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Elon Musk to Sue George Soros-Linked NGOs For Spreading ‘Misinformation’ to Stifle Free Speech

BY DR FREDERICK ATTENBOROUGH | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 28, 2023

Elon Musk has announced that his company, X (formerly Twitter), will sue partner organisations of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) after the NGO network was accused of spreading ‘hate misinformation’ to justify an unprecedented crackdown on lawful free speech.

Musk made the statement in response to an article by journalist Ben Scallan, in which he claims that OSF-linked leftist NGOs are manipulating the statistics to show a steep rise in hate crimes across Ireland – despite the government’s own data indicating the opposite is true – and helping to usher in a new hate speech law that will restrict free speech and open up new pathways for political persecution.

The article was reposted on X by Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger, who added: “The reason politicians and Soros-funded NGOs are spreading hate misinformation is to justify a draconian crackdown on freedom of speech.”

To this, Elon Musk simply replied, “Exactly. X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can’t wait for discovery to start!”

It’s unclear which OSF-linked groups Scallan is referring to exactly or which NGOs will be the target of Musk’s suit – although interestingly the self-styled “free-speech absolutist” has recently threatened to sue the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), having accused the U.K.-registered NGO of using flawed methods to promote “misleading narratives” and of running a “scare campaign” that has driven away advertisers from the platform. Although the CCDH – which is listed in journalist Matt Taibbi’s report into the organisations comprising the “censorship-industrial complex” – doesn’t declare its funding on its site, Companies House information shows it received almost £1 million in 2022.

Despite an Ipsos survey commissioned by Ireland’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth showing that over eight in 10 Irish people feel “very comfortable” living next door to people with different nationalities, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, religious beliefs (and non), or marital statuses, the most up-to-date Garda Síochána data suggests the country has actually seen a 29% increase in reported ‘hate crimes’ in 2022 compared to the previous year.

Of course, an increase in reporting is not necessarily the same thing as an increase in actual hate crimes or incidents. As Scallan points out, the discrepancy between these two data sets is partly if not entirely explained by the fact that Soros’s NGO network has for many years been running campaigns to lower the threshold for hate crime reporting in Ireland, while encouraging citizens to report hate crimes and hate incidents to the police.

In fairness, the Garda does at least acknowledge this, having conceded that a “very low threshold of perception” currently applies to hate crime reporting. Yet methodological sophistication of this kind has been curiously absent from proposals put forward by Ireland’s governing classes that argue for a new, allegedly desperately needed, hate crime law. In those proposals the distinction between perceived and actual hate crimes has all but collapsed: ‘increased reporting’ is breezily conflated with ‘increased crime’ such that for politicians like Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Senator Pauline O’Reilly the need for intensified state censorship of perfectly lawful speech that certain sub-sections of Irish society happen to regard as ‘hateful’ now seems entirely unproblematic.

This confusion isn’t just to be found in the debating chambers of the Dáil and Seanad Éireann. It constitutes the underlying philosophy of the country’s draft Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, in which a hate crime is defined as an episode “perceived by the victim, or any other person, to have been motivated by prejudice, based on actual or perceived age, disability, race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender”.

As Scallan points out, under this definition, you don’t even have to be the victim of an alleged crime to report it. “A random bystander who has nothing to do with the event can say, ‘I think it was based on prejudice,’ and it will be categorised as such.”

By and large, of course, it won’t be “random bystanders” with a priggish manner, flapping ears, and a little too much time on their hands that end up weaponising this definition of what constitutes a ‘hate crime’. The real damage will be done by activist groups and George Soros-funded NGOs bent on criminalising perfectly lawful views that they happen not to like for doctrinaire ideological reasons.

“Will mocking memes be tolerated?” asked independent senator Ronan Mullen during a debate on the proposed legislation in the Senate earlier this year. “Will carrying a placard stating, ‘Men cannot breastfeed’ warrant a hate-speech investigation or up to five years’ imprisonment, a lifelong label as a criminal hater, and all of the stigma and life limitation that goes with that? Nobody actually knows.”

Nobody actually knows, no. But each of Mr Mullen’s hypothetical scenarios could potentially lead to a reported ‘hate crime’, which would then feature in the Garda’s annual reporting dataset, which would then perpetuate the myth that Ireland is becoming less tolerant, which would then lead to calls for even more draconian hate speech laws, which would then… and so on and so forth, in an endless cycle of intensifying state censorship.

Perhaps the most shocking of all the authoritarian provisions in the Bill that flow from this vague, entirely subjective definition of ‘hate’, is one that will make it a criminal offense to possess material on one’s person or in one’s home likely to “incite hatred”.

With regard to the obvious question of how something saved on, say, a mobile phone could possibly “incite hatred”, the Bill simply reverses the usual burden of proof in criminal cases, presuming “that the material [is] not intended for personal use”, and that a suspect must be planning to disseminate it, unless they can prove otherwise.

If passed, this provision will allow police to raid homes and seize devices, with a potential penalty of a year in prison and a €5,000 fine just for refusing to give up your passwords. Possession of hateful material will carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Despite many critics calling the law “Orwellian” and campaigning against it, the Irish parliament’s lower house adopted it by a vote of 160 against 14 earlier this year. The legislation now only needs the approval of the upper house in October to become law.

Dr. Frederick Attenborough is the Communications Officers of the Free Speech Union.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

West enabling Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets – The Economist

RT | August 27, 2023

Ukraine relies on Western intelligence and satellite surveillance to guide its drones toward targets within Russia, The Economist reported on Sunday. The report backs up Moscow’s claims that the West is complicit in these “terrorist” strikes.

Russia’s extensive air defense and electronic warfare capacity mean that Ukrainian drone operators often need outside help to hit targets deep inside Russia, The Economist reported, citing anonymous sources within Ukraine’s multiple drone programs. This assistance includes “intelligence (often from Western partners) about radars, electronic warfare, and air-defense assets,” the report stated.

Feedback on the success of a strike is compiled from satellites, the report noted. Ukraine has only a single surveillance satellite, meaning that any imagery collected in between its 15 daily orbits is likely provided by Western satellites.

While Ukraine often attempts to hit military targets within Russia, many of its strikes are focused on civilian infrastructure and residential areas. In the most recent incident, a small drone slammed into an apartment block in the city of Kursk, shattering windows but leaving nobody injured. Successive waves of drone attacks have targeted Moscow’s central business district in recent weeks, and although the strikes on the capital have not killed anyone, an attack on the border region of Belgorod earlier this week left three people dead.

Moscow has previously accused Ukraine’s Western backers of complicity in these “terrorist strikes.” Speaking after a small drone hit the Kremlin in May, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated: “We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kiev but in Washington.” Moscow has also accused British and American special forces of assisting Kiev’s recent missile attacks on the Crimean Bridge.

