Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway’s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky’s plane was nearly struck by a UAV while leaving Chisinau, saying the aircraft was never in any direct danger.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that Zelensky’s plane “was almost hit by a drone” as the Ukrainian leader traveled from Moldova to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V.
Before any evidence was produced, Store’s claims were widely picked up by Western media outlets, who tried to frame the incident as evidence of a supposed Russian drone threat to Europe.
On Thursday, however, Moldova flatly rejected that account, with government spokesman Dumitru Ciorici saying Zelensky’s flight had been delayed because the country temporarily closed its airspace following a drone alert.
He stressed that there had been “no direct threat” to the aircraft, which remained on the ground throughout the airspace closure. The drone that had allegedly entered Moldova’s airspace ended up crashing and exploding near a village around 160km from Chisinau airport, causing no casualties, Moldovan authorities said.
Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has accused the authorities of concealing from the public a separate incident involving a Ukrainian national allegedly caught at the border with a drone and explosives.
“We see more and more attempts and provocations to involve the Republic of Moldova in everything that is happening in Ukraine,” Dodon said, urging Chisinau to stay away from Kiev’s “war strategy.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the alleged threat to Zelensky’s plane as “ephemeral,” saying it “did not exist” and noting that even Ukrainian sources have acknowledged there was no direct danger.
Moldova, whose pro-EU government under President Maia Sandu has moved closer to Brussels and NATO while severely downgrading relations with Moscow, has repeatedly joined other pro-Ukraine governments in blaming Russia for drone incidents before producing evidence.
Similar accusations across Europe have frequently collapsed under scrutiny, with investigators in several cases finding no proof that Russian drones were involved and some incidents later traced to Ukrainian UAVs or even misidentified aircraft.
Moscow has accused Kiev of repeatedly staging drone provocations in an effort to draw its Western backers deeper into the conflict.
September 10, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Norway |
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Wildfires are in the news. With a hot, dry summer it was bound to happen. And, naturally, this is bringing with it talk of climate change.
The Independent is screaming and rending its garments:
Europe is on fire – will the continent’s climate change deniers finally wake up?
The Guardian has an opinion piece calling for prosecutions for climate crimes. Twitter experts are calling for changes to the way we live our lives.
Prince William is saying stuff:
Wildfires ‘stark reminder’ of extreme climate challenge, says William
I suppose we should make the usual point, that wildfires are a natural phenomenon that are an important part of the life cycle of many ecosystems. And that some years are bound to be worse than others.
But there’s just one issue, wildfire activity is actually down.
A new study from the University of East Anglia, published in May, found that 2025 was 16% below the average in terms of burnt area, and that’s despite policies known to increase both the chance of wildfires starting and the area they will burn.
But that was last year, this year must be different given the coverage, right?
Wrong.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service shows that, to the end of June, this year had substantially lower wildfire activity – across every continent – than any year since they began collecting data in 2003.
Of course, this data does not yet include the fires from the past couple of weeks, and there is a chance that 2026 will not remain a record-breaking low in fire terms, but this is largely due to the known effect of El Nino years.
The authors note in the conclusion [emphasis added]:
The record low total biomass burning emissions for the first half of 2026 continues the overall downward trend related to changes in savanna fires in tropical Africa and Asia. However, the observed onset of many large-scale wildfires across Eurasia and North America in the last couple of weeks of June, could increase the global total emissions through the rest of the summer. Looking further ahead, the predicted El Niño conditions have the potential to increase global fire emissions, as we observed during the previous El Niño years of 2015 and 2019 when persistent biomass burning in Indonesia caused widespread regional haze and severely degraded air quality.
In fact, the yearly global area burnt by wildfires has been steadily decreasing for over a century (we recommend following Bjorn Lomborg on X, a great source of data):
So, why the panic?
The caveat here – according to the University of East Anglia paper – is that while the number of fires, and total area burnt is down, “severity” is up.
In short, less overall wildfire activity seems to be somehow translating to greater human cost, both in lives and money. Evacuations are allegedly up, insurance costs are allegedly up, and fatalities are allegedly up:
A new analysis of global wildfire activity in 2025 reveals the world experienced some of the most destructive and deadly fire events in recent history, despite the second lowest area burned since 2002. It highlights a continued trend toward fires becoming increasingly extreme, costly, and disastrous—both economically and in lives lost.
Now, first instinct would be this is either linguistic or statistical manipulation designed to camouflage research that failed to correctly serve the climate change agenda.
A case of cope to cover misbehaving data: “Fine, wildfires are down, but the ones we’ve had are SO much more DESTRUCTIVE!”.
That’s entirely possible. But supposing the stated data is accurate, what does this mean?
Well, there are several potential explanations
It could be the predictable result expanding human habitation and growing population.
It could be that the areas of fire activity shifting to more populated areas by some as yet not understood natural process.
It could be that fires being deliberately started close to inhabited areas in order to create fear.
It could be that these statistics are manipulated or fabricated.
…Or it could be any or all or a mixture of several.
We don’t know, but we can’t rule anything out at this stage.
The data is clear though, there’s no need to panic. No matter what the press says.
August 2, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | UK |
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Media reports claiming that the Islamic Republic of Iran has agreed to a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz are false, and no change has been made to the country’s policy regarding the strategic waterway, according to a report.
Foreign media outlets, citing Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, have claimed earlier that Iran had accepted a proposal under which ships would enter the Persian Gulf through Iranian territorial waters and leave through Omani territorial waters.
Fars News Agency, citing a source close to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, rejected those claims, with the source saying, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has reached no agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and the reports published in this regard are false.”
According to Fars, a military source also dismissed the claims, saying they were entirely unfounded.
“As long as the hostile actions and acts of malice by the United States continue, the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed,” the military source was quoted as saying.
“Passage will only be possible through the designated route, in coordination with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy and after obtaining permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Otherwise, other routes are unsafe, and vessels attempting to use them will certainly encounter incidents.”
The source further emphasized that reports claiming that Iran had agreed to any plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were “baseless” and that no decision or policy change had been made regarding the strategic waterway.
It came after US President Donald Trump said he had canceled declared attacks on Iran, following warnings from Tehran that any new US or Israeli aggression would face strong retaliation.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump claimed that the US was “locked and loaded” and prepared to launch a military assault against Iran, describing the potential aggression as involving levels of military power “not seen since World War II.”
The latest round of war against Iran began on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched large-scale strikes on Iranian territory.
Iran responded with daily waves of missiles and drones targeting US and Israeli assets across the region, while closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran and the US later signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17 in an effort to end the war across all fronts.
However, renewed US military aggression against Iran in recent weeks has prompted Tehran to resume missile and drone strikes against US assets in the region and close the Strait of Hormuz once again.
