I have used the trick of trying to think like the enemy and it has been a successful strategy for me. So here are a few thoughts to help focus on what might come and what the other side might be up to, but what might also stand in their way.
I’d be thrilled that my psychological warfare worked so well on a huge chunk of people. At first, anyway. I’d be wondering if it would work again.
I’d be worried that at least half the population (mostly blue collar) is no longer completely brainwashed. They are silent, but they are not buying the narrative. Only 15% got that bivalent booster.
I would not give a d**m about nation states (except for destroying them and diluting their people and cultures) and I would have no allegiance to any jurisdiction.
I would be a bit nervous about what those other globalists are doing, messing with MY air, water and soil.
I’d be very mad that Fauci and his buds promised me a deadly pandemic and it didn’t really make the cut, and now it is so mild no one is frightened of it any more.
I’d be mad that the same crowd promised me a severe monkeypox pandemic, and that didn’t work out so well, either. I can’t really trust them to get me the types of pandemics I wanted, can I?
I’d be nervous about how the people will respond to the next one that Bill Gates promised would be coming soon. They might just go after us for creating it and unleashing it. How do Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos ever show their face in public? I don’t want to be unable to go wherever I please.
I’d be nervous about the fact the COVID shots started killing people off too soon—too many people have figured it out, and getting them to take another shot is not going to be easy. This could be a huge problem, since the plan seems to have entailed giving everyone ten shots.
The vaccine passport plan failed, since the vaccines didn’t protect and Americans won’t go for it now. While we may be able to install them in some European countries, the plan was to get everyone to pay for their own tracker and control system. Now people are starting to ditch their phones, or keep them in Faraday bags. And the population is getting wary of politicians and public health officials.
We could pull out all the stops and kill or maim the majority of the population, but when people understand what’s happening, and they have nothing left to lose by fighting, they fight back. And we don’t have enough police and armies on our side to control them yet. We don’t have robot armies yet, either.
Will we dare to keep destroying food storage and production facilities? Won’t we make a mistake and it could be traced back to us?
How much can we squeeze the public over energy before they take matters into their own hands?
Our hardware infrastructure, till it is up on satellites, is vulnerable. But once it’s up on satellites, how do we fix it when it breaks? What if we kill off all the competent tech guys, almost all of whom in the US and Israel took the shots?
Small cells (5G) are easy to knock down. Tractors can knock down towers. I can build underground, but I don’t want to have to live in an underground bunker.
We can sink economies everywhere, whenever we choose. But if we starve enough people, there will be too many people with nothing left to lose.
What happens when the people find out who we are?
No one better start using any nukes on MY planet.
What happens when the people decide the governments aren’t legitimate because of the vote scams, and they turn off the money spigot? Do you expect me to spend my own billions on this world takeover? Fuggedaboudit.
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Thanks to the commenter who identified this piece in Brownstone: Technocratic Dystopia Is Impossible by Robert Blumen. His thesis is that it is physically not possible for elites to produce the desired utopia/dystopia. He mentions various descriptors of the dystopia below. Worth a read of his whole piece.
Aaron Kheriaty, who says much the same in his book The New Abnormal, calls the oncoming system “communist capitalism.” Jeffrey Tucker calls it “techno-primitivism.”
Recall how climate activists demand that ordinary citizens, i.e. “useless consumers”, limit their annual CO2 emissions to just a single measly tonne per person. Currently the average CO2 emissions per person in Europe are about 8 tonnes.
German government ministries run by the Green Party emit by far the most CO2 when it comes to government flights. AI generated symbol image, dall.e 2.
Climate activists, like the German Greens, you’d think, would thus themselves be practicing what they preach, at least limiting their emissions to some extent in order to set an example for the rest of us.
To find out whether or not the leading German Greens are preaching water and actually drinking it themselves, economics expert Tilman Kuban of Germany’s opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), asked the current Socialist-Green government to provide a breakdown of how many flights were made by the government ministries using the German Armed Forces’ Special Air Mission Wing during the current legislative period (December, 2021 to January, 2023).
For the sake of a political overview, there are basically major 6 parties active in Germany. From left spectrum to right: Die Linke, The Greens, The Socialists SPD, The Free Democrats FDP, the Christian Democratic Union CDU and the Alternativ für Deutschland AfD. Currently a leftist coalition made up of the SPD, FDP and Greens make up the government.
Germany’s online BILD daily crunched the numbers on the number of flights and the CO2 emitted by the different ministries and the people who head them.
62% of all CO2 emissions by government flights were generated by the Greens alone
According to the official government data, most of the 11,234 tonnes of CO2 for flights by government ministries so far in the current legislative period are attributable to the Greens: 6,900 tonnes of CO2. That is over 60 percent of the CO2 emissions of all ministerial flights.
Top frequent flyer/emitter: Annalena Baerbock
Number 1 among all the ministers is Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Green Party) with 67 flights, 5000 tonnes of CO2 and costs of around 7.6 million euros.
Second place goes Robert Habeck, Minister of Economics and Climate Protection (Green Party) with almost 1900 tonnes of C02 emitted on 32 flights (costing around 3.2 million euros).