According to Peskov, Moscow views the attacks as “acts of desperation,” carried out to compensate for Ukraine’s failures on the battlefield. The strikes are viewed similarly in the West, the New York Times reported on Friday. Citing US officials, the newspaper said that the drone operations are intended “to bolster the morale of Ukraine’s population and troops,” and show that Kiev “can strike back” amid its failing counteroffensive.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The religion of climate alarmism

By Alex Starling | Reaction | August 22, 2023

The Times’ Juliet Samuel points out that “climate change belief should be tempered by scepticism of dramatic predictions of what’s coming, theories rolled out with great fanfare and based upon massive simplifications”. Iain Martin, in a piece entitled “Naive net zero groupthink misses the point of rising geopolitical dangers“, wonders “who will be the first mainstream party leader to stop telling us fairytales and test whether the electorate can handle the truth of our situation?”.

In a hard-hitting polemic, Gerald Warner expounds on the “great fallacy regarding climate change”, namely “the assumption that because the perceived threat was global, it required a supranational, one-size-fits-all response”. From the Left, Thomas Fazi writes for UnHerd that “nightmares and elitist fantasies” have replaced “the actual material conditions of people as the basis for politics – ‘saving the planet’ becomes more important than saving actual human beings”. Similarly, Ralph Schoellhammer (“The human cost of Net Zero”) highlights the “dangerous, infantile outlook” of the climate alarmist lobby who “indulge in fantasies about the energy transition”.

One wishes that these voices had been raised before today, as the UK is committed via the Climate Change Act 2008 to rapidly decarbonising itself. The purported aim of this is to fast-track our society’s transformation into some sort of mythical evergreen carbon-free nirvana. This single-minded demonisation of carbon (and carbon emissions) brings to mind various possible fallacies – what if we are missing the woods for the trees?

It is an inconvenient and unfortunate truth that the momentum of a speeding juggernaut requires more energy and time to slow down. If only we could attach the Net Zero juggernaut to a generator to feed the grid. Ironically enough, in the wonderfully credulous world of the woke warriors against warming, it seems that such real-life parodies exist.

Resistance to Net Zero groupthink has to date been limited to a lonely chorus of diehard sceptics who have been quietly and systematically removed from the public square. This is all the more surprising when one considers the extent to which history has been rewritten, and past misdemeanours forgotten. The 2009 story of “climategate” has been almost completely erased from the national consciousness. A reminder: the efforts of key players in the climate alarmist camp to produce data that supported the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) hypothesis were shown to be somewhat irregular. Computer code that was used to produce temperature models required the application of copious quantities of “fudge factors” to produce the temperature hockey sticks that were needed to scare the populace.

Don’t take my word for it: even George Monbiot remarked at the time that the behaviour was “unscientific”. He also pointed out that one of the key protagonists “seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity” when suggesting that emails subject to an FOI request be deleted. Monbiot then lapsed – true to form – back into the language that we are used to hearing from such commentators about “deniers” who deserve everything coming to them due to uttering heresies that challenge the state religion.

Rare as it may be for me to agree with Monbiot on anything, he did claim to be someone who has “championed the science” and stated that “we should be the first to demand that [the science] is unimpeachable”. I agree with this last statement. However, and here is where we disagree, the science he is promoting is most certainly not settled and, therefore, not unimpeachable, despite what the tellybox might be telling you.

One of the entities that controls this narrative is the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, a UN body. Through various working groups, this supranational religious order regularly publishes papal decrees that update the liturgy to be distributed to the masses by the priestly orders, such as the Behavioural Insights Team, aka the Nudge Unit. One of the fundamental tenets of this religion is that “one of the defining challenges of the 21st century [is] human-induced climate change”.  Specifically, there is an irreversible “tipping point” of warming due to the anthropogenic influence of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, etc.) being released into the atmosphere.

As I have written about previously, heretics who speak out against the priesthood’s wishes get quite rapidly closed down. In fact, it seems that the priesthood wishes to make such wrongspeak a criminal offence. To limit the chances of any questioning plebeian masses going off-piste, the UN works with popular search engines to ensure that top search results align with their orthodoxy. Thankfully, the flailings of the Monbiots and ludicrous talk of “global boiling” from old men in suits have provoked some modest pushback from certain quarters. The new head of the IPCC, Jim Skea, has struck a different tone from his predecessor: “The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees”.  Such words are in marked contrast to recent claims about man-made climate catastrophes and fatally undermine the justification for our aggressive Net Zero policies.

But the underlying articles of faith remain, as yet, unchanged. Apparently, we must still “battle against climate change”. The “short-term focus should remain expanding renewable electricity to reduce emissions from fossil fuel electricity generation and from internal combustion engine vehicles”.  Hmm.  Forgive my scepticism about throwing perfectly functioning vehicles into landfills to be replaced by a completely new technology. A new technology with a supply chain based on raiding the earth’s crust for rare elements with an as-yet untested post-processing/reuse/recycling infrastructure.

It is high time that the heretics get to say their piece. It is an article of faith for the IPCC that reducing CO2 (and other greenhouse gas) emissions can somehow effect a reversal of recent climate changes. This is a sacrament upon which rests the whole Net Zero edifice. Sub-sacraments are threefold. Firstly, CO2 emissions have gone up materially over the last few hundred years. Secondly, this is primarily due to human activity since the industrial revolution. Thirdly, there is a direct causal link that these emissions have created most – if not all – global warming/boiling/climate change.  These all have to be true to justify the breakneck pace of decarbonisation efforts.

The first point, that CO2 emissions have definitely increased, is generally accepted even though the absolute increase of CO2 in the air has gone up over the last 100 years or so from 0.03 per cent to just over 0.04 per cent. This level is substantially lower than the optimum for plant growth – just ask anyone involved in food production, but evidence for the subsequent points is by no means clear-cut.

Going into specifics, CO2 is often a lagging indicator of temperature (both in the short, medium and longer-term), or seems disconnected from temperature variations. Moreover, if it is taken as read that CO2 levels are unprecedented in the current Holocene (i.e. since the last ice age), then we have a somewhat unsatisfactory scenario whereby the existing literature – both scientific and of professional historians – regarding the Medieval Warm Period (1 degree warmer, a millennium ago) and the Climatic Optimum (2.5 degrees warmer, 5-8 millennia ago) flatly contradicts recent alarmist claims that July 2023 was “quite likely the warmest month on Earth in 10,000 years”.

To overcome doubters, much work has been put in by adherents of IPCC doctrine to simplify the message and eviscerate previously published data that conflicts with the various sub-sacraments. For example, the Medieval Warm Period and Climatic Optimum have been dubbed the “Holocene Temperature Conundrum”, a thorn in the side of the faithful, as they fundamentally undermine the obsession with emitted CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

The solution? Models! A recent Nature paper was able to erase the troublesome Conundrum by relaxing a previously stricter requirement on data points in the (vast) Southern Ocean “to increase coverage in this data-poor region” and smooth out temperature gradient over the last 10,000 years.  All this despite recognising that their model has a fundamental limitation that it is based on “priors from a single model … which are inevitably biased by model deficiencies, resolution and uncertainties in boundary conditions”.

