JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Good morning!
And y’all have a great day.
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top o’ the morn, to you too, good sir ! 🙂
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Could Le Pen win the French election?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10699165/Le-Pen-closes-gap-Macron-French-election-campaigns-ends-today-ahead-vote-Sunday.html
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This could be another reason why Macron is loosing support:
‘Two weeks before the first round, the government’s recourse to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company is stirring up the campaign.
In a report submitted on March 17, a senatorial commission of inquiry denounces the “sprawling phenomenon” of private consulting firms which exert a “growing influence on public policy”. Among these companies, the McKinsey firm is at the heart of the controversy, in particular because of its tax practices.
WHAT IS MCKINSEY?
McKinsey & Company is a consulting firm, that is to say a company paid by companies or administrations to fulfill specific missions or provide an analysis on a given subject.
Based in New York, McKinsey & Company is present in 65 countries around the world and employed 470 advisers in its French subsidiary in 2019.
In February 2021, a survey from the newspaper ‘Le Monde’ revealed the old ties that unite McKinsey and Emmanuel Macron. Several members would have assisted the head of state during his presidential campaign in 2017. (for ‘free’…it turned out very profitable in the end)
WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT USE THIS FIRM?
McKinsey has supported the government throughout the health crisis, 12.33 million euros were spent on its services over the period. McKinsey was particularly involved in setting up the vaccine strategy, criticized at its inception for its slowness.
The government also called on the firm to remedy computer difficulties linked to the reform of the APL, a job paid 4 million euros.
The firm was entrusted with more obscure missions, including a case study on “evolutions of the teaching profession” for which it obtained a contract of 500,000 euros. Asked about this in the Senate by Eliane Assassi, a senator and rapporteur for the commission of inquiry into the influence of consulting firms, the associate director of McKinsey France, Karim Tadjeddine could not say what this work had led to. A sequence that had created controversy.
WHAT IS MCKINSEY ACCUSED OF?
In addition to the question of the amounts of the contracts signed with McKinsey and their lack of transparency, the Senate report points to the tax practices of the French subsidiary of the firm.
“The McKinsey firm is subject to corporation tax in France, but its payments have been zero euros for at least 10 years, while its turnover on national territory reached 329 million euros in 2020 , of which about 5% in the public sector, and that it employs about 600 employees there”, accuses the report. Charges dismissed by the cabinet.
While Karim Tadjeddine had declared before the Commission of Inquiry that his employer paid corporate tax in France, the Senate took legal action for “false testimony”.
IS MCKINSEY THE ONLY FIRM USED BY THE GOVERNMENT?
Eurogroup, Capgemini, Ernst & Young, Accenture… The list of firms used by the government is long.
According to the Senate Commission of Inquiry, state contracts with these firms “more than doubled” between 2018 and 2021, reaching a record of more than one billion euros in 2021.
Emmanuel Macron is not the first president to have recourse to the private sector, this practice seems to have increased under his five-year term, in particular since the health crisis.
– https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/politique/mckinsey-soit-le-pnf-a-appris-de-l-affaire-fillon-soit-son-comportement-change-quand-il-s-agit-du-pouvoir-20220407 —> (McKinsey, “Either the PNF has learned from the Fillon case, or its behavior changes when it comes to power”)
– UnHerd: ‘Macron’s fake war on the elite’
‘Another recent student said that he had learned since graduating that ENA no longer has the same mystique within the French political and administrative system. Ministries, he said, were turning to the big consultancy firms, such as McKinsey, to make the strategic decisions that énarques once made.
“Macron’s decision fits this pattern, I fear. It’s part of a trend that’s been going on for several years to downgrade the importance of the senior French administration, to move away from a specifically French approach to French problems and become more international.” ‘
—–
programs of the different candidates in France:
Presidential: the program of Marine Le Pen (RN) in 3 minutes chrono (latribune.fr)
Présidentielle : le programme de Marine Le Pen (RN) en 3 minutes chrono
Presidential: the program of Emmanuel Macron (LREM) in 3 minutes chrono (latribune.fr)
Présidentielle : le programme de Emmanuel Macron (LREM) en 3 minutes chrono
—————–
22 professional services firms a strategic partner of WEF Davos (consultancy.eu) January 2020
Strategic Partners
The World Economic Forum is supported by an exclusive list of 100 strategic partners. These strategic partners “represent 100 leading global companies, each providing essential leadership to support WEF’s mission of improving the state of the world. Only the most recognised corporations with demonstrated track records of good governance and alignment with Forum values are invited to join this group,” according to Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman.
Notably, one fifth of strategic partners come from the professional services industry. This includes the globe’s largest strategic consulting firms of Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Kearney (formerly A.T. Kearney), Oliver Wyman (as part of Marsh & McLennan’s partnership) and McKinsey & Company.
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Endpoints news: (August 2021)
‘Three days after Pfizer inked its latest billion-dollar buyout, the New York pharma giant announced a successor for their chief dealmaker, CBO John Young, who retires after two years in the role and 34 years at the company. He will be replaced by Aamir Malik, a 24-year veteran of the “Big Three” consulting firm McKinsey, whose pharma division is most famous for having advised Purdue Pharma on how to increase opioid sales.
Malik’s official title will be chief business innovation officer. Although Malik is not mentioned in court documents related to McKinsey’s work with Purdue, he served as head of the pharma division as far back as 2014. McKinsey advised Purdue from 2009 to 2019.
At Pfizer, Malik will have big shoes to fill, and a lot of money to do it. Although Young was not CBO when Pfizer originally signed an mRNA vaccine collaboration with BioNTech back in 2018, he helped broker the expanded deal in winter of 2020 that led to their development of the first Covid-19 vaccine, as well as the various sub-deals and partnerships that helped them expand production to up to 3 billion doses per year.
Of course, all that Covid work has now given Pfizer a sizable war chest to continue its expansion. Malik will have plenty of vaccine revenues to spend as he looks to continue the vision from CEO Albert Bourla, who has promised investors would “see a lot of Phase II, Phase III business development deals that will allow us to bring in-house a lot of potential medicines that could become medicines in this time frame.”
Malik is co-managing partner of McKinsey’s US office and previously led its pharmaceuticals and medical products division. McKinsey’s pharmaceutical division is most well-known for its role in advising Purdue Pharma on how best to sell the Oxycontin. Purdue’s aggressive marketing of the opioid painkiller, beginning in the 1990s, is widely credited with helping start the opioid epidemic in the US.
McKinsey apologized for its work with Purdue and settled lawsuits for nearly $600 million, although it denied wrongdoing. Pfizer deferred questions about Malik’s work at McKinsey to the firm. Endpoints News has reached out and will update accordingly.
While at McKinsey, Malik was also mentioned in a lawsuit over Valeant Pharamaceuticals, the small pharma that made headlines in 2016 after raising the price of two heart drugs 310% and 720% respectively. A Florida lawsuit quoted an email from Malik to the CEO in Valeant in December, 2014 saying those drugs and others “have material pricing potential.” ‘
—–
https://apnews.com/article/opioid-crisis-victims-purdue-pharma-settlement-8bd28d490d6b12b4cf93b4c1ff90cf41
Drug victims face Purdue Pharma owners
By GEOFF MULVIHILL and JENNIFER PELTZ
March 13, 2022
————–
I’m grateful for the wonderful work of scientists etc, but sometimes one wonders…
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Boris comes out on the side of biology
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10697843/DEBBIE-HAYTON-Lets-end-nonsense-spoken-trans-women.html
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A German report into the statistically surprising number of Athletes dying following vaccination
https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/04/worldwide-vax-report/
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Latest example…..for AFL fans especially…Ollie Wines, the current Brownlow Medallist was carted off to hospital two nights ago as he has Myocarditis.
When I asked a GP about Myo- and Peri- Carditis last year, she said it was very very rare, and that she has NEVER had a case in her practice. I wonder if this is still the same (she is my mum’s GP, so I only see her in action occasionally).
The great cull is building speed,or what?
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https://www.afl.com.au/news/736937/wines-still-in-hospital-scans-reveal-star-ruck-s-injury
Its fine, his heart repaired itself.
Shoulders playing up though, probably end his career.
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There have also been reports of a large number of German mayors and local pollies in to 40-50 age group falling off the perch suddenly. Only registering because they have a public profile.
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yarpos. Linky?
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Has WUWT been hacked ?
function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}
starts briefly, then goes to above .
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Asked the same question on the Thursday Open Thread; can’t get into Anthony’s; hope it and he are OK.
Vlad
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Only on Firefox apparently
Old IE and Brave, no problems.. haven’t tried any other browsers.
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ps.. WUWT now know about the issue, and are trying to find out what is happening.
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Friday Evening in Wyoming, Anthony’s appears to be running normally (first found the ‘error’ on Friday morning, US Mountain Daylight time). Twelve hours later, seems to be OK.
Thanks to all who apparently alerted Anthony and mods that there was an issue,
Vlad
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You might enjoy my latest analysis:
https://www.cfact.org/2022/04/08/the-dread-1-5-degree-target-is-dead/
Also this from Menton:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/06/reality-cannot-penetrate-into-the-fantasy-world-of-climate-campaigners/
Global CO2 emissions have steadily increased by 50% in the last 20 years. This upward trend is not about to change, so the silly 1.5 degrees-by-model target is truly dead.
Now what?
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Followed your link , got same result as in comment #4.
Anyone else getting this ?
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Works ok for me.
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Works OK for me in Northeast Ohio, USA.
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Firefox is the issue, try a different browser.
