At this stage in the game, it’s apparent that the COVID jab no longer works. Many health officials and world leaders are even openly acknowledging that the COVID shots cannot end the pandemic and that we must learn to live with the virus.
A major driver for this U-turn in the pandemic narrative is the emergence of the Omicron variant which, by mid-January 2022, accounted for 99.5% of all COVID cases in the U.S.1
The infection, which is far milder than previous ones, is ripping through populations, leaving natural herd immunity in its wake. Despite that, vaccine makers are still hard at work to produce an Omicron-specific injection.2 Pfizer has promised to have one ready by March 2022.3
The question is why, seeing how by the time the shot is released, just about everybody will have been exposed. If natural herd immunity is already maxed out, what good could a “vaccine” possibly do?
‘Everyone’ Will Have Natural Immunity
As Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health told CNBC,4 “An omicron-targeted vaccine was needed in December [2021]. It still could be valuable but I do think in many ways, it’s too late.”
Dr. Shaun Truelove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a member of a team of researchers who make COVID projections, agreed, saying, “Given how quickly this [variant] is happening, [the targeted vaccine] may not matter because everybody’s going to be infected.”5 Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla even admits he doesn’t know “whether or not the new vaccine is needed or how it could be used,” CNBC reports.
January 25, 2022, Pfizer and Moderna announced they’ve started enrolling adults, 18 to 55, for trials on an Omicron-specific jab in the U.S. and South Africa.6 Pfizer will evaluate safety, tolerability and immune response in 1,420 volunteers,7 some of whom will have received two doses while others will have received three already. A third cohort will be unvaccinated (although one wonders where they’ll get those from).
Moderna has also joined the pointless race to produce an Omicron booster,8 although it’s doubtful they’ll be able to produce one any faster than Pfizer.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told CNBC that a fourth COVID jab also may be on the horizon, “as the efficacy of boosters will likely decline over time.”9 It’s unclear what strain that fourth shot would target.
Israel Proves Failure of COVID Boosters
For a preview of what’s in store after third and fourth booster shots, all we have to do is look at Israel, where more than 250,000 fourth doses had already been given by early January 2022. According to CNBC:10
“Early data from Israel shows that a fourth dose does increase antibody levels, says Dr. David Hirschwerk, infectious disease specialist and medical director at Northwell Health’s North Shore University Hospital.”
What CNBC neglects to note is that, after the rollout of a fourth dose, Israel now has the highest COVID case rate per capita of any country in the world since the beginning of the pandemic.
Looking at a Reuters graph11 of Israel’s seven-day average case rate, something absolutely abnormal appears to have happened in mid-January 2022, as the line shoots straight upward, hitting an all-time high of 75,603 new infections per day on January 24, 2022.
This, despite 74% of the population having received at least one dose, 67% having received two doses, and 56% having received at least one booster, as of January 25, 2022.12
What Does It Mean To Be ‘Fully Vaxxed’?
While the pandemic narrative has recently shifted, and rather dramatically, with some leaders openly speaking out against boosters without getting canceled or censored, it seems clear that we’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to COVID shots.
Vaccine makers clearly aim to make the COVID shot, at bare minimum, an annual injection.13 In the meantime, the definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated” against COVID keeps shifting. At the beginning of 2021, many people undoubtedly got their primary series (two shots of Pfizer or Moderna, or a single jab in the case of AstraZeneca and Janssen) thinking life would be easier that way.
Being “fully vaccinated,” they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by vaccine passport restrictions and mandates. Well, that fantasy only lasted a few months. Now, those who got the first required series find themselves in the unwelcome position of being among the “unvaccinated” again unless they submit to a third jab.
As explained by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a recent press briefing:14
“What we’re really working to do is pivot the language to make sure everyone is up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines as they personally could be, should be, based on when they got their last vaccine. If you’ve recently gotten your second dose but you’re not eligible for a booster, you’re up-to-date. If you’re eligible for a booster and you haven’t gotten it, you’re not up-to-date and you need to get your booster.”
It’s only a matter of time before those with three jabs will be “unvaccinated” unless they submit to a fourth, and so on, ad nauseum. An as-yet unanswered question is how many mRNA injections can a person survive?
Considering the injection causes your body to produce toxic spike protein in uncontrolled amounts, it seems reasonable to assume there’s a tolerance limit, although that limit may vary from person to person. There’s really no telling how many people are one shot away from a crippling side effect or sudden death.
Each Shot Degrades Your Immune System
As reported by The Exposé,15 January 22, 2022, government data from around the world suggest people who have received at least two shots are now showing signs of serious immune system degradation.
