BBC Admit Their Pakistan Floods Claim Was False
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | November 13, 2022
There’s been an interesting follow up to BBC’s recent story about the Pakistan floods at the end of August.
Readers will recall that the claim that one third of the country was under water immediately set off my BS detector, and I did a full analysis here, totally debunking it.
But just a couple of days after my piece, the BBC’s More or Less radio programme also looked at the claim, after some viewers had complained.
They interviewed an environmental scientist who checked out what the various satellite records indicated. His conclusion was that the true figure was that about 10% of the country had been affected by floods, and much of this was short term.
In fact, all the BBC had to do was what I did in a few minutes, and check what NASA were reporting.
It was plainly evident that nothing like a third of the country had flooded. Indeed a simple look at the map would have shown them that much of Pakistan is either mountainous or desert, which would be impossible to flood.
They could also have checked with the UN disaster agency, OCHA, who were publishing regular reports on the flooding.
According to them, the area affected was 75000 sq km, or 9% of the country.
In fact, these are precisely the sort of checks the BBC should have carried out before making their absurd claim. One which anybody with an ounce of common sense, or integrity, would have immediately suspected was wrong.
It is doubly ironic that the BBC’s defence was that the one third claim had been widely reported across the media. This shows just how utterly corrupt most of the media is nowadays.
Lab-grown meat & nuclear yeast vats: COP27 reignites the war on food
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | November 13, 2022
We’re a week into this year’s UN climate summit, COP27, and the various agenda planned to roll out on the back of it are coming into focus.
None more so than the autumn offensive in the establishment’s war on food. There’s a big push on that front.
Today was “Adaptation and Agriculture” day at COP27, and you probably don’t need me to tell you what was on the agenda – a lot of talk of “sustainability”, “innovation”, “climate-friendly production” and so on.
As usual with these global meetings, the closed-door discussions and po-faced newspeak presentations are accompanied by a wave of synchronized propaganda.
One angle this propaganda is taking is that COP27 “refused to discuss” meat or farming in general, and therefore those people insisting we should kill all the cows in the world and eat lab-grown paste instead are somehow rebels speaking truth to power.
That’s how George Monbiot is arranging the narrative for his piece in the Guardian.
It’s nonsense, of course. COP27 literally had an entire day dedicated to discussing farming, “food security” and “innovations” to “reduce methane” (that’s code for “getting rid of cows” by the way).
Further, COP27 is being used to launch the UN’s new Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) initiative. Which, according to Forbes, will promote:
[A] shift towards sustainable, climate-resilient, healthy diets would help reduce health and climate change costs by up to US$ 1.3 trillion while supporting food security in the face of climate change.
As well as the AIM initiative, which intends to channel 8 BILLION dollars into “farming innovations”.
But, in another example of the fake binary, while COP27 members were inside discussing “adapting agriculture”, “protestors” were outside demanding they discuss adapting agriculture.
The protesters even used the platform to announce the launch of a new campaign “Reboot Food” which assures us that all we need to feed the world is giant nuclear-powered fermenting vats:
The cornerstone idea is swapping animal agriculture, where possible, for a technology called precision fermentation, which would involve brewing yeasts and bacteria to make protein. It could create biologically identical animal proteins using genetically engineered micro-organisms fermented in tanks. These factories would be powered by solar, wind and nuclear.
That’s just the broadest most ambitious “food reform” propaganda coming out in the last few days though, there’s a lot more where that came from.
Earlier this week it was announced that synthetic meat company GoodMeat would be unveiling their new lab-grown meat products at the COP27 summit.
On a similar theme, EuroNews asks:
Companies are making slaughter-free meat – so why isn’t it for sale in shops?
It’s not just lab-grown meat or nuclear-powered yeast paste hitting the headlines either, edible insect stories are suddenly all over the news again.
The I has a piece from a “journalist” who didn’t like the idea of eating insects, but then tried it for a week and found out it was actually great.
The academic journal PNAS published an article unsubtly titled “How to convince people to eat insects”, which suggests we need to “create a new norm”.
Healthline News has an article “What Science Says About Eating Insects”. Spoiler alert – “science” says that eating insects is great and everybody should do it as much as possible. Who knew, right?
At the same time, the UK’s Food Standards Agency published a startingly well-timed report on the safety of edible insects (turns out they’re safe, shocking isn’t it?)
But the prize of the clumsiest propaganda of the week goes to the Independent, which boasts an article with the headline:
Eww world order: How the right-wing became obsessed with eating bugs
This opens with a screed about how lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists think we’re all being programmed to eat insects… and then seamlessly blends into half-a-dozen paragraphs about how eating insects is actually really good for you though, and good for the planet too:
The reality is that there are a multitude of good reasons to eat insect protein, not least the environmental impact. Breeding insects such as crickets and grasshoppers requires less feed, land and water than farming traditional livestock like pigs and cows, and results in the production of much less greenhouse gas.