In total, 250 flights were taken by the government ministries.
The government’s biggest CO2 emitter is Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) himself (not a minister). According toBILDdaily: “The Chancellor’s office took 114 flights that emitted almost 7200 tons of CO2. Cost: more than 11.2 million euros.”
In America, we have an oligarch problem, and it’s much bigger than the oligarch problem that Putin faced when he became president in 2000. The entire West is now in the grips of billionaire elites who have a stranglehold on the media, the political establishment and all of our important institutions. In recent years we have seen these oligarchs expand their influence from markets, finance and trade to politics, social issues and even public health. The impact this group has had on these other areas of interest, has been nothing short of breathtaking. Establishment elites and their media not only stood foursquare behind Russiagate, the Trump impeachment, the BLM riots and the January 6 fiasco, they also had a hand in the Covid hysteria and the host of repressive measures that were imposed in the name of public health. What we’d like to know is to what extent this group is actively involved in the shaping of other events that are aimed at transforming the American Republic into a more authoritarian system?
In other words, are the mandated injections, the forced lockdowns, the aggressive government-implemented censorship, the dubious presidential elections, the burning of food processing plants, the derailing of trains, the attacks on the power grid, the BLM-Antifa riots, the drag queen shows for schoolchildren, the maniacal focus on gender issues, and glitzy public show-trials merely random incidents occurring spontaneously during a period of great social change or are they, in fact, evidence of a stealthily orchestrated operation conducted by agents of the state acting on behalf of their elite benefactors? We already know that the FBI, the DOJ and the intel agencies were directly involved in Russiagate –which was a covert attack on the sitting president of the United States. So, the question is not “whether” these agencies are actively involved in other acts of treachery but, rather, to what extent these acts impact the lives or ordinary Americans, our politics and the country? But before we answer that question, take a look at this quote from from a recent interview by Colonel Douglas MacGregor:
I was reading a document that was authored by George Soros over 10 years ago in which he talks specifically about this all-out war that would ultimately come against Russia because he said this ‘was the last nationalist state that rests on a foundation of orthodox christian culture with Russian identity at its core. That has to be removed. So I think that the people who are in charge in the west and the people in charge in Washington think they have successfully destroyed the identities of the European and American peoples, that we have no sense of ourselves, our borders are undefended, we present no resistance to the incoming migrants from the developing world who essentially roll over us as though we owe them a living and that our laws do not count. Thus, far I would say that is an accurate evaluation of what we’ve been doing. And I think that’s a great victory for George Soros and the globalists, the anti-nationalists; those who want open borders what they call it an “Open Society” because you end up with nothing, an amorphous mass of people struggling to survive who are reduced to the lowest levels of subsistence … (Soros) even goes so far as to talk about how useful it would be if it was east Europeans whose lives were expended in this process and not west Europeans who simply won’t take the casualties. This is not a minor matter. This is the kind of thinking that is so destructive and so evil, in my judgement, that that’s what we’re really dealing with in our own countries and I think Putin recognizes that.” (Douglas Macgregor – A Huge Offensive”, You Tube, 11:20 minute)
The reason I transcribed this comment from MacGregor was because it sums up the perceptions of a great many people who see things the same way. It expresses the hatred that globalist billionaires have toward Christians and patriots, both of which they see as obstacles to their goal of a borderless one-world government. MacGregor discusses this phenom in relation to Russia which Soros sees as “the last nationalist state that rests on a foundation of orthodox Christian culture with Russian identity at its core.” But the same rule could be applied to the January 6 protestors, could it not? Isn’t that the real reason the protestors were rounded up and thrown into the Washington gulag. After all, everyone knows there was no “insurrection” nor were there any “white supremacists”. The protestors were locked up because they’re nationalists (patriots) which are the natural enemy of the globalists. The MacGregor quote lays it out in black and white. Elites don’t believe that nationalists can be persuaded by propaganda. They must be eradicated through incarceration or worse. Isn’t that the underlying message of January 6?
The other underlying message of January 6, is that ordinary people are no longer allowed to challenge the authority of the people in power. Again, political legitimacy in the US has always been determined by elections. What January 6 indicates, is that legitimacy no longer matters. What matters is power, and the person who can have you arrested for questioning his authority, has all the power he needs. Check out this excerpt from a post on Substack by political analyst Kurt Nimmo:
“Klaus Schwab, a student of the war criminal Henry Kissinger, is a mentor to power-hungry and narcissistic sociopaths. The WEF “Great Reset” is designed to turn the world into an impoverished social concentration camp, where destitute serfs “own nothing” and this, in true Orwellian fashion, will set them free…
I challenge people to investigate the WEF’s Global Redesign Initiative. According to the Transnational Institute in the Netherlands, this “initiative” proposes
a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. In other words, by stealth, they are marginalizing a recognized model where we vote in governments who then negotiate treaties which are then ratified by our elected representatives with a model where a self-selected group of ‘stakeholders’ make decisions on our behalf. (Emphasis added.)
