Russia-China entente deepens in the shadow of the pandemic
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | May 2, 2020
The Russian-Chinese entente emerged as one of the most significant templates of international politics in the recent period since the hugely consequential developments in Ukraine in 2014 that led to western sanctions against Moscow, which in turn galvanised the latter’s ‘pivot to Asia’.
Of late, this entente, which falls short of a formal alliance, assumes prominence, given the shift under way in regional and global alignments triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The world economy faces recession and the US is threatened by a crisis unmatched since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is soaring past 30 million.
The decline of the US as a global power is accelerating. But the US refuses to come to terms with this geopolitical reality and is determined to perpetuate its domination of the global arena, no matter what it takes. China and Russia have been cast in the ‘enemy’ image. In the short term at least, tensions will rise — in the US-China relations, in particular.
It was reported last week that the US is deploying missile defence systems near Russia’s borders with the potential to deliver a surprise nuclear strike. A Tass report quoted the First Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department Lt. Gen.Viktor Poznikhir as saying that the US has developed a concept of pre-launch interception and planned to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles of Russia, China and other countries while they are still in launchers.
Suffice to say, it is in the common interests of Russia and China that in their growing confrontation with the US, they stand by each other and support each other. There is every indication that US imperialism will assume an even more violent and oppressive character in the prevailing world situation.
The Russia-China entente is driven by their leaderships. Within the period of a month in March-April, there have been two telephone conversations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the pandemic and its ramifications as well as the imperative need to jointly face the ensuing challenges.
The Chinese readouts (here and here) underscored that Putin was critical of the “provocation and stigmatisation by some country” (read the US) and the “attempt by some to smear China on the question of the origin of the virus.” Putin affirmed that since the start of COVID-19, Russia and China have “stood in unity and extended mutual support, which is a testament to the strategic nature and high quality” of their relationship.
The mutual support Russia and China are extending to each other creates space for both to effectively push back at the US. Earlier this week on April 29, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman endorsed the concerns expressed by Moscow from time to time in recent years over the presence of Pentagon’s labs in the countries of the former Soviet Union for weaponising diseases. Moscow has cited a specific lab near Tbilisi in Georgia, even claiming intelligence regarding visits by senior Pentagon officials to the centre recently.
The Russians claim that there are 11 such labs in Ukraine developed by the Pentagon. They say when Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, they found out that in one such lab in Simferopol, which was apparently a hub for collecting materials and sending them to Europe, 104 pools of ectoparasites, 46 samples of internal organs of rodents and 105 samples of human blood serum were found ready for despatch.
Moscow alleges that these labs conduct study on dangerous diseases, targeting specific ethnic groups, and include projects that are banned within the US itself. On April 29, at a media briefing in Beijing, the Chinese spokesman said,
“We noted the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson’s remarks and related reports. The US established multiple biological laboratories in former USSR countries but kept its mouth shut regarding the labs’ functions, purposes and safety, causing deep concerns from local people and surrounding countries. As we know, some local people strongly demand the labs be closed. We hope the US will act in a responsible manner, heed the concerns from the international community, attach importance to local people’s health and safety, and take concrete measures to eliminate the doubts.”
As the legal successor of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited its status as a party to the Geneva Protocol and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1992. China too had acceded to the BWC in 1984. All Asian countries are signatories to the BWC. Interestingly, so is the US, which had ratified the protocol in 1975.
Now, the US Government has not officially accused China of intentionally developing the COVID-19 as a biological weapon, while Trump keeps talking in innuendos. According to the assessment of the US intelligence, the virus was not man-made or genetically modified. But Trump claims he has seen evidence suggesting the novel coronavirus originated in a virology lab in Wuhan — although he couldn’t provide any evidence to support that claim.
China has reacted strongly to Trump’s jabs while Russia has been supportive of the Chinese stance. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently spoke derisively about the talk in some European countries demanding compensation from Beijing for “failing to timely inform the world community” — and by Trump himself saying similar US claims would be “much bigger than hundreds of billions US dollars.”
Indeed, this may become serious stuff if Trump chooses to pursue a punitive strategy towards China. The Washington Post wrote on Thursday, “In private, Trump and aides have discussed stripping China of its ‘sovereign immunity,’ aiming to enable the U.S. government or victims to sue China for damages.”
For the present, Russia agrees with the Chinese perception that the Trump administration is ratcheting up the rhetoric over Covid-19 to draw public attention away from its incompetence in countering the pandemic. But Russian support becomes crucial for Beijing if push comes to shove with Trump in the coming months.
Up until now, neither Russia nor China has sought each other’s help while negotiating bilateral relations with the US. There is a paradigm shift taking place here, which becomes a leap of faith for both China and Russia as well as a qualitatively new phase in their entente, which has so far been focused on regional and global issues of common concern.
ICC Delivers a Blow to Israel’s Lobbying Efforts, Declares Jurisdiction over State of Palestine
Palestine Chronicle – May 1, 2020
Palestine is a state, and therefore the International Criminal Court (ICC) has legal jurisdiction to rule on alleged war crimes committed there, the ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reiterated on Thursday, April 30.
The statement was a firm response to intense lobbying efforts by Israel and its supporters, especially Germany, to delegitimize the proceeding altogether.
The 60-page document was entitled: A Response to the ‘Observations of Amici Curiae, Legal Representatives of Victims, and States’. (It can be read in full here).
“Once a state becomes a party to the Statute, the Court is automatically entitled to exercise jurisdiction over article 5 crimes committed on its territory” without any further “separate assessment” by organs of the Court as to the Statehood of the State Party,” the statement reads in part.
“Palestine’s viability as a State—and the exercise of the Palestinian people’s right to self determination—has been obstructed by the expansion of settlements and the construction of the barrier and its associated regime in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which have been found to violate international law,” the document also stated.
The ICC pre-trial chamber will now decide how to move forward with the investigation.
“The Prosecutor advanced quite compelling arguments and properly addressed those submissions which aimed at persuading the court not to move forward,” Dr. Triestino Mariniello, member of the Legal Team Representing Gaza Victims before the ICC, told The Palestine Chronicle.
Mariniello also told the Chronicle that although Bensouda’s “observations were compelling,” her decision to call on the pre-trial chamber was not a mandated legal procedure and “it only causes unnecessary delays.”
“Since Palestine submitted a referral to the court, the ICC had the power to open an investigation without asking the pre-trial chamber to rule on the matter,” he said.
