unconsciously sacrificing themselves and their loved ones to the official agenda and adjacent algorithmic protocols which kill people.
yeah, but did your PM go on national television to officially announce that *checks notes* orgies can resume?
Toby: The blue check bourgeoisie is very sad right now. The reasons are numerous. They want to be in control, they want to be looked up to, and they are watching as their entire worldview and standing in society slips from their grasp and goes down the drain.
Mythinformed MKE: Dr. Peter McCullough explains to Joe Rogan, that in order to make people more willing to take the Covid vaccine, there was a concerted effort to not have a protocol for Covid treatment.
Brian Lenzkes, MD: For those who don't understand, what @P_McCulloughMD did on @joerogan was the equivalent of a 5 star general taking the hill without cover while the infantry hides in foxholes. His courage and self sacrifice should inspire all physicians to be better doctors and people.
*** Ben Carson: “Let’s throw the politics out. We could solve this problem pretty quickly.” “Let’s open this thing up to all the different mechanisms,” “Let’s look around the world at things that work. Let’s look at the fact that on the western coast of Africa, there’s almost no COVID. And let’s ask ourselves, why is that? And then you see, it’s because they take antimalarials, particularly hydroxychloroquine. Let’s study that. Let’s see what’s going on there. Let’s listen to these physician groups who’ve had incredible success with ivermectin. Let’s look at the results with monoclonal antibodies. Let’s look at all of these things. Let’s put them all in our armamentarium so that we don’t have a one-size-fits-all system.”
*** Hartmann: There's a scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where a US soldier fights a Nazi soldier, hand-to-hand in small room. It quite intense 😳
At first it seems like the US soldier could win, but soon the Nazi starts to get the better of him.
It is a well-acted and powerful scene. …
CO-VIDs of the Week:
Six years ago, Sharyl Atkisson hit the nail on the head
It is as if she spoke yesterday
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Pravda…. Everywhere You Turn
Interesting short segment from Sky News interviewing the smiling U.K. Health Minister Gillian Keegan about the intense U.K. response to the Omicron variant and the new restrictions announced by government officials. Great Britain is preparing for hundreds-of-thousands of Omicron cases.
Video prompted to 05:42 just watch for around 45 seconds. No commentary from me needed. WATCH:
Anecdotal Fare:
*** 3 min video: Nurse - Hospitals Full of Patients With Adverse Reactions From The Covid Jab
Compelling testimony concludes with:
“This is not something easy for me to come up here and speak about. But I feel deep conviction about speaking truth about what the nurses are seeing inside those hospital walls. ... and when I look back on this in 20-30 years, I have to know that I did everything I could. And I am asking you to please ponder this: what side of history will you be on? I have to know this madness has to stop!”
Ex-Pro Demands Probe Into Soccer Players Suffering Heart Problems
“Now I’m sorry, but if anybody can look at what’s happening now in the world of sport and say it’s normal for all of these people to be having heart issues, in football matches, cricket matches, basketball matches, any sport you wish, these people, the amount of people that are suffering is going through the roof,” he added.
Le Tissier says he is calling for an investigation with the caveat, “It might not be to do with the vaccine, it may not be, but let’s have an investigation to find out what it is.”
“Even saying that deems you to be some kind of anti-vaxxer, which is absolutely disgusting,” said Le Tissier, referring to the treatment of people who dare raise the issue.
“I want just some information, I want people to take a look at what is happening in football, have a proper investigation and give us some answers as to why so many sports people are suffering with heart issues – it’s not difficult,” he concluded.
Kirsch: Stories from the vaccine injured
The press isn't interested in covering stories of the vaccine injured. I'm going to add to this article over time so check back for more.
Why are so many airline pilots dying…
Farber: Ashleigh Wilson Tells Full Story Of Her Fiancee Rory James
Who Died 12 Days After Injection
Rory James from was 26 and healthy, when he died, following heart pain and palpitations, 12 days after a Pfizer shot, taken impulsively. Yesterday’s report here.
There may come a time when it simply gets too dark and heavy, and I stop posting these raw testimonials, like Ashleigh’s, in New Zealand…
Kirsch: The new normal: dying in your sleep
Just the latest of a string of healthy people who die in their sleep after the vaccines/boosters rolled out.
Healthy young people generally don’t die in their sleep. Ryan was not out on a run. He was sleeping.
With the COVID vaccines, these events are occurring now on a regular basis now, so watch out for them. They are happening to very young, healthy people as well. All of these people have one thing in common: a recent vaccination.
Two top soccer players, Napoli midfielder Piotr Zielinski and Man United defender Viktor Lindelof both left their game Sunday due to chest pain/breathing problems.
Watch: Third Pro Soccer Player In A Week Experiences Severe Chest Pain During Game
All things COVID Pushback Fare:
Greenwald: Corbyn Leads British Left In Opposition To Vaccine Mandates As Anti-Worker And Repressive
Watch: Rand Paul Warns COVID Mandates Are "About Conditioning The American Individual To Submit To Government"
***** el gato malo: wow, i agree with the new york times!
(but probably not with how they meant this)
…
if you grant near unlimited power to governments during emergencies, they will produce an endless cavalcade of hobgoblins and crises to get at them. emergency will become the norm.
