Only 1 out of 573 People Took “Bivalent Boosters” — In a State Without Vaccine Mandates
Bivalent Boosters Available, but NOT mandated in Florida
By Igor Chudov | October 2, 2022
A very uplifting post to end the weekend.
In terrible news for Covid vaccine enthusiasts, only 1 out of 573 residents of Florida took the new safe and effective bivalent booster, extensively tested on 8 mice and fully approved by “science”.
Considering that Florida’s population is 21,220,000 people, this works out to one out of 573 Floridians taking the new and improved science juice. The rest decided to pass for now.
Bivalent Covid vaccine uptake is moribund everywhere. Only 4.4 million doses were administered in the entire USA. This works out to 1.3% of Americans (one person out of 76) taking the bivalent boosters. Reminder, our Federal government purchased, and printed money to pay for, 171 million doses.
Why is the uptake of the bivalent booster, per 1,000 persons, greater in the USA as a whole than in Florida? The boosters are surely available to any Florida resident, right? The reason is that in other places, some holdouts keep vaccine mandates, demanding hapless young people to take Covid vaccines, and in Florida, such mandates are banned.
Go to at www.nocollegemandates.com to fight these stupid, and deadly, mandates.
So, just running the math, had there not been remaining mandates to take the boosters, instead of one out of 76 Americans taking the bivalent, only one of 573 would take it — of SEVEN TIMES FEWER. The same is happening in Germany, by the way.
Such is the time that we live in — only one out of 573 Americans still believes in science.
Is that good or bad? And is that even science?
Professor reports to WEF, expresses frustration about “misinformation” because it’s legal speech
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 2, 2022
Brown University Professor Claire Wardle told The World Economic Forum that she’s frustrated about “misinformation” because it’s legal speech: “I keep saying: Well, it might be legal, but if it’s leading to harm, can’t we actually have a conversation about that?”
Wardle addressed Adrian Monck, the Managing Director, Head of Public And Social Engagement, who was moderating the panel.
“So my fear, when it comes to your point, Adrian, is that people say: ‘Oh, the First Amendment, what kind of harm is this causing?’ Well, what does this kind of low-level, conspiratorial, hateful, misogynistic content, that doesn’t break platform guidelines, over time, where is that leading us? So I just wish we could have a more nuanced conversation about speech because I worry that this idea of more speech is good speech — that’s not really the case,” Wardle said.
“And if you talk to people of color or women, their experiences on the internet look very different to probably your experience, Adrian. And so this idea that all speech is equal is not true. And I wish we could just have that conversation properly and talk about the long-term impacts of different types of speech.”
Co-founder of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University’s School of Public Health, Claire Wardle, recently said she thinks that misinformation has “terrifying” implications for future elections.
“When you have half the country that fundamentally does not believe that the system of democracy, that the electoral process is one that they trust — I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer — but I am really concerned around the midterms,” Wardle said on the Rhode Island Report podcast.
She added she thinks that the situation will be worse for the 2024 election.
“I think there’ll be a number of races where we just won’t have a winner,” Wardle said. “There won’t be the infrastructure to call some races, and I don’t know where we end up. That’s why I think it’s a terrifying situation.”
UN tells WEF how it partners with tech platforms to promote narratives
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 2, 2022
The World Economic Forum (WEF) held the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings, where unelected groups held a “Tackling Disinformation” panel, with participants including the UN, Brown University, and even CNN.
The panel discussed how best to control narratives on issues like climate change and COVID-19.
The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, noted that the UN had partnered with Big Tech companies, including Google and TikTok, to control narratives surrounding COVID and climate change.
“We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do,” she said.
The UN said it partnered with Google to influence search results on climate change so that narratives from “authoritative” sources would appear at the top of search results.
“We partnered with Google,” said Fleming. “For example, if you Google ‘climate change,’ you will, at the top of your search, you will get all kinds of UN resources.
“We started this partnership when we were shocked to see that when we Googled ‘climate change,’ we were getting incredibly distorted information right at the top.”
The UN also says it partnered with TikTok on a project dubbed “Team Halo,” to control the narratives surrounding COVID-19.
“We had another trusted messenger project, which was called ‘Team Halo’ where we trained scientists around the world and some doctors on TikTok, and we had TikTok working with us,” Fleming said.
“Another really key strategy we had was to deploy influencers,” she said, adding, “influencers who were really keen, who have huge followings, but really keen to help carry messages that were going to serve their communities, and they were much more trusted than the United Nations telling them something from New York City headquarters.”
The “Tackling Disinformation” panel was moderated by Adrian Monck, the WEF’s managing director.