In other words, large transnational corporate “stakeholders” will be deciding where you live, what you eat (insects and weeds), how you reproduce (or not reproduce; children produce carbon emissions), and what you can “rent” from them, or not be allowed to rent if you complain about an unelected globalist “economic” cartel driving humanity into serfdom, worldwide poverty, and depopulation.” (“WEF Calls for Destruction of America’s Middle Class“, Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics)
What Nimmo is saying is that these billionaire elites are now so powerful, that they can openly say they’re going to “transition away from intergovernmental decision-making” (ie– representative government”) to a system of “multi-stakeholder governance.” If I’m not mistaken, that is a pretty unambiguous declaration of a new form of supra-national government, in which only the billionaire stakeholders have a vote in what policies are implemented. But isn’t that the way things work already? On any number of topics from ESG, to digital currencies, to vaccine passports, to AI, to gain-of-function research, to 15-minute cities, to transhumanism, to war with Russia; the decisions are all being made by a handful of people of whom we know every little and who were never voted into office.
And that brings us back to our original question: How many of these oddball events (in recent years) were conjured up and implemented by agents of the deep state to advance the elitist agenda?
This seems like an impossible question since it’s hard to find a link between these dramatically diverse events. For example, what is the link between a Drag Queen Children’s Hour and, let’s say, firebombing a food processing plant in Oklahoma? Or the relentless political exploitation of gender issues and the January 6 public show trials? If there was a connection, we’d see it, right?
Not necessarily, because the link might not have anything to do with the incident itself, but instead, with its impact on the people who experience it. In other words, all of these events could be aimed at generating fear, uncertainty, anxiety, alienation and even terror. Have the intelligence agencies launched such destabilizing operations before?
Indeed, they have, many times. Here’s an excerpt from an article that will help you to see where I’m going with this. It’s from a piece at The Saker titled “Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Fascism.” See if you notice any similarities with the way things have been unfolding in America for the last few years:
Yves Guerin-Serac: the Black Ops Grandmaster behind Operation Gladio… wrote the basic training and propaganda manuals which can be fairly described as the Gladio order of battle.”…
Guerin-Serac was a war hero, agent provocateur, assassin, bomber, intelligence agent, Messianic Catholic, and the intellectual grandmaster behind the ‘Strategy of Tension’ essential to the success of Operation Gladio. Guerin-Serac published via Aginter Press the Gladio manual, including Our Political Activity in what can aptly be described as Gladio’s First Commandment:
“Our belief is that the first phase of political activity ought to be to create the conditions favoring the installation of chaos in all of the regime’s structures…In our view the first move we should make is to destroy the structure of the democratic state under the cover of Communist and pro-Soviet activities…Moreover, we have people who have infiltrated these groups.”
Guerin-Serac continues:
“Two forms of terrorism can provoke such a situation [breakdown of the state]: blind terrorism (committing massacres indiscriminately which cause a large number of victims), and selective terrorism (eliminate chosen persons)…
This destruction of the state must be carried out under the cover of ‘communist activities.’ After that, we must intervene at the heart of the military, the juridical power and the church, in order to influence popular opinion, suggest a solution, and clearly demonstrate the weakness of the present legal apparatus. Popular opinion must be polarized in such a way, that we are being presented as the only instrument capable of saving the nation.”
Anarchic random violence was to be the solution to bring about such a state of instability thus allowing for a completely new system, a global authoritarian order. Yves Guerin-Serac, who was an open fascist, would not be the first to use false-flag tactics that were blamed on communists and used to justify more stringent police and military control from the state….” (“Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Facism”, The Saker)
Repeat: the first phase of political activity ought to be to create the conditions favoring the installation of chaos in all of the regime’s structures… This destruction of the state must be carried out under the cover of (communist) activities… Popular opinion must be polarized in such a way, that we are being presented as the only instrument capable of saving the nation.”
In other words, the objective of the operation is to completely disrupt all social relations and interaction, cultivate feelings of uncertainty, polarization and terror, find a group that can be scapegoated for the wide societal collapse, and, then, present yourself (elites) as the best choice for restoring order.
Is this what’s going on?
It’s very possible. It could all be part of a Grand Strategy aimed at “wiping the slate clean” in order to “transition away from intergovernmental decision-making” to a system of “multi-stakeholder governance.”
That could explain why there has been such a vicious and sustained attack on our history, culture, traditions, religious beliefs, monuments, heroes, and founders. They want to replace our idealism with feelings of shame, humiliation and guilt. They want to erase our past, our collective values, our heritage, our commitment to personal freedom, and the very idea of America itself. They want to raze everything to the ground and start over. That is their basic Gameplan writ large.
The destruction of the state is being carried out behind the cover of seemingly random events that are spreading chaos, exacerbating political divisions, increasing the incidents of public mayhem, and clearing the way for a violent restructuring of the government.
They can’t build a new world order until the old one is destroyed.
Some protests are torrid affairs. Others can prove enlightening. The march last Saturday in the heart of Oxford was the latter.