… rehearse thinking for yourself instead of uncritically swallowing the technocratic impositions of agencies and experts that have been revealed to be political puppetshows run by villains and fools.
the only social inoculum against this miasma of mendacious muppetry is to slap it down. if there is no price for this misbehavior, it will never stop.
… so stop being scared.
the next one will come. it will, like this one, really not be that big of a deal if you don’t let it be (or such a big deal it does not matter a whit what we do).
Crawford: Organizing Resistance Through Education: Operation Uplift
"Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it." -Howard Mumford Jones
Resist Who?
Resist the Pandemicists, that's who.
Who are they?
They are whoever follows the Kunlangeta in their task of erecting a fully authoritarian reich from behind the facade of medical authority. The sometimes appear as academics, bankers, physicians, and also mobs of Woke Karens.
Operation Uplift is a group of volunteers who came together to resist the pandemonium.
COVID Conspiracy / Corporatocracy Fare:
The vaccine gold rush and the damning ivermectin tape.
The Last Interview the Sirotkins Will Ever Give
Because they are all whores, accepting dollars to cover-up the worst crime against humanity in history. I think it’s very, very important to be extremely explicit about what is going on here – everyone from Nicholas Wade to Alina Chan to Josh Rogin and back to Tony Fauci are all very, very willingly and knowingly being paid lots and lots of money – signing book deals on top of their paychecks - to cover up for billionaires who are determined to play God. Millions and millions of innocents are going to die because all of these people believe in their own inherent superiority over the general public.
…
As far as I can tell absolutely everyone in the public eye and mainstream media for this is part of the cover-up, wittingly or not. I don’t know enough British acronyms, but over here we obviously have DARPA and the NIAID, I guess it’s the Wellcome Trust or something over there? Not sure how those sorts of groups connect to your intelligence community, here they appear to own ours pretty much entirely.
So I’m not sure how to distinguish between the UK and US side of the cover-up, based on the communications between Jeremy Farrar and Tony Fauci and others it seems like it was coordinated across both sides of the pond.
Kirsch: OK, I admit I was wrong about the Democratic party
Over the years, I've given $20M to help Democrats win. But they don't share any of my core values at all anymore. Is it time to jump ship or try to fix it?
Here are the things I believe in:
1. Freedom to speak the truth without censorship
2. Science
3. Facts
4. Medical freedom/choice
5. The Nuremberg Code / informed consent
6. Allowing the public to hold people accountable
7. Open discourse and debate to settle differences
8. Caring for those who the government has injured
The Democrats believe (written from the perspective of the Democratic party):
1. The truth should be censored if it conflicts with the narrative….
2. It’s not about science; it is about expert opinion from the authority we are paid to trust …
3. ..
4. ..
5. ..
6. Accountability isn’t necessary or desired.
When will the pandemic end?
As we finish out yet another year of hysteria, masked kindergarteners and 24/7 vaccine talk, thinking people are wondering, “How much longer could this possibly go on?”
I think I know the answer, only because I believe Bill Gates’ role in the pandemic was to seed society with outrageous ideas that would soon be mandated on us, while pretending to be the lovable, frumpy, genius billionaire who just wants to save the world.
…
But when will this end? It was September 2020 when Bill Gates declared that the pandemic would be over in two more years. No explanation given, just acted like he was going off a worldly-view hunch. And just the other day, he said it again! Clearly omicron can’t get in their way of ending the pandemic right on schedule.
But what’s the real reason it will end? Elections, of course!
Oehler: Going for Jugular
The four Horses of Apocalypse identified, along with Apocalypse itself.
Finally getting to the roots. Bear with me! It will all make sense by the end.
Alexander: Time to take away the hall pass we gave doctors and scientists...time to hold them fully responsible for the disaster we faced with lockdowns and these vaccines...their complicity allowed it
Had it not been for the likes of McCullough, Fareed, Zelenko, Tenenbaum, Oskoui, Urso, Littell, Malone, Vanden Bossche, Yeadon, Ryan Cole, Kulvinder Gill, Francis Christian, Trozzi, Phillips, Palmer, Hodkinson, Bhattacharya, Heneghan, Kulldorff, Bridle, Mallard, Bernstein, Risch etc. to me, take the whole lot of the million doctors and fire them all…every one damn of them, they have caused this by being silent and being on the take…yes, I know many from CDC and NIH and even FDA who told me they cant speak out because of fear of losing their appointment and grant…yes, this be about money…grift and graft…they have all benefitted and of course the top dog Bourla of Pfizer with his buddy Fauci…imagine this grifter Bourla saying we are criminals because we question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines…this piece of untermensche s***….
The Canadian and UK and American doctor, yes Kuntsler, have shown themselves to be among the most dweeb, pusillanimous, weak, cowardly, craven, money hungry, grifters, stiff necked idiots and fools…money whores to the pharma…selling out the good populations for benefit to yourself…you sick twisted set of doctors…you dont see it yet but your gravitas id now DOA…and you did it to you. you had it all and now are worth nothing. you helped destroy your careers, your name, EBM, research, all of it…you did this…you joined a devious scheme and history will recall and remind you always of what you did. you are utterly corrupt and I tell you in your face here…corrupt untermensche
Best Read of the Week:
***** Eisenstein: A Path Will Rise to Meet Us
...
