Moderna CEO says the World will have to Live with Covid ‘Forever’
Comments by Brian Shilhavy | Health Impact News | January 14, 2021
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel announced today that the “SARS-CoV-2 is not going away,” and that “We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever,” at a panel discussion at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.
The CEO of Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna warned Wednesday that the coronavirus that has brought world economies to a standstill and overwhelmed hospitals will be around “forever.”
Public health officials and infectious disease experts have said there is a high likelihood that Covid-19 will become an endemic disease, meaning it will become present in communities at all times, though likely at lower levels than it is now.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel appeared to agree Wednesday that Covid-19 will become endemic, saying “SARS-CoV-2 is not going away.”
“We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever,” he said during a panel discussion at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. (Source.)
Who these “Public health officials and infectious disease experts” were was not mentioned, nor any references to studies or anything else.
But they don’t need them, apparently, as simply stating it as so is enough, especially if the major networks owned by Big Pharma back you up.
And there couldn’t be a conflict of interest here, could there? After all, he is the CEO of one of the two companies currently distributing billions of doses of the new COVID mRNA injections, making him a very wealthy man.
What else would you expect him to say? He wants a continuous revenue stream, and his company has already stated that the mRNA technology being injected into people is an “operating system,” the “Software of Life,” so just like any other operating system it needs to be regularly updated to fight new viruses.
The bigger news story here is that the vast majority of the American public will actually believe what this guy says and line up to get their injections.
See also:
A Pandemic Reading List for Left, Right, and Libertarians
By Jeffrey A. Tucker | American Institute for Economic Research | January 14, 2021
Daily the news is pouring in: SARS-CoV-2 behaves like a textbook respiratory virus in its vectors of transmission and its conferring immunity. It is not and never was a strange and unfamiliar pathogenic meteor hitting the earth warranting panic to the point of shutting down the normal course of life.
The policy response should have followed the proven path of the past: vulnerable people protecting themselves while non-vulnerable populations go about life as normal with an expectation of exposure. This was the settled presumption of public health. This is what the Great Barrington Declaration said and it is what Public Health England is saying now.
Why did all this happen? Did sizable parts of the world fail to pay attention in 9th grade biology class when the subjects of viruses and immunity were discussed? For that matter, is this stuff not taught anymore?
I’m just not sure what accounts for this sudden loss of knowledge. I do know that people who specialize in political economy were blindsided last March with the policy response to pandemic. Nothing like widespread lockdowns had ever been attempted in the US, which accounts for why so little has actually been written about it. The result was that many intellectuals – on all sides! – found themselves unprepared. Subjects like cell biology and infectious disease are not topics usually examined by economists and philosophers, so many people decided to say nothing at all, thereby granting the lockdowners a free hand that dominated public discussion.
I had been variously writing on the topic of pandemic policy responses since 2006, but beyond the general conviction that government would only make things worse, I too was unprepared to deal with the specifics concerning viruses and their mitigation. Is it really true that closing restaurants and churches makes a contribution to stopping disease spread? Is forcing people apart actually a sound response to the presence of a pathogen? Is there no other path to minimizing the social harm of a virus other than waiting for a vaccine? For that matter, can a virus really be stopped?
Answering these questions takes more than political or ideological conviction. It requires at least some knowledge of cell biology, pathogens, pandemic history, public health practices, and immunological history. I scrambled to get up to speed so that I could understand more thoroughly and write in a more compelling way.
Mostly this consisted of reading as many medical studies on Covid as possible, in addition to listening to endless hours of talks online by specialists. That was essential. Even so, what I really needed was to embed myself in the bigger topic more deeply.
The books below provided me the most help on this intellectual journey.
The History of Public Health, by Paul Rosen. This fascinating treatise was first published in 1958 and reissued in 1993 with new material. It is a wonderful introduction to the whole concept of public health and how it evolved through the centuries. A major theme of the book is how poor understanding of disease dominated public health from the ancient world through the 19th century. Ignorance and fear led to a run-from-the-miasma mentality. Once the science of cell biology improved, so too did public health.
The last bout of medieval-style brutality toward disease was in 1918, after which public health got very very serious and swore that nothing like that would happen again. The turning point occurred when it became clear that large-scale collective efforts to beat back and hide from pathogens were futile and tremendously harmful. Instead, disease is something to be managed by doctors and their patients. The job of public health became to focus on clean sanitation and water and otherwise give a message of calm, and clear recommendations to people in light of medical resources.
The hardest challenge for public health was to get common people to understand the scalability of their own immune systems, so that people would stop fearing exposure as such but rather embrace evolutionary reality. After World War II, this became a major feature of public education.
Rosen further emphasizes how modern public health differs from ancient and medieval theory in that it is never about chasing away a single pathogen. Rather, public health must consider all aspects of health including economic and mental health. So panicking by running away from a germ is completely contrary to modern public health, to say nothing of lockdowns, which have zero to do with health.