Great job guys, real smooth.
UN summits – especially climate summits – always provide a little sneak preview of the upcoming narratives. And while “food reform” may not be the only, or even the biggest, item on the agenda… it’s definitely a major part of the plan. And it’s probably coming soon.
WEF: Eco-anxiety a Driver of the Mental Health Pandemic
By Igor Chudov | November 9, 2022
Big news from the World Economic Forum’s agenda article: Eco-anxiety is a major mental health issue for our young people.
67% of young people are concerned about the impact of climate change on their mental health.
Reread this, please!
They are not merely worried about climate change. They are concerned about the impact of worrying about “climate change” on their MENTAL HEALTH!
Since many of my readers are not currently suffering from eco-anxiety, some may not immediately understand the mental struggle. But it is real, I assure you.
So bad is the climate change anxiety that there exists a “Climate Psychiatry Alliance,” an organization of psychiatrists helping those suffering from climate change anxiety. Watch the co-founder of “Climate Psychiatry Alliance” explain her work helping sufferers of climate anxiety.
World Economic Forum’s article acknowledges that there is a mental health pandemic caused by eco-anxiety:
Identifying as female, using social media, and having a sense of helplessness all increase susceptibility to this new global mental health pandemic.
Fortunately, the WEF has a suggestion on how to cope with climate anxiety: engage in activism. A young sufferer of climate change anxiety Sofia Palau, did just that. To alleviate her sense of helplessness, she joined a youth climate activism group, “Youth vs. Apocalypse,” whose purpose is actually to create MORE climate anxiety:
No doubt, like most in-groups, “Youth vs. Apocalypse” take pains to validate and normalize their climate anxieties. Having “climate change panic attacks” is a matter of course for them and is celebrated.
Recruiting more young people into their climate advocacy group reaffirms their general outlook. It finds an outlet for frustrations that rule its members. Watch the video if you want.
The WEF agenda article explains the theoretical underpinnings:
While emotion-focused coping has been the most common strategy used by adolescents and young adults to date, research has found that meaning-focused coping is the most effective in regards to eco-anxiety. When done correctly, meaning-focused coping, such as getting involved in the fight against climate change through volunteering or campaigning, facilitates positive emotions like hope without ignoring negative ones like anger or anxiety.
The end result is processing, rather than getting stuck in, anxiety and feeling motivated to engage in activism and other pro-environmental behavior.
What is the result? More and more anxiety-affected young people suffering from real mental health problems, with adults in charge recommending that they get together and recruit more people who would also be made to suffer from climate anxiety.
The likely outcome is mass psychosis or mass formation of people who are good and well-intentioned but stuck in an anxiety-ridden in-group circular dynamic.
This pandemic of climate fear is not entirely dissimilar to the “mass formation” that Matias Desmet discussed so many times concerning whipping up fear during the Covid pandemic. Is the climate anxiety mass formation purely accidental? Not really.
All this is facilitated by rich old men with well-positioned investments, of course.
The press, sponsored by the same rich old men, intentionally creates climate anxiety in people also:
Kids are particularly targeted with child-friendly but anxiety-provoking messaging:
Please be Respectful to Your Own Kids!
I hope my somewhat tongue-in-cheek but completely accurate retelling of what is going on in the mental health/climate activism world was interesting and perhaps made you smile.
Do NOT, please, make my story into a justification to dismiss your children! If your children, or young friends, suffer from climate anxiety, remember that
- they are human beings
- they base their emotions on what they see on TV and on their social feeds
- that stuff is important to them
- rebelliousness is a part of growing up
- anxiety, helplessness, and hysteria do NOT need to be parts of growing up
- we live in an uncertain world, and some of their concerns may be justified
- the number one goal is NOT to lose their trust and respect
- never dismiss them as persons or make fun of their anxieties
Any parent whose child has ANY anxiety needs to engage with the child, listen to them, NOT be judgmental, offer support, etc. Our children are NOT copies of ourselves (I bet you changed compared to when you were 16 also,) and we cannot force them to think the way we want.
A bonus is instilling a sense of self-reliance and internal locus of control in your children so that they do not feel “helplessness” and are not compelled to be a part of groups to normalize their anxieties. Helplessness drives many bad decisions and affects mental and physical health.
I am not a child psychiatrist or anything, but if my own hypothetical daughter (I have two great sons) suffered from climate anxiety, I would listen to her extensively. Then I would plant trees with her and make her dig big holes (the bigger, the better) to plant larger trees. Small trees are too easy. Perhaps plant a garden to “use less diesel fuel to grow food.”
Challenge some of their most anxiety-provoking beliefs without dismissing them. Explain how this tree needs CO2 to grow. That could give the child a sense of purpose and balance instead of falling prey to lunatic groups like “Youth Apocalypse.”
