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UK Climate Assembly was undemocratic

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 29, 2021

Ben Pile lifts the lid on the undemocratic Climate Assembly:

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London, 29 January: The UK Climate Assembly, which claimed to have delivered a mandate for a green revolution, could not have delivered a mandate of any kind, according to a new analysis published by the Global Warming Policy Forum.

According to the report’s author, Ben Pile, the Assembly was set up to deliver a preordained result:

It was in no way a democratic process. Almost everyone involved with convening the assembly, and almost everyone who spoke to it, was involved with environmental campaigning to some extent. Most can be linked to a small group of wealthy environmental funders.”

Pile says that the Assembly was actually set up because the public were unpersuaded of the case for radical action.

Politicians agreed the net zero target without debate and at best lukewarm public support. The Assembly was an attempt to provide a justification for strong policy measures, but it is ridiculous to suggest that a project like this could deliver some sort of a mandate. The assembly was an attempt to sidestep the democratic process.”

The UK Climate Assembly: Manufacturing Mandates can be downloaded here

https://www.thegwpf.com/climate-assembly-was-undemocratic/

Ben’s conclusion sums it up nicely:

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Particularly intriguing is Ben’s exposure of the flagrant bias of the speakers and organisers. I have already highlighted the fact that the four Expert Leads, who organised the assembly, are all part of the climate mafia. Ben goes further:

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This is really quite disgraceful, and is the sort of thing that would have been at home in the USSR.

January 29, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

COVID: If there is no virus, why are people dying?

By Jon Rappoport | January 29, 2021

Since the beginning of this false pandemic, I’ve been offering compelling evidence that no one has proved SARS-CoV-2 exists.

Then people ask, “So why are all these people dying?”

I have explained that, many times, and in this article I’ll explain it again.

First of all, the whole notion that COVID-19 is one health condition is a lie. COVID IS NOT ONE THING.

This is both the hardest and simplest point to accept and understand.

Don’t reject the existence of the virus and then say, “So what is THE cause of people dying?” There is no ONE CAUSE. There is no one illness. There is no “it.”

By far, the biggest sources of illness we are dealing with are lung conditions: various kinds of pneumonia; flu and flu-like disease; TB; other unnamed lung/respiratory problems.

THESE ARE BEING RELABELED “COVID.” It’s a repackaging scheme. People are dying for those traditional reasons, and their deaths are being called “COVID.”

Thus, the old is artificially made new. It’s still old.

In this wide-ranging group of people who have traditional lung conditions, by far the largest component is the elderly and frail.

They are dying in nursing homes, in hospitals, in their houses and apartments. In addition to their lung problems, they have been suffering from a whole host of other conditions, for a long time, and they’ve been treated with toxic drugs.

They’re terrified that they might receive a diagnosis of “COVID,” and then they are given that diagnosis. THEN they’re isolated, cut off from friends and family. They give up and die.

This is forced premature death.

Some of these elderly and frail people are heavily sedated and put on breathing ventilators—which is a killing treatment. In a large New York study, it was discovered that patients over the age of 64, who were put on ventilators, died 97.2 % of the time. Staggering.

Some of these elderly and frail patients are now dying from reactions to the COVID vaccine—and of course, their deaths are listed as “COVID.”

Why else are people dying? In many cases, it’s a simple matter of bookkeeping. They die in hospitals for a variety of reasons, and staff write “COVID death” on their files. In the US, states receive federal money based on these statistics.

Let’s say that, in certain places around the world, there are clusters of deaths (being called COVID) that can’t be explained in the ways I’ve just described.

In those situations, you would have to examine EACH situation closely. For example, just prior to an outbreak in Northern Italy, was there a vaccination campaign? What was in the vaccine? A new breed of toxic substances?

You have to consider each cluster independently.

Getting the picture?

None of the “COVID deaths” anywhere in the world requires the existence of a new virus.

For instance, in Wuhan, where the whole business began, the first “COVID” cases of pneumonia occurred in a city whose air is HEAVILY polluted. In China, every year, roughly 300,000 people die from pneumonia. That means millions of cases. None of those deaths need to be explained by invoking a new virus.

Now, add to all this the fact that the PCR test for the virus is irreparably flawed and useless (for a variety of reasons I’ve explained in other articles). The test spits out false-positives like a fire hose. Thus, the high case numbers. If the authorities have to go to such extremes to paint a picture of a spreading viral epidemic…

There is no evidence that an actual germ is traveling around the world felling people. The “evidence” is invented.

The “pandemic” is invented.

The fraud is promoted.

During these fake epidemics (there have been many), someone will say: “But my neighbor’s son, who was very healthy, died suddenly. It must be the virus.”

No. People who appear to be healthy do die. Not just today, but going back in history as far as you want to go. No one has an explanation. They might have an explanation if they looked very closely, but they don’t look closely.

Favoring the “virus explanation” is a bias, a knee-jerk reaction, a response to propaganda.

If you think there must be other major reasons to explain “why all these people are dying,” keep in mind that “lung conditions” is a category that expands all over the globe. For instance, there are about one BILLION cases of flu-like illness EVERY YEAR on planet Earth.

Repackaging/relabeling just a small percentage of those cases alone would account for all official COVID death numbers.

What’s new about COVID is the STORY. That’s what’s being sold: a STORY about a virus.

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

DOJ & EPA to get ‘Climate Justice’ offices under Biden’s executive orders

Biden’s Executive Order echoes the agenda of activists seen here during Amazon’s ‘Climate Strike’ in Seattle, Washington, September 20, 2019. © REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
RT | January 27, 2021

Declaring his commitment to “environmental justice” for “disadvantaged communities,” US President Joe Biden has ordered the creation of new enforcement offices in two departments and a regulatory agency.

As part of a sweeping executive order signed on Wednesday, the new or expanded “climate justice” offices will be established at the Department of Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“We know the communities who are being hurt, and we know we have to start enforcing the standards today in ensuring that they are part of the solution,” Gina McCarthy, Biden’s newly minted climate adviser, told reporters on Wednesday.

McCarthy, who ran the EPA between 2013 and 2017 during the Obama administration, praised the Biden-Harris administration for its “most ambitious climate vision” ever and said the new orders recognize the “intersectionality” of climate with the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and “racial equity.”

“Science is telling us that we don’t have a moment to lose,” added McCarthy.

Biden’s executive orders direct the US government to “develop programs, policies, and activities to address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic, and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities,” according to talking points released by the White House.

Among its provisions is the establishment of a “Justice40 Initiative,” which aims to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of federal investment to “disadvantaged communities” and establish an Environmental Justice Scorecard to track its progress.

The newly established White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council will “prioritize environmental justice and ensure a whole-of-government approach to addressing current and historical environmental injustices,” the White House said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what qualified one as “disadvantaged” or what “environmental justice” might mean in practice. The order establishing these new bureaucracies was part of a broader push for “renewable” energy that Biden promised during the presidential campaign, while insisting this was not the ‘Green New Deal’ promoted by some Democrats.