That is why I feel impatient when someone speaks of “When the pandemic is over” or “When we are able to travel again” or “When we are able to have festivals again.” None of these things will happen by themselves. Compared to past pandemics, Covid is more a social-political phenomenon than it is an actual deadly disease. Yes, people are dying, but even assuming that everyone in the official numbers died “of” and not “with” Covid, casualties number one-third to one-ninth those of the 1918 flu; per-capita it is one-twelfth to one-thirty-sixth.1 As a sociopolitical phenomenon, there is no guaranteed end to it. Nature will not end it, at any rate; it will end only through the agreement of human beings that it has ended.2 This has become abundantly clear with the Omicron Variant. Political leaders, public health officials, and the media are whipping up fear and reinstituting policies that would have been unthinkable a few years ago for a disease that, at the present writing, has killed one person globally. So, we cannot speak of the pandemic ever being over unless we the people declare it to be over.
...
Another thing I’ve been hearing a lot of recently is that “Covid tyranny is bound to end soon, because people just aren’t going to stand for it much longer.” It would be more accurate to say, “Covid tyranny will continue until people no longer stand for it.” That brings up the question, “Am I standing for it?” Or am I waiting for other people to end it for me, so that I don’t have to?
...
Despite appearances, Covid has not been the end of democracy. It has merely revealed that we were already not in a democracy. It showed where the power really is and how easily the facade of freedom could be stripped from us. It showed that we were “free” only at the pleasure of elite institutions. By our ready acquiescence, it showed us something about ourselves.
We were already unfree. We were already conditioned to submission.
...
Causing suffering is not their root motivation, it is to establish control. The quest for power doubtless finds justification in the idea that it is all for the greater good. Yes, they think, it would be bad if evil people were in charge of the surveillance, censorship, and coercive apparatus, but fortunately it is we, the rational, intelligent, far-seeing, science-based good guys who are at the helm.
...
Covid-era policies cannot be understood merely through the lens of public health. In an earlier series of essays I explored them from the perspective of sacrificial violence, mob morality, dehumanization, and the exploitation of these by fascistic forces. Equally important is the perspective of power. Seeing Covid through the lens of rational public health, of course we should expect the “end of the pandemic” quite soon. Seeing through the lens of power, we cannot be so sanguine, any more than the bullied child can hope the bully will stop because, after all, I’ve done everything he told me to.
The bully doesn’t want the victim to do X, Y, and Z for their own sake. He wants to establish the principle that the victim will do X, Y, Z, or A, B, or C, on demand. That’s why arbitrary, unreasonable, ever-shifting demands are characteristic of an abusive relationship. The more irrational the demand, the better. The controllers find it satisfying to see everyone dutifully wearing their masks. As with O’Brien, it is power, not actual public safety, that inspires them. That is why they roundly ignore science casting doubt on masks, lockdowns, and social distancing. Effectiveness was never the root motivation for those policies to begin with.
GeoPolitical Fare:
Orlov: Washington’s Crime and Punishment
… The choice, really, is between facing an increasing risk of a nuclear exchange between two nuclear superpowers—one that is rapidly fading in strength and one that is growing stronger all the time—and reducing that risk as much as possible. Only the two nuclear superpowers need to come to an understanding; everyone else can simply do as they say so that nobody gets hurt. In the case of the Europeans, they should be quite interested in doing so (if they still know what’s good for them) because NATO’s eastward expansion has left them with huge nuclear target signs painted all over them which they would do well to try to remove. Not only that, but NATO’s encroachment on Russia’s borders has increased the risk of a nuclear confrontation breaking out accidentally: all those nuclear-armed bombers, ships and submarines could make a wrong turn somewhere and then—kaboom!—no more Europe.
…
You might also think that Washington’s eastward expansion is not a crime because, you see, Gorbachev failed to get its promise not to expand east committed to in writing. Well, let me offer you a tiny insight into the inner workings of Russian civilization. If you enter into a verbal agreement with the Russians, break it, and then taunt them by saying “But you didn’t get it in writing!” you have just made the problem much worse for yourself. We all make mistakes and must sometimes break our promises, in which the proper course of action is to be contrite, apologize sincerely and offer to make amends. If, instead, you claim that the promise is null and void because a certain piece of paper cannot be located, then you have compounded your dishonorable conduct with willful disregard and have singled yourself out for exemplary punishment. This punishment may be slow to arrive, taking decades, perhaps even centuries, but you can be sure that you will be punished eventually.
Once upon a time Moscow was weak and Washington strong, but now the balance has shifted in Moscow’s favor and the time for Washington’s punishment has finally come. The only remaining question is, What form will this punishment take?
Canada Has Long Been an Accomplice to America’s Imperialist Wars
Neocons bent on starting another disaster in Ukraine
US foreign policy is evidently held hostage by a venal, avaricious and, above all, reckless claque of elites
The construction of Israel’s Gaza concentration camp is complete
Israel announced the completion of an underground wall and maritime barrier surrounding the besieged Gaza Strip. Not a single mainstream media outlet used the term “concentration camp” to report on it but they should have.
Welsh: “Trump Did More For Me Than Biden Ever Did”
… Makes the point pretty clearly, I’d say. Even people I know who hate Trump admit he did more for them than any other President of their life.
… I can’t see how there is any way, absent some big surprises, that the Democrats don’t get wiped out in 2022, and it won’t just be “off years, we lose”.