If you, my reader, disagree with me, you are welcome to comment and explain why.
My message would be remiss without noting that we, Covid-skeptics, also form an in-group with a very special narrative. Being vilified and targeted by the media, of course, does not help. Worrying about our health and loved ones could also create anxiety — oftentimes justified. A sense of helplessness among the unvaccinated was purposely instilled:
I am also, frankly, worried about what will happen with excess mortality and reduction in births!
Thus, we could be susceptible to the same challenges as some climate-anxious young people. So let’s make sure that we keep each other challenged, debate, and use our virtual gatherings to at least somewhat alleviate our anxieties instead of always whipping them up.
I am personally guilty of making several anxiety–provoking posts. I kind of realized that a while ago and try to mix them with good news to keep the balance.
Sorry if I sound too opinionated. Guilty as charged.
The REAL story behind RSV & the so-called “tripledemic”
MSM sources are now warning of a co-pandemics of flu, RSV and Covid…but is there any reason to be afraid?
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | November 9, 2022
The “tripledemic” is upon us, according to the mainstream media. What is a “tripledemic”, you ask?
Apparently, it’s when we have simultaneous pandemics of influenza, Covid and RSV at the same time. At least, according to the LA Times :
A ‘tripledemic’ of flu, RSV and COVID is feared in California
And the Atlantic :
What a ‘Tripledemic’ Means for Your Body
And CBS:
“Tripledemic” in U.S. could bring deluge of patients to hospitals
All three stories – and there are many others out there too – hit the same handful of talking points.
They report that the flu is back after its “mysterious” disappearance during the Covid “pandemic” (the Alantic notes US flu cases reduced by well over 90% and calls it “getting lucky”, the doublethink is unbelievable).
They also warn that Covid is “still around” or “not over”, or some variation on that.
However, the main thrust of the fear is reserved for RSV. Now, you’re all probably more than familiar with “flu”. And you’re definitely tired of hearing about Covid. But RSV could be a new one for you… so let me explain.
THE VIRUS
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is – according to virus theory – one of the many viruses circulating in the general population at all times. To quote the Mayo Clinic’s website [emphasis added]:
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes infections of the lungs and respiratory tract. It’s so common that most children have been infected with the virus by age 2. Respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-ul) virus can also infect adults. In adults and older, healthy children, RSV symptoms are mild and typically mimic the common cold.
And according to the CDC:
Almost all children will have had an RSV infection by their second birthday […] Most RSV infections go away on their own in a week or two.
So, according to official sources, RSV is not serious in the vast majority of cases, and almost all of us have already had it.
In fact, seeing as the symptoms are both generic and mild, the odds are you have had it multiple times throughout your life and never really known. It’s simply one of the many viruses known to cause what we refer to as “the common cold”.
THE DECEPTION
There’s a trick being played here, and as usual in the age of the “pandemic”, it’s a trick of language. The powers that be are exploiting linguistic ambiguity in order to generate fear.
Across most of the world, we simply refer to “a cold” or “the flu” almost interchangeably to describe the dozen or so respiratory infections we all get throughout our lifetime.
Most of the time we don’t know what specific virus or bacteria is supposedly the cause, we have no way of finding out and it doesn’t make any difference because the symptoms and treatments are all the same: Cough, fever, headache – bedrest, orange juice and painkillers.
Now, essentially, the media are taking advantage of that ubiquitous ambiguity by naming something that has always been there but pretending it is something new.
Here’s a case in point, the Scientific American published this article on November 4th, which headlines:
RSV Is Surging: What We Know about This Common and Surprisingly Dangerous Virus
Now, although the headline claims RSV is “surprisingly dangerous”, the article seems to go out of its way to prove the opposite.
- “the virus is so common that nearly all children have encountered it by their second birthday.”
- “It’s that ubiquitous,” Flores says. “Even adults are exposed to it repeatedly over time, so we develop some immunity to it.”
- “In healthy adults and children, though, RSV typically presents as a common cold, with symptoms similar to those caused by other “common cold” viruses, such as rhinovirus, adenovirus and a couple of common coronaviruses.”
- “For the average person, RSV is little more than a nuisance”
The article does warn that RSV can be “particularly dangerous for newborn babies and adults older than age 65” and the immunocompromised, but this is true of literally every pathogen. And even then, they go on to add:
only about 1 to 2 percent of children under six months with RSV need hospitalization (usually for a couple of days), and death is rare.
This is a tactic we’re all familiar with – it was routine, throughout the Covid narrative, for official voices to tell us to be afraid, whilst simultaneously explaining there was nothing to be afraid of.
This approach clearly serves some purpose, although I could not say for certain what that may be.