According to that report, data from Australia, the U.S., Canada, Scotland and England clearly show “that their vaccinated populations immune system capability has been decimated when compared to the not-vaccinated population.” For starters, Omicron cases are rising far more rapidly and readily among the fully jabbed and boosted than among the unvaxxed.
In Australia, the fully jabbed are 2.2 times more likely to catch COVID than the unvaccinated. “So, the vaccine passports holders are 2.2x more likely to spread COVID than the unvaxxed who are denied vaccine passports and locked up in detention centers,” The Exposé dryly notes.
Several studies have also shown the effectiveness of the jab wanes incredibly rapidly. And, disturbingly, it doesn’t peter out at zero. Immunity goes negative, meaning the fully vaxxed and boosted rapidly become MORE prone to COVID infection than they ever were before.
Negative Effectiveness Rates Found in Many Countries
In the U.S., a study16 on 780,225 U.S. veterans found the effectiveness of the jab dropped precipitously over six months:
- Janssen dropped from 86.4% effectiveness at the outset to 13.1% in the sixth month
- Moderna dropped from 89.2% to 58%
- Pfizer dropped from 86.9% to 43.3%
A Canadian study17 found vaccine effectiveness started declining sharply within as little as the second week after the second jab. By the sixth month after the second jab, the blood of 70% of nursing home residents had “very poor ability to neutralize the coronavirus infection in laboratory experiments.”
In the U.K., government data “show a clear linear fall-off in vaccine efficiency at an average rate of 4.8% per week for the over 18s,” The Exposé reports,18 and by the time you get past Week 9 after jab No. 2, effectiveness starts going negative.
“Doubly vaxxed (unboosted) people in the U.K. have now (as of January 2022) run right out of immune system efficiency against both Delta and Omicron when compared to unvaccinated people,” The Exposé writes. The question is whether or not there might be a point at which the immune system stops deteriorating. As of now, we don’t know.
Using data from five UK HSA COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Reports, The Exposé created the following graph, illustrating “the overall immune system performance among all age groups in England over the past five months.”
The Exposé explains:19
“What we can see from the above is that the immune system performance for adults aged between 18 and 59 has deteriorated to the worst levels yet since they were given the COVID-19 vaccine.
Whilst the immune system performance of everyone over the age of 60 has deteriorated dramatically following receipt of the booster shot, but not yet to the level seen between week 37 and week 40. The over 70’s have however seen the most dramatic fall in immune system performance between month 4 and month 5 alongside 18-29-year-olds.
The 55% boost to the immune systems of the over 80’s given by the boosters between month 3 and month 4 has all but deteriorated between month 4 and month 5. Their immune system is performing 1% better than it was in month 3 but still 54% worse than their unvaccinated counterparts.
The 73% boost to the immune systems of the 70-79-year-olds given by the boosters between month 3 and month 4 has also all but deteriorated between month 4 and month 5. Their immune system is performing 10% better than it was in month 3 but still 63% worse than their unvaccinated counterparts.
The minor boost however, given to the immune systems of everyone between the age of 30 and 59 by the boosters between month 3 and 4 has been completely decimated by the following month, whilst 18-29-year-olds have seen a 60% decline in their immune system performance between months 4 and 5.”
Are Double- and Triple-Jabbed People at Risk for VAIDS?
By now you may be wondering whether this negative effectiveness could be indicative of something far worse than just being more prone to Omicron infection. The Exposé20 believes the double- and triple-jabbed may actually have vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or VAIDS, similar to AIDS.
While I think it’s still too early to come to a definitive conclusion, former Pfizer vice president Michael Yeadon has made a similar statement.21 In a December 6, 2021, article on americasfrontlinedoctors.org, Yeadon is quoted saying:22
“If immune erosion occurs after two doses and just a few months, how can we exclude the possibility that effects of an untested ‘booster’ will not erode more rapidly and to a greater extent?”
The article goes on to cite a Lancet preprint23 that compared outcomes among “vaccinated” and unvaccinated Swedes over the course of nine months. As in other studies, they found that protection against symptomatic COVID rapidly declined, and by six months’ post-jab, “some of the more vulnerable vaccinated groups were at greater risk than their unvaccinated peers.”
“Doctors are calling this phenomena in the repeatedly vaccinated ‘immune erosion’ or ‘acquired immune deficiency,’ accounting for elevated incidence of myocarditis and other post-vaccine illnesses that either affect them more rapidly, resulting in death, or more slowly, resulting in chronic illness,” the Frontline Doctors explain.24
The article also cites an August 2021 report from Scotland,25 which found those who had received the jab were 3.3 times more likely to die from COVID infection than the unvaccinated — a finding that certainly blows a huge hole in the claim that the jab prevents serious illness and death even if you do get symptomatic infection.