“The victims we represent are worried about further delays. The victims are also worried about the so-called ‘narrow scope of investigation’, which is a de facto exclusion of crimes that were committed since 2015 against Palestinian civilians.”
Why Foreign Interventionism?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | Future of Freedom Foundation | May 1, 2020
What is the point of U.S. foreign interventionism?
Why are U.S. troops killing and dying in faraway countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia?
Why does the U.S. government have 165,000 troops stationed in more than 150 foreign countries?
Why is the U.S. government enforcing economic sanctions and embargoes against the people of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and other countries?
Why are U.S. officials waging trade wars against foreign nations?
Why do the CIA and the Pentagon assassinate foreigners?
Why are U.S. officials provoking conflicts with Iran and Venezuela?
Why is regime change a core feature of U.S. foreign policy?
Why do U.S. officials partner with tyrannical foreign regimes?
Why does the U.S. government tax hard-pressed American citizens in order to send money to foreign regimes, including dictatorial ones?
Why does the U.S. government initiate wars of aggression against countries that have never invaded or even threatened to invade the United States?
Why do U.S. officials spend taxpayer money on foreign interventionism?
Why do U.S. troops inflict death, suffering, and destruction in foreign lands?
What are U.S. troops dying for in faraway lands?
After all, let’s acknowledge the obvious: No nation-state is invading the United States. No nation-state has the money, resources, personnel, equipment, and supplies to cross the ocean and invade and conquer the United States. There is no possibility of an invasion and conquest of the U.S. by Canada or any Latin American country.
Therefore, what is the purpose of all that U.S. meddling in overseas countries? We don’t like foreign regimes meddling in American affairs. Why should U.S. officials be meddling in the affairs of other countries, especially when the meddling involves the infliction of death, suffering, and destruction?
Consider Switzerland. It doesn’t have troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan. It doesn’t send foreign aid to regimes. It doesn’t assassinate people. It doesn’t initiate wars of aggression against Third World countries. It just devotes itself entirely to defending Switzerland against an invasion. And no one ever jacks with the Swiss.
In fact, have you ever wondered why U.S. officials call the Department of Defense by that name? I can see why Switzerland would use such a name. But the U.S.? it seems to me that the more truthful name would be the Department of Foreign Interventionism.
The Swiss model of non-intervention was actually the founding foreign policy of the United States. This was reflected by John’s Quincy Adams’ profound Fourth of July, 1821, speech to Congress entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.” In that speech, Adams observed that if America were ever to abandon her founding foreign policy of non-intervention, “She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
In fact, that was one of the reasons why the Framers and our American ancestors had such a deep antipathy for what they called “standing armies,” by which they meant large, overgrown military-intelligence establishments, or what President Dwight Eisenhower would later label “the military-industrial complex,” or what we call today a “national-security state.” The Framers and our ancestors didn’t want a “standing army” large enough to engage in foreign interventionism.
Where to go from here? Isn’t the answer obvious?
This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
With apparently fabricated nuclear documents, Netanyahu pushed the US towards war with Iran
By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | April 29, 2020
President Donald Trump scrapped the nuclear deal with Iran and continued to risk war with Iran based on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim to have proven definitively that Iran was determined to manufacture nuclear weapons. Netanyahu not only spun Trump but much of the corporate media as well, duping them with the public unveiling of what he claimed was the entire secret Iranian “nuclear archive.”
In early April 2018, Netanyahu briefed Trump privately on the supposed Iranian nuclear archive and secured his promise to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That April 30, Netanyahu took the briefing to the public in a characteristically dramatic live performance in which he claimed Israel’s Mossad intelligence services had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” Netanyahu declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.”
However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself.
According to the official Israeli version of events, the Iranians had gathered the nuclear documents from various locations and moved them to what Netanyahu himself described as “a dilapidated warehouse” in southern Tehran. Even assuming that Iran had secret documents demonstrating the development of nuclear weapons, the claim that top secret documents would be held in a nondescript and unguarded warehouse in Central Tehran is so unlikely that it should have raised immediate alarm bells about the story’s legitimacy.
Even more problematic was the claim by a Mossad official to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman that Mossad knew not only in what warehouse its commandos would find the documents but precisely which safes to break into with a blowtorch. The official told Bergman the Mossad team had been guided by an intelligence asset to the few safes in the warehouse which contained the binders with the most important documents. Netanyahu bragged publicly that “very few” Iranians knew the location of the archive; the Mossad official told Bergman “only a handful of people” knew.
But two former senior CIA official, both of whom had served as the agency’s top Middle East analyst, dismissed Netanyahu’s claims as lacking credibility in responses to a query from The Grayzone.
According to Paul Pillar, who was National Intelligence Officer for the region from 2001 to 2005, “Any source on the inside of the Iranian national security apparatus would be extremely valuable in Israeli eyes, and Israeli deliberations about the handling of that source’s information presumably would be biased in favor long-term protection of the source.” The Israeli story of how its spies located the documents “does seem fishy,” Pillar said, especially considering Israel’s obvious effort to derive maximum “political-diplomatic mileage” out of the “supposed revelation” of such a well-placed source.
Graham Fuller, a 27-year veteran of the CIA who served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia as well as Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, offered a similar assessment of the Israeli claim. “If the Israelis had such a sensitive source in Tehran,” Fuller commented, “they would not want to risk him.” Fuller concluded that the Israelis’ claim that they had accurate knowledge of which safes to crack is “dubious, and the whole thing may be somewhat fabricated.”
No proof of authenticity
Netanyahu’s April 30 slide show presented a series of purported Iranian documents containing sensational revelations that he pointed to as proof of his insistence that Iran had lied about its interest in manufacturing nuclear weapons. The visual aides included a file supposedly dating back to early 2000 or before that detailed various ways to achieve a plan to build five nuclear weapons by mid-2003.
Another document that generated widespread media interest was an alleged report on a discussion among leading Iranian scientists of a purported mid-2003 decision by Iran’s Defense Minister to separate an existing secret nuclear weapons program into overt and covert parts.
Left out of the media coverage of these “nuclear archive” documents was a simple fact that was highly inconvenient to Netanyahu: nothing about them offered a scintilla of evidence that they were genuine. For example, not one contained the official markings of the relevant Iranian agency.