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No problem with Safari and DDG.
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Works OK for me – on Firefox
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Yep, Seems fixed now 🙂
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I suspect a bad cookie ! 😉
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Now what? Just move the goalposts to another arbitary number and sell that as the new tipping point. Its always worked before.
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Not that easy. I think something like 1.6 or 1.7 is going to be a hard sell and will make them look foolish. 2.0 was the original UNFCCC number but the radicals wanted more so the Paris Agreement say “well under 2.0” which rules that out.
Like I said, fun to watch. And jeer. A lot.
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Has a wind or solar farm development application ever been rejected on grounds it would ‘wake or disturb the First Nations ancestors’.
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I won’t reveal my sources but around the time of Mabo the mining companies discovered that they could buy peace with aboriginal groups for a surprisingly affordable price compared to the massive amounts of money needed to develop a mine.
The sacred sites in the media are essentially just negotiations in progress. Sometimes the ructions are between a group who doesn’t think they are getting a good enough deal. Other times the ructions are between subgroups asserting dominance. Very occasionally there are significant anthopological sites which have been overlooked by the mine planners.
So to answer your question, it all depends on the dollars involved and who can be pressured in state and local government. That and the fact that wind and solar farms are invariably built on private land where native title has been extinguished.
But try to find any significant project where the palms of the local aboriginal groups have not been greased. Especially government projects ALWAYS consult the local aboriginal power brokers.
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Good one by Sundance! On topic of how we were bamboozled re The Rona Flu…
I know it’s happened to you guys. But I think we may have been the pathfinders of this unprecedented power grab by the worst and the stupidest officials, elected or not.
*****
“There was always a concern that any political leader who granted themselves extreme powers, under the pretense of the pandemic threat, would never want to relinquish that scale of control over their citizens. Indeed, it can be argued we are seeing those concerns come to fruition with supportive action from ruling elites in the various parliamentary and congressional offices.”
“Perhaps, just perhaps, if a legislative body was truly representative of the citizens, they would be using a few billion taxpayer dollars to purchase or offset fertilizer costs, help farmers with diesel fuel prices and work earnestly to insure full harvests this year.”
*****
@ https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/07/there-is-something-very-troublesome-about-the-western-govt-post-covid-rules-based-order/
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Cartoon: If a tree falls in the swamp…
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/04/918/516/cartoon-040622.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
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WUWT for me in NSW in downunder wide brown land has for an hour or so quickly flicked to a blank white page with a line of text –
function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}
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Works for me – https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/06/reality-cannot-penetrate-into-the-fantasy-world-of-climate-campaigners/
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Doesn’t work for me.
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But it does for me on Safari and Chrome but not on Firefox. I use a MacBook Air
https://wattsupwiththat.com
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Works on my Firefox, but its V56 and a lot of sites keep telling me to upgrade to the latest so they can censor it…
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As above.. Firefox not working with WUWT.. IE, Brave, no problems.
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No probs on DDG; just tried the link alongside, worked straightaway.
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Biden’s crisis of crises
These are dangerous times — and the problems are more historic than political
There are so many things going wrong — and so many radically bad decisions being made — it would be useless to focus on just one issue for this column. Before we can solve anything, we need to go item by item to understand the insanity, incompetence and destructiveness that historians will someday write defined the “Biden Disaster.”
Many of these will show up in future columns. Each item represents a threat to America economically, in national security, or culturally. Many will take a generation or more to recover from or solve.
This list is not in any particular order because it is so destructive — and in some cases so weird — I’m not sure a specific sequence exists. Taken together they represent a pattern that will alienate most Americans. If they come to define the modern Democratic Party, the Democrats may turn into a small minority faction for a generation or longer.
11 Items with the final one
11. Mr. Biden clearly has cognitive challenges. Vice President Kamala Harris is clearly cognitively hopeless (and maybe the dumbest person ever elected vice president).
These are dangerous times — and the problems are more historic than political.
America’s safety and survival are at stake. The current White House team is utterly incapable of managing this many simultaneous challenges.
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All the Big Guy’s Bag Men
As the Biden gang’s corruption is exposed, the kingpin shouldn’t feel too secure in his seat of power.
Joe Biden makes up for lacking the gift of gab in his grift of graft.
He may call a “salon” a “saloon” and describe his wife as the former vice president. But the Joe Biden who fails in letters passes numbers summa cum laude.
“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,’ ” Biden boasted of his threats to Ukraine’s leaders to withhold aid over a prosecutor who, coincidence of coincidences, investigated Burisma. “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in’ — I think it was about six hours — I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch — he got fired.”
One can foresee Joe Biden leaving office the same ignominious way that his next-state neighbor Mr. Agnew did. The greedy corruption stands as the obvious reason for this. The other reason involves Joe Biden, a person whose ascension to the presidency stemmed entirely from political expedience (i.e., the best guy to beat Trump). The moment he looks like a liability — and one assumes it comes this November — marks the moment his removal from office goes from conservative pipe dream to a possibility that even some Democrats consider.
Biden’s fall from the presidency, if it comes, then stems from the same force — political expediency — that brought him there in the first place. Certainly the ethics of the matter does not persuade the same unethical people who initially dismissed this corruption scandal as “Russian disinformation” and banned discussion of it on social media. Once Biden starts to imperil their positions, projects, and causes, then one foresees their treatment of the president as a human Chernobyl to run away from as far as possible.
A bag man, even if a member of your family, is still a bag man.
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Biden Family Corruption Update for April 7, 2022
Now that the Hunter Biden dam has finally burst for the MSM, we’re finally getting the “Hey, the Biden family sure seems to be involved in a lot of shady business deals” stories we should have gotten well before the 2020 election if the media weren’t so in the tank for Democrats.
A roundup:
Hunter and Joe aren’t the only crooked members of the Biden clan.
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I have never spoken to My Son about His Albatross
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Apologies for Hunter Biden’s Laptop
Smeared as stooges for Russia in 2020, Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley can claim vindication in 2022.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
The list of those owed an apology over the Hunter Biden affair may stretch to the moon and back. Due a position at the front of the line are the two men who first blew the lid off the Biden sleaze and endured a smearing for the ages.
Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson on Tuesday delivered the latest installment of their yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden’s questionable business dealings—laying out in Senate speeches the complex web of banking transactions tying his companies to entities connected to the Chinese government. Their exposé offered more detail into their September 2020 report about the Biden family’s foreign financial entanglements.
As courageous (and accurate) as the New York Post’s October 2020 reporting on the Hunter laptop was, it came after the Johnson-Grassley bombshell. Only now—18 months late—are mainstream media outlets grudgingly confirming the truth of that Senate report. “Inside Hunter Biden’s multi-million-dollar deals with a Chinese energy company,” read last week’s Washington Post story. Reporters acknowledge that many aspects of their account of Hunter’s business dealings with CEFC China Energy were “included in a Republican-led Senate report from 2020,” even if the Post only recently bothered to confirm “key details.”
The false-flag operation hit its apex just before the report’s release, with Mr. Schumer and Oregon’s Ron Wyden calling it disinformation and introducing a resolution to block its issue. Mr. Wyden on the Senate floor called it an example of “the spread of Russian propaganda, and the pathway it’s following from Russian agents through the United States Senate to the American public.” Upon the report’s release on Sept. 23, Mr. Schiff issued a statement saying: “the Kremlin must be very pleased.”
In his floor speech this week, Mr. Grassley asked his Democratic colleagues and the media that has confirmed his report to remind him exactly what parts of it were Russian disinformation. Mr. Johnson for his part noted that even now the press is engaging in a Watergate-style “modified limited hangout”—focusing its reporting exclusively on Hunter’s “tax affairs” while continuing to ignore larger questions about Joe Biden’s potential involvement.
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The floodproof bridge over the Hawkesbury at Windsor is about to be flooded, again.
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They need to get of Sackville Gorge. Massive choke point.
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Maybe the meant flood proof in the sense that it doesnt get washed away, but emerges triumphantly post flood?
50
Another January 6 Narrative Goes Boom
Capitol Police did, in fact, let the protesters in the building.
Those petty offenses comprise the overwhelming majority of criminal charges against the nearly 800 or so January 6 defendants. More than 150 people have pleaded guilty to the “parading” charge—many have been sentenced to a few months in prison.
But those defendants might regret accepting the plea deal offered by the government after D.C. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden not only acquitted Martin on all counts but agreed with Martin’s assertion that he was “waved” in by Capitol Police officers. Martin, who opted for a bench trial before the Trump-appointed judge and testified in his own defense, entered the building around 3 p.m. through a set of doors on the east side. He walked through the Rotunda and stayed inside for about 10 minutes.
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The Weapons Industry Sees the War in Ukraine as a Goldmine
Arms companies are exploiting Russia’s invasion to push a military spending frenzy.
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The State Department Failed To Prevent The War. Will It Now Prevent The Peace?
Perhaps the bird we should strive to be is neither hawk nor dove, but the American Eagle depicted on our great seal.
How can any American citizen listening to these contradictory and reckless statements have confidence in our expert class? We’ve just lived through more than two years of another group of experts giving us a constantly-shifting set of theories and guidelines around Covid, only to see many of those confident predictions and pronouncements unravel.
But while those health experts got a lot wrong, our foreign policy establishment has gotten everything wrong for over two decades. They spent trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya and only made all of those situations worse, unleashing staggering death and destruction. In every case, they told us we were winning and our policy objectives were being achieved, up until the very moment when our withdrawal laid bare the extent of our total failure. This is the same foreign policy establishment that gave us the policy of Constructive Engagement towards China, feeding that baby tiger until it became a dragon that can challenge us for global hegemony. So maybe it’s time to listen to some new voices.
