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When political arguments ask you to commit to extreme positions, perhaps they are religious rather than ethical arguments.

Possibly the two most pressing world events at the moment are the wars in Ukraine and Israel. In each case, the argumentation for each side in the Western world has followed a similar and now-familiar pattern: My side is good, the other side is bad, and your neutrality on the subject is evil. In fact, anything short of giving material support for my side is an act of sedition.

But this type of argument is more suited to matters of faith than to matters of opinion or rationality. They are asking you to make real political and material sacrifices for their cause similar to the way a Christian asks you to sacrifice parts of yourself to live in faith that God is your creator. I am not necessarily making the argument that progressivism or neoconservatism are actually religions in their own right. While I understand that sentiment, those ideologies are still missing important pieces of what makes a religion a religion. Rather, it demonstrates how those ideologies use the concept of faith to compel populations to choose one side or the other, and commit their resources, in conflicts having nothing to do with them.

War arguments

For Ukraine-Russia, the American establishment opinion has seemed to be that Ukraine came into existence in 2022, nothing happened, and then Russia invaded it as the first step toward inevitable world conquest. Although “Russia is definitely losing,” if we fail to send over a single one of these aid dollars, Ukraine will promptly fall and Russia will easily overrun the rest of Europe in a matter of weeks. With Israel-Gaza it is that Israel has acted as a loving parent to the Palestinians, though sometimes utilizing tough love for their own good…

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

UN Official Condemns Health “Misinformation,” Advocates for “Digital Integrity Code”

April 30, 2024

UN Official Condemns Health “Misinformation,” Advocates for “Digital Integrity Code”

Under the guise of combating disinformation, the UN advocates for stricter censorship with its new Code of Conduct for Information Integrity.

The United Nations continues with an attempt to advance the agenda to get what the organization calls its Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms implemented.

This code is based on a previous policy brief that recommends censorship of whatever is deemed to be “disinformation, misinformation, hate” but that is only the big picture of the policy UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming is staunchly promoting.

In early April, Fleming gave a talk at Boston University, and here the focus was on AI, whose usefulness in various censorship ventures makes it seen as a tool that advances “resilience in global communication.”

A piece on the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases site first asserts that AI had a “major role” in helping spread misinformation and conspiracy theories “in the post-pandemic era,” while the UN is described as one of the institutions that have been undermined by all this, while “working to dispel these narratives.”

(The article also – helpfully, in terms of understanding where its authors are coming from – cites the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the “authority” which has proclaimed that “the threat from misinformation and disinformation as the most severe short-term threat facing the world today”).

You will hardly hear Fleming disagreeing with any of this, but the UN’s approach is to “harness” that power to serve its own agendas. The UN official’s talk was about AI can be used to feed the public the desired narratives around issues like vaccines, climate change, and the “well-being” of women and girls.

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

Unification Of CBDCs? Global Banks Are Telling Us The End Of The Dollar System Is Near

April 30, 2024

Unification Of CBDCs? Global Banks Are Telling Us The End Of The Dollar System Is Near

World reserve status allows for amazing latitude in terms of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve understands that there is constant demand for dollars overseas as a means to more easily import and export goods. The dollar’s petro-status also makes it essential for trading oil globally. This means that the central bank of the US has been able to create fiat currency from thin air to a far higher degree than any other central bank on the planet while avoiding the immediate effects of hyperinflation.

Much of that cash as well as dollar denominated debt (physical and digital) ends up in the coffers of foreign central banks, international banks and investment firms where it is held as a hedge or used to adjust the exchange rates of other currencies for trade advantage. As much as one-half of the value of all U.S. currency is estimated to be circulating abroad.

World reserve status along with various debt instruments allowed the US government and the Fed to create tens of trillions of dollars in new currency after the 2008 credit crash, all while keeping inflation under control (sort of). The problem is that this system of stowing dollars overseas only lasts so long and eventually the consequences of overprinting come home to roost.

The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 established the framework for the rise of the US dollar and while the benefits are obvious, especially for the banks, there are numerous costs involved. Think of world reserve status as a “deal with the devil” – You get the fame, you get the fortune, you get the hot girlfriend and the sweet car, but one day the devil is coming to collect and when he does he’s going to take EVERYTHING, including your soul.

