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Russia Falsely Accused of Hacking USAID

By Stephen Lendman | May 29, 2021

Virtually all accusations by Washington and its complicit partners against Russia and other nations free from US control lack evidence supporting them because none exists.

Yet they surface time and again, supported by Western press agent media.

On Friday, the Russophobic NYT was at it again, falsely accusing Moscow of hacking USAID.

In response to an earlier phony US accusation of Russian hacking last year, its US embassy said the following:

“We paid attention to another unfounded attempt of the US media to blame Russia for hacker attacks on US governmental bodies.”

“We declare responsibly: malicious activities in the information space contradicts the principles of the Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations.”

“Russia does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain.”

“What is more, the Russian Federation actively promotes bilateral and multilateral cyber security agreements.”

“In this regard, we would like to remind (the US regime) of the initiative put forward by President Vladimir Putin on September 25 on a comprehensive program of measures to restore Russian-US cooperation in the field of international information security.”

“We have received no reply from Washington.”

“Many our other suggestions to start constructive and equal dialogue with the US remain unanswered.”

Hacking and countless other crimes are how the US-dominated West and Israel operate.

In sharp contrast, Russia fully complies with its international obligations, according to the rule of law.

Yet once again, NYT fake news falsely claimed the following:

“Hackers linked to Russia’s main intelligence agency surreptitiously seized an email system used by (USAID) to burrow into the computer networks of human rights groups and other organizations of the sort that have been critical of President Vladimir V. Putin, Microsoft Corporation disclosed on Thursday (sic).”

When accusations are unsupported by independently verified evidence, they’re baseless.

None exists to support accusations against Russia under Vladimir Putin.

Will the latest phony one be used as a pretext to cancel a scheduled mid-June summit between Putin and Biden’s impersonator — because he can only recite lines scripted for him.

If held, the summit will be farcical — a know-nothing imposter engaging with a world leader of Putin’s stature.

Perhaps the latest phony accusation against Russia will be used to cancel it — to avoid US embarrassment if they meet face-to-face.

No Russian hack of USAID occurred, no evidence suggesting it.

What the Times indicated as the aim of the phony claim fell flat like earlier baseless accusations against Russia.

An invented scenario by the Times reads like a rejected grade B Hollywood script.

Corporate predator Microsoft is complicit with wars by hot and/or other means on invented US enemies.

So are the Times and other establishment media — operating as mouthpieces for US imperial interests on all things geopolitical, notably against Russia, China, and nations victimized by US aggression.

No phony NYT claim of Russian “malicious activity (or) appetite for disruption” against the US or other countries exists, no evidence suggesting it.

An unnamed DHS official falsely claimed that the agency was “aware of the potential compromise” at USAID (sic) and is “working with the FBI and (the State Department’s agency) to better understand the extent of the compromise (sic) and assist potential victims (sic).”

No Russian SolarWinds hack occurred earlier or other hacking it was falsely accused of earlier.

Yet Microsoft and the Times falsely claimed a Nobelium group in Russia hacked SolarWinds and USAID despite no verifiable evidence because there is none.

Time and again, Times reports don’t pass the smell test.

Its daily editions feature managed news misinformation, disinformation and fake news on major domestic and geopolitical issues — far removed from all the news it claims to be fit to print.

A Final Comment

Undemocratic Dem war goddess Samantha Power heads USAID.

Like other interventionist extremists, she never met a nation free from US control she didn’t want smashed.

She once called US foreign policy “a tool box” with a range of options to advance the nation’s hegemonic aims.

Civil rights lawyer Chase Madar earlier called her hellish agenda “a richly instructive example of the weaponization of human rights.”

Like other US hostile to the rule of law officials, she falsely blames others for its high crimes of war and against humanity.

Chances are she was behind the latest false accusation of Russian hacking, enlisting Microsoft to make the phony claim.

Her maliciously destructive worldview is polar opposite values just societies cherish.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Remains of 215 Canadian indigenous children found at former residential school

Press TV – May 29, 2021

A mass grave containing the remains of 215 indigenous children has been found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children in Canada, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau describing the discovery as heartbreaking.

The grim discovery took place at Kamloops Indian residential school near the town of Kamloops, British Columbia, on Friday.

The bodies belonged to the students, some as young as three years old, of the indigenous Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc group and the authorities said investigation into the cause and exact timing of their deaths was underway.

“We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” said Rosanne Casimir, chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, in a statement. “At this time we have more questions than answers.”

In a statement, British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee also called finding such gravesites “urgent work” that “refreshes the grief and loss for all First Nations in British Columbia.”

The Kamloops Indian residential school was established in 1890 under the leadership of the Roman Catholic church, and closed in 1978.

The educational facility was part of a cross-Canada network of residential schools created to forcibly assimilate indigenous children by removing them from their homes and communities, and forbidding them from speaking their native languages or performing cultural practices.

A 2015 investigation into Canada’s residential school system concluded that the system, typically run by Christian churches on behalf of Ottawa, constituted “cultural genocide,” with reports documenting physical abuse, rape, malnutrition and other atrocities against the school children.

The same investigation said that the students were exposed to outbreaks of measles, tuberculosis, influenza and other contagious diseases.

It also found that more than 4,000 of 15,000 children died while attending these schools.