Tariq Rauf, who was head of the Verification and Security Policy Coordination Office at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2001 to 2011, told The Grayzone that these markings were practically ubiquitous on official Iranian files.
“Iran is a highly bureaucratized system,” Rauf explained. “Hence, one would expect a proper book-keeping system that would record incoming correspondence, with date received, action officer, department, circulation to additional relevant officials, proper letterhead, etc.”
But as Rauf noted, the “nuclear archive” documents that were published by the Washington Post bore no such evidence of Iranian government origin. Nor did they contain other markings to indicate their creation under the auspices of an Iranian government agency.
What those documents do have in common is the mark of a rubber stamp for a filing system showing numbers for a “record”, a “file” and a “ledger binder” — like the black binders that Netanyahu flashed to the cameras during his slideshow. But these could have easily been created by the Mossad and stamped on to the documents along with the appropriate Persian numbers.
Forensic confirmation of the documents’ authenticity would have required access to the original documents. But as Netanyahu noted in his April 30, 2018 slide show, the “original Iranian materials” were kept “in a very safe place” – implying that no one would be allowed to have any such access.
Withholding access to outside experts
In fact, even the most pro-Israeli visitors to Tel Aviv have been denied access to the original documents. David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security and Olli Heinonen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – both stalwart defenders of the official Israeli line on Iranian nuclear policy – reported in October 2018 that they had been given only a “slide deck” showing reproductions or excerpts of the documents.
When a team of six specialists from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs visited Israel in January 2019 for briefings on the archive, they too were offered only a cursory browse of the supposedly original documents. Harvard Professor Matthew Bunn recalled in an interview with this writer that the team had been shown one of the binders containing what were said to be original documents relating to Iran’s relations with the IAEA and had “paged through a bit of it.”
But they were shown no documents on Iran nuclear weapons work. As Bunn admitted, “We weren’t attempting to do any forensic analysis of these documents.”
Typically, it would be the job of the U.S. government and the IAEA to authenticate the documents. Oddly, the Belfer Center delegation reported that the U.S. government and the IAEA had each received only copies of the entire archive, not the original files. And the Israelis were in no hurry to provide the genuine articles: the IAEA did not receive a complete set of documents until November 2019, according to Bunn.
By then, Netanyahu had not only already accomplished the demolition of the Iran nuclear deal; he and Trump’s ferociously hawkish CIA-director Mike Pompeo had maneuvered the president into a policy of imminent confrontation with Tehran.
The second coming of fake missile drawings
Among the documents Netanyahu flashed on the screen in his April 30, 2018 slide show was a schematic drawing of the missile reentry vehicle of an Iranian Shahab-3 missile, showing what was obviously supposed to represent a nuclear weapon inside.
Technical drawing from David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker’s “Breaking Up and Reorienting Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” published by the Institute for Science and International Security on October 28, 2018.
This drawing was part of a set of eighteen technical drawings of the Shahab-3 reentry vehicle. These were found in a collection of documents secured over the course of several years between the Bush II and Obama administrations by an Iranian spy working for Germany’s BND intelligence service. Or so the Israeli official story went.
In 2013, however, a former senior German Foreign Office official named Karsten Voigt revealed to this writer that the documents had been initially provided to German intelligence by a member of the Mujaheddin E-Khalq (MEK).
The MEK is an exiled Iranian armed opposition organization that had operated under Saddam Hussein’s regime as a proxy against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. It went on to cooperate with the Israeli Mossad beginning in the 1990s, and enjoys a close relationship with Saudi Arabia as well. Today, numerous former US officials are on the MEK’s payroll, acting as de facto lobbyists for regime change in Iran.
Voigt recalled how senior BND officials warned him they did not consider the MEK source or the materials he provided to be credible. They were worried that the Bush administration intended to use the dodgy documents to justify an attack on Iran, just as it exploited the tall tales collected from Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball” to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
As this writer first reported in 2010, the appearance of the “dunce-cap” shape of the Shahab-3 reentry vehicle in the drawings was a tell-tale sign that the documents were fabricated. Whoever drew those schematic images in 2003 was clearly under the false impression that Iran was relying on the Shahab-3 as its main deterrent force. After all, Iran had announced publicly in 2001 that the Shahab-3 was going into “serial production” and in 2003 that it was “operational.”
But those official claims by Iran were a ruse aimed primarily at deceiving Israel, which had threatened air attacks on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. In fact, Iran’s Defense Ministry was aware that the Shahab-3 did not have sufficient range to reach Israel.
According to Michael Elleman, the author of the most definitive account of the Iranian missile program, as early as 2000, Iran’s Defense Ministry had begun developing an improved version of the Shahab-3 with a reentry vehicle boasting a far more aerodynamic “triconic baby bottle” shape – not the “dunce-cap” of the original.
As Elleman told this writer, however, foreign intelligence agencies remained unaware of the new and improved Shahab missile with a very different shape until it took its first flight test in August 2004. Among the agencies kept in the dark about the new design was Israel’s Mossad. That explains why the false documents on redesigning the Shahab-3 – the earliest dates of which were in 2002, according to an unpublished internal IAEA document – showed a reentry vehicle design that Iran had already discarded.
The role of the MEK in passing the massive tranche of supposed secret Iranian nuclear documents to the BND and its hand-in-glove relationship with the Mossad leaves little room for doubt that the documents introduced to Western intelligence 2004 were, in fact, created by the Mossad.
For the Mossad, the MEK was a convenient unit for outsourcing negative press about Iran which it did not want attributed directly to Israeli intelligence. To enhance the MEK’S credibility in the eyes foreign media and intelligence agencies, Mossad passed the coordinates of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility to the MEK in 2002. Later, it provided to the MEK personal information such as the passport number and home telephone number of Iranian physics professor Mohsen Fakhrizadh, whose name appeared in the nuclear documents, according to the co-authors of a best-selling Israeli book on the Mossad’s covert operations.
By trotting out the same discredited technical drawing depicting the wrong Iranian missile reentry vehicle – a trick he had previously deployed to create the original case for accusing Iran of covert nuclear weapons development – the Israeli prime minister showed how confident he was in his ability to hoodwink Washington and the Western corporate media.
Netanyahu’s multiple levels of deception have been remarkably successful, despite having relied on crude stunts that any diligent news organization should have seen through. Through his manipulation of foreign governments and media, he has been able to maneuver Donald Trump and the United States into a dangerous process of confrontation that has brought the US to the precipice of military conflict with Iran.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012. His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.