One thing that slightly bothers is Rosen’s tendency to attribute all improvement in health to science and better policies. He has a whole chapter on the strange disappearance of a vast number of diseases after WWI. He thinks it is due to better sanitation and so on, which is undoubtedly true in part. But even while reading, I couldn’t shake Sunetra Gupta’s point that trade and migration vastly improved immune systems. It was a natural process of tossing off naive systems for exposed systems that made the largest contribution to longer lives and better health.
Molecular & Cell Biology For Dummies, by Rene Fester Kratz. This quick Kindle download provides an accurate look at the core of the topic at hand while minimizing the amount of technical and medical razzle-dazzle you would otherwise face with a first-year textbook from medical school. Not having an extensive background in this topic myself, I not only found the book fascinating; I was amazed that I found it fascinating! The human immune system shares features with any complex evolved system: as a reader you cannot help but be in awe of its workings and interactions with the world. In a year in which the lockdowners tried to pretend as if the immune is nonoperational without a vaccine, this introduction to disease basics is an outstanding corrective.
Smallpox: The Death of a Disease: The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer, by Donald A. Henderson. This is a spectacular history of one of the greatest triumphs in modern medicine. It is also beautifully written. Inoculation against smallpox has been around since the 18th century, and the vaccine since the late 19th century. The real challenges that met the eradicators – the author himself among the most famous and dedicated of them all – was about production, distribution, and administration. Here was what requires decades of work, and Henderson chronicles the litany of difficulties he faced around the world. I think of this book often these days given the completely predictable chaos of Covid vaccine distribution in 2021.
The Plague, by Albert Camus. This short but powerful book, written about the author’s own quarantine and published in 1947, is a work of fiction that speaks to the terrifying reality of lockdowns in the midst of a plague – the sort of plague that takes people down ferociously and brutally. He captures perfectly how the fear of sickness and death taps into a primal instinct and causes first denial and then panic. He speaks profoundly to the loss of direction and purpose in the midst of lockdown, the isolation and psychological damage that being cut off from the normal flow of life brings about. And he speaks to the loss of control felt both by citizens and officials when confronted with a mysterious pathogen, and just how disorienting it is to discover that the disease is smarter and more powerful than any of us.
Coronavirus and Economic Crisis, edited by Peter C. Earle. I am listing this one not because I have several essays in it, but rather because this book compiles some of the best research and writing from the early months of the pandemic lockdown. It is filled with white-hot passion and tremendous erudition. It also provides proof that what many of our writers predicted came true: tremendous social, cultural, and economic damage. We were warned at the time that we were acting too soon in publishing this, and it is true that AIER was just about first out the door with a book on the topic. But it turned out to serve as a great inspiration to others, and gave the principles that guided the opposition to lockdowns for the rest of the year. In the meantime, AIER released three additional books on the topic in addition to my own book Liberty or Lockdown.
Pandemic responses will continue to serve as a convenient rationale for government interventions in the future. Anyone who has a concern for human liberty and prosperity should be armed with intellectual ammunition to combat this huge increase in government power. We need more than ideological instincts here; to fully understand, we need to be aware of the sciences of infectious disease and the discipline of public health.
At this point, ignorance threatens everything we hold dear. We owe the cause of freedom some effort on our part to read up, learn, and be prepared for the long battle ahead.
Climate alarmism has become a growth industry and the pandemic is making things worse
By Frank Furedi | RT | January 13, 2021
Covid-19 has provided a window of opportunity for professional doom-mongers to spread fear by linking the virus to climate change and overpopulation. But we shouldn’t pay attention to their alarmist predictions for the planet.
Another day and another climate alarmist report that warns that human extinction is imminent. A study titled ‘Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future’ declares that the planet is confronted with a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate disruption upheavals.”
Why am I not surprised by yet another scenario outlining a ghastly future of mass extinction? We live in a world where we are constantly fed a diet of climate alarmism through the media.
Advocates of ‘the end of the world is nigh’ attribute virtually every threat facing society to global warming. Large-scale forest fires, floods, global terrorism, mass migration, xenophobia and mental health issues are just some of the problems that have been blamed on it.
Not surprisingly, the outbreak of coronavirus provided an opportunity to link global warming to it. The Harvard School of Public Health declared: “We don’t have direct evidence that climate change is influencing the spread of Covid-19.” However, the absence of evidence did not prevent it from stating that “we do know that climate change alters how we relate to other species on Earth and that matters to our health and our risk for infections.”
And just in case you missed the message, it stated, “As the planet heats up, animals big and small, on land and in the sea, are headed to the poles to get out of the heat. That means animals are coming into contact with other animals they normally wouldn’t, and that creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.”
