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Media Lies & the Sacred Rites of the Vaccine CultThe coverage Szilveszter Csollany’s death shows you being called an “anti-vaxxer” is more about what you think, than what you do.

Media Lies & the Sacred Rites of the Vaccine CultThe coverage Szilveszter Csollany’s death shows you being called an “anti-vaxxer” is more about what you think, than what you do.

The Independent has put out an early (and strong) entry for “Worst Journalism of the Year” award, reporting yesterday the death of Hungarian gymnastics coach Szilveszter Csollany under the headline:

Anti-vax Olympic gold medalist Szilveszter Csollany dies of Covid, aged 51

The glaring issue with this headline becomes clear just three paragraphs into the article [our emphasis]:

While Csollany had, according to [Hungarian newspaper Blikk], expressed anti-vaccination views on social media, the six-time World Championship medallist had been vaccinated to allow him to continue to work as a gymnastics coach.

The journalism is terrible, criminally bad.

The evidence supplied for Csollany’s supposed “anti-vaccination views” is non-existent. Second-hand hearsay, at best. No direct quotations, no sources provided.

OffGuardian would be ashamed to publish something so flimsy. Any outlet should.

But, of course, that isn’t the most egregious part – as you can tell from our emphasised quote – the supposed “anti-vaxxer” had been vaccinated.

To bury that in the body, under that headline, is deliberate deception. They know many people will read the title and assume he hadn’t had the vaccine without ever reading the body of the text, and they are relying on that to spread an intentionally false impression.

The very definition of disinformation.

After deliberately misrepresenting the man’s life, they proceed to do the same to his death. Not even granting him the respect of an honest appraisal of his last weeks alive, they totally ignore all the relevant questions pertaining to the man’s health.

They never question why a previously healthy 51-year-old would ever need to be put on a ventilator, or consider how ventilator-associated pneumonia or ventilator-induced trauma may have contributed to his death.

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

EU can shut off power supplies if UK tries to seize control of fish stocks, small print of deal reveals

EU can shut off power supplies if UK tries to seize control of fish stocks, small print of deal reveals

Cables under Channel meet 8 per cent of demand – raising threat of higher prices and possible blackouts.

The EU has secured the ability to shut off gas and electricity supplies if the UK tries to seize control of disputed fish stocks in future, experts are warning.

The sanction – which would hike prices and possibly trigger blackouts – makes a mockery of the prime minister’s claim to have “taken control” of British waters in his trade agreement, they say.

The little-noticed clause in the vast 1,255-page text allows Brussels to kick the UK out of its electricity and gas markets in June 2026, unless a fresh deal is agreed.

The date set is – deliberately – the same as for the review of fishing rights, when Mr Johnson has insisted the UK will finally grab a large share of stocks, having failed to do that in his agreement.

The Institute for Government said Brussels had been determined to secure a connection “between energy and fish” in the negotiations that finally concluded on Christmas Eve.

“It seems that, in the weeds of the deal, they’ve succeeded,” Maddy Thimont Jack, the IfG’s associate director, told The Independent:

“By including annual negotiations on energy from 2026, it would be very easy to leverage access to the EU’s energy market in the annual talks on fish – also starting in 2026.

“This is just another reason why the UK will likely struggle to take back control of any more of its waters in the years to come.”

Losing power supplies could have a significant impact on the UK, which brings in about 8 per cent of its demand through huge power cables under the Channel.

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

 

Greenland’s largest glaciers nearing rates of melt expected in ‘worst-case scenario’

Greenland’s largest glaciers nearing rates of melt expected in ‘worst-case scenario’

Greenland’s three biggest glaciers added the equivalent of around 8mm to global sea levels from 1880 to 2012, study says

Photo of Jakobshavn Isbræ, one of Greenland’s largest glaciers
Photo of Jakobshavn Isbræ, one of Greenland’s largest glaciers
Greenland’s largest glaciers are currently melting at levels close to what scientists had previously expected under a future “worst-case scenario”, a study has found.

Using a combination of aerial photographs and field data, the study found that current rates of mass loss from Greenland’s three largest glaciers are higher than once thought.