Another attempt to discredit the historic literature is to claim that these periods of higher temperatures were actually localised events.  But this is hardly the killer argument that IPCC adherents think it is. It only highlights the current cherry-picking approach favoured by the media of highlighting isolated warm temperatures as being due to the climate, but ignoring low temperatures in other areas as being due to the weather. This is something that climate alarmists would do well to note.

The NASA analysis of the Maunder Minimum is another problem for the “global boiling” narrative. This analysis of the period from 1650 to 1710 when “temperatures across much of the Northern Hemisphere plunged when the Sun entered a quiet phase”, emphasises that in periods of overall lower temperatures, some particular geographies – such as the Atlantic and the Arctic – can in fact exhibit relative warming. So a milder Arctic could, of course, be consistent with stagnating, or even falling, global temperatures.

There are other problems for the simplistic sub-sacraments that undergird the IPCC’s creed. Water vapour is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. What of the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption that spewed over 165 million tons of water vapour – not 50 million tons as initially thought – into the atmosphere? A combination of observations, including the earth’s recent waning magnetic field, warm localised patches of suddenly hot sea to the West of areas of subsea volcanism, lagging jumps in CO2 air concentration and the recent slowing of the earth’s rotation by unexpected microseconds (a non-trivial issue as angular momentum must be conserved – where did the energy go?), point to the conveyance of heat from the earth’s core, up through the mantle and to the surface.  The different heat capacity of air versus that of water discount the atmosphere as a source of this warming on such a rapid timescale.

These are fascinating observations. A burning desire to explain the hugely complex interactions of our natural world should be driving a deep scientific urge to come up with creative hypotheses.

However, the strictures of the dominant religion are not conducive to open-minded research. The peer review process is broken. We desperately need a “blue team” grouping of sceptical investigators that are not in the pockets of those who have pre-decided the outcome of such research. Quoting Gerald Warner: “The government should assemble a panel of genuine climate experts who have not taken the IPCC shilling, discounting computer ‘modelling’, when the result is dictated by the data fed in, in favour of empirical evidence… we need authentic, unbiased scientific information, not the extravagant propaganda of climate alarmists”.

Our current de facto accelerated Net Zero trajectory is going to be a bumpy ride. More worryingly, it seems that its proponents do not really want to discuss whether the sacrifice is worth it. Can we discuss whether it is just an almighty boondoggle? It may be worse. It could be a set of policies that will destroy society as we know it, and make our children’s futures incalculably worse.

We owe it to future generations to pause the current madcap pace of change and engage in an adult conversation to win over the rank and file. There are very, very good reasons to invest in sustainable and non-polluting clean energy, but as pointed out by sensible centrist commentators, there is no need for coercion.

Let’s remember, CO2, the IPCC’s sworn enemy, is a life-giving substance that is present in trace quantities in the atmosphere and is contributing to the greening of our planet. It would be an unmitigated disaster if we back the wrong horse(s) by rushing to enforce a flawed doctrine derived from a mistaken demonisation of carbon dioxide.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

UK slammed for opposing ICJ ruling on Israel Occupation of Palestine

MEMO | August 26, 2023

The UK has come under scrutiny for reportedly attempting to hinder the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from issuing a legal opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The UK’s alleged move came to light through a 43-page legal opinion submitted to the ICJ, which is currently in the fact-finding stage before an expected advisory opinion from the Court on the legal consequences of the “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian land.

The UK’s objection submitted in the “amicus brief” has been met with dismay as it not only seeks to derail the work of the ICJ, it also goes against the grain of other member states and non-governmental organisations by opposing the hearing of the case entirely.

Critics argue that the UK’s stance ignores the entrenched nature of Israel’s occupation and the deteriorating situation on the ground. Palestinian diplomats and international humanitarian law experts have expressed dismay at the UK’s submission. The ICJ, based in The Hague, is the top United Nations Court for resolving disputes between nations; its decisions are binding, although it lacks enforcement powers.

“[Assuming that the document is authentic] … this is a rather weak and uninformed document that portrays Israel’s longstanding occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and its annexation of East Jerusalem, as a bilateral dispute between two states,” Dr Victor Kattan, an assistant professor in public international law at the University of Nottingham is reported saying in the Guardian.

Kattan stressed that the ICJ can issue an opinion on any legal question arising from the work of the UN, and the General Assembly does not need Israel’s consent to refer a request to the Court. The ICJ’s 2004 opinion on “The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, for example, was issued without the consent of the occupation state. The UN Court found that the barrier violates international law and should be torn down. The vote of the justices was 14 to 1.

The latest attempt to obtain an ICJ opinion holds significance for Israel and the Palestinians, as it addresses the legality of Israel’s occupation – a matter that has not been conclusively judged in the 56 years of its existence. Legal experts have judged the occupation to be illegal due to its length and also because of Israel’s de-facto annexation, which has made occupation a permanent reality.

The UK’s position contrasts with the UN General Assembly resolution, which sought an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The UK, along with Israel and other Western states, voted against the resolution.

The ICJ’s deliberations on this matter are anticipated to last at least a year, and the question of whether the occupation is still temporary will be a central point of discussion. The ICJ’s potential findings could influence recognition, aid and obligations related to the occupation. Israel has criticised the referral to the ICJ, with its envoy to the UN describing the General Assembly vote as delegitimising, a term that is often used to label critics of the occupation state as anti-Semitic.

Members have until 25 October to make comments on statements to the ICJ submitted by others. If the Court accepts the request for an advisory opinion, as is expected, deliberations will last at least a year.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Deaths by Vaccination Status

Safe and Effective?

NAKED EMPEROR | AUGUST 25, 2023

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have finally published their ‘Deaths by vaccination status, England’ dataset. This is for deaths occurring between 1 April 2021 and 31 May 2023.

I know many people consider these data unreliable but I always have a look at it nevertheless.

To assess whether the vaccine is safe I decided to look at all cause deaths separated by vaccine status (Table 5). This shows the number of all cause deaths for the unvaccinated and ‘ever vaccinated’ by month. It is also separated by age group (18-39; 40-49; 50-59; 60-69; 70-79; 80-89 & 90+).

For each month I looked at the total number of deaths and calculated what percentage of those deaths were in the ‘ever vaccinated’ category. So if there were 30 unvaccinated deaths and 70 vaccinated deaths, the percentage of ‘ever vaccinated’ deaths would be 70%.

This doesn’t really tell us anything, however. The headline might be shocking, e.g. ‘90% of deaths occurring in the vaccinated’ but if 90% of the population are vaccinated then that is to be expected.

However, if a higher percentage of deaths are occurring in the vaccinated (than the percentage of people vaccinated), then perhaps the vaccines are causing some harm. There are many confounders which confuse things but it is at least a signal that something is up and should be looked at. For example if 90% of the country is vaccinated but 95% of deaths are in the vaccinated then perhaps the vaccine is causing the additional 5% of deaths.