Robinson: BREAN, BRAUN, AND PUTIN’S BRAIN
Occasionally, I wonder why I got into the blogging business. Fortunately, whenever these doubts arise, my local rag, The Ottawa Citizen (for which I once used to write), helps me out by publishing some outrageous nonsense, reminding me of the need for someone, somewhere to take the initiative in debunking it all. ..
Today the Citizen obliged me by producing not one, but two such pieces, which was kind of generous of it because one would have been quite enough. The theme of both was the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine. As any sensible person knows, this isn’t going to happen (unless the Ukrainians are stupid enough to try to recapture the rebel provinces of Donbass by force). But that hasn’t stopped Western politicians and the media from screaming wolf on an almost daily basis for the past couple of months. Every day that Russia fails to invade Ukraine brings more articles saying that it’s just around the corner. Just wait. ‘The Russians are coming!’
Orwellian Fare:
Twitter will now ban users that repeatedly claim vaccinated people can spread Covid
Edward Bernays: Propaganda and the U.S.-Backed 1954 Guatemalan Coup
CaitOz QOTW:
The most powerful regime on the planet imprisoning a journalist for journalistic activity is as brazen and obvious an act of tyranny as you could possibly come up with, and yet you still get pseudoleft pundits acting like you’re some kind of weird freak for expecting them to oppose it. The Assange issue is not actually complicated. The most powerful government in the world is trying to extradite a journalist and try him under the Espionage Act for exposing its war crimes. It is that simple.
China is far, far better than the US. That doesn’t mean China is awesome, it just means the US is far, far worse than anyone else in terms of tyranny and destructiveness. Working to destroy any population which disobeys you anywhere in the world makes you worse than anyone else.
CaitOz Longer Reads:
Absurd Guardian Article Declares China World’s Only Imperialist Power
Another cartoonishly ridiculous anti-China propaganda piece has been published in the western mass media, this time by The Guardian, which at this point could arguably be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda in the western world. It is authored by Simon Tisdall, who could most certainly be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda at The Guardian.
…
It is very revealing how many empire propagandists keep interpreting a warning that China will defend itself from aggressors as a menacing and aggressive act. Almost like they believe it is their right to bully, oppress and subjugate all nations without opposition or resistance.
…
The mass media have been growing astonishingly forceful in their efforts to manipulate the world into being so terrified of China that they’ll consent to any agenda no matter how insane and dangerous. The more forceful they become with their manipulations, the more important it is to counter their lies.
We’re being shoved in a very bad direction at an increasingly frenetic pace. This is being done for a reason. Be alert.
“Chinese Aggression” Is Just China Responding To US Aggression
….
When Uyghur separatist groups began inflicting acts of terror with the goal of driving the Chinese government out of Xinjiang and creating their own state, Beijing had essentially three choices:
1. To engage in a US-style campaign of mass military slaughter against these groups until they were defeated,
2. To allow a violent uprising of what would inevitably become western-backed jihadists as they had just seen in Libya and Syria carve away a geostrategically crucial part of China to be exploited by the US and its allies, or
3. To find some alternative to 1 and 2.
Beijing went with option number three, and the alternative it found was the aggressive deradicalization campaign it ended up implementing and the re-education facilities it has been so widely criticized for. This move would surely have entailed many of the abuses you’d expect from a mass-scale police action and dramatic escalation of authoritarian policies, but claims that it constituted “genocide” have been soundly discredited by independent research groups and by members of the public using publicly available information, while the most egregious allegations of abuse have been shown to be subject to manipulation and riddled with major plot holes.
You can criticize Beijing for how it went about its dilemma in Xinjiang all you want, but it was plainly universes less draconian than the US approach of killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its barbaric “war on terror”. And unlike the “war on terror”, Beijing’s approach actually worked, which even western media have been forced to grudgingly concede as tourism surges in Xinjiang.
…
None of this means that China is run by innocent little girl scouts who never do anything wrong, it just means it’s clearly not the aggressor in these conflicts, and that the picture we are presented with in the western empire’s frenzied campaign to manipulate public thought about China is not based in reality. The propaganda campaign is so pervasive and forceful that even people who are aware it’s happening still commonly fall for its lies and distortions just because there’s so much of it coming from so many different directions.
…
Detente is what’s needed. But in order for that to happen the US empire is going to have to stop aggressing, and it’s going to have to stop lying.
Other Quotes of the Week:
Kunstler: For the moment everything is just froth and noise, and most everybody is in too much of a panic to make sense. Humans don’t do well without sense-making. What makes sense is having a roof over your head, something to eat, some purposeful activities to provide those things, some other people to exist with and care for, and some ceremonies to honor our efforts and declare our gratitude for being here in the first place.
Greenwald: Democrats are everything they accuse Trump and Fox of being. Their networks -- NBC & CNN -- spread lies daily as disinformation outlets. They want their enemies censored, imprisoned, silenced. The ones who write Atlantic essays on democracy are the most virulent authoritarians.
Knight: Like many, I have been deeply frustrated to see mainstream news sources falsely describe certain events as ‘far-right’ or ‘racist’. There’s something incredibly classist (and lazy) about journalists judging thousands of ordinary people as bigots from the distance and safety of their keyboard. I pushed back against these narratives because they simply did not map on to the observed reality.