Attendees rocked up nearly 2 hours before the scheduled meet, poised with their homemade placards, ready to dissent. It was truly an eclectic mix. Tweed jackets juxtaposed grey baggy trackies, edgy high-tops contrasted brown Chelsea boots, dreadlocks neighboured crew cuts, with all unified under one mission – to say no to Oxfordshire County Council’s creeping authoritarianism.
Last year, the Council announced plans to impose Low Traffic Neighbours (LTN) across the city. Councillors justified the £6.5 million schemes by declaring that they will “greatly reduce” motor vehicle traffic in residential streets. They purport to achieve this by two means. First, bollards will be placed to block off certain streets. Second, LTN zones will be designated and monitored by cameras recording license plates, so if residents drive in zones they have not purchased a permit for, they will be fined. Upon that fine being ignored, they would likely be jailed.
Multiple consultations were then held late last year. The response from locals was overwhelming. 65% of them wholly disapproved. Only 7% endorsed the proposals in another consultation. With some notably citing, the schemes would make certain journeys up to 10 times longer. Acclaimed actress Florence Pugh’s father, who owns a shop in a LTN-designated area, revealed the council failed to consult local shop owners like him. He likewise expressed frustration over footfall decreases since lockdowns and how LTN’s were almost guaranteed to worsen the situation.
At 1pm on the dot, the speeches began. Several speakers took the stage but one 12-year-girl stole the show. The anti-Greta, if you will. There she stood, impressively reading out a pre-written speech that progressively exposed the irrationality behind the council’s plans point-by-point. Crowd members clapped intermittently. And then came the punchline, “To Klaus Schwab…”, she paused, “how dare you!”. Everybody loved it. Children in politics should really be a no no. But to witness an anti-woke one actively fighting to preserve her freedom rather than simping for the current political vogue, by God it was refreshing.
Admittedly, we may or may not have popped to the pub to down a quick ale at this point before rejoining. So we missed the start of the march. When we rejoined, we were confused. The crowd had nearly quadrupled in size.
Chants of freedom rang aloud for the better part of the next 2 hours. Plenty of bypassing youths looked perplexed. Some took videos with disapproving smirks. You could almost see them twitching their thumbs in anticipation of posting about the Alex Jones loons they’d just seen. Several cab drivers beeped their horns in support, smiling and waving vigorously as they did. It was an out and out, peaceful success.
Only the next day did we see coverage of Antifa agitators. Apparently a dozen or so turned up but were quickly cordoned off by police and dispersed after a bloke trolled them with a hearty rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life”. Then came the barrage of articles from various local and legacy media journalists.
The Oxford Mail tainted marchers by highlighting that a “Neo-Nazi” was in attendance. LBC’s James O’Brien labelled everyone attending “conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers”. But one journalist, Dave Vetter, went further and purveyed in what can only be called live gaslighting. According to Vetter, live-tweeting his perspective, it was an “intoxicating mix of far-right conspiracy slogans, antisemitism and really terrible hip-hop”. He concluded “the rally is, at heart, a climate denial protest”.
In reality, while there were some radical deductions espoused, these were minute, the vast majority of people were simply expressing their desire not to be restricted by local government. No signs we saw referred to Jewish people. And the hip-hop was a sheer sight better than what Vetter is probably capable of. Tellingly, Vetter only mentioned the word freedom once in his thread, which is slightly strange, provided it was the most common word featured on placards. Instead, the likes of the Oxford Mail, O’Brien, and Vetter focused on sporadic elements, deploying typical guilt-by-association devices designed to reassure readers that all these crackpots aren’t to be taken seriously.
Vetter then linked a “video explainer” at the end of his thread to show how 15-minute-cities are a “win for everyone”. From the get-go, again, the presenter gaslights. Ominously, we are told a strain of opposition (virus-connotations likely intended) is growing that is fatally misunderstanding these schemes for “open air prisons enforced by a police state from their enclosed zone”. So let’s recap. Oxford Council proposes plans to restrict and regulate traffic in the city. They ignore locals’ obvious rejection. Planned rollouts of the scheme continue with the council investing in cameras to monitor and fine those in breach of the scheme – sounds quite authoritarian to me. Again, there was no mention of infringements on freedom. Nor was there any reference to the clear subversion of local democracy, which is more or less a facade nowadays.
Entirely absent from almost all coverage is the money that Oxfordshire County Council stands to make. According to citizen journalist, Dulwich Clean Air, Southwark council issued 37,006 PCN fines to drivers going through 5 ANPR cameras (same as Oxford intends to use) in Dulwich’s LTN zone in only 65 working days in May 2021. That amounted to £4,810,780, which is £74,012 per day. Oxford has an estimated population of about half that of Southwark. That equates to roughly £37,000 in fines per day and £13,505,000 a year.
No wonder Oxfordshire Council want to join the party…
What the protest really showed, however, is as much as national governments are guilty of a mission creep towards a kind of plastic moral governance, so are local councils. Per Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for travel and development strategy, Duncan Enright’s own words, these schemes are “going to happen definitely” (whether the public like it or not).