Censorship Continues. Facebook Permanently Deleted SouthFront’s Page
SouthFront | April 30, 2020
SouthFront once again has become a target of corporate censorship. On April 30, Facebook permanently deleted our page (LINK) with about 100,000 followers.
This is not the first time that SouthFront has become a target of a technical and propaganda pressure campaign. On April 9, Facebook placed limits on SouthFront’s page claiming that its activities “don’t comply with Facebook’s policies.” (LINK)
On July 21, 2015, Facebook deleted our previous page used to inform people about the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Syria and other key developments around the world. (LINK)
The motivation in 2015 of US intelligence, and Facebook as a tool of US special services, when the situation in eastern Ukraine was especially tense, is clear. However, the current move raises many more questions.
It is likely Facebook was triggered by SouthFront’s video released on April 29. Entitled “SpaceX: Camel’s Nose under the Tent of Space Militarization”, it covers key aspects of the international situation and the US security strategy. With facts and examples, the video highlights the point of view that supposedly “private” global corporations based in the US are first of all the tools of, likely, the ‘neo-liberal’ part of the US establishment.
Another article that may have scared Facebook censors is “Leaked Video Reveals Pentagon Briefing On Development Of Vaccine To Modify Human Behavior”. This article was released on April 28 and objectively covered the background of the circulating video and questions the authenticity of claims that it shows Bill Gates. If this post became the reason of SouthFront’s ban on Facebook, this will mean that the leaked video poses an exceptional threat to a part of the US establishment.
In the meantime, SouthFront is facing an increasing media pressure. Recently, Deutsche Welle and several other mainstream media outlets released articles alleging that SouthFront is spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak. An interesting fact is that Deutsche Welle appeared to be unable to answer to SouthFront’s official email regarding its accusations against our organization. (LINK)
The Unz Review Suddenly Banned by Facebook!
By Ron Unz • Unz Review • May 1, 2020
My morning newspapers had recently mentioned Facebook’s plans to crack down on misinformation related to our ongoing Covid-19 epidemic, and probably like most other readers I just nodded my head. After all, many Americans might die if cranks or pranksters began promoting highly dubious cures to the deadly disease, perhaps even suggesting that people should inject themselves with Lysol to ward off an infection.
However, those bland public statements took on an entirely different meaning yesterday afternoon when I discovered that all material from The Unz Review had suddenly been banned for alleged violations of “community standards” and our own Facebook page eliminated.
I don’t use Social Media much myself, but others obviously do, and blocking all our website content from access to the 1.7 billion Facebook users seems a pretty drastic step. So it’s quite reasonable to wonder why, and especially why now?
From the very first, the motto of our publication has been A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media, and I think we have fulfilled that pledge, publishing many thousands of articles and posts on an enormous range of extraordinarily controversial and even forbidden topics, notably including my own American Pravda series.
Under such circumstances, being banned by Facebook might hardly seem surprising. However, many of our most extremely controversial pieces were published years ago, drawing angry denunciations from various quarters, but received with apparent equanimity from the Lords of the Social Network. Nearly all of the “touchy” pieces we published in the last couple of weeks seem no more “touchy” than the ones from a year or two years or even three years ago. So what suddenly sparked this unprecedented action?
Although I can’t be sure, I strongly suspect that the triggering event was my own most recent American Pravda article, dealing as it did with the Coronavirus epidemic, the supposed focus of Facebook’s current crackdown. And this piece not only accumulated more early readership than any of my previous articles here, but also two or three times as many Facebook Likes, which might have raised serious concerns in certain quarters.
My previous American Pravda articles have hardly been bland, but disputing the established narrative of the JFK Assassination or World War II might be regarded as mere intellectual exercises, having little practical impact. By contrast, tens of thousands of Americans have already died from the Coronavirus outbreak while our economy has been wrecked. So raising troubling questions about the origins of this gigantic national disaster might be regarded as just too problematical to be allowed distribution on Facebook.
American Pravda: Our Coronavirus Catastrophe as Biowarfare Blowback? was the title of my 7,400 word essay, and I answered that explosive query in the closing section:
Last month, a team of five WSJ reporters produced a very detailed and thorough 4,400 word analysis of the same period, and the NYT has published a helpful timeline of those early events as well. Although there may be some differences of emphasis or minor disagreements, all these American media sources agree that Chinese officials first became aware of the serious viral outbreak in Wuhan in early to mid-January, with the first known death occurring on Jan. 11th, and finally implemented major new public health measures later that same month. No one has apparently disputed these basic facts.
But with the horrific consequences of our own later governmental inaction being obvious, elements within our intelligence agencies have sought to demonstrate that they were not the ones asleep at the switch. Earlier this month, an ABC News story cited four separate government sources to reveal that as far back as late November, a special medical intelligence unit within our Defense Intelligence Agency had produced a report warning that an out-of-control disease epidemic was occurring in the Wuhan area of China, and widely distributed that document throughout the top ranks of our government, warning that steps should be taken to protect US forces based in Asia. After the story aired, a Pentagon spokesman officially denied the existence of that November report, while various other top level government and intelligence officials refused to comment. But a few days later, Israeli television mentioned that in November American intelligence had indeed shared such a report on the Wuhan disease outbreak with its NATO and Israeli allies, thus seeming to independently confirm the complete accuracy of the original ABC News story and its several government sources.
It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. Unless our intelligence agencies have pioneered the technology of precognition, I think this may have happened for the same reason that arsonists have the earliest knowledge of future fires.
Back in February, before a single American had died from the disease, I wrote my own overview of the possible course of events, and I would still stand by it today:
Consider a particularly ironic outcome of this situation, not particularly likely but certainly possible…
Everyone knows that America’s ruling elites are criminal, crazy, and also extremely incompetent.
So perhaps the coronavirus outbreak was indeed a deliberate biowarfare attack against China, hitting that nation just before Lunar New Year, the worst possible time to produce a permanent nationwide pandemic. However, the PRC responded with remarkable speed and efficiency, implementing by far the largest quarantine in human history, and the deadly disease now seems to be in decline there.
Meanwhile, the disease naturally leaks back into the US, and despite all the advance warning, our totally incompetent government mismanages the situation, producing a huge national health disaster, and the collapse of our economy and decrepit political system.