Despite the lack of evidence, you are left in no doubt that man-made climate change and the pandemic are closely connected.
As I read the report ‘Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future’, I breathed a sigh of relief. For I discovered that one of its authors is the veteran professional doom-monger Paul Ehrlich. In his 1968 book, ‘The Population Bomb’, Ehrlich predicted an imminent population explosion leading to hundreds of millions of people starving to death. Like other scaremongers, he is not deterred by getting it totally wrong. He continues to ply his trade. Although he admitted that he got the timing wrong, he still stands by his original prophecy of doom.
What motivates Ehrlich and many of his climate-alarmist colleagues is their hatred of humanity. In the past, their misanthropy – dislike of humankind – was communicated in the language of population control. Today, their message is advanced through scaring people about planetary extinction, which they attribute to overpopulation.
For the population control lobby, human life has little meaning. Their scaremongering about ‘too many people’ is often based on a genuine dislike of people – especially those who are not like them. Paul Ehrlich personifies the misanthrope. His classic scaremongering text, ‘The Population Bomb’, reveals the author’s feelings towards his fellow human beings. Ehrlich’s account of an evening out on the town with his wife and daughter in Delhi helps explain his fear of ‘too many people’.
“The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people. As we moved slowly, through the mob, hand horn squawking, the dust, noise, heat and cooking fires gave the scene a hellish aspect. Would we ever get to our hotel? All three of us were frankly, frightened… since that night I’ve known the feel of overpopulation.”
Those who are frightened by “people, people, people, people” find it difficult to endow human life with meaning. Uncontained by compassion and sentimentality for their fellow human beings, they regard life as cheap and as having no more value than other species. In this vein, the deep ecologist platform written by Arne Næss
and George Sessions in 1984 stated that a “substantial decrease” in human population is needed for the flourishing of non-human-life.
‘Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future’ also advocates fewer people as the solution to climate change.
Unfortunately, those who are frightened by “people, people, people, people” are winning the battle of ideas. They have managed to endow the term “human impact” with negative connotations. According to their play book, human impact is a negative and destructive force plaguing the planet.
Yet history shows that on balance, humanity has played a constructive role in transforming the world. People are not the problem, but the solution to the challenges that lie ahead. Regaining confidence in our humanity is the precondition for securing a better future.
Ehrlich’s prediction in 1968 turned out to be wrong and I am confident that his speculation about a “ghastly future” will also turn out to be just that – speculation.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century. Follow him on Twitter @Furedibyte
UK Government Hires Men to Stand in Public with TV on Head for Pandemic Propaganda
Britain’s bizarre ‘Robocop-like’ walking propaganda digital billboards (Image Credit: Gomo Digital)
21st Century News Wire | January 12, 2021
In one of the most desperate and bizarre moves yet, a local government in the UK has begun recruiting men to walking the streets with TVs strapped over their heads, supposedly to help police during a highly unpopular lockdown.
Bradford Council in Yorkshire announced their new ‘iWalkers’ scheme, where local council staff and volunteers are deployed onto the streets with a 19 inch screen weighing 18 lbs, mounted on their shoulders.
According to reports, the program ran for two days before it began to go horribly wrong. The government scheme was so ridiculous, residents thought it might have been satire at first, or a prank, not believing that the local government had lost the plot to such a degree. When they realized the plan was actually a real government initiative, the public backlash was severe, and so embarrassed council officials panicked and removed their Facebook post detailing their ‘exciting new program.’
A number of outrageous comments, both in person and online, were hurled at the walking Robocop-like human propaganda digital billboards
These real-life Teletubies were supposed to be walking the city and town streets, wearing masks, while their TV’s would be pushing out government propaganda on COVID, designed by a government behavioural insights team and applied behavioural psychologists – to nudge residents into tighter lockdown compliance, and to keep the public abreast of minute-to-minute ever-changing “coronavirus rules and restrictions.”
According to reports, the cost of Bradford’s COVID Teletubies is being paid for through Government funding of “Covid-19 communications.”
Local government officials denied they had deleted their new initiative because of public embarrassment, and instead claimed that it was suddenly taken down because of public comments that supposedly “crossed the line into abuse of people who are working hard to help residents and workers in Bradford District stay safe and stop the spread of the virus.”
The incident comes at a bad time for local councils who have recently decreed that they will be squeezing the working class even more by raising their council taxes (aka poll tax) – all of this amid a steep economic depression instigated by the reactionary COVID lockdown policies of the UK government.
Government officials tried to justify the expensive theme park-style stunt by saying that, “There are still many key workers in the city who may wish to get some information on testing where testing sites are close by and it’s really important that we have people out on the streets who can provide this.”