In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for the system.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Statement from the International Delegation to the 2021 Syrian Presidential Election

Syria Solidarity Movement | May 29, 2021

This independent delegation was assembled to witness the May 26, 2021 presidential election in Syria and to investigate on-the-ground conditions of Syrian life in the current period. Activists and journalists from Palestine, Syria, South Africa, France, Canada, and the United States joined this delegation on the invitation of the Syria Solidarity Movement and Arab Americans 4 Syria. This joint statement summarizes our findings on the election and what it means for Syrians. 

On election day, our delegation traveled to neighborhoods that had been outside of government control when the last presidential elections took place in 2014. Notably, we visited polling places in the towns of Arbeen and Douma, in the hard-hit Eastern Ghouta region southeast of Damascus where residents are returning and beginning to rebuild their homes, some after years of seeking refuge elsewhere. We witnessed Syrians cast secret ballots in polling places where monitors from opposition parties were present alongside election officials, in accordance with the Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic. We saw nothing to indicate unfairness or coercion in the casting of ballots.

We also conducted extensive interviews with members of the Syrian general public. We were not inhibited in any way from conducting these interviews, and could freely do so outside the presence of government officials.

We overwhelmingly found that Syrian people place tremendous significance on this election. During and after the election we observed huge enthusiasm. It appeared genuine and widespread. For many Syrians, the election represents the imminent ending of the war, the defeat of foreign plots, and hope for the future. For young people, it encapsulates the first period of relative stability they have experienced in their living memory. Many expressed that they were not simply casting votes for their preferred candidate, but for a sovereign, unified Syria, free from imperialist interference. For them, the presidential election was a referendum on the right of the Syrian people to determine their own future.

It is the unanimous conclusion of the undersigned representatives of the International Delegation to the 2021 Syrian Presidential Election that the re-election of President Bashar al-Assad, of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and the National Progressive Front, is the legitimate, democratic expression of the Syrian people.

 

Ted Kelly
International Action Center
Co-Editor, Tear Down the Walls!

Wyatt Miller
MN Anti-War Committee, USA

Kobi Guillory
Co-chair, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

Amal Wahdan
Coordinator, One Democratic State Assembly
Steering Committee, Syria Solidarity Movement
Ramallah, Palestine

Mpho Masemola
Secretary General, Ex Political Prisoner’s Veterans Association of South Africa (EPPA)
Member, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), African National Congress military wing

Johnny Achi, E.E.
Co-founder, Arab Americans for Syria

Daniel Kovalik
Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights, University of Pittsburgh School Of Law

Alain Corvez
Adviser in international strategy, France

Rick Sterling
Journalist, USA

Paul Larudee
Retired Academic and Unretired NGO Administrator & Piano Technician

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Ten Killed During Protests in Cali, Colombia Over Past Day

Sputnik – 29.05.2021

At least 10 people were killed and 23 others were hospitalised during a day of protests in the city of Cali in southwestern Colombia, Security Minister Carlos Alberto Rojas Cruz said on Saturday.

“Yesterday, 10 people were killed in Cali, and in some areas in the south of the city, confrontations turned into a real urban war”, Rojas said live on the Caracol radio station.

According to him, many demonstrators sustained injuries during the rallies, with at least 23 of them admitted to the city’s hospitals.

“However, we know that there are many more of them”, the minister noted.

Local media and social networks voiced dismay over the recent series of videos showing people wearing civilian clothes shooting at protesters, and moving together with police officers. Activists demanded that the authorities explain these incidents.

“The presence of armed civilians on the streets of the city is unacceptable, it turns it into a field of military operations… The revealed facts require a quick and thorough investigation involving all law enforcement agencies”, Rojas said.

The city of Cali has been the epicentre of protests against tax hikes, rocking Colombia since late April even after the authorities discarded the initiative. Labour and student organisations demand social and health care reforms, demilitarisation of cities, and dissolution of Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron forces.

Rallies in Cali involve violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement troops. In the wake of the poor security situation, local authorities announced a night curfew. In addition, on Friday Colombian President Ivan Duque arrived in the province of Valle del Cauca, of which Cali is the capital, to hold a security council session and discuss the unrest with the regional government. He pledged to deploy more military personnel to the area.

Protest leaders publicly reject all forms of violence and declare them as peaceful marches, but numerous radical activists join the marches, vandalise properties and attack the police.

The Ministry of Defence of Colombia blames armed rebel groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Army of National Liberation, for the violence during the demonstrations, claiming they seek to destabilise certain regions of the country for their purposes.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Media outlets try to deflect from lab leak theory and censorship

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim the Net | May 29, 2021

Mainstream media, now embarrassingly forced to follow President Biden’s policy and abruptly reverse course on the Wuhan lab leak theory – after branding and ridiculing it as a conspiracy theory for months – are working to downplay the importance of censorship around the topic that was enforced until just a few days ago.

One would think it would be hard to find a single person who has been through more than a year of lockdowns and myriads of restrictions who would not be interested to learn what the virus is and where it came from – but apparently, such people exist, in media outlets like The Verge.

An article that could easily be described as a distraction in its own right from the topic of why the lab leak theory was suppressed and censored so vigorously, now claims that the origin of coronavirus doesn’t really matter and suggests that it should be swept under the rug as a distraction from truly important topics.

While briefly paying lip service to the importance of discovering the origin of the virus, the article’s real goal is to convince its readers to change the topic. Forced to eat their own words, this class of media are no longer calling the Wuhan theory a fringe conspiracy, but “an extraordinary claim” that is “technically possible.”

But discussing the topic is discouraged as no less than “a distraction from the rest of the urgent work governments and health agencies around the world need to do in order to end this pandemic and prepare for the next one” – while at the same time calling for vaccination efforts to be doubled.