So, I took the data showing the percentage of people vaccinated with at least one dose from the UK government website, cleaned it up so that it matched the ONS formatting and created a few graphs.

You can see that in the 18-39 age group, as the vaccine rollout started, there was a higher percentage of deaths in the vaccinated versus the number of people vaccinated. This may have been because sick or immunocompromised people were vaccinated first. The two percentages then quickly merged before beginning to separate again in mid 2022.

This is also the exact time when excess deaths began to skyrocket. Ever since that point, the percentage of deaths in the ‘ever vaccinated’ group has been higher than the percentage of people vaccinated.

Here are the graphs for the other age groups.

You can see that in all the age groups, except for the 50-59 year olds, the percentage of all cause deaths in the ‘ever vaccinated’ group is higher than the percentage of that group that is vaccinated. The data for the 80-89 and 90+ groups are particularly shocking.

Worthy of an investigation? Of course not. Instead the NHS is launching a £50,000 probe to uncover why NHS staff aren’t getting Covid and flu jabs. Probably because they can see the data presented above with their own eyes.

August 26, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Will Scientific Evidence Ever Silence the Pro-Mask Cult?

Facial equity mask
BY DR GARY SIDLEY | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 24, 2023

It is a long-established conclusion from the scientific world that face masks achieve no appreciable reduction in viral transmission. We knew this in 2015-16 with regard to surgeons and their patients (here and here). We knew this in 2020 from a gold-standard Cochrane review, an analysis of 14 studies on influenza and a healthcare investigation that concluded that masks “may paradoxically lead to more transmissions”. We knew this in 2021 based on the Danish mask study and two comprehensive evidence reviews (here and here). We knew this in 2022 in relation to primary schools and universities, and a debunking of premature pro-mask conclusions drawn from the Bangladesh study. And – as if more evidence was needed – at the start of 2023 we had the latest Cochrane review, yet again concluding that covering our faces with cloth and plastic does not significantly reduce the likelihood of contracting respiratory viral infections. Yet, despite this collective scream from the scientific community that the ‘MASKS DON’T WORK’, it seems that nothing will muzzle the strident protestations of the mask disciples, such as those at Independent SAGE.

A recent article in the Daily Mail led with the scary headline: ‘Scientists raise alarm over new Covid variant and call for return of face masks.’ Two of the scientists raising concerns were Professors Trish Greenhalgh and Stephen Griffin, the former announcing, “It’s, once again, time to mask up”, while the latter concurs – albeit more cryptically – with his recommendation of the re-imposition of a “mitigation-based approach”. Both Greenhalgh and Griffin are members of Independent SAGE.

When Independent SAGE was formed in May 2020, as an alternative to official SAGE, it claimed to be a group of multi-disciplinary experts whose mission was to offer the Government scientific advice on how to minimise deaths during the Covid crisis. In reality, it constituted a group of zero-Covid fanatics pushing extreme counter-pandemic measures: whatever non-evidenced, human-rights-infringing restrictions the Government proposed, Independent SAGE typically called for them to be longer and harsher.

A cursory inspection of the group’s membership explains a lot. The previously-mentioned Trish Greenhalgh is, undoubtedly, the most extreme spokesperson for the pro-mask cult, previously asserting that the search for rigorous scientific evidence was the “enemy of good policy“. The founding Chairman of the group, Professor David King, was the senior scientific advisor to the Government of Tony Blair, currently an influential advocate of globalist agendas promoting top-down control of the population. Another core participant is the lifelong member of the Communist party – Professor Susan ‘let’s-wear-a-mask-forever‘ Michie. Also, the current co-Chair of Independent SAGE is Anthony Costello, a Professor of Global Health and Sustainable Development at University College London and a former director at the World Health Organisation. Given the histories and affiliations of these group participants it was predictable that they would grasp the next available opportunity to call for the return of community masking.

Clearly, the use of the term ‘independent’ in relation to this group was a misnomer. In stark contrast, Dr. Ashley Croft – the independent expert commissioned by the Scottish Covid Inquiry – appears to be a much better fit for the role of supplier of impartial information, free from the shackles of groupthink and mainstream ideology. Dr. Croft is a Consultant Public Health Physician and Medical Epidemiologist. In his report he lists his conclusions about the  physical measures taken against COVID-19 as follows (emphasis mine):

In 2020 there was scientific evidence to support the use of some of the physical measures (e.g. frequent handwashing, the use of PPE in hospital settings) adopted against COVID-19. For other measures (e.g. face mask mandates outside of healthcare settings, lockdowns, social distancing, test, trace and isolate measures) there was either insufficient evidence in 2020 to support their use – or alternatively, no evidence; the evidence base has not changed materially in the intervening three years.

It has been argued that the restrictive measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in individual, societal and economic harm that was avoidable and that should not have occurred.

This genuinely independent voice was not well-received in some quarters. Unused to the expression of viewpoints that deviate from the dominant Covid narrative, the mainstream media predictably squealed disapproval about Croft’s perspective and resorted to attempts to smear him for his “vaccine scepticism”. And no doubt those ideologues at Independent SAGE will – as I write – be doing likewise.

As the year advances, the evidence against mass masking continues to accumulate. In April, researchers at London’s St. George’s Hospital reported that a mask mandate in 2020-21 in their healthcare settings “made no discernible difference to reducing hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections”. And – lest we forget – we purportedly live in a free and open society where coercive restrictions should only be imposed where there is unequivocal proof of a pronounced and widespread benefit from adoption of the behaviour targeted; we are a million miles away from that scenario, and that is even before we consider the harms of community masking.

But will this quieten the pro-mask cult? It seems these perpetual advocates of face coverings are driven by some supra cognitive construct that trumps the empirical evidence. Mass concealment of human faces appears to signify something sacred to groups like Independent SAGE: is it equality, egalitarianism, altruism? Or could their persistent pushing of masks be simply due to cognitive dissonance: they have stridently trumpeted the practice for so long that it would now be too psychologically painful, and damaging to their status and self-image, to admit their previous energies have been woefully misplaced? Whatever the underlying reason, we can expect escalating appeals from the muzzle mafia over the coming months.

Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign.

August 26, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

The Royal Society Lockdown Report Authors Understand That by Ignoring the High Quality Evidence they Reach the Politically Acceptable Conclusion

BY DR CARL HENEGHAN AND DR TOM JEFFERSON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 25, 2023

This week saw the publication of a suite of systematic reviews by the Royal Society (RS) on the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the pandemic.

Politico headlined with ‘Top review says Covid lockdowns and masks worked, period’. The Guardian led with ‘Lockdowns and face masks “unequivocally” cut the spread of Covid, report finds’, and the i newspaper stated: ‘Masks and social distancing did reduce Covid infections, new report shows, proving lockdown sceptics wrong.’

So there you have it, a slam dunk, sceptics, you were all wrong. You should have masked up and stayed in lockdown.