January 28, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Bright Green Impossibilities

By Willis Eschenbach | Watts Up With That? | January 27, 2021

After reading some information at Friends of Science, I got to thinking about how impossible it will be for us to do what so many people are demanding that we do. This is to go to zero CO2 emissions by 2050 by getting off of fossil fuels.

So let’s take a look at the size of the problem. People generally have little idea just how much energy we get from fossil fuels. Figure 1 shows the global annual total and fossil energy consumption from 1880 to 2019, and extensions of both trends to the year 2050. I note that my rough estimate of 2050 total annual energy consumption (241 petawatt-hrs/year) is quite close to the World Energy Organization’s business-as-usual 2050 estimate of 244 PWhr/yr.

Figure 1. Primary energy consumption, 1880-2019 and extrapolation to 2050. A “petawatt-hour” is 1015 watt-hours

So if we are going to zero emissions by 2050, we will need to replace about 193 petawatt-hours (1015 watt-hours) of fossil fuel energy per year. Since there are 8,766 hours in a year, we need to build and install about 193 PWhrs/year divided by 8766 hrs/year ≈ 22 terawatts (TW, or 1012 watts) of energy generating capacity.

Starting from today, January 25, 2021, there are 10,568 days until January 1, 2050. So we need to install, test, commission, and add to the grid about 22 TW / 10568 days ≈ 2.1 gigawatts/day (GW/day, or 109 watts/day) of generating capacity each and every day from now until 2050.

We can do that in a couple of ways. We could go all nuclear. In that case, we’d need to build, commission, and bring on-line a brand-new 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every single day from now until 2050. Easy, right? …

Don’t like nukes? Well, we could use wind power. Now, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Typical wind “capacity factor”, the percentage of actual energy generated compared to the nameplate capacity, is about 35%. So we’d have to build, install, commission and bring online just under 3,000 medium-sized (2 megawatt, MW = 106 watts) wind turbines every single day from now until 2050. No problemo, right? …

Don’t like wind? Well, we could use solar. Per the NREL, actual delivery from grid-scale solar panel installations on a 24/7/365 basis is on the order of 8.3 watts per square metre depending on location. So we’d have to cover ≈ 96 square miles (250 square kilometres) with solar panels, wire them up, test them, and connect them to the grid every single day from now until 2050. Child’s play, right? …

Of course, if we go with wind or solar, they are highly intermittent sources. So we’d still need somewhere between 50% – 90% of the total generating capacity in nuclear, for the all-too-frequent times when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

To summarize: to get the world to zero emissions by 2050, our options are to build, commission, and bring on-line either:

• One 2.1 gigawatt (GW, 109 watts) nuclear power plant each and every day until 2050, OR

• 3000 two-megawatt (MW, 106 watts) wind turbines each and every day until 2050 plus a 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every day and a half until 2050, assuming there’s not one turbine failure for any reason, OR

• 96 square miles (250 square kilometres) of solar panels each and every day until 2050 plus a 2.1 GW nuclear power plant every day and a half until 2050, assuming not one of the panels fails or is destroyed by hail or wind.

I sincerely hope that everyone can see that any of those alternatives are not just impossible. They are pie-in-the-sky, flying unicorns, bull-goose looney impossible.

Finally, the US consumes about one-sixth of the total global fossil energy. So for the US to get to zero fossil fuel by 2050, just divide all the above figures by six … and they are still flying unicorn, bull-goose looney impossible.

Math. Don’t leave home without it.

My very best wishes to everyone, stay safe in these parlous times,

w.

PS—As always, to avoid misunderstandings I request that when you comment, you quote the exact words that you are discussing so we can all be clear about who and what you are referring to.

Technical Note: These figures are conservative because they do not include the energy required to build the reactors, wind turbines, or solar panels. This is relatively small per GW of generation for nuclear reactors but is much larger for wind and solar.

They also don’t include the fact that wind turbines have about a 20-year lifespan, so after 20 years we’ll have to double the turbine construction per day. And with solar the lifespan is about 25 years, so for the last five years, we’ll have to double the solar construction per day. And then we will have to decommission and dispose of hundreds of thousands of wind turbines and square miles of solar panels …

The figures also don’t include the fact that if we go to an all-electric economy we will have to completely revamp, extend, and upgrade our existing electrical grid, which will require a huge investment of time, money, and energy.

They also don’t include the cost. The nuclear plants alone will cost on the order of US$170 trillion at current prices. And wind or solar plus 75% nuclear will be on the order of US275 trillion, plus decomissioning and disposal costs for wind turbines and solar panels.

So it is even more impossible … speaking of which, is it possible to be more impossible?

Because if it is possible … this is it.

January 28, 2021 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

A trillion-pound dawk klunk

Climate Discussion Nexus | January 27, 2021

Speaking of the obvious and logical, it somehow badly embarrassed the British government this week that they were ordered to release their calculations of the cost of achieving net zero by 2050. Not because the cost is large, though it certainly is. Nor because the calculations might well have shown the costs vastly to exceed the benefits, had there been any calculations. But because behind all the ponderous fog about ‘experts say’, ‘following the science’ and so forth, it seems it may well have been just a wild guess someone stuffed into an email on the fly.

The starting point to this multi-layered embarrassment is that two years ago a warning from then Chancellor of the Exchequer to then PM Theresa May said net zero by 2050 would cost over a trillion pounds. Which is a lot even for a wealthy society such as Britain, whose pre-pandemic GDP was nearly £3 trillion per year, and also embarrassing, though only because a lot of fools were going about saying fossil fuels really weren’t much good anyway and chucking them would probably make us all richer. We’d all just switch to high-paying, high-tech, high-virtue-signalling jobs in the green energy sector or possibly government PR departments.

People are still making such claims, of course, with as little foundation in economics as in science. And as an aside we think it is not a clever PR strategy because once they are in a position to attempt to implement their plans, which Boris Johnson is, along with Justin Trudeau and now Joe Biden, people will quickly discover that they were fools, rogues or both to say abandoning the energy foundations of our civilization would actually make us richer, and being unmasked as a knave or a dunce is a damaging blow to your credibility.

Speaking of dunces, the looming embarrassment in the UK now is that the calculations themselves were apparently done on a napkin or a Post-it… if even that. We have yet to acquire the actual scrap of paper, digital or otherwise. But evidently the Treasury initially refused to release them on the grounds that they were “internal communications”, which sounds like an evasion since it is very hard to understand what else a discussion within a government branch might be. And it has now been backed into confessing that “communications” wasn’t quite the right word since there was just one email. Not a big long study or discussions back and forth. Someone just guessed and fired it off.