Margaret Anna Alice: With Julian Assange now facing extradition to the United States, valiant whistleblowers routinely being fed to the BigPharma/Big Media/Big Tech wood chipper, and ignoble liars deploying every weapon of mass deception in their forbidding arsenal, unmasking corruption is one of the most perilous adventures you can embark on in these totalitarian times. Mercifully, there are a few valorous lions roaring out, but they’re being drowned out by the masses of baaing sheep, mooing cows, and clucking chickens. We need a groundswell of truth-tellers to sound our barbaric yawps together if we wish to be heard above the telescreen’s “enormous, unbearable, ubiquitous commercial break.”
Ploink: When the highest return on investment is lobbying the government, the actual functions of government grind to a halt as everyone is constantly concerned with how every action will affect their slice of the pie.
Alas, not about Powell:
i was going to lead off with “i don’t mean to pick on jerome” but then i realized something: i DO mean to pick on jerome. he deserves it. he has earned it.
Long Reads / Big Thoughts:
Hanson: How Group Minds Differ
…
As individuals in mobs have much weaker incentives regarding accuracy, mobs try less hard to get their beliefs right. Individual in mobs instead have much stronger incentives to look good and loyal to other mob members. Mobs are rationally irrational in elections, and we created law to avoid rush-to-judgment failures of mobs. As a result, mobs more easily get stuck on particular socially-desirable beliefs.
When each person in the mob wants to show their allegiance and wisdom by backing a party line, it is harder for such a mob to give much thought to the possibility that its party line might be wrong. Individual humans, in contrast, are better able to systematically consider how they might be wrong. Such thoughts more often actually induce them to change their minds. …
Michael Anton: Unprecedented
On the novelty of our cultural predicament.
The theme is “Western civilization at the crossroads.” Far be it from me to doubt that the West is on the precipice of something enormous. But “crossroads” implies a map. Do we have one? Is a piece of paper showing the way forward—whether predictive or hopeful—even possible?
I’ve noticed that a lot of people more or less “on my side,” or who see things basically as I do, are extremely confident that they know what is going to happen next. Their certainty is entirely independent of what they think they know.
Some believe that the end—the collapse of present ruling arrangements—is imminent, if not tomorrow or next week, then soon, within a year or five. Others assert that the present regime is stable and not only can but will last for decades or even centuries. Some insist that the regime will fall of its own incompetence, others that its end will require an external push—which some are certain will come, and others are equally sure will not.
When I have thought about this, I have been in some part inclined to the opinion that present arrangements are unstable and may be approaching their end. Yet in thinking it through further, I am forced to admit that our times are marked by so many unprecedented trends and events that making predictions seems foolhardy.
…
If forced to bet, I would have to place my chips somewhere between imminent collapse and drawn-out decline. I occasionally read theories of triple bank-shots and four-dimensional chess—they really know what they’re doing!—only to marvel. Our regime cannot, at present, unload a cargo ship, stock a store shelf, run a clean election, handle parental complaints at a school board meeting, pass a budget bill, treat a cold variant, keep order in the streets, defeat a third world country, or even evacuate said country cleanly. And that’s to say nothing of all the things it should be doing, that all non-joke countries do, that it refuses to do. If our ruling class has a plan, it would seem to be to destroy the society and institutions from which they, at present, are the largest—one is tempted to say only—beneficiaries. Do they think they can benefit more from the wreckage? Or are they driven by hatreds that blind them to self-interest? Perhaps they’re simply insane?
Whatever the case, couple all this unprecedentedness with all this incompetence, and going long on Wokemerica seems a sucker bet. But, to end where we began, the very unprecedentedness of our situation means that all bets are off.
Doctorow: Schizmogenesis
Spies, voting machine companies and Big Pharma are still your natural enemies.
Rest in Power, David Graeber
The unexpected death of the anthropologist David Graeber in September 2020 ripped a hole in the hearts of millions of us whose lives had been altered by his books (Debt, The Utopia of Rules, Bullshit Jobs), his work as an anarchist organizer (he is credited with coining “We are the 99%”), his teaching, and his friendship. It’s hard to overstate the mark Graeber left on this world during his too-brief tenure here
For those of us who counted him as an inspiration, 2021 brought a small consolation: the posthumous publication of The Dawn of Everything, a mammoth book he co-wrote with the archaeologist David Wengrow in a collaborative process that took most of a decade to come to fruition.
Dawn is a book that challenges the orthodoxy on the origin, nature and inevitability of inequality and hierarchy, and the relationship these bear to different modes of production, such as urban vs rural, farmer vs hunter-gatherer, etc. It is a vast thesis that weaves together anthropology, archaeology, botany, evolutionary science, geology, and disparate other subjects to make a complex argument that touches on nearly every part of human political economy, leisure, liberty and history.
It’s a genuinely remarkable book
…
Let’s not mince words: Comey is a piece of shit.
… For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out the liberal love affair with the “intelligence community.” Since when is the CIA a force for progressivism? But Graeber and Wengrow’s account of schizmogenesis through differentiation (“We’re the kind of people who disagree with them”) made it all snap into place.