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Joe Biden is The Doomsday Scenario We Were Warned About
The Joe Biden regime is the Doomsday scenario we have always been warned about. He flagrantly skirts the rule of law and tramples on the Constitution, he has wrecked our national security and weakened America’s influence as the leader of the free world, and his policies have released the big-government, deep state Hydra to wreak havoc on individual liberty and squash a recovering economy.
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Biden’s Weakness on the Ukraine-Russia War is a Threat to America
Putin invaded Ukraine under Obama in February 2014 and Biden in February 2022.
The invasions, eight years apart to the month, are not a coincidence. Both times Vladimir Putin was facing a lame duck Democrat who had just flinched away from a military engagement.
Each time Putin smelled weakness and he struck.
Afterward, Obama called Putin to warn him that Russia’s actions were in “violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty” and that “in coordination with our European partners, we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions.”
Those “sanctions” consisted of buying twice as much Russian oil in Jan 2015 as in Feb 2014.
The latest Russian invasion followed the Fall of Kabul and the pathetic spectacle of American forces abandoning their own citizens to Taliban terror which helped make Biden a lame duck.
Would we be watching a war in Ukraine if not for Biden’s disgrace in Afghanistan?
Biden wants all the political benefits of siding with Ukraine, with none of the military risks. Like Obama, he’s trying to prop up an international order centered around the United States while pretending that it can be done through diplomacy and sanctions without the use of force.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
But whatever damage Putin inflicts on Russia in Ukraine, Biden has inflicted more on us.
Beyond the economic pain, Biden has once again wrecked America’s credibility, making public commitments and private disavowals, putting our honor on the line for a war he has no intention of winning or even getting involved in. Putin understands that even a partial victory in Ukraine means not just a defeat for that country, but for the United States and Europe as paper tigers.
And Moscow may be willing to sacrifice ten or twenty thousand men for that strategic objective.
What that really means is that Biden and his administration have set up America to lose.
Like Obama, the Biden administration has dragged us through a series of international humiliations that appear calculated to weaken us as a world power and wipe out our credibility.
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Why Arab Allies Don’t Trust the U.S. on Ukraine
‘This will not stand,’ the president said after Iraq invaded Kuwait. No such fortitude is evident today.
My discussions in recent days with Arabs—high government officials, prominent businessmen and former diplomats—underscore the gap between how the Ukraine war is commonly viewed in the Middle East and here in America.
For many in the U.S., the shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given way to outrage as every day brings stories of torture, rape and brutality more chilling and gruesome than the stories of the day before. In the face of Russia’s aggression, Americans believe they are on the right side of history by standing firmly in support of brave Ukrainians defending their homeland.
Many Arabs see it differently. They view America in 2022 through the lens of their experience over the past 30-plus years. For them, something is amiss.
In 1990, when an Arab aggressor invaded his smaller, weaker neighbor—Saddam Hussein swallowing Kuwait—the response of the American president, George H.W. Bush, was to declare “this will not stand.” He then orchestrated the greatest international coalition since World War II, including half a million U.S. troops, to expel the invader, restore Kuwait’s sovereignty and arrange for billions to rebuild the country. Arabs like to recall that when America showed steely resolve against aggression, their leaders responded to Washington’s call, both by contributing troops and by hosting coalition forces. It was the high moment of Arab confidence in America’s resolve.
Their more recent experience with America has left a bitter taste. They recite a list of complaints.
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‘When Will Biden See That His Mistakes Are Harming America’s Interests?’
by Khaled Abu Toameh
. “He [Biden] has not learned the lessons from [former US President Barack] Obama’s mistakes and disasters…. Biden is continuing to make more mistakes, particularly in his dealings with Russia and the Gulf countries.” — M@hammed Al Mahmeed, Bahraini writer, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, April 3, 2022.
. Veteran Lebanese journalist and political analyst Kheirallah Kheirallah said that there is no real difference between Biden and Obama. “Nothing has changed in Washington, from Barack Obama to Joe Biden. If anything has changed, it is for the worse.” — Elaph, March 30, 2022.
. “[This US policy] has encouraged Iran to go far in threatening the countries of the region and their security with the help of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. To put it more clearly, there is no sane person in the region willing to take seriously any reassuring words issued by [US Special Envoy for Iran] Rob Malley and other officials in the US administration dealing with the Iranian portfolio. Every child knows that these American officials have nothing but appeasement for Iran….” — Kheirallah Kheirallah, Elaph, March 30, 2022.
. Although many in the Arab world diplomatically refer to Biden’s action as “mistakes,” they appear to recognize that they are deliberate, and lacking in any consideration for the wellbeing of people who will have to continue living in the region — which the Americans making these decisions for them will not.
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More weapons to Ukraine, is not the average Ukraine person’s interest, or our best interest. A long war, no electricity, no running water, and food shortages is hell.
More weapons will drag out the Ukraine war. Sending more weapons to kill more Russians is dangerous. Hate is dangerous.
The Russian sanctions is going to cause starvation in other countries. Those rushing to blindly create energy and material shortages, are not accepting responsibility for the predictable effects of world energy, materials, and food shortages. The sanctions are going to cause starvation because of a lack of fertilizer and the loss of the Ukraine/Russian harvests.
The Ukraine war is a distraction. The Russian attack makes sense if Putin knew that an economic war was coming. The Russian ruble is now trading at the same level as pre attack. The Russians had a plan. The US is now being forced to stop deficit spending which will lead to economic/currency problems. If the Chinese attack/take over Taiwan, the US/EU response would be economic sanctions.
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Barack Obama and Company Dishonestly Lecture UChicago Students on ‘Disinformation’
Combating ‘disinformation’ is actually code for America’s elite recapturing the gate-keeping powers it lost during the advent of social media.
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to attend a fire prevention speech delivered by an arsonist? Or perhaps a child safety seminar led by a p@dophile? Well, that’s exactly what it felt like Wednesday during the University of Chicago’s “Conference on Disinformation and Erosion of Democracy,” featuring some of the greatest promulgators of disinformation and illiberalism in American history.
Former President Barack Obama had the nerve to help open the event, although his administration famously spied on the Donald Trump campaign with a secret court warrant backed by the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Christopher Steele dossier which, in an ironic twist, was the product of Russian disinformation. Democrats used this disinformation to repeatedly smear President Trump and undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.
Former chief advisor to the Obama administration David Axelrod moderated two of Wednesday’s discussions. To this day, Axelrod still has the gall to repeat the debunked Russian collusion hoax. He even repeated it Wednesday.
To make matters worse, The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum joined the stage to share her “expert knowledge” on Russian disinformation. When asked pointedly by my Chicago Thinker colleague Daniel Schmidt about whether she thought the media acted inappropriately by dismissing the Hunter Biden story, Applebaum condescendingly responded that she didn’t “find it to be interesting.”
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Anne Applebaum dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop whilst her head was darting dutifully to the left of her, begging acknowledgement of her wokeness from the others on stage. Such a pathetic look.
70
BLM Founders’ Mansion Marxism
Patrisse Cullors is yet another example of Marxist greed.
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‘This Raises Serious Questions’ – BLM Paid $5.8 Million For LA Mansion From BLM-Linked Developer Who Paid $3.1 Million For It 6 Days Earlier
The Daily Mail reported:
A Los Angeles mansion frequented by Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart was bought by a real estate developer working for BLM founder Patrisse Cullors and her partner for $3.1 million, and then purchased by BLM’s foundation just six days later for $5.8 million in cash, it has emerged.
The rapid price inflation ‘raises serious questions,’ ethics experts said.
140
Can Australian Green Hydrogen Replace Russian Gas?
“Look at the deal just reached between Andy Fortescue and EON to ship green hydrogen (as ammonia) from his 200 GW planned solar and wind zone in Australia to Germany. Simply amazing. This is where the world is going”
The first thing to point out is that there is no deal to ship anything. It is simply a commitment to a research and study partnership. In particular, there is no obligation at all for Fortescue to spend a penny beyond this research. [Fortescue Future Industries, FFI, is, by the way the company. Andy Forrest is its Chairman – “Andy Fortescue” does not exist!]
But is green hydrogen really the breakthrough AEP thinks?
The first thing to note is that hydrogen does not grow on trees! FFI plan to use wind and solar power in Australia to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, an expensive process which also wastes some of the energy input.
The hydrogen is then combined with nitrogen in another expensive process to produce ammonia, which is more energy dense, and thus cheaper to ship. The ammonia then has to be cracked in another expensive process to split the hydrogen out again.
It therefore goes without saying that in energy terms hydrogen is much more expensive than the electricity used in the first place.
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Hydrogen is a joke, these clowns promoting it have no idea of the problems to be overcome.
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” Green hydrogen… This is where the world is going”” Bahahaha!!
“Boris Johnson announces eight new nuclear power plants” THIS is where the “world” is going!
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Bet he turns around and wants to use them to make Hydrogen ! 😉
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I would be a lot happier if we focussed on making fertliser and refining oil rather than putzing about with hydrogen.
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EXTORTION: 9-Year-Old Ohio Boy Denied Kidney Transplant Because Father Is Unvaccinated
Take the jab or the boy gets it. That’s essentially the message the Cleveland Clinic is sending to the parents of 9-year-old Tanner Donaldson, who will soon need a kidney transplant. He was born with a rare birth defect, posterior urethral valves (PUV), a condition that caused irreversible kidney damage in utero and resulted in stage 4 chronic kidney disease (CKD).