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

Leaked New York Times Gaza Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “Occupied Territory”

April 30, 2024

Leaked New York Times Gaza Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “Occupied Territory”

Amid the internal battle over the New York Times’s coverage of Israel’s war, top editors handed down a set of directives.

The New York Times instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.

The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.

The memo — written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies — “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”

While the document is presented as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war, several Times staffers told The Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives.

“I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said a Times newsroom source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, of the Gaza memo. “But if you do know, it will be clear how apologetic it is to Israel.”

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

There’s a Sniper on the Roof of the School Where I Studied Authoritarianism

April 30, 2024

There’s a Sniper on the Roof of the School Where I Studied Authoritarianism

On student protests and principled defiance.

There are snipers on the roof of the school where I got my MA.

There are police beating students at the school where I got my PhD.

At each school, I studied authoritarian regimes and how they brainwash people into believing that state brutality is not only expected, but deserved.

* * *

At Indiana University, I wrote my master’s thesis on how the government of Uzbekistan invented a terrorist group, “Akromiya,” in order to justify their killing of over seven hundred protesters in the city of Andijon in May 2005.

I wrote parts of my thesis in the Indiana Memorial Union: a student center where I would drink coffee and work. A student center where there are now snipers on the roof, their weapons aimed at students on the ground.

Indiana University calls the IMU “the lifeblood of IU Bloomington”. I wonder how much lifeblood will be spilled. Matt Pierce, an Indiana state representative, warns that IU could become the next Kent State.

IU students are protesting Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. Since October 2023, the Israeli military has killed over 34,000 Palestinian civilians, about half of whom were children. Some Palestinian children died in bombings. Others were shot in the head by Israeli snipers.

Doctors in Gaza have noted the wildly disproportionate death toll, saying Israel’s focus on children is unlike anything they have seen.

“This is not a normal war,” says Canadian doctor Fozia Alvi. “The war in Ukraine has killed 500 kids in two years and the war in Gaza has killed over 10,000 in less than five months. We have seen wars before but this is something that is a dark stain on our shared humanity.”

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

EXCLUSIVE: New Documents Expose How NIH Misled the Public About Dangerous Virus Research at the Wuhan Institute of Technology

April 30, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: New Documents Expose How NIH Misled the Public About Dangerous Virus Research at the Wuhan Institute of Technology

The NIH has ceased any pretense of overseeing risky virus research and now coordinates with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance on public relations.

A new set of documents raise further questions about statements made by the National Institutes of Health regarding papers showing they funded risky virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to create dangerous chimeric viruses.

EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak notified NIH funders that EcoHealth Health Alliance planned to conduct risky virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in a June 2016 letter, many months before a pause on such research was lifted in 2017. When the NIH released some of this information in 2021, they assured Congress and the public that these chimeric virus studies could not have led to the COVID virus, but they did so in a public statement that cited research the NIH itself had funded at the WIV.

The documents also show that, after once making a pretense of overseeing EcoHealth Alliance’s grants, the NIH is now happy to coordinate messaging with Peter Daszak’s nonprofit.

“Please pass this information on to the people at NIAID who need to coordinate communications,” Daszak wrote to NIH official Erik Stemmy, attaching a draft of a May 2023 press release. “And I’m available this evening, all day Friday and any time over the weekend to discuss.”

The 611 pages of new documents were provided to The DisInformation Chronicle by the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight, which has sued the NIH to gain access to public records. Neither NIH spokeswoman Renate Myles nor EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak returned numerous requests for comment.

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

Do U.S. Presidents Matter for Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction?

April 30, 2024

Do U.S. Presidents Matter for Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction?

The answer is not what most people will expect

Rare glimpse of the Energy Policy control panel in the White House Situation Room

Pop Quiz!

Before reading on, please provide your best guesses matching the presidential administration with with the annual rate of carbon dioxide emissions reductions over each president’s term in office — dating to 2005, which is the baseline year commonly used to assess U.S. emissions reduction progress.

I’ll provide the answers after sharing some data. The figure below shows overall U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 to 2025 (with 2024 and 2025 estimated in April 2024, via the outstanding U.S. Energy Information Agency).

You can see that over the past two decades U.S. emissions have declined very steadily, with notable departures in 2009 (Global Financial Crisis, GFC) and 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic) only to snap back more or less on trend. The steadiness of the decline is remarkable given that these two decades saw two U.S. presidents who championed emissions reductions (Obama and Biden) and two who did not (Bush and Trump).