ICU Admissions Spike Among Vaxxed Immunocompromised Brits
The Daily Mail at the end of November 2021 also reported that weekly ICU admissions of “most vulnerable patients” had risen by 50% in the two preceding months, and that 1 in 28 ICU patients had conditions affecting their immune system. Blood cancer patients and organ transplant patients made up a bulk of this group.26
While the Daily Mail blamed the unusually high rate of admissions of immunocompromised patients on the government’s failure to roll out booster shots fast enough to counteract waning immunity, this is incredibly short-sighted. As noted by America’s Frontline Doctors, the shots are creating “vaccine addicts,” in the sense that their immune system won’t be able to ward off COVID without them. However, it’s still a losing venture, as each shot only worsens the immune erosion.
In the final analysis, it looks as though many may indeed end up being just one shot away from VAIDS as they continue to chase protection from an ever-mutating coronavirus.
The Daily Mail article tells the story of a transplant patient who was desperate to get his booster, knowing he was at high risk for COVID complications. It took three weeks, but he finally got his third shot. The very next day — THE NEXT DAY — he developed “a blinding headache, nausea and dizziness. A lateral flow test was positive and a follow-up PCR test confirmed that he had caught COVID.”
But rather than realizing he’s a victim of that third shot, the man is irrationally convinced that had he just gotten the third dose sooner, he wouldn’t have gotten COVID at all. Sadly, people like these will likely die from their “COVID jab addiction.” In closing, The Exposé writes:27
“Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a condition that leads to the loss of immune cells and leaves individuals susceptible to other infections and the development of certain types of cancers. In other words, it completely decimates the immune system.
Therefore, could we be seeing some new form of COVID-19 vaccine induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome? Only time will tell, but judging by the current figures it looks like we will only need to wait a matter of weeks to find out.”
Sources and References
February 2, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, VAIDS |
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For two solid years the world has been turned upside-down by an elite bent on the suppression of alternative points of view.
What we laughingly call the “mitigation measures” they imposed on us haven’t done a bit of good, and instead have caused death and impoverishment everywhere they’ve been tried.
With only a handful of exceptions, every major institution has been an enemy of sanity.
You and I have been up against every channel of fashionable opinion.
That we’ve managed, under these impossible conditions, to win any victories at all is a miracle. But they keep on coming.
The most recent: in England, the National Health Service (NHS) mandate for health-care and home-care workers is being scrapped.
There are a couple of reasons that this is especially welcome and happy news.
First, it was only a week ago that the Daily Mail was running this headline: “‘No plans’ to scrap Covid vaccine mandate for frontline medics in England, Downing Street says as it doubles down on plan despite warnings NHS could lose 80,000 workers overnight.”
So we went from “no plans” to “the mandate is scrapped” in a week.
Why did they do it?
Some are trying to say it’s because of the relative mildness of the Omicron variant, and that under these conditions a vaccine mandate is no longer a proportionate response.
Maybe. But I doubt it.
Here’s a more plausible answer.
The Daily Mail reports that what prompted the revision were “fears it could force the NHS to sack around 80,000 staff who remain unvaccinated.”
According to Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers: “There were always two risks to manage here: the risk of Covid cross-infection in healthcare settings and the consequences of losing staff if significant numbers choose not to be vaccinated.”
Stop and think about what this means.
Noncompliance forced them to abandon the mandate.
And not even majority noncompliance. We’re talking in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 percent.
I know there’s plenty of hideousness still out there. I hear that.
But when we get a win, let’s be happy, and keep on pushing forward.
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, NHS, UK |
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Many will have been pleased this morning to read the Covid vaccine mandate for NHS and social care workers is on its way out. But what happens now to the care home staff who already lost their jobs when the vaccine became a requirement for them in November?
They are expected to be able to return to their jobs, though some say this isn’t enough. The ‘Freedom Alliance’ party says these should receive reparations, funded by a windfall tax on the pharmaceutical industry.
Leader Jonathan Tilt said:
“These care employees should all be compensated for their lost income, consequential loss and psychological harm caused. This formal system of reparations should be managed by the Government and funded by a windfall tax on the pharmaceutical industry.
The Government chose to deliberately target care workers back in November 2021 believing that as a group they were an easy target for introducing medical mandates. They were wrong and the bravery of the care staff… has prevented the further extension of the totalitarian medical mandates. These brave workers deserve full and proper compensation for the loss they have suffered and the harm they have been caused.
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Corona Collapse: Reader Reports Wanted
Containment is collapsing around the world. I want to compile reader reports on local debates and the mood on the street.