Monck said that the CNN was part of the strategy to “own the narrative.”
“CNN is both an organization that’s trying to make sense of the world and trying to establish the facts; it’s also part of a political war on who owns the narrative,” he said.
Germany Spends 2.5 Billion Euros on 100 Million Bivalent Boosters Only To Discover That Nobody Wants Them
A strange fate for such safe and effective products
eugyppius | October 2, 2022
Bivalent booster uptake fail
The German government has ordered 100 million doses of BA.1 and BA.4/5 bivalent vaccines at a cost of 2.5 billion Euros, and almost nobody wants them. An amusing Welt article chronicles the scenes unfolding at our deserted regional vaccination centres, which for some reason are still open:
Michael Hubmann did not expect that so few would come. Only 85 people had themselves vaccinated against Covid-19 on Thursday in Fürth in Middle Franconia, a district with 120,000 inhabitants. “We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for people,” says Hubmann, a paediatrician who coordinates the vaccination campaign. He explains that vaccinations were offered simultaneously in two shopping centres, a bus, a home for the elderly and in a former shop in the pedestrian zone. “Yet hardly anyone wanted to have the fourth dose.”
The medical bureaucrats are baffled, just baffled:
“Unfortunately, interest in the fourth dose has been pretty low so far,” says Markus Beier, Chairman of the German Association of General Practitioners. At the same time, he says it’s important that people over 60 and those with previous illnesses in particular protect themselves with a further dose. “There is uncertainty among the population as to what further vaccinations will achieve. But they still strengthen protection against severe outcome.”
Meanwhile, vast quantities of vaccine are expiring. At the end of August alone, 3.9 million doses of Moderna and another 700,000 doses of Novavax had to be binned.
The chart above tells the whole sordid story of our recent experiment with mass vaccination. Demand for this snake oil was highest in the beginning, before anybody had any direct experience with it; and in the Fall, when the government tied it to specific social privileges. As overt vaccinator coercion has faded and millions of people have tried these doubtful elixirs for themselves, demand has all but evaporated. This is the ultimate vindication for all those who have been saying that the vaccines are lousy overhyped pharmaceutical products with a bad side-effect profile. A safe and effective product would only gain momentum with the population. It took less than two years for these to wear out their welcome.
WAFA documents 26 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists and media in September
WAFA – October 1, 2022
RAMALLAH – The Palestinian News and Information Agency, WAFA, documented 26 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists and media in the occupied territories during September.
It said in its monthly report on Israeli violations against journalists and media outlets published today that the Israeli occupation forces continued to deliberately target Palestinian journalists with an aim to limit their coverage of the Israeli army practices and violations against the defenseless Palestinian citizens.
The report said 11 journalists were hurt in September from rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas canisters fired by soldiers, as well as severe beatings and other attacks.
In addition, 13 cases were recorded in which soldiers detained, seized press cards or opened fire at journalists without causing injury, while two cases were documented in which soldiers damaged press equipment and attacked media outlets.
US is recalibrating the power dynamic in East Mediterranean. Can South Asia be far behind?
File Photo
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 2, 2022
A mild flutter ensued after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s recent meeting with his Turkiye counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York on September 21 when it came to be known that Cyprus figured in their discussion. Jaishankar highlighted it in a tweet.
The Indian media instinctively related this to Turkish President Recep Erdogan making a one-line reference to the Kashmir issue earlier that day in his address to the UN GA. But Jaishankar being a scholar-diplomat, would know that Cyprus issue is in the news cycle and the new cold war conditions breathe fresh life into it, as tensions mount in the Turkish-Greek rivalry, which often draws comparison with the India-Pakistan animosity, stemming from another historical “Partition” — under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) that ended the Ottoman Empire.
The beauty about peace treaties is that they have no ‘expiration date’ but the Treaty of Lausanne was signed for a period of a hundred years between Turkiye on one side and Britain, France, Italy, Greece, and their allies on the other. The approaching date heightens the existential predicament at the heart of Turkiye’s foreign policy.
The stunning reality is that by 24th July 2023, Turkey’s modern borders become “obsolete”. The secret articles of the 1923 Treaty, signed by Turkish and British diplomats, provide for a chain of strange happenings — British troops will reoccupy the forts overlooking the Bosphorus; the Greek Orthodox Patriarch will resurrect a Byzantine mini state within Istanbul’s city walls; and Turkey will finally be able to tap the forbidden vast energy resources of the East Mediterranean (and, perhaps, regain Western Thrace, a province of Greece.)
