Since the first Covid-19 vaccine was authorised for use in the United Kingdom, and administered on the 8th December 2020, there have been hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions reported to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme. But there is one particular adverse reaction which is both concerning and strange, and the number of people suffering from it is increasing by the week – Blindness.
The MHRA Yellow Card scheme analysis print for the Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA jab shows that since the first jab was administered on the 9th December and up to the 28th April, thirty-three people have reported suffering blindness due to the jab. Another two people have reported central vision loss, and a further two have reported sudden visual loss.
Five people have also reported an adverse reaction known as ‘blindness transient’ due to the Pfizer vaccine. This is where a person suffers visual disturbance or loss of sight in one eye for seconds or minutes at a time. And a further six people have reported an adverse reaction known as ‘unilateral blindness’. This is where a person is blind or has extremely poor vision in one eye.
However the MHRA Yellow Card scheme analysis print for the AstraZeneca viral vector vaccine shows that recipients are at a significantly higher risk of suffering loss of vision after having the jab compared to having the Pfizer jab. Since the first AstraZeneca jab was administered on the 4th January 2021 and up to the 28th April 2021 a total of one-hundred-forty-three people have reported suffering blindness due to the jab. Another four-hundred-seventeen people have reported visual impairment, and a further three have reported sudden visual loss.
Ten people have also reported suffering transient blindness as a result of having the AstraZeneca jab, and a further thirteen have reported suffering unilateral blindness as a result of the same jab.
In all there have been 11,279 eye disorders reported as adverse reactions to both jabs, with 2,438 reported due to the Pfizer jab, and a frightening 8,841 reported due to the AstraZeneca jab. The fact-checkers alongside authorities have recently been on the case to sweep this data under the carpet and have called it unreliable. Their reasoning is that “just because someone reports the event after having the vaccine, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is due to the vaccine”.
But what they’re not telling you is that it also doesn’t necessarily mean it is not due to the vaccine, and we imagine every single person who has reported an adverse reaction would disagree with the fact checkers and authorities attempts to play down these reports. For instance one person who goes by the name of Louis has been documenting the story of his wife on Twitter since she had the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.
Unfortunately his wife has gone completely blind in her left eye and 30-60% blind in her right eye since she had the AstraZeneca jab and the neurologist treating her has categorically told her not have the second dose. Louis states that as of the 8th May 2021 it has been 59 days since his wife had the AstraZeneca vaccine, 55 days since she went blind, 19 days since she started steroid treatment and unfortunately has seen zero improvement. In that time she has had 2 CT scans and 1 MRI. She has also seen 3 ophthalmologists, 2 opticians and had dozens of blood tests.
As you can see the misery which the fact checkers are disregarding as “not necessarily the fault of the vaccine” is very real for the people who are reporting them. But why are the Covid vaccines causing people to go blind?
Well there is another extremely concerning adverse reaction that has been reported to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme, one which has seen an astronomical increase in the number of reports in the past few weeks – stroke.
As of the 28th April 2021 the MHRA has received two-hundred-ninety-seven reports of stroke due to the Pfizer vaccine. This includes twenty-one reports of cerebral haemorrhage, 16 reports of cerebral infarction, twenty-five reports of ischaemic stroke, and a frightening 192 reports of cerebrovascular accident. Sadly this has resulted in twenty-seven deaths.
But yet again the AstraZeneca jab has caused far more misery in terms of causing a stroke compared to the Pfizer jab. As of the 28th April 2021 the MHRA Yellow Card scheme has received one-thousand-eighty-eight reports of stroke, this is almost four times the amount of reports received due to the Pfizer jab. These include eleven cerebral haematomas, forty-six cerebral infarctions, one-hundred-seven cerebral haemorrhages, and a terrifying six-hundred-seven cerebrovascular accidents.
But it doesn’t end there. The AstraZeneca jab has also caused fifteen cases of lacunar stroke, fifty-nine cases of sbarachnoid haemorrhage, and seventy-four cases of ischaemic stroke. Sadly this has resulted in eighty-five deaths.
But what does this have to do with people going blind? Well this helpful fact sheet provided by the Stroke Foundation in Australia provides the answer as to why. According to the fact sheet around one-third of stroke survivors suffer visual loss, and most sadly never fully recover their vision.
The reason strokes cause blindness is that vision depends on a healthy eye to receive information and a healthy brain to process that information. The nerves in the eye travel from the eye through the brain to the occipital cortex at the back of the brain, allowing you to see.
Most strokes affect one side of the brain. Nerves from each eye travel together in the brain, so both eyes are affected. If the right side of your brain is damaged, the left side vision in each eye may be affected. It is rare for both sides of the brain to be affected by stroke. When it does happen, it can result in blindness.
So if you’ve been wondering how on earth the experimental Covid vaccines could cause a person to go blind, you now know why. It’s the vast amount of strokes the Covid jabs are causing that is contributing to this devastating and life-changing adverse event. Strokes will not be the only contributing factor of course, but the numbers shows us they are most likely the main adverse reaction at fault.
May 8, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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JP Morgan Chase — it’s hard to find a more “woke” company than that one. Under celebrity CEO Jamie Dimon, JPM in its corporate pronouncements consistently positions itself at the most exquisitely correct end of the politically correct spectrum.
But reality can be tough. In its email of a couple of days ago, the Global Warming Policy Foundation links to JPM’s 2021 Annual Energy Paper. The Paper comes from JPM’s Asset and Wealth Management Group. The lead author is a guy named Michael Cembalest, who appears to have his ear right down on the ground of the global energy business. The bottom line is that all the talk about “deep de-carbonization” of the world economy any time soon is a ridiculous fantasy. Fossil fuels are not going away for a long time, if ever. Carbon emissions into the atmosphere are increasing? You’d better get used to that.
Once again, this “deep de-carbonization” thing is a case of the really “smart” people deceiving you, or maybe themselves; or more likely, both.
For starters, let’s consider some of the extreme wokeism that issues from the executive suites in JPMville. This is not limited to matters of “climate,” but extends as well to other usual topics, like for example “systemic racism.” On that subject, here is JPM CEO Jamie Dimon, as quoted in Forbes in October 2020:
“Systemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history. We can do more and do better to break down systems that have propagated racism and widespread economic inequality, especially for Black and Latinx people. It’s long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way.”
