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Pandemics in Roman Empire correlate with sudden climate changes

April 24, 2024

Plankton living in the Mediterranean Sea some 2000 years ago have helped researchers to uncover a correlation between climate change and the spread of disease in ancient Roman Italy and into the early Middle Ages.

Using a sediment core recovered from the Gulf of Taranto, in the arch of Italy’s boot, Karin Zonneveld of the University of Bremen in Germany and colleagues reconstructed the regional climate from 200 BCE to 600 CE. The sediment record reveals that periods of rapid cooling and drying in the heart of the Roman Empire align with documented major disease outbreaks, the researchers report in a new study.

The core’s plankton fossils are from dinoflagellate cysts, also known as dinocysts. Dinoflagellates bloom in late summer and early fall, with thousands of species that thrive under varying surface temperatures and nutrient levels. By comparing the ratios of dinocyst species that flourish in warmer waters with those that flourish in cooler waters, researchers can precisely estimate historical temperatures. Dinocysts also respond to the water’s changing nutrient levels, which are controlled by precipitation. Rain and snowfall over the Italian Peninsula are channeled by rivers into the Adriatic Sea, where currents carry the nutrient-enhanced water southward around Italy’s heel and into the gulf.

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Gerard Versteegh and Karin Zonneveld, coauthors of the new study on climate change and pandemics, process a sediment core from the Gulf of Taranto. (Courtesy of Karin Zonneveld.)

The core was recovered from a location with a rather high deposition rate, with 1 cm of sediment deposited roughly every 10 years (compared with about 1 cm/1000 yr in the open Mediterranean Sea)…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face

April 17, 2024

2020: The Year The System Showed Its Real Face

As we grew up, nearly all of us were inundated with stories of our glorious national fathers, our beautiful democracies, and so on. And being young, we for the most part believed them. The system gave us our prosperity, our comfort, our medicine, our sense of importance.

Soon enough we learned that the system was also stupid and perverse, but we found a way around that contradiction by blaming one segment of the system or another: The Blues or the Greens or the Reds were the problem; it could not, must not, be that the system itself is the problem.

Then came 2020, and the system revealed its true face.

I suppose I should be fair and add that the system wasn’t always as rotten as it is now, but regardless, it wasn’t able to prevent the rot that overtook it.

2020, In A Nasty Little Nutshell

The system would like everything except the daily outrages (one for the Blues, one for the Reds) to go down the Memory Hole. So I think it’s important to recap the revelations of 2020:

The system decreed who could work and who couldn’t. This was not done democratically; it was done by edict. “Democracy” did nothing to stop it.

People were arrested for going to church or synagogue. This was the real disgrace of the police forces. Are there any orders from their paymasters they won’t enforce upon us?

Political gangs roam the streets, beating, threatening and burning. Make no mistake, these are covertly authorized political gangs, serving political ends. This vile tactic goes back to ancient Rome at least, where gangs of thugs beat opponents in the streets.

“Science” said one thing then the opposite, supporting whatever power wanted...

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Censorship Began Earlier and Went Further Than We Thought

November 30, 2023

The Censorship Began Earlier and Went Further Than We Thought

There was some sense in the air in the spring of 2020 that many things were not quite normal. Here we had most governments in the world locking down their populations with extreme policies, wrecking economies and long-settled traditions of rights and liberties, while fake scientists took over the airwaves and blasted us daily and hourly with crazy messages of compliance.

It was a lonely time to be incredulous. Most of the people I would have thought would cry foul simply stopped talking. Most of what I saw on social media seemed all about conformity with the insanity. When someone would pop up to raise questions here and there, the account was shouted down brutally and socially punished for deviating from the narrative. This further discouraged people from objecting.

So on it went for months, and then got worse with the nutty masking practices and the vaccine. Suddenly every major voice from pop culture and the movies became a voice for the practice of medicine. These are people who would never recommend pharmaceuticals to people they don’t know. They are not professionals and are in no position to do so. But when the time came, they were all cocksure that getting the shot was the way to go for absolutely everyone.

One possible explanation of the unfolding frenzy was simply that society had gone mad. There is surely truth in that. History is replete with examples of such things, and I had studied them for years. We always believe that in our own times, we are too enlightened and informed for such things but apparently not. The same mad passions that led to the witch burnings, the red scares, and even the bonfire of the vanities are still with us, ready to be unleashed under the right conditions.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Puppet Masters of the Pandemic. Part 2: What Did The CIA Do in Wuhan?”

August 8, 2023

Puppet Masters of the Pandemic. Part 2: What Did The CIA Do in Wuhan?”