I am grateful for anything you can give me, but local information is golden. What your friends think, how local politicians are reacting, how mask rules and other regulations are received, what’s up with testing, how people feel about vaccine coercion, the difference between what the law demands and what is enforced – all of this can be hard to get from press reports, and is what I most value from you, my fantastic readers.
Write to me with your report at containment@tutanota.com.
I read everything you send me. Even if I can only respond to a few emails, I really do read everything you send, I have learned so much from all of you.
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Is the territorial integrity of Ukraine a cause worth America’s fighting a war with Russia?
No, it is not. And this is why President Joe Biden has declared that the U.S. will not become militarily involved should Russia invade Ukraine.
Biden is saying that, no matter our sentiments, our vital interests dictate staying out of a Russia-Ukraine war.
But why then does Secretary of State Antony Blinken continue to insist there is an “open door” for Ukraine to NATO membership — when that would require us to do what U.S. vital interests dictate we not do: fight a war with Russia for Ukraine?
NATO’s “open door policy” is based on Article 10, which declares that NATO members, “may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State … to accede to this Treaty.”
Moreover, membership is open to “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”
Note that NATO admission requires “unanimous” consent of all 30 present members.
Blinken has often stated this as U.S. policy: “From our perspective, NATO’s door is open and remains open, and that is our commitment.”
What Blinken is saying is this: While America will not fight for Ukraine today, America remains open to Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in which event we would have to fight for Ukraine tomorrow, were it attacked by Russia.
What the U.S. needs to do is to say with clarity that while Ukraine is free to apply to NATO, NATO is free to veto that application, and the enlargement of NATO beyond its present eastern frontiers is over, done.
In this crisis, we need to recall how and why NATO was created.
In 1949, the year China fell to Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin exploded an atom bomb, we formed NATO as a defensive alliance to prevent a Russian drive west, from the Elbe to the Rhine to the Channel.
Of the original 12 members of NATO, the U.S. and Canada were on the western side of the Atlantic. Iceland and the U.K. were islands in the Atlantic. France and Portugal were on the Atlantic’s eastern shore.
Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg were astride the avenue of attack the Red Army would have to take to reach the Channel.
Norway was the lone original NATO nation that shared a border with the USSR itself. Italy was the 12th member.
Clearly, this was a defensive alliance to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe such as Hitler had executed in the spring of 1940, when Nazi Germany overran Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, and threw the British off the continent at Dunkirk.
Nations that joined NATO during the Cold War were Greece and Turkey in 1952, Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982.
But, with the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the overthrow of Soviet Communism, and the breakup of the USSR into 15 nations by 1991, NATO, its goal — the defense of Central and Western Europe — achieved, its job done, did not go out of business.
Instead, NATO added 14 new members and moved almost 1,000 miles east, into Russia’s front yard and then onto Russia’s front porch.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined in 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became NATO nations in 2004. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020.
Understandably, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked himself: To what end, and for what beneficent purpose, was this doubling in size of an alliance that was formed to contain us, and, if necessary, fight a war against Mother Russia?
Alliances, which involve war guarantees, commitments to fight in defense of the allied nations, invariably carry costs and risks as well as rewards and benefits in terms of strengthened security.
But when we brought Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO, what benefits in added strength did we receive to justify the provocation this would be to Russia, and the risk it might entail if Moscow objected and, one fine day, walked back into these Baltic states?
If we will not fight for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the second largest nation in Europe with a population of over 40 million people, why would we go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia over Estonia, a tiny and almost indefensible nation with a population of 1.3 million?
Besides Ukraine, two nations have been considering membership in NATO: Finland and Georgia. Accession of either would put NATO on yet another border of Russia, with the usual U.S. bases and forces.
While this would enrage Russia, how would it make us stronger?
Perhaps, instead of adding new nations on whose behalf we will go to war with a great power like Russia, we consider reducing the roster of NATO and restricting the number of nations for whom we must fight to those nations that are vital to our security and bring added strength to the alliance.
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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For 200 years, the Monroe Doctrine – asserting a US sphere of influence over Latin America – has been a cornerstone of American policy. But as Russia and China assert their opposition to the US-led world order, American dominance in the region is beginning to look a little shaky.
As the “Russian invasion” scare enters its fourth month, and Russian tanks still fail to roll into Kiev, the parameters of Moscow’s likely response to the West’s rejection of its security demands are becoming a little clearer. Frustrated with what it sees as decades of Western contempt for its concerns, Moscow has demanded that the US offer it security guarantees, including a promise not to expand NATO further to the east. As has become clear through America’s negative response this week, the US has no intention of doing as Russia desires. The issue is now how the Kremlin will react.