August 2, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, United States |
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There appears to be some uncertainty in the British intelligence services about what is wrong with Peter Mandelson.
On the one hand, a former MI6 officer with undisclosed, but possibly continuing connections to the agency, claims that Peter Mandelson may actually have been a long-term Russian agent or asset.
On the other hand, the secret briefing materials produced by MI6 as part of the process of vetting Mandelson for the job of British Ambassador to the US, the most significant red flags were his connections to Israel or Zionist assets.
Is MI6 uncertain, or internally split? Or is there a distinction between the materials they produce secretly to advise government, and materials which are “leaked” by former officers to the Daily Telegraph for propaganda purposes? You can see where I am going with this. So, let’s jump right in.
The recent apparent leak to the Daily Telegraph is said to have come from Christopher Steele, who is reportedly a former MI6 officer from deep inside the River House, as MI6’s Thames-side HQ is so quaintly called in humanising TV dramas. Steele worked on the Russia Desk at a time when Russia was declining in the degree of attention that was devoted to it by the British intelligence services.
Steele joined MI6 in 1987 and was immediately posted to the Russia Desk. He retired in 2009, having been three years as head of the Desk. For all of his career in MI6, the proportion of attention given by MI6 (and British intelligence more broadly) to Foreign State Threats of which Russia was the pre-eminent example had reportedly markedly declined, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee. No wonder he thinks we are not paying enough attention. It was only after the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian Federation in 2014 that the British intelligence services started to focus much more attention on Russia, foremost among all State Threats.
After MI6, Steele went off to Orbis Business Intelligence. His most famous role there was as the author of the dossier on the alleged relations between Trump and Russia. These were comprehensively debunked in the so called RussiaGate affair, most notably in a four part investigation by Jeff Gerth and in the relentless deconstruction of the Mueller report and the technical flaws of the initial crowdsourced claims by Aaron Maté. It is frankly amazing that even the Telegraph would have anything to do with Steele after that debacle. But here we are. According to Steele, Mandelson was considered a “privileged contact” of Russian intelligence.
Of course, it’s not insignificant that the “journalist” who wrote the story, Camilla Turner, has parents who literally run UK Lawyers for “Israel”, as the Canary has previously pointed out. Turner has been at the Telegraph for years, but it’s also important to point out that it has recently been taken over by hardline Zionists who are on record as saying staff who are not pro-“Israel” should look for other jobs.
Mandelson’s official vetting reportedly threw up five separate links of concern. These were to China’s minister of finance, Lan Fo’an, the sanctions-hit Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a former Israeli military intelligence general, Tamir Hayma. Another concern identified was a £1m loan Mandelson received to invest in an Israeli startup. United Kingdom Security Vetting also noted Mandelson had a “very close” relationship with another individual, who is British, that could be compromising.
But Mandelson was not the only British official to have relations with the Chinese Finance minister. Both Rachel Reeves (the Chancellor) and Keir Starmer as PM did so too.
On the Russian connection, as the Zionist press like Times of Israel and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency never tire of pointing out, Deripaska is one of Russia’s prominent Jewish oligarchs. And he is no stranger to elite Zionist networks. After all, when Mandelson met Deripaska in famously controversial circumstances in 2008, it was aboard the oligarch’s yacht as a guest of Nat Rothschild, who also reportedly played a key role in financing Deripaska’s business activities. It was aboard Rothschild’s own yacht that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump later “discovered” the Albanian island paradise that has become so controversial in recent weeks. Nat Rothschild also famously allowed Mandelson to “rent” a “modest” farmhouse on his Wiltshire estate in England, which was one of the two addresses raided by the police when Mandelson was arrested.
But that is not all. Mandelson is perhaps best known for his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the same financier/Zionist asset who revealed in a once secret email to Peter Thiel of Palantir that “I represent the Rothschilds”. The circles of influence and corruption are closed by the final connection. In 2018, Deripaska was allegedly involved in trafficking young women for prostitution. He was accused of raping at least one 15-year-old. Though his alleged associates were prosecuted, charges were in the end – in 2025 – not preferred against Deripaska. So the “Russian” connection to Mandelson in the vetting report, in the end, is actually a connection to Zionist influence networks, with a striking Epsteinian flavour.
Of the two specific “Israeli” connections raised by MI6, one was with the former head of the Zionist regime military intelligence agency Aman. Tamir Hayma was chief of Aman between 2018 and 2021 following a decades-long career in the occupation forces. He then transitioned to the Institute for National Security Studies, a regime-connected think tank, and reportedly spoke bi-monthly to Mandelson.
The other connection was that Mandelson, though he had declared a £1million holding in an Israeli gaming tech start-up, called Moon Active, which was behind Coin Master, had not disclosed that he had been loaned the money to buy the stake. The British resident behind the loan has not so far been identified. It would be surprising if they were not connected to the same Zionist networks in which Mandelson is embedded.
The final red flag reported by the vetting process was to another British individual. There has been very little reporting on who that individual might be. Speculating who it is is difficult because there are so many instances of Mandelsonian corruption that it is hard to tell which would have triggered warning bells in MI6. It could, of course, be Nat Rothschild, who has been central to so much of this, but equally it could be the former “Prince” now known as Andrew Mountbatten. A 2019 internal JPMorgan report flagged that Jeffrey Epstein maintained an intertwined, “particularly close relationship” with both Andrew and Lord Mandelson, creating overlapping reputational risks. Then there is Ghislaine Maxwell. In 2014, Mandelson signed on as a “founding citizen” for Terramar, an ocean conservation charity founded by the British socialite and funded by Epstein, which was later scrutinized during sex-trafficking investigations.
As can be seen from this list and from all that we know about Mandelson’s career, almost all of his multifarious connections are deeply inserted in the Epstein web or connected to Zionist influence networks. It was after Christopher Steele retired from MI6 that the agency massively increased its focus on Russia as a result of the “reunification” of Crimea with the Russian Federation. The HMG Russia Unit was created inside the Foreign Office for this purpose, and it co-operated very closely with the Russia Desk in MI6, which Steele had headed. The unit was given civilian cover and announced publicly, but as was later disclosed by the Intelligence and Security Select Committee, it was staffed by spooks from all seven then-existing British intelligence agencies. It was from there that the whole Skripal “poisoning” operation was run, as well as several other covert ops including the “Integrity Initiative” exposed in mass leaks in 2018 and indeed many covert ops in Ukraine after 2022. Given the reported connection between Steele and Skripal’s handler Pablo Miller, both of whom worked at Orbis Business Intelligence, it is reasonable to assume that Steele may have played a role in the Skripal op, at a time when he had been out of the service for nine years. So, it is not entirely clear that this latest intervention from Steele is entirely separate from the machinations emanating from spooks who currently inhabit the River House.