The Orwellian saga continues…
US Prof Faces ‘Cancellation’ For Teaching Students to Question Propaganda Amid COVID-19
© CC BY 3.0 / The Open Center
By Mohamed Elmaazi . Sputnik . 12.01.2021
Hostility to dissenting perspectives has become increasingly recorded over the past few years, but particularly since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. One apparent victim of this shrinking space for differing views is a US professor who teaches a class on propaganda in New York City.
For years, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, has been teaching a course on propaganda, during which he encourages students to question dominant ways of thinking being pushed by media and via the government. However, Professor Miller has recently found his post at NYU to be under threat, despite having a secured tenured position, after he was accused of discouraging students from wearing masks, a charge he vigorously denies.
In a detailed interview, Professor Miller explains to Sputnik the background of his case as well as what it represents in an age where freedom of speech and academic independence appear to be under increasing attack amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sputnik: Explain your role as a professor at NYU and the kinds of courses that you teach.
Professor Mark Crispin Miller: I’ve been teaching media studies at NYU since 1997, after 20 years at [University of Pennsylvania from 1977 to 1983] and then Johns Hopkins [until 1997]. At NYU I’ve mainly taught a course on propaganda, and a course on film, as well as “The Culture Industries”, which looks into the pressures faced by people trying to do good work in journalism, entertainment and the arts.
The courses are all quite popular with students, whose reviews are, for the most part, very positive. This fact is highly relevant to my predicament at NYU right now.
Sputnik: You’ve recently found yourself in a difficult situation after a student filed a complaint against you. Could you describe what led to this current situation?
Professor Mark Crispin Miller: In late September, a student in my propaganda course was enraged by my encouraging the class to look into the scientific basis for the mask mandates—specifically, eight randomised, controlled studies, conducted among healthcare professional over the last 15 years or so, finding that masks and respirators are ineffective against transmission of respiratory viruses; and, on the other hand, the more recent studies finding otherwise. (I offered some suggestions as to how laypersons might assess such studies: by reading scientific reviews, and by noting the universities where the latter studies were conducted, to see if they have financial ties to Big Pharma and/or the Gates Foundation). I offered this as an example of how one must study propaganda—by looking into what a given propaganda drive blacks out or misreports, reviewing all the pertinent information, and deciding for oneself what’s true, or likely to be true.
The student who flipped out did not speak up in class, but, a few days later, took the Twitter, to demand that NYU fire me, over my “excessive amount of scepticism around health professionals”, and the “harm” that I was posing to the students’ health. (I’d made quite clear, in class, that I was not telling them not to wear masks—NYU has a strict rule, which I observe myself—but that this was an intellectual exercise, of the sort essential to the study of propaganda.) She also took screen shots of several posts on my website, News from Underground (markcrispinmiller.com), and presented them as all self-evidently false, asserting that they came from “conspiracy and far right websites”.
Sputnik: How has the university dealt with the complaint? What’s the current situation now in respect of your position at the university?
Professor Mark Crispin Miller: The student (by her own account) first tried to get some satisfaction from the Office of Equal Opportunity, demanding that they take some action. They told her, rightly, that they had no grounds for doing so; so she went public—whereupon the university, or at least my corner of it, quickly took her side, in three ways.
First, my department chair immediately tweeted his thanks for her complaint, and added: “We as a department have made this a priority, and are discussing next steps”. This was news to me, since I’m a long-time member of that department, but I was not included in whatever meeting led the chair to take that step.
The next day, the dean of the Steinhardt School (in which I teach), and the doctor who advises NYU on its COVID regulations, emailed my other students—without putting me on copy—to indicate that I had given them dangerous information, and to direct them to (what the dean and doctor called) “authoritative” studies finding that masks are effective barriers to SARS-COV-2, and sternly reminding them that they must wear masks on campus (as if I’d told them not to). Again, I too had urged the class to read those further studies; but I didn’t tell them what to think. (I’d also pointed out, in class, that the CDC—the source of those links to the “authoritative” studies—had, until early April, publicly repeated the consensus of the prior studies that I had encouraged the class to read).
@nyuniversity: an MCC tenured professor spent an entire class period telling students that wearing masks doesn’t prevent the spread of COVID-19, and that hydroxychloroquine trials were made to fail so more people would be given the vaccine and have their DNA changed. thread 1/
— Julia Jackson (@julia_jacks) September 21, 2020
Finally, my chair then pressured me to cancel my propaganda course for next semester, urging that it would be better for the department if, instead, I’d teach two sections of my film course, because, he said, my film courses have high enrollments. The problem with that rationale is that my film and propaganda courses are the same size, with both of them ordinarily full up, and students wait-listed for both. Because of that, and since I’ve long taught the propaganda course at least twice a year (and think that it’s especially relevant right now), I didn’t want to do that; but I was told I had no choice, which, technically, was true.