Meanwhile, over in the climate arena, JPM’s high-level pronouncements totally buy into the idea that we’re going to save the planet by financing a bunch of wind turbines, or something. Last October, JPM put out a big statement with the pompous title of “How one of the world’s biggest banks plans to tackle climate change.” Excerpt:
Climate change is among the most urgent problems facing humanity; businesses and governments have an imperative to act. Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to restrict a rise in the world’s average temperature, would enable us to take a giant step towards a safer, greener, more sustainable future. . . . For the world to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, there needs to be an acceleration of emerging technologies that are not yet widely commercially available or economically viable. . . . Our company, JPMorgan Chase, announced this month that we will start aligning our financing portfolio to meet the Paris goals.
Then just a couple of weeks ago, on April 15, JPM followed up by announcing a big new plan to “Advance Climate Action and Sustainable Development” with some $2.5 trillion in investments:
JPMorgan Chase aims to finance and facilitate more than $2.5 trillion over 10 years – beginning this year through the end of 2030 – to advance long-term solutions that address climate change and contribute to sustainable development. . . . This long-term target complements the firm’s Paris-aligned financing strategy and will help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy by encouraging actions that set a path for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050
Wow, that sounds great! Or is it all just a cynical grab for some of the upcoming gusher of government subsidies, with no detectable effect at all on the climate, or even much effect on the use of fossil fuels? For some insights, let’s look at that 2021 Annual Energy Paper. The document is not short (42 pages), and certainly does not fall in the category of “climate skepticism,” but it does contain some notable doses of hard-headed realism that are normally completely lacking in this field.
From the Executive Summary:
Our main focus this year: why is the transition [away from carbon-based fuels] taking so long? Deep decarbonization plans assume massive changes in electric vehicles, electricity transmission grids, industrial energy use and carbon sequestration, but each faces headwinds often not accounted for by energy futurists. As shown below, many prior forecasts of the renewable transition were too ambitious since they ignored energy density, intermittency and the complex realities of incumbent energy systems. . . .
Maybe those “energy futurist” people are just kidding themselves?
President Biden just announced a new GHG emissions target: a 50% decline by 2030 vs a 2005 baseline. This very ambitious target implies a decarbonization pace in the next 10 years that’s four times faster than in the last 15 years. Even with the amount of money the administration plans to dedicate to the task, it’s an enormous hurdle. . . .
The even more important and larger question: even if the US succeeds, what about everyone else? Over the last 25 years, the developed world shifted much of its carbon-intensive manufacturing of steel, cement, ammonia and plastics to the developing world. . . .
Loudly proclaiming that you have achieved some (small) decreases in carbon emissions while offshoring most of your energy-intensive manufacturing — That’s one good way to fool yourself.
The world gets more energy efficient every year, but levels of emissions keep rising. . . .
It’s those pesky Chinese and Indians and Africans who think they ought to be able to have electricity and cars and air conditioning just like you do.
How is the global energy transition going? Taken together, the aggregate impact of nuclear, hydroelectric and solar/wind generation reduced global reliance on fossil fuels from ~95% of primary energy in 1975 to ~85% in 2020. In other words, energy transitions take a long time and lots of money. . . . [T]he IEA still projects that 70%-75% of global primary energy consumption may be met via fossil fuels in the year 2040. Why don’t rapid wind and solar price declines translate into faster decarbonization? As we will discuss, renewable energy is still mostly used to generate electricity, and electricity as a share of final energy consumption on a global basis is still just 18%.
Yes, all those thousands of wind turbines and solar panels blanketing the landscape are at best hoping to replace a minority of a sector that itself only represents 18% of energy use to begin with. Why are we spending (wasting) these many trillions of dollars again?
Getting beyond the Executive Summary and into the details of the Paper, there are many great tidbits. A section on “Transmission Realities” shows how bringing “renewable” power to where it’s needed runs into the same roadblocks from environmentalists as all other energy development:
While MIT and Princeton assume rapid growth in transmission infrastructure, actual development can be a hornet’s nest of siting challenges and legal costs even when projects are eventually built after years of planning. Let’s start with HydroQuebec’s plan to sell hydropower to the US. . . . Take Northern Pass, a 1.1 GW transmission project to bring hydropower from Quebec to the Northeast through New Hampshire (80% via existing right-of-ways or underground lines). . . . [A] New Hampshire siting committee blocked Northern Pass. . . . Now Massachusetts is trying to import Canadian hydropower through Maine (“New England Clean Energy Connect”) but has already run into an injunction due to opposition from environmental groups. . . .
And so on and on and on.
Then there’s the Holy Grail of carbon capture and storage, sometimes known as CCS. Hey, why not just take all of this dangerous CO2 and bury it somewhere in the ground? The Paper looks at some of the practical realities:
After 20 years of planning and conjecture, by the end of 2020 carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities stored just 0.1% of global CO2 emissions. . . . The highest ratio in the history of science: the number of academic papers written on CCS divided by real-life implementation of it. . . . The Princeton CCS buildout, just to sequester an amount equal to 15% of current US GHG emissions, would require infrastructure whose throughput volume would be higher than the volume of oil flowing through US distribution and refining pipelines, a system which has taken over 100 years to build. . . . Sequestering 25% of global CO2 through direct air capture would require 25%-40% of the world’s electricity generation plus 11%-17% of its primary energy.
And then there’s my favorite line in the whole Paper, from page 28:
We recommend that investors stick with oil & gas for now.
Read the full article here.
May 8, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Carbon capture and storage, JP Morgan Chase, United States |
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We are told a lot about the upsides of Covid vaccines but rarely discuss the risks. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has taken it upon himself to ask how many Americans have died after taking the vaccine.
Here is a transcript of part of the video.
How many Americans have died after taking the Covid vaccines? Not Americans who’ve been killed by the virus, that’s a huge number, but how many Americans have died after getting the vaccines designed to prevent the virus? Do you know the answer to that question? Do you know anything about the downside? We know a lot about the upside of the vaccine. We’ve been completely in favor of vulnerable people taking vaccines.
But what about the potential risks? You’d think you would know more about that than you do. We talk about vaccines constantly, not just on this show, but in this country. Joe Biden was on TV yesterday talking about vaccines. He wants you to get one. Everyone in authority wants you to get one. In fact, you’ve probably already had your shot, and good for you. If you haven’t had your shot, you’re under enormous pressure to get your shot. You understand that soon you may not be able to fly on commercial airplanes or go to work at the office or send your children to school if you don’t have the shot. Meanwhile, the social pressure is enormous. Friends may have already informed you that you’re not welcome at their parties or weddings if you haven’t been vaccinated. There is a lot of pressure to comply. At some point, you probably will comply. It’s just too difficult not be to vaccinated in this country.