Greer: On Domed Cities and Doomed Dreams
… Thus we’re going to have to talk a little about the history of philosophy. Yes, I know perfectly well that most people think of that subject, on the rare occasions that they think of it at all, as the dullest sort of useless academic trivia. They’re wrong, but there’s a lesson in the mistake. The next time Neil deGrasse Tyson throws one of his public hissy fits insisting that philosophy is just plain wrongety-wrong-wrong-wrong, I hope none of my readers are so slow on the uptake as to think this shows that philosophy doesn’t matter. Quite the contrary, he’s so petulant about philosophy precisely because it does matter, and he’s got his eyes scrunched shut and his hands over his ears, shouting “La, la, la, I can’t hear you” at the top of his lungs in a vain attempt to ignore the message that philosophy is gently trying to murmur to him.
The same is true of the general public, if on a rather milder way. Seventy years ago, the publication of a new book by Jean-Paul Sartre or any of the other well-known philosophers of the time was a media event, the kind of thing that spawned articles in the arts and culture section of daily papers in dozens of cities and sparked cocktail-party chatter for months. That happened because the things Sartre and his fellow philosophers were talking about mattered to most people. That was then, of course. Since that time, philosophers and the general public have worked out a tacit agreement: the philosophers make sure to say nothing of interest to anyone outside their own little academic coteries, and the general public responds by ignoring them completely. All this makes it easy for both sides to pretend that an earlier generation of philosophers didn’t cut the ground right out from under their feet. …
Satirical Fare:
Vid: CDC - Why Critical Thinking Is Dangerous!
Vid: I am SCIENCE
Pics of the Week:
Orlov: Washington’s Crime and Punishment
… The choice, really, is between facing an increasing risk of a nuclear exchange between two nuclear superpowers—one that is rapidly fading in strength and one that is growing stronger all the time—and reducing that risk as much as possible. Only the two nuclear superpowers need to come to an understanding; everyone else can simply do as they say so that nobody gets hurt. In the case of the Europeans, they should be quite interested in doing so (if they still know what’s good for them) because NATO’s eastward expansion has left them with huge nuclear target signs painted all over them which they would do well to try to remove. Not only that, but NATO’s encroachment on Russia’s borders has increased the risk of a nuclear confrontation breaking out accidentally: all those nuclear-armed bombers, ships and submarines could make a wrong turn somewhere and then—kaboom!—no more Europe.
…
You might also think that Washington’s eastward expansion is not a crime because, you see, Gorbachev failed to get its promise not to expand east committed to in writing. Well, let me offer you a tiny insight into the inner workings of Russian civilization. If you enter into a verbal agreement with the Russians, break it, and then taunt them by saying “But you didn’t get it in writing!” you have just made the problem much worse for yourself. We all make mistakes and must sometimes break our promises, in which the proper course of action is to be contrite, apologize sincerely and offer to make amends. If, instead, you claim that the promise is null and void because a certain piece of paper cannot be located, then you have compounded your dishonorable conduct with willful disregard and have singled yourself out for exemplary punishment. This punishment may be slow to arrive, taking decades, perhaps even centuries, but you can be sure that you will be punished eventually.
Once upon a time Moscow was weak and Washington strong, but now the balance has shifted in Moscow’s favor and the time for Washington’s punishment has finally come. The only remaining question is, What form will this punishment take?
Canada Has Long Been an Accomplice to America’s Imperialist Wars
Neocons bent on starting another disaster in Ukraine
US foreign policy is evidently held hostage by a venal, avaricious and, above all, reckless claque of elites
The construction of Israel’s Gaza concentration camp is complete
Israel announced the completion of an underground wall and maritime barrier surrounding the besieged Gaza Strip. Not a single mainstream media outlet used the term “concentration camp” to report on it but they should have.
Welsh: “Trump Did More For Me Than Biden Ever Did”
… Makes the point pretty clearly, I’d say. Even people I know who hate Trump admit he did more for them than any other President of their life.
… I can’t see how there is any way, absent some big surprises, that the Democrats don’t get wiped out in 2022, and it won’t just be “off years, we lose”.
Robinson: BREAN, BRAUN, AND PUTIN’S BRAIN
Occasionally, I wonder why I got into the blogging business. Fortunately, whenever these doubts arise, my local rag, The Ottawa Citizen (for which I once used to write), helps me out by publishing some outrageous nonsense, reminding me of the need for someone, somewhere to take the initiative in debunking it all. ..
Today the Citizen obliged me by producing not one, but two such pieces, which was kind of generous of it because one would have been quite enough. The theme of both was the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine. As any sensible person knows, this isn’t going to happen (unless the Ukrainians are stupid enough to try to recapture the rebel provinces of Donbass by force). But that hasn’t stopped Western politicians and the media from screaming wolf on an almost daily basis for the past couple of months. Every day that Russia fails to invade Ukraine brings more articles saying that it’s just around the corner. Just wait. ‘The Russians are coming!’
Orwellian Fare:
Twitter will now ban users that repeatedly claim vaccinated people can spread Covid
Edward Bernays: Propaganda and the U.S.-Backed 1954 Guatemalan Coup
CaitOz QOTW:
The most powerful regime on the planet imprisoning a journalist for journalistic activity is as brazen and obvious an act of tyranny as you could possibly come up with, and yet you still get pseudoleft pundits acting like you’re some kind of weird freak for expecting them to oppose it. The Assange issue is not actually complicated. The most powerful government in the world is trying to extradite a journalist and try him under the Espionage Act for exposing its war crimes. It is that simple.