Regardless, the deception is obvious and clearly deliberate.
The question is, why?
THE MOTIVE
To sum up – there is no reason to fear RSV infection. The media are clear about that themselves, even if they bury it under layers of hysterical headlines.
It is just one of the many viruses which cause – or are said to cause – cold or flu symptoms, all of which circulate the whole world constantly, especially at this time of year.
There’s ALWAYS a “tripledemic”, or a quademic or a septemic. The only difference is now they are naming it.
They are taking the routine and pretending it’s exceptional simply to try and frighten you.
Why?
Well, rather predictably, to sell vaccines.
Yes, you’ll be relieved to know that just as RSV is hitting the headlines for the first time EVER, they’ve also just produced the first ever vaccines against it.
On November 1st, Vox reported:
New RSV vaccines are coming. This is very, very good news.
Which claims:
After decades of failed efforts to produce an RSV vaccine, several highly effective ones are finally on the verge of approval.
On the same day, Pfizer announced “positive top-line data” for their new RSV vaccine, with CNN reporting:
After promising trial results for maternal RSV vaccine, Pfizer says it will seek FDA approval this year
That’s right, after decades of trying and dozens of failed attempts, the pharmaceutical companies have finally managed to create not just one but multiple effective vaccines against an endemic virus… just as the virus has hit the headlines.
Now, this all sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it?
If you didn’t fall for this last time you don’t need me to warn you.
If you DID fall for this last time?
Well, fool you once shame on them, fool you twice…
Russia brands US weapons claim ‘a lie’
RT | November 9, 2022
US accusations that North Korea was supplying Russia with ammunition are lies, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said on Wednesday. She added that Washington was just looking for a pretext to impose new sanctions on North Korea and made up the ammunition claim for that purpose.
“There was no clear explanation for these statements, nor could there be, because everything said by American representatives is a lie from the beginning to the end,” Zakharova said in a daily briefing, further describing the claim as “another example of [fake news] and speculations spread by the West about Russia.”
On November 2, the US National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, announced that North Korea had sent a “significant” number of artillery shells for resupplying the military effort in Ukraine. CNN also reported the claim, citing US intelligence assessments.
North Korea denied the accusations on Tuesday. “We once again make clear that we have never had ‘arms dealings’ with Russia and that we have no plan to do so in the future,” said the Defense Ministry in Pyongyang, accusing the US of “persistently spreading a groundless rumor.”
US claims about North Korean ammunition supplies to Russia date back to September. In response, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, demanded in the Security Council that the US and UK provide evidence of their claims, or be considered peddlers of fake news.
Meanwhile, the US has supplied Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, and assorted military equipment valued at over $54 billion since the hostilities escalated in February. Most of its NATO allies have followed suit, all the while insisting they were not a party to the conflict.
Last month, Czech media reported that Washington was looking to buy $3 billion worth of anti-aircraft missiles and artillery ammunition from South Korea. When Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned that report at the Valdai Discussion Club, South Korea denied it.
“We’ve provided humanitarian and peaceful assistance to Ukraine but never lethal weapons,” said South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, adding that his country is “trying to maintain peaceful relations with all countries around the world, including Russia.”
American voters don’t need Russian trolls to tell them how bad things are
By Robert Bridge | RT | November 8, 2022
As US voters head to the polls for the much-anticipated Midterms, talk of Russian trolls monkeying with US democracy is back in the news. But does the country really need Russia’s help in “stoking anger” among the electorate?
If the hyper-liberal New York Times can be taken at face value just two days before an epic election, Russia’s underground army of trolls is, once again, attempting to seed the minds of malleable US voters to the Kremlin’s advantage. If those charges sounded outlandish in 2016, when the Democrats accused Russian ‘influencers’ of denying Hillary Clinton the presidency, they seem doubly so today.
The Times reported that the goal of the reactivated Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg is to “stoke anger among conservative voters and to undermine trust in the American electoral system.” Judging by the looks of things, the Russians are a bit late to the party. It would be hard to name another period in US politics when the level of anger and distrust has been so extreme, and that is something the Russian trolls, despite their supposed superhuman abilities, can’t take credit for.
Take inflation, for example, the single most pressing issue among US voters. It doesn’t require any sort of Russian mind-bending operation to inform Americans that the economic situation is deteriorating before their eyes, and has been ever since Biden entered office. They only need to look at their food and utility bills each month, and the price at the gas pump, to feel fury for what the Biden administration has done to the economy in a shockingly short period of time. Any effort to blame these negative sentiments on “the Russians” is just another way of the Democrats saying that soaring prices is “disinformation” and unworthy of your attention.