But before you make the appointment: do you know anything about the potential risks? Probably you don’t know much. We all assume the risks are negligible. Vaccines aren’t dangerous. That’s not a guess, we know that pretty conclusively from the official numbers. Every flu season, we give influenza shots to more than 160 million Americans. Every year, a relatively small number of people seem to die after getting those shots. To be precise, in 2019, that number was 203 people. The year before, it was 119. In 2017, a total of 85 people died from the flu shot.
Every death is tragic, but big picture, we don’t consider those numbers disqualifying. We keep giving flu shots, and very few people complain about it. So the question is how do those numbers compare to the death rate from the coronavirus vaccines now being distributed across the country? That’s worth knowing.
We checked today. Here’s the answer, which comes from the same set of Government numbers that we just listed: between late December of 2020, and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the Covid vaccines in the United States… That’s an average of 30 people every day. So, what does that add up to? By the way, that reporting period ended on April 23rd. We don’t have numbers past that, we’re not quite up to date. But we can assume that another 360 people have died in the 12 days since. That is a total of 3,722 deaths. Almost 4,000 people died after getting the Covid vaccines. The actual number is almost certainly much higher than that – perhaps vastly higher.
The data we just cited come from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) which is managed by the CDC and the FDA. VARES has received a lot of criticism over the years, some of it founded. Some critics have argued for a long time that VARES undercounts vaccine injuries. A report submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 concluded that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported” by the VARES system. Fewer than 1%. So what is the real number of people who apparently have been killed or injured by the vaccine? Well, we don’t know that number. Nobody does, and we’re not going to speculate about it. But it’s clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal. It’s not even close to what we’ve seen in previous years with previous vaccines.
Worth reading – or watching – in full.
Stop Press: Pradheep J. Shanker says in the National Review that Tucker Carlson deliberately misrepresented the VAERS data to promote a dangerous strain of vaccine skepticism
May 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, one of Sweden’s largest medical institutions, is now terminating its controversial irreversible hormone treatments for minors suffering from ‘gender dysphoria’, that is, being born into the ‘wrong sex’, national broadcaster SVT reported.
In its updated guidelines that came into force at the start of May, the acclaimed hospital called these treatments controversial and suggested that they involve risks.
Previously, Karolinska University Hospital became the first in Sweden to offer gender identity investigations for children and young people. The special department opened in 2000 and over 700 young people have since been investigated for gender dysphoria. The diagnosed patients were able to receive hormone treatment at Karolinska Hospital.
Previously, the practice of hormone treatment had fallen under scrutiny, not least from SVT’s team for investigative journalism that highlighted the risks associated with this practice, as well as its irreversible health effects. SVT also reported an “explosive” increase in adolescents undergoing gender reassignment amid other conditions such as depression and eating disorders.
Yet another problem associated with the so-called “regretters” who have second thoughts about the “gender-confirming” treatment afterwards.
“Healthcare does not know what they are doing. They have no science behind this. They are experimenting on a young generation that has their whole life ahead of them. I don’t know of any other area in medicine where a treatment is tried in this way,” one of patients who lives with irreversible consequences of hormone treatment told SVT.
Karolinska’s Per-Anders Rydelius previously defended the treatment by claiming that it follows investigation models and is by no means experimental.
However, Karolinska’s updated guidelines now describe a plethora of side effects: cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, cancer and thrombosis. The hospital also emphasised the low evidence of achieving the desired effect and that there is very little knowledge about safety in the long term.
The new guidelines imply that no new minors will receive hormone treatment, other than within the framework of clinical studies. For patients already undergoing treatment, physicians should make a “careful individual assessment of whether treatment should be continued or discontinued”.
This step was welcomed by, among others, Emelie Köhler, the co-founder of detransinfo.se, a website for people who regret their gender correction. She called it a “super important step in the right direction”.
“Now it is important that the others follow Karolinska’s decision”, Emelie Köhler told SVT.
May 7, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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President Biden has announced that America’s forever war in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end. He says that U.S. forces will exit the country by next September 11.
That’s a good thing. And it is long overdue.
But there is one big problem with Biden’s timetable: It violates an agreement that the U.S. government entered into with the Taliban to exit the country by May 1 of this year.
Under that agreement, the Taliban agreed not to attack U.S. troops prior to their scheduled departure on May 1. With Biden’s decision to deliberately violate the agreement by unilaterally extending the withdrawal to September 11, he is knowingly placing the lives of the 3,500 American servicemen still in Afghanistan at risk.
In fact, the Taliban has implied as much. According to the Washington Post, a Taliban spokesman declared back in April, “If the agreement is breached and foreign forces fail to exit the country on the specified date, problems will certainly be compounded and those whom failed to comply with the agreement will be held liable.”
What’s the point of extending the departure? Is an extension to September so important that it’s worth risking the lives of American servicemen still in Afghanistan? If some soldiers are killed or maimed because Biden cavalierly decided to violate the agreement, will their sacrifice have been worth it? What about the lives of innocent Afghan civilians caught in a crossfire or in a bomb explosion designed to kill U.S. troops?
Take a look at this article in USA Today. It’s by a quadruple amputee who lost his arms and legs in Afghanistan. He says it’s time to leave. He says, “I don’t need any soldier to honor me by doing the same thing.”
But that’s exactly what Biden is risking by intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately violating an agreement that the U.S. government willingly entered into.
Moreover, as Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and intelligence officer who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, pointed out in an article in the New York Times,
[R]emoving the 3,500 American troops from Afghanistan is, in military terms, what’s called a “fighting withdrawal,” in which an army leaves the field while still in contact with the enemy. Of all the maneuvers an army can perform (advance, flank, defend, etc.), it is widely accepted that a fighting withdrawal is the most complex and difficult because you are neither attacking nor defending, and so are exceedingly vulnerable.
Unlike the withdrawal from Iraq, in which U.S. troops could drive through the desert into Kuwait as they did in 2011, and unlike the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, in which they could drive across a then-shared border, U.S. troops are currently marooned in Afghanistan, reliant on three principal U.S.-controlled airstrips (Bagram, Jalalabad, Kandahar), making their journey home all the more perilous.
If the Taliban decide to attack U.S. troops from now until September, Biden will have their blood on his hands. He should never have breached the agreement that U.S. officials willingly entered into with their enemy.
May 6, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Afghanistan, United States |
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Hundreds of cases of blindness are among the 19,916 reports of “eye disorders” to the World Health Organization’s European drug monitoring agency following injection of experimental COVID-19 vaccines.