Part 2 of an interview with the New American Magazine

From Part I – the interview left of with the big question of who is the puppet master? What’s behind all this propaganda and control over the past three years? I spoke of different theories that people had put out there, and ended with the beginning of the hypothesis that the CIA may in fact be that controlling element. Part II picks up the thesis there.

From Part I: Dr. Robert Malone: We <Bret Weinstein, Steve Kirsch and myself> talked about emergent phenomena, that this might just be the consequence of simultaneous things happening and separate actors acting on their own initiatives, and the result would be a vector sum of things (controlling the propaganda and globalized governmental policies). I’ve never felt comfortable with that as an explanation for why we would see this amazing harmonization of propaganda, censorship, messaging strategies, technical strategies like the purchasing of influencers, et cetera, globally.

Then, a colleague … a close colleague of mine who actually employs a former director of the CIA were discussing who is the puppet master? What’s behind all this? We had a discussion in which he related a conversation with his employee (former DCIA) regarding the global power and reach of the CIA, in which the former DCIA concluded that the CIA was currently the most powerful organization in the world, perhaps the most powerful global organization in human history. This is one of those things I haven’t wanted to believe…

Part II

If you are subjected on a daily basis to this advanced technology of nudging and information control and censorship, control of narrative, <governments and NGO> cooperating with press, cooperating with social media so that every single thing you encounter is manipulated to support the agenda and the narrative of whomever the dominant force is that is propagating this?

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

February 21, 2023

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is spectacular, with Orcs, Elves and breathtaking scenery filmed on location in New Zealand. The special effects were good too – the eye of Sauron looked very realistic – perhaps it is.

We have come across a minimally redacted 28-page draft of a Kiwi Government document entitled “Communications approach to managing disinformation, online harms and scams” dated 10 Dec 2021 (Available here).

The document’s aim appears to be coordinating countering disinformation seeking to harm “by threatening public safety, fracturing community cohesion and reduced trust in democracy.” All well and good then; it’s a bit like saying, do not open fire on the Red Cross.

Except that the object is “disinformation” relating to the Kiwi government’s response to the Covid pandemic. The definition of disinformation in the document is on page 5:

We will not summarise the complex and superficial content of the document other than to note that this is precisely the attempt at normalising the message of the pandemic that we have reported. The government has put out a message, and its credibility must be defended at all costs, with tech media partners, academics, the community and, of course, the armies of Sauron.

One consideration is that the Covid narrative in Middle Earth (as elsewhere) is based on the misuse and misinterpretation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the death of clinical medicine, as we have made clear.

Cases may not have been active cases, hospitalisations may not be due to SARS-CoV-2, and deaths may be due to various causes related or unrelated to SARS-CoV-2. We will never know for sure. Why? Because the PCR cycle threshold for testing PCR “positive” in Middle Earth was 40 to 45, ensuring that most tested people would test positive even in the total absence of contamination (a very tall order).

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Inside the Facebook Files: Emails Reveal the CDC’s Role in Silencing COVID-19 Dissent

January 19, 2023

Inside the Facebook Files: Emails Reveal the CDC’s Role in Silencing COVID-19 Dissent

Throughout the pandemic, the CDC was in constant contact with Facebook, vetting what users were allowed to say on the social media site.

Emails between the CDC and Facebook (Lex Villena / Reason)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) played a direct role in policing permissible speech on social media throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Confidential emails obtained by Reason show that Facebook moderators were in constant contact with the CDC, and routinely asked government health officials to vet claims relating to the virus, mitigation efforts such as masks, and vaccines.

For a broader analysis of the federal government’s pandemic-era efforts to suppress free speech—and whether they violated the First Amendment—see Reason‘s March 2023 cover story on the ramifications of these emails. This article provides screenshots of the emails themselves.

After Elon Musk took control of Twitter, he permitted several independent journalists to peruse the company’s previous communications with the FBI, the CDC, the White House, and government officials elsewhere. These disclosures, which have become known as the Twitter Files, reveal that government bureaucrats put substantial pressure on Twitter to restrict alleged misinformation relating to elections, Hunter Biden, and COVID-19.

The Facebook Files, which were obtained by Reason as a result of the state of Missouri’s lawsuit against the Biden administration, reveal that the CDC had substantial influence over what users were allowed to discuss on Meta’s platforms: Facebook and Instagram.

The messages reveal an environment where the CDC kept tabs on Meta’s moderation practices and regularly told the company what the agency wanted it to do.