Even more so when you listen to the Chair of the report’s group, Mark Walport, who said: “There is sufficient evidence to conclude that early, stringent implementation of packages of complementary NPIs was unequivocally effective in limiting SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

Four systematic reviews informed the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the Covid pandemic. However, here is some of what these reviews report.

A systematic review on environmental control measures:

Many of these studies were assessed to have critical risk of bias in at least one domain, largely due to confounding factors that could have affected the measured outcomes. As a result, there is low confidence in the findings.

Testing, contact tracing and isolation interventions among the general population on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2:

One study, an RCT, showed that daily testing of contacts could be a viable strategy to replace lengthy quarantine of contacts. Based on the scarcity of robust empirical evidence, we were not able to draw any firm quantitative conclusions about the quantitative impact of TTI interventions in different epidemic contexts.

Effectiveness of face masks for reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2:

We analysed 35 studies in community settings (three RCTs and 32 observational) and 40 in healthcare settings (one RCT and 39 observational). Ninety-one percent of observational studies were at ‘critical’ risk of bias (ROB) in at least one domain, often failing to separate the effects of masks from concurrent interventions.

Effectiveness of international border control measures during the COVID-19 pandemic:

There is little evidence that most travel restrictions, including border closure and those implemented to stop the introduction of new variants of concern, were particularly effective.

The report makes the same errors that the UKHSA and Public Health England did. They ignored the critical biases and the confounders when drawing conclusions. Some of the comments misunderstand the evidence required for making healthcare decisions.

Chris Dye, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, who led the review on masks for the Royal Society, said if they had only looked at randomised controlled trials, they would have come to the same conclusion as the Cochrane review. However, the researchers behind the paper released Thursday chose to analyse a larger body of studies and found strong evidence that masks work.

So, if we ignore high-quality evidence, we arrive at the conclusion we want – they fully understand the politics. Low-quality evidence means the estimated effect will differ substantially from the actual effect – we’ve known this for quite some time, and it is fundamental to the delivery of evidence-based interventions. An approach that uses low-quality evidence shouldn’t inform healthcare, and it doesn’t. That’s why we have NICE, which uses the best available evidence to develop recommendations that guide health, public health and social care decisions.

Did the reviewers, for instance, ask if there was a protocol for any of these studies – something we have previously pointed out. There were none, despite protocols being essential for robust research.

There is something we do agree with in the report, that the “future assessments should also consider the costs as well as the benefits of NPIs, in terms of their impacts on livelihoods, economies, education, social cohesion, physical and mental wellbeing, and potentially other aspects”. However this report looked at none of that.  The single focus on one outcome, ignoring harms, further hinders informed decision-making.

The RS report wants us to believe that RCTs are impossible during a pandemic: “While RCTs should not be discounted, it is highly likely that most information in a future pandemic will continue to be observational.”

Yet the pandemic has re-emphasised the importance of high-quality randomised clinical trials and highlighted the need for preparation, coordination and collaboration.

The Royal Society review shows that some academics are losing their ability to think critically. Instead of retrofitting evidence to preconceived conclusions, it would be much better to report the uncertainties and set out those questions that need addressing. Refusal to acknowledge uncertainties does a disservice to society and undermines public trust in research.

Staying at home decreases your risk of all sorts of hazards – in the short term, you won’t get run over and you’ll reduce the risk of an infection or an accident. But what matters is the costs of what happens when you reemerge.

August 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Free Speech Union Highlights New Risk to Free Speech in the Workplace: Carbon Literacy Training

BY TOBY YOUNG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 25, 2023

The Free Speech Union has just published a briefing on carbon literacy training by Thomas Harris, its Director of Data and Impact. The FSU is concerned that it will have a chilling effect on free speech in the workplace in the same way that unconscious bias training and anti-racism training does, with employees reluctant to challenge the ideas behind it for fear of jeopardising their careers.

Carbon literacy training is spreading rapidly across UK offices and places of study, with over 67,000 citizens certified as ‘carbon literate’ according to the Carbon Literacy Project (CLP), the main organisation behind the initiative. (Between financial year-end September 2021 and September 2022, CLP’s income grew from £183.8k to £637.7k, an increase of nearly 250%.) The training takes it for granted that we’re in the midst of a ‘climate emergency’ and recommends that employees embrace various radical solutions, including net zero.

The Free Speech Union is concerned that this training is embedding a particular orthodoxy about climate change in British workplaces, leaving employees feeling unable to challenge it. While it’s indisputable that average global temperatures have increased since the mid-19th Century people hold a range of views about the causes and severity of climate change and that in turn influences their opinion about the best way to tackle it – or, indeed, whether tackling it is possible or necessary. Different solutions to the problems created by climate change are informed by different values and recommending one approach over another inevitably involves making a political choice. There is no-such thing as an apolitical, ‘scientific’ solution. Consequently, employees should not be put under pressure to endorse a particular approach or threatened with disciplinary action if they fail to adjust their behaviour to follow this approach, particularly in their private lives.

In those companies seeking accreditation as a ‘Carbon Literate Organisation’ (CLO), up to 80% of staff are expected to become ‘carbon literate’. Carbon literate accreditation requires employees to embrace a particular view about climate change and identify at least one action they can take to reduce their own carbon footprint, as well as at least one action involving other people. The FSU fears that employees may be penalised if they refuse to comply with these requirements because they do not share a particular point of view.

The FSU first became aware of this new threat to free speech in the workplace when it was contacted by a member who is concerned about his career after he challenged the carbon literacy training provided by his employer. The FSU believes he was right to be concerned. To secure CLP’s platinum, gold, and silver CLO accreditation, companies are expected to embed carbon literacy in the annual targets of staff members and evaluate their performance accordingly. This means that employees who don’t subscribe to a particular view on climate change could find themselves missing out on pay awards or promotion unless they self-censor or pretend to hold convictions they don’t have.

If you’re being forced to undergo carbon literacy training in your workplace and are worried you might get into trouble for challenging the climate activist agenda behind it, you can contact Thomas Harris at the Free Speech Union here. And if you’re not already a member of the FSU, you can join here.

August 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Thought Police

The Center For Countering Digital Hate

BY DAVID MARKS | AUGUST 17, 2023

The assembling of a compelling and fair response to an infectious viral outbreak is an immense challenge. Ideally, unbiased experts without conflicts of interest develop a survey of potentially effective remedies. The team includes seasoned pathologists, broad-thinking social psychologists, experienced epidemiologists, holistic dieticians, and veteran practitioners of complementary and indigenous medicine.

Imagine a broadly trusted, well-meaning group gathering knowledge, and through consensus, generating recommendations and medical guidelines designed to have the greatest impact towards minimizing suffering. In making the best efforts to evaluate solutions and means of relief, they never lose sight of weighing risks versus benefits.

This did not happen. During the recent pandemic, all of those who considered or attempted to approach the crisis without the blessings of authorities were summarily belittled, repressed, and disgraced.