The nearly 20,000 eye disorders reported to VigiBase, a database for the WHO maintained by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre(UMC) in Uppsalla, Sweden, include:
- Eye pain (4616)
- Blurred vision (3839)
- Photophobia or light intolerance (1808)
- Visual impairment (1625)
- Eye swelling (1162)
- Ocular hyperaemia or red eyes (788)
- Eye irritation (768)
- Itchy eyes or eye pruritus (731)
- Watery eyes or increased lacrimation (653)
- Double vision or diplopia (559)
- Eye strain or asthenopia (459)
- Dry eye (400)
- Swelling around the eye or periorbital swelling (366)
- Swelling of eyelid (360)
- Flashes of light in the field of vision or photopsia (358)
- Blindness (303)
- Eyelid oedema (298)
- Eye or ocular discomfort (273)
- Conjunctival haemorrhage or breakage of a small eye vessel (236)
- Blepharospasm or abnormal contraction of an eye muscle(223)
- Vitreous floaters (192)
- Periorbital oedema (171)
- Eye haemorrhage (169)
More than half of the eye disorders (10, 667) were also reported to the U.K.’s Yellow Card adverse event reporting system. These would have followed injection primarily of AstraZeneca’s and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines but included eight reports of eye disorders among the 228 reports concerning Moderna’s vaccine, of which only 100,000 first doses had been administered by April 21.
Eye disorders were not reported in the clinical trials for vaccines which have been granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) only. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s fact sheet for those administering Pfizer’s experimental vaccine does not mention eye side effects. It does state, however, that “Additional adverse reactions, some of which may be serious, may become apparent with more widespread use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”
VAERS reports
VigiBase and Yellow Card reports do not offer details of the patients’ experiences of adverse side-effects. However, those in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) system include some reporting on the patient, his or her age, and the general case presentation.
One VAERS report describes a 33-year-old pilot from Mississippi who took Pfizer’s vaccine and developed vision problems among numerous other symptoms.
“I noticed a headache in the very top of my head within an hour of getting the vaccine,” he reported. “I thought it was normal because everyone I know said they got a headache from it. Over the next few hours, the pain moved down the back of my neck and became a burning sensation at the bottom of my skull.”
“Two days after receiving the vaccine I flew my plane and immediately noticed something was wrong with me,” the report continues. “I was having a very hard time focusing. Approximately 2 hours into my flying I felt sudden and extreme pressure in my head and nearly blacked out. I immediately landed and stopped flying.”
The pilot experienced the same thing two days later when he tried flying again. The burning in his neck intensified and was accompanied by dizziness, nausea, disorientation, confusion, uncontrollable shaking, and tingling in his toes and fingers.
The patient was diagnosed with vertigo and prescribed a medication which provided “no relief,” according to the VAERS account. He underwent extensive testing including balance, eye, and hearing tests, CT and MRI scans, and he was informed that an allergic reaction to the Pfizer COVID vaccine had increased the pressure in his spinal cord and brain stem.
“That pressure causes my vision problems and ultimately ruptured my left inner ear breaking off several crystals in the process,” the report states. “I cannot fly with this condition. I’m currently taking Diamox to reduce the pressure in my spinal cord and brain stem.”
More than 1,200 reports to VAERS include “eye pain” among the listed symptoms. One report filed by a 50-year-old physician from Wisconsin for himself said he experienced “severe sweating; fever; weakness” and the “worst headache of my life” following receiving a second dose of Pfizer’s Wuhan coronavirus vaccine in January. The doctor said he experienced “searing eye pain for the last 2 months” and “daily headaches” – events described as a “disability” and “permanent damage.”
One 26-year-old student in California received Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine on April 9 and reported experiencing “typical” post-vaccine symptoms of nausea, muscle aches, chills, fatigue which “dissipated.” On the fifth day following the shot, however, she went for a light walk in the morning and “completely lost vision in both eyes.” She also described her “excruciating headache behind eyes” as the “worst headache of my life.” At a hospital emergency ward she was given morphine which she reported did not help the pain and a head CT scan ruled out a clotting event. Her report filed six days later, said: “I’m terrified because I know something is very wrong.”
‘Frightening, stressful, and uncertain’
Michelle Jorgenson, 31, of Arizona got her first dose of Moderna’s vaccine in mid-January, and second dose mid-February and developed blurred vision along with symptoms of headaches, “brain fog” and fatigue. She’s undergone CT and MRI scans and doctors don’t know what’s causing her problems,” she said.
“It’s frightening, stressful, and uncertain. I’m 31, and I have never in my life had double vision before,” she says.
Jorgenson said illness is affecting her ability to both work and drive. “I’m not currently driving at all, as it is just not safe.”
She has cut her at-home work schedule from 40 hours per week to about 25 hours per week, “but that’s also a struggle, because of the double vision, headache, brain fog, and fatigue.”
“I don’t know what the doctors can do from here,” she said.
Bleeding and clotting disorders
Numerous vision problems are associated with hemorrhaging and blood clotting incidents:
- A 25-year-old from Massachusetts began experiencing symptoms on the day of receiving her first dose of Moderna’s vaccine in January and an MRI revealed “inflammation, and brain bleed and swelling,” according to the VAERS report filed by a healthcare professional.
- An 83 year-old from Indiana who had Moderna’s vaccine and went blind in her left eye the same day. “Went to emergency room at Hospital Was told I have Blood clot in my eye causing the blindness and Ophthamologist says it will probably be permanent,” her report states.
- A 50-year-old woman from Oklahoma with no prior health conditions experienced a central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) 2 and ½ hours after receiving a second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine resulted in loss of sight to her right eye, according to another VAERS report. “I am currently prescribed baby aspirin and will have to get injections in my eye when macular edema occurs, an expected occurrence with a blood clot in the retinal vein.”
- “Within 12 hours of receiving the 2nd dose of the Moderna vaccine, I experienced an occipital cerebral infarction in the left occipital lobe,” states the VAERS report of a 73-year-old Florida man. “As a result, I have a loss of peripheral vision in the right upper quadrant.”
- Another VAERS report describes a 68-year-old California man’s four-day hospitalization and numerous interventions after his first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine: “Permanent loss of vision in right eye three weeks after receiving first COVID 19 vaccination. Diagnosed with Branch Retina Artery Occlusion (BRAO) clotting of the retinal artery.”
Previous coronavirus
Pennsylvania immunologist Hooman Noorchashm has warned about the potential for vaccinating the 20% to 30% of people who have already had a recent or underlying COVID infection may lead to catastrophic events. That may be the reason why a 52-year-old man from Michigan who was diagnosed with COVID-19 on December 13, 2020 who then received a series of shots on December 22 and January 10, 2021 was diagnosed one day after his second shot with opthalmic artery thrombus causing vision loss in his left eye.