And as scientists who have tried to study the origin of coronavirus, including the possibility that it was artificially created, are finally getting a chance to speak after being censored and ostracized for a long time – mainstream media are scrambling to adjust to the new reality around the topic.

The New York Times has already done its U-turn, reporting on Friday that US intelligence agencies have a large amount of evidence concerning the Wuhan lab – but one of its reporters, Apoorva Mandavilli, didn’t get the memo immediately.

On the same day President Biden announced an investigation, Mandavilli tweeted, “Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here” – only to quickly delete the post after receiving backlash for making the claim that it was “racist” to consider the possibility that the virus was engineered by humans.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

New Paper: Masks Achieve Nothing In Terms Of Spread

By Damian D. Guerra and Daniel J. Guerra | medrxiv.org | May 29, 2021

Latest analysis shows yet again – yet again – what we already knew from 40 years of published research. And also empirically from simply glancing over the past year’s real-world data. Masks don’t work!

Our main finding is that mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states. 80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mandates induced greater mask compliance but did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low  (minima) or high (maxima). We infer that mandates likely did not affect COVID-19 case growth [15], as growth rates were similar on all days between actual or modeled issuance dates and 6 March 2021. Higher mask use (rather than mandates per se) has been argued to decrease COVID-19 growth rates [11].

While compliance varies by location and time, IHME estimates are robust (derived from multiple sources [17]) and densely sampled (day-level precision). Higher mask use did not predict lower maximum growth rates, smaller surges, or less Fall-Winter growth among continental states.

Mask-growth rate correlation was only evident at minima. This may be an artifact of faster growth at fewer normalized cases, as well as regional differences in case prevalence early in the pandemic. States in the high mask quintile grew at similar rates as states in the low mask quintile after maxima (when interstate total case differences were smaller than before minima).

In addition, mask use did not predict normalized cases at minima, and low mask growth curves trailed those of high mask (particularly Northeast) states before minima. Growth maxima and Fall-Winter surges did not differ between Northeast and other states. Northeast states exhibited the highest seroprevalence up to at least July 2020 [24] and constituted 80% of the top quintile of mask use, which may explain their comparatively lower Summer growth.

Overall, mask use appears to be an intra-state lagging indicator of case growth. There is inferential but not demonstrable evidence that masks reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Animal models [25], small case studies [6], and growth curves for mandate-only states [16] suggest that mask efficacy increases with mask use [11]. However, we did not observe lower growth rates over a range of compliance at maximum Fall-Winter growth (45-83% between South Dakota and Massachusetts during maxima) [17] when growth rates were high.

This complements a Danish RCT from 3 April to 2 June 2020, when growth rates were low, which found no association between mask use and lower COVID-19 rates either for all participants in the masked arm (47% strong compliance) or for strongly compliant participants only [8].

Masks have generally not protected against other respiratory viruses. Higher self-reported mask use protected against SARS-CoV-1 in Beijing residents [26], but RCTs found no differences in PCR confirmed influenza among Hong Kong households assigned to hand hygiene with or without masks (mask use 31% and 49%, respectively) [27].

Medical and cloth masks did not reduce viral respiratory infections among clinicians in Vietnam [9] or China [10], and rhinovirus transmission increased among universally masked Hong Kong students and teachers in 2020 compared with prior years [28].

These findings are consistent with a 2020 CDC meta-analysis [29] and a 2020 Cochrane review update [30].

Our study has implications for respiratory virus mitigation. Public health measures should ethically promote behaviors that prevent communicable diseases. The sudden onset of COVID-19 compelled adoption of mask mandates before efficacy could be evaluated.

Our findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use.

As masks are required in public in many US states, it is prudent to weigh potential benefits with harms. Masks may promote social cohesion as rallying symbols during a pandemic [31], but risk compensation can also occur [32]. Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day) promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk [33].

British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision [34]. Survey bias notwithstanding, these sequelae are associated with medical errors [35]. By obscuring nonverbal communication, masks interfere with social learning in children [36]. Likewise, masks can distort verbal speech and remove visual cues to the detriment of individuals with hearing loss; clear face-shields improve visual integration, but there is a corresponding loss of sound quality [37, 38].

Future research is necessary to better understand the risks of long-term daily mask use [30]. Conversely, it is appropriate to emphasize interventions with demonstrated or probable efficacy against COVID-19 such as vaccination [39] and Vitamin D repletion [40]. In summary, mask mandates and use were poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Case growth was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves.

Strengths of our study include using two mask metrics to evaluate association with COVID-19 growth rates; measuring normalized case growth in mandate and non-mandate states at comparable times to quantify the likely effect of mandates; and deconvolving the effect of mask use by examining case growth in states with variable mask use. Our study also has key limitations. We did not assess counties or localities, which may trend independently of state averages.

While dense sampling promotes convergence, IHME masking estimates are subject to survey bias. We only assessed one biological quantity (confirmed and probable COVID-19 infections), but the ongoing pandemic warrants assessment of other factors such as hospitalizations and mortality. Future work is necessary to elucidate better predictors of COVID-19 spread. A recent study found that at typical respiratory fluence rates, medical masks decrease airway deposition of 10-20μm SARS-CoV-2 particles but not 1-5μm SARS-CoV-2 aerosols [41].