“They did not remove Tanner from the transplant list,” Donaldson said, “but they removed his best possible outcome: myself, the living donor, his dad.”
They tried explaining to the clinic that Dane Donaldson had recovered from COVID-19 and therefore has natural immunity—even presenting results from a T Detect test, which measures the T cell immune response to SARS-CoV-2—but their rationale fell on deaf ears. The parents’ lawyers contacted the Clinic to request a religious exemption for Donaldson, but the hospital never responded. The attorneys wrote in a letter to the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Bioethics in January:
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One hospital in the whole of the US is being a roadblock, and they have the donor. Are the parents wanting an outcome or a fight?
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What’s Going on in Shanghai?
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DOWN (CHINA EDITION): Did China Just Invade Shanghai? “If Beijing were worried about possible civil unrest during such an extended and severe lockdown, you might expect to see scenes like this one.”
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Communists Demand ‘Firmer Attitude’ Against Coronavirus from Locked-Down Shanghai
Shanghai’s government on Wednesday urged local authorities to use a heavier hand when enforcing the city’s anti-Chinese coronavirus measures, calling for the implementation of a “firmer attitude” and “swifter actions” to combat Shanghai’s latest epidemic of the disease, the state-run Global Times reported.
The development seemed paradoxical, as asymptomatic patients must constitute the vast majority of the “thousands” of people allegedly detained in Shanghai’s isolation camps based on the city’s latest Chinese coronavirus figures. The Chinese Communist Party has failed to explain why it has treated Shanghai’s allegedly largely asymptomatic outbreak of the disease with such extreme measures, which have included separating children from parents during forced quarantines.
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An interesting point of view. Let’s see if it pans out as he describes the near future for Ukraine. I’m not so fussed about the timing but the events surround the turning points are worth watching. As he himself has stated, I hope his computer model is wrong but even if it is right, I do have a different and even more optimistic long term perspective than his.
The End of Ukraine – The Cyclical View by Martin Armstrong
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QUESTION: Marty; Socrates is always amazing. I understand this forecast of war and Russia comes from the computer and you wish you were wrong. There is a video out there also saying the Bucha is a false flag even showing that people pretending to be dead in the streets with no blood and then when they think the camera passed they get up. It does seem that they are trying so hard to justify war and MSNBC is advocating America should invade Ukraine. Do you have any idea why these people just love war?
ANSWER: I don’t know. It seems that these Neocons are just always trying to create wars. They can’t sleep at night without worrying about what other people are doing. My concern is that come January 2023; things will get much worse. Zelensky is a Neo-Nazi who just hates Russians and he is in bed with the Neocons and does NOTHING but try to create World War III. Zelensky has been bought and paid for and pushes the world into war so these people can implement all the tyrannical measures governments and the World Economic Forum have ever dreamed of. That’s what a real Young Global Leader of Schwab was trained to do. They will impose global digital IDs and claim that they are necessary to prevent Russian spies from infiltrating. They will also use them for rationing, especially with regard to food. They are calling for “equality” deliberately instigating race wars to keep the people divided. Then they use climate change as the excuse to impose a one-world government all because a single nation cannot win this fictional battle alone.
The rest a fascinating read of History – Thanks Peter S, continues on the Vein of !4 above
The Weapons Industry Sees the War in Ukraine as a Goldmine
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“There is a video out there also saying the Bucha is a false flag even showing that people pretending to be dead in the streets with no blood and then when they think the camera passed they get up”
OldOzzie there is also video from bodycam of the Ukraine soldiers first entering the area shown where the dead civilian bodies are in the streets from other news reports after the Russians have left but there are no bodies,
when l saw the video not long after the claims of war crimes l could not believe what l was seeing as there are no bodies in the streets when these Ukraine soldiers enter the Bucha area, you do see the burnt out tanks ect.. but no dead bodies anywhere
it is a total setup to fool the sheeple into being ok with another war
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The next Ukraine soldier I see with dirt on him will be the first. Clean those trenches.
Here is an action packed gun fight, spot the BS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgoHI9A36u4
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Thanks PeterS have bookmarked and downloaded
The Kremlin has already made the argument that such an attack upon Russia is underway and this was deliberately using the civil war in Ukraine to compel Putin to defend the Donbas when he knew it was funded by the United States as always with their Proxy wars. The Russian foreign ministry has made it very clear: “Such statements from the American president, unworthy of a statesman of such high rank, put Russian-American relations on the verge of rupture.” Biden is clearly engaging in the typical Neocon rhetoric of DEMONIZING your opponent.
The Kremlin has described the comments as “personal insults” against Putin. Indeed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took aim at the sanctions the United States and other countries have imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, saying he believes that the West has declared “total war” on Russia and he is correct. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, stated on Feb. 21, that “in its doctrinal documents, the United States calls Russia an enemy” and its goal is “none other than the collapse of the Russian Federation.” On March 16, Putin stated that the West was waging “a war by economic, political, and informational means” of “a comprehensive and blatant nature.”
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Two possible Iranian agents were wooing feds, including Secret Service agents
It’s hard to believe, but two men, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, through false identities, apparent charm, and hefty bribes, managed to infiltrate the Secret Service and gain access to myriad other federal employees in D.C. Worse, these men may have ties to both Iran and Pakistan, the first of which has been in a self-proclaimed war against America since 1979, while the latter is certainly no friend to America although it’s not officially an enemy.
News broke Thursday about a truly bizarre tale: The federal government filed a criminal complaint against Taherzadaeh and Ali, alleging that they falsely claimed to be employees in the Department of Homeland Security. With these false identities in hand, they armed themselves with myriad weapons, ingratiated themselves with the many federal employees in the apartment complex in which they lived, and showered gifts on “members of the United States Secret Service (USSS) and an employee of DHS,” according to an affidavit supporting the criminal charges filed against the two men. (A copy of the affidavit is embedded below.)
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Report: Agents Detailed to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and WH Subjects of Fake Agent Bribery Scheme
I reported previously about the wild story involving two fake federal agents, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, who tried to ingratiate themselves to the Secret Service and showered them with gifts from iPhones to rent-free apartments. They got close to multiple agents, including an agent in Jill Biden’s protective detail, to whom they allegedly offered a $2,000 rifle. They even loaned a car to his wife to drive. It was an incredibly twisted plot that involved a ton of money and started as long ago as February 2020, the police alleged, so it had been going on for some time.
What was their plan with such time and money invested? They had foreign ties, including Pakistani and Iranian visas. One allegedly implied he had a connection to Pakistani intelligence.
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THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE…
Scott has been writing about the strange case of the two men “of Washington, D.C.” who are under arrest, having purported to be high-level Department of Homeland Security agents. The men are Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, which might give the politically incorrect some ideas. News reports indicate that they “compromised” four Secret Service agents, although my understanding is that this simply means that those agents accepted gifts from them. Somehow, Taherzadeh and Ali had plenty of money to throw around.
The case took a small step forward today with the filing of a motion to hold the men in federal custody as flight risks. The motion begins:
Why did they do this, and on whose behalf? At this point, we have no idea. But here are a few things we do know. First, the men were well financed by someone. They had multiple units in a luxury D.C. apartment building: “(1) Penthouse 5; (2) Apartment 708; (3) Apartment 608; (4) Apartment 509; and (5) Apartment 1361.” And they had money to “compromise” the Secret Service.
Second, they were heavily armed:
Third, it seems highly probable that these men were acting on behalf of a foreign power, most likely Iran.
It strikes me that Mr. Taherzadeh and Mr. Ali are likely to take their place in a line of news stories with respect to which we never got to hear the punch line: the Pakistanis who handled tech services for the Democratic House caucus until their arrest; the Chinese spy who, for years, was Dianne Feinstein’s driver; the Chinese spy Fang Fang who bedded Eric Swalwell–the life of a spy is not an easy one; and I suppose we should add the Chinese companies that slid millions of dollars to Joe Biden and his relatives. (Can I say it one more time? No one has ever bribed the unemployable crack addict Hunter Biden. Any money that wound up with him was a transaction cost.) Such stories are allowed to die a quiet death, because one of the requirements to be a reporter these days is a total lack of curiosity about anything that reflects poorly on the establishment in general, and the Democratic Party in particular.
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Biden Detailee Entangled in Secret Service Bribery Scheme
More details are emerging about the four Secret Service employees entangled in an alleged bribery scheme carried out by two men accused of masquerading as Department of Homeland Security law enforcement agents.
An affidavit filed Wednesday night in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. revealed that one of the Secret Service agents involved in the bribery scheme was a special agent assigned to First Lady Jill Biden’s protective detail. Another was a Uniformed Division officer at the White House.
RealClearPolitics has learned that another Secret Service special agent involved in the alleged bribery is assigned to President Biden’s detail, those agents who accompany the president nearly everywhere he goes and stand by his side during the most sensitive of discussions and private moments. A second Uniformed Division officer caught up in the bizarre scheme was assigned to protect Vice President Harris’s residence, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Bidens have paid special attention to selecting their Secret Service detail, which is not uncommon when new presidents move into the White House and take on the role of commander in chief. In December 2020, after his election, then-President-elect Biden made some staffing changes amid concerns from political allies that some members of the detail were too politically aligned with President Trump, the Washington Post reported at the time. Biden shuffled in a handful of senior agents whom he knew well from their time protecting him and his family four years ago when he was vice president.