This raises a question: How much do U.S. presidents matter for the annual pace of emissions reductions?

To get a better sense of the answer to this question, let’s look at annual rates of changes in emissions, shown in the figure below.

The biggest year-on-year changes were the years of the GFC and COVID-19, and respective bounce backs in the years following. The overall growth rate is negative, which is why U.S. emissions have decreased since 2005. But of note, there is no trend at all in the rate of change in that decline. There is no evidence of an acceleration in emissions reductions, due to policy or anything else, and no such indication is expected in the data before 2026.

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

Banking on Surveillance: Republicans Investigate Major Banks’ Warrantless Data Sharing with Federal Agencies

April 30, 2024

Banking on Surveillance: Republicans Investigate Major Banks’ Warrantless Data Sharing with Federal Agencies

Congressional inquiry into banks’ role in warrantless data surveillance following January 6 raises alarm over potential civil liberties violations and improper government collaboration.

Congressional Republicans are further investigating claims that at least 13 major US banks collaborated with federal agencies to monitor private transactions for signs of “extremism” following the January 6 Capitol events. The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Republican Jim Jordan from Ohio, is delving further into the alleged cooperation between these financial institutions and federal agencies without proper warrants.

These banks, including Bank of America, Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, and more, are among those scrutinized for their roles in the reported surveillance. We previously reported about how Bank of America was found to be handing over data of everyone in the area during the events of January 6, whether they were suspect or not – and whether they had a warrant or not. But now, investigations suggest that the transfer of data was more systematic, potentially involving multiple financial institutions and the Biden administration itself.

Read an example of the letter sent to a bank here.

Already-uncovered information suggests that the Biden administration worked with banks to identify potential “extremism” by monitoring certain purchases such as religious texts like the Bible, or by flagging searches that included terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP.”

According to the House Judiciary Committee, the probe has now expanded to include additional financial firms: Charles Schwab, HSBC, MUFG, PayPal, Santander, Standard Chartered, and Western Union. Letters sent to these institutions by the committee request documentation and communications with FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) and the FBI to further investigate potential warrantless surveillance.

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

WEF Report Supports CBDC and Digital ID, Urges Public-Private Collaboration in Finance

April 30, 2024

WEF Report Supports CBDC and Digital ID, Urges Public-Private Collaboration in Finance

WEF’s ambiguous stance on digital currencies raises eyebrows, suggesting a veiled push for CBDCs under the guise of collaboration.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is clearly championing the introduction not only of (retail) central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for the general public but also the wholesale version, wCBDC, geared toward interbank payments and securities transactions.

It is not uncommon to come across leading financial institutions and banks linking to WEF reports while explaining and promoting their own activities in this space.

And yet, a new WEF report (a collaborative effort with Accenture) titled, “Modernizing Financial Markets with Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (wCBDC),” states that the group does not actually explicitly “advocate” for issuance of wCBDCs.

(Nonetheless, the same report, “a critical analysis,” at one point in fact states that it “advocates for collaboration among central banks, commercial banks and financial market infrastructures to use wCBDC to address interbank payment and securities transaction challenges.”)

The WEF, an informal group gathering global elites, seems aware that CDBCs, in general, are a controversial proposition, and may be trying to control the optics regarding the depth of its involvement, since it doesn’t necessarily help elected national governments if WEF is seen as the main driving force behind the schemes.

However, the WEF also obviously again trying to position itself at the center of incoming policies: “This report offers timely insights for public and private sector leaders evaluating the potential role of wCBDC in their jurisdictions,” it reads.

Either way, WEF has for a while now evidently been taking the lead in crafting a template of sorts for policies that will allow mass adoption of (w) CBDCs around the world.

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

Let’s Talk About the Moon: Was Apollo 11 a Hoax?

April 29, 2024

Let’s Talk About the Moon: Was Apollo 11 a Hoax?

The night that Neil Armstrong was one small step for (a) man from the lunar surface I was taking my first airplane flight to a hockey camp near Toronto. I remember gazing out the window of the jet as a fourteen year old in July 1969 and imagining the Apollo craft on its impossible and miraculous journey to the very moon which I and countless others had marveled at and regarded as forever out of reach.