This happy-go-lucky approach is especially awkward because governments in the free world have a habit of justifying any policy or reversal of same, and shaming dissenters into the bargain, by insisting that they were following the science, a variant of the “experts say” meme news organizations now plaster on anything they want you to swallow whole. These politicians don’t tell you what the science said or which science said it, and in many cases their high school transcript would not justify faith in their capacity to understand anything science did say. They rarely even tell you who the scientists are beyond one convenient figurehead gifted with charisma or incomprehensibility.

We don’t only mean on climate, or the pandemic. When it comes to “economic science” their general tone is that a laboratory full of people running a computer that makes Deep Thought look like an abacus did a simulation you chumps couldn’t begin to understand that proves that whatever we were planning to do anyway is a brilliant idea.

Government budgets typically now run to hundreds of pages, full of charts and projections as well as electioneering prose, all of it designed to dazzle and intimidate. You are meant to think it was all done with careful attention to counterfactuals, margins of error, limitations on data, uncertainty about external shocks and so on. But it wasn’t. They had the verdict in hand before they began the trial. No government ever went to the boffins and said analyze our plan and were told it’s no good and put that verdict in the document. And on climate economics, the British government apparently deep-sixed the vital “Social Cost of Carbon” because it was too low to justify going nuts on emissions which, characteristically, the government had decided to do before looking at the science, so it then demanded science to justify a decision that, if it is not based on science, is very hard to see what it is based on.

So there’s something fishy about the expertise even when it’s real. But what if it’s not? What if there was no science or in this case no economic science? If it turns out the UK gambled its future on a few scribbles instead of a massive, dense wall of functions, it will cause red faces.

Of course no such thing could happen here in Canada. But only because no government would ever be forced to disclose the basis of its calculations, on the off chance there even were any.

January 28, 2021 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Coverup of What May Have Caused Hank Aaron’s Death?

By Stephen Lendman | January 26, 2021

Iconic baseball legend Hank Aaron had no reported signs of ill health when vaccinated for seasonal flu-renamed covid on January 5.

On January 22, he died, no cause of death indicated at the time.

No information released on if he was dealing with health issues suggests that there were no serious ones.

According to a dubious USdaynews.com report, “unofficial reports claim (Aaron) was in a bad health condition because of heart disease,” no source cited.

Separately, the publication cited another “report of (an unnamed) person with (alleged) knowledge, (claiming Aaron) suffer(ed) a massive stroke.”

“(T)he person asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter (sic).”

If Aaron was ill from heart disease and suffered a “massive stroke” as claimed, why was this not explained for days.

Why does an alleged source remain anonymous? For what purpose?

The publication called claims about Aaron’s death related to having been vaxxed for covid “just a rumor,” adding:

He “died in his sleep” last week. If a “massive stroke” preceded his death, his passing wasn’t as simple as this one-liner.

On January 5, AP News reported the following:

“Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, former UN Ambassador and civil rights leader Andrew Young, and former US Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan got vaccinated against (covid) in Georgia on Tuesday, hoping to send a message to Black Americans that the shots are safe (sic).”

Aaron was quoted saying that getting vaxxed “ma(de) (him) feel wonderful.”

“I don’t have any qualms about it at all, you know.” 

“I feel quite proud of myself for doing something like this.”

“It’s just a small thing that can help zillions of people in this country.”

Following his death, Newsweek slammed what it called “conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers” who believe his passing was from covid inoculation — what it called “anti-vax propaganda.”

Big Government has been pushing all-out for mass-vaxxing with experimental, fast-tracked, unapproved, hazardous to health covid vaccines.

According to Newsweek, US officials hope Aaron’s death “doesn’t discourage people from getting vaccinated.”

It’s a view shared by Pharma, hoping to cash in big with a bonanza of profits from mass-vaxxing billions of people worldwide — Big Media like Newsweek providing press agent services.

They include coverup of the high-risk associated with experimental covid vaccines that includes potential serious harm to health or worse.

Aaron received Moderna’s experimental covid vaccine.

Infectious disease experts expressed concern about unique high risks associated with this experimental mRNA technology used by Moderna and Pfizer that’s been inadequately tested.

Their covid vaccines also contain polyethylene glycol (PEG) that risks possible severe adverse reactions.

Moderna publicly admitted that use of PEG in its covid vaccine “could lead to significant adverse events in one or more of our clinical trials.”

Rushed development of their covid vaccines circumvented longstanding protocol by skipping animal testing.

Months earlier, Children’s Health Defense warned followers of its reports to “beware the Moderna vaccine.”

The same warning applies to Pfizer’s entry into the covid vaccine sweepstakes.

Aaron was likely unaware of the above information and much more citing great concerns about mRNA covid vaccines that may pose serious dangers to health and well-being — especially for the elderly with weakened immune systems.

Aaron was aged-86 when passed away last week.

Since US mass-vaxxing for covid began in mid-December, thousands of adverse events and hundreds of deaths occurred — information ignored by Big Media.

For each known casualty, the vast majority of others go unreported.

An HHS study found that “fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries” are reported to VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System).

Five days after US mass-vaxxing began on December 14, over 5,000 “health impact events” were reported.

At 1% of the total, hundreds of thousands more were unreported.

Over a month later, the true number of mild to more severe adverse events could be in the millions.

These are what happened short-term. Of much greater concern are numerous serious diseases known to be caused by vaxxing, including ones they’re supposed to protect against.

Most likely, thousands of individuals in the US and abroad died or risk death from being vaxxed for covid.

Longer-term, much more will be known about numbers of people harmed from seeking protection never gotten — just grief.

Time and again after the fact it’s learned that highly touted vaccines to the rescue don’t work as promoted.

Despite many years of research, no safe and effective coronavirus vaccines were ever developed to this day.

No credible evidence suggests that Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and others are exceptions to the rule.

They’re extremely high risk and unsafe, why avoiding them is essential to protect health.

A Final Comment

Citing the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution claimed that “Hank Aaron died of natural causes,” adding:

“According to the Braves, he died peacefully in his sleep.”

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, Aaron’s funeral the following day.

Without an independent autopsy by trusted individuals, the cause of Aaron’s death will be buried with him.

His passing around two weeks after being vaxxed with Moderna’s hazardous to health covid vaccine raises obvious red flags about the true cause of his death.

January 26, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Scientific evidence on lockdowns suggests they don’t work. The places with the highest death rates all had them

By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | January 26, 2021

The history of medical interventions tells us that often the accepted way of doing things turns out to be dreadfully wrong. I fear this is going to be the case with this so-called Covid ‘cure’.

“Paradoxically, human beings, when compelled to act, learn to justify a chosen course with an assurance unwarranted by the evidence for the course chosen.” – Bernard Lown.

I have studied the history of medicine, and medical interventions, for many years. The most extreme disasters have always followed a fairly distinct pattern. A series of steps, if you like.

Step one: We have a serious disease that is killing lots of people.

Step two: It creates great fear, and the medical profession has nothing much in place to deal with it.

Step three: A charismatic leader emerges to decree that he (almost always a ‘he’ up to now) knows how to treat it/control it, etc. This is ‘the idea’.