In short, we know better. So the herd must follow our moral plans even if they disapprove. It is the same existential issue afflicting government at the national level. Turns out, it has captured government at the local level too. The ends justify the means for these legislators. Until that is reversed at both macro and micro-level, these protests will grow in number.
Dozens upon dozens of councils across the UK, meanwhile, announce similar traffic schemes to dissenting choruses.
According to Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum, ongoing global warming threatens to destroy humanity. Methane, coming from the belches and farts of cows, is a greenhouse gas (GHG). So, cows are a problem!
Fortunately, Bill Gates has a solution for us, explained in this video. We need to stop growing cattle and switch to lab-grown synthetic beef.
Bill Gates made sizable investments in “synthetic meat” manufacturers, expecting to turn a nice profit.
Perhaps before he makes a fool of himself next time, he might like to check what the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation have to say on the matter:
ABOUT 60 PERCENT of the world’s pasture land (about 2.2 million km2), just less than half the world’s usable surface is covered by grazing systems. Distributed between arid, semi arid and sub humid, humid, temperate and tropical highlands zones, this supports about 360 million cattle (half of which are in the humid savannas), and over 600 million sheep and goats, mostly in the arid rangelands. The distribution of livestock over the different ecological zones is provided in Annex Table 2.
Grazing systems supply about 9 percent of the world’s production of beef and about 30 percent of the world’s production of sheep and goat meat. For an estimated 100 million people in arid areas, and probably a similar number in other zones, grazing livestock is the only possible source of livelihood.
Environmental challenges
Grazing can be visualized as beautiful cows in lush pastures in north-western Europe or New Zealand-livestock in harmony with nature. Indeed, livestock can improve soil and vegetation cover and plant and animal biodiversity, as described in this chapter’s case studies of widely different conditions in Kenya, the western United States and Guinea. By removing biomass, which otherwise might provide the fuel for bush fires, by controlling shrub growth and by dispersing seeds through their hoofs and manure, grazing animals can improve plant species composition. In addition, trampling can stimulate grass tillering, improve seed germination and break-up hard soil crusts.
However, many people associate grazing animals with overgrazing, soil degradation and deforestation. To them livestock keeping in arid regions of the tropics provokes images of clouds of dust, bleached cow skeletons and an advancing desert. The two most quoted sources are the Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (Oldeman et al., 1991), which estimates that 680 million hectares of rangeland have become degraded since 1945, and Dregne et al., (1991) who argue that 73 percent of the world’s 4.5 billion hectares of rangeland is moderately or severely degraded. In humid areas, livestock are associated with ranch encroachment and deforestation of tropical rainforests and competition with wildlife.
Prolonged heavy grazing undoubtedly contributes to the disappearance of palatable species and the subsequent dominance by other, less palatable, herbaceous plants or bushes. Such loss of plant and, in consequence, animal biodiversity can require a long regenerative cycle (30 years in savannas, 100 years in rainforests). Excessive livestock grazing also causes soil compaction and erosion, decreased soil fertility and water infiltration, and a loss in organic matter content and water storage capacity. On the other hand, total absence of grazing also reduces biodiversity because a thick canopy of shrubs and trees develops which intercepts light and moisture and results in overprotected plant communities which are susceptible to natural disasters.
The environmental challenge is thus to identify the policies, institutions and technologies which will enhance the positive and mitigate the negative effects of grazing. Environmental challenges, issues and options differ significantly according to climate and land capabilities. Livestock-environment interactions are therefore described separately for the arid, semi-arid and sub-humid, humid rainforest, and temperate and tropical highlands grazing systems respectively. As will be seen, that differentiation is particularly important for the arid eco-systems. As aridity increases, so does variability of rainfall, to the extent that the periodicity of rain becomes the single most important factor affecting the state of the natural resource base. Classical concepts of vegetation succession and climax vegetation do not apply in such environments and new concepts are required.
Forget climate change and all the other things that Monbiot rambles on about. His only real concern, as he makes clear at the end of his rant, is that farming takes up too much land, which he thinks should be rewilded.
And he is evidently happy to condemn billions to starvation to do it.
Complexity has a price, and a renewables grid is a bit like a 240 volt moving Rubiks cube. Here we see an unnecessary project hit by a random factor that in turn will affect all the others, blowing out other costs and schedules.
Australia’s breakneck energy transition, driven like a crash test dummy by government subsidies, depends on finishing the massive pumped hydro scheme called Snowy 2.0. However it has hit another delay no one apparently saw coming.
“Australia’s biggest renewable energy project” is the $6 – 10 billion plan to pump water uphill so it can run back down again to generate electricity every time the windmills and solar panels suffer a catastrophic failure, which is nearly every day. The entire project is superfluous in a grid with coal power — as we know from the last fifty years when we didn’t need it.
Unfortunately a 2,400 ton Tunnel Boring Machine called Florence is quite stuck under a cave-in. According to the ABC she started ten months ago, and is supposed to be digging her way through 15 kilometres (10 miles) of mountain. The stuck bore can’t go forwards, but she can’t go back the way she came in either. The team has installed concrete reinforcing behind Florence as she moved and the concrete reinforcing effectively locks her in. It’s meant to be a one way trip.