As I said, not particularly likely, but certainly a very fitting end to the American Empire…
The spread of these simple ideas on Social Media might have dramatic political consequences, so I can easily understand why certain elements would take strong steps to prevent this.
Greater Manchester Police ask residents to call police if someone repeats conspiracy theories
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | April 28, 2020
The erosion of civil liberties is being fast-tracked.
Asking people to call the police on family engaging in “conspiracy theories” is an idea that sounds like it comes out of China’s social credit system.
But it’s not. It’s happening in the United Kingdom.
Police in Manchester, England, are engaging in a social media campaign, requesting local residents to call police if any of their friends and family are engaging in “conspiracy theories.”
“Online platforms can be a fun world. Unfortunately, they can also be used to exploit vulnerable people. If you are worried that one of your friends or family is showing signs of radicalisation seek advice or call police on 101,” Greater Manchester Police said on Facebook. (Archive)
101 is the non-emergency number to contact local police in the UK.
In a time when civil liberties are becoming strained and social platforms are taking an extreme approach to stamping out “conspiracy theories,” public skepticism is rapidly increasing – and Greater Manchester Police’s statements are only appearing to exacerbate that.
If you ever had any doubt that the public isn’t aware of the Orwellian direction things are going in, you’d only have to look to the comments:
“How ironic that it was people accused of being ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in the past that actually warned us a totalitarian police state would come and here it is,” replied Paul Nolan Jones.
“Do not think for yourself, do not question what you are told, trust nothing but what the government tell you and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES discuss alternative theories that concern YOUR life and that of YOUR loved ones. If anyone was in any doubt about the totalitarian police state path we are being led down atm, I suggest that you have a really good think about the above police statement,” said Emma Wells.
“Did you guys actually do any proper police training when you signed up or were you handed a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 to memorise instead? – THE THOUGHT POLICE are alive and well in 2020. Do you realise what you’re doing to society if you’re implementing action taken on the above?!,” said Charlotte Binns.
Update – April 30: In light of the Greater Manchester Police deleting the post to avoid criticism, this post has been updated with the screenshots of the comments that were featured in this article, and an archived version has been added for historical purposes.
Asymptomatic Spreaders, Typhoid Mary, SARS, MERS and COVID
By Christopher Brett – Fossils of Lanark – April 30, 2020
“The next pandemic virus will be present in Canada within 3 months after it emerges in another part of the world, but it could be much sooner because of the volume and speed of global air travel. … Given the increase, different patterns and speed of modern travel, a new virus once arriving in Canada could spread quickly in multiple directions throughout the country. … The first peak of illness in Canada could occur within 2 to 4 months after the virus arrives in Canada. The first peak in mortality is expected to be approximately 1 month after the peak in illness.”
The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector, 2006
Dr. Theresa Tam and Karen Grimsrud, Co-Chairs
At the beginning of February I was surprised by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assertions that it was safe to continue to fly to China, that we would only be testing those who self-reported symptoms, and that his plan for testing was science based. I was also surprised that Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam asserted that there was no risk from asymptomatic spreaders. It has come as no surprise to me that we have now closed our borders to China and most other countries, that we have stepped up our testing and begun contact tracing, and that studies have shown that asymptomatic spreading of COVID-19 is the norm.
I had six main reasons for objecting to Canada continuing passenger flights to China:
– First, we were the only country continuing to fly to China.
– Second, it was all over the news that by the time Wuhan was placed under quarantine over half the population of Wuhan had fled to other parts of China.
– Third, the virus had spread to many other parts of China, including most major cities, by February 1st
– Fourth, we were not testing people when they got on the planes in China for coronavirus, we were not testing the passengers when they disembarked from the planes, there were no penalties for breaking the quarantine, there no checks being made of the passengers to ensure that they were adhering to the quarantine, and there were no spot tests of the people coming from China. A few people arriving from China were advised to self-quarantine, but not everyone.
– Fifth, in November, 2014 during the Ebola crisis, Prime Minister Stephen Harper banned people from Ebola-stricken West Africa from traveling to Canada. As a consequence of his actions no Ebola case arose in Canada. The USA did not ban people from West Africa and confirmed a case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States in a man who traveled from West Africa to Dallas, Texas. That patient died. Earlier Saudi Arabia had announced a travel ban aimed at preventing Liberians, Sierra Leoneans and Guineans from visiting Islam’s holy sites. No Ebola case arose in Saudi Arabia.
– Sixth, a ban works.
My main concern with Dr. Theresa Tam’s assertion that there was no risk from asymptomatic spreaders is that I have been aware of Typhoid Mary for over fifty-five years as she was often mentioned in side bars and fillers in newspapers when I was young. Typhoid Mary is the poster child for asymptomatic spreaders. Her real name was Mary Mallon. She was employed as a cook in various households and kitchens in the New York area over the period from 1907 to 1915. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and is believed to have infected 51 people, at least three of whom died. (Some estimates put the death total at fifty.) Eventually she was arrested and put in quarantine to stop her working and spreading the disease. Interestingly, Marineli et al. (2013) mention that “By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi.”
Intriguingly there is a fair amount of information on diseases having been transmitted by asymptomatic carriers of diseases. In addition to typhoid, Wickipedia mentions C. difficile, influenzas, tuberculosis, and HIV. Transmission of diseases by asymptomatic carriers appears to be the norm, rather than the exception, for infectious diseases.
Dr. Theresa Tam stated that she followed and implemented The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector , 2006 (“Canada’s Pandemic Plan”), of which she was the co-author. If she had followed the plan she should have noticed that “Transmission by asymptomatic persons is possible but it is more efficient when symptoms, such as coughing, are present and viral shedding is high (i.e. early in symptomatic period).” and that the “potential for asymptomatic infection and spread from asymptomatic individuals greatly limits the effectiveness and feasibility of most traditional public health control measures.”
If she had done a bit of research Dr. Tan might also have located an article by Fraser et al. (2004) discussing factors that make an infectious disease outbreak controllable, in which they argue that “Direct estimation of the proportion of asymptomatic and presymptomatic infections is achievable by contact tracing and should be a priority during an outbreak of a novel infectious agent.” noting that “no confirmed cases of transmission from asymptomatic patients have been reported to date in detailed epidemiological analyses of clusters of SARS cases, which suggests that, for SARS, there is a period after symptoms develop during which people can be isolated before their infectiousness increases. Actions taken during this period to isolate or quarantine ill patients can effectively interrupt transmission.”