Allergic eye disorders
Some eye disorders happened in the context of severe allergic or “anaphylactic” or “anaphylactoid” events for which there are 915 VAERS report. More than 60 reports refer to “anaphylaxis” and eye symptoms in the same event, as in the case of a 55-year-old asthmatic woman with food allergies who had a reaction to Pfizer’s second dose of COVID vaccine and according a VAERS report was put “under the care of an eye doctor for her severe double vision, eye crossing, and eye drooping.”
Shingles
Some eye pain reports are in association with herpes – or shingles — infection, which has already been raised as a potential elevated risk factor following COVID vaccination. According to a report on one 30-year-old woman, her “severe right side eye pain” and “vesicular rash with severe pain above right eyelid” developed after she got her Johnson & Johnson one-shot in January. She was diagnosed with Zoster Ophthalmicus of Right Eye and treated in urgent care. After her rash crusted she still had residual severe neuropathic pain at the time of the report nine days later.
Uveitis
In Great Britain, 35 reports of uveitis – an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye – following coronavirus vaccination were generated by April 21, about four months following the vaccines rollout in December.
This may seem a small number except that one 2016 study that looked for cases of “vaccine-associated” uveitis found 289 reports over 26 years of data from three databases – which works out to about 11 cases per year for all vaccinations. In which case, reports for uveitis are many fold higher than what one would expect to see from vaccination.
“The nature of Yellow Card reporting means that reported events are not always proven side effects,” according to the government website that catalogues the reports. “Some events may have happened anyway, regardless of vaccination.”
While public health officials have frequently stated that vaccine adverse events are only “one or two in a million” shots, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for Britain states that for the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines, the overall reporting rate is “around 3 to 6 Yellow Cards per 1,000 doses administered.”
As well, because both the U.S. VAERS the U.K. Yellow Card are passive collections systems, they tend to capture only a fraction of adverse events. A Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare study found that less than one percent of vaccine adverse events are reported to VAERS.
Asked about the high numbers of reported adverse eye events, a spokesperson for the MHRA, which oversees Yellow Card reports, said in an emailed statement: “We continually review Yellow Card data, as well as other data sources, to determine if reports may indicate any previously unrecognised risks.”
The statement added that the agency applies “statistical techniques” which compare events to what would be expected generally in the population.
“Everything has to be looked at on a case by case basis, and there is no set trigger to determine whether something may be linked to a vaccine,” the MHRA statement said. “All reports are kept under review taking into account the information available and whether there are other plausible explanations.”
Among the 12,140 adverse events reported to Canada’s coronavirus vaccine adverse event reporting system by April 23, there is not a single account of an eye disorder— which, given the extraordinarily high numbers in other countries, raises questions about Canada’s reporting process.
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.
May 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Acommonplace justification for the lockdowns and other Covid-19 restrictions imposed over the past 15 months is this: SARS-CoV-2 poses a threat to humanity that differs categorically from any of the many threats that we routinely encounter. Confronting a categorically unique monster is said to excuse government officials from the obligation of taking the time required to weigh carefully the likely costs of alternative responses against these responses’ likely benefits.
Act resolutely! Act boldly! Act quickly! We’re told that the sudden and surprising arrival of a serious new threat to humanity denies to us the luxury of taking measured steps the costs and benefits of which have been carefully considered and debated.
I know from having now fought long in the Covid-policy trenches that many people find this argument for lockdowns to be compelling. Yet even apart from the many empirical problems that plague the case for lockdowns, this argument does not withstand logical scrutiny.
Potential Perils All Around
Even if we grant, contrary to fact, that Covid-19 poses to humankind a threat that’s categorically unique, it does not follow that lockdowns are justified or even excusable. The reason is that months-long global lockdowns are themselves, and in fact, categorically unique events fraught with serious perils.
It is true that in March 2020 we had little knowledge of the extent to which humanity would be ravaged by Covid. But we also had little knowledge of the extent to which humanity would be ravaged by lockdowns imposed to fight Covid. Because there was never any reason to doubt that lockdowns would have severe economic and non-economic costs – and because lockdowns arrived on the scene just as suddenly and just as surprisingly, and with just as much novelty, as did the coronavirus – the same ‘logic’ that appears to justify an embrace of the case for lockdowns also justifies an embrace of the case against lockdowns.
In short, humanity in early 2020 was confronted with two novel dangers. Yet only one of these dangers – that lurking in the novel coronavirus – was recognized as such. It and only it was taken to be an excuse for potential overreaction. It and only it was taken to justify acting-now-and-asking-questions-only-later. The other of these dangers – that lurking in the novel lockdowns – was largely ignored or severely discounted.
One of the hallmarks of sound science is appropriate classification of phenomena. Another is logical coherence of analyses. It’s sensible that novel dangers that are reasonably believed to pose severe risks to human well-being justify us, in our encounters with such dangers, to err on the side of caution. But this sensible advice applies to all such novel dangers. And so if we encounter such a danger X at 9:00am and then encounter a second such danger Y at 9:15am, we would behave quite irrationally if we ignore or discount danger Y simply because we encountered danger Y after we encountered danger X.
Two Surprising and Sudden Dangers
In early 2020 humanity first encountered the dangerous coronavirus. Almost immediately thereafter we encountered the dangerous lockdowns. The fact that the lockdowns were proposed as a ‘solution’ to the coronavirus does nothing to protect them from the need of scrutiny. History, after all, is saturated with solutions that turn out to be worse than the problems they were meant to solve.
Yet the dangers of novel lockdowns were ignored or hand-waved away by all but a puny puddle of people. “We’re up against an unknown and monstrous enemy in this coronavirus,” screamed the vast ocean of people who screamed for novel lockdowns. “Until the risk of Covid is brought way, way down, we can’t afford the luxury of listening to those who warn of the dangers of lockdowns!”
As a matter of logic, however, an identical panic-stricken reaction to lockdowns would have been equally appropriate – or, as the case might be, equally inappropriate. “We’re up against an unknown and monstrous enemy in these lockdowns,” many people could have screamed. “Until the risk of lockdowns is known to be very, very low, we can’t afford the luxury of listening to those who warn of the dangers of Covid!”
In reality, each danger, and each proposal for reducing the danger, should be considered with appropriate rationality and never in a panic. (That tamping down panic is often difficult in practice doesn’t make this advice any less warranted.) No one doubts that the greater, the more novel, and the more immediate the danger, the greater is the justification for acting to avert the danger with vigor and speed. But if one of the speedily proposed means for averting the danger is itself novel and plausibly poses dangers as great as – even if not as immediate as – those posed by the danger itself, this proposed means ought to be resisted until and unless a careful calculation provides sound reason to believe that use of this means is likely to generate benefits greater than costs.