The Times mentions another point of contention among US voters, particularly the Republicans, and that is the blank-check powers that have been awarded to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Citing the work of “cybersecurity researchers,” the article alleges that the Russian influence campaign “appears intended to undermine the Biden administration’s extensive military assistance to Ukraine.” Again, here is an issue that has already been undermined by the Republicans ever since the Democrats commenced with their proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, a massively hazardous venture where no expense is considered too great.
On this point, the Democrats are able to claim, much like in 2016, that the Russians and the Republicans are working in collusion, this time against Kiev. The Russians are anxious to see US military spending on Ukraine come to an end as all of those sophisticated weapons are only prolonging the conflict. Meanwhile, some of the Republicans campaigned on promises to terminate funding to the Zelensky regime and divert those billions of dollars to national security projects, like fortifying their own border and fighting crime.
It would be a mistake to think that Americans are not acutely aware of the issues now dividing the country. Every day, social media users can see for themselves everything they need to know about crime, inflation, transgender issues, and the border, to name just a few of the hot-button issues dividing the country. To suggest that Russian trolls are required to “stoke conservative anger” is to grossly underestimate the political intelligence of the average US voter, who appears better informed than ever before. The fact is, the Democrats are afraid of being wiped out in a landslide come Tuesday. Conjuring up the ghost of Russia interference at the 11th hour reveals their insecurity and will provide them some partial excuse in the event of a blowout.
With regards to these latest accusations of election interference, Moscow is understandably losing its patience. It requires either a certain lack of self-awareness, or an astonishing excess of arrogance, for the United States to lecture any country on the question of meddling. After all, in the case of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, we’re talking about a mere $150,000 spent on several thousand Facebook ads, many of which had no political message whatsoever. When it is considered that US presidential elections have turned into multi-billion-dollar pageants, with no expense spared on campaign attack ads, it is hard to imagine that Russia’s severely limited campaign had any effect whatsoever (it needs emphasis that not even Facebook is entirely sure where the posts originated from. Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, would only say they “likely operated out of Russia”).
Now compare that to the way the United States “meddles” in the affairs of foreign countries, like Ukraine. In November 2013, after the government of President Viktor Yanukovich opted in favor of closer ties with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union instead of the EU, protests broke out in the country. How did the United States respond? Not with internet trolls, that’s for sure. It dispatched high-ranking US officials to Kiev, like Senator John McCain and Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, where they agitated the masses against the democratically elected government. On the question of who would ultimately govern the splintered country, Nuland was overheard in a phone call with the US ambassador to Ukraine handpicking the eligible candidates.
Once again, the United States proved that there are rules for itself and rules for the rest of the world, and increasingly it is the American people who must pay the price for that supreme arrogance.
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.
How sarcastic remarks became basis for resurrecting ‘Russiagate’
By Drago Bosnic | November 8, 2022
The so-called “Russiagate” conspiracy theory has been the main go-to scapegoat for the failures of the DNC, be it the 2016 presidential or 2018 midterm elections. For six years the mainstream propaganda machine has been parroting the supposed “Russian election meddling” narrative.
Despite the official investigation giving no proof to support the claims that Moscow secured the United States presidency for Donald Trump, “Russiagate” persisted even after he left office. Several major events, such as the humiliating US defeat in Afghanistan and the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, pushed the debunked conspiracy theory out of the spotlight for some time. Still, just when the world forgot about “Russiagate”, the propaganda machine decided to resurrect it as a scapegoat once again, this time for the 2022 midterms.
On November 7, The New York Times published a report claiming that the Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, the alleged “true founder and financial backer” of the “Wagner” PMC (private military company), made a “sardonic” statement about the supposed Russian meddling in 2022 US midterms. The Western mainstream media regularly accuse Prigozhin of “having close ties” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and they’ve even given him a rather cliché “supervillain” nickname – “Putin’s Chef”. Despite holding no official position in the Russian government, he is accused of conducting “clandestine operations” for the Kremlin, including alleged election interference.
“Gentlemen, we have interfered, we do interfere and we will [continue to] interfere,” Prigozhin said in a statement in response to a question from a Russian news outlet. “We will do it carefully, precisely, surgically as we are capable of doing it. During our targeted operations, we will remove both kidneys and liver at once,” he concluded in what was quite obviously a sarcastic remark. Russian news agency RIA Novosti described the comments as such as well, but the US mainstream propaganda machine is adamant that the statement is “clear proof” that Russia will supposedly affect the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections.
In 2018, Prigozhin was even indicted by the US that he funded and organized the so-called “troll factory” to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential elections, which was one of the staples of the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory. Despite no clear evidence that he did any of this, in 2021 the FBI put Prigozhin on its most-wanted list, while the US Treasury imposed sanctions on him for allegedly “organizing disinformation campaigns” in elections in Asia, Europe and Africa. The Biden administration placed additional sanctions on Prigozhin in March, due to his supposed “crucial role” in Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe.