So we have the irony of a machine designed to carve through miles of rock trapped inside a pile of sand. But it gets worse.
Last month, the Snowy Hydro Corporation said it was monitoring a “surface depression” above the boring machine. So a local man decided to go looking for the hole. As he says “technically, [Florence] should be 9 kilometers in but I thought I’d start about 3 kilometers out and start walking my way back in,” Mr Anderson said.
He spent four days looking for the hole only to find it, wow, barely 150 meters from the entrance.
His big shock was not the hole, but that the tunnel borer had barely achieved anything at all. These machines are designed to travel 30 to 50 meters a day, so this short tunnel is effectively one week’s work. The Snowy 2.0 scheme is supposed to be finished by December 2026, (just revised a week ago to Dec 2027) but at the current rate of 60 centimeters (2ft) a day it will take about 70 years to finish.
Looks like we will need those old coal plants for a bit longer. This delay could affect the rollout of new renewables.
The hole is only 150m from the entrance.
Future options include jacking it up (described as “a huge task”) or disassembling Florence — all 143 meters and 2,400 tons — and extracting the machine in pieces. But if they do that, they will have to start the whole tunnel again. Still they hadn’t got very far…
You’d never know Australia was a top mining nation, eh?
Pumped Hydro is giant appliance that sucks electricity and gives you back some later. In a system with reliable baseload generators it is superfluous, redundant, and entirely unnecessary. It is an expense we don’t have to have, didn’t need, and don’t want to pay for. It can only make things more expensive than the system we used to have. Not only do we have to pay for the giant infrastructure, every day it operates we also throw away 20 – 30% of the electrons (so to speak) that go through it.
The mammoth pumped Hydro scheme is a $10 billion dollar disaster that will never pay for itself, is already being superseded by battery technology, and will scar the land, infect pristine alpine lakes, risk critically endangered species, damage fishing grounds, and breach the Biosecurity Act in a National park. (Where are the environmentalists, Tim Flannery? Does anyone care?)
Thanks to Steve Hunter
UPDATE: A net-zero grid (without nuclear power) needs 23 Snowy 2.0 schemes for storage:
The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates that by 2050, without coal power plants, the National Electricity Market will require 45 GW and 620 gigawatt-hours of storage in all its forms to manage variations in fast-growing wind and solar generation, and to keep the grid stable. The figure rises steeply the closer the grid gets to 100 per cent renewables.
Snowy chief commercial officer Gordon Wymer points to an old estimate from ITK Services that some 8000 GWh – 23 times the capacity of Snowy 2.0 – could be needed for a fully renewable NEM, while Snowy’s own estimates signal that three to five times the capacity of 2.0 is needed for a 50-60 per cent renewable grid. (ITK principal David Leitch says his estimate is out of date and refers back to AEMO’s estimates.)
Snowy 2.0 needs huge transmission line construction as well (Humelink and VNI West):
There’s another $6 billion in transmission lines that we didn’t need for a coal fired grid.
“The cost/benefit analyses undertaken by TransGrid and also by AEMO makes quite clear that HumeLink plus Snowy 2.0 – they go together, the one is useless without the other – will destroy the wealth of New South Wales electricity consumers and Australian taxpayers,” says Bruce Mountain, director of longstanding Snowy 2.0 critic, Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University.
He says findings by AEMO and TransGrid that HumeLink provides net benefits only get to that conclusion by ignoring the cost of Snowy 2.0.
Broad argues the new transmission was required as long as 10 years ago, pointing to the bottlenecks in the system that prevent even the existing Snowy hydropower output reaching Melbourne and Sydney during demand spikes on hot summer days. Lack of grid capacity is also crimping new wind and solar generation, he notes, saying the critics are “missing the point” and getting caught up in “the politics of who’s doing what”.
Broad fears the $3.3 billion HumeLink will slide into 2027, while the $3 billion VNI West, which three years ago was expected by 2028, is now pencilled in for July 2031 in AEMO’s latest draft grid blueprint but may slip into 2032.
Seven Just Stop Oil eco-loons who were found guilty of raids on an Esso Fuel Terminal in Birmingham last year have been spared jail by a sympathetic judge in Wolverhampton Magistrates’ Court… and told by the very same judge they should “feel proud” that they “care” so much. “Thank you for opening my eyes”…
In his extraordinary closing statement at the trial, loony left Judge Wilkinson lavished the criminal activists with praise, claiming “it’s abundantly clear that [they] are all good people” and promising to go easy on them:
“It’s abundantly clear that you are all good people. You are intelligent, articulate and a pleasure to deal with. It’s unarguable that man-made global warming is real and we are facing a climate emergency. Your aims are admirable and it is accepted by me and the Crown Prosecution Service that your views are reasonable and genuinely held. Your fears are ably and genuinely articulated and are supported by the science.” […]
“No-one can criticise your motivations. You all gave evidence that was deeply moving. I certainly was moved. The tragedy is that good people have felt so much, without hope, that you feel you have to come into conflict with the criminal justice system. Thank you for opening my eyes to certain things. Most, I was acutely and depressingly aware of, but there were certain things.