Despite hysterical headlines in the Western media about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has categorically ruled this option out. “Our nation has likewise repeatedly stated that we have no intention to attack anyone. We consider the very thought that our people may go to war against each other unacceptable,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexei Zaitsev this week.
This is not surprising. Russian officials and security experts have repeatedly made clear that Ukraine is a secondary issue and that their primary concern is a much broader one – the general nature of the international system and of the security architecture in Europe. The idea that failure to achieve agreement on the latter would lead to the invasion of the former was never very logical. Instead of targeting Ukraine, Russia’s response to the current diplomatic impasse is much more likely to be directed at the party deemed by Moscow to be most responsible for the problem, namely the US.
And what better way to do this than to challenge America in its own back yard? Since President James Monroe declared his famous “doctrine” in 1832 – according to which any foreign interference in the politics of the Americas is deemed a hostile act against Washington – the US has fiercely asserted its primacy in both North and South America.
Nowhere has this been clearer than in successive US administrations’ efforts to depose the government of Cuba, as well as the imposition of sanctions on that country for over 60 years. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Washington made it clear that it was willing even to risk nuclear war to prevent potentially hostile weaponry being deployed close to its borders. Meanwhile, elsewhere it has used other methods to undermine or overthrow Latin American governments deemed insufficiently friendly. These include supporting coups and insurgencies, such as aiding the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
But Washington’s ability to bend Latin America to its will appears somewhat weakened. Support for regime change in Bolivia and Honduras has backfired, with members of the deposed governments having returned to power. Meanwhile, China is expanding its Belt and Road Initiative into South America, with seven countries having signed up to join and negotiations under way with Nicaragua to add an eighth. The US is no longer the only player in town.
Russia has now stepped into the mix. In the past few weeks, President Vladimir Putin has held telephone conversations with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, all countries with whom Washington has very poor relations. According to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, agreement was reached with all three “to deepen our strategic partnership, with no exceptions, including military and military-technical.”
Asked if this meant deploying Russian troops to those countries, Lavrov’s deputy Sergey Ryabkov failed to rule it in, but failed to rule it out also. “The president of Russia has spoken multiple times on the subject of what the measures could be, for example involving the Russian Navy, if things are set on the course of provoking Russia, and further increasing the military pressure on us by the US,” he said.
A much-discussed extreme option would involve going back to 1962 and placing missiles in Cuba or Venezuela. Given that Russia now has missiles with hypersonic capabilities, this would give it the capacity to strike the US in a matter of minutes, rendering any defense impossible.
It seems unlikely, though, that the Russian government would take such a provocative step unless the US first did something similar in Ukraine or elsewhere close to the Russian border. Even the option mentioned by Ryabkov of some Russian naval deployment to the region is far from certain. “We can’t deploy anything” to Cuba, said former president Dmitry Medvedev this week, arguing that it would harm that country’s prospects of improving its relations with the US and “would provoke tension in the world.”
Still, the threat of such action now dangles in the air. So, too, does the possibility of lesser options, such as additional arms sales as well as economic assistance to enable the Cubans and others to resist American sanctions. For now, we will have to wait and see exactly what “military and military-technical” measures Moscow has in mind. But it is likely that whatever it is will not be to the Americans’ liking. Nor will Russia’s more general support of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Reacting to talk of Russian military deployments in the Americas, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has promised that the Americans would respond “decisively.” This is somewhat ironic, since Sullivan and his peers in the US government seem to deny Russia the right to respond to American deployments close to its borders. But that is by the by. In reality, it’s hard to see what Washington could actually do, short of starting a catastrophic war. Efforts to overthrow the Cuban and Venezuelan government having failed, and economic ties having been almost fully broken, its leverage against those countries is weak.
Washington now has to face the reality that while it remains the foremost power in the world, it can no longer be fully confident of its hegemony even close to home. Its decline is a very gradual process. Nothing very dramatic will likely result from Russia’s latest announcement. It is also possible that Moscow would have decided to cooperate more deeply with Cuba and others even in the absence of current East-West tensions. But had relations been good, one can imagine that the Kremlin might have been inclined not to challenge the US in its own neighborhood.
As it is, the news highlights the fact that pressuring Russia is not a cost-free option from Washington’s point of view and may well rebound to its disadvantage. That’s something that the authorities in the White House could do well to consider.
Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. He writes about Russian and Soviet history, military history and military ethics, and is author of the Irrussianality blog.
February 1, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | China, Cuba, Latin America, Nicaragua, Russia, United States, Venezuela |
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You cannot discuss Corona or any other academic topic anywhere on the internet, without self-righteous small-minded debunkers demanding to know whether the studies you’re citing are peer reviewed. A lot of people, it seems, believe that there are no certain proofs or arguments, unless some random anonymous academics have approved them.