The US State Department also commented on Prigozhin’s statement, with the spokesman Ned Price calling it “a bold confession”. She added that it was “clear that a person of Mr. Prigozhin’s stature would not be in a position to make such claims unless the Kremlin, at some level didn’t approve.”
According to The New York Times, the unnamed “researchers” have supposedly “detected a new, though more concentrated, campaign by Russia to try to influence Tuesday’s midterm elections.” The alleged goal is “to empower angry conservative voters with the aim of undermining faith in American democracy … at a time when soaring energy prices and inflation threaten to dent support for the war, the campaign also appears intent on undermining the Biden administration’s extensive financial and military support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.”
The report further claims that “the campaign — using accounts that pose as enraged Americans — has specifically targeted Democratic candidates in the most heated races, including the Senate seats being contested in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania.” The alleged “calculation appears to be that a Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives could dent American support for the war in Ukraine.”
The claims are quite clearly yet another attempt to use foreign powers as scapegoats and an excuse between political opponents in the US. The New York Times is infamous for being one of the strongholds of the neoliberal portion of the US establishment. By accusing the “angry conservatives” of working with Russia, the outlet is obviously trying to discredit the GOP to help the Democrats and give them at least somewhat better chances in the midterms.
The Republicans themselves aren’t immune to this, as they also resort to it by accusing the DNC of working with China. However, in this particular case, the Democrats, terrified of the prospect of losing both the House of Representatives and the Senate, are trying everything in their power to sway public opinion toward supporting their policies, both domestic and foreign, the unpopularity of which has reached its peak in recent months.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
A Tale of Two Reporters in Moscow
Malcolm Muggeridge, Walter Duranty, and the collision of ideology with evidence
Malcolm Muggeridge, Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 7, 2022
Blinded by Ideology: Part 4 in a series on Willful Blindness
Malcolm Muggeridge was an exceptionally talented journalist who lived in Moscow in 1933, working for the Manchester Guardian. Though attracted to communism in his youth, the experience of being in Stalin’s Russia and observing what was going on in it caused him to become disillusioned. Especially disturbing was his realization that Stalin’s army and police were—as part of their collectivization program—starving millions of landowning peasants (known as kulaks) in the Ukraine by confiscating their grain. This massive organized crime—known as the Holodomor—resulted in the deaths of millions in the winter of 1933.
Muggeridge was the only western journalist to report what was going on. When his reports were published, many of his fellow writers—including George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Upton Sinclair and Theodore Dreiser, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb—refused to believe them and passionately asserted that Muggeridge was spreading falsehoods about Stalin’s regime. Muggeridge was related to the Webbs by marriage, and years later he told a funny story about Beatrice.
I remember Mrs. Webb, who after all was a very cultivated upper-class liberal-minded person, an early member of the Fabian Society and so on, saying to me, ‘Yes, it’s true, people disappear in Russia.’ She said it with such great satisfaction that I couldn’t help thinking that there were a lot of people in England whose disappearance she would have liked to organize.”
For decades, Muggeridge’s accurate reporting of the Holodomor was denied and suppressed. The dominant narrative of Stalin’s Russia in the early thirties was that propagated by the New York Times Moscow bureau chief, Walter Duranty, who vehemently denied the Holodomor. While Muggeridge’s true and courageous reporting was denied, Duranty won a Pulitzer Price for his concealment of one of the greatest crimes of the 20th Century. It’s a testament to the power of Duranty’s mendacious work that most Americans have still never heard of the Holodomor.
Walter Duranty, Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times
Over the last two years I’ve often thought about Muggeridge and Duranty as I have watched courageous scholars like Dr. Peter McCullough persecuted and censored, while COVID-19 vaccine ideologues are rewarded. Most notable is the COVID-19 vaccine propagandist, Dr. Peter Hotez, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Prize.
One of the most bizarre features of our bizarre time is that an experimental, gene transfer technology has become an object of unshakable devotion. Among members of the COVID-19 Vaccine Cult, belief in the substance (about which they know nothing) is an article of faith.
In the 1930s, 40s, and even 50s, many of the most prominent journalists, writers, intellectuals, and artists believed in Stalin’s Cult of Personality. Muggeridge knew (from his own observations) that they weren’t seeing the reality of Stalin’s regime. Because they viewed the world through the highly distorting lens of ideology, they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.
Naughty Russians
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 6, 2022
According to the New York Times those naughty Russians are at it again.
Today’s online lead story entitled “Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms” with the subtitle “Researchers have identified a series of Russian information operations to influence American elections and, perhaps, erode support for Ukraine” marks a new low in what the Gray Lady, self-designated as one of America’s “newspapers of record,” prefers to call “journalism.” The author of the piece, clearly somewhat biased over Russia and Putin, is one “Steven Lee Myers [who] covers misinformation for The Times. He is also the author of ‘The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.’”