This experience prompted me to put up a petition, in defence of academic freedom and free speech, simply urging NYU to respect my academic freedom; although I posted the petition not just on my own behalf, but in the name of all professors, journalists, scientists, doctors, activists and whistle-blowers who’ve been gagged, or punished for their dissidence on topics of all kinds, for decades, and especially this year. The petition quickly garnered many signatures from people all over the world (to date, it has been signed by over 27,000 people), including many eminent figures, including Seymour Hersh, James K. Galbraith, Sharyl Attkisson, Rashid Khalidi (Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Oliver Stone, and Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng; and it also drew a public statement of support from Ralph Nader.
Then the drive against me escalated.
Calling the petition “an attack on the department”, a large group of my colleagues sent a letter to the dean, demanding “an expedited review” of my “conduct”, on the grounds not only of my heresy on masks (claiming that I had discouraged their use, and “intimidated” students who wore them), but, primarily, because of my history of abusiveness and lunacy in the classroom (and beyond). They charged me with “explicit hate speech”, “attacks on students and others in our community”, “advocating for an unsafe learning environment”, “aggressions and microaggressions”, and other crimes. Although the letter is completely false on every point it makes, the dean—prompted by NYU’s lawyers—went right ahead and ordered that “review”, which is, as of today, ongoing (although it was supposed to end with last semester).
I sent my colleagues a point-by-point rebuttal, asking for a retraction and apology. They ignored that request, and my follow-up email; so I decided that I had no choice but to sue them for libel, as their letter makes quite clear that their intention is to nullify my academic freedom, presumably so as to get me fired (just as that student had demanded). There’s a GoFundMe page soliciting donations, to help me pay for this legal effort.
Sputnik: Have your other students been at all supportive of you?
Professor Mark Crispin Miller: Yes. In response to my colleagues’ letter, and the dean’s review, many students, current and former, as well as visitors to my classes over the years, have sent strong statements of support to the dean’s office, pointedly rebutting my colleagues’ preposterous charges. Over 50 such statements have so far come in, attesting to my tolerance, open-mindedness and—above all—effectiveness as a professor, and the importance of my propaganda classes in particular. That outpouring is the only upside to this dismal situation.
Sputnik: To what extent is your situation unique and to what extent does it represent a broader culture of censorship or intimidation within academic institutions?
Professor Mark Crispin Miller: As the petition makes clear, my plight is only one of countless others throughout academia—and not just there. Academic freedom and free speech have actually been under slow assault for decades, as many urgent subjects have long since been declared taboo as mere “conspiracy theory”, so that any professors or journalists (or, for that matter, entertainers) who dare look into them risk their careers. Since that mode of censorship began in 1967, another, more explicit kind emerged with the ferocious appropriation of “social justice” as a means of “cancelling” dissident expression on a range of other urgent subjects, so that anyone who questions certain pieties is charged with “hate speech”. And this year has seen a third line of attack, as the COVID crisis has entailed much of the sort of outright “war-is-peace”/”2+2=5” propaganda that Orwell satirised in Nineteen Eighty-Four, with bald lies on every aspect of the crisis pumped out by “authoritative” health officials, and the media, always in the name of “science”.
And so the truth on many subjects, and those trying to express it, or even study it, are under fierce assault on one or more of those three grounds; and I see myself as under fire on all three bases. My colleagues charge that I make “non-evidence-based” assertions in my classes (a striking accusation, in a letter whose every claim is based, demonstrably, on no evidence whatsoever); assert that I engage in “explicit hate speech” (which I’ve never done, in class or anywhere else); and cast me as a risk to public health, for urging students to look into the scientific basis for the mask mandates, then make up their own minds.
This assault, I think, makes my case an important flashpoint in the larger struggle—now a global struggle—for academic freedom and free speech, at a time when both are under existential threat. I therefore hope that people will continue to support me, as well as others in my situation, in any way they can.
Clean Energy Hydro Plant In Canada Dubbed A “Boondoggle” After Economists Predict $8 Billion In Losses
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 11, 2021
British Columbia is currently in the process of trying to erect a massive hydro dam called the “Site C Clean Energy Project” on the Peace River. The point of erecting the dam was to implement the province’s “green and clean” energy policy and try to create alternative clean energy while lowering carbon emissions.
But the economic price, and lackluster progress of the project had one op-ed in the Financial Post calling the project a “hydro power boondoggle” that “shows real cost of ‘clean’ energy”.
The project has been under construction since 2015, the op-ed notes, and more than $6 billion has already been sunk into it. Despite this, there have been numerous problems identified with the project:
Under foot, according to Premier John Horgan, “there is instability on one of the banks of the river.” Early last year B.C. Hydro identified “structural weaknesses” in the project, which has been under construction since 2015. Site C is also said to suffer from “weak foundations.” Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer recently reported that new information on the precariousness of the project, structurally and financially…
The op-ed asks whether or not it is time for the province to simply cut their losses and abandon the job, which would likely need at least another $6 billion to complete.