It is perfectly plain that the major link that Mandelson has is with Zionist intelligence-linked networks. If anyone in MI6 (or formerly in MI6) tells you differently, you will know they are ignoring the actual data held in their files and trying to treat you as a propaganda patsy. Don’t fall for it. Mandelson is a Zionist asset.
July 28, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Israel, MI6, UK, Zionism |
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Corriere della Sera claimed the Italian government was investigating a Russian propaganda ring
Italy’s Corriere della Sera was ordered to pay compensation to a sociology professor that it defamed as a “Putinist” after a court determined that the pro-Russia influence network he supposedly belonged to never existed.
In a Tuesday ruling, a court in Milan found that the newspaper had defamed Professor Alessandro Orsini by referring to him as a member of “Putin’s Network in Italy.” Corriere della Sera, a mainstream broadsheet paper, was ordered to pay €27,500 in compensation to Orsini.
“Publishing and allowing the publication of an article that attributes to Orsini the status of a member of an organized network of pro-Putin supporters aimed at propaganda and counter-information… constitutes conduct damaging to his personal and professional image and reputation,” the judge noted in the ruling.
Published in 2022, the defamatory article listed Orsini – then a professor at Luiss University in Rome – as a member of a “complex and diverse” network aimed at “attacking pro-Kiev politicians” and “undermining government decisions” it deemed favorable to Kiev. According to the newspaper, the group was under investigation by the Italian parliament’s intelligence committee (COPASIR), which allegedly determined it was “activated at key moments” to spread pro-Russia propaganda during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
However, COPASIR’s president admitted at the time that the committee had “never conducted its own investigations into alleged influencers.” Italy’s undersecretary for intelligence services, Franco Gabrielli, added that “the names given by the newspaper do not appear in any type of investigation.”
During the trial, Corriere della Sera claimed it had received “other and different information” from confidential sources to back its story but was unable to prove this in court.
The judge noted that, not only had the newspaper failed to prove that Orsini participated in an organized propaganda network, but it was unable to prove that the network even existed in the first place.
As a result of the Corriere della Sera article, Orsini lost his position at Luiss University and was dropped as a contributor by Italian broadcaster RAI.
Orsini has been a persistent critic of Italy’s support for Ukraine. In early 2022, he accused Prime Minister Mario Draghi of “total subordination to America,” while blasting the West for “doing nothing for peace.”
“We must be open to recognizing the independence of Donbass and lifting sanctions,” he said in an appearance on RAI. “Draghi must say he’s no longer sending weapons to Zelensky.”
July 22, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Human rights, Italy |
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The New York Times (NYT) claims in “Without Climate Change, U.S. Heat Wave Called ‘Virtually Impossible’” that the recent Northeastern U.S. heat wave could not have occurred without human-caused climate change. This is false. The NYT bases its entire story on a model-driven analysis from a group whose sole purpose is to connect weather events to climate change, while ignoring the long observational record showing that severe heat waves have repeatedly struck the United States, including New York, for centuries.
“Heat and humidity as severe, prolonged and far-reaching as this week’s would have been ‘virtually impossible’ in the Northeast and eastern Canada before humans began warming the planet, a team of scientists said on Friday,” writes Raymond Zhong, a reporter for the NYT. “Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the burning of oil, gas and coal have trapped more of the sun’s heat at Earth’s surface, raising temperatures worldwide for more than a century.
“Summer hot spells are nothing new, but because of the excess heat around the planet caused by global warming, they can produce higher temperatures today than they once did,” Zhong continued.
Unlike a good journalist, Zhong never questioned the premise, never examined the historical record, never interviewed anyone outside the climate attribution community, and never asked whether the group they cite, World Weather Attribution (WWA), has conclusions that might be influenced by the organization’s very reason for existing. Instead, Zhong presented readers with exactly one narrative: climate change is causing the present heat wave.
WWA exists for one purpose, to determine how much climate change has influenced weather events. That is its mission. Asking WWA whether climate change caused a heat wave is like asking the National Football League whether football is important or Greenpeace whether they think oil spills are harmful. What exactly did the NYT expect them to conclude? That climate change had nothing to do with it?
Of course not. This is not journalism, rather it’s a reporter using a narrative autopen.
The article reports that WWA concluded the heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” before industrialization and cites a probability analysis based on wet bulb globe temperature calculations combined with weather observations, forecasts, and climate model simulations. Yet there is one enormous problem with this approach: climate models are not observations.
WWA begins with climate models, creates a hypothetical version of Earth without modern greenhouse gas emissions, and then compares that imaginary world to today’s modeled climate. The result is not a measurement. It is an estimate built upon assumptions about carbon dioxide driving climate changes, already embedded within the models themselves. The NYT never explains this distinction. Instead, it presents speculative model output as though it were an observed fact. Even more troubling is the fact that the NYT story ignored heat wave history entirely.
America’s climate did not begin in 1970. Long before anyone blamed carbon dioxide for extreme weather, the United States experienced devastating heat waves that rivaled or exceeded many recent temperatures. Climate at a Glance documents that the most severe period for U.S. heat waves remains the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, when NOAA observations show far more frequent extreme heat than today.
The historical record extends even farther back. The catastrophic Eastern U.S. heat wave of 1901 killed an estimated 9,500 people. The historic 1911 heat wave brought temperatures above 100°F across much of New England and still holds Boston’s all-time record of 104°F. The Dust Bowl heat waves of 1934 and 1936 produced temperatures that remain unmatched across large portions of the central United States. The devastating heat wave of 1980 in the United States killed thousands and caused billions of dollars in damage. None of these events receives a single mention in the NYT article.
Instead, readers are asked to believe that today’s weather is fundamentally different from any weather experienced in the past, just because one attribution group says so.
The article also ignores the basic reality that reliable nationwide temperature observations span roughly 150 years, while humans have lived in North America for more than 15,000 years. Claiming that a weather event is “virtually impossible” based on such a tiny slice of climate history requires extraordinary confidence, or hubris. A commonly cited scientific saying “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is often attributed to astronomer Carl Sagan. Yet the NYT provides no extraordinary evidence for the claim that the ongoing heat wave is exceptional or would be “virtually impossible” sans climate change. Indeed, it presents no hard evidence at all, just WWA’s computer model spin. The NYT applies none of the skepticism that journalists normally reserve for extraordinary claims.
The NYT also overlooks another important factor. Much of the observed warming in cities occurs at night, when asphalt, concrete, and buildings slowly release the heat absorbed during the day. This Urban Heat Island effect raises overnight minimum temperatures, precisely when heat-related mortality is greatest. Urbanization can substantially influence long-term temperature records, a known factor ignored by the NYT.