Many voices of reason were confounded by the enigmatic organization, the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Their duplicitous activities were neither creative nor supportive, and simply aimed at destroying those who refused to agree with dogmatic mandates and protocols generated by the pharmaceutical industry.

At the peak of CCDH’s influence, they released a malicious piece of propaganda, called The Disinformation Dozen. The document was a frontal, full-scale attack on those who questioned the viability and motives of the mainstream response to the pandemic. This manifesto was conceived as a distractive and deceptive instrument — disseminated among the willing world press corps. Not only was the news media compromised by their funders, but they were also hungry for a scapegoat and eager to enthusiastically repeat easily drawn, though suspect conclusions.

The CCDH’s overt purpose was to stop any alternative thinking about how to respond to a viral outbreak. Their offense against those who failed to accept vaccines as a panacea presents a telling window into the boldness of authoritarian bullying over the last three years.

The Missouri v. Biden lawsuit alleges that the White House pressured social media to close accounts of pandemic policy dissenters. During discovery, Eric Waldo, the Senior Advisor to the Surgeon General admitted CCDH briefed their office before they pressured Facebook for more censorship.

Most recently CCDH has come under increased scrutiny with a lawsuit by Twitter claiming they are masquerading as a legitimate research firm and that they illegally obtained data to use it in a scare campaign to deter advertisers from the platform.

Concurrently, the publications and damage done by Imran Ahmed, the chief executive officer of CCDH, and his collaborators, are being examined by the House Judiciary Committee. The ongoing investigation into government censorship of alternative viewpoints during the pandemic has determined that CCDH’s activities are of interest. Ahmed was notified that he must supply all documents related to CCDH and its relationship with the federal government and social media companies.

CCDH purports to be a non-profit organization without political affiliation or funding, protecting the public from dangerous misinformation. As they face increasing scrutiny and pressure, a thorough examination of their origins and tactics reveals the mechanics of an organization whose mission is to censor enemies of the state and the pharmaceutical industry.

On The Attack

As the COVID crisis escalated, Ahmed assembled a primary list of competitors to Big Pharma; disparaging those who simply questioned a single prescribed solution. Without presenting evidence, The Disinformation Dozen claimed twelve individuals held the primary responsibility for vaccine hesitancy and thousands of deaths. While leaping to these conclusions, Ahmed also surmised that the motivation of anyone who expressed opinions that did not conform with industry and government — was financial. The report insists that sources of alternative information must be de-funded and de-platformed.

CCDH’s The Disinformation Dozen was preceded and followed by lesser-know reports and op-eds, including; The Anti-Vax Playbook, the Anti-Vax Industry, Substack & Anti-Vax Newsletters, Pandemic Profiteers, and How to Deal With Coronavirus Misinformation. This assembly of outright propaganda had a single intent: ending any dissent to unswerving allegiance to vaccine therapy.

Incredibly, there are no details in all of these publications that informs or assures the public about vaccine safety and effectiveness. What the CCDH reports all have in common is the assumption that vaccines are Big Pharma’s gift to mankind and that all other responses to infectious disease are heresy and worthy of scorn and condemnation. These assaults on dissenters are filled with strongly worded guidance, both for individuals and governments, urging people to resist and disregard those who dare counter the pharmaceutical narrative. Strikingly, the reports show complete indifference to free speech, lateral thinking, and medical autonomy.

CCDH leadership’s lack of qualifications in public health and epidemiology is indicative that their intentions and strategy are other than altruistic. Despite his organization’s goal to identify and counter digital hate, Imran Ahmed’s résumé reveals no recognition of medical or humanitarian ethics.

Not surprisingly, Ahmed has a history of blindly supporting Big Pharma’s dictates concerning the viability and safety of vaccines. For years, he and his associates have specialized in attacking anyone who doesn’t follow the narrow guidelines of pharmaceutical industry preferences.

Ahmed is not medically qualified and shows no understanding of healthcare. However, he has been a political operative and has worked behind the scenes for power brokers at the highest level.

Profiles In Deception

Of particular interest is a telling British political scandal dubbed, Brickgate. Ahmed had been working for MP Hilary Benn, another pharma cheerleader. During the brief challenge in 2016 to the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbin, he became the communications director for Angela Eagle, an MP who was one of two possible replacements for Corbin. Ahmed was the point man on an allegation that a brick was thrown through a window in Eagle’s office, with the implication that she was being threatened by her political opponents. The UK press promoted the story, reporting on Ahmed’s accusations and outrage.

The facts proved otherwise. The window turned out to be in a shared stairwell and broken from the inside. A brick was never found, and a police inquiry determined it was very unlikely a hostile act. Whereas Ahmed undoubtedly knew these details, he attempted to portray a different story to gain political points for his boss.

This seemingly minor tale illustrates that the noble role Ahmed presents currently was preceded by his willingness to do whatever it takes to serve his masters. It also confirms that his work has been other than in the service of revealing truth.

Ahmed’s shadowy background and relationships with politicians, including his co-founder of CCDH, Morgan McSweeney, certainly do not qualify him to judge anyone’s ethical standards.

Within a few years of Brickgate, Ahmed followed his political godfather, McSweeney, in further machinations toward engineering the agenda of Labour Party leadership. Ahmed took the helm of CCDH, and McSweeney remains integral to the senior staff of MP Keir Starmer. He is a serving member of the vaccine-friendly Trilateral Commission, the current head of the Labour Party, and a likely future UK Prime Minister. Starmer was an early proponent of the COVID vaccine and has a close relationship with Lexington Communications, a lobbying firm that represents Pfizer. With the strong support of Starmer, the United Kingdom was the first country to release the Pfizer COVID vaccine. Even as it was rolled out, he pressed for government repression in a joint effort with CCDH, harassing those who dared to question vaccine safety and effectiveness.

Most of Ahmed’s cohorts all have common interests that have little to do with well-being.

Board Member and MP Damian Collins is another pro-Pharma devotee. Pfizer’s main UK plant was in Kent — Collin’s home district — and he was a strong proponent of the early release of their COVID vaccine. He is also directly associated with the military intelligence group, Integrity Initiative, and a member of the Henry Jackson Society, a secretive association that has connections with the CIA.

The fabric of CCDH’s personnel is embroidered with intelligence community assets. There is no better example of this than Ahmed’s communications director, Lindsay Moran, a self-declared former CIA operative, with experience in consulting for mainstream media. Her previous employment does not make her a criminal, though it does bring further into question the intent and operations of CCDH.

Considering Imran Ahmed’s credentials, known associates, and the profile of other CCDH figures, it can be asserted that there is more to the organization than its stated purpose. At a minimum, this background brings into serious doubt Ahmed’s ability to inform and advise the public in an unbiased manner.

Without awareness or mention of his political affiliations, Ahmed has been relied on for stories and quoted by many news outlets, who present CCDH as a pristine source of factual information.