“I say this and I mean this sadly, I have to convict you. You are good people and I will not issue a punitive sentence. Your arrests and loss of good character are sufficient. Good people doing the wrong thing cannot make the wrong thing right. I don’t say this, ever, but it has been a pleasure dealing with you.”
“You should feel guilty for nothing. You should feel proud that you care, have concern for the future. I urge you not to break the law again. Good luck to all of you.”
After hearing that glowing testimonial from the man expected to enforce the law on them, the seven protesters were eventually sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge and made to pay a £22 surcharge each. Is it any wonder they’re not put off from making people’s lives miserable?
The EU’s increasingly centrally-planned society has taken another huge leap forward, as it bans fossil fuel mobility.
Beginning in 2025, it will no longer be possible to register new fossil fuel vehicles in the EU. They will be completely banned.
This is what the European Union decided after MEPs approved its new draconian car-emissions measure on February 14. Though used diesel and gasoline engine vehicles will not be affected, they will end up being phased out as they reach their end of life.
EU’s fast track to zero
Car manufacturers, a major engine of the European economy, will have to gradually reduce the total CO₂ emissions of all the passenger cars they sell within a year. By 2035, CO₂ emissions from newly registered passenger cars will have to be zero.
Proponents argue that it provides European automakers a clear timeframe to switch production over to electric vehicles and will ultimately force them to become more completive internationally. It’s for their own good, Europe believes. The European Union’s aims to be “climate neutral” by 2050. Greens are calling it a victory for the planet.
Millions of jobs at risk
Critics, however, claim nobody is ready for such a draconian end to internal combustion engine vehicles and that the measure will put millions of jobs at risk. In Germany alone some 600,000 people work on gasoline and diesel engine car production. And approximately 20% of all German jobs are at least partly dependent on the automotive industry.
Also, both the European and German power grids are far from ready for the massive extra load. A fully electric transportation sector likely will not be possible without severe rationing and charging restrictions.
Experts also warn cars will become a luxury good affordable only for the rich and that overall mobility for regular citizens will be massively limited.
The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) warned of the “Havana effect”, where Europeans will be forced to drive vintage fossil fuel-burning cars after new sales are banned – because they won’t be able afford electric cars.
Another dream to be smashed by reality?
So what are the chances this new EU draconian policy will actually work in practice in the future? To get some hints, one only needs to look at Europe’s overall green movement and progress so far. It’s not pretty:
Skyrocketing heating bills, fuel shortages
Already unstable power grids, supply
Food shortages and inflation
Disrupted supply chains
Double digit inflation on many goods
Mass censorship (to keep debacles hidden)
Deindustrialization and prosperity loss
Already, due to its power grid instability, the German government has been forced to extend the operating time of 3 nuclear power plants that had been planned to be taken off line December 31st, 2022. Policy reversals are unavoidable whenever pie-in-the-sky ideologies clash with realty.
Violent clash with reality
Europe’s dream of a “clean”, zero-emissions electric mobility also will lose in the collision with reality. Too many major drawbacks have been dismissed or outrightly denied by Europe’s green central planners. Thus the chances of a major back-to-reality energy policy reversal are almost certain in the future.
There isn’t going to be any soft landing for this reckless blind leap by the EU.
Brazilian President Lula was already suspected of recalibrating his worldview a lot closer to the US’ strategic interests ever since the start of his third term in office, including after he condemnedRussia in his joint statement with Biden earlier this month, but Soros’ strong support of him removes all doubt. That liberal-globalistColor Revolution mastermind praised Lula during his speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference, which completely discredits the latter’s multipolar credentials once and for all.
“There are many other regional powers that can influence the course of history. Brazil stands out. The election of Lula at the end of last year was crucial.
On January 8th there was a coup attempt much like January 6th, 2021, in the US. Lula handled it masterfully and established his authority as president.
Brazil is on the front-line of the conflict between open and closed societies; it is also on the front-line of the fight against climate change. He must protect the rainforest, promote social justice, and reignite economic growth all at the same time.
He will need strong international support because there is no pathway to net zero emissions if he fails.”
Quite tellingly, Lula hasn’t distanced himself from this strong support and almost certainly revels in it.
After all, Soros stands in full solidarity with Biden so disrespecting one would be disrespecting the other, which Lula would never do after traveling to DC to kiss the second’s ring as thanks for fully supporting his re-election. The Brazilian leader is so heavily under his US counterpart’s influence right now that he even tweeted that he’s partnering with Biden partially in “defense of democracy” despite him having been Vice President during Ukraine’s “EuroMaidan” and Brazil’s “Operation Car Wash” regime changes.
Lula seemingly no longer cares that Biden played a role in undemocratically overthrowing him through lawfare-driven Hybrid War means so it therefore follows that he also wouldn’t care about Soros’ Color Revolution spree across the world either. In complete contradiction to everything that Russia has said thus far about the US indefinitely perpetuating its proxy war on it in order to fight until the last Ukrainian, Lula then tweeted that “I think Biden is clear that the war has to stop.”