Finally, Zhong quotes a WWA scientist declaring that “the climate the country has today is fundamentally different to the one it had when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.” That line makes for dramatic copy, but it is historically false. The Founding Fathers experienced brutal heat waves. The most famous heat wave during the American Revolution occurred during the Battle of Monmouth in central New Jersey on June 28, 1778. Temperatures soared to nearly 100°F (37.8°C) with high humidity, pushing the heat index well over 110°F. Fighting in heavy woolen uniforms under the blazing summer sun, soldiers on both sides suffered severe dehydration and heatstroke. Almost as many American soldiers died of heat exhaustion as died from battle wounds.
Extreme heat in the United States is not a new phenomenon.
Despite this, modern media treat every string of hot days as evidence of a looming “climate catastrophe” while ignoring centuries of evidence that debunks this claim.
The most disappointing aspect of this story is not WWA’s predictable conclusion. Organizations are free to pursue the missions for which they were created. The failure belongs squarely with the NYT simply parroting, without critical examination, a climate advocacy organization’s unverified claims.
Readers deserve good journalism. What they got was sloppy climate advocacy masquerading as news. In this case, The New York Times erred because WWA’s claims are not news and certainly not “fit to print.”
July 19, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | New York Times |
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As Iran prepares for the funeral ceremonies of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, the scale of anticipated public participation indicates that they are set to become one of the most significant mass gatherings in contemporary Iranian history. Reports indicate that vast crowds are expected to arrive from across the country, alongside official delegations from numerous states. This moment offers a clear opportunity to assess the U.S. and Israeli decision to assassinate him in February 2026. The operation rested on a flawed assessment of Khamenei’s real role and standing within Iran’s social and political structure. In this regard, the United States was shaped largely by Israeli media narratives and intelligence assessments—accounts that substantially underestimated Ayatollah Khamenei’s popularity, institutional influence, and capacity for social mobilization. The preparations already underway and the expected scale of the turnout make this analytical failure harder to ignore. They show how far American policymakers relied on an incomplete and one-sided picture of Iranian reality.
To understand this miscalculation, it is necessary to return to the framework that had cast a long shadow over analyses of Iran before the attack. For years, Israeli media outlets and a number of research institutions close to Israel’s political and security establishment portrayed Khamenei as a leader with limited social backing, governing a society marked by deep divisions, economic discontent, and generational distance. These narratives repeatedly suggested that removing him could trigger serious instability, or even a fundamental transformation of Iran’s political system. Such an image aligned with the stated purpose of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation: weakening and destabilizing Iran’s political order. Yet this analysis ignored the more complex realities of Iranian society and politics. In assessing Khamenei’s structural position and the attachment of significant parts of society to ideas such as independence, security, and resistance to external pressure, Washington effectively accepted a narrative that minimized decisive factors. The result was an expectation that his removal would rapidly expose internal fractures. Developments since then—including a relatively orderly leadership transition and the continued functioning of core institutions—have pointed in the opposite direction.
Khamenei’s position in Iran went far beyond that of a conventional head of government. For more than three decades, he stressed national self-reliance, scientific and technological development despite external constraints, and sustained resistance in foreign policy against outside pressure.
These priorities helped produce a measure of institutional resilience and measurable progress in certain sectors. Iran has, of course, faced genuine social discontent, economic pressure, and political divisions. But that did not mean Khamenei’s role had been reduced to personal isolation, nor that his removal would necessarily paralyze the country’s political machinery. Israeli media coverage generally emphasized critical currents and visible signs of dissatisfaction while downplaying evidence of broader attachment to ideas such as independence, national sovereignty, and security. This selective emphasis produced an image of fragility and isolation that did not correspond to the durability of Iranian structures after his assassination. America’s acceptance of that image represented a serious intelligence and analytical failure in understanding the depth of Khamenei’s place within Iran’s political structure.
The February attack was accompanied by public statements from American and Israeli officials describing it as a decisive blow. The initial expectation appears to have rested on the assumption that the vacuum created by eliminating the leader would intensify internal divisions or create opportunities for greater outside leverage.
In practice, Iran preserved the functional continuity of its core institutions and its broad policy direction. This outcome showed that Khamenei’s influence was not merely personal. It had taken root in institutions, political networks, security structures, and the political culture of the Islamic Republic.
Washington’s error was to imagine that the base of support around him was narrower and more brittle than events ultimately showed it to be. The upcoming funeral ceremonies, scheduled to unfold over several days and across major cities, are set to draw exceptionally large crowds and will provide further tangible evidence against those earlier assumptions. The anticipated presence of mourners and foreign delegations will demonstrate a degree of recognition, respect, and social connection that earlier reporting and assessments had treated as marginal.
From a broader policy perspective, this episode reveals the dangers of excessive reliance on particular intelligence and media sources. In Iran’s case, cultural, religious, and historical forces shape political loyalties and behavior in ways that demand a more precise understanding of the country’s internal realities—not broad, externally produced narratives. Analyses that overlook these factors are vulnerable to strategic error. What was supposed to weaken Iran’s political structure instead reinforced commitment to established principles, heightened sensitivity to foreign intervention, and underscored the perceived necessity of institutional continuity. The forthcoming ceremonies, with their extensive organization, will serve as a visible corrective to assessments shaped by one-sided reporting.
By relying on Israeli media narratives and intelligence assessments of Khamenei’s position and the level of support surrounding him, American decision-makers arrived at a conclusion that developments since the assassination have not borne out.
In conclusion, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and the domestic and international response to it expose the limits of policymaking built on incomplete information and politically shaped interpretations. The forthcoming funeral ceremonies and the anticipated exceptional public turnout will offer a vivid illustration of social cohesion in Iran—one that stands in clear contrast to earlier predictions of rapid collapse or internal rupture. This expected turnout suggests that America’s assessment of Iran’s Supreme Leader and the degree of public support he commanded was significantly influenced by Israeli media and intelligence narratives, and ultimately proved mistaken. Rather than producing the disruption that had been anticipated, the process has highlighted Iran’s institutional continuity and social resilience.
July 2, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, United States, Zionism |
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The shingles vaccine has not cured dementia
Over the past month, four studies have been read as showing that the shingles vaccine prevents, or even reverses, dementia. A national newspaper has turned that reading into advice. The advice is to go and get the vaccine now. The evidence tells a different story.
Vinay Prasad has already gone through the four papers and laid the timings side by side, and I will not improve on that account.
● The Annals paper has a 5% absolute reduction in dementia by three years, with benefit appearing within a year of a nursing-home admission.
● The JAMA paper has it working by a hundred days.
● The Welsh study in Nature is a natural experiment, not a simple cohort, and reports a fifth fewer dementia diagnoses over seven years. It declines to publish a time-to-event plot at all.
● The American paper, in Nature Medicine, includes a hazard function whose curves separate almost immediately.
● And a meta-analysis concludes that it is not the shingles vaccine alone but every adult vaccine that appears to protect against dementia.