Step four: The ‘idea’ is enthusiastically taken up around the world and becomes mainstream thinking.

Step five: The ‘idea’ becomes standard practice.

Step six: The ‘idea’ is taught to medics and becomes accepted truth, a fact.

Step seven: Anyone who goes against the ‘idea’ is ruthlessly attacked.

There is always, of course, the possibility that the ‘idea’ is the best thing to do. This happens from time to time. However, there seems to be little or no correlation between the enthusiasm – and speed – with which ideas are taken up, and the likelihood that they are correct.

The problem, as I came to recognise, lies between step two and step four. By which I mean that a charismatic figure convinces everyone that they have the answer, before there is any evidence to support it. The person may not be charismatic, rather simply someone who has the ability to grab attention and push the ‘idea’ forward. Such as the Chinese premier.

Another thing that leads to disaster, which is of perhaps even greater importance, is that the ‘idea’ must sound like the most obvious common sense. It should trigger a response along the lines of “Yes, of course, that sounds perfectly reasonable.” Once that’s been achieved, the ‘idea’ drops neatly into people’s minds, settles down, and grows roots, creating not a ripple of cognitive dissonance.

At which point it cements itself in, and becomes difficult – even painful – to remove.

To quote the film ‘Inception’: “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.”

We love ideas; they make us who we are. We defend them, sometimes with our very lives.

“Why do people insist on defending their ideas and opinions with such ferocity, as if defending honour itself? What could be easier to change than an idea?” – JG Farrell.

So, yes, I have no illusions about the strength of ideas. They are so powerful, and so dangerous, that you must be very careful where you aim them. Because ideas also have a God-like power, which is that they are immortal.

The damage inflicted by medical ideas

You can kill a person who holds an idea. You can kill thousands of people who hold the same idea – but you cannot kill that idea. Unless you kill every single person who believes in it, then wipe it from the historical record, so that no-one can ever think it again. See ‘1984’.

I will give you a couple of examples of horribly damaging medical ideas. The first is the radical mastectomy. An idea first driven by William Halsted, a US surgeon from the end of the nineteenth century. He believed, as did almost everyone else at the time, that breast cancer spread locally – as did all cancers. Therefore, anything located anywhere near the cancer had to be cut away in case it had already been polluted.

With a radical mastectomy the entire breast, the other breast, muscles on the chest wall, lymph nodes, more muscles were cut out. Almost anything that could be removed without actually killing the women in the process.

The mutilated women were immensely grateful, and the surgeons proud of their expertise. They were doing a good thing, because the idea was considered to be inarguably correct. Questioning it was to be met with the response like, ‘Do you want these women to die – you heartless swine?’

Except that it wasn’t correct. Breast cancer does not spread locally. At least, when it does, it does so very slowly. The spread that causes problems, and kills women, is not local. Cancer cells get into the lymphatic system, and the bloodstream, and spread widely around the body, very early on. Often, long before the primary cancer can be detected.

Those who questioned the radical mastectomy, were attacked. Geoffrey Keynes, brother of John Maynard, tried less radical surgery in the 1920s. It did not go down well:

“Halsted’s followers in America ridiculed this approach, and came up with the name ‘lumpectomy’ to call the local surgery. In their minds, the surgeon was simply removing ‘just’ a lump, and this did not make much sense. They were aligning themselves with the paradigm of Radical Mastectomy. In fact, some of the surgeons even went further to come up with ‘superradical’ and ‘ultraradical’ procedures that were morbidly disfiguring procedures where the breast, underlying muscles, axillary nodes, the chest wall, and occasionally the ribs, part of the sternum, the clavicle and the lymph nodes inside the chest were removed. The idea of ‘more was better’ became prevalent.”

More is better… this is another of the deadly repeating themes of ‘the idea’. The idea can never be wrong, it is just that people are not doing it with sufficient vigour. If women are still dying from metastatic breast cancer, even after radical mastectomies (and they were), the answer could not possibly be that the procedure doesn’t work. The answer is that we are not being radical enough: “Hack away more, and then more.”

‘I was greeted with hands stretched out in a Nazi salute’

Another big medical idea is that of bed rest following a heart attack. It was thought, at one time, that all heart attacks were fatal. James Herrick, another US doctor, described the first non-fatal heart attack in 1912, then suggested that following such an attack, strict bed rest was important. This would take pressure off the heart and allow it a chance to heal. Again, this sounds perfectly reasonable. As described by Dr Bernard Lown, a professor of cardiology and the developer of the defibrillator:

“To a medical novice like me, the justification for enforced bed rest was persuasive. It was based on a sacrosanct therapeutic principle, the need to rest a diseased body part, be it a fractured limb or a tuberculosis-affected lung. Unlike a broken bone, which could be immobilized in a cast, or a lung lobe, which could be collapsed by inflating the chest cavity with air, the heart could not be cradled into quietude. The only approximation for a diseased heart was to diminish its workload. It was long known that during recumbency the heart rate slows and blood pressure drops, both indices of less oxygen usage and therefore of decreased cardiac work. Heart rest was therefore equated with bed rest.”

And so it became standard practice. It was simply what you did:

“Patients were confined to strict bed rest for four to six weeks. Sitting in a chair was prohibited. They were not allowed to turn from side to side without assistance. During the first week, they were fed. Moving their bowels and urinating required a bedpan. For the constipated, which included nearly every patient, precariously balancing on a bedpan was agonizing as well as embarrassing.

“Because world events might provoke unease, some physicians prohibited their patients from listening to the radio or reading a newspaper. Visits by family members were limited. Since recumbency provoked much restiveness and anxiety, patients required heavy sedation, which contributed to a pervasive sense of hopelessness and depression. Around one in three patients died.”

Bed rest started as a relatively mild thing. However, as it is with almost all things, it became increasingly ‘radical’. Lown, along with his mentor Dr Samuel Levine, tried to change this. He became involved in trying to get patients up out of bed to sit in a chair:

“Little did I realize that violating firmly held traditions can raise a tsunami of opposition. The idea of moving critically ill patients into a chair was regarded as off‑the‑wall. Initially the house staff refused to cooperate and strenuously resisted getting patients out of bed. They accused me of planning to commit crimes not unlike those of the heinous Nazi experimentations in concentration camps. Arriving on the medical ward one morning I was greeted by interns and residents lined up with hands stretched out in a Nazi salute and a ‘Heil Hitler!’ shouted in unison.”

Step six: Anyone who goes against the ‘idea’ is ruthlessly attacked.

No evidence, no problem

Then, among all the other problems with ‘the idea’, between steps two and three, is one that I have not yet mentioned. It is that no study is ever done to find out whether or not the idea works. It is just conceived to be so obviously beneficial, such common sense, that there would be no point in wasting time and resources trying to prove that it worked.