A review of the project by three Canadian economists say “yes” and have concluded that “the whole project is uneconomic as an energy source and fails its major green and clean promise, which is to reduce carbon emissions.”
Photo: Financial Post
The breakdown of the numbers by the economists show how inefficient the project truly is:
The worst numbers in the study: the total present value of the electricity produced from Site C is estimated at $2.76 billion against an estimated total cost of $10.7 billion, implying a loss of $8 billion. That’s bad. However, if the project were cancelled now, the loss would be cut in half to maybe $4.5 billion. The economists conclude that “policy makers should stop throwing money at a project that is likely to end up under water.”
The economists found that the only way the hydro plant could be worth it, monetarily, would be in conjunction with a “massive national overhaul of the Canadian electricity system”:
“In summary, we find that Site C can offer value, but only if the provinces aim for near complete electricity system de-carbonization and only if new transmission between provinces can be built to enable greater inter-provincial electricity trade. Decisions about the future of Site C should be made in this light; if it is not possible to commit to fully decarbonizing electricity generation, and if prospects for inter-provincial transmission are low, Site C offers little value in comparison to its costs. In contrast, if B.C. and Alberta are committed to achieving a zero-carbon electricity system, and building new inter-provincial transmission lines is feasible, then Site C can offer value in excess of its costs.”
In light of there being a very small chance of that happening, it seems like the obvious decision to simply shut the project down and save several billion dollars.
And of course, it comes as no surprise to us that such a project is horribly cost inefficient. Because if it wasn’t, the free market would have put hydro electric plants to work a long time ago. In other words, the free market shut this project down before it ever even started.
But instead, we get another real life example of how virtue signaling and petty worries over carbon emissions – which are all trending the in the “right” direction globally anyway – lead to frivolous spending, funded by the taxpayer.
We hope B.C. remembers this if Elon Musk ever comes calling, looking for property to build his next solar roof tile factory…
You can read further analysis of the project and the full op-ed here.
Pentagon Study: Flu Shot Raises Risk of Coronavirus by 36% (and Other Supporting Studies) .
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr | Children’s Health Defense | April 16, 2020
On March 12th, 2020, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta held a global town hall on “Corona Facts and Fears.” During the discussion, Anderson said to the viewing audience, “And, again, if you are concerned about coronavirus, and you haven’t gotten a flu shot…you should get a flu shot.”
Setting safety and efficacy of influenza vaccination aside, is Anderson’s claim that the flu shot will help people fight COVID-19 remotely true? The short answer is no.
In fact, the results of many peer-reviewed, published studies prove that Anderson’s recommendation may have been the worst advice he could have given the public.
In searching the literature, the only study we have been able to find assessing flu shots and coronavirus is a 2020 US Pentagon study that found that the flu shot INCREASES the risks from coronavirus by 36%. “Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as “virus interference…’vaccine derived’ virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus…” Here are the findings:
2020 Pentagon study: Flu vaccines increase risk of coronavirus by 36%
Examining non-influenza viruses specifically, the odds of coronavirus in vaccinated individuals were significantly higher when compared to unvaccinated individuals with an odds ratio (association between an exposure and an outcome) of 1.36. In other words, the vaccinated were 36% more likely to get coronavirus.
Many other studies suggest the increased risk of viral respiratory infections from the flu shot:
2018 CDC Study: Flu shots increase risk of non-flu acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) in children
This CDC supported study concluded an increased risk of acute respiratory illness (ARI) among children <18 years caused by non-influenza respiratory pathogens post-influenza vaccination compared to unvaccinated children during the same period.
2011 Australian Study: Flu shot doubled risk of non-influenza viral infections and increased flu risk by 73%
A prospective case-control study in healthy young Australian children found that seasonal flu shots doubled their risk of illness from non-influenza virus infections. Overall, the vaccine increased the risk of virus-associated acute respiratory illness, including influenza, by 73%.
2012 Hong Kong Study: Flu shots increased the risk of non-flu respiratory infections 4.4 times and tripled flu infections
A randomized placebo-controlled trial in Hong Kong children found that flu shots increased the risk of non-influenza viral ARIs fivefold (OR 4.91,CI 1.04—8.14) and, including influenza, tripled the overall viral ARI risk (OR 3.17, CI 1.04—9.83).
2017 Study: Vaccinated children are 5.9 more likely to suffer pneumonia and 30.1 times more likely to have been diagnosed with Allergic Rhinitis than unvaccinated children
Vaccinated children were 30.1 times more likely to have been diagnosed with Allergic Rhinitis and 5.9 times more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia than unvaccinated children.