For instance, in May 2021, CDC officials began routinely vetting claims about COVID-19 vaccines that had appeared on Facebook. The platform left it up to the federal government to determine which assertions were accurate.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The evolution of credit and debt in 2023

January 15, 2023

The evolution of credit and debt in 2023

The evidence strongly suggests that a combined interest rate, economic and currency crisis for the US and its western alliance will continue in 2023.

This article focuses on credit, its constraints, and why quantitative easing has already crowded out private sector activity. Adjusting M2 money supply for accumulating QE indicates the degree to which this has driven the US tax base into deep recession. And the wider effects on credit in the economy should not be ignored.

After a brief partial recovery from the covid crisis in US government finances, they are likely to start deteriorating again due to a deepening recession of private sector activity. Funding these deficits depends on foreign inward investment flows, which are faltering. Rising interest rates and an ongoing bear market make funding from this source hard to envisage.

Meanwhile, from his public statements President Putin is fully aware of these difficulties, and a consequence of the western alliance increasing their support and involvement in Ukraine makes it almost certain that Putin will take the opportunity to push the dollar over the edge.

Credit is much more than bank deposits

Economics is about credit, and its balance sheet twin, debt. Debt is either productive, in which case it can extinguish credit in due course, or it is not, and credit must be extended or written off. Money almost never comes into it. Money is distinguished from credit by having no counterparty risk, which credit always has. The role of money is to stabilise the purchasing power of credit. And the only legal form of money is metallic; gold, silver, or copper usually rendered into coin for enhanced fungibility.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?

January 15, 2023

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?

Trust the Authorities, trust the Experts, and trust the Science, we were told. Public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic was only credible if it originated from government health authorities, the World Health Organization, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as scientists who parroted their lines with little critical thinking.

In the name of ‘protecting’ the public, the authorities have gone to great lengths, as described in the recently released Twitter Files (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) that document collusion between the FBI and social media platforms, to create an illusion of consensus about the appropriate response to Covid-19.

They suppressed ‘the truth,’ even when emanating from highly credible scientists, undermining scientific debate and preventing the correction of scientific errors. In fact, an entire bureaucracy of censorship has been created, ostensibly to deal with so-called MDM— misinformation (false information resulting from human error with no intention of harm); disinformation (information intended to mislead and manipulate); malinformation (accurate information intended to harm).

From fact-checkers like NewsGuard, to the European Commission’s Digital Services Act, the UK Online Safety Bill and the BBC Trusted News Initiative, as well as Big Tech and social media, all eyes are on the public to curtail their ‘mis-/dis-information.’

“Whether it’s a threat to our health or a threat to our democracy, there is a human cost to disinformation.” — Tim Davie, Director-General of the BBC

But is it possible that ‘trusted’ institutions could pose a far bigger threat to society by disseminating false information?

Although the problem of spreading false information is usually conceived of as emanating from the public, during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments, corporations, supranational organisations and even scientific journals and academic institutions have contributed to a false narrative.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Of Economic Crises and Pandemics: Facebook as Fact, Government as Truth, Big Pharma as God

December 30, 2022

Of Economic Crises and Pandemics: Facebook as Fact, Government as Truth, Big Pharma as God

If events since March 2020 have shown us anything, it is that fear is a powerful weapon for securing hegemony. Any government can manipulate fear about certain things while conveniently ignoring real dangers that a population faces.

Author and researcher Robert J Burrowes says:

…if we were seriously concerned about our world, the gravest and longest-standing health crisis on the planet is the one that starves to death 100,000 people each day. No panic about that, of course.”

No panic because the controlling interests of the global food system have long profited from a ‘stuffed and starved’ strategy that ensures people unnecessarily go hungry when corporate profit rather than need dictates policies.

US social commentator Walter Lippmann once said that ‘responsible men’ make decisions and must be protected from the ‘bewildered herd’ – the public. He added that the public should be subdued, obedient and distracted from what is really happening. Screaming patriotic slogans and fearing for their lives, they should be admiring with awe leaders who save them from destruction.

During COVID, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern urged citizens to trust the government and its agencies for all information and stated:

Otherwise, dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.”

In the US, Fauci presented himself as ‘the science’. In New Zealand, Ardern was ‘the truth’. It was similar in countries across the world – different figures but the same approach.

Like other political leaders, Ardern clamped down on civil liberties with the full force of state violence on hand to ensure compliance with ‘the truth’. Those who questioned the COVID narrative – including world-renowned scientists – were smeared, shut down and censored.