No-one ever did a study to find out if the radical mastectomy improved survival. No-one ever did a study to prove that bed rest saved lives. They were both introduced on the back of absolutely nothing. In time, eventually, the folly of both was finally recognised. It took 70 years for radical mastectomy, 50 for bed rest.

Which takes us to lockdowns. The most expensive, invasive, and potentially destructive medical intervention ever attempted by humanity. Was there any evidence from anywhere, before we embarked upon them, that lockdowns would work? No, there was none. But we have the six steps on full display here.

Step one: We have a serious disease that is killing lots of people – check.

Step two: It creates great fear, and the medical profession has nothing in place to deal with it – check.

Step three: A charismatic leader emerges to decree that he (almost always a ‘he’ up to now) knows how to treat it/control it etc. This is the ‘idea’ – check.

Step four: The ‘idea’ is enthusiastically taken up around the world and becomes ‘mainstream thinking’ – check.

Step five: The ‘idea’ becomes standard practice – check.

Step six: The ‘idea’ is taught to medics and becomes accepted truth, a fact – check.

Step seven: Anyone who goes against the ‘idea’ is ruthlessly attacked – check.

Does it work? Have lockdowns worked? You can pick and choose countries to support the case that it does and dismiss any evidence you don’t much like. Unfortunately, once you introduce a medical intervention that affects everyone, everywhere, you have lost the possibility of carrying out a controlled experiment of any sort.

Despite the lack of any randomised evidence, most people are absolutely convinced that lockdowns work to control the spread of Covid-19. They point to various countries, e.g. New Zealand, Norway, Australia and Taiwan, to prove their case. They always have a ready explanation as to why countries that underwent lockdown still have high death rates and vice-versa.

The ‘idea’ has become the truth. Its proponents now demand that those who doubt the efficacy of lockdowns prove that they don’t work. It is not the job of those suggesting lockdowns don’t work to prove that they don’t, it is the job of those promoting them to prove that they do.

The starting point for any scientific hypothesis is for the proponents to disprove the null hypothesis. Demanding that those who believe something may not work prove that it doesn’t is to turn the scientific method upside down. You can never prove a negative.

The null hypothesis, by the way, is that there is no difference between two things. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) in medicine are designed to prove, statistically, that there is an actual difference between doing A and B. This is how science is done, how research is done.

We must look carefully at the death rates

Unfortunately, it is not possible to do a controlled trial with Covid-19. The possibility of doing any randomised study was lost very early on. Which means that we are instead forced to rely on observational studies. We can look at country X, that did Y, and see how it compares with country Z that did not do Y.

Or we can look at two countries that did Y, to see how they compare. Or two countries that did not do Y. With Covid, of course, no two countries did exactly the same thing. Not even the four ‘countries’ within the UK. So any observations become more difficult to rely on due to this ‘confounding variable’.

In some UK countries, six people could meet up, while in others it was eight, or two households, or only one household etc. In some, restaurants were open, in others they were shut – at varying times. From a scientific perspective, it’s a mess.

Anyway, to simplify things, let’s look at the 10 countries around the world with the highest death rate from Covid. That is, deaths per million population (I have left out countries with a population of less than one million, such as Monaco, or Liechtenstein, because a few deaths here or there can distort the death rate considerably)

What did they do differently, and what did they do the same? These countries all locked down, relaxed them, then brought in tighter lockdowns at various times. Looking only at first lockdown dates:

Belgium first locked down on March 18, 2020.

Slovenia first locked down on March 20, 2020.

Czechia first locked down on March 16, 2020.

The UK first locked down March 23, 2020.

Bosnia-Herzegovina first locked down March 16, 2020.

Italy first locked down March 9, 2020.

North Macedonia first locked down March 18, 2020.

The USA is highly federal and different states took different approaches – seven states did not issue lockdown orders: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. In those seven states, the death rate from Covid averaged at 1,280 per million, versus 1,254 as the US average.

In comparison, New Jersey first locked down on March 21, 2020, and its current death rate is 2,310 per million. New York locked down on March 12 – its current death rate is 2,130 per million. These states have the highest Covid related deaths in the US.

Bulgaria first locked down on March 13, 2020.

Hungary first locked down on March 28, 2020.

All countries locked down, Italy first, Hungary last. As you can see, the date of first lockdown is unrelated to the death rate. The other stand-out facts are that these are all countries with majority Caucasian populations. They are all in the northern hemisphere.

People will say, ah, but what about variables, such as population density, age distribution, number of tests done… etc, etc (there are dozens to choose from)? In the end, you can only rely on two things – did a country lock down and what is the death rate from Covid? These are the inescapable facts, everything else can be twisted to suit any argument.

If I were thinking of running a clinical trial where the hypothesis was that a lockdown was the best way to prevent deaths from Covid, then I would start by looking at observational data such as this.

I would find that the 10 countries in the world with the highest death rates all locked down.

I would look at the US, where the death rates in states that locked down, and those that did not, were almost the same rate (or vastly higher in the cases of New Jersey and New York), and I would conclude that the observational studies had – thus far – failed to disprove the null hypothesis. In fact, the evidence up to this point could suggest that lockdowns may actually increase the death rate.

In short, I would look for another idea.

Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, ‘Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,’ is available here.

January 26, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The Question of Masks

By Jenin Younes | AIER | January 26, 2021

I envy the reader who can reach the end of Alex Berenson’s Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns: Masks, without tearing her hair out in frustration at the absurdity of the world today, which apparently is not so different from the one that Galileo inhabited four centuries ago.

Berenson makes an airtight case (no pun intended) that there is no evidence whatsoever that surgical and cloth masks work to control coronavirus spread, and a substantial amount that they do not. Nevertheless, as anyone who has tried to discuss the topic in a blue state knows, the subject has been so politicized that to make this contention amounts to heresy.

This is the third booklet in a series, Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns. The first two focus upon the deleterious effects of lockdowns and overestimation of the virus’s dangerousness. Berenson, who used to work as a reporter at the New York Times before he became a full-time novelist, has been known from the very beginning as a coronavirus “contrarian,” and has since attained unofficial status as king of the lockdown skeptics. As his Twitter profile famously depicts him smiling sardonically with a mask under his chin, it is about time he addressed the subject.

Initially, Berenson documents the so-called experts’ notorious about-face on masks this past March. Having said for weeks that face coverings do not stop transmission of the virus, Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Surgeon General, and others, did a 180 virtually overnight. The common explanation for this sudden change is that the first message was disingenuous, and given only to prevent a mask shortage among health care professionals. Berenson eschews this interpretation, arguing that the initial message was correct, but these people and institutions succumbed to political pressure.

What is the proof that this was political? Although Berenson does not explicitly state as much, it is worth noting that former President Trump immediately defied the idea of mask-wearing, as did many of his supporters, which I believe led to the extreme reaction in the opposite direction among Democrats and liberals.