Yet there was no such careful calculation for the lockdowns imposed in haste to combat Covid-19. Lockdowns were simply assumed not only to be effective at significantly slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but also to impose only costs that are acceptable. Regrettably, given the novelty of the lockdowns, and the enormous magnitude of their likely downsides, this bizarrely sanguine attitude toward lockdowns was – and remains – wholly unjustified. And the unjustness of this reaction is further highlighted by the fact that, in a free society, the burden of proof is on those who would restrict freedom and not on those who resist such restrictions.
While I believe that the evidence is now decisive that lockdowns were a huge mistake, my point here is not, strictly speaking, anti-lockdown. My point here, instead, is pro-science and good sense: Whatever the novelty and dangers of Covid-19, the novelty and dangers of Covid-19 lockdowns are at least arguably of the same magnitude. The dismissal of the unknown possible horrors of lockdowns in order to focus attention exclusively on the unknown possible horrors of SARS-CoV-2 is as unjustified by science as it is unpardonable as policy.
May 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights |
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Two former British Army paratroopers accused of murdering an Official IRA commander have been acquitted, after prosecutors failed to provide further evidence against them and the trial collapsed.
Joe McCann, 24, was unarmed when he was shot dead by paratroopers as he tried to evade arrest by a plainclothes police officer in Belfast in 1972.
The accused, identified only as Soldiers A and C, have admitted firing at McCann, but claim they acted within the law. The veterans, now in their 70s, made statements to the Royal Military Police in 1972 and were interviewed by the Historical Enquiries Team – a police legacy branch – in 2010.
At Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday, presiding judge Justice John O’Hara ruled that the statements – which formed key evidence for the prosecution – were inadmissible at the trial. Prosecutors accepted the judge’s findings that the statements were not given under caution and the soldiers did not have access to legal representation.
The court heard that McCann was allegedly behind the deaths of 15 British soldiers in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. His family have said they will ask the attorney general to open an inquest into his death.
Outside the court their lawyer, Niall Murphy said: “This ruling does not mean that Joe McCann was not murdered by the British Army.”
Four other cases involving the prosecution of former British soldiers in Northern Ireland are currently at the pre-trial stage.
May 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | UK |
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Minds / Odysee / YouTube or Download the mp4
Running Time: 1:02:08
Description: This week we hear from Carroll Quigley and G. Edward Griffin about a secret society created by Rhodes to spread the British Empire around the world…which is still at work, attempting to set up a world government administered by bankers.
Documentation
| Documentation – Dynamic Duo radio program |
| Time Reference: |
01:41 |
| Description: |
Click here to find the link to the current program of the Dynamic Duo. If you see 1003081 or 1003082, you can download it and listen to James Corbett on Kevin Barrett’s radio program. |
| Link To: |
gcnlive.com |
| Documentation – GCN Live |
| Time Reference: |
01:57 |
| Description: |
Join GCN Live to get access to the Dynamic Duo podcast archive, where you can download the archived copy of James Corbett’s appearance on the program (Friday, October 3, 2008). |
| Link To: |
gcnlive.com |
| Documentation – Geopoliticalmonitor.com |
| Time Reference: |
03:03 |
| Description: |
An excellent source of geopolitical news and information. Enter the jcorbett coupon code when you purchase a yearly subscription and you will help fund The Corbett Report. |
| Link To: |
GeoPoliticalMonitor |
| Documentation – Banker Bailout Bill Contains IRS Police State Provision |
| Time Reference: |
04:20 |
| Description: |
REAL NEWS #1 |
| Link To: |
Infowars |
| Documentation – Are we already dining on clones |
| Time Reference: |
06:28 |
| Description: |
REAL NEWS #2 |
| Link To: |
Montreal Gazette |
| Documentation – Depression pill may damage men’s chances of having children. |
| Time Reference: |
07:55 |
| Description: |
REAL NEWS #3 |
| Link To: |
MailOnline |
| Documentation – Bill Clinton DNC Acceptance Address |
| Time Reference: |
09:37 |
| Description: |
Text and audio of Clinton’s speech in which he name-checks Quigley. |
| Link To: |
American Rhetoric |
| Documentation – Carroll Quigley |
| Time Reference: |
11:55 |
| Description: |
Basic details of Quigley’s life and career. |
| Link To: |
Wikipedia |
| Documentation – The Anglo-American Establishment |
| Time Reference: |
12:16 |
| Description: |
One of Quigley’s most well-known and most discussed work. |
| Link To: |
Voltairenet.org |
| Documentation – Tragedy and Hope |
| Time Reference: |
12:22 |
| Description: |
Quigley’s best known and most-debated work. The quotations cited in this 2008 piece were from this inaccurate reproduction of the book (square bracket interjections, ellipses and all), but the quotations in the 2021 video are from the book as published. |
| Link To: |
Archive.org |
| Documentation – Carroll Quigley interview (1974) |
| Time Reference: |
17:43 |
| Description: |
A rare interview with the reclusive professor of history. All clips of Quigley in this episode come from this source. |
| Link To: |
Archive.org |
| Documentation – Project for a New American Citizen. |
| Time Reference: |
26:47 |
| Description: |
Not THAT PNAC. The good one. The student activist one at U of T. |
| Link To: |
PNACitizen |
| Documentation – G. Edward Griffin speech on Carroll Quigley |
| Time Reference: |
27:10 |
| Description: |
The legendary Griffin gives an excellent talk on the significance of the information presented in Quigley’s work. |
| Link To: |
PNACradio |
| Documentation – Barack Obama lying about his CFR/NAU ties |
| Time Reference: |
40:00 |
| Description: |
Just like the title says. |
| Link To: |
YouTube |
| Documentation – Alan Greenspan speech at CFR conference |
| Time Reference: |
40:22 |
| Description: |
Greenspan praising the CFR and Rockefeller’s ability to dictate foreign policy in the States…isn’t that sweet? |
| Link To: |
CFR.org |
| Documentation – Dick Cheney ex-director of CFR talks to David Rockefeller |
| Time Reference: |
40:46 |
| Description: |
Cheney finds it funny that he lied to his constituents. |
| Link To: |
YouTube |
| Documentation – Breaking the Economy in Order to Fix It |
| Time Reference: |
47:32 |
| Description: |
The Corbett Report has been reporting on the economic crisis (and how it has been engineered) long before Black Monday. |
| Link To: |
The Corbett Report |
| Documentation – Rockefeller quotation from Bilderberg 1991 |
| Time Reference: |
53:40 |
| Description: |
WARNING: This Rockefeller quotation is almost certainly spurious.. |
| Link To: |
The Corbett Report |
May 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video | Canada, UK, United States |
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If you’ve recently read a newspaper, popular magazine, science journal or watched a major television news outlet, you have probably seen news item after news item regarding the Climate Crisis or the Climate Emergency. Story after story, covering medicine, weather, ecology, biology, psychology, emigration, international conflict and pet care, all converge on the single story-line that there is an ongoing, ever-present terrifyingly dangerous Climate Crisis, affecting every aspect of human existence.