The melting of these three glaciers added the equivalent of around 8mm to global sea levels from 1880 to 2012, according to the research.

Previous  had estimated that the same three glaciers would contribute 9-15mm to global sea levels by 2100 under a “worst-case scenario”.

The Greenland ice sheet is a mass of frozen freshwater sitting on the island of Greenland that is around 1.7m square kilometres in size. This is about three times the size of Texas.

As a result of climbing air and ocean temperatures, the ice sheet is losing mass each year. The loss of mass from Greenland’s glaciers is, in turn, causing sea levels to rise.

The research, published in , focuses on the “big three” glaciers in Greenland: Jakobshavn Isbræ, Kangerlussuaq Glacier and Helheim Glacier. These glaciers together hold enough ice to raise sea levels by around 1.3 metres, if they melted completely.

It found that the amount of sea level rise from the melting of these three glaciers is already nearing rates previously expected under a future “worst-case” scenario.

This suggests that, if the world were to see extremely high emissions in the coming decades, ice loss from Greenland’s glaciers would be considerably higher than previously projected, explains study author Prof Jonathan Bamber, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol.

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

UK growers warn of shortages of onions, potatoes and other vegetables after extreme weather decimates crops

Yields are down and sizes are down for many vegetables following challenging growing conditions. Onions have been hit particularly hard

Vegetable yields have fallen by as much as 50 per cent in some parts of the UK, following a year of extreme weather events.

Farmers have warned of the likelihood of shortages of major crops including potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, parsnips, cabbages and Brussels sprouts, with consumers and retailers expected to see biggest impacts in the new year.

The year began with the “Beast from the East”, which brought freezing weather to the UK in February, followed by an unusually wet spring that delayed planting. Then a record-breaking summer heatwave took its toll on growing crops.

British Growers Association chief executive Jack Ward said the conditions were “absolutely the antithesis of what a plant needs to grow properly”, and said the industry was looking at an overall drop in yields of about 20 per cent.

But among certain producers the crop shortfall is much worse.

James Pearson, of Suffolk Produce, which grows about 10 per cent of the UK’s onions, and is also a major supplier of potatoes, carrots and parsnips, told The Independent their farms have seen yields fall by 50 per cent for onions, and by 20-30 per cent for potatoes.

He said: “The weather being so hot this summer has also caused a number of quality issues. So there are increased levels of bacteria.

“When crops were coming in we stuck a temperature probe into them and some were reading 40C.”

He added: “The stress this has put on the crops has not really been seen before and nobody really knows how well things are going to store.”

Mafia Expert Calls Great Britain the “Most Corrupt Place on Earth”

Mafia Expert Calls Great Britain the “Most Corrupt Place on Earth”

The City is a semi-offshore state, a bit like the UK’s crown dependencies and overseas territories, tax havens legitimized by the Privy Council. Britain’s financial secrecy undermines the tax base while providing a conduit into the legal economy for gangsters, kleptocrats and drug barons.

Even the more orthodox financial institutions deploy a succession of scandalous practices: pension mis-selling, endowment mortgage fraud, the payment protection insurance con, Libor rigging. A former minister in the last government, Lord Green, ran HSBC while it engaged in money laundering for drug gangs, systematic tax evasion and the provision of services to Saudi and Bangladeshi banks linked to the financing of terrorists. Sometimes the UK looks to me like an ever so civilised mafia state.

– From last year’s post: Guardian Op-Ed – The City of London Has Turned Britain Into a “Civilized Mafia State”

This shouldn’t come as any surprise to Liberty Blitzkrieg readers, but it’s a provocative statement nonetheless.

From The Independent:

Britain is the most corrupt country in the world, according to journalist Roberto Saviano, who spent more than a decade exposing the criminal dealings of the Italian Mafia.

Mr Saviano, who wrote the best-selling exposés Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero, made the comments at the Hay Literary Festival. The 36-year-old has been living under police protection since publishing revelations about members of the Camorra, a powerful Neapolitan branch of the mafia, in 2006.

He told an audience at Hay-on-Wye: “If I asked you what is the most corrupt place on Earth you might tell me well it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the South of Italy and I will tell you it’s the UK.

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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