She might also have noted a paper by Myoung-don Oh et al. (2018) analyzing the 2015 MERS coronavirus outbreak in Korea in which they mention that “the potential for transmission from asymptomatic rRT-PCR positive individuals is still unknown. Therefore, asymptomatic [persons who test] positive for MERS-CoV should be isolated and should not return to work until two consecutive respiratory-tract samples test negative.”
Another paper that Dr. Tan might have located without much trouble is a 2018 report by the World Health Organization providing guidance for asymptomatic persons who test positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). She should have noted the paper in part because Katherine Defalco, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Canada contributed to the WHO’s report. In this report WHO state that the potential for transmission from asymptomatic positive MERS-CoV persons is currently unknown but still recommended that “asymptomatic RT-PCR positive persons should be isolated , followed up daily for development of any symptoms and tested at least weekly – or earlier, if symptoms develop – for MERS-CoV. The place of isolation (hospital or home) shall depend on the health – care system’s isolation bed capacity, its capacity to monitor asymptomatic RT- PCR positive persons daily outside a health-care setting, and the conditions of the household and its occupants.” WHO also recommended that “When providing home isolation of asymptomatic RT-PCR positive persons, the person and family should be provided with clear instructions on:
• adequate physical separation from potential householdor social contacts, especially those with risk conditions for severe MERS-CoV illness (e.g. separate room and toilet);
• having food in the room and avoid sharing food or being in the same room with others as much as possible;
• avoidance of visitors and travel; …
WHO also cautioned that “sometimes it is difficult to classify a case as ‘asymptomatic’ because although the person may not have any symptoms at the time of testing, he or she may develop illness during the course of infection.”
In contrast to WHO’s recommendations for asymptomatic MERS-CoV coronavirus persons, Canada did no testing to find asymptomatic COVID-19 coronavirus carriers. Instead we were told that they posed no threat, and that it was only those that developed symptoms who required testing. As noted above, recent studies have shown that asymptomatic spreading of COVID-19 is the norm. More importantly, Lai et al. (2020) report that “the transmission of COVID-19 through asymptomatic carriers via person-to-person contact was observed in many reports” citing reports published on the web by Rothe on January 30, 2020; by Liu on February 12, 2020; by Yu on February 18; and by Bai on February 21, 2020. Surprisingly, despite these warnings no effort was made in Canada in February or March to test for asymptomatic carriers. In fact, we still don’t test for asymptomatic carriers.
There have been further reports of asymptomatic spreading. On March 23 Qian et al. reported a COVID-19 family cluster in China caused by a presymptomatic case. On April 1st Wei et al, reported on an investigation of all 243 cases of COVID-19 reported in Singapore during January 23–March 16 and identified seven clusters of cases in which presymptomatic transmission is the most likely explanation for the occurrence of secondary cases. Ten of the cases within these clusters were attributed to presymptomatic transmission and accounted for 6.4% of the 157 locally acquired cases reported as of March 16.
Dr. Tam was on the CBC News the other night reporting that only ten cases in Canada could be traced to origins in China. However, we only tested those who self-reported symptoms. As we never tested for asymptomatic spreaders , we will never know how many asymptomatic spreaders from China (or other countries) were in Canada. Further, we have only traced a fraction of those who have developed the disease, and will only know that many people contracted the disease while in Canada, without knowing the source for their disease.
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References and Suggested Reading
Anonymous, 2003
Learning from SARS – Renewal of Public Health in Canada. A report of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health October 2003. 234 pages https://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/sars-sras/pdf/sars-e.pdf
Anonymous, 2020a
Asymptomatic carrier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptomatic_carrier
Anonymous, 2020b
Mary Mallon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon
Anonymous, 2020c
Subclinical infection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subclinical_infection#List_of_subclinical_infections
Y. Bai, L. Yao, T. Wei, F. Tian, D.Y. Jih, L. Chen, et al., 2020 Feb 21
Presumed asymptomatic carrier transmission of COVID-19
J Am Med Assoc (2020 Feb 21), 10.1001/jama.2020.2565
Filio Marineli, Gregory Tsoucalas, Marianna Karamanou, and George Androutsos, 2013
Mary Mallon (1869-1938) and the history of typhoid fever. Ann Gastroenterol. 2013; 26(2): 132–134. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3959940/
Fraser C, Riley S, Anderson R et al. 2004
Factors that make an infectious disease outbreak controllable. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2004;101(16):6146–51.
https://www.pnas.org/content/101/16/6146
Lai, Chih-Cheng; Liu, Yen Hung; Wang, Cheng-Yi; Wang, Ya-Hui; Hsueh, Shun-Chung; Yen, Muh-Yen; Ko, Wen-Chien; Hsueh, Po-Ren (2020-03-04).
Asymptomatic carrier state, acute respiratory disease, and pneumonia due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2): Facts and myths”. Journal of Microbiology, Immunology and Infection. doi:10.1016/j.jmii.2020.02.012. ISSN 1684-1182.
Y.C. Liu, C.H. Liao, C.F. Chang, C.C. Chou, Y.R. Lin , 2020 Feb 12
A locally transmitted case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Taiwan.
New England J Med (2020 Feb 12), 10.1056/NEJMc2001573
Myoung-don Oh, Wan Beom Park, Sang-Won Park, Pyoeng Gyun Choe, Ji Hwan Bang, Kyoung-Ho Song, Eu Suk Kim, Hong Bin Kim, and Nam Joong Kim, 2018
Middle East respiratory syndrome: what we learned from the 2015 outbreak in the Republic of Korea. Korean J Intern Med. 2018 Mar; 33(2): 233–246.
Published online 2018 Feb 27. doi: 10.3904/kjim.2018.031
Qian G, Yang N, Ma AHY, et al. Epub March 23, 2020
A COVID-19 Transmission within a family cluster by presymptomatic infectors in China. Clin Infect Dis 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32201889
C. Rothe, M. Schunk, P. Sothmann, G. Bretzel, G. Froeschl, C. Wallrauch, et al. (2020 Jan 30)
Transmission of 2019-nCoV infection from an asymptomatic contact in Germany
N Engl J Med, 10.1056/NEJMc2001468
Theresa Tam and Karen Grimsrud, Co-Chairs, 2006
The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector. Public Health Agency of Canada.