Aerosol expulsion increases with COVID-19 disease severity in non-human primates, as well as with age and BMI in humans without COVID-19 [42]. Aerosol treatment by enhanced ventilation and air purification could help reduce the size of COVID-19 outbreaks.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Widespread distribution of ivermectin proves effective in Mexico against COVID-19

By Juan Quintero | TrialSiteNews | May 28, 2021

One country that has had remarkable success in the war against the COVID pandemic, but has received little to no global media coverage, is Mexico. Like the rest of the world, COVID cases in Mexico exploded in April 2020, the first hot spots flaring up along the northern border with the United States, in Mexico City and Quintana Roo, a popular tourist destination in the Caribbean. At the beginning of the pandemic, Mexico took recommendations and followed protocol set forth by the World Health Organization (WHO) and watched the virus spread from state to state, engulfing the entire country.

First COVID Outbreak in Mexico

On June 10, the Spanish-speaking media began reporting on the success that Peru was having in controlling the virus using ivermectin as a treatment. Mexico was in the middle of its worst peak of cases and deaths with records breaking daily, and interest in the drug – as well as sales – rose dramatically.

On June 20, the pan-American WHO (OPS/OMS) issued a statement strongly opposing the use of ivermectin. Additionally, other media sources started publishing anti-ivermectin articles all over Mexico. And as the number of deaths slowly decreased, interest in ivermectin subsequently died down.

Google trends. Google seaches in Mexico about iveremctin

In October 2020, cases in Mexico began spiking again; the outbreak this time started in Chihuahua, the state on the border of Texas. Texas was also experiencing an outbreak at this time, so it’s likely that the cases in Mexico were sparked in the US. From Chihuahua, cases spread south and into Mexico City igniting the worst outbreak yet. Mexico City was an inferno of COVID cases and death, and health workers rushed to the capital city from all over the country to help.

Determined to stop the spread at any cost, Mexico City officials held a meeting at the end of December, 2020, and invited the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) among other groups of doctors. Together, they decided to begin distribution of ivermectin kits in Mexico City and Mexico State to anyone who tested positive for COVID and wanted to take the drug, and to closely monitor hospitalizations to keep tabs on ivermectin’s efficacy. The kits distributed included ivermectin, aspirin and paracetamol. Between the end of November 2020 and the end of January 2021, more than 200,000 people tested positive for COVID, and of these, nearly 80,000 used the ivermectin kits. Results showed up to 76% reduction in hospitalization in the group that was taking ivermectin.

https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/r93g4/

On January 22, 2021, the mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Scheinbaum, held a live televised press conference where she talked about the positive results from the ivermectin distribution from December. Following the press release, the kits were made available for everyone in the whole of Mexico, and nation-wide results of ivermectin use were monitored. Amazingly, after mass distribution of ivermectin, every single COVID indicator in Mexico improved. Over the course of 18 weeks, COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continuously dropped, and on May 14, the mayor held another televised press conference sharing the positive results of the months’-long campaign.

What is astonishing, however, is that the media outlets in Mexico have not reported on this astounding result. They continued to report on the number of excess deaths from before the ivermectin intervention – and not one has covered the current situation of declining cases and deaths due to wide-spread ivermectin intervention.

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May 29, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Let’s Not Be Sensible, Folks

By Sinéad Murphy | Lockdown Sceptics | May 28, 2021

My little boy with autism is back at school, for three days in the week. His support teacher is at last unmasked. On the seventh day of his return, there was an unheralded change. Instead of Joseph being accompanied by his support teacher at pick-up time so that she and I might have a quick chat, he was sent out alone along with his classmates. Inside his bag was a new small notebook, with “Communication Log” written on the cover, in which there were phrases describing aspects of Joseph’s day.

Joseph’s communication is profoundly restricted. He is unable to report any aspect of his physical experience; he cannot tell of anything that has happened to him, no matter how recently. A short exchange, before and after school, with the person responsible for him during the day is essential.

At drop-off time the following morning, Joseph’s support teacher watched helplessly from behind the classroom’s glass door while I held Joseph’s hand at the gate – another of the pathetic scenes that have been a feature of our Covid incarceration. “Mummy’s going to drop you here”, said one of Joseph’s year’s teachers, to me via him. When I objected, she told me, in a rush of what seemed like resentment, that the ‘Communication Log’ was to substitute for the morning and evening chats.

It did not take much representation to the school’s Head to have the chats reinstated; the arguments in their favour were so obviously reasonable. But that the arguments against them were so paltry reveals something concerning, I think.

Even according to ‘The Science’, there could be no conceivable added risk of infection by a respiratory virus in ending a day of up-close support of Joseph by standing in the open air and talking for a few minutes to his mum – to his credit, the Head did not attempt to suggest that there could be.

But if there was nothing actually harmful about these chats, even on the highly-sensitive Covid safety-scale, why were they ruled out so summarily?

Joseph’s support teacher is a woman of great humour; chatting with her is inevitably a lively affair no matter how mundane the topic. But there is something indistinctly offensive now about liveliness of any kind, something excessive, disrespectful.

On our uncertain return to normality there is dawning a new morality, according to which lively human interaction is unseemly simply by virtue of being… well, lively.

This may explain why persecution of the public house continues unabated – insofar as the pub encourages informal and vibrant association, it is the den of a new iniquity: the spontaneous overflow of the human spirit.

At the supermarket checkout the other day, the man in front of me observed through his mask to the woman working the till, how good it is that we have our freedoms back. So long as we use them sensibly, he added.

We have been prodded this year by the devilish theme of safety, which has dramatically altered the contour of our lives. But now the colour of our lives may be changing too, as we are encouraged from all sides not only to stay safe but to be sensible.