What a dementia diagnosis actually is
A dementia code in a health record is the end of a chain of soft decisions:
● someone has to notice a change,
● the patient has to present to the system,
● a threshold has to be applied,
● and a clinician has to enter the code.
For each of these steps there is wide variation in the timing between patients. The noticing depends on who is being watched closely and who is not. The same forgetful elderly person can be coded, or not coded, according to how hard anyone happens to be looking. Look harder and you might diagnose more.
Now ask who receives an elective shingles vaccine. It is, overwhelmingly, the people well enough to go and get one. The housebound, the frail, and above all those whose memory is already failing, the people nearest to a diagnosis, are the least likely to present for a non-urgent injection. So the unvaccinated group is enriched, at the very outset and before anyone is followed up, with exactly the people who will later be coded with dementia. This is the “healthy vaccinee effect”, and in this setting it is large enough to produce the whole of the apparent benefit on its own.
Why four studies agreeing is not reassurance
The natural objection is that four datasets agree, and agreement is supposed to be reassuring. But when the cohort studies make the same methodological error it is not reassuring. Every one of them carries the same confounding structure: in each, vaccination marks underlying health, healthcare contact and the simple capacity to turn up, and in each that marker is correlated with the outcome being measured. The errors are not independent results that happen to coincide. They are the same error made several times, because the same bias is built into each design. A biased estimate does not become unbiased by being repeated. These confounded studies in agreement tell you that the confounder is stable, not that the result is real.
Prasad puts this as the earth looking flat whichever way you turn, which is exactly right as an image of the confounded cohorts. The formal version is that replication adds evidence only when the replications are capable of failing in different ways. When they share their confounders, consistency is not corroboration, it is the same confounder doing the same job in each dataset in turn. To break the symmetry you do not add a fifth observational cohort, another flat horizon. You change the design to one whose errors are structured differently. That test already exists.
A regression-discontinuity study exploits the age cut-off for eligibility: people just below and just above the threshold are, for practical purposes, exchangeable, so the baseline-health gap that drives the observational studies is largely removed. The Welsh study is exactly this design, which is why it is the strongest evidence on the table; they claimed dementia was prevented in Wales and in Australia and Ontario. But would an independent team running a study with an identical design find the same thing? George Davey Smith and colleagues have now carried out such a study in England, across some 6.3 million people, roughly twenty times the Welsh sample; the work was presented in June 2026 at a conference and is not yet published. The design worked, in that eligibility produced the expected fall in shingles (although it is not clear what happened in the ‘grace period’ immediately after vaccination) but on dementia it found nothing. The fact that the finding was null in the far larger study should mean the smaller one has been overruled.
The speed matters
Speed is being sold as a measure of how powerful the vaccine is. It is better understood as evidence that the vaccine is doing nothing at all. Dementia is slow. The neuropathology accumulates over years, usually decades, and by the time anyone is coded with the disease the process is long established. Nothing done to a brain can produce a measurable difference in dementia incidence within a hundred days, because the disease does not move on that timescale. So when the curves separate almost immediately, the separation cannot be the vaccine acting. It can only be that the two groups already differed at the moment the vaccine was given.
It is a signature of selection. The rapidity that is being offered as the headline result is the clearest single indicator that what is on the page is the “healthy vaccinee” artefact and not a treatment effect.
From the literature to the newsstand
On 10 June the Daily Telegraph published an interview with John Todd, professor of precision medicine at Oxford, in which he told readers over fifty to get the shingles vaccine now. Jonathan Engler has lodged a complaint with the MHRA about that article.
Professor Todd is, on his own declaration, a paid consultant for GSK, which manufactures Shingrix, and the study he relies on is one he co-authored. When the paper was published, given the issues described above about selection bias the authors wrote that the dementia results “provide a rationale for conducting a randomized control trial aiming to confirm the findings”. Shingrix is not licensed for the prevention of dementia. The advice to buy it for that purpose rests on a paper whose findings, in its authors’ own words, have not been confirmed.
In the United Kingdom, the advertising of prescription-only medicines is governed by Part 14 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. Regulation 284 provides that a person may not publish an advertisement likely to lead to the use of a prescription-only medicine. There is proper latitude for journalism, and the MHRA’s guidance for journalists asks only that coverage be balanced, that it not exaggerate benefit, and that it not steer readers towards a named product. It does not require proof of a commercial arrangement before a breach is made out. Engler’s point, which is the right one, is that a piece does not stop being promotional by declining to call itself promotional, and that the absence of the label is itself the difficulty. Where a consultant to the manufacturer urges the purchase of that manufacturer’s unlicensed product, on the strength of his own unconfirmed research, with the consultancy unmentioned, the ordinary description of the result is advertising, whatever else it is also called.
Telegraph readers thinking of taking his advice to rush off and buy a private Shingrix vaccine, might want to take note that (a) Professor Todd has no medical qualification (his FRCP is honorary and his primary qualification is in biochemistry) and (b) the department he heads in Oxford was funded by GSK to the tune of £30 million.
What honest curiosity would do next
The editors of the observational papers could be asked to publish the all-cause mortality curves alongside the dementia curves: if the vaccinated are simply healthier people, their mortality will diverge in the same direction, and the confounding will be visible on the page. This is a control test. Every child at school is taught the importance of using a control group in scientific research but all too often they are left out by actual scientists. The randomised trial that the NIH is said to be considering might need to be run simply to put to bed the excitement around this issue that has been fuelled by media speculation.
The truth is that the studies that kept producing the same answer did so because they shared the same bias, while the largest independent test found nothing and a national newspaper has printed a paid consultant’s promotion of a drug when he will benefit from the sales. Perhaps neither of those stories will sell as many newspapers as the ones that do get printed or clicked on.
June 27, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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On June 15th, two young Ukrainian men were found guilty in London of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on two homes and a car intimately connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Little-reported, curious details of the trial, and a post-conviction propaganda blitz led by the BBC blaming Russian intelligence actors for inspiring and directing the pair’s incendiary crimes, raise a number of ominous questions about precisely what happened, why, and for whom the alleged perpetrators were truly working.
On May 8th 2025, a Toyota vehicle previously owned by Starmer was set ablaze in north London, not far from where he’d previously resided. Three days later, flats in Islington Starmer managed years previously were similarly put to the torch, then on May 12th, a home where he once resided, now leased to his sister-in-law was also set ablaze. That same day, 22-year-old Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych was arrested by British police for his purported role in the arson.
Despite the Prime Minister being personally targeted in a highly organised, repeated and potentially lethal manner, major news outlets within and without the country exhibited bizarrely muted interest. Starmer describing the incidents in parliament on May 14th that year as “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for” – condemnation from Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians echoed – elicited some headlines. However, basic facts about the case, and discussion of its obvious potential national security implications, remained unforthcoming.