In my short time on this earth, I’ve done a lot of peer review. I’ve had my own stuff peer reviewed, and I’ve peer reviewed other people’s stuff. It is a cumbersome, arbitrary and worthless process. Whether any particular research has been peer reviewed or not, tells you nothing about its quality. What peer review does tell you, is that the peer reviewed item is very likely to be boring and to say more or less the same thing that all the other peer reviewed stuff says.
The purpose of peer review, is not to enhance the integrity or reliability of academic publications. Peer reviewed studies turn out to be wrong all the time. It is rather one of many mechanisms, via which academics aim to police their own discourse and exclude outside ideas.
I’ve written before about James Lindsay’s distinction between internet hive mind theories and ideas, and official establishment theories and ideas. The theories and ideas promoted by crazy anonymous internet people turn out to be far more dynamic, interesting and predictive, than the theories and ideas promoted by establishment media sources and heavily credentialed, tenured professors. The anonymous internet world is one with very low barriers to entry, many more participants, and ruthless selection for interesting, explanatory content. Here as elsewhere, there are many wrong and crazy ideas, but there is also a broader competitive process that weeds out the least defensible theories, and promotes the most interesting ones. Even when they are wrong, internet theories – by the time they come to your notice – have much more depth and texture to them than the intellectual products of establishment organs.
To save syllables, and widen the applicability of the concept, it is probably better to distinguish simply between curated and uncurated discourse. Curated establishment discourse was always managed and stifling, but before the internet, the people running it at least had the advantage of extensive networking. Professional organisations, periodicals and conferences are the main ways that professors network among each other and share ideas. Before the internet, people outside these academic networks remained comparatively isolated. They had their own local religious, social and professional networks, but it was not easy for them to build large networks around common intellectual interests. In this world, the gate-keeping mechanisms of academia excluded outside ideas, in much the same way as the press kept dissident politics out of the media and away from public notice for decades.
Social media and the internet have changed all of this. For 20 years now, blogs and internet commentary have destroyed the legacy media control over political discourse, and gone a long way to discrediting journalism. The barriers to networking have also fallen, and there now flourish enormous and highly sophisticated uncurated discourses in fields from ancient Greek history to microbiology. Hundreds of thousands of people participate in these discussions, and the curated discourse looks every day less interesting.
The internet did not make academics vulnerable, of course; it just overcame their defences. Universities have feared the ideas of outsiders for a very long time, because it is painfully obvious to every honest person here that most of what we do is wide open to amateurs.
January 31, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
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Despite the fact that U.S. officials are playing the innocent in the Ukraine crisis, the fact is that the U.S. government will be responsible for the death toll that results from a Russian invasion of Ukraine. That’s because it is the U.S. government, specifically the Pentagon and the CIA, who have precipitated the crisis.
If the U.S. government had not kept NATO in existence at the ostensible end of the Cold War in 1989, Russia would not be feeling the need to invade Ukraine today. Or if the U.S. government had not had NATO absorb former Warsaw Pact countries and then threaten to absorb Ukraine, Russia would not be feeling the need to invade Ukraine today. The only reason that Russia feels the need to invade Ukraine today is because the Pentagon and the CIA kept NATO in existence and then had NATO move its forces eastward toward Russia’s borders by gobbling up former Warsaw Pact countries and by then threatening to do the same with Ukraine.
It should be noted that Congress has never specifically approved any of this NATO absorption. Ultimately, it’s the Pentagon and the CIA who make the determination as to who NATO will absorb and not absorb, notwithstanding the fact that the lives of America’s young people are being pledged to the defense of these countries.
U.S. officials innocently claim that Russia has nothing to fear from NATO troops, missiles, and tanks along Russia’s border. They say that the U.S. government is a peace-loving government that would never do anything bad to Russia.
Really? How about asking the Afghan people about that peace-loving bit? Or maybe the Iraqi people. My hunch is that they might have a slight disagreement with that peace-loving bit. Or maybe the Iranian people, who have suffered under years from brutal U.S. economic sanctions. Or the Cuban people, who have suffered for decades from the brutal U.S. embargo.
Moreover, let’s not forget something important: Those NATO forces on Russia’s border will include Germany, whose forces invaded Russia and killed more than 20 million Russian people. Yes, 20 million! That’s a lot of people. I suppose the Pentagon and the CIA would argue that the Russians just need to get over that.
Oh, yes, I know that U.S. officials are saying that Ukraine is a sovereign and independent country that has the “right” to join NATO. But if it really is a sovereign and independent country, then why did U.S. officials intervene in Ukraine to bring about regime change that ended up installing a pro-U.S. puppet regime in the country? Doesn’t a genuinely sovereign and independent nation have the “right” to be free from that sort of foreign interventionism?