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Here’s an opportunity for Australia to export a lot of Uranium to the US. Why not? We export a lot of coal to China and other countries so one would think we would be a “model citizen of the West’s mad rush to net zero emissions” helping all other countries who use nuclear meet their net zero emission targets ASAP, in spite of the fact it’s all nonsense.
Without New Uranium Mines, U.S. Runs Risk Of European-Style Reliance On Russian Energy
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The west will become as dependent on China’s rare earths as it currently is on Russia’s coal, oil and gas.
Out of the frying pan….
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“With the data reported so far, the first three months of 2022 were the coldest on record in the US.”
https://realclimatescience.com/2022/04/historic-cold-in-the-us/
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And the hottest in the entire 370 or so year central England mean temperature record.
Averaged over the entire northern hemi it is completely ‘normal’, it’s just weather!
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The implication of that comment is that one is up and the other is down and so the average is the same, and it is the average that matters.
Not so, a power system that could handle average demand, is likely to collapse with even moderate variability.
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Completely invalid comparison.
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So, the weather will collapse if temps are averaged?
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Link not found Lance?
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John Ward at The Slog in top form currently . His take :-
“Let’s examine first what appears to be in play here. It’s a global heist where
(a) paper currency’s value is about to be destroyed prior to digital theft
(b) domestic property ownership rendered unaffordable (for all but the most giga-rich members of Homo sapiens) by the cost of upkeep in general, and energy hyperinflation in particular (the same applies to privately owned cars)
(c) office buildings made in many business pursuits irrelevant by the Covid effect of teaching people they can work from home
(d) commodity prices hiked to justify falsely created and under-controlled inflation
(e) stock markets generally massively overvalued by years of cheap money and lax regulation and finally
(f) in the very short term, there is a window for “isolation domestic property” (Covid- driven), and precious metals (risk-off) driven.”
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China is trying unsuccessfully, irrationally, to use mass city lockdowns to drive Omicron cases to zero for propaganda purposes. That is odd/a propaganda mistake, as it is obvious, Omicron is not dangerous and that strategy is not working.
The purposeless Chinese lockdowns, are treating the Chinese people as ‘subjects’ ruled by gods. The Chinese people have no legal rights or ability to stop what is happening. The Chinese people are treated like cattle. There were 21,000 new covid cases detected in Shanghai on Friday.
The CCP’s 20 annual party congress, is planned for this year. Xi wants to continue to control key party positions, for another term, which is against the CCP party’s term limit policy.
https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/looking-ahead-chinas-20th-party-congress
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/shanghai-widens-covid-testing-other-chinese-cities-impose-curbs-2022-04-08/
SHANGHAI, April 8 (Reuters) – Shanghai on Friday announced a record 21,000 new cases and a third consecutive day of COVID testing as a lockdown of its 26 million people showed no sign of easing and other Chinese cities tightened curbs – even in places with no recent infections
Nomura this week estimated that 23 Chinese cities have implemented either full or partial lockdowns. The cities collectively are home to an estimated 193 million people
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What gives in Shanghai – There were 21,000 new covid cases detected in Shanghai on Friday.
here in NSW
COVID-19 cases reported in NSW Last 24 hours Total cases 20,396
Hope Dictator Dan does not get any ideas from his masters in China
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Shanghai at the breaking point?
It’s time to start paying attention to this story if you’ve been ignoring it.
The quick and dirty version for latecomers: China’s biggest city undertook what was supposed to a brief, temporary lockdown last week to stem an outbreak of Omicron. Half the city would shut down for five days and undergo mass testing, then the other half would do the same. Those testing positive would be whisked away to centralized quarantine to prevent them from infecting others. That was supposed to uproot most of the viral vectors in Shanghai; if anyone tested positive after that, they could be contained via “targeted” lockdowns of their apartment complex or neighborhood.
It hasn’t worked out. Today the city is reporting more than 20,000 positive tests, a record high. The brief, temporary lockdown has become indefinite. Because the entire population is stuck at home, there’s no way to get food except via delivery. And because everyone is ordering delivery, the odds that you’ll be lucky enough to land in the queue are slim.
People are starving and claustrophobic and there’s no end in sight, of necessity. On the one hand, China can’t afford to lift restrictions. Its health-care system can’t cope with the likely number of infections and deaths if the virus were to spread freely, and Xi Jinping won’t want to admit that his “zero COVID” policy was in error at a moment when he’s up for a third term as president. On the other hand, China can’t afford not to lift restrictions. Unrest in the city is growing and the Chinese economy needs Shanghai, a financial powerhouse, to be back online.
At some point, the fact that the Chinese Communist Party shut down its biggest city in furtherance of an unsustainable COVID policy and forgot to figure out a way to feed people before doing so will create certain … perceptions about the leadership’s wisdom and competence.
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The Latest COVID Lockdown Tool Being Used in China Is Terrifying and Telling
In Shanghai, one of the world’s largest financial hubs, citizens are being told to get off of their balconies and not to sing…by a drone.
The situation is reportedly dire and the government is starving people inside their homes.
As Republican Senator Ted Cruz points out, strict lockdowns like the ones currently seen in China are supported by Democrats in the United States.
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Just remember this if you are thinking of buying an apartment in a big city tower block…
They can lock the doors at the ground and you’re stuck, as Melbourne found.
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China Abuses Its People With New Lockdowns As It Struggles To Contain Covid Surge
The Chinese Community Party’s leader Xi Jinping declared China’s victory over Covid-19 in March 2020. Yet, more than two years later, the Chinese government is still trying to contain another Covid outbreak in many parts of the nation. Its struggle exposes the fundamental flaws of China’s political system.
The Chinese government also insisted on using Chinese-made vaccines, even though these vaccines had gone through limited clinical trials and had reported low efficacy rates. The combined effect of low herd immunity and Chinese vaccines’ low efficacy is that the Chinese population has become especially vulnerable to more infectious Covid variants such as Delta and Omicron.
– More Lockdowns in China
– Kids Quarantined without Parents
– Shanghai Starved
– Lockdowns Aren’t Working
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Russia is making it difficult for The Ukraine to ship grain out ia the Black Sea. They are getting a premium on their shipments, and as the main market is north Africa and the Middle East, where bread (and other types like noodles etc) is a major food for the poor there expect more unrest in those places.
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Covid “case fatality rate” in Hong Kong now 16 times that in the US. Geert Vanden Bossche:
. Hong Kong Cases and Deaths Exploding Despite “Zero Covid” and High Vaccination Rates
“Slow down and let it sink in: the case fatality rate in Hong Kong is 16 times HIGHER than in the US. That should make you curious.”
Igor’s Newsletter
Bad News from Hong Kong
Something very strange is happening in Hong Kong. I am not the first to write about it, but I wanted to do a good job compiling the information and informing my readers so this post is somewhat complete. I will include additional reading below. Hong Kong’s stringent “Zero Covid” policy, stopped to work in mid-February and a “wall of cases” curve exploded…
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fea6cf84c-6145-42b7-9429-792e0d861f1f_1373x906.jpeg
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The Hong Kong death rate is 15 people per million. That is high however most of those dying are elderly Chinese people who have not been vaccinated and have never been exposed to the covid virus.
Most of the deaths in the US were killed by covid delta in nursing homes or in their own homes. The US has nursing homes and hospitals ward filled with half dead people who have, because of decades of severe Vit D deficiency, multi organ failure. Diabetes and liver damage which leads to other organ failure like blindness. These people have difficulty walking and are shaky. They are simple/suffer from dementia as they have lost 80% of their functioning brain mass.
I saw some rumours of a more deadly BA.2 variation in Hong Kong. Fortunately the new covid variation, XE will eventually replace BA.2. XE is a combination of only BA.1 and BA.2 (no delta and BA.1 and BA.2 look as if they were designed to not hurt people) is going to be the new dominate covid variation. XE is 10% more contagious than BA.2 and it is predicted it will overtime replace it.
There is still talk about a deadly Ebola strain that has been weaponized to be highly contagious. There is a Chinese propaganda story about a natural occurrence of Ebola in China. Ebola had a 50% fatality rate. Hopefully there are some Chinese heroes who will stop it from being released.
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b.nice is correct – WUWT problem is a Firefox issue . does work for me with Internet Explorer. If anybody solves it with Firefox – please post here – thanks.
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Just worked for me then on Firefox – no problems – https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/07/can-australian-green-hydrogen-replace-russian-gas/
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Same here now too thanks OldOzzie – mysteries of life stuff
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Massive Blow to the FBI After Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Verdict Drops
If you’ve followed the saga of the supposed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, you’ve been privy to a variety of twists and turns over the last year or so. Those include the high probability that the FBI orchestrated the entire thing to entrap people and reinforce a politicized narrative, i.e. that the “right” is a domestic terror threat to Democrats. That fit right into what was being pushed prior to the 2020 election.
Sure enough, several different pieces of evidence emerged showing that FBI agents, including one who ended up being arrested for physically abusing his wife, were central to organizing and goading vulnerable, disturbed men to go along with the plot. Why did that happen? Again, it sure feels like politics was at the center of everything.
Now, we’ve got the verdicts in the trial of two of the men charged over the ordeal, and they represent a massive blow to the FBI’s credibility.
Jurors on Friday acquitted two men of conspiring to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and said they were deadlocked on charges against two others, in a significant defeat for federal prosecutors in one of the highest-profile domestic terrorism cases in decades.
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My comment to El Gordo from previous thread.
So El Gordo in 1950 Ethiopian population was 18.1 million and life expectancy was 32.5 yrs.