This seeming omerta endured when, on May 17th, 26-year-old Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc was arrested at Luton airport for his role in the attacks, attempting to flee. Four days later, 34-year-old Ukrainian national Petro Pochynok was arrested, accused of conspiring with Carpiuc, Lavrynovych, “and others unknown to damage by fire property belonging to another.” The names and nationalities of two further individuals arrested in the case – a 48-year-old on June 2nd that year, and a 19-year-old in January 2026 – were never released.
Police investigations into these anonymous suspects were eventually dropped, without fanfare. Who they were, why they became subjects of interest, and the grounds for their elimination from enquiries, hasn’t been revealed and wasn’t discussed at trial. There were apparently no “others unknown” with whom Carpiuc and Lavrynovych colluded after all. Pochynok was acquitted, successfully arguing he was “deceived” by the pair and had no idea they intended to start fires with his help. Notably, all three were charged with mere arson, not national security offences.
This aspect is striking, given when the trial commenced on April 28th, prosecution lawyers immediately declared the trio’s arson assault was directed by a Russian-speaking Telegram user, for cash. The December 2023 National Security Act grants British authorities sweeping powers to severely punish people who break the law at the behest of “hostile states”. Repeatedly since the Starmer-linked attacks, British citizens have been jailed for national security offences after being recruited to commit crimes, including arson, via Telegram by supposed Russian actors.
All along, alarm has been sounded about Iranian intelligence using Telegram for similar purposes, in particular “[hiring] anyone who can harm Israeli interests or individuals” in Britain. Yet, a coordinated criminal conspiracy targeting the Prime Minister, which required access to sensitive private information on Starmer not readily available to average citizens, allegedly orchestrated by a malign foreign actor, mysteriously didn’t qualify as national security-related. Moreover, jurors and the public alike were strictly prohibited from learning anything about the group’s alleged recruiter.
‘Wholly Irrelevant’
On the trial’s first day, dropping the bombshell that Lavrynovych was “recruited, instructed and promised with payment for the fires that he was told to start” by a Russian-speaking source known as “EL Money”, the lead prosecutor promptly ordered jurors to leave the entire issue alone. “It is not part of your considerations to decide who ‘EL Money’ is and what reason he might have had to co-ordinate the actions of these defendants,” they said, before adding:
“It does not matter whether they knew that the property they were targeting was connected to the Prime Minister or whether that formed part of their motivation.”
As such, the trial centred solely around the extremely limited question of whether the accused committed arson. All other avenues of inquiry weren’t up for discussion or investigation in open court. While the financial motivation of the three accused was explored, the identity, connections and motives of the individual – or individuals – who commissioned and directed the attacks on Starmer was effectively inadmissible. This was despite Lavrynovych’s defence hinging on claiming to have felt intimidated by the unknown Telegram contact, and therefore acting under duress.
The BBC reports how during the trial in the jury’s absence, Lavrynovych’s lawyers applied for prosecutors to hand over wider information held by authorities on EL Money. This included whether he was associated with intelligence services or a state informant, and where he was based. They argued the actions of EL Money were “redolent of tradecraft” – in other words, cloak-and-dagger techniques employed by spies. But the judge flatly rejected the application, inexplicably ruling these burning queries to be “wholly irrelevant” to issues before the jury.
Nonetheless, it did emerge at the trial that EL Money sent messages to Lavrynovych on May 12th, following the final arson, notifying him “there is news, you’ll get crypto” and “you need to throw away the clothes.” Subsequently, EL Money warned him, “you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain,” and “you need to leave the city.” Lavrynovych was arrested hours later, indicating he was already in law enforcement’s crosshairs by this time. How he came to police attention isn’t clear.
Apparently, the central coordinating role of EL Money in the attacks on Starmer wasn’t ascertained until after Carpiuc and Lavrynovych were in custody, and legal proceedings well-underway. At a pretrial hearing in late May 2025, prosecution lawyers said the arrested Ukrainian pair’s conspiracy was “unexplained”. A contemporary Financial Times report noted counter-terror cops leading the probe were “keeping an open mind about motive.” Nameless government officials stressed “many different versions of the events” remained under investigation, “and nothing had been ruled out at this stage.”
‘No Evidence’
How prosecutors settled on the “version of events” they dramatically presented in court, before directing jurors to disregard considerations of EL Money entirely, is likewise unknown. Only a small number of messages the user exchanged with Lavrynovych – in which EL Money notably communicated in perfect Russian and Ukrainian – were presented in court. However, within just hours of the pair’s conviction, the BBC released a dedicated Panorama documentary, and 3,500-word long-read on the “Russian connection” behind the Starmer-linked arson.
Miraculously, “using open-source tools,” Britain’s state broadcaster was able to ‘crack the case’ to an extent police purportedly couldn’t. The BBC named EL Money as a “Russian diplomat, schooled in information warfare by spies and propagandists, who is close to the highest levels of power in Moscow.” Posing as EL Money, the 23-year-old supposedly sought to bribe numerous Ukrainians in Britain into perpetrating a variety of criminal activities, via dedicated local jobs groups, while also oddly deploying “deeply offensive Russian terms for Ukrainian people.”
“Messages from the [EL Money] account in various Telegram channels show him glorifying [Vladimir] Putin and Russia, attacking the Ukrainian people and promoting Russian narratives,” the BBC claimed. Its investigation acknowledged the trial of Carpiuc, Lavrynovych and Pochynok “was strange, mainly because the true author of the drama was never revealed,” with the conundrum of EL Money’s identity “deliberately avoided.” Suspicion can only abound as to why the British state broadcaster unravelled this crucial riddle, rather than courts and/or law enforcement.
Even more suspiciously, the BBC quoted a senior British counter-terror police chief as saying while the aim of the attacks on Starmer’s properties was “to intimidate and create fear for the Prime Minister and to attack the UK,” law enforcement had “not been able to prove the identity of [EL Money] or who he was working for.” They categorically declared, “we’ve got no evidence to suggest this was a state-backed threat.” But Britain’s state broadcaster is seemingly better informed than the police.
“Sources have told us that authorities in the UK and in Ukraine have privately concluded Russia was behind the arson attacks,” the BBC boasted. One might reasonably ask why Kiev has apparently taken it upon herself to solve a British criminal case, although Ukraine’s SBU is certainly an authority on recruiting chaos agents via Telegram, and other messaging apps. The heavily CIA and MI6-infiltrated agency has, over many years, exploited this technique to blackmail and bribe Russians into perpetrating serious crimes at home.
These scandalous activities have been universally ignored by the Western media. By contrast, numerous major news outlets have boldly seized on the BBC blaming Russia for the arson attacks. The Financial Times published a slick investigation the same day, replete with photos, videos, and graphics, documenting EL Money’s contacts with and payments to Lavrynovych. Shady investigative website The Insider went so far as to release extensive biographical information and photos of the 23-year-old Russian named by the BBC as EL Money.