It was an internationally orchestrated campaign involving governments, the big tech companies, media and the WHO, among others.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

What is the Next Thing that Will hit us? Brace for it, Because it may be Huge

December 9, 2022

What is the Next Thing that Will hit us? Brace for it, Because it may be Huge

Despite having ancient seers (the “haruspices”) as ancestors, I don’t claim to be able to predict the future. But I think I can propose scenarios for the future. So, what could be the next big thing that will hit us? I suggest it will be the disruption of the oil market caused by the recent measure of a price cap on Russian oil.

Do you remember how many things changed during the past 2-3 years, and changed so unbelievably fast? There was a pattern in these changes: one element was that we were told they were just temporary, another was that they were done for our sake. We were told that we needed “Two weeks to flatten the curve,” and that “the sanctions will cause the Russian economy to collapse in two weeks,” and many more things. Then, our problems will be solved and the world will return to normal. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the result was a “new normal,” not at all like the old one.

Now, the obvious question is “what next?” More exactly, “what are they going to hit us with, next time?” There is this idea that there may be a new pandemic, a new virus, or the old one returning. But, no. They are smarter than that — so far they have always been one step, maybe two, ahead of us. They are masters of propaganda, they know that propaganda is all based on memes and that memes have a finite lifetime. Old memes are like old newspapers, they are not interesting anymore. A particular bugaboo can’t scare people for too long, and the idea of scaring us with a pandemic virus is past its usefulness stage. They may have probed us with the “monkeypox” pandemic, and they saw that it didn’t work. It was obvious anyway. So, now what?

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Road to Totalitarianism (Revisited)

November 17, 2022

The Road to Totalitarianism (Revisited)

It feels like it’s finally over, doesn’t it, the whole “apocalyptic pandemic” thing? I mean, really, really over this time. Not like all those other times when you thought it was over, but it wasn’t over, and was like the end of those Alien movies, where it seems like Ripley has finally escaped, but the alien is hiding out in the shuttle, or the escape pod, or Ripley’s intestinal tract.

But this time doesn’t feel like that. This time it feels like it’s really, really over. Go out and take a look around. Hardly anyone is wearing masks anymore (except where masks are mandatory) or being coerced into submitting to “vaccinations” (except where “vaccination” is mandatory), and the hordes of hate-drunk New Normal fanatics who demanded that “the Unvaccinated” be segregated, censored, fired from their jobs, and otherwise demonized and persecuted, have all fallen silent (except for those who haven’t).

Everything is back to normal, right?

Wrong. Everything is not back to normal. Everything is absolutely New Normal. What is over is the “shock-and-awe” phase, which was never meant to go on forever. It was always only meant to get us here.

Where, you’re probably asking, is “here”? “Here” is a place where the new official ideology has been firmly established as our new “reality,” woven into the fabric of normal everyday life. No, not everywhere, just everywhere that matters. (Do you really think the global-capitalist ruling classes care what people in Lakeland, Florida, Elk River, Idaho, or some village in Sicily believe about “reality”?) Yes, most government restrictions have been lifted, mainly because they are no longer necessary, but in centers of power throughout the West, in political, corporate, and cultural spheres, in academia, the mainstream media, and so on, the New Normal has become “reality,” or, in other words, “just the way it is,” which is the ultimate goal of every ideology.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The US Can’t Make Enough Fuel and There’s No Fix in Sight

May 17, 2022

The US Can’t Make Enough Fuel and There’s No Fix in Sight

(Bloomberg) — From record gasoline prices to higher airfares to fears of diesel rationing ahead, America’s runaway energy market is disquieting both US travelers and the wider economy. But the chief driver isn’t high crude prices or even the rebound in demand: It’s simply too few refineries turning oil into usable fuels.

More than 1 million barrels a day of the country’s oil refining capacity — or about 5% overall — has shut since the beginning of the pandemic. Elsewhere in the world, capacity has shrunk by 2.13 million additional barrels a day, energy consultancy Turner, Mason & Co. estimates. And with no plans to bring new US plants online, even though refiners are reaping record profits, the supply squeeze is only going to get worse.

“We are on the razor’s edge,” said John Auers, executive vice president at Turner, Mason & Co. in Dallas. “We’re ripe for a potential supply crisis.”

The dearth of refining capacity has dire implications for both US consumers and global markets. At home, retail gasoline prices continue hitting new records, exacerbating some of the worst inflation American households have ever seen. Meanwhile, the East Coast is on the brink of a diesel shortage that risks crippling already strained supply chains that have disrupted the flow of everything from grocery staples to construction supplies in the last two years.