Berenson points out that immediately, when mere weeks and months before Americans had been told not to wear masks, newspapers and magazines began publishing “insufferably arrogant” pieces portraying those who resisted mask-wearing as cretins, narcissists, and even sociopaths. This plays into the idea, held by many in this country, that those who are not on their side politically are fundamentally different, morally inferior, or perhaps even evil. Thus, to suggest that people who resist masks are narcissists or sociopaths fits squarely into the narrative that the political other is less-than.

But the real evidence lies in the fact that, contrary to the dogma that has taken root in American society, especially in Democratic circles, there is simply no scientific substantiation for the claim that masks, as they are worn in everyday life, protect either the wearer or those who encounter her. In Berenson’s words, “The evidence that face coverings do any good turns out to be even more porous than the masks themselves.” In my opinion, were the subject not so politically fraught, it is unlikely that the scientific evidence would be ignored.

Berenson describes the studies that evaluate whether surgical and cloth masks protect the wearer, and his verdict will, at this point, be unsurprising. Theoretical evidence establishes that surgical and cloth masks “offer next to no protection” because the virus typically travels on particles so small that in order to provide protection, the material must be fine enough to catch nearly all aerosols and droplets.

Apart from N95 respirators, which also are more effective because they are fitted to the individual’s face, masks are not made from such material. Not only are N95s expensive, but worn properly, they are “suffocating, uncomfortable, and difficult to tolerate for long durations.” Thus, as a practical matter, if non-medical professionals are going to wear face-coverings for an extended time period, they will be standard cloth or surgical masks.

The yet stronger proof, from randomized controlled studies (RCTs) — the “gold standard” in science – is overwhelming that these masks are not effective. As Berenson explains, research from Hong Kong and Vietnam found no evidence that surgical masks reduce influenza transmission, and evidence that cloth masks increase rates of infection, respectively.

The first large RCT, conducted in Denmark specifically to assess the utility of masks against SARS-CoV-2, found no difference in rates of infection between those who wore and those who did not wear masks (I have previously analyzed the distortion of the study’s results, especially by the New York Times and other center-left publications).

As for the proposition that masks may not protect the wearer but do protect those around her, again, “masks have almost no chance of catching most of the particles we exhale” because of the particles’ size, as explicated in a paper published in the Lancet. (From a logical standpoint, I have never found the concept that masks can protect those around the wearer though they do not protect her to be persuasive: either the mask functions as a barrier or it does not, although I am not a scientist and perhaps am missing something).

Berenson notes that the author “did not go so far as to call masks useless – a near impossibility in the current environment – but he was lukewarm at best on their value to protect other people even in the most obvious case, when they are worn by symptomatic cases in hospitals.”

Similarly, on June 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a paper stating that “widespread use of masks by health people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are other potential benefits and harms to consider.”

Again, given the political climate, the WHO “chok[ed] out” a tepid endorsement of mask usage: “Governments should encourage the general public to wear masks in specific situations and settings.”

Berenson compellingly dispels the myth that observational studies prove masks’ efficacy, such as the much cited salon in Missouri where two hairdressers who had coronavirus symptoms wore masks and did not infect 139 clients. As Berenson notes, there are countless other explanations for this result. For example, maybe the salon had good ventilation, or maybe the hairdressers were not very infectious. Despite the lack of scientific and intellectual rigor underlying it, this anecdote served as the rationale for many jurisdictions’ mask mandates.  Moreover, the remaining observational data points staunchly in the opposite direction: worldwide, rising cases are not correlated with mask usage.

As anyone who has become embroiled in the mask debate knows well, the next question is always, why not wear one, since we don’t know for sure and there’s a chance they help? As Berenson argues, government directives should be supported by some evidence.

It has not been disproven that five-minute headstands prevent coronavirus spread, but most of us would see a problem with government requiring us to stand on our heads for five minutes a day just in case. Put otherwise, allowing the government to make rules without adequate evidence they are effective creates substantial danger that it will issue arbitrary directives to give the appearance of doing something.

Furthermore, as Berenson explains, masks are not harmless. He details two 2013 decisions from Canadian arbiters, addressing a challenge to hospital rules requiring nurses to wear masks if they had not been vaccinated against influenza. Both arbiters found in the nurses’ favor, and determined there was limited or no evidence that demonstrated the “utility of masks in reducing transmission” and substantial harms, including discomfort and skin irritation.

Although Berenson does not discuss this, widespread, long-term mask usage may cause significant psychological damage, especially to children and babies and even more so to those with disabilities such as autism. Even the New York Times acknowledged that masks likely impede children’s cognitive development, despite reaching the irrational conclusion that such harm is inevitable.

One of Berenson’s most critical points is that there is now substantial evidence that the coronavirus is very rarely, if ever, spread by asymptomatic individuals. The belief that asymptomatic transmission was one of the primary forces driving coronavirus spread propelled lockdowns and universal mask requirements in the spring.

If only symptomatic people spread the virus, then there is no justification whatsoever for quarantining and masking healthy populations: all that societies must do is ask people exhibiting symptoms to stay home.

Several large, recent studies have established that asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus is exceedingly uncommon, if it occurs at all; the WHO has also recognized this fact. Of course, these studies have been entirely ignored by the media. Those who have staked their personal and professional reputations on the efficacy and necessity of lockdowns and mask mandates cannot now acknowledge having made such a grave, crucial error.

Berenson ends by theorizing that mask mandates appear to reflect “an effort by governments to find out what restrictions on their civil liberties people will accept on the thinnest possible evidence . . . Today, we must wear masks. Tomorrow we’ll need negative Covid tests to travel between countries. Or vaccines to go to work.”

As I have written in the past, I agree resoundingly with Berenson’s conclusion, although I tend to blame governmental incompetence and refusal to concede error as well as more nefarious motives.

Of course, the media is at fault too, with publications and television channels such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC promoting a blindly pro-lockdown, pro-mask ideology, at the same time discounting the evidence pouring in from all corners of the earth that lockdowns do not work as long- or medium-term solutions while they are destroying millions of lives, and masks are ineffective. Even now, with a vaccine available, the New York Times is publishing articles arguing that the supposedly deadlier new strain of the virus means that countries must lock down harder and longer; Australia expects to keep its borders closed through the end of 2021, if not longer; and the United Kingdom has indicated it will remain in lockdown until at least July.

Berenson sees the writing on the wall. Until a substantial portion of us stand up and make clear that we will not tolerate being stripped of life, liberty, property, and dignity, our governments will continue to inflict these repressive measures.

Jenin Younes is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law. Jenin currently works as an appellate public defender in New York City.

January 26, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

When Fascism Comes, It Will Be Wearing a Mask

By Ron Paul | January 25, 2021

Almost immediately after his inauguration, President Joe Biden began creating new government dictates via executive orders. Many of these executive orders concern coronavirus, fulfilling Biden’s promise to make ramping up a coronavirus-inspired attack on liberty a focus of his first 100 days.