Other outlets have produced quotes from Lavrynovych’s trial testimony, in which he states EL Money “wanted to see [the arson] on the news.” Of course, the attacks barely registered in the media contemporaneously, and what was said at the trial by defendants, their lawyers, prosecutors and the judge went unreported until now. In all the post-trial rush to convict Russia, not a single source has mentioned how British police themselves admit they possess “no evidence” indicating the arson attacks were sponsored by any state. Make of that what you will.
June 20, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | BBC, Financial Times, UK, Ukraine |
Comments Off on Keir Starmer arson mysteries multiply
“Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were critically important weapons in the free world’s competition with Soviet totalitarianism—and without them the Soviet bloc might even have not disintegrated.”
This was the assessment of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter and one of the most influential foreign policy strategists of the Cold War era.
Brzezinski’s description is notable not only because of who said it, but because of how he described the organization. He did not characterize Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as merely a U.S.-funded news organization but instead, referred to it as a “weapon” in a geopolitical struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.
More than three decades after the Cold War ended, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty remains in operation—and Congress is now considering a major increase in its funding.
As Americans continue to grapple with rising prices and persistent inflation, Washington DC’s attention has increasingly shifted toward foreign policy priorities rather than domestic economic concerns. When foreign spending does enter the public conversation, it is often through provisions buried deep within legislative text and only briefly summarized in committee reports, with limited public attention.
One recent example is the Ukraine Support Act, sponsored by Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY). The bill continues ongoing U.S. funding for Ukraine as the war with Russia enters its fourth year, and like most large foreign aid packages, it contains a wide range of provisions.
Among them is Section 108, which authorizes $250 million in funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for 2026 alone. The language describes this funding as necessary to bring the organization to its “full capacity” in combating “conspiracy theories” and “Russian disinformation.” To understand this framing, it helps to look at the organization’s origins.
When it was originally founded in the 1950s, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was created to broadcast alternative reporting into countries behind the Iron Curtain. It received its first significant funding from both the U.S. Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and has since been described as one of the CIA’s largest successful covert action projects.
Among the organization’s initial goals was a focus on “destroying the Soviet government’s monopoly of information,” during the Cold War. This included early attempts to create a “crisis of confidence” in Soviet leadership.
Over time, that structure evolved, but the organization remained. Today, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty operates in more than twenty countries, with a reported weekly audience of 47.6 million, more than 1,700 staff members, and over 9 billion video views in 2023. Its operations now include Radio Farda in Iran, Radio Azadi in Afghanistan, and services in the Balkans—regions of significant U.S. foreign policy interest.
What was once a Cold War-era broadcasting organization has become a global, publicly funded media operation with a clear geopolitical focus. According to congressional funding records and budget summaries, RFE/RL has received roughly $140–$150 million annually since 2023. The 2026 authorization increases prior funding levels by over 60%, with the stated goal of combating what Washington describes as “disinformation.”
The organization itself is almost entirely publicly funded. In a March 2025 court declaration, RFE/RL president Stephen Capus stated that roughly 99% of the organization’s funding comes from congressional appropriations through the U.S. Agency for Global Media, while around 1% comes from private donations or other sources.
When funding was briefly disrupted in 2025, Capus called the interruption a “massive gift to America’s enemies,” pointing specifically to governments like Russia, China, Iran, and Belarus as among those who would “celebrate the demise” of the organization.
Supporters of RFE/RL note that the relatively small cost—especially compared to overall defense and foreign aid spending—is justified by its strategic value. With independent media remaining a key tool for challenging state-controlled narratives abroad, think tanks such as the Hudson Institute have described RFE/RL funding as a “pittance in terms of U.S. government spending,” with a particular focus on countries like Russia, China, and Iran.
As a whole, RFE/RL sees itself as more than just an independent news organization. In an FAQ section on its website the group notes that the organization is also working to serve U.S. foreign policy objectives and U.S. national security interests.
Still, this leaves unresolved the question about whether communication organizations abroad should be treated as a permanent feature on the domestic spending ledger.
At a time when the U.S. economy continues to face inflationary pressure and the stock market experiences significant volatility, the question remains what tangible benefit U.S. citizens receive from this use of tax dollars.
Whether Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is viewed as a valuable instrument of American influence or an outdated relic of the Cold War, Congress is now preparing to increase its funding substantially.
June 16, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | United States |
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A story broadcast and posted by WPLN, Louisville Public Media, claims Tennessee’s black bear population is being threatened by climate change. Data show this is false. Bear populations are growing along with improved conditions for black bears to flourish. The biggest threat to black bears is conflict with humans, which is being driven by population growth, both bears and humans, urban expansion into bear habitat, and poor garbage storage.
WPLN reporter Caroline Eggers begins the story headlined, “Black bears are threatened by climate change. How can we help?,” by writing, “Black bear encounters are on the rise in Tennessee, and climate change is often a hidden culprit[.]”
The problem with Eggers story is that its headline and lead sentence are woefully misleading. Most of the story’s details are pretty accurate. She notes that before large-scale European occupation and widespread forest clearing, black bears were common across Tennessee. After a sharp decline, bears populations have made a big comeback with an estimated 6,000 bears across the state.
Bear populations are doing so well, they are increasingly being seen in edge communities being developed in formerly wild areas and even in urban areas.
Black bear encounters with people are on the rise in Tennessee, and they are not always […] idyllic […]” writes Eggers. “Bears scrounge through trash, cars and sometimes even homes for an easy source of calories.
“The furry creatures arguably have the best noses in the animal kingdom, 300 times better than people,” Eggers continued. “The trend is, in part, driven by convenience for the bears. They are opportunistic feeders.”
So far, so good, but then the story begins to go off the rails. Eggers notes that rainfall from Hurricane Helene in 2024 caused flooding, knocking down a lot of trees, and then leapt to discuss a current drought in the Great Smoky Mountain national park. Yet neither of these events are historically unique or historically unusual. Flooding and drought, while never the norm, have been common throughout Tennessee’s history, and there is no evidence in the data that hurricanes, droughts, and floods have become more common or severe over time in Tennessee, or in general elsewhere in the United States, as detailed in various Climate at a Glance posts, here, here, and here, for example.
For Tennessee specifically, while rainfall amounts vary regionally across the state, data show no increasing trend in drought numbers or severity since 1895, but rather a modest increase in precipitation. (see the figure, below)
Temperatures in Tennessee have increased very modestly, about 0.5℉ over the past century. This is significantly below the national average rise in temperature and is likely due in large part to the Urban Heat Island effect from the growth of Tennessee’s large and midsized cities. In fact, Tennessee’s maximum high temperature was set and matched on two dates in 1930, more than 90 years of climate change ago.