In 1970 Eth pop was 28.4 mil and life exp was 42.6 yrs
But in 2022 Eth pop is 120.8 mil and life exp is now 67.4 yrs.
So the Ethiopian pop has increased by 4.2 times in the last 50+ years and life exp is now 24.8 years higher. Here’s the data.
IOW it’s very difficult to find anything wrong with their climate since 1950 or 1900 or for that matter since 1800.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ETH/ethiopia/population
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SOTT Earth Changes Summary – March 2022 – Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs
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Easter travel under threat as airports reel from staff shortages
Staff absences are threatening to create Easter travel chaos as Sydney and Melbourne airports buckle under the strain of their busiest days in two years.
Qantas has 18 per cent of parts of its workforce out with COVID-19, or in isolation, and Alan Joyce has met NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard to implore him to add airline workers to the list of people who can return to work if they test negative and have no symptoms, even if someone in their family is positive.
Staff handed out bottles of water at Sydney Airport on Friday as passengers formed long queues and waited for hours to check in and clear security. Bottlenecks at security and the baggage claim area were blamed on the high number of workers who had contracted COVID-19 or were isolating as close contacts.
Qantas and Virgin say the coming Easter long weekend will be their busiest period since before the pandemic, but amid crippling staff shortages.
These are affecting Qantas’ customer support services too, and passengers reported spending hours on the phone without getting through. Many travellers are flying for the first time since the pandemic began, after Christmas travel plans were cancelled because of the first omicron wave.
“We’re seeing that there’s a high level of absenteeism, and that’s because there is the isolation rules related to COVID-19, both in close contacts and people that have COVID,“ Mr Joyce said.
There were 57,859 cases reported nationwide on Friday and there are 2818 COVID-19 patients in hospital.
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….and just like that the isolation requirements for airline staff change. Amazing how flexible the solid medical basis for these things can change when faced with enough angst from the wealthier classes.
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Rate rises could cut 15 per cent from house prices: RBA
House prices could fall 15 per cent if interest rates rise in line with market expectations, the Reserve Bank has warned, and economists said it was unclear how households would react to the first rate increase since 2010.
The RBA this week signalled the emergency 0.1 per cash rate could rise in June. Economists tip it will hit 1 per cent or more by year’s end, but financial markets are betting it could be double that.
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UK: “More Nuclear, More Oil, More Gas”
“Britain bets on nuclear power in its plan to boost energy independence. The government said it aimed to fulfill a quarter of the estimated electricity demand in Britain with nuclear power by 2050.” [source NY Times ]
In a sudden burst of rationality:
“The British government revealed on Thursday its plan to increase the country’s energy independence as European nations try to quickly reduce energy imports from Russia over the war in Ukraine.
The cornerstone of Britain’s plan is an increase to nuclear capacity, with goals to deliver up to eight reactors this decade. Under the energy security plan, the country will aim to increase its capacity to 24 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050, or a quarter of estimated electricity demand. There will also be more oil and gas projects in the North Sea and an expansion of offshore wind and solar power. The government said it wanted to wean Britain off expensive fossil fuels.“
As can be expected, there has been reported pushback from various interest groups. Some decried lack of stronger measures to insulate homes.
“Others denounced the plan to expand oil and gas projects in the North Sea, even as Britain has ambitious climate-change goals enshrined into law. The government said it would support domestic oil and gas in the “nearer term,” as it hopes to make 95 percent of electricity “low carbon” by 2030.”
The plan calls for more off-shore wind power, but does not encourage on-shore wind which has drawn strong resistance from citizens.
And then there is this odd statement: “Replacing gas power with more nuclear power is lower carbon, but nuclear isn’t renewable and it isn’t cheap,” Darren Jones, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker”.
Both Rolls-Royce and NuScale Power have submitted plans to the government to supply SMRs (small modular reactors) that will supplement the eight large scale reactors called for in the new plan.
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“Replacing gas power with more nuclear power is lower carbon, but nuclear isn’t renewable and it isn’t cheap,” Darren Jones, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker”.
While I am not a nuclear physicist, my layman understanding of a breeder reactor is the fact that they produce more fissile material than they consume ergo “breeder” . Now I understand that this process is finite but equally so it certainly delivers good returns on fuel invested. A bit like the first ICB engines were fuel hungry but a century of refinement later for the same litre of fuel we get greater horsepower, more power delivered over longer periods, a significantly better “return on fuel investment”
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So called renewables arent really renewable or cheap either as a system. They do have the added features though of not being fit for purpose and being able to drag down existing generation by destabilising the grid.
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Obama has been given a part time job, one day a week to help Joe in the WH. Is this an acclimatising exercise to get people used to seeing him in the WH again? Then all of a sudden will he be sitting at the presidents desk and giving press reports?
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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/proof_has_emerged_from_the_white_house_that_bidens_presidency_is_over.html
It’s all over for Joe.
The evidence.
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Joe will leave the WH on Thursday evening and have an extra day in Delaware …..getting his oxygen therapy increased a day. It won’t make a difference to the WH policies as they were all about undoing Trump which is what Obama has been orchestrating since Biden came in.
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Is it Time for an Electric Car?
I’ve been a car enthusiast for a long time. In my early teens, I would take a bus from my town in the mountains, down to the city. I walked to the avenue where most of the car dealers were. To their chagrin, I would end up with a large collection of their glossy (and for them pricey) auto brochures. I would pore over these with great interest.
In those days, a fast car would run the quarter-mile in roughly 13 to 14 seconds and do 0 to 60 between six and eight seconds. Such a vehicle would need a large 6 to 7l V-8 and with essentially no power accessories or air conditioning.
Today I drive a small German wagon. It has full luxury appointments and accessories that we could not even conceive of in the 1960s. It has all-wheel drive which makes it extremely capable in the snow. With the climate control engaged and Mozart on the multi-speaker sound system, it will run 0 to 60 in the low five-second range with a 2 liter, 4 cylinder engine. I routinely drive it on long trips around 80 miles an hour and get 30+miles per gallon. This is not to brag. Routinely automobiles made today are capable of this kind of performance and comfort and with scant emissions.
So why are they trying to convince me to buy an electric car?
Think NASCAR. My wife, who is much more rational, has been forced to play along all these years. When we get to a rest stop, I want to wolf down some food, take care of nature, fuel up and get on the road in the shortest possible time. I am told that even fast charging cars take 30 to 45 minutes to gain additional meaningful range. 45 minutes? I’d need a sedative, and then I’d have to let my wife drive. With an internal combustion powertrain, I can get 300 to 400 miles of energy back into my vehicle in five minutes.
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Can you charge up your electric car overnight with the solar panels on your roof?
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Maybe not your roof, but its always daylight somewhere
50
You could, if you were in Spain!
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How ??
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Think Annie’s referring to the time when a Spanish energy provider found it was worthwhile running diesels to provide lighting for their solar panels at night.
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Spain hooked gensets to their panels to generate power at night as the subsidies made it coat effective. That’s how.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo found that between November and January, 4500 megawatt hours (MWh) of solar energy were sold to the electricity grid between midnight and seven in the morning
https://theecologist.org/2010/apr/16/spanish-nighttime-solar-energy-fraud-unlikely-uk
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Even with battery backup, not possible. My air con has been running 24/7 until recently, trying to cope with hot days and nights. So no spare energy available from my solar system for anything else. And it would be worse if you were trying to heat a home in winter with energy from your solar panels.
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Fascinating crime series Tokyo Vice debuts on HBO Max
Three episodes of the eight-part series Tokyo Vice debuted Thursday on HBO Max, the streaming service of HBO. The series is based on a 2010 memoir of the same name written by Jake Adelstein, an American who became a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun in the 1990s, which in itself is quite an amazing story. The real-life Adelstein learned Japanese well enough to take an hours-long entrance exam in Japanese and go to work in the newsroom of the world’s largest circulation newspaper, assigned to the police beat in Tokyo, which is where rookies are broken in.
The first episode, the series pilot, was directed by Michael Mann, famed for directing Miami Vice and Heat, among other projects, and he brought a visual style and pacing that was sustained in the subsequent two episodes I compulsively viewed yesterday. The series begins with Adelstein, played by Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars, Baby Driver), being suited up in a bulletproof vest accompanying police on a raid, and then flashing back two years earlier to explain how he got to this position.
20
Now brace for the climate change ‘Jehovah’s witnesses’! XR encourages activists to knock on people’s doors and have a ‘proper chat’ about global warming
80
oooooh! I look forward to that!
The religious ones don’t come to my door anymore..
70
Oh yes, bring it on !! 🙂
………
I remember the time the Jehovies came to our place.
Dad was a brilliant man, also the son of a Baptist minister.
He treated the Bible as a history book (English and European history was a passion of his), and had studied it very extensively.
2 hours later.. the poor Jehovies managed to escape, after a thorough history lesson.
… never to be seen again ! 🙂
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Great!, that will be fun. I occasionally get ‘The Greens’ around election time, they are always good for a “stir”.
50
THE DEMOCRATS’ DYSARTHRIA
I’ve finally figured out why Democrats are so monomaniacal about imposing ever stricter federal price controls on prescription drugs. It’s because they are freebasing Xanax these days in large quantities to treat their high anxiety over their steadily eroding political prospects. (Also, it helps explain President Biden. One of the side effects of Xanax is “dysarthria”—slurred or slow speech. And now you know.)