One of Biden’s executive orders imposes mask and social distancing mandates on anyone in a federal building or on federal land. The mandates also apply to federal employees when they are “on-duty” anywhere. Members of the military are included in the definition of federal employees. Will citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries where US troops are or will be “spreading democracy” be happy to learn the troops shooting up their towns are wearing masks and practicing social distancing?

Another one of Biden’s executive orders forces passengers on airplanes, trains, and other public transportation to wear masks.

Biden’s mask mandates contradict his pledge to follow the science. Studies have not established that masks are effective at preventing the spread of coronavirus. Regularly wearing a mask, though, can cause health problems.

Biden’s mask mandates are also an unconstitutional power grab. Some say these mandates are an exercise of the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. However, the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to regulate interstate commerce. The president does not have the authority to issue executive orders regulating interstate commerce absent authorization by a valid law passed by Congress. The Founders gave Congress sole law-making authority, and they would be horrified by the modern practice of presidents creating law with a “stroke of a pen.”

Just as important, the Commerce Clause was not intended to give the federal government vast regulatory power. Far from giving the US government powers such as the power to require people to wear masks, the Commerce Clause was simply intended to ensure Congress could protect free trade among the states.

Biden also signed an executive order supporting using the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of vaccines, testing supplies, and other items deemed essential to respond to coronavirus. The Defense Production Act is a Cold War relic that gives the president what can fairly be called dictatorial authority to order private businesses to alter their production plans, and violate existing contracts with private customers, in order to produce goods for the government.

Mask and social distancing mandates, government control of private industry, and some of Biden’s other executive actions, such as one creating a new “Public Health Jobs Corps” with responsibilities including performing “contact tracing” on American citizens, are the type of actions one would expect from a fascist government, not a constitutional republic.

Joe Biden, who is heralded by many of his supporters as saving democracy from fascist Trump, could not even wait one day before beginning to implement fascistic measures that are completely unnecessary to protect public health. Biden will no doubt use other manufactured crises, including “climate change” and “domestic terrorism,” to expand government power and further restrict our liberty. Under Biden, fascism will not just carry an American flag. It will also wear a mask.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Vaccine Critics Considered National Security Threats

By Stephen Lendman | January 25, 2021

Along with tens of millions of Trump supporters, are critics of hazardous seasonal flu-renamed covid vaccines the new red menace?

Truth-telling about vaccine dangers — especially experimental/unapproved covid ones — is falsely called anti-vaccine propaganda.

Last month, a disinformation piece by The Hill said the following:

“As public health officials seek to reassure Americans on the safety and efficacy of (covid) vaccine(s) (sic), anti-vaccine efforts could prevent the country from reaching herd immunity (sic).”

A similar UK report from The Times said the Boris Johnson regime “regards tackling (truth-telling called) false information about (covid) vaccin(es) as a rising priority.”

There’s nothing remotely untrue about explaining indisputable hazards of all vaccines.

They all risk harm to human health and well-being because of toxins in their formulas.

Inadequately tested covid vaccines are especially hazardous — why they’re unapproved, yet allowed to be used under emergency conditions that don’t exist.

Big Government, Big Pharma, and their Big Media press agents continue to spread misinformation and disinformation about covid vaccines.

They’re essential to avoid or risk serious potential harm to human health.

At a time of growing tyranny in the US and West, truth-telling on vital issues is increasingly considered threatening to national security — a phony charge that’s part of a campaign to suppress what’s vital for everyone to know.

For months through most of last year, Americans, others in the West and elsewhere have been lied to about vaccines.

Information about hazards of covid ones are suppressed, notably by Big Media.

On Monday, CNN — the most distrusted name in television fake news — lied to viewers as follows, saying:

“Anti-vaccine groups are exploiting (sic) the suffering and death of people who happen to fall ill after receiving a covid shot, threatening to undermine the largest vaccination campaign in US history,” adding:

“In some cases, anti-vaccine activists are fabricating stories of deaths that never occurred (sic).”

Like other Big Media, CNN suppresses virtually everything essential for everyone to know about issues that affect their lives, welfare and safety.

The fake news operation is part of a mass deception campaign to suppress information about the hazards of covid vaccines.

When used as directed, they risk harm to human health that for too many includes death.

At best, the toll won’t be known until long after widespread damage is done.

It’s well-known that vaccines don’t protect as falsely claimed. They often cause diseases they pretend to protect against.

They produce customers for other drugs to treat diseases they cause that includes cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and many other serious ones.

They’re a major cause of autism in children.

A WaPo disinformation piece last December falsely claimed face masks prevent spread of covid.

Besides providing no protection, when used longterm, they risk harm to health instead of the other way around — information WaPo and other Big Media suppress.

They lied claiming no cures for seasonal flu/renamed covid exist, ignoring safe and effective HCQ when taken within 10 days of falling ill — combined with one of 2 antibiotics and zinc.

Big Media are pushing toxic vaccines because of a bonanza of profits from mass-vaxxing.

WaPo also falsely called covid “more deadly than influenza” when the former is the renamed latter illness.

Ignored as well by WaPo is that experimental mRNA vaccines alter human DNA, turning vaxxed individuals into genetically modified organisms.

WaPo falsely claimed it’s not so, suppressing what it should have highlighted as a threat to health.

Since made-in-the-USA covid propaganda began last year, Big Media have been its main transmission vehicle for spreading fake news.

Its aim is terrifying Americans into being vaxxed with what no one should touch.

Preserving and protecting health requires avoiding these hugely dangerous vaccines.

Also essential are good health habits that provide the most effective way to avoid serious illnesses.

Instead of explaining the above and all else important to report, government, Pharma, and Big Media suppress it — pushing what’s harmful, not beneficial to health and well-being.

They’re enemies of the people, not the other way around.

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

WHO (finally) admits PCR test is potentially flawed

Second PCR memo in two months casts even more doubt on the “gold standard” of Covid diagnosis

OffGuardian | January 25, 2021

The World Health Organisation has released a memorandum which potentially completely undermines all the “pandemic” case numbers from all over the world.

On the 13th of January, they put out this memo, stating that a single positive PCR test should not be used for diagnosing Sars-Cov-2 infection.

To quote them directly:

Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.

Translation: If you get a positive test for someone with no symptoms, re-test them. Or rather: any PCR positive test is potentially a false positive.

It goes on to say:

Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.

Note it says “an aid for diagnosis” and NOT “a diagnostic test”.

In careful bureaucratic language, they are essentially admitting that PCR tests were not meant to be used diagnostically, and cannot be relied upon to do so accurately. Just as Dr Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test, said himself many times.

Understand this. The PCR test is virtually the ENTIRE foundation of the Covid narrative. Without it you have nothing but healthy people and the normal winter flulike illnesses. Every ‘case’ you read about is only a case because of a PCR test.

We and others have been saying since at least June that the PCR test is scientifically meaningless. And now, by degrees the WHO is admitting it too.