Here is what it is all about: “The user on Gab who identifies as Nora Berka resurfaced in August after a yearlong silence on the social media platform, reposting a handful of messages with sharply conservative political themes before writing a stream of original vitriol. The posts mostly denigrated President Biden and other prominent Democrats, sometimes obscenely. They also lamented the use of taxpayer dollars to support Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces, depicting Ukraine’s president as a caricature straight out of Russian propaganda.”
Per the Times, “The goal, as before, is to stoke anger among conservative voters and to undermine trust in the American electoral system. This time, it also appears intended to undermine the Biden administration’s extensive military assistance to Ukraine.”
Well, one might object that Ukraine’s president is indeed a figure tailor-made for ridicule as he used to play a piano with his penis, but that is perhaps a secondary issue. The more significant theme is that people who oppose the Ukraine war, for any number of reasons, and, particularly if they are conservatives, are becoming trolls for Russia in part due to the disinformation efforts and are being influenced by way of discussion fora like Gab. The targets “are generally US conservatives who are maybe more accepting of conspiratorial claims” according to one of the cybersecurity experts consulted by the author. The Times links Berka, who might indeed be a made-up identity “posing as an outraged American,” to the secretive Russian Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg which it claims was involved in interfering in both the 2016 and 2020 US elections.
The Times also names another site that it links to Russia, electiontruth.net “For its contact information, electiontruth.net lists a cafe inside a converted gas station in Cotter, Ark., a town of 900 people on a bend in the White River. The cafe has closed, however… No one at Election Truth responded to a request for comment submitted through the site.”
One might object that neither Berka nor electiontruth.net would appear to be a major disinformation threat sponsored by a foreign government intended to bring down the Republic. Nevertheless, the article clearly adheres to the view that anyone objecting to the continuing war in Ukraine is a Russian dupe. It cites Liz Cheney, who has called the few Republicans who want to cut funding for the war as “the Putin wing of the Republican Party,” and Myers observes that the disinformation unfortunately echoes “a theme that has gained some traction among Republican lawmakers and voters who have questioned the delivery of weapons and other military assistance.”
Another “expert” cited in the article, one Edward P. Perez, a board member with the OSET Institute, a self-described “nonpartisan election security organization,” called the Russian efforts “manufactured chaos” in the country’s body politic – in part because the divisions in American society are already such fertile soil for disinformation. “Since 2016, it appears that foreign states can afford to take some of the foot off the gas because they have already created such sufficient division that there are many domestic actors to carry the water of disinformation for them.”
Myers and his agenda driven quoted “experts” do not consider for a moment that there are a lot of good reasons for opposing US involvement in the fighting in Ukraine, many of which are rooted in a conservative view of what is America’s appropriate role in what is becoming a multipolar world. First, the United States has no national interest at stake that compels it to enter the fighting on behalf of Ukraine. Second, the war itself could have been averted if the United States and Europeans had been willing to address and negotiate Russian national security concerns in a serious way before the fighting broke out. Third, even now, a push by the US and its allies would likely bring the two sides to the negotiating table and a truce could be arranged. Fourth, the United States would in fact be playing a positive role if it would opt to do whatever it takes to end the slaughter taking place. Fifth and finally, expansion of a US direct role in the conflict could prove catastrophic if someone blinks and the war goes nuclear.
So, the compelling need for the continuation of an unnecessary war is the main point being made by Mr. Myers’ featured article, which clearly reflects the views of the New York Times editorial staff. And the enemy characteristically comes from within – Americans who oppose the involvement of the United States in the war against Russia and are accused of being little more than “domestic actors” who are peddling disinformation provided by the Kremlin. Given that this article has appeared two days before national elections, the intent is clear. The Russians are, per the Times, generating disinformation about Ukraine and Americans who go along with the lies are being manipulated. Moscow is again interfering in a US national election! Vote for the Democratic candidates as they will be the ones that can be relied upon to keep the war going! Three cheers for Joe Biden!
The climate scaremongers: Health chief’s nonsensical warning of doom
By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | November 4, 2022
We are used to silly, irresponsible climate scare stories from the BBC and the papers, but when they come from the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency it is quite another matter.
According to the Guardian last week: ‘The climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned.
‘Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said there was a common misconception that a warmer climate would bring net health benefits due to milder winters. But the climate emergency would bring far wider-reaching health impacts, she said, with food security, flooding and mosquito-borne diseases posing threats.
‘Referring to the recent floods in Pakistan, Harries said the UK needed to build resilience to protect the population from the health impacts of extreme weather events. “Colleagues from Pakistan . . . are suffering from the impacts of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, higher risks of sewage overflowing into publicly accessible water spaces,” she said. “We are seeing some of the things that could be happening in the UK”.’