The factors fueling the refining shortage won’t surprise anyone: With demand for gasoline and jet fuel practically vanishing during the height of the pandemic, companies closed some of their least profitable crude-processing plants permanently…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Health Authorities Tracked Movements of Canadians via Cellphones During Pandemic

May 9, 2022

Health Authorities Tracked Movements of Canadians via Cellphones During Pandemic

PHAC claims data was anonymized.

Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

Health authorities in Canada tracked people’s movements via their cellphones during the pandemic, with trips to pharmacies and liquor stores being logged, it has been revealed.

“BlueDot, an intelligence analysis company, prepared movement reports for PHAC using anonymized data acquired from mobile devices. The reports helped the public health agency understand movement patterns during the pandemic,” reports Reclaim the Net.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was able to obtain detailed insights into people’s movements and recorded their visits to liquor stores, pharmacies, visits to friends and trips to other provinces, also collecting information on time spent in each location.

“Questions remain about the specifics of the data provided if Canadians’ rights were violated, and what advice the Liberal government was given,”said Conservative MP Damien Kurek.

The ethics committee asserted that the PHAC should have told Canadians their movements were potentially being monitored and given them the option to opt out.

The PHAC claimed the program was “not about following individuals’ trips to a specific location, but rather in understanding whether the number of visits to specific locations have increased or decreased over time.”

As we highlighted last week, the CDC purchased tracking data for millions of Americans’ mobile phones with an intention of monitoring their movements to see if they were complying with lockdowns, curfews and travel restrictions during the COVID pandemic.

During the first winter lockdown in January 2021, a poll found that a plurality of people in Britain supported giving the government powers to spy on people’s movements via cellphone tracking to enforce lockdown.

In the same month, Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt called for the government to use GPS tracking technology to ensure Brits were complying with COVID quarantine measures.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The devil is in the detail

February 20, 2022

The devil is in the detail

If you get your news from the BBC, you might be forgiven for thinking that the economic hit from the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions has come to an end. Indeed, if you merely skim through the headlines in your social media feed, you might believe that the UK is poised for an explosion of growth, the like of which we haven’t witnessed since the late 1960s. “Retail sales,” we are told, “rebound in January as Omicron eases.” The “UK economy rebounds,” they say, “with fastest growth since WW2.” Chancellor Sunak – who wants to be seen as a prime-minister-in-waiting – announced that:

“Today’s figures show that despite Omicron the economy was remarkably resilient. We were the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year and are forecast to continue being the fastest growing economy this year.”

The GDP figures are certainly better than they might have been if more businesses had been left to go bust during lockdown. Nevertheless, they are still well below February 2020, following the massive crash immediately after lockdown was ordered. As the Office for National Statistics explain:

“UK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 1.0% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2021… Compared with the same quarter a year ago, GDP increased by 6.5%.

“Following the large 9.4% fall in 2020 because of the initial impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and public health restrictions, UK GDP saw an annual rise of 7.5% in 2021.”

Worse still, manufacturing GDP was negative, and continues to lag well behind its February 2020 level:

“Production output fell by 0.4% in Quarter 4 2021 and is now 3.6% below its pre-coronavirus levels. The fall in production output was because of a 3.2% fall in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (energy) and a 4.5% fall in mining and quarrying.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How we Became What we Despised. Turning the West into a New Soviet Union

February 13, 2022

How we Became What we Despised. Turning the West into a New Soviet Union

For everything that happens, there is a reason for it to happen. Even for turning the former Free World into something that looks very much like the old “Evil Empire,” the Soviet Union. I understand that this series of reflections will be seen as controversial, but I thought that this matter is important and fascinating enough to deserve a discussion.

It all started two years ago when we were asked to stay home for two weeks “to flatten the curve.” Two years later, we are looking, bewildered, at the wreckage around us and asking ourselves: ‘what the hell has happened?’

In such a short time, we found that our world had turned into something very similar to one that we used to despite. The old Soviet Union, complete with heavy-handed police, censorship of the media, criminalization of dissent, internal passports, and the state intruding on matters that, once, were thought to be part of every citizen’s private decision sphere.

Surprising, perhaps. But it is a rule of the universe that everything that happens has a reason to happen. The Soviet Union was what it was because there were reasons for it to be that. It was not an alien world populated by little green men. It was an empire similar to the Western one, just a little smaller, and it concluded its cycle a few decades before us. We can learn a lot from its story.

Dmitri Orlov, born in Russia, was among the first who noted the parallel path that the Western and the Soviet empire were following. His first book was titled “Reinventing Collapse” (2011). Let me propose to you an excerpt from the book where Orlov tells us of an event he experienced in St. Petersburg in the years just after the collapse of the Union…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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