2014 Study: Influenza-vaccinated children were 1.6 times more likely than unvaccinated children to have a non-influenza “Influenza-like-illness” (ILI)
Even more published science
The well-respected Cochrane Collaboration’s comprehensive 2010 meta-analysis of published influenza vaccine studies found that the influenza vaccination has “no effect” on hospitalization, and that there is “no evidence that vaccines prevent viral transmission or complications.” The Cochrane Researchers concluded that the scientific evidence “seem[s] to discourage the utilization of vaccination against influenza in healthy adults as a routine public health measure.”
In their meta-analysis, the Cochrane researchers accused the CDC of deliberately misrepresenting the science in order to support their universal influenza vaccination recommendation. Nevertheless, CNN and other mainstream media outlets continually broadcast CDC pronouncements as gospel and, ironically, ridicules those of us who actually read the science as “purveyors of ‘vaccine misinformation”.
This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
How the White House COVID Task Force Sank the Trump Presidency
By Jordan Schachtel | The American Institute for Economic Research | January 8, 2021
President Trump took in the early days of 2020 from a position of incredible strength. At the beginning of the year, no serious analyst would have told you that he was in major jeopardy of losing the 2020 election. The American economy was booming, we had solid employment numbers, no major international crises, and the president was setting up a bold agenda for his second term to further “drain the swamp” and bolster his domestic policy priorities. Election fraud was always a potential factor to be monitored, but there was no massive, unprecedented mail-in voting scheme to worry about.
But news reports coming out of Wuhan, China indicated that a potentially threatening situation was afoot. On January 29, President Trump acted with haste in authorizing the creation of a White House Coronavirus Task Force. A month later, the small task force expanded to include Vice President Mike Pence as its chairman. In what will be looked back on as a catastrophic delegation mistake, the VP decided to appoint Dr. Deborah Birx as the response coordinator for the task force. Prior to the COVID crisis, Birx was best known for her work on an HIV/AIDS vaccine, which does not exist. She had never been anywhere near having access to the levers of power in America.
The COVID task force would soon grow to 27 members, but several of the individuals appointed to the task force are cabinet level officials, and could not devote their entire portfolio to the coronavirus. That led to an opening that allowed for Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr Deborah Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and a few others to monopolize the policy shop set up by the task force for the coronavirus crisis.
With much of the world succumbing to total fear, panic, and hysteria, and a wave of new lockdowns hitting Europe and elsewhere, President Trump remained incredibly level-headed. In discussing COVID-19, the president reminded his colleagues that the “cure could not be worse than the disease.” There was a chance that America would join Sweden and a handful of other nations balking at the trend to hit the self-destruct button.
Fauci and Birx had other plans, and they eventually found a diabolical method to ratchet up the pressure to such an incredible extent that the president would finally agree to their demands.
In mid March, with the “European wave” in full swing, the two government bureaucrats presented junk epidemiological models to the president that seemed more like a hostage-like situation than policy advice. Birx and Fauci vouched for the supposed science of a mere model devised by a handful of academics in England, which claimed that millions of Ameicans would die if President Trump did not lock down the nation immediately. The coronavirus was presented as a ticking time bomb that would wipe out a significant percentage of the nation if the president did not act right away. Under enormous pressure to “do something” to react to the crisis, the president made the fatal mistake of agreeing to what was advertised as a very temporary two week lockdown policy initiative. At the flip of a switch, the president authorized the federal response plan, and state governors were now instituting what was marketed as a 15 day reset in order to retain hospital capacity for the supposedly deadly wave that was coming to America. We were told that after the two weeks, things could then return to normal and that the 30 million small businesses across America would be able to open back up relatively unscathed.
15 Days to Slow The Spread then became 30 Days To Slow The Spread. The so-called crisis kept growing to the point that the task force members were soon not even addressing the end point to their draconian policy demands. The president, who already had severe doubts about the policies pushed by Fauci, Birx, Redfield, and crew, eventually acceded so much territory to the public health bureaucrats that it seemed at times he had handed over the keys to his presidency to the task force.
The Fauci-Birx policy goal posts continued to shift dramatically over the course of the Spring. The goals were no longer about retaining hospital capacity, but permanently transforming the nation into a COVID safety regime, despite the data rolling in showing a disease that was not nearly as threatening as once perceived. The U.S. economy was no longer booming. Instead, it was in a self-inflicted freefall. Tens of millions of Americans were in crisis, and right in the middle of what was now a heated election cycle. The health bureaucrats’ coronavirus policies were tearing apart the fabric of the nation, and the presidency was now very much up for grabs. The president could no longer point to his economic record, his peacetime regime, or his steady hand, because all of these talking points were being compromised by bad coronavirus policies.
All of a sudden, the president was now on defense, having completely lost the narrative to the panic mongers in government and media. The 2020 campaign was very much within the margins of a contested election.