In one glowing personal profile, his work is described in an article from 2021 on the Global Citizen website. Avoiding questions about his past work, Ahmed’s views are swallowed whole by the authors and repeated gleefully, including the outrageous claim that almost all COVID deaths are among the unvaccinated. The most telling information in the entire piece is at the end: This series was made possible with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It is important to evaluate this hagiographic portrait and consider that it is presented by Global Citizen, an international non-profit that does not hide ecstatic support of vaccination. According to its website, the organization’s central pursuit is raising and directing funds toward global poverty and health. Global Citizen sponsored a spectacular fundraising concert in 2021 called VAX Live — where among the luminaries who appeared among performers was President Biden, who described the crisis as a pandemic of the unvaccinated; perhaps the best advertising the pharmaceutical industry ever had. The concert successfully promoted and procured COVID-19 vaccines with funds raised by the event.

The Money Trail

Global Citizen has intimate relationships with the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the World Health Organization. These partners share a common interest in vaccine advancement and have gained undue influence over governments and the press. As political leadership floundered in the face of the building healthcare scare, these unelected power brokers stepped in to persuade the world that vaccination was the only remedy to consider.

CCDH insists that it does not take money from partisan organizations or receive government funds, however, this is difficult to confirm when they refuse to reveal all details of its funding. The world of non-profits has numerous routes for financing to be directed in ways to avoid scrutiny.

Some of the not-for-profit organizations that are partners with CCDH claim to have high-minded goals, yet support an organization that betrays indifference to freedom of expression. The Institute For Strategic Dialogue facilitates and defends CCDH in contrast to its stated mission:

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to safeguarding human rights and reversing the rising tide of polarisation, extremism and disinformation worldwide.

ISD structure and membership betray a different agenda. Attacking those with dissenting opinions who question mainstream corporate concerns is a cause of the polarized environment that they claim to safeguard.

Evidence points to well-endowed philanthropic organizations with ties to the pharmaceutical industry propping up CCDH and their hostile scheming. Support also includes money funneled through the shady world of PR agencies that are paid millions by Big Pharma to promote their interests. The Paris-based, Publicis Groupe, has directed such resources, admitting to relationships with fact-checkers that support their client’s positions. CCDH and a similar entity, Newsguard, both depend on minimal scrutiny of the structure and motivation for their financing. The perception of these non-profits would change dramatically if the public realized how their presentations are influenced by money.

Although financing has yet to be tracked, there are signals that point to a possible Bill Gates — CCDH relationship. Ahmed instinctively and repeatedly protects Gates and consistently attacks those who question his motivation for supporting vaccination.

In the Anti-Vaxx Playbook, Ahmed claims Gates is attacked symbolically within a word slaw that sidesteps the powerful influence of the Gates Foundation:

Anti-vaccine campaigners have collaborated with alternative health entrepreneurs and conspiracists to ensure that global health philanthropist Bill Gates has become a symbolic figure that represents all of their attacks on the trustworthiness of vaccine advocates.

These attacks are not aimed at influencing the ongoing debate over a Covid vaccine, in which the role of Bill Gates takes a back seat to more practical issues. The real utility of this campaign of vilification is to create a symbol and associated memes that aid the communication of interrelated beliefs about Covid, vaccines and conspiracies.

Bill Gates has come to represent a complex of anti-vaxxer talking points and conspiracy theories. Virtually every element of the on line anti-vaxx movement has found ways of featuring him in their narratives, in a variety of contexts and tones.

This description is a conspicuous attempt to deflect well-deserved attention from Bill Gates, claiming so-called anti-vaxxers are simply mentioning his name as a talking point.

Contrary to where Ahmed would direct us, an examination of Gates is central to understanding how philanthropy, corporate influence, and profiteering form government policies. Attempts at blurring the role of Gates and his foundation as they support vaccines and COVID response policies reveal CCDH’s loyalty to protecting the milieu of its political and financial benefactors.

The philanthropic and corporate worlds’ support and reliance on CCDH is at the nucleus of this deceptive contrivance, enhancing the facade that protects CCDH from scrutiny.

There are a wide variety of theories about why this shaping of public perception is so important. One consequence is obvious; the fraud increases the amount of profits for the pharmaceutical industry and the billionaires who support vaccine sales. Financing organizations like CCDH is a necessity in the general plan to minimize public doubt about an immensely lucrative product.

CCDH is paid to manipulate sentiment without substantiation. It remains stunningly apparent that no supporting details, scientific reports, or verifiable sources of facts appear in any CCDH reports. They merely use the premise that vaccination is the only trustworthy solution for infectious diseases — to vilify their targets.

Defending The Indefensible

The repercussions of the antics of the pharmaceutical-philanthropic consortium are exhibited in this sordid tale. Yet the damning revelations about Imran Ahmed and CCDH are unreported as yet by a press corps that trusts and mimics a political hack.

There remains a wholesale and uncritical acceptance of CCDH while its ability to present an objective assessment of any medical or healthcare opinion is demonstrably biased. Their mission has no basis in exposing the truth, yet nodding promoters still acquiesce to their alleged veracity.

The growing evidence of connections between individuals and entities that promote vaccines and so-called fact-checkers underlines the degradation of news gathering and reporting. The willingness of the news media to accept and disseminate CCDH disinformation without scrutiny reveals these dynamics and the dangerous trend toward authoritarian censorship.

As CCDH faces legal consequences for its negligence and a congressional inquiry into its relationship with the government, the organization continues to manipulate the truth with deceptive lies. They must rely on the press and the public to remain blind to their duplicity.

As a response to the Twitter (X) lawsuit, in an open letter signed by its supporters, CCDH dares to invoke a threat to their rights to free speech;

We view these efforts as a threat to the right to the freedom of expression, resulting in a dangerous chilling effect on civil society, experts, and advocates – and ultimately the public, which deserves to know how X and similar platforms are spreading hate and disinformation.

The appeal ends with desperate phraseology that reflects the height of hypocrisy:

The misuse of the legal system and other forms of intimidation against researchers, experts, and advocates who seek to hold social media companies accountable is an attack of the right to freedom of expression and access to information and must cease. The bullying of those seeking to speak truth to power cannot be tolerated.

Indeed.

In attempting to defend themselves, these words further betray CCDH’s hypocrisy. And the list of those signing on to this rebuttal only indicates how deeply compromised the corporate world has become in pretending to have noble exploits.

It is most important to view the activities of CCDH from the broadest historical perspective.

Their censorship efforts are at the epicenter of an open collaboration between corrupt industrialists and compromised politicians; repressive methodology with hostile tactics display the apparatus and consequences of merging the corporate world with the government.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

London City Hall Tries to Put Pressure on Scientists Who Doubted Climate Policy – Report

Sputnik – 20.08.2023

London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office tried to “silence” scientists who called into question the effectiveness of the ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) policy promoted by the head of the city, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

Shirley Rodrigues, the London Mayor’s deputy for environment and energy, told in emails to Imperial College London professor Frank Kelly that she was “really disappointed” by scientists publishing results that cast doubt on the effectiveness of Ulez, the newspaper reported, adding that the corresponding complaint was sent in November 2021.