His political love affair with Soros’ allies goes beyond Biden and extends to fellow faux leftists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), both of whom met with Lula during his trip to DC. Lula was so enamored with AOC after their meeting that he responded with a heart emoji under her retweet of their pics together, while Bernie predicted that “the United States and Brazil will build a stronger partnership” as result of the Brazilian leader’s re-election.
As can be seen from Soros’ strong support of him, his enthusiastic praise of Biden, as well as the mutual shoulder-rubbing between him and Sanders-AOC, Lula has surrounded himself with the world’s most infamous liberal-globalists. This confirms the prior assessment from last November that the US’ Democrat Party has infiltrated Brazil’s Workers’ Party through these means, though it couldn’t have been known until now that this infiltration literally reached the height of its leadership.
Considering these “politically inconvenient” factual observations about Lula’s new ideological allies in the US, there’s no doubt that his multipolar credentials are discredited once and for all. This doesn’t mean, however, that he can’t continue helping to make gradual progress in that direction amidst the ongoing global systemic transition. Rather, it simply reinforces the perception hyperlinked in this analysis’ first sentence that whatever he does might inadvertently or deliberately advance US interests.
The abovementioned insight shouldn’t be misinterpreted as implying that Lula is “controlled” by Soros, Biden, or Sanders-AOC, but just that he’s definitely their “fellow traveler” since the Brazilian leader indisputably shares their worldview nowadays to a large extent. Even though he still shouts socialist slogans, Lula’s priority during his third term is less about improving the living conditions of his country’s impoverished and more about geostrategically realigning Brazil with the US-led West’s GoldenBillion.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday announced a proposal to eliminate ESG banking and prohibit the financial sector from implementing social credit scores that would otherwise prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit and opening bank accounts.
“Today’s announcement builds on my commitment to protect consumers’ investments and their ability to access financial services in the Free State of Florida,” said DeSantis in a statement. “By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda. Through this legislation, we will protect the investments of Floridians and the ability of Floridians to participate in the economy.”
The proposal “seeks to protect Floridians from the woke ESG financial scam” by:
Prohibiting big banks, trusts, and other financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs — including their support for securing the border, owning a firearm, and increasing our energy independence.
Prohibiting the financial sector from considering so called “Social Credit Scores” in banking and lending practices that aim to prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.
Prohibiting banks that engage in corporate activism from holding government funds as a Qualified Public Depository (QPD).
Prohibiting the use of ESG in all investment decisions at the state and local level, ensuring that fund managers only consider financial factors that maximize the highest rate of return.
Prohibiting all state and local entities, including direct support organizations, from considering, giving preference to, or requesting information about ESG as part of the procurement and contracting process.
Prohibiting the use of ESG factors by state and local governments when issuing bonds, including a contract prohibition on rating agencies whose ESG ratings negatively impact the issuer’s bond ratings.
Directing the Attorney General and Commissioner of Financial Regulation to enforce these provisions to the fullest extent of the law.
“That is a way to try to change people’s behavior. It’s a way to try to impose politics on what should just be economic decisions,” said DeSantis, of ESG. “We are also not going to house in either the state or local government level deposits. And we have a lot of deposit, we got a massive budget surplus in Florida, you have deposits all over the place that go in where state and local government use financial institutions, none of those deposits will be permitted to be done in institutions that are pursuing this woke ESG agenda.”
The proposal would also aim to make sure ESG will not “infect decisions” at both the state and local governments, such as investment decisions, procurement and contracting, or bonds.
House Speaker Paul Renner said Bob Rommel, R-Naples, will introduce the bill in the House.
“The biggest thing that I think ESG represents is a total hijacking of democracy,” said Renner.
“We’re lucky here in the state of Florida, that we’ve got a governor who will stand up to things like ESG, when others will not.”
The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
Dr. Toaff is uniquely qualified to write this book, being thoroughly familiar with the derivative literature in English, French, German and Italian, as well as the original documentary sources in Latin, Medieval Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish. This is not something he worked on in secret. On the contrary, he worked on it openly with his university students and colleagues in Israel for several years; one of his students was even going to publish a paper on the subject. The author is extremely careful about what he says, and his conclusions must be taken seriously. It reads like a detective story.
If it had been published in Israel, in Hebrew, no one would have cared. There are large bodies of literature in Hebrew that Jews do not wish Gentiles to know about. But Dr. Toaff’s announcement of its publication in Italy, in Italian, raised a worldwide firestorm of fury.
Under unbearable pressure, the book was withdrawn from publication. Come in out of the darkness, and strike a blow for the light.
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The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
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ABOUT 60 PERCENT of the world’s pasture land (about 2.2 million km2), just less than half the world’s usable surface is covered by grazing systems. Distributed between arid, semi arid and sub humid, humid, temperate and tropical highlands zones, this supports about 360 million cattle (half of which are in the humid savannas), and over 600 million sheep and goats, mostly in the arid rangelands. The distribution of livestock over the different ecological zones is provided in Annex Table 2.
The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
Aletho News 