Of course, none of that can happen and they remain conspiracy theories. Nonetheless, the “end-of-Lausanne” syndrome remains a foundational myth and weaves neatly into the historical revisionism that Ataturk should have got a much better deal from the Western powers.
All this goes to underline the magnitude of the current massively underestimated drama, of which Cyprus is at the epicentre. Suffice to say, Turkey’s geometrically growing rift with Greece and Cyprus over the offshore hydrocarbon reserves and naval borders must be properly understood in terms of the big picture.
Turkiye’s ruling elite believe that Turkey was forced to sign the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and the “Treaty of Lausanne” in 1923 and thereby concede vast tracts of land under its domain. Erdogan rejects any understanding of history that takes 1919 as the start of the 1,000-year history of his great nation and civilisation. “Whoever leaves out our last 200 years, even 600 years together with its victories and defeats, and jumps directly from old Turkish history to the Republic, is an enemy of our nation and state,” he once stated.
The international community has begun to pay attention as Turkiye celebrates its centenary next year, which also happens to be an election year for Erdogan. In a typical first shot, the US State Department announced on September 16 — just five days before Jaishankar met Cavusoglu — that Washington is lifting defence trade restrictions on the Greek Cypriot administration for the 2023 fiscal year.
Spokesman Ned Price said, “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken determined and certified to Congress that the Republic of Cyprus has met the necessary conditions under relevant legislation to allow the approval of exports, re-exports, and transfers of defence articles.”
The US move comes against the backdrop of a spate of recent arms deals by Cyprus and Greece, including a deal to purchase attack helicopters from France and efforts to procure missile and long-range radar systems. Turkiye called on the US “to reconsider this decision and to pursue a balanced policy towards the two sides on the Island.” It has since announced a beefing up of its military presence in Northern Cyprus.
To be sure, the unilateral US move also means indirect support for the maritime claims by Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, which Turkiye, with the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, rejects as excessive and violates its sovereign rights and that of Turkish Cypriots.
Whether these developments figured in Jaishankar’s discussion with Cavusoglu is unclear, but curiously, India too is currently grappling with a similar US decision to offer a $450 million military package to Pakistan to upgrade its nuclear-capable F-16 aircraft.
Indeed, the US-Turkey-Cyprus triangle has some striking similarities with the US-India-Pakistan triangle. In both cases, the Biden administration is dealing with friendly pro-US governments in Nicosia and Islamabad but is discernibly unhappy with the nationalist credo of the leaderships in Ankara and New Delhi.
Washington is annoyed that the governments in Ankara and New Delhi preserve their strategic autonomy. Most important, the US’ attempt to isolate Russia weakening due to the refusal by Turkiye and India to impose sanctions against Moscow.
The US is worried that India and Turkiye, two influential regional powers, pursue foreign policies promoting multipolarity in the international system, which undermines US’ global hegemony. Above all, it is an eyesore for Washington that Erdogan and Prime Minister Modi enjoy warm trustful personal interaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The photo beamed from Samarkand during the recent SCO summit showing Erdogan arm in arm with Putin must have infuriated President Biden. Modi too displayed a rare moment of surging emotions when he told Putin at Samarkand on September 16,
“The relationship between India and Russia has deepened manifold. We also value this relationship because we have been such friends who have been with each other every moment for the last several decades and the whole world also knows how Russia’s relationship with India has been and how India’s relationship with Russia has been and therefore the world also knows that it is an unbreakable friendship. Personally speaking, in a way, the journey for both of us started at the same time. I first met you in 2001, when you were working as the head of the government and I had started working as head of the state government. Today, it has been 22 years, our friendship is constantly growing, we are constantly working together for the betterment of this region, for the well-being of the people. Today, at the SCO Summit, I am very grateful to you for all the feelings that you have expressed for India.”
Amazingly, the western media censored this stirring passage in its reports on the Modi-Putin meeting!
Notably, following the meeting between Modi and Erdogan in Samarkand on Sept. 16, a commentary by the state-owned TRT titled Turkiye-India ties have a bright future ahead signalled the Erdogan government’s interest to move forward in relations with India.
India’s ties with Turkiye deserve to be prioritised, as that country is inching toward BRICS and the SCO and is destined to be a serious player in the emerging multipolar world order. Symptomatic of the shift in tectonic plates is the recent report that Russia might launch direct flights between Moscow and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state supported and recognised only by Ankara. (Incidentally, one “pre-condition” set by the Biden administration to resume military aid to Cyprus was that Nicosia should roll back its relations with Moscow!)
Without doubt, the US and the EU are recalibrating the power dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean by building up the Cyprus-Greece axis and sending a warning to Turkiye to know its place. In geopolitical terms, this is another way of welcoming Cyprus into NATO. Thus, it becomes part of the new cold war.