550 pages. https://www.longwoods.com/articles/images/Canada_Pandemic_Influenza.pdf
W. E. Wei; , Z. Li; C. J. Chiew, S. E. Yong, M. P. Toh, V. J. Lee, 2020, April 10& April 1
Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — Singapore, January 23–March 16, 2020
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 69(14);411–415. On April 1, 2020, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e1.htm
World Health Organization, 2018
Management of asymptomatic persons who are RT-PCR positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV): Interim guidance . 3 January 2018
WHO/MERS/IPC/15.2 Rev.1 Geneva:
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/180973/1/WHO_MERS_IPC_15.2_eng.pdf?ua=1&ua=1
P. Yu, J. Zhu, Z. Zhang, Y. Han, L. Huang, 2020 Feb 18
A familial cluster of infection associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating potential person-to-person transmission during the incubation period
J Infect Dis (2020 Feb 18), 10.1093/infdis/jiaa077
Peter Zimonjic, Rosemary Barton, Philip Ling, 2020
‘Was it perfect? No’: Theresa Tam discusses Canada’s early pandemic response. ‘Could we have done more at the time? You can retrospectively say yes,’ Canada’s top doctor says CBC News Posted: Apr 27, 2020
Hopefulness Despite 2.9 Billion Lost Birds
By Jim Steele | Watts Up With That? | May 1, 2020
What’s Natural
In 2019 bird researchers published Rosenberg et al “Decline of the North American Avifauna”, reporting a decline in 57% of the bird species. They estimated a net loss of nearly 2.9 billion birds since 1970, and urged us to remedy the threats, claiming all were “exacerbated by climate change”, and we must stave off the “potential collapse of the continental avifauna.” Months before publication the researchers had organized an extensive media campaign. Typical doomsday media like the New York Times piled on with “Birds Are Vanishing From North America” and Scientific American wrote, “Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished.”
As I have now been sheltering in place, I finally had ample time to thoroughly peruse Rosenberg’s study. I had a very personal interest in it, having professionally studied bird populations for over 20 years and had worked to restore their habitat. I also had conducted 20 years of surveys which were part of the study’s database. Carefully looking at their data, a far more optimistic perspective is needed. So here I join a chorus of other ecologists, as reported in Slate, that “There Is No Impending Bird Apocalypse”. As one ecologist wrote, it’s “not what’s really happening. I think it hurts the credibility of scientists.”
First consider since 1970 many species previously considered endangered such as pelicans, bald eagle, peregrine falcon, trumpeter swan, and whooping crane have been increasing due to enlightened management. Despite being hunted, ducks and geese increased by 54%. Secondly, just 12 of the 303 declining species account for the loss of 1.4 billion birds, and counterintuitively their decline is not worrisome.
Three introduced species – house sparrows, starlings and pigeons – account for nearly one half billion lost birds. These birds were pre-adapted to human habitat and are considered pests that carry disease and tarnish buildings and cars with their droppings. Across America, companies like Bird-B-Gone are hired to remove these foreign bird pests. Furthermore, starlings compete with native birds like bluebirds and flickers for nesting cavities, contributing to native bird declines. The removal of starlings is not an omen of an “avifauna collapse”, but good news for native birds.
When European colonists cleared forests to create pastures and farmland or provide wood for heating, open-habitat species “unnaturally” increased. Previously confined to the Great Plains, brown‑headed cowbirds quickly invaded the newly opened habitat. Unfortunately, cowbirds parasitize other species by laying its eggs in their nests. A cowbird hatchling then pushes out all other nestlings, killing the parasitized species’ next generation. The loss of 40 million cowbirds only benefits our “continental avifauna”.
Several bird species had evolved to colonize forest openings naturally produced by fire, or floods or high winds. Those species “unnaturally” boomed when 50% to 80% of northeastern United States became de-forested by 1900. Still, eastern trees will reclaim a forest opening within 20 years, so open habitat species require a constant supply of forest openings. However as marginal farms and pastures were abandoned, fires were suppressed and logging reduced, forests increasingly reclaimed those openings. With a 50% decline in forest openings, their bird species also declined; now approaching pre-colonial numbers. Accordingly, birds of the expanding forest interior like woodpeckers are now increasing.
White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos quickly colonize forest openings but then disappear within a few years as the forest recovers. Those 2 species alone accounted for the loss of another quarter of a billion birds; not because of an ecosystem collapse, but because forests were reclaiming human altered habitat. Nonetheless those species are still 400 million strong, and juncos remain abundant in the open habitat maintained by suburban back yards. If environmentalists want to reclaim the abundance of their boom years, they must manage forest openings with logging or prescribed burns.
Insect outbreaks also create forest openings. For hundreds of years forests across Canada and northeastern US have been decimated every few decades by spruce bud worm eruptions. So, forest managers now spray to limit further outbreaks. Today there are an estimated 111 million living Tennessee Warblers that have specialized to feed on spruce bud worms. But the warbler’s numbers have declined by 80 million because insect outbreaks are more controlled. Still they have never been threatened with extinction. Conservationists must determine what is a reasonable warbler abundance while still protecting forests from devastating insect infestations.
The grassland biome accounted for the greatest declines, about 700 million birds. Indeed, natural grasslands had been greatly reduced by centuries of expanding agriculture and grazing. But in recent times more efficient agriculture has allowed more land to revert to “natural” states. However fossil fuel fears reversed that trend. In 2005 federal fuel policies began instituting subsidies to encourage biofuel production. As a result, 17 million more acres of grassland have been converted to corn fields for ethanol since 2006.
Although still very abundant, just 3 species account for the loss of 400 million grassland birds: Horned Larks, Savannah Sparrows and Grasshopper Sparrows. Horned Larks alone accounted for 182 million fewer birds due to a loss of very short grass habitats with some bare ground. To increase their numbers, studies show more grazing, mowing or burning will increase their preferred habitat.
It must be emphasized that the reported cumulative loss of 2.9 billion birds since 1970, does not signify ecosystem collapses. But there are some legitimate concerns such as maintaining wetlands. And there are some serious human-caused problems we need to remedy to increase struggling bird populations. It is estimated that cats kill between 1 to 3 billion birds each year. Up to 1 billion birds each year die by crashing into the illusions created by window reflections. Collisions with cars and trucks likely kill 89 to 350 million birds a year. Instead of fearmongering ecosystem collapse, our avifauna would best be served by addressing those problems.