President Trump, having privately evolved to “Team Reason” on COVID policy, and having witnessed the reality that the coronavirus was not living up to its destructive hype once promised by Fauci and Birx, wanted to take action to correct the record.
He tried to reset the narrative and bring back a reasonable, rational policy, but it was too late. America had already decided to buy the pseudoscience that Fauci and Birx, among others, were selling to them. It was no longer politically suitable to simply dismiss his prior capitulation to the public health bureaucrats on his task force. Fauci had become a worshipped celebrity figure with solid approval ratings, and sadly, much of the nation was now propagandized into supporting the disastrous lockdowns that were destroying the nation.
Many on the “Team Reason” side of the debate celebrated the appointment of Dr. Scott Atlas, — at the personal request of President Trump — as a desperately needed breath of fresh air for a task force that was peddling failed ideas and junk science. But Atlas, to no fault of his own, failed to make an impact on the task force. That’s because the fix was in from the beginning. The team assembled by VP Pence, which at this point was unapologetically, publicly recommending an extreme COVID policy agenda of economic and societal destruction, went to work immediately to distance themselves from Atlas, and waged a full fledged information warfare campaign against him.
Sources in the Trump Administration, who had first-hand access to Coronavirus Task Force meetings and conversations, made it clear to me that the health bureaucrats made it their mission to destroy and delegitimize Scott Atlas, who quietly resigned from his role in late November. Sources familiar with Atlas’s thought process told me that he was incredibly frustrated by the government bureaucrats’ devotion to their select non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and other forms of societal and economic devastation. Atlas also remained frustrated by what could be described as a lack of overall intellect on the task force.
Emails surfaced showing that White House Task Force members such as Birx, Fauci, Redfield, and others were enraged that Dr Atlas came to the table with a different set of ideas, and they rightly perceived him as a threat to their monopoly on their pro-lockdown COVID messaging campaigns. Birx, for her part, routinely sent out emails through private channels to media reporters and her colleagues seeking to undermine the ideas presented by Atlas, while simultaneously refusing to defend her ideas or debate his solutions in person.
By the time President Trump decided to rebuke the task force in calling for an expedited return to normalcy, the political damage had already been done. The president’s campaign messaging was stuck in a strange place between attempting to have their COVID cake and eat it too, in recognizing that polling shifted in the direction of the restrictionist camp.
By agreeing to Fauci and Birx’s initial COVID ransom situation demands, the president set in motion a wave of momentum against him that he could never get back.
We are now just days away from President Trump being replaced by Joe Biden, and the White House COVID Task Force, led by career bureaucrats and incompetent politicians, continues its broken mission. For reasons that remain unclear, Fauci, Birx, and the gang remain on the COVID Task Force, and to this day, the White House is still delivering corona panic to states across the nation. The Task Force will live on, and to the not-so-hidden delight of its members, President Trump is president no more.
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Israel Is A Genocidal Society
The Israeli Political Spectrum From The “Liberal Left” To The Far Right, Is United In Genocide
The Dissident | May 5, 2026
… The fundamental issue of Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the fact that Israel is overwhelmingly a bloodthirsty, war-ready, genocidal society.
Historian Zachary Foster has documented that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis have supported every Israeli war since the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, writing:
2006
86% of the Israeli adult population justified “the IDF operation in Lebanon against Hizbollah,” or 2006 Lebanon War, in which Israel killed 1,191 people, the vast majority civilians according to HRW (Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher)2008-2009
82% of the Israeli public thought that the 2008-9 war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians.) Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher2012
90% of Israeli Jews supported war on Gaza ( in which Israel killed 160 Palestinians, 66% civilians)2014
95% of Jewish Israelis believed the war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 2,310 Palestinians, 70% civilians)2021
72% of Israelis believed the war on Gaza should continue (as of May 21) after Israel had already killed 250 Palestinians in Gaza, vast majority civilians. The % of Jewish Israelis who supported killing more Palestinians was much higher.2024
A January poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the “appropriate” amount of force or “too little” force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza.2024
In September, 90% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Lebanon (in which Israel killed 800+, including hundreds of civilians)2025
In March, 82% of Israeli Jews supported the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza, Israel’s main goal in it’s genocide & war on Gaza.2025
In June, 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Iran known as the “twelve day war”2026
On March 4, 93% of Israeli Jews expressed support for the war on Iran. 97% of “right-wing” Jewish Israelis support it, compared with 93% in the center and 76% on the left.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis also have openly genocidal views towards Palestinians.
Polls in Israel have shown that:
- 84% of the (Israeli )public gives the IDF an excellent or very good grade regarding the moral conduct of the army
- 75% of Jewish Israelis agree with the idea that ‘there are no innocents in Gaza.’
- A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The fundamental problem in Israel is Zionism, not Benjamin Netanyahu. – Full article
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