Concerning forests, the data are clear that urban development and agriculture have replaced forests in some areas. But overall, the amount of forested lands has increased from lows set after initial European settlement, when many forests were cleared for small scale farming and grazing. In fact, forests cover approximately 52 percent of Tennessee, with rebounding coverage over the past 100 years. Natural forest coverage has doubled over the last century from 25 percent.
What’s more, connected forest cover and better precipitation has produced improved ecosystem conditions for bears, including increased animal and plant food sources, which largely explain Tennessee’s growing bear population.
Since modest warming over the past hasn’t made habitat and ecological conditions worse for bears in Tennessee, but rather has improved such conditions, contributing to a growing population, climate change can’t be “threatening” bear survival, as Eggers claims in her WPLN story.
Had Eggers not tried to drag climate change into her WPLN story about problems some Tennesseans are having with bears, she might have written a valuable and interesting story. She could have explained the dangers bears face due to urban expansion, some people’s propensity to think of bears as cute and feeding them, and poor garbage storage – all of which have led to problem bears and human/bear conflicts. Instead, she opened with a misleading, but perhaps attention-grabbing headline, and then wandered off the trail in an effort to feed the narrative popular with the media that “climate change causes everything bad.” In this case, that climate change is harming bears—despite clear evidence the black bear population is flourishing amid climate change. There is no trend or evidence, none at all, suggesting this will change in the foreseeable future.
June 7, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | United States |
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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Science Focus article “Something ‘unprecedented’ is now happening to Earth’s rotation, scientists say” claims that climate change is causing an “unprecedented” slowing of Earth’s rotation by 1.33 milliseconds per century, something not seen in 3.6 million years. This is false. The data show that millisecond-scale variations in Earth’s length of day are routine, naturally occurring, and both technologically and biologically insignificant.
The BBC sensationalizes the issue as something extraordinary, stating that today’s rate of change is “unequivocally” unlike anything in millions of years. But Earth’s rotation has never been constant. As explained in the Climate Realism rebuttal to Euronews on the same topic, seasonal atmospheric mass redistribution alone produces annual variations of 0.5 to 1 millisecond. Interannual ENSO shifts add another ±0.3 to 0.5 milliseconds. Decadal core-mantle coupling produces swings of 3 to 4 milliseconds. These are measured, observed phenomena, not model projections.
In that context, 1.33 milliseconds per century is not planetary destabilization. It is background noise, certainly nothing that would be noticed by even the most sensitive ecosystem or living being.
The BBC emphasizes that melting ice shifts mass toward the equator, comparing it to a spinning skater extending their arms. That physics analogy is correct in principle. What is incorrect is the implication that this is some new geophysical regime. Earth’s length of day has fluctuated throughout recorded history due to tidal friction from the Moon, atmospheric angular momentum exchange, ocean circulation, and core dynamics. The long-term tidal braking trend alone is about +1.7 to +1.8 milliseconds per century based on 2,500 years of eclipse records, a rate comparable to or larger than the BBC’s headline number.
Even more inconvenient for the narrative is the recent acceleration of Earth’s rotation. As noted in the Climate Realism piece, June 29, 2022 was the shortest day ever recorded in the atomic timekeeping era, about 1.59 milliseconds shorter than 86,400 seconds. If climate change were producing a simple, monotonic slowdown, we would not be seeing record-setting shorter days in the same decade.
The BBC also attempts to inflate the significance of the change by invoking dramatic metaphors. One researcher is quoted comparing the energy involved to a catastrophic earthquake, saying: “The change in the Earth’s rotational energy is equivalent to a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.” This is nothing but irresponsible doom mongering. The comparison is not about destructive force, as the article admits, but about abstract energy equivalence. It is an analogy designed to impress, not to inform. No cities are shaking. No ecosystems are collapsing. No lifeform on Earth can feel a thousandth of a second difference.
Let’s put the number in perspective. One millisecond is 0.001 seconds. A 1.33 millisecond change represents approximately 0.000015 percent of a 24-hour day. Human circadian rhythms are tuned to roughly 24 hours, not to thousandths of a second. There is no plausible biological mechanism by which such a tiny change could affect human health, animal behavior, or plant life. It is physiologically undetectable. Even if the rate of change were accurate, consistent, and sustained, it would take approximately 75,188 years for the day to lengthen by exactly one full second.
Technologically, the “crisis” BBC claims is even more absurd. Modern systems already handle irregular rotation through leap seconds. Since 1972, 27 leap seconds have been added to Coordinated Universal Time to synchronize atomic clocks with Earth’s spin. Discussions are underway about possibly implementing a negative leap second because of recent acceleration. GPS, spacecraft navigation, financial trading platforms, and astronomical observatories continuously ingest Earth orientation parameters from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and adjust automatically. They already deal with corrections far larger than 1 millisecond.
Society adjusts clocks by one hour every year for daylight saving time in many regions. That is 3.6 million times larger than the 1.33 millisecond change being described. Leap years add a full day. Compared to those routine adjustments, this isn’t even a rounding error.
The BBC article goes further, suggesting that by 2100 climate change could outpace even the Moon’s gravitational influence on day length. That projection is model-dependent and scenario-driven. It assumes the now discredited and removed RCP8.5 high-emissions pathways and continued ice loss at rates embedded in climate models. It is not an observed reality. It is a modeled extrapolation.
And even if that projection were accurate, we are still talking about millisecond-scale shifts. The practical consequences remain limited to timekeeping adjustments that modern civilization already manages with ease. There is no crisis as the infinitesimal change in the Earth’s rotation has and can have no plausible impact on ecosystems or living beings.
The most telling line in the BBC piece is the assertion that “human influence on the Earth system has become so profound that we are now changing the very way our Earth spins.” That statement is designed to provoke awe and alarm. It is also technically trivial. Humans also change Earth’s mass distribution through groundwater extraction, reservoir construction, mining, and urbanization. These processes are measurable, they are not existential.
In the end, the BBC’s hyped 1.33 millisecond per century change to the Earth’s length of rotation, even if true, represents trivial geophysical adjustment. One that is not biologically meaningful, technologically disruptive, and not outside the envelope of natural variability observed over decades and centuries.
Earth is not a precision quartz watch. It is a rotating, fluid planet with a molten core, dynamic oceans, shifting winds, and a gravitational partner in the Moon. Its spin rate fluctuates; it always has.
Framing a millisecond-scale variation as “unprecedented” planetary destabilization represents a a textbook example of taking a measurable but trivial geophysical adjustment and inflating it into a symbolic crisis. It is a giant nothingburger. An attempt to scare people with a story that is not scary in the least.
May 31, 2026
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | BBC |
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