While we are on the subject of sovereignty and independence, how do U.S. officials justify their decades-long interventions against Cuba? That’s a sovereign and independent country, isn’t it? Cuba has never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. It’s always been the exact opposite. The Pentagon and the CIA have aggressed against Cuba since 1959 with their brutal embargo against the Cuban people, their assassination plots against Fidel Castro, their assassination partnership with the Mafia, their invasion of Cuba, and their acts of sabotage and terrorism within Cuba.
Moreover, let’s not forget the U.S. response when Russia installed nuclear missiles in Cuba back in 1962. Correct me if I’m wrong but the Pentagon/CIA response was not to claim that the Russians had the “right” to do that because Cuba was a sovereign and independent country. Their response, if I recall it correctly, was to go ballistic, exhorting President Kennedy to immediately begin bombing and invading the country.
In other words, the U.S. reaction to having Russian troops, tanks, and missiles 90 miles away from America’s border was quite similar to the Russian response to having German and American troops, tanks, and missiles right next to Russia’s borders.
Indeed, when Russian President Putin recently suggested that Russia might install troops or missiles in Cuba and Venezuela, U.S. officials had the same reaction that Russia has toward U.S. plans to install troops and missiles on Russia’s border. How’s that for a bit of hypocrisy?
After 20 years of death, injuries, maiming, suffering, misery, lies, and destruction from the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, Pentagon and CIA officials haven’t skipped a beat. Everything is business as usual, with ever-expanding budgets, power, and influence — and, of course, perpetual crises to justify it all.
The question is: How long are the American people going to put up with all this deadly, destructive, and dangerous interventionism? There is no better time than now to put a stop to it. Dismantle NATO, end all foreign interventionism, abandon all foreign military bases, bring all U.S. troops home and discharge them, dismantle America’s national-security establishment, and restore our founding system of a limited-government republic. That’s what is needed to get America back on the road to liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world.
January 31, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | NATO, United States |
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The media’s found yet another reason you might have a heart attack
In only our second article of this new year, This Year in the New Normal, OffG predicted that a major news story of 2022 would involve predicting and explaining heart problems that hadn’t actually happened yet.
Not even a month later, we’ve already been proven right.
Urgent warning as 300,000 Brits living with stealth disease that could kill within 5 years
That’s a Sun headline from three days ago.
The article is about a recent study, which apparently found that aortic valve stenosis is likely far more prevalent in the community than previously thought.
Aortic Stenosis (AS) is a disease affecting the valve of the heart which connects to the aorta, causing it to never open fully and making it more difficult for blood to flow.
Those with AS can suffer fatigue, chest pains, dizzy spells and even sudden death. Known complications include blood clots, which can lead to strokes or heart attacks.
According to the article…
the overall prevalence of severe aortic stenosis among the over 55s in the UK in 2019 could be almost 1.5 per cent – equal to around 300,000 at any one time.
Just under 200,000 (68 per cent) were symptomatic – meaning they had severe disease that would be eligible for surgery.
The remaining 90,000 (32 per cent) had a “silent” case of the condition and will probably not be diagnosed unless they are being screened for another problem.
Without timely treatment, up to 172,859 (59 per cent of the overall total) will die over the next five years to 2024, it’s estimated.
Are you following?
Let me sum it up for you in neat bullet points:
- Aortic Stenosis is a potentially deadly disease affecting the heart.
- A review has found that it is “under diagnosed”.
- Around 100,000 people in the UK could have the disease and not even know it.
- Many of them will likely die in the next five years.
Thus, any rise in heart attacks or other cardiac diseases is fully explained.
Any heart problems that do occur are totally unrelated to the experimental “vaccines” which are known to cause heart problems and blood clots, they want to be very clear on that.
Now, you could argue this is just a coincidence, a routinely hysterical public health scare story that just happened to land in the middle of the pandemic.
Obviously, we can’t prove that’s not the case, but there is plenty of evidence arguing against it.
For one thing, it is not as if aortic stenosis is a regularly recurring public health talking point, like breast cancer or diabetes. A brief google news search shows that, prior to Covid times, there was scant mention of the condition in the media for the past ten years. Only a handful of articles about celebrities having the condition or academic papers about new treatments.
It’s not a disease that has ever, as far as we can see, been thrust to the forefront of the public consciousness… until now.
It should also not be forgotten that this is not the first time an explanation for future heart attacks has been proferred. We have been hip-deep in pre-emptive explanations of cardiac arrest for weeks.