Following the victory of the wrong person in the Hungarian election last Sunday, Politico is reporting that the White House is now in a panic that the wrong person may win the French presidential election in a few days. There are polls showing incumbent President Emanuel Macron losing ground, and a few polls have the race dead even between Macron and “populist” Marine Le Pen.
Of course, the mainstream media are waving the bloody Ukrainian shirt, saying a Le Pen win would be a victory for Putin. Politico:
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The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported on Friday they are recording the highest Food Price Index since they started recording thirty years ago. With record highs in prices for cereals, vegetable oils, dairy and meats.
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
Every Govt action taken since early 2020 has been one bad policy after another; building failure upon failure, crisis upon crisis, bad decision upon bad decision, bringing us to a precipice summed up by saying “the absence of food will change things.”
Food prices will rise some 30% to 50% this year. Every nation is 9 meals away from anarchy.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/08/worsening-food-price-increases-gain-global-attention-un-food-and-agriculture-organization-tracks-of-highest-prices-ever-recorded/#more-231425
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Meme of the Day #32 – How Women have changed over the Years
From the Comments
– Great meme.
Unfortunately it captures the utter insanity of today’s trans movement.
– Stop the world, I want to get off.
– Slightly ironic that the women who smashed through the glass ceiling are actually men in drag.
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Federal Australia – Ultimately it all boils down to an Unpopularity Contest
50
#BREAKING from
@damonTheOz
@VictoriaPolice won’t reopen their investigation into Red Shirts. Key to their decision is the refusal of Labor MPs to cooperate with the investigation & agree to interviews.
– Only in Victoria the corruption state
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Victoria Police want us to pretend Covid Tyranny never happened
https://xyz.net.au/2022/04/victoria-police-want-us-to-pretend-covid-tyranny-never-happened/
A fish rots from the head down.
Remove the head and the rotten flesh attached to it…
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Bumbling Biden’s latest gaffe
https://twitter.com/i/status/1512486084961259521
He could be replaced by Mr Bean and do a better job.
50
At least Rowan Atkinson ( Mr. Bean) earned a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s College, University of Oxford.
Joe Biden double-majored in history and political science and minored in English, prior to becoming a Lawyer, and then Politician.
Mr. Bean helped millions of people to laugh and had a reliable profession to fall back upon, if needed.
Mr. Biden has helped millions of people to cry and has spent over 50 years as a government employee, with zero responsibility for the havoc wrought.
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Danny Ric in MEL for F1
30
Andrews kept his head down with the GP. Not his crowd I guess.
00
The White House Visit
30
Daniel Andrews thinks he’s UNTOUCHABLE
https://xyz.net.au/2022/04/daniel-andrews-thinks-hes-untouchable/
Elections are coming up but since this isn’t a true democracy it won’t make any difference.
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Well I wouldn’t touch him, have to keep at least a base ball bats distance.
00
I’m always reluctant to pretend I can read the minds of others but in his day people said the same of Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson.
This too shall pass.
00
ICYMI, a relevant article, even though some 11 yrs past.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2011/1/how-to-choose-better-immigrants/
“When we came to Australia, we learned two simple rules Australians apply to all newcomers.
The first rule: Welcome. Have a beer, mate. But leave your troubles where you came from, don’t bring them here.
The second rule: You say you can do it. We believe you. Now show us. “
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The real agenda behind the LGBTQ+BP/trans movement?
Psaki says sex reassignment surgery and puberty blockers for KIDS is “a best practice and potentially lifesaving.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1512141803021082629
“Kids are cute but not really eco-friendly”
https://me.me/i/trends-kids-are-cute-but-theyre-not-really-eco-friendly-at-d03a22dd68ca4e08917ec231d14c34f6
Well…this all makes sense as part of the WEF reduced population clean green future nonsense.
Marriages, heterosexual relationships & fertility rates are in serious decline already worldwide so why not compound that with puberty blockers, gender surgeries, castration, confused identities etc?
What better way to reduce the human population…
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WOKE INSANITY: Australian Health Official REFUSES To Define A Woman
https://xyz.net.au/2022/04/woke-insanity-australian-health-official-refuses-to-define-a-woman/
I wonder if he’s married…
I suspect he’s worked out the difference by now 😈😉
If adults don’t understand the basics then then they have no right to influence innocent kids.
Victoria -the place NOT to be:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/4a52bc4b8a10c7a43b6a8b9b17d05f6e/4f0772561d2d322a-9b/s1280x1920/9133962c901fe11b9c5565d2fec12ca436dafdb5.jpg
https://64.media.tumblr.com/02ffb0e56297736eea184ceb8b5fba63/4f0772561d2d322a-85/s1280x1920/a13408f8d471b52dd4f6ee73f8cf9a2d97680d95.jpg
Talking to a 2yo about sex? Oh please…
They’ve just learned to walk and don’t even understand The Wiggles!
Stop the grooming!!!
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Those abysmal Russian weapons are at it again! Western Propaganda from the SMH-
‘4000 people crammed into a railway station at Kramatorsk were hit by two ballistic missiles. 39 people died…’
I would expect 10times that many to die, those missiles are incredibly expensive and one jihadi in a ute full of explosives could do better. War is an economic problem in the end.
However, the photos they show are not ballistic missiles, they are the old Tochka-U that Ukraine is using. One was shot down by an anti-missile missile and didn’t explode, the one with “Revenge for the children” written in white paint along the side.
So, we don’t know what happened, but we do know that what the Western propaganda says is not true.
..and they’ve invented a new term, I really can’t keep up with modern language. They are not Russians, now they are “Rashists”, from someone who can’t spell racists I expect. The media schools should teach more political history so their graduates can tell fascists from communists.
We will see real Russian ballistic missiles when the train full of Polish tanks gets going. I’m sure the same fate awaits the armoured cars Australia is sending over there.
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When nothing you see is true, how do you know anything?
31
Was there really a massacre at Bucha?
Accepting the fake claims of a massacre is as bad as or even worse than denying a real one. Besides the immediate damage caused by the deception, it undermines trust and empathy when a real massacre happens.
The allegations of the Bucha massacre are false.
The Russian military left Bucha, Ukraine on March 30, 2022. On March 31, Bucha mayor Anatoly Fedoruk triumphantly declared Bucha liberated. On April 1, a video shot from a moving car appeared on Twitter, showing 7 (maybe 8) dead bodies on the Yablonska Street in Bucha. By April 3, the number of bodies found on the streets of Bucha had grown to 20, and mass graves were shown. Kyiv claimed that the Russian military had executed between 280 and 410 civilians in Bucha. Russia denied these accusations (RIA FAN in Russian, April 7) and demanded a special session by the U.N. Security Council to refute them. This request was blocked by Britain.
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Well, Hanrahan, I usually attribute it to incentives. Whoever will get the most out of an incident has the greatest incentive to do it.
Sometimes the rebuttal of a claim is so clear you can easily decide, but often the claims are hard to disprove clearly.
That all comes from the assumption Putin is doing what he said, crushing Ukraine’s military and taking over the Eastern part, and America’s historical path of doing everything they can to destroy Russia.
I disagree with both of them, I see Governments as a blight on human development. All wars should be fought with the heads of Govt at the front. Our ancestors were more moral and courageous than we are.
00
Here is a photo of the missile shot out of the sky traveling at Mach 2, just plonked on the ground hardly a dent in it, or the ground. Anyone missing some 44 gal drums, I think I found them.
While I am at it, how did it get there, the Russkies don’t have GPS, that’s why they painted the letter V on the equipment after all, followed by Z and luckily they painted them in English so we westerners know who the bad guys are, no V or Z in the Russian alphabet. Hope the missile pilot got out OK.
https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/220408121708-03-kramatorsk-rocket-040822.jpg?quality=100&strip=info
https://www.radioexe.co.uk/devon/news-and-features/world-news/ukraine-war-50-dead-in-explosion-at-railway-station-as-wrecked-missile-has-for-what-has-been-done-to-the-children-painted-on-it-in-russian/
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Also the Russian translation according to DDG
for what has been done to the children
за то, что было сделано с детьми
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Currently, with over 50,000 daily new cases of Covid, Australia is the 5th highest globally, behind Sth Korea (200,000), Germany (170,000), France (150,000) and Italy (66,000).
And with more daily cases than the UK (25,000) and USA (21,000).
Australia is #147 on the list when it comes to total deaths/million population, but #24 on current deaths.
Stay Safe.
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Not sure point in time case comparisons mean much without context
00
SINGAPORE – In a world’s first, a hawker in Singapore recently offered a cell-cultured chicken meal at an affordable price of $4.
And diners said the meat tasted “just like real chicken”.
Cultured meat is made from growing animal cells in a bioreactor – similar to the vats used in brewing beer – instead of slaughtering actual animals.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/cell-cultured-chicken-meat-gets-hawker-treatment-at-curry-rice-stall
Well at least it is technically real chicken not this plant-based “stuff”.
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Apparently factory meat has been grown from aborted cattle foetuses . ( can’t find the link)
20
Yuk.
30
A curry store?
Buried in curry sauce…how do they know it tastes like chicken. ?
20
Its woke meat, please avoid using logic as logic is unwoke.
10
Scientists just identified over 5,500 new viruses in the ocean – including a missing link in viral evolution
An analysis of the genetic material in the ocean has identified thousands of previously unknown RNA viruses and doubled the number of phyla, or biological groups, of viruses thought to exist, according to a new study our team of researchers has published in the journal Science.
https://www.rawstory.com/scientists-just-identified-over-5500-new-viruses-in-the-ocean-including-a-missing-link-in-viral-evolution/
And you’re worried about Covid flu…
No doubt Fauci will have a “happy ending” when he reads this. Fun for all the mad scientists to play with. Biolabs on standby.