In particular, Rodrigues said that she was “deeply concerned” about the damage done to the credibility of the Mayor’s office and Ulez. In response, Kelly promised to write a Ulez-friendly report, the report added.

The report stated that since 2021, Kelly’s research group has received over 800,000 pounds ($1.018 million) from the mayor’s office. However, the publication by scientists led to a cooling in their relations with the London city hall. This, in turn, caused the reluctance of representatives of the scientific community to write any new materials about Ulez, the newspaper noted.

The Ulez initiative was first announced by then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson in 2015. Later, Khan launched an initiative that included, among other things, the installation of special traffic signs and cameras. Since 2020, the London authorities have had to spend over 850,000 pounds to rebuild infrastructure for the initiative, which has been repeatedly damaged by vandals.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

West has shown its ‘true Russophobic face’ – Lavrov

RT | August 18, 2023

Washington and Brussels have openly unleashed a hybrid war against everything Russian, dropping their masks after decades of pretending to be civilized and adequate international partners, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with International Affairs, published on Saturday.

“Many of our former partners have been concealing their Russophobic nature under the veil of hypocrisy, but have now shown their true face in all its glory,” he said. “However, there is also the flip side of the coin here, since the Global Majority saw the true face of those who went as far as [to] aspire to a monopoly in defining the so-called universal values.”

“Today’s West is steered by people like Josep Borrell who divide the world into a blooming ‘garden’ and ‘the jungle,’ where the latter clearly applies to most of humanity,” Lavrov added.

The West has spent decades cynically transforming neighboring Ukraine into a “hostile military bulwark against Russia by nurturing an entire generation of politicians ready to declare war on our shared past, culture and everything Russian,” according to Lavrov.

Western capitals even openly admitted that reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine was never part of their plan, and that the Minsk agreements were originally designed to “buy some time to prepare a military scenario and deliver weapons to Kiev.”

“I think that the essential thing we must understand in this regard is that the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,” the top Russian diplomat said “They have not hesitated to use subversive methods and perform acts of sabotage, as was the case with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea.”

Lavrov also accused Washington and its allies of using all possible coercive means to prevent Russia’s partners from engaging in economic and other kinds of cooperation, while also “making outrageous efforts to disconnect Russia from international cooperation mechanisms in culture, education, research, and sports.”

One thing that the West fails to understand, according to Lavrov, is that “Russia will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests,” and thus would be better for the opponents to realize that “confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized” means for achieving a balance of interests.

August 19, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The “Wellness-to-Fascism Pipeline” Baffles Experts as Truth Marches On

Congregating and Caring about Your Health is Dangerous to our Democracy

BY IGOR CHUDOV | AUGUST 13, 2023

Be careful with your workouts! An article from the Guardian alerts us to a “wellness-to-fascism pipeline.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/02/everything-youve-been-told-is-a-lie-inside-the-wellness-to-facism-pipeline

“People who study conspiracy theories” are worried that joining gyms and trying to get healthy makes people descend into what these experts describe as fascism, explains author James Ball.

James has a peculiar idea of what fascism is, however:

According to James, only fascists question masks, lockdowns, or the BBC. Good people mysteriously become “fascists” when they join gyms or look after their wellness.

Some of the most dangerous people, believe it or not, are personal trainers!

Some people’s problems escalated when their personal trainer learned about their work. “I had three successive personal trainers who were anti-vax. One Belgian, two Swiss,” I was told by a British man who has spent most of the past decade working in Europe for the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual summit at Davos for politicians and the world’s elite.

The poor WEF chap above was even dropped by his personal trainer when his employment at the WEF was revealed:

When the trainer found out the man worked for the World Economic Forum, he was immediately cut off.

Most worryingly for the “conspiracy expert” Peter Knight, people of all political persuasions, right or left, end up in the same place when they realize that “everything is a lie”:

Peter Knight has the strangest explanation, by gender, as to why people “get sucked into conspiracy theories.”

He explains that men are drawn into conspiracies because of the “involuntary celibacy” movement.

It is not that difficult to imagine why young men hitting the gym might be susceptible to QAnon and its ilk. This group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) movement and similar, and numerous rightwing influencers have been targeting this group.

Mind you, at the beginning of the article, James Ball discussed how personal trainers are the superspreaders of conspiracies. Have you ever seen an involuntarily celibate gym personal trainer?

His explanation of why women believe the same theories could not be more different! Women, it turns out, believe the same conspiracies as men because of the “female data gap”!

“Far too often, we blame women for turning to alternative medicine, painting them as credulous and even dangerous,” she says. “But the blame does not lie with the women – it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body.”

Are They Intentionally Blind?

There is a much simpler explanation as to why people believe the “Covid was lab-made” conspiracy theory, “Covid vaccine does not work” conspiracy theory, or “15-minute cities are promoted by the World Economic Forum” theory.

The explanation is that these theories are true. Both genders are capable of critical thinking, seeing the truth, and sharing it.

This simple explanation does not insult millions of thinking men by portraying them as “incels,” nor does it portray women as stupid creatures confused by the imaginary “gender data gap.”

Trying to find explanations for complicated but important events affecting us and not believing dishonest press is not fascism. God gave us brains for a reason – to think for ourselves! Critical thinking is the opposite of fascism, which requires uncritical obedience to the state ideology.

The Most Important Social Network Needs No Computers

Despite its stupidity, the Guardian’s article exposes the most important social network that the press, fact-checkers, and the powers-to-be cannot control.

This social network is people physically and directly interacting with each other and sharing news and opinions.

It cannot be suppressed by means other than drastic lockdowns, which kept people at home in 2020. The gyms, far from being uniquely instrumental in developing critical thinking, are simply places where people congregate and share stuff while doing something pleasant. Thus, not surprisingly, gym-goers share explanations of current events with their peers without any censorship or any algorithmic intermediary.

The Guardian recognizes this:

Society’s discussion of QAnon, anti-vaxxers and other fringe conspiracies is heavily focused on what happens in digital spaces – perhaps too much so, to the exclusion of all else. The solution, though, is unlikely to be microphones in every gym and treatment room, monitoring what gets said to clients.

The conspiracy experts are baffled by this development and ironically blame “isolation,” even though the phenomenon they observe is rooted in physical interaction between people:

Jane has her own theory as to why her wellness group got radicalised and she did not – and it’s one that aligns with concerns from conspiracy experts, too. “I think it’s the isolation,” she concludes, citing lockdown as the catalyst, before noting the irony that conspiracies then kick off a cycle of increasing isolation by forcing believers to reject the wider world.

“It becomes very isolating because then their attitude is all: ‘Mainstream media … they lie about everything.’”

I do not think of myself and my dear subscribers as isolated: we congregate here, we read newspapers, although critically, and we interact with friends or relatives. Anyone can say anything they want in the comments. Am I wrong?

August 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

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