China is far, far better than the US. That doesn’t mean China is awesome, it just means the US is far, far worse than anyone else in terms of tyranny and destructiveness. Working to destroy any population which disobeys you anywhere in the world makes you worse than anyone else.
CaitOz Longer Reads:
Absurd Guardian Article Declares China World’s Only Imperialist Power
Another cartoonishly ridiculous anti-China propaganda piece has been published in the western mass media, this time by The Guardian, which at this point could arguably be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda in the western world. It is authored by Simon Tisdall, who could most certainly be labeled the single most destructive promulgator of empire propaganda at The Guardian.
…
It is very revealing how many empire propagandists keep interpreting a warning that China will defend itself from aggressors as a menacing and aggressive act. Almost like they believe it is their right to bully, oppress and subjugate all nations without opposition or resistance.
…
The mass media have been growing astonishingly forceful in their efforts to manipulate the world into being so terrified of China that they’ll consent to any agenda no matter how insane and dangerous. The more forceful they become with their manipulations, the more important it is to counter their lies.
We’re being shoved in a very bad direction at an increasingly frenetic pace. This is being done for a reason. Be alert.
“Chinese Aggression” Is Just China Responding To US Aggression
….
When Uyghur separatist groups began inflicting acts of terror with the goal of driving the Chinese government out of Xinjiang and creating their own state, Beijing had essentially three choices:
1. To engage in a US-style campaign of mass military slaughter against these groups until they were defeated,
2. To allow a violent uprising of what would inevitably become western-backed jihadists as they had just seen in Libya and Syria carve away a geostrategically crucial part of China to be exploited by the US and its allies, or
3. To find some alternative to 1 and 2.
Beijing went with option number three, and the alternative it found was the aggressive deradicalization campaign it ended up implementing and the re-education facilities it has been so widely criticized for. This move would surely have entailed many of the abuses you’d expect from a mass-scale police action and dramatic escalation of authoritarian policies, but claims that it constituted “genocide” have been soundly discredited by independent research groups and by members of the public using publicly available information, while the most egregious allegations of abuse have been shown to be subject to manipulation and riddled with major plot holes.
You can criticize Beijing for how it went about its dilemma in Xinjiang all you want, but it was plainly universes less draconian than the US approach of killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its barbaric “war on terror”. And unlike the “war on terror”, Beijing’s approach actually worked, which even western media have been forced to grudgingly concede as tourism surges in Xinjiang.
…
None of this means that China is run by innocent little girl scouts who never do anything wrong, it just means it’s clearly not the aggressor in these conflicts, and that the picture we are presented with in the western empire’s frenzied campaign to manipulate public thought about China is not based in reality. The propaganda campaign is so pervasive and forceful that even people who are aware it’s happening still commonly fall for its lies and distortions just because there’s so much of it coming from so many different directions.
…
Detente is what’s needed. But in order for that to happen the US empire is going to have to stop aggressing, and it’s going to have to stop lying.
Other Quotes of the Week:
Kunstler: For the moment everything is just froth and noise, and most everybody is in too much of a panic to make sense. Humans don’t do well without sense-making. What makes sense is having a roof over your head, something to eat, some purposeful activities to provide those things, some other people to exist with and care for, and some ceremonies to honor our efforts and declare our gratitude for being here in the first place.
Greenwald: Democrats are everything they accuse Trump and Fox of being. Their networks -- NBC & CNN -- spread lies daily as disinformation outlets. They want their enemies censored, imprisoned, silenced. The ones who write Atlantic essays on democracy are the most virulent authoritarians.
Knight: Like many, I have been deeply frustrated to see mainstream news sources falsely describe certain events as ‘far-right’ or ‘racist’. There’s something incredibly classist (and lazy) about journalists judging thousands of ordinary people as bigots from the distance and safety of their keyboard. I pushed back against these narratives because they simply did not map on to the observed reality.
Margaret Anna Alice: With Julian Assange now facing extradition to the United States, valiant whistleblowers routinely being fed to the BigPharma/Big Media/Big Tech wood chipper, and ignoble liars deploying every weapon of mass deception in their forbidding arsenal, unmasking corruption is one of the most perilous adventures you can embark on in these totalitarian times. Mercifully, there are a few valorous lions roaring out, but they’re being drowned out by the masses of baaing sheep, mooing cows, and clucking chickens. We need a groundswell of truth-tellers to sound our barbaric yawps together if we wish to be heard above the telescreen’s “enormous, unbearable, ubiquitous commercial break.”
Ploink: When the highest return on investment is lobbying the government, the actual functions of government grind to a halt as everyone is constantly concerned with how every action will affect their slice of the pie.
Alas, not about Powell:
i was going to lead off with “i don’t mean to pick on jerome” but then i realized something: i DO mean to pick on jerome. he deserves it. he has earned it.
Long Reads / Big Thoughts:
Hanson: How Group Minds Differ
…
As individuals in mobs have much weaker incentives regarding accuracy, mobs try less hard to get their beliefs right. Individual in mobs instead have much stronger incentives to look good and loyal to other mob members. Mobs are rationally irrational in elections, and we created law to avoid rush-to-judgment failures of mobs. As a result, mobs more easily get stuck on particular socially-desirable beliefs.