50
Seeking the best one for the next plandemic. !!
60
Environmental restoration is something we can all cheer about.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-04-09/restoring-australias-lost-shellfish-reefs-port-phillip-bay/100973150
10
Ah- here’s something that makes more sense.
“The inscriptions on the missiles mentioning children are the signature of the Ukrainian army
In the photo, a Nazi from the Azov battalion, with a smile on his face, points to a deadly weapon for the children of Donbass with the inscription “All the best for the children””
Ukrainian Govt says that it was the Russian “Tochka-U” that fell in Kramatorsk. “Tochka-U” is not in service with the Russian Federation, DPR and LPR. But almost every day, with the help of Tochka-U missiles, Ukrainian troops fire on the positions of Russian troops.
The situation, most likely, was as follows: The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched “Tochka-U” at Russian positions, it was intercepted by Russian air defense officers in the sky over Kramatorsk, after which fragments of the rocket fell into the station.
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1512571616634490886?cxt=HHwWjMCyreL33f0pAAAA
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{Jo, can you remove the dreaded N-word from the post above and put in “Ukrainian soldier” or something.. Ta}
Meanwhile- here’s something odd. You’d think they would date the bones, analyse their mineral contents, look for diseases…
The oldest human remains in Australia, from Lake Mungo, are being secretly buried by the Australian govt. This is the final blow for decades of work trying to analyse the bones. We’ll be left with unverifiable claims about age, ancestry and connections with modern Aborigines.
“Mungo Man: 42,000-year-old Aboriginal remains to be reburied” BBC
41
Then we are left with whatever claims looks god and support the current fantasy. Perfect.
30
That’s what you do with evidence, when under the rug is full.
30
South Island unseasonably bone dry in March.
‘March rainfall and temperature records — some more than 150 years old — have been toppled left, right and centre in the South Island.
‘Niwa meteorologist Tristan Meyers said March was “bone-dry” for much of the South Island because frontal systems from the Southern Ocean were infrequent and generally lacked the subtropical or tropical connection needed to generate significant rainfall.’ (NZ Harald)
30
Unseasonably dry in VIC also. Usually looking out on green hills by now but all still brown.
00
Great day for digging trenches for drainage (ineffective drainage at this old house of mine has been exposed over that last few weeks 😉
Ground is nice and soft, albeit a bit heavy.
Trouble is all these aches and pains.. perhaps I’ve caught the covid or something !
00
in better news, the UK is going to build 8 nuclear power plants, or up to 25% of their power requirments.
It could be that we in Australia will finally get the memo
81
And when will they be built? They’ve been building one for 17 years, but its startup data is 2026.
70
Bet its before our one coal fired power station.
30
We have the fuel, we have the disposal sites and we are buying nuclear powered subs, the timeline is a problem, but nuclear power would seem to be a ‘must have’
61
I don’t have a problem with Nuclear, or coal and gas.
Always wondered that if radio active areas are lethal, why did Nagasaki and Hiroshima get rebuilt the following year and millions live there, moved there and born there.
Why could we not just get Musk to shoot it at the moon or what is made can be un-made, grind it back up, add it to its original host rock now mud (tailings) and pump it back into the hole it came from, add cement and paste fill the old mine. Paste filling is used now to back fill stopes (huge caverns) in underground mines.
20
‘ … nuclear power would seem to be a ‘must have’
Not on my watch, we have enough coal to keep us going until Fusion comes on tap.
43
“until Fusion comes on tap.”
Yes, we have a lot of coal, and should be using it as our #1 choice… but will it last until fusion actually becomes workable .. that is the question. !
Fusion may be like “reliable wind”… a dream of the never-never.
00
ps.. nuclear electricity would help our coal last even longer.
00
The sooner they start the sooner they finish.
20
You’d think that Hanrahan, but the modern version is more like the sooner they start the sooner the project comes to a permanent standstill.
10
Its taken more than half a century to even get started on a 2nd Sydney Airport, so things arent looking promising.
40
Hinkley C is an outlier Graeme. Units 1 and 2 of Barakah in the UAE were built in 8 years each, on time, and are now delivering power 24/7 at around A$0.27/kWh. When units 3 and 4 are finished, the entire 5.6GW plant will cost around A$27bn, equivalent to Australia wasting four years of subsiding useless renewables. Still, I think that 450 MW SMRs will be the solution, as they can be built quicker and located closer to where the energy is needed.
10
“till, I think that 450 MW SMRs will be the solution”
Australia has lots of sparsely situated largish town.. SMRs would help solve transmission problems.
A big one or two for the cities, then spread the SMRs around at strategic locations.
00
But not for Canberra.. They have to use wind and solar only. 🙂
00
(Might’ve left this in the wrong place so reposting here)
The extremely wealthy OWN the Left now:
Why do you think Bezos bought The Washington Post?
Or Zuckerberg spent $300+ million in battleground states, to get Biden elected?
Or George S meddles in the elections of Public Prosecutors, in various cities? (places he doesn’t live in), making the streets less safe.
Or Gates controls so much research; and buys media outlets?
There’s no talk of why they own so much; and the mechanisms that led to that:
• endless money creation
• manufactured low interest rates
• buying politicians with donations.
But they’re cunning — they know that their rabid foot soldiers need to be thrown “red meat” to chew on … hence the modern Left’s focus on DISTRACTION policies that are nothing to do with sharing the wealth around; e.g.
• a man can become a woman at any time
• your pronouns have to be declared when you meet someone new
• women are “birthing persons”
• there’s a “looming climate disaster”
• leaving a baby to die on a table is okay if its mother doesn’t want it
• injections are not a choice — your Govt knows best, trust them
• racist policies are okay, it depends on whose race we’re talking about.
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UAP to preference Greens above ALP, Lib/Nat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sg3y3HY5ZE
40
I keep saying not to vote for a third party and cop a lot of reds for it.
See what I mean now?
51
Clive Palmeoff’s speech at the pressed for truth club.
At the start he speaks of the lifting of the ban on HCQ in QLD.
I’m voting for a forth party, giving the three amigos a big miss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP_Y7aAuubs
31
Earlier in the week I mentioned that the ban on HCQ has been lifted in Qld. I was making breakfast and only half listening to the radio but there was talk of easing restrictions on a WuFlu treatment. It may have been HCQ but it certainly wasn’t complete freeing that the PR spoke of.
Enjoy Albo and the open borders and new taxes.
51
I am going to vote for a “change I can hope for”. Present choice of best looking T^rd in the septic won’t cut it.
If I vote for more of the same, I will get more of the same.
I like the idea of put the sitting member last, might not pump out the septic, but it will get rid of the stench.
51
As I said: Enjoy Albo, and don’t complain.
13
Enjoy more of the same.
I’m complaining now, changing who I complain about is not a big move.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.
Time for a change. I’m ordering fish and chips!
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Agreed MP. Voting the incumbents out is a strategy worth considering. Easier to do in the lower house though. You’d need a big cheat sheet to vote against every sitting senator.
00
“CEO Devin Nunes Provides an Update on Truth Social Media Platform – Web Based Access Likely in Next Few Weeks
April 8, 2022 | Sundance | 37 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/08/ceo-devin-nunes-provides-an-update-on-truth-social-media-platform-web-based-access-likely-in-next-few-weeks/
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A close inspection
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPmZnRiXsAkIwM0?format=jpg&name=small
10
Via Chiefio
”
https://humanevents.com/2022/04/06/taylor-lorenz-and-andrew-sullivan-reveal-the-pathological-nature-of-wokeness/
nails it.”
30
In the news right now are front line workers, government employees such as paramedics asking for a reasonable pay rise. In my view they deserve a rise for several good reasons including that they are an essential service and dedicated professionals we could not do without, and our elected representatives must act now to pay them to remove cost of living pressures that add to the stressful occupational duties they perform during every shift.
And this leads me to the subject of high public debts (Federal, State and Local Government don’t forget) and understandable concerns raised, in my opinion the worst part is every financial year interest liability contained in budget expenditure, monies not available for governing. But is Austraiia, often called a wealthy country, being robbed of potential wealth, meaning we the people who are the ultimate owners of the common wealth such as vast reserve deposits of minerals and energy, one of the worlds largest known despots of gold and silver for example, coal, iron ore and much more. All realisable assets.
So why are so many locked away, more to the point governments, emphasis State Governments that have the responsibility and powers to approve mining development applications and process the applications for approval or not reject most applications? It’s United Nations influence, globalism, unelected people with influence here because Australian Federal Governments have signed UN treaties and agreements and State Governments have legislated complimentary laws and regulations. Only recently the NSW Parliament rejected an application to open up new uranium deposits, and a couple of proposed coal mines. All States have a record of limiting access to our common wealth.
Realisable assets of minerals and energy, carefully managed and exported as well as for local applications, could make The Wealthy Country so much more wealthy that our defence forces would present far more deterrent factor than now, our public services like Health and Hospitals would be far superior, transport, roads, and much more would by the envy of the world. And no debt required.
42
In Qld, especially Townsville, water is the hot topic with money for Hells Gate Dam being announced and others saying stage II of the Burdekin Falls Dam would be cheaper and quicker.
One reason for the interest ATM is that the eastern tropics have had the driest wet season EVA™
The link to Dennis’ comment on mines is that Qld has not had a new dam or power station built since Joh Bjelke Petersen was Premier, and precious few