And if the PCR test is meaningless. So is the “pandemic”. A lie built in the deliberate misuse of a tool not fit for purpose.

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

All Hail the Reopening!

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | AIER | January 25, 2021

What a glorious thing the reopening is! After nearly a year of darkening times, the light has begun to dawn, at least in the US.

Given how incredibly political this pandemic has been from the beginning, many people smell a rat. Is it really the case that the reopening of the American economy, particularly in blue states, is so perfectly timed? Do the science and politics really line up so well?

These are questions for another day. And for the record, my own opinion is that the loosening of restrictions is timed well with the relaxing of public disease fear, from whatever source, political or through exhaustion or through a shift in the media narrative. In any case, it doesn’t matter for now. What matters right now is that the astonishing destructiveness of lockdowns might be coming to an end.

For those of us inveighing against lockdowns for a full year, it’s truly been a remarkable week. Restrictions are being loosened or are going away. We are finally getting some truth about the carnage. And we are even starting to see some elected officials being honest with us.

Let’s start in the most locked down state on the mainland: Massachusetts. Governor Charles Baker, whose pandemic management has wrecked so many businesses in his state, has decided it’s time to open up restaurants and businesses.

More remarkably, Massachusetts’s chief epidemiologist admits that the lockdowns didn’t achieve their goal. Shira Dorn of Tufts said: “Businesses and restaurants have not been shown to be a significant source of spread of infection, and it’s not clear that the additional measures that were instituted in November and December actually helped.”

So sorry we ruined your holidays and lives.

The egregious limits on gatherings will persist for a few more weeks, but the tone of the argument here has shifted. It is the most significant change in state policy in a very long time. Perhaps people can begin soon to get their human rights back?

The same is happening in other states.

Washington, D.C. will resume indoor dining.

Maryland’s governor has decided that the state needs to reopen schools now and no later than March 1.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan says Michigan restaurants can reopen for indoor dining on February 1. Her health adviser decided to resign. Let us hope it is the beginning of many.

Chicago’s mayor is now demanding an immediate opening of restaurants and bars. Chicago is also threatening teachers unions that they must return to work.

New York Governor Cuomo has dramatically reversed his rhetorical course and demanded a reopening of the city.

Governor Gavin Newsom, incredibly, has lifted all stay-at-home orders across the state and is permitting dining to open up. Many restaurants have defied orders for months now, and good for them. This new announcement shows that their defiance had an influence.

Montana’s new governor has lifted Covid restrictions.

National Public Radio has decided to announce that the virus has peaked.

The WHO is insisting that the PCR cycle threshold must change. If nations adjust, it should make a big difference in the case trend.

And perhaps in the most honest statement uttered by any elected official in twelve months, Joseph Biden said the following: “There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” He didn’t need to qualify that statement. He could have stopped after pandemic.

CNN has removed the death tracker from its main page, while the New York Times has reported a 33% decline in new cases in the past two weeks. Plus, the Times, which arguably made the most profound contribution to the public panic over the virus, is finally reporting on the terrible carnage.

In an incredibly heartbreaking article, the Times chronicles the unspeakable deaths of despair from young children denied schooling over the past year. It’s an absolutely shocking article, one that should echo unto the ages, given what happened this last year. It’s worth a read.

As for the astonishingly anti-scientific blather dished out by the media over the last year, even that is starting to change. The Washington Post has published a helpful introduction to immunological basics, as written by JHU Professor Marty Makary:

Having the infection activates both antibodies as well as memory B- and T-cells, which teach your immune system to recognize the same virus in the future to swiftly eradicate it.

Natural immunity after covid-19 infection appears to last for at least the one year in which the virus has been circulating at large. Extrapolating from research on the SARS and MERS coronaviruses, it could be much longer. In one study of 176 people infected with SARS, immunity lasted for an average of two years. Another long-term analysis of health-care workers previously infected with SARS found antibodies up to 12 years later. Protective antibodies for the MERS coronavirus have similarly been documented to last for at least three years. And while the 1918 pandemic was caused by an influenza virus, the immune systems of those infected were able to make antibodies to the virus nearly nine decades later, a 2008 Nature study found.

Even mild infections appear to elicit a persistent and functional immune response. One recent European study found that people who had mild or asymptomatic covid-19 mounted a “robust T-cell immunity” afterward. A separate French study affirmed this, noting that some people who lived with a confirmed covid-infected person developed T-cell immunity even when they did not test positive for covid.

The article goes even further to openly admit what many of us have noticed since March: “Many medical experts have been dismissive of natural immunity due to prior infection, but there is overwhelming data showing that covid-19 reinfections are rare, and when they do occur, the infection is often mild.”

These basic facts fundamentally change the rationale for locking down. We’ve evolved with viruses without locking down. Starting in the late 19th century, once we got smarter about viruses, we realized that protection of the vulnerable and exposure among the non-vulnerable, in the framework of a functioning society, was the best approach to dealing with pandemics. We pursued that policy for a full century until last year. The unprecedented experiment with lockdowns will end up causing more death than if we had maintained a functioning society while treating disease as a medical and not a political problem.

We are also getting some truth telling on track-and-trace, courtesy of Holman Jenkins in the Wall Street Journal :

Top of the list is magic solution X, a national test and trace program. I won’t mince words. A 9-year-old could see the math didn’t work. Covid spreads more easily than the flu. An overwhelming share of cases are asymptomatic or indistinguishable from ailments that millions of Americans suffer every day. In a country as big, mobile and open as the U.S., there was zero chance of catching and isolating enough spreaders to matter.

Many experts said so at the time, but quietly. Anthony Fauci eventually said so, but quietly. All implicitly knew not to get between the media and its imperative that every big misfortune be played as a failure of inadequate government.

Even when the testing data shouted the truth, the press couldn’t hear it. Our testing misses 70% to 90% of Covid cases and yet 91% of the people being tested for Covid tested negative and were suffering from something else. We were never going to make a dent in the epidemic this way. It was a distraction.

Finally, we have actual experiments in openness right here in the US. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and South Dakota have all been open since the spring of last year, with life continuing on more or less as normal. The results have been no worse and most often better than what we see in lockdown states. It’s almost as if the virus doesn’t care about your political solutions.

One final data point. I watched the AFC Championship football game last night. Gone were the dreary ads of 2020 that all began “In these challenging times.” Instead we were treated to pictures of happy parties, friends socializing, people living life normally and happily. Even the masks are going away. True the stadium was only half full due to preposterous regulations but it felt much more normal.

Are our governments getting wise? Doubtful but many are feeling pressure to start recognizing the rights of human beings again. The new variant (viruses naturally mutate and the NYT is trying to bring calm) might frighten them again. Biden has already imposed new international travel restrictions. We aren’t out of the woods yet.

Will they admit error and apologize? That will take longer if it happens at all. At this point, right now, other things matter more. The priority must be to emancipate us from bad science and destructive policy so we can put our lives back together again.

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

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