On May 15th, the FA Cup final was attended by twenty-two thousand supporters. The fans were back. Football was back. And certainly, the real crowd did foreground how anaemic has been its virtual equivalent. But when Leicester scored the goal that won them the cup, their cheering fans were faced down by a line of officials, caped in plastic over their high-visibility jackets and fanning their outstretched gloved hands, palms downwards, in a calming gesture – Let’s be sensible, folks.

Two days later, May 17th, brought the return of hugging for anyone who had been observing the ban. But it is not a rush-into-the-arms hugging, not a big hugging, not a tight hugging, all of which have about them this new taint of excess. It is sensible hugging: faces turned in opposite directions and got over with as quickly as possible.

There is a new kind of puritanism abroad – casting its pall over our lives, already so out of shape. Those moments when life is brimming over, when we act on impulse, when our sides split with laughter, when we cry with anger or with joy, when we cannot let go our embrace or when we could talk and talk for hours: all have about them a new hue of poor taste. The palate of human life has been dimmed; Let’s be sensible, folks.


In a short blog post from April 16th, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben prepared us for a change of this kind.

Differently from other animals, Agamben wrote, we humans have always the task of deciding what it is that makes us human, and not merely animal.

Homo sapiens is the being that knows itself, the only being on earth that must determine its own essence.

This unique duty – that we decide the kind of being that we are – is what makes us humans so culturally rich and almost infinitely adaptable. But it is also what makes us vulnerable, as no other animal is, to being transformed, profoundly, from the ground up.

Nothing absolute stands in the way of our knowing ourselves differently and knowing ourselves differently changes us utterly.

Is such a change occurring now, as we get back to our new future? Are we in the process of deciding all over again what it is that makes us human?

This would certainly explain the newly muted tones of the life that we are now to live, in which the chatting, the cheering, the hugging that still come naturally to some of us seem suddenly and strangely out of step, not really done, a bit much – Let’s be sensible, folks.


According to Agamben, a society’s decision about what it is that makes us human is reflected in what that society identifies as ‘mere existence’ – bare life. In this space are established the terms on which we claw back from our animal natures whatever it is that is judged to make us human.

We opponents of governments’ Covid policies have traded heavily on this concept of ‘mere existence’, criticising the lockdowns for having reduced our human life to its bare bones.

But in doing so, have we unwittingly lent our voices to a new Covid-era version of ‘mere existence’ and, consequently, to a new Covid-era decision about what it is that makes us human?

Still when I was growing up, references to ‘mere existence’ had mostly to do with work; bare life was the life absorbed by a low-paid unsatisfying job with long hours, or (depressingly) by unwaged care of other people.

If you lived this mere existence, this bare life, you were perilously close to losing that which distinguished you as human – you were said to work like a dog, to have a dog’s life.

If you managed to rise above this mere existence to something better, something more human, you did so also in terms of work. Because a bare life was a life of unwaged drudgery, a full life was a life of satisfying and rewarding employment, and a good life was industrious and purposeful, filled with hobbies and sports at which you were as hardworking as you were at your job.

But since the advent of Covid, when we have bemoaned the reduction of our lives to mere existence, we have referred not to dull work without wages but to quarantine without symptoms. Bare life is no longer the life of unrewarding toil, but of isolation from other people, faces covered and hands sheathed.

The theme of bare life is no longer work but health, where ‘health’ refers, not to a personal equilibrium, but to public safety from invisible attack.

As we have lived this bare life during the past 15 months or so, and tried to reassert our humanness so as to rise above it, it is not the dog’s life against which we have had to define ourselves but the life of the herd animal whose individual hopes and needs are submitted to the advantage of the group: I isolate for everyone, I mask for everyone, I vaccinate for everyone.

Herd immunity has always been a feature of human life. It is a well-established phenomenon in epidemiology. But never before 2020 was it brought before us so unrelentingly that we were simultaneously compelled to reject it as beneath our human status and submitted to the version of it engineered and imposed by governments and their science advisers.

On the new terrain of bare-life-as-isolation-from-and-for-the-herd, we have had to battle all over again to reestablish what makes us human. Human life, we have objected, is more than isolation for the sake of public health. Human life, we have protested, is anathema to distance and to masks.

But we should be careful. Because, if we are beginning to win the battle against the reduction of our lives to mere-existence-as-quarantine, we are likely to be winning it on the terms set up by mere-existence-as-quarantine, that is, on the terms of health-as-safety.

If the society of work is coming to an end, the society of health may be just getting going. In this society, a full life will be the life of optimal protection from identified threats to public safety; and a good life will be the life of due respect for this enterprise, the careful life, the sensible life, in which our human bodies, now branded as traitors, will not be suffered to stretch their limbs too far, nor shout too loud, nor laugh too much, nor hug too tight.

The devil used to make work for idle hands – hence the old morality of working hard. Now the devil makes sickness for loose tongues, and all other body-parts that are brought to bear with gleeful abandon – hence the new morality of being sensible.


What is it that effects a transformation of this magnitude, from a life defined by work and lived industriously to a life defined by health and lived sensibly? How can such changes come about so suddenly and completely? According to Agamben, all it needs is a powerful enough device.

For the society of work, this device was the slave, an idea (rooted in reality, of course) profound enough to capture and recast a whole culture as woven around the theme of work and as haunted by the near-animality of work without reward.

For our society of health, the device is the asymptomatic, an idea (not rooted in reality, it turns out) so powerful that it has captured and recast our world as revolving around the theme of health-as-safety and as haunted by the prospect of disease at the level of the pack.