When each person in the mob wants to show their allegiance and wisdom by backing a party line, it is harder for such a mob to give much thought to the possibility that its party line might be wrong. Individual humans, in contrast, are better able to systematically consider how they might be wrong. Such thoughts more often actually induce them to change their minds. …
Michael Anton: Unprecedented
On the novelty of our cultural predicament.
The theme is “Western civilization at the crossroads.” Far be it from me to doubt that the West is on the precipice of something enormous. But “crossroads” implies a map. Do we have one? Is a piece of paper showing the way forward—whether predictive or hopeful—even possible?
I’ve noticed that a lot of people more or less “on my side,” or who see things basically as I do, are extremely confident that they know what is going to happen next. Their certainty is entirely independent of what they think they know.
Some believe that the end—the collapse of present ruling arrangements—is imminent, if not tomorrow or next week, then soon, within a year or five. Others assert that the present regime is stable and not only can but will last for decades or even centuries. Some insist that the regime will fall of its own incompetence, others that its end will require an external push—which some are certain will come, and others are equally sure will not.
When I have thought about this, I have been in some part inclined to the opinion that present arrangements are unstable and may be approaching their end. Yet in thinking it through further, I am forced to admit that our times are marked by so many unprecedented trends and events that making predictions seems foolhardy.
…
If forced to bet, I would have to place my chips somewhere between imminent collapse and drawn-out decline. I occasionally read theories of triple bank-shots and four-dimensional chess—they really know what they’re doing!—only to marvel. Our regime cannot, at present, unload a cargo ship, stock a store shelf, run a clean election, handle parental complaints at a school board meeting, pass a budget bill, treat a cold variant, keep order in the streets, defeat a third world country, or even evacuate said country cleanly. And that’s to say nothing of all the things it should be doing, that all non-joke countries do, that it refuses to do. If our ruling class has a plan, it would seem to be to destroy the society and institutions from which they, at present, are the largest—one is tempted to say only—beneficiaries. Do they think they can benefit more from the wreckage? Or are they driven by hatreds that blind them to self-interest? Perhaps they’re simply insane?
Whatever the case, couple all this unprecedentedness with all this incompetence, and going long on Wokemerica seems a sucker bet. But, to end where we began, the very unprecedentedness of our situation means that all bets are off.
Doctorow: Schizmogenesis
Spies, voting machine companies and Big Pharma are still your natural enemies.
Rest in Power, David Graeber
The unexpected death of the anthropologist David Graeber in September 2020 ripped a hole in the hearts of millions of us whose lives had been altered by his books (Debt, The Utopia of Rules, Bullshit Jobs), his work as an anarchist organizer (he is credited with coining “We are the 99%”), his teaching, and his friendship. It’s hard to overstate the mark Graeber left on this world during his too-brief tenure here
For those of us who counted him as an inspiration, 2021 brought a small consolation: the posthumous publication of The Dawn of Everything, a mammoth book he co-wrote with the archaeologist David Wengrow in a collaborative process that took most of a decade to come to fruition.
Dawn is a book that challenges the orthodoxy on the origin, nature and inevitability of inequality and hierarchy, and the relationship these bear to different modes of production, such as urban vs rural, farmer vs hunter-gatherer, etc. It is a vast thesis that weaves together anthropology, archaeology, botany, evolutionary science, geology, and disparate other subjects to make a complex argument that touches on nearly every part of human political economy, leisure, liberty and history.
It’s a genuinely remarkable book
…
Let’s not mince words: Comey is a piece of shit.
… For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out the liberal love affair with the “intelligence community.” Since when is the CIA a force for progressivism? But Graeber and Wengrow’s account of schizmogenesis through differentiation (“We’re the kind of people who disagree with them”) made it all snap into place.
Greer: On Domed Cities and Doomed Dreams
… Thus we’re going to have to talk a little about the history of philosophy. Yes, I know perfectly well that most people think of that subject, on the rare occasions that they think of it at all, as the dullest sort of useless academic trivia. They’re wrong, but there’s a lesson in the mistake. The next time Neil deGrasse Tyson throws one of his public hissy fits insisting that philosophy is just plain wrongety-wrong-wrong-wrong, I hope none of my readers are so slow on the uptake as to think this shows that philosophy doesn’t matter. Quite the contrary, he’s so petulant about philosophy precisely because it does matter, and he’s got his eyes scrunched shut and his hands over his ears, shouting “La, la, la, I can’t hear you” at the top of his lungs in a vain attempt to ignore the message that philosophy is gently trying to murmur to him.
The same is true of the general public, if on a rather milder way. Seventy years ago, the publication of a new book by Jean-Paul Sartre or any of the other well-known philosophers of the time was a media event, the kind of thing that spawned articles in the arts and culture section of daily papers in dozens of cities and sparked cocktail-party chatter for months. That happened because the things Sartre and his fellow philosophers were talking about mattered to most people. That was then, of course. Since that time, philosophers and the general public have worked out a tacit agreement: the philosophers make sure to say nothing of interest to anyone outside their own little academic coteries, and the general public responds by ignoring them completely. All this makes it easy for both sides to pretend that an earlier generation of philosophers didn’t cut the ground right out from under their feet. …
Satirical Fare:
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