As Dr. Judith Curry pointed out,TIME Magazine has published cover story titled Climate is Everything.
Where is all this coming from? One of the major sources is Covering Climate Now, which characterizes itself this way:
CCNow collaborates with journalists and newsrooms to produce more informed and urgent climate stories, to make climate a part of every beat in the newsroom — from politics and weather to business and culture — and to drive a public conversation that creates an engaged public. Mindful of the media’s responsibility to inform the public and hold power to account, we advise newsrooms, share best practices, and provide reporting resources that help journalists ground their coverage in science while producing stories that resonate with audiences.
Co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation in association with The Guardian and WNYC in 2019, CCNow’s 460-plus partners include some of the biggest names in news, and some of the smallest, because this story needs everyone. In addition to three of the world’s biggest news agencies — Reuters, Bloomberg, and Agence France Presse — each of which provides content to thousands of other newsrooms, our partners include CBS News, NBC and MSNBC News, Noticias Telemundo, PBS NewsHour, Univision, Al Jazeera; most of the biggest public radio stations in the US; many flagship newspapers and TV networks in the Americas, Europe, and Asia; and dozens of leading magazines and journals, including Nature, Scientific American, Rolling Stone, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, and Mother Jones.
You may have thought the news was produced by independent news organizations and journalists. That is simply no longer the case when it comes to climate news. The most powerful news agencies and news outlets are shaping and coordinating coverage of every news beat to include “the climate emergency” in every story – whether or not there is any factual basis to do so. It is not even any longer true the journals of science – Scientific American and The Lancet are both members.
Notably, The New York Times and the Washington Post reportedly declined membership on the basis that the effort “seemed like activism”. Both of these newpapers rightfully didn’t wish to appear to be engaged in activist journalism but both have their own Climate Crisis editorial narratives. Don’t be fooled though, both papers write climate activism – they are just not guided in doing so by CCNow.
Just how slanted, just how bizarrely biased, is the coverage promoted by CCNow? Here is their “Best Practices” list:
1. Say yes to the science. There are not two sides to a fact. For too long, especially in the US, the media juxtaposed climate science—a matter of overwhelming global consensus—with climate skepticism and denialism—seldom more than thinly-veiled protections of the fossil fuel industry. The resulting implication that these positions are equal, or that the jury is somehow still out, is in large part responsible for the public disengagement and political paralysis that have met the climate crisis so far. As journalists, we must write about climate change with the same clarity of the scientists who have been sounding the alarms for decades. Platforming those scientists’ detractors in an effort to “balance” our stories not only misleads the public, it is inaccurate. Where climate denialism cannot be avoided—when it comes from the highest levels of government, for example—responsible journalistic framing makes clear that it is counterfactual, if not rooted in bad faith.
2. The climate crisis is a story for every beat. At its core, the climate story is a science story. But whether you cover business, health, housing, education, food, national security, entertainment, or something else, there is always a strong climate angle to be found. And climate need not be a story’s central focus to merit mention. Also, journalists should be sure to emphasize the human-side of the climate story. For political reporters, for example, Biden’s climate agenda obviously deserves coverage. But audiences will likely be more engaged by stories that start with how the climate emergency is seen and felt by ordinary people — and then discuss how government policy can make a difference. In the words of renowned climate author Bill McKibben, climate change is “an exciting story filled with drama and conflict. It’s what journalism was made for.”
3. Emphasize the experiences—and activism—of the poor, communities of color, and indigenous people. Environmental justice is key to the climate story. The poor, people of color, and indigenous people have long suffered first and worst from heat waves, floods, and other climate impacts. Yet their voices and stories are too often omitted from news coverage. Good climate reporting not only highlights these people’s trevails, it also recognizes that they are frequently leading innovators at the forefront of the climate fight. Coverage that focuses overwhelmingly on wealthy communities and features only white voices is simply missing the story.
4. Ditch the Beltway “he-said, she-said.” There are of course plenty of urgent climate stories to be told from halls of government. But when we treat the climate story first and foremost as a political dogfight, we give the narrative over to the same intractable partisanship that so degrades the rest of our political coverage. (One side wants to act. The other doesn’t. Looks like nothing can be done.) By foregrounding partisanship in our climate coverage, we also risk losing huge swaths of audiences that likely feel they get more than enough political news as it is. And, for those readers, viewers, and listeners whose political views are ensconced in one camp or the other, we forego opportunities to challenge assumptions.
5. Avoid “doom and gloom.” We can and must understand the epochal consequences of climate change. If our coverage is always negative, however, it “leaves the public with an overall sense of powerlessness,” in the words of former NPR reporter Elizabeth Arnold. “It just reaches this point where people feel hopeless and overwhelmed,” Arnold told Journalist’s Resource in 2018. “And when we feel that way, psychologists say, we tend to just avoid and deny, and tune out.” Indeed, for every wildfire or galling instance of denial by the powerful, there are untold multitudes of innovators and activists who are pioneering solutions. By elevating those stories, we show that climate change is not a problem too big to understand—or to tackle.
6. Go easy on the jargon. This is a tried and true tenet of journalism generally, but it especially applies here. The climate story is chock full of insider-y verbiage—parts per million of carbon dioxide, micrograms of particulate matter, and fractions of degrees Centigrade. The meanings and implications of these terms might be familiar to those who’ve been on the beat for decades, but they may be quite unfamiliar to some who are reading or watching our coverage. Always assume that your target audience is not scientists or fellow climate journalists and ask yourself: How can I help someone new to the problem understand it easily and accurately? Where possible, avoid clustering technical terms. And when attempting to quantify climate change, try to employ simple analogies. For example, when explaining how global warming contributed to the record wildfires in Australia, John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist, likened it to baseball players on steroids: a great slugger will hit plenty of home runs in any case, but a great slugger who takes steroids will hit more of them.
7. Beware of “greenwashing.” Companies around the world are waking up to public demands for eco-conscious business practices. Pledges to “go green,” however, often amount to little more than marketing campaigns that obscure unmitigated carbon footprints. So shun the stenography and cast a skeptical eye on grand promises of net-zero or carbon-negative emissions, especially from big-name companies that have historically been a big part of the problem.