The device of the asymptomatic sick person has reset the horizons of our lives: the bare life is the life lived apart from the herd for the good of the herd; the full life is the life that is constantly proven to be without sickness itself and protected from the sickness of others: and the good life is the life that abstains from the joyful excess that so irresponsibly forgets that the absence of symptoms does not imply safety.


One of the Internet phenomena of our Covid era has been the film of a flash mob rendition of ‘Danser Encore’ in the Gard du Nord on March 4th.

It has inspired many repeat performances in towns and cities around the world, each one of them a joyful affair.

When I first saw the original video, its effect was profound. To see the sudden eruption, as if from nowhere, of… well, a mob, a glut of people, in the midst of the faceless bedraggle at the station – to see the masks carelessly pulled down or discarded, the random weaving in and out of the crowd, arms linked to the music, to hear singing at the top of fine unmuffled voices. Such a glorious upturning of safety.

But what strikes me now when I watch it is the ludicrousness of the performance, an assemblage of this and that: the tap dancer on her makeshift floor; the circus performer in his Breton top, making upside-down frog-legs; the amateur country dancers; the woman in the mask (around her eyes, not her mouth and nose!) creeping stealthily through the scene… random, heedless, a propos of nothing, not at all sensible.

If we are to unwind the Covid decision about what it is that makes us human – if we are to defuse the device of the asymptomatic spreader and refuse the life of safety to which it consigns us, then we might do worse than begin here, with the players in the Gard du Nord : and dance again and hug again and cheer again and chat again with the lively abandon that spares not a thought for the hidden health-status of ourselves or anyone else.

Dr Sinead Murphy is Associate Researcher in Philosophy at Newcastle University.

May 29, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Germ Theory vs Terrain Theory

Dr. Sam Bailey | May 25, 2021

Germ Theory vs Terrain Theory. Please support my channel ▶https://www.subscribestar.com/DrSamBa…

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3. Wikipedia – Germ theory of disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_th…

4. Wikipedia – Germ theory denialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_th…

5. The Germ-Theory of Disease – Prof H. Bastian, BMJ April 10, 1875: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…

6. The challenges of modeling mammalian biocomplexity – Nicholson, et al: https://www.academia.edu/12350051/The…

7. Origins of “opportunistic” in medical literature: https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/131972…

8. Second Thoughts on the Germ Theory – René Dubos, Scientific American, May 1955: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24944640…

9. Anthrax incidence – United States: https://web.archive.org/web/201612262…

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May 29, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Don’t Be Stupid – Inform Your Decisions

By Gillian Dymond | OffGuardian | May 28, 2021

Are you tired of having to watch everything you say, in case you’re accused of “hate speech”? Do you frequently have to bite back innocently-spoken words, when someone claims to be “offended” by them? Have you become used to avoiding lively debate or expressing frank opinions on social media, for fear of finding police officers on your doorstep?

If so, you’ll be glad to know that at last there is a whole class of people you may attack with impunity; people who may be derided, slandered and ostracised to your heart’s content; people so selfish and stupid that you are fully entitled to incite hatred against them with the full blessing of your government.

These are the Great Unclean: the “anti-vaxxers” who are not just nasty spoilsports, standing between you and the ever-deferred reopening of society, but who continue to waft death and disease through a world which can only be made safe by universal, and repeated, “jabbing”.

The opportunity to indulge in virtuous hate speech has been seized with zest by household names and obscure Twitterati alike.

“Love the idea of covid vaccine passports for everywhere,” enthuses Piers Morgan, “restaurants, clubs, football, gyms, shops etc. It’s time covid-denying, anti-vaxxer loonies had their bullshit bluff called and bar themselves from going anywhere that responsible citizens go.”

Edwina Currie has emerged from political oblivion to agree:

I hear what you say about someone exercising their freedom not to have a vaccination and they’re perfectly healthy. I don’t want them sitting next to me in the theatre. I don’t want them standing next to me at the theatre bar. I don’t want them next to me or anywhere near me or even in the same carriage on the train. So they can exercise their freedom by staying at home.”

As for the chorus of the immunologically saved on social media, here’s a sample meme:

If you’re antivax and you see me making fun of antivax people, I just want to say I’m talking about you personally and I hope you’re offended because you’re fucking stupid.”

Just try substituting one of a whole range of tenderly protected diversities for “antivax people” or “anti-vaxxers”, and watch the frisson of outrage creeping down any bien-pensant spine. But as the State extends its tolerance, even its encouragement, to our abusers, we covid sceptics, it seems, are fair game.

For there is no quarter from the government for those who are standing aloof from the stampede to get “shots into arms”, as believers in the WHO’s revised definition of herd immunity so crudely like to put it.

This is, after all, a government which, spurred on by behavioural psychologists and with malice aforethought, has industriously stirred up and exploited social disapproval as a potent means of shaming dissent and achieving maximum compliance.

Be kind, they urge you, and deprive yourself and your children of oxygen for your neighbour’s sake. Be responsible, and roll up your sleeve to receive the magic injection that will not only make you immortal but demonstrate your selfless concern for others. Don’t be stupid! Remember, having no symptoms doesn’t mean you’re not a silent super-spreader.

But do sceptics really deserve the contempt being dished out to them so freely?

Are they really so stupid?

Would any self-respecting “anti-vaxxer”, for instance, have been silly enough to come out with the nonsense spouted by the UK’s secretary of state for health, when he told us that:

If you think about it, the vaccine is a tiny bit of the virus in order to get your body to be able to respond.”