She went on to repeat the fake claims that this summer’s heatwave had killed 2,800 people, a claim already exposed as a sham on TCW. And she warned us that we would have to stay indoors in the middle of the day in summer, and have longer summer holidays for schools. She even ridiculously claimed that we would soon have outbreaks of dengue fever.
The comparison with Pakistan is utterly absurd, and there’s no evidence that summers in England are getting wetter, or for that matter drier.
Indeed, even her claim that we would soon be having Mediterranean summers is just as ridiculous. The simple fact is that even this summer was not as hot as 1976. The average summer temperature may have increased, as cold summers become less frequent, but even with the wall-to-wall sunshine we had this year, summers show no sign of breaking through that 16C barrier:
By contrast, average summer temperatures in the south of France are typically six or seven degrees higher.
Harries’s comments about dengue are particularly misleading. The spread of dengue globally has not been because of climate change, as one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases, Professor Duane Gubler, has explained.
According to him, the principal drivers are urbanisation, globalisation and lack of effective mosquito control. The mosquitoes which carry the virus thrive in urban habitats, where dengue quickly spreads, while air travel provides the ideal mechanism for transport of viruses to new cities, regions and continents. The result, he says, is epidemic dengue.
The World Health Organisation also notes that the mosquito which has brought the dengue virus to Europe is actually adapted to cold weather: ‘Aedes albopictus, a secondary dengue vector in Asia, has spread to North America and more than 25 countries in the European Region, largely due to the international trade in used tyres (a breeding habitat) and other goods (e.g. lucky bamboo). Aedes albopictus is highly adaptive and, therefore, can survive in cooler temperate regions of Europe.’
Britain is no stranger to mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue. Large epidemics of dengue have been recorded here and elsewhere in Europe since the 18th century. One massive epidemic, estimated at one million cases with at least 1,000 deaths, occurred in Greece in 1927-28. Climate change has nothing to do with the spread of dengue.
And what about this ‘food security’ Harries is waffling on about? Agricultural output has been rising since the BSE scare of the 1990s:
https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
If the professor is worried about Britain’s food security, maybe she should be objecting to the government’s plans to rewild large swathes of our countryside, to attack the dairy and meat industry and to build solar farms on prime agricultural land.
BBC’s Arctic warming trick
ACCORDING to a BBC report, Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago deep inside the Arctic Circle, is heating at six times the global average. (The BBC and Guardian now routinely call it ‘heating’ rather than ‘warming’, though I don’t think the Svalbarders would call average annual temperatures of 1C ‘hot’!)
The report, Svalbard: The race to save the fastest-warming place on Earth, states: ‘Svalbard is home to the world’s northernmost permanent settlement, Longyearbyen, which is estimated to be heating at six times the global average. So what is being done to save it?
‘Svalbard’s church is a blood-red wooden building with bright white trim – the most northerly place of worship in the world. Its priest, Siv Limstrand, has been here for only three years but is shocked by the impact of climate change she has witnessed in that time. “Every Sunday when we gather for worship, a part of our intercessions is always about climate change and its threats,” explains Limstrand. “We know that the clock is ticking.”
‘You feel on borrowed time here in what successive scientific studies have found is the fastest-warming place on Earth. Experts from the Norwegian Polar Institute are among those who calculate it is heating six times faster than the global average. The consensus is that the temperature in Svalbard has jumped 4C in the past 50 years. Wildlife and human life are now in a struggle to survive. This is why Limstrand’s congregation is praying for help.’
Obviously a priest who has been there three years is an expert on Svalbard’s climate!
But as this is the BBC, they tell you only half the story. In line with most of the Arctic, Svalbard was virtually as warm as now in the 1930s and 40s, as the chart for Bjoernoeya (Bear Island) shows:
https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php
In between, as the chart highlights, Svalbard went through a drastic cooling episode in the 1960s and 70s. It is from this unusually cold base period that the BBC claim their 4C of warming. That extreme cold interval affected much of the Arctic, and had a particularly catastrophic effect on countries like Iceland. Trausti Jonsson, senior researcher at the Iceland Met Office, lived through those times and said this:
‘In 1965 there was a real and very sudden climatic change in Iceland (deterioration). It was larger in the north than in the south and affected both the agriculture and fishing – and therefore also the whole of society with soaring unemployment rates and a 50 per cent devaluation of the local currency,’
Going further back in time, ice core studies have shown that Svalbard was as warm as now, if not warmer, in the 1300s, before temperatures plunged in the Little Ice Age. The 1800s were the coldest period of the lot in the last 1,000 years.
There is nothing unprecedented or unusual about Svalbard’s climate nowadays. But the BBC would rather the inhabitants return to the freezing days of the 1960s!
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Russia and China quietly take over natural gas markets in Asia, with Qatar gone
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From the Archives
Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
BBC – Compiled in 2003
Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
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