8. Extreme weather stories are climate stories. The news is awash in hurricanes, floods, unseasonable snow dumps, record heatwaves, and drought. They are not all due to climate change, but the increased frequency and intensity of such extreme weather certainly is. Yet much news coverage makes little to no mention of the climate connection, leaving audiences without context and unaware that humanity is already experiencing climate disruption. (Worse still, some coverage greets this bad news with cheer. An alarmingly unseasonable heat snap, for example, is “a much welcome break from the cold.”) The climate connection need not dominate coverage, nor distract from the vital information audiences need in the face of emergency weather conditions—but mentioning it is a must.
9. Jettison the outdated belief that climate coverage repels audiences and loses money. Climate stories have a bad reputation as low-traffic ratings killers. This might have been true in the past, but demographic shifts and growing public awareness have brought increased demands for smart, creative climate coverage—especially from young audiences, for whom the climate emergency is often top-of-mind. Indeed, there’s good evidence that strong climate coverage can actually boost a news outlet’s bottom line.
10. For God’s sake, do not platform climate denialists. We understand as well as anyone that opinion pages occasionally need to push the envelope with unpopular takes. But there is no longer any good faith argument against climate science—and if one accepts the science, one also accepts the imperative for rapid, forceful action. Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus, or ridicule climate activism, don’t belong in a serious news outlet.
Note: Some of the bolded intros to each section are in newspeak, in which the words used don’t necessarily mean what they say. The “Say yes to the science”, for instance, really means “only speak of science that dictates a climate crisis – never mention contrary facts or opinions”. Worse than that, CCNow recommends that if contrary science must be presented, then it should be framed as “inaccurate” and “counterfactual, if not rooted in bad faith.” It is forbidden by CCNow to report facts or opinions not in alignment with the Climate Emergency meme. This is reinforced in item 10: “For God’s sake, do not platform climate denialists.” Insisting that “there is no longer any good faith argument against climate science—and if one accepts the science, one also accepts the imperative for rapid, forceful action. Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus, or ridicule climate activism, don’t belong in a serious news outlet.”
This whole CCNow effort is the very definition of the antithesis to journalism. Journalism is meant to inform the public of the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of issues facing the populace. CCNow wants to propagandize the public.
Propagandize? Yes, precisely the correct word.
prop·a·gan·dize /ˌpräpəˈɡanˌdīz/
verb derogatory
- promote or publicize a particular cause, organization, or view, especially in a biased or misleading way. Similar: advocate
- attempt to influence (someone) with propaganda.
“people who have to be emotionalized and propagandized by logical arguments”
Whenever there are demands to present only one side of any issue, and to actively denigrate opposing views and those who hold those views, one is dealing with propaganda. The rules and methods of effective propaganda have been honed over the decades:
BQ
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts in order to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language in order to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda is often associated with material which is prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies, religious organizations, the media, and individuals also produce propaganda. [ source ]
CCNow acknowledges that it is a propaganda effort in its own words.
Are these people just a bunch of liars? No, I suspect that many of them are “True Believers” having grown up and been (mis)educated during the Global Warming/Climate Change era since the late 1980s. They want to believe and they want everyone else to believe too. They seem willing to do and say anything to make others believe. Unfortunately, they seem short on critical thinking skills, stubbornly remaining ignorant of any opposing facts, and suffer from varying degrees of Jor-El syndrome. They’ve been trained in a type of non-journalism, in which they are all imaging themselves to be the new “Woodward and Bernstein” — exposing the evils of society and – in this case – Saving Krypton The Planet.
This article is an introduction to the story-lines being pushed by CCNow and their partners. I will be analyzing many of these stories over the next few weeks, but I start with this one simple example (out of many) from the CCNow page intended to assure their partners that there really is a Climate Emergency: “Who Says It’s a Climate Emergency?”
In early 2021, two-thirds of the world’s people think climate change is a “global emergency,” according to a new poll, the largest ever on climate.
Shocking news – two-thirds – two out of every three – “of the world’s people” (all 7.7 billion of them) “think climate change is a ‘global emergency’”. Really? Let’s see what this is really about. Let’s find out: what have they really counted?
The Guardian (a founding member of CCNow) published this:
“UN global climate poll: ‘The people’s voice is clear – they want action’
Biggest ever survey finds two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency”
This headline and subsequent story are based on a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) survey. Here’s what they really did (please, don’t laugh, this is serious!):
UNDP Peoples’ Climate Vote
“The Peoples’ Climate Vote was conducted from 7 October to 4 December 2020 by distributing poll questions through adverts in popular mobile gaming apps to 50 countries. When a person played a popular mobile game – such as Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Dragon City or Subway Surfers – the poll would replace the traditional in-game advert. This innovative approach led to a huge, unique, and random sample of 1.22 million people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds. It also meant that the Peoples’ Climate Vote reached people who are sometimes hard to reach in traditional polling, such as those below the age of 18.”
“Voters were first asked two questions about whether they believe climate change is a global emergency and, if so, what kind of action they think the world should take (see Box 1). Then they were asked a series of questions about the different kinds of climate policies – across the six key policy areas of the Mission 1.5 game – that they would like their government to enact. The data were collated and processed by analysts at the University of Oxford, who used official statistics to weight the data to create representative estimates of public opinion. With such a large sample size, and rich socio-demographic information, the margin of error of the results is on average +/- 2%.” [ source – full report pdf ]
Stop laughing, please.
Having collected 1.22 million responses from kids playing silly, online video games on their phones, every one of whom gave their serious and well-considered and true answers and never ever lied about themselves having a college degree or their age, the United Nations Development Programme, after “analysts at the University of Oxford . . . used official statistics to weight the data”, concluded confidently that:
“The Peoples’ Climate Vote found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of people in 50 countries believe that climate change is a global emergency”
Not one of CCNow’s partners have mentioned the absurdity of the finding and seem perfectly happy to pass it on as a Scientific Fact. The survey results are being used by CCNow and their 460 news partners to show just how real the Climate Emergency really is – after all, a lot of videogame playing kids say so.
Watch this space for further examples of what other propaganda is being churned out, and echoed again and again and again, in the world press.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
This propaganda effort is playing on and amplifying – in a feedback loop similar to the one that occurred with Covid-19 — the Mass Hysteria surrounding the weather.
I could spend the rest of the year exposing both the subtle and the egregious lies being foisted off on the public through this pernicious effort.
I don’t hold out much hope of making a difference by doing so.
I do hope that I can offer little bits of Propaganda Fighting Tidbits to your personal arsenals.
May 5, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | The Guardian |
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Aletho News
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