Can South Asia’s future be any different? Turkiye has so many advantages over India, having been a longstanding cold-war era ally of the US. It hosts Incirlik Air Base, one of the US’ major strategically located military bases. Kurecik Radar Station partners with the US Air Force and Navy in a mission related to missile interception and defence. Turkey is a NATO power which is irreplaceable in the alliance’s southern tier. Turkey controls the Bosphorus Straits under the Montreux Convention (1936).
Yet, the US is unwilling to have a relationship of mutual interest and mutual respect with Turkiye. Pentagon is openly aligned with the Kurdish separatists. The Obama administration made a failed coup attempt to overthrow Erdogan.
Nord Stream pipelines can be restored – Moscow
Samizdat | October 2, 2022
Russia may be able to fix the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were damaged earlier this week, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Sunday.
“There are technical possibilities to restore the infrastructure, it requires time and appropriate funds. I am sure that appropriate opportunities will be found,” Novak told Russia 1 TV.
According to the official, however, the first step should be to determine who is behind the incident.
“As of today, we proceed from the fact that it is necessary, first of all, to figure out who did it, and we are sure that certain countries, which had expressed their positions before, were interested in it. Both the US and Ukraine, as well as Poland at one time said that this infrastructure is not going to work, that they will do everything to make sure of it, so, of course, it is necessary to seriously look into it,” Novak stated.
Citing German security services, Der Tagesspiegel newspaper earlier reported that the damaged routes could be permanently out of use if they are not repaired quickly, as salt water could cause corrosion.
The Danish authorities reported leaks on both the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on Monday after a local pipeline operator noted a loss of pressure following a series of undersea explosions in the area. The Danish Energy Agency reported earlier on Sunday that the pressure on the Nord Stream 1 is stable and the gas leakage is over, while on Saturday, it said the Nord Stream 2 also stopped leaking gas.
The incident is widely considered to be the result of sabotage. Russia has called it a terrorist attack. While those behind it have not yet been identified, Moscow has blamed the US.
Russian hypersonic missiles superior to anything NATO has: Le Figaro
Samizdat – 02.10.2022
Russian hypersonic missile systems are more advanced than anything being fielded by the North Atlantic Alliance today, France’s Le Figaro has reported, echoing sentiments expressed by Russia’s president in a speech last week.
The French newspaper characterized Russia’s hypersonic weaponry as its main strategic asset, capable of flying at incredible speeds and maneuvering while in flight. It pointed specifically to the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle – a weapon deployable as a part of a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) payload aboard Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“In this specific area, Russia is indeed one step ahead of its NATO adversaries,” the Gaullist newspaper conceded. The paper added that Russia and China proceeded to develop hypersonic missiles in response to NATO’s efforts to construct a missile defense shield.
“Russia undoubtedly has more modern weapons than the NATO countries. The United States has lagged behind in the field of hypersonic missiles, and Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is being replenished with more powerful and destructive projectiles,” Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the Moscow-based Franco-Russian Observatory, said.
In his speech announcing partial mobilization last month, Vladimir Putin accused Western officials of discussing “the possibility and admissibility of using weapons mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”
“I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” Putin said.
The Russian president unveiled five new strategic weapons in a speech to lawmakers in 2018, among them the Kinzhal and the Avangard, plus the Poseidon nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed drone submarine, and the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Petrel’) nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile.
The Chinese military also possesses hypersonic weapons. In August, Russian-Indian defense joint venture BrahMos announced that it may create a hypersonic missile by 2027 or 2028. North and South Korea, France, Japan, Australia and India are also researching the cutting-edge class of weaponry.
The Pentagon has tasked US defense contractors with developing at least six hypersonic weapons designs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and DARPA’s Operational Fires program, but to date none have been fielded. The US military has also pitched laser and dust-firing flak guns meant to defeat Russian and Chinese hypersonics, as well as the use of stratospheric balloons to monitor and track their launch.
Russia got a head start on its hypersonics program thanks to Soviet-era research in the field starting in the early 2000s, after the Bush administration unilaterally scrapped of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a 1972 Soviet-US agreement which placed severe limitations on the creation of anti-ballistic missile defenses and intended to stop the arms race.
Russia’s military doctrine forbids nuclear weapons from being used unless the country is targeted by enemy nuclear attack first, or a conventional attack so severe that it is deemed to threaten the existence of the state. The United States does not place such restrictions on its nukes, and “reserves the right to use” them on a preemptive basis, even against non-nuclear armed adversaries.