Yet reach it we did — we being the all-powerful United States of America, then simultaneously wielding its might in the jungles of a faraway country with perverse ferocity and with the sacrifice of American youngsters in the service of the hazy ideal of protection against Communism.

For many years, while cognizant of the endless warpath trodden by the country of my birth AFTER it had emerged as the glowing victor of World War II, bursting with economic and creative energy and bestriding the rest of the globe as the Colossus, I consoled myself and others with that magnificent and scarcely imaginable achievement of lunar landings.

Placing a man on the moon, that pure and nearly snow-white surface as far removed from the heat and grime of the napalmed Vietnamese jungles, somehow unified humanity in praise and deference, and established the United States as the artificer of miracles. In so doing it also lent a burnished sheen of intimidating and awe-inspiring power to an America whose tradition of can-do individualism was seen to have vanquished its socialistic rival, Russia.

The eyes of humankind for as long as it has trodden this precious Earth have looked heavenward and followed the glowing and bright and changeable Moon with a plethora of dreams and wishes and sighs…

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

The Dark Origins of the Davos’ Great Reset

April 29, 2024

The Dark Origins of the Davos’ Great Reset

Important to understand is that there is not one single new or original idea in Klaus Schwab’s so-called Great Reset agenda for the world. Nor is his Fourth Industrial Revolution agenda his or his claim to having invented the notion of Stakeholder Capitalism a product of Schwab.

Klaus Schwab is little more than a slick PR agent for a global technocratic agenda, a corporatist unity of corporate power with government, including the UN, an agenda whose origins go back to the beginning of the 1970s, and even earlier. The Davos Great reset is merely an updated blueprint for a global dystopian dictatorship under UN control that has been decades in development. The key actors were David Rockefeller and his protégé, Maurice Strong.

In the beginning of the 1970s, there was arguably no one person more influential in world politics than the late David Rockefeller, then largely known as chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank.

Creating the new paradigm

At the end of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, the international circles directly tied to David Rockefeller launched a dazzling array of elite organizations and think tanks. These included

The Club of Rome;

the 1001: A Nature Trust, tied to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF);

the Stockholm United Nations Earth Day conference;

the MIT-authored study, Limits to Growth;

and David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission.

Club of Rome

In 1968 David Rockefeller founded a neo-Malthusian think tank, The Club of Rome, along with Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King. Aurelio Peccei, was a senior manager of the Fiat car company, owned by the powerful Italian Agnelli family…

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

Notes from the edge of civilization: Apr. 28, 2024

April 29, 2024

Notes from the edge of civilization: Apr. 28, 2024

No one wants EVs, but governments keep subsidizing them; Canada’s economy is being zombified; Education — higher and otherwise — is still woke, but not awake; and, cursive as cure.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: Even Ford’s own marketing materials admit that EVs are a product “drivers really want… but just don’t know it yet.”

Last week Ford announced its electric vehicle (EV) division, known as Model e, lost $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024. That translates to a loss of $132,000 per vehicle for the 10,000 units the company managed to sell. Ford anticipates the losses will continue to mount for the rest of the year, with a projected annual loss of $5 billion.

The world’s largest EV maker, Tesla, is also hemorrhaging profits. The company’s adjusted earnings for the first quarter fell by 48%, underperforming even the lowered expectations set by most Wall Street analysts.

But governments are still pouring in massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to subsidize a product that consumers don’t want to buy.

On Thursday, Canada announced a $5 billion corporate welfare package for Honda to build an EV battery plant and manufacture EVs in Ontario. When Justin Trudeau released a video about the new deal on X over the weekend, the comments were not kind:

DeTocqueville14: You bribing Honda with money stolen from taxpayers isn’t them betting on you.

govt_corrupt: Justin Trudeau bribes Honda. Buys 1k jobs for $5B and bets on an industry with declining sales and rising inventories. Govt ‘investing’ at its finest…

jpkiekens: 5 million $ per job subsidy for an industry plagued with a huge oversupply of vehicles and with insufficient electric energy supply in most provinces. Bravo. It’s genuine theatre. But a very bad play.

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

Brazil’s AG and Supreme Court Reportedly Consider Shutting Down Access To X

April 28, 2024

Brazil’s AG and Supreme Court Reportedly Consider Shutting Down Access To X

Brazil’s Attorney General and Supreme Federal Court are exploring drastic measures after getting called out for censorship demands.