Remember “post pandemic stress disorder”? It’s a (completely made-up) nervous condition that some doctors predicted would increase the number of heart problems in the UK by 300,000 this year.
Interestingly, that’s 300,000 again. Both scares predicting the same exact number of cases is a funny little coincidence.
There are further examples, earlier this week it was reported that people who have had Covid are more likely to suffer heart attacks and strokes.
Research papers claim “long covid” can lead to blood clots, heart inflammation and strokes (all acknowledged side effects of the “vaccines”).
It’s not just predictive anymore either, Scotland is in a rush to explain its sharp rise in heart attacks and strokes.
One such story might be a coincidence… but four or five?
The media just keeps coming up with more and more reasons we may see a lot of heart attacks in the near future.
Interesting that.
January 31, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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I’ll assume you have been reading my blog and agree with me that an attempt at gaining world domination is at this very moment failing.
It required a deadly pandemic, vaccines that actually worked, and the ability to snooker billions of people into believing that the responses of the government were logical, beneficial and well-intentioned.
It required keeping people separated from each other, communicating primarily via easily surveilled devices.
It required keeping people frightened and distrustful of one another.
It required loosening or destroying the bonds between family members.
It required uniform messaging by virtually all mass media.
It required making doctors and patients distrust one another, while yet submitting to government-enforced medical edicts, denying us the ability to act within any normal doctor-patient relationship.
It required a profound fear of death and loss, enough to supercede our normal instincts regarding loyalty, interpersonal relationships and friendship.
It required massive carrots and sticks to enforce a uniform narrative, against all data (most of which was persistently rigged) and the surrender of common sense.
The carrots came mostly in the form of taxpayer dollars. In the US, trillions have been spent since the start of the pandemic to enforce government lockdown edicts, masks, distancing, vaccinations… The list could go on and on.
No doubt plenty was spent before the pandemic as the chess pieces (crooks) were moved into place to get ready for the coup, under the guise of a medical emergency.
Fauci was already there. He moved Walensky in to control CDC. Janet Woodcock was made acting FDA Commissioner, and FDA sat without a Presidentially-appointed Commissioner for an entire year. Presumably the coup leaders had no one else who could be trusted to ruthlessly carry out every needed act. Such acts included issuing and then retracting EUAs to confuse the public over HCQ; doing a bait and switch with a Comirnaty license; then suing to prevent release of the licensing data, which no doubt failed to justify an EUA, let alone a license.
Here is one reasonable proposal for a way forward. Trillions were doled out to industry, schools, federal agencies, media etc. to get them to fall in line and do whatever was required.
These were federal contracts. We have the contracts. Simply require every entity that got paid off to give the money back to the federal treasury. Or, they can keep some of it if they clean up their act. Can’t pay it back? Ever heard of debtors’ prison?
Will media figure out how to stop lying and fearmongering? I think they could solve that in a heartbeat if it meant they did not have to return all the money.
What about schools? Could they ditch bogus curricula, mask mandates, plexiglass, vaccine mandates, testing… if the alternative was returning $190 billion dollars to the federal treasury?
Emergency rules at the state level: rescind them immediately or return the federal grants to states and state agencies. Give them a choice.
Remove the chief medical officers of every hospital and state agency, every state CDC, and HHS Department. All federal executive agencies. Have the deputies take over immediately. Pay the former agency heads their prior salary if they take on their new role: documenting all the methods by which martial law was imposed. Later they can go through a truth and reconciliation process. Based on South Africa’s example, if they fully spill the beans, they are pardoned. If not, they stand trial for their crimes. The deputies must also spill their beans, btw.
Honesty, kindness and consideration for one’s fellow man will become the new norms that are praised by society. Greed will not be seen as something to aspire to, and the tax structure will disincentivize greed. Under JFK, those paying the highest marginal tax rate had to part with 91% of their top earnings. We can do that again; why not? The tax structure is what allowed the Gateses and Bezoses and their ilk to amass the ill-gotten gains. The tax structure can also take away.
Antitrust prosecutions will be undertaken unless large corporations break themselves up in an approved manner.
We can do this. Let’s just be creative and fair. There are plenty of models around to draw ideas from. Let’s move carefully and deliberately back from the abyss.
And paper ballots, with identifiable markings and no scans or electronic ballots, will be all that is acceptable, with video cameras documenting the vote counts. Votes cannot be moved around–they will be counted where they are cast. Absentee ballots will require a visit to a public office with ID, preceding the date of any election.
Courts will be established to review initial information re corruption very quickly on members of Congress and other critical figures; if there is reasonable evidence of malfeasance, they will have to take a leave from office while the evidence is weighed.
January 31, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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