Really, Mr Hancock? Are you sure that’s what’s actually on offer here?

Perhaps Mike Yeadon, former head of respiratory research at Pfizer, can set you straight. As he pointed out to James Delingpole recently, “a tiny bit of the virus” is not what goes into these novel treatments – perhaps because, when it comes down to brass tacks, “no-one’s got any”.

What is actually being pumped into millions of arms throughout the world with such careless abandon is not, he says, “just a vaccine”. Although these gene-based medications do “ultimately raise an immune response … the way they do it is completely different from any vaccine we’ve used before … they induce the body, the cells of your body, to actually manufacture a piece of this pathogen, this infective agent. And you respond to that.”

“Anti-vaxxers” could have told you that, Mr Hancock, because they’ve done their own research, and they understand the difference between the traditional idea of a vaccine and what is currently being held up as the golden ticket to freedom. So please stop feeding us blatant untruths about what is actually being injected into all those trusting arms and making its insidious way around millions of bloodstream.

Let’s have the facts that would enable everyone to make a truly informed decision. It really doesn’t help when you fuel sectarian hatred by standing up in parliament and declaring that:

those who promulgate lies about the dangers of vaccines that are safe and have been approved … are threatening lives …”

The obvious response to that is, “those who promulgate lies about the safety of novel and incompletely tested gene therapies doled out on emergency approval only are threatening lives.”

The life of Peter Meadows, for instance: a superlatively healthy seventy-six-year-old, who, trusting government and NHS assurances that the “vaccines” were “safe and effective”, suffered an unprecedented heart attack within hours of receiving the Pfizer jab, and died a few days later: just one of over a thousand post-vaccine fatalities officially logged in the UK’s Yellow Card system to date – or perhaps, as the evidence is increasingly suggesting, of thousands of vaccine-related deaths which, unlike those ascribed to Covid, are not in line with natural mortality profiles.

It seems that those castigated for being “anti-vaxxers” are, in fact, far from stupid. On the contrary, they are the ones sensible enough to take the time and trouble to research and weigh up risks versus benefits before exposing their bodies to any of the novel gene therapies currently being hawked around as “vaccines”.

It is those who don’t search out the facts for themselves who are not using their intelligence, and who are thereby laying themselves open to the smooth sales talk of drug pushers in high places. Peter Meadows and his wife were apparently not handed even the minimal information supplied by the NHS regarding possible side effects they might suffer until after they had received their shots.

They had no idea that the “vaccines” so confidently touted by Matt Hancock were not fully tested for immediate, let alone medium- or long-term, safety, and were issued under the “black triangle” system – ie, were still “subject to intensive safety monitoring”, with the proviso that a record should be kept of all adverse reactions experienced by those acting effectively as human guinea pigs on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies.

What is more, a “high volume” of such adverse reactions were anticipated by the apparently unconcerned UK government before the roll-out began.

Although the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is quick to state that the black triangle label “does not indicate that the product is unsafe for use in patients”, the common-sense response to such a claim, after careful examination of the Yellow Card data, must surely be, “Oh yeah? And now pull the other one!”

In fact, a Pubmed paper advising the US as to whether or not the black triangle system does indeed promote “more judicious prescribing” of new medications, concludes that, “Accelerated drug approvals could cause more uncertainty about drug effectiveness and safety, but specific labeling of newly approved medicines is unlikely to promote more judicious prescribing.”

How much more accelerated could approval be, than the emergency approval accorded to the new coronavirus “vaccines”? And how much less judicious their prescribing, encompassing, as it does, the wholesale jabbing of populations throughout the world, including young people and children, who are at little to no risk of succumbing to the disease, let alone dying of it? It is depressing to learn that Peter Meadows’ daughters had understood enough about the uncertain nature of the hastily concocted “vaccines” to urge their parents not to have the jabs.

Unfortunately, like so many others, the couple were swayed by a longing to return to their old normal, and by peer pressure whipped up by the likes of Matt Hancock and SAGE, rather than by the reasonable concerns raised by their daughters after careful scrutiny of the facts.

So, once more: just how stupid are anti-vaxxers? Interestingly, a recent paper by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online found that, contrary to their popular denigration as “covidiots”, and to the embarrassment of the researchers themselves, covid sceptics “practice a form of data literacy in spades”.

Many of them “express mistrust for academic and journalistic accounts of the pandemic, proposing to rectify alleged bias by ‘following the data’ and creating their own data visualisations.” What they value is “unmediated access to information” and they “privilege personal research and direct reading over ‘expert’ interpretations.” And “Most fundamentally,” say the MIT team, “the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution.”

Exactly.

In which case, their dismissal of the WHO’s presumption, in claiming to be custodians of “The Science”, is hardly surprising. Nonsense, say the sceptics. Science can never be above questioning. It is not a bundle of rubber-stamped, government-approved dogmas, handy for facilitating some political or commercial agenda.

Like all forms of human knowledge, science remains eternally incomplete, the evolving construction of many minds researching truth in a continuing process of discovery: forming hypotheses, and attempting by all means possible to disprove those hypotheses; seeking to explain or resolve anomalies, but never holding any theory sacrosanct which further investigation might yet prove false; adapting to the gradual unfolding of new perspectives, as fresh evidence shakes the foundations of old paradigms.