According to reports out of Brazil, the country’s attorney general, Jorge Messias, and the Supreme Federal Court (STF) are trying to find a way to shut down X in that country.

The Gazeta do Povo newspaper says that it has had exclusive access to a 10-page document that Messias earlier this week sent to Alexandre de Moraes, an STF justice and president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), asking STF to suspend or completely shut down X, if there is proof that the company “prejudiced” STF and TSE investigations.

Messias also wants Moraes to share with his office any evidence from the ongoing investigation into X owner Elon Musk’s conduct, who is suspected of “obstruction of justice.”

And now a new, internal probe is being prepared by the attorney general regarding the alleged leak of confidential information from investigations conducted by Moraes, published as part of the Twitter Files.

This information, the newspaper said, concerns pressure exerted on X executives to censor accounts belonging to Brazilians. It was to support this investigation that Messias requested more evidence from Moraes.

Now, the X executives are considered to be criminally liable, while Messias thinks X’s Brazil branch, X Brasil Internet, should be treated as an entity involved in a harmful act “hindering the investigation or supervision of public bodies, entities or agents, or intervening in their activities.”

If proven, the fine would amount to 20% of revenue, however, Messias told Moraes that the punishment could be made much more severe. The AG then proceeded to quote the opinion of an internal department with his own office, that said a law would allow the authorities to go as far as suspend X or dissolve the local company.

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

It’s All Chemistry, Isn’t It?

April 28, 2024

It’s All Chemistry, Isn’t It?

This is #29 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk, hike, and explore in my local community.

Chart above is my own invention, having studied the various chemicals that scientists believe are involved in feelings of intense love.
The title of this post is a quote attributed to Jimi Hendrix, when he was asked in an interview to explain the special chemistry he had with his audiences.

It’s impossible not to look at them. They are possessed, so utterly consumed by the flood of chemicals feeding off each other that they are oblivious to everyone else in the café. Their feral passion for each other is at once riveting and disconcerting. A man noticing their antics looks disapprovingly. A woman looks at them with a torn expression, a mixture of what might be dismay and (perhaps nostalgic) envy…

… But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Back to this couple in a moment.

This body has taken me for a walk, today, to the nearby lake. It’s a rare sunny spring day here on the temperate rainforest coast, and there are lots of people about.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot about bonobos and chimps, our cousins from which we separated evolutionarily about six million years ago, and with whom we still share almost 99% of our DNA. As Robert Sapolsky discovered with his suddenly-matriarchal and peaceful baboon troupe, the rather extraordinary differences in behaviour between chimps and bonobos in the wild (most people can’t tell them apart) are not biologically, but culturally conditioned. Chimps and gorillas evolved on the north side of the Congo river; bonobos on the south side. The river was too wide for the species to cross…

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

The Vast Pharmaceutical Conspiracy to Silence Online Dissent

April 28, 2024

The Vast Pharmaceutical Conspiracy to Silence Online Dissent

Millions of dollars were spent to weaponize the public against all of us

Story at a Glance:
•There has been a coordinated campaign to attack and defame anyone who has spoken out against the COVID-19 response. This has primarily been restricted to social media (e.g., getting people deplatformed) but it has also been weaponized in real life (e.g., getting medical licenses revoked).

•This coordinated campaign was the result of a “non-profit” known as The Public Good Project (PGP), which was actually directly linked to the pharmaceutical industry. The PGP used the industry funding it received to defend industry interests.

•Vaccine safety advocates were able to get into the group where these campaigns were coordinated. There, they discovered numerous public figures working hand in hand with healthcare workers to descend like a hive of bees on anyone “promoting misinformation.” Likewise, we learned that the most belligerent doctors we keep encountering on Twitter belonged to these groups.

•Some of the influencers advancing PGP’s message through “Shots Heard” (and its sister United Nations initiative “Team Halo”) were hucksters who faked their own credentials. My overall impression from looking at everything was that this group operated in a very similar manner to many of the sleazy internet marketing operations I’ve seen in the past. Fortunately, the public appears to be seeing through what they did.

Almost any viewpoint can be “proven” using the “correct” evidence and logic. Purely as a challenge, I’ve successfully done this in the past with beliefs I consider to be abhorrent and completely disagree with…

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

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