Questioning Bird Models
Population estimates for most land birds are based on data from the US Geological Surveys Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS). I conducted 2 BBS surveys on the Tahoe National Forest for 20 years. Each survey route consists of 50 stops, each a half‑mile apart. At each stop for a period of just 3 minutes, I would record all observed birds, the overwhelming majority of which are heard but not seen. Many birds can be missed in such a short time, but the BBS designers decided a 3-minute observation time allowed the day’s survey to cover more habitat. Each year on about the same date, the BBS survey was repeated.
Each BBS route surveys perhaps 1% the region’s landscape. To estimate each species’ population for the whole region, the survey’s observations are extrapolated and modeled. However, models rely on several assumptions and adjustments, and those assumptions can inflate final estimates. For example, in 2004 researchers estimated there were 6,500,000 Rufous Hummingbirds. By 2017, researchers estimated there were now 21,690,000. But that larger population cannot be deemed a conservation success. That tripling of abundance was mostly due to new adjustments.
Because singing males account for most observations, the number of observed birds is doubled to account for an unobserved female that is most likely nearby. Furthermore, it is assumed different species are more readily detected than others. The models assume that each stop will account for all the birds within a 400‑meter radius. Because a crow is readily detected over that distance, no adjustments are made to the number of observed crows. But hummingbirds are not so easily detected. The earlier surveys assumed a hummingbird could only be detected if it was within an 80‑meter radius. So, to standardize the observations to an area with a 400‑meter radius, observations were multiplied by 25. Recent survey models now assume hummingbirds can only be detected within 50 meters, so their observations are now adjusted by multiplying by 64.
Thus, depending on their detection adjustments, one real observation could generate 50 or 128 virtual hummingbirds. That number is further scaled up to account for the time‑of‑day effects and the likely number of birds in the region’s un-surveyed landscapes.
Setting aside assumptions about the regional homogeneity of birds’ habitat, one very real problem with these adjustments that has yet to be addressed. If one bird is no longer observed at a roadside stop, the model assumes that the other 127 virtual birds also died.
Survey routes are done along roadsides and up to 340 million birds are killed by vehicles each year. Many sparrows and warblers are ground nesters and will fly low to the ground. Many seed eating birds like finches will congregate along a roadside to ingest the small gravel needed to internally grind their seeds. Every year I watched a small flock of Evening Grosbeaks ingesting gravel from the shoulder of a country road, get picked off one by one by passing cars. Roadside vegetation often differs from off-road vegetation. Roads initially create openings that are suitable for one species but are gradually grown over during the lifetime of a survey to become unsuitable habitat. So, it should never be assumed that the loss of roadside observations represents a decline for the whole region.
The larger the models’ detectability adjustments are for a given species, the greater the probability that any declining trend in roadside observations will exaggerate a species population loss for the region. The greatest population losses were modeled for warblers and sparrows and most warbler and sparrow data are adjusted for detectability by multiplying actual observations 4 to 10-fold. It is worth reporting good news from recent studies in National Parks that used a much greater density of observation points and were not confined to roadsides. Their observation points were also much closer together and thus required fewer assumptions and adjustments. Of the 50 species they observed, all but 3 populations were stable.
Pushing a fake crisis, Rosenberg et al argued that declining numbers within a species that is still still very abundant doesn’t mean they are not threatened with a quick collapse. He highlighted the Passenger Pigeon was once one of the most abundant birds in North America and they quickly went extinct by 1914. That doomsday scenario was often repeated by the media. But comparison to the Passenger Pigeon’s demise is a false equivalency. Passenger Pigeons were hunted for food when people were suffering from much greater food insecurity.
Rosenberg et al summarized their study with one sentence: “Cumulative loss of nearly three billion birds since 1970, across most North American biomes, signals a pervasive and ongoing avifaunal crisis.” But it signals no such thing. Wise management will continue. With better accounting of the natural causes of each species declines, plus more accurate modeling, it will be seen that Rosenberg’s “crisis” was just another misleading apocalyptic story that further erodes public trust in us honest environmental scientists.
Jim Steele is director emeritus of the Sierra Nevada Field Campus, SFSU and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism.
NY Times Caught Exaggerating Antarctic Ice Loss – If There Is Any Loss at All
By James Taylor | Climate Realism | April 30, 2020
The New York Times is attempting to panic people with an article today claiming alarming ice loss in Antarctica. However, as recently as 2015, NASA reported satellite measurements show Antarctic ice mass has been growing since at least 1992, when satellites began taking measurements. Clearly, either the New York Times story is wrong or the Times is telling an unnecessarily alarmist story about a few years of minor ice loss after many more years of ice gain.
The Times article claims, “Researchers have known for a long time that, while the continent is losing mass over all as the climate changes, the change is uneven.” The assertion is only half true. Given that less than five years ago, NASA satellite instruments reported long-term and continuing growth in Antarctic ice mass, it is factually inaccurate for the Times to state, “Researchers have known for a long time that … the continent is losing mass….”
On the other hand, the Times is correct that any current asserted ice loss is “uneven.” The ice-change map accompanying the Times article shows that a much larger portion of Antarctica is gaining ice than is losing ice. The asserted overall ice-mass loss comes primarily from a relatively few locations along the very edge of the West Antarctic ice shelf. Those locations line up almost perfectly with locations where scientists have recently discovered volcanoes under the ice.
The more accurate overall picture is that scientists have documented long-term growth in the Antarctic ice sheet, even during most of the past 40 years. If there is a recent trend of ice loss, the trend is minor, confined to just a small portion of West Antarctica, has been occurring for less than five years, and is likely due in significant part to undersea volcanoes rather than climate change.
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From the Archives
Is this a War?
Resetting the relationship between The State and The Citizen
LIES ARE UNBEKOMING | NOVEMBER 6, 2021
I’ve been wondering for quite some time about whether we are in a War and the resolution of my thoughts on the subject has recently improved.
Oddly enough, I have some standing on the subject.
I lived in Iraq between 1981 to 1991, a period that covered almost all of the Iraq/Iran War and all of the Gulf War, the original, not the sequels.
It was an old school type of war, with two parties fighting over territory and trying to redraw a border. A lot of people died over 8 years and the border stayed the same. But weapons were sold, and internal power was consolidated.
That’s really what war is about, territory. You have something that I want, and I will fight you for it.
So, if this is a war, who are the warring parties and what is the fight over?
The war is between “the state” and “the citizen”. The latter is YOU and ME… continue
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