It is the alleged “covidiots” and “anti-vaxxers” who, while they may not be scientists themselves, understand the principles on which the scientific method is based. As the MIT study admits, to complain that these irritating people “need more scientific literacy is to characterize their approach as uninformed and inexplicably extreme. This study shows the opposite: they are deeply invested in forms of critique and knowledge production they recognise as scientific expertise.”

All the same, the authors of the study seem to find the concessions they are compelled to make disturbing. “(H)ow do these groups diverge from scientific orthodoxy,” they wonder, “if they are using the same data?” Since all right-minded facts should show decent respect for the statutory consensus, surely anyone inducing them to defect in support of alternative, unsanctioned conclusions must be employing underhand methods?

“We have identified a few sleights of hand that contribute to the broader epistemological crisis we identify between these groups and the majority of scientific researchers,” the defenders of the true faith plead: and they shake their heads at the way “these groups skillfully manipulate data to undermine mainstream science,” quoting as examples the sceptics’ “outsize emphasis on deaths versus cases” and their suspicion of the officially promoted confusion of deaths “with” and “of” covid: both very good reasons, less partial analysts might say, for questioning the figures being spewed out ceaselessly by the government-funded mainstream media, and taken by a terrorised public to be gospel truth.

Yet it’s not just annoying amateurs, with their absurd claims that actual facts should trump any institutionally-coerced consensus, who question the official “narrative” – and, indeed the very existence of a pandemic, as traditionally understood before the WHO decided to “re-imagine” the term, on 4th May 2009, in anticipation of the projected swine-flu apocalypse (in the event, a damp squib, but a useful practice-run for the present resounding success).

After accumulating hard evidence in interviews with over a hundred eminent scientists and other experts, the Corona Investigation Committee, a team headed by Dr Reiner Fuellmich, are likewise challenging the means – essentially, a fraudulent PCR test capable of manufacturing cases on demand and fuelling the myth of the “asymptomatic superspreader” – by which the global coup and its predestined outcome, the push to “get jabs into arms”, have been so artfully engineered.

Dr Fuellmich – a lawyer qualified to practise in both the States and Europe – has already taken on such giants as Deutschebank and Volkswagen. We can only hope that the evidence which he and the rest of the Committee have gathered so painstakingly over the past year and shared with lawyers all over the world will continue to result in court cases where facts will triumph over consensus, vindicating the unvaccinated of “stupidity” before they are forced by the uninformed to wear yellow stars and find themselves rounded up in camps for the unclean.

And that those behind the coup, along with all who enabled and enforced their unlawful actions by “just following orders”, are brought to justice before an international tribunal, to be charged with what the Corona Committee describes as “the greatest crime against humanity ever committed.”

May 28, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Rejects Cooperation With UN Human Rights Council Commission, Foreign Ministry Says

Sputnik – 27.05.2021

Israel refuses to cooperate with the commission on Gaza and Israel, the creation of which is envisaged by a UN Human Rights Council resolution, and rejects the resolution itself, claiming that it acted in accordance with international law and ethical standards, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling for the creation of a commission of inquiry to investigate violations in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

“Israel rejects outright the resolution adopted today (Thursday, 27 May 2021) by the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body with a built-in anti-Israel majority, guided by hypocrisy and absurdity. Any resolution that fails to condemn the firing of over 4,300 rockets by a terror organization at Israeli civilians, or even to mention the terror organization Hamas, is nothing more than a moral failure and a stain on the international community and the UN,” the statement says.

The ministry noted that Israeli security forces had acted in accordance with the highest ethical standards and in accordance with international law, protecting their citizens from Hamas attacks.

“Israel cannot and will not cooperate with such an investigation,” the statement says.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the resolution a mockery of international law.

“Today’s shameful decision is yet another example of the UN Human Rights Council’s blatant anti-Israel obsession. Once again, an immoral automatic majority at the Council whitewashes a genocidal terrorist organization that deliberately targets Israeli civilians while turning Gaza’s civilians into human shields. This while depicting as the “guilty party” a democracy acting legitimately to protect its citizens from thousands of indiscriminate rocket attacks. This travesty makes a mockery of international law and encourages terrorists worldwide,” Netanyahu said.

The resolution adopted on Thursday by the UN Human Rights Council, inter alia, calls for the urgent creation of a permanent independent international commission of inquiry, to be appointed by the president of the UN Human Rights Council, to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel before and after April 13, 2021, as well as all root causes of recurring tension, instability and protracted conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression on the basis of national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation.

May 28, 2021 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Brits protest outside BAE Systems for weapons sales to Israel

By Ahmed Kaballo – Press TV – May 28, 2021

London – Hundreds of pro-Palestine protestors gathered outside the BAE Systems factory in Blackburn in the north of England, to call upon the weapons manufacturer to stop supplying components for F-35 fighter jets that have been used in the recent bombardment of Gaza.

The protest came on the back of one the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in British history on Saturday and similar demonstrations throughout the week led by Palestine action groups who have been protesting outside the Israeli-owned Elbit Systems factory that provides drones, weapons, and military hardware to the Israeli army.

We have seen protests in Leicester, Tamworth, Oldham, and today in Blackburn as the anger amongst the British public begins to swell at the thought that UK weapons have been used by the Israeli army to kill Palestinian children.

It has become increasingly clear that the British government’s unwavering support for Israel is not representative of the feeling on the ground with more than 383,000 Brits calling on their government to sanction the Israeli regime for their crimes against the Palestinian people.

But while the UK remains complicit through the hundreds of millions of pounds worth of weapons sold to the Israeli army. Some might wonder if the UK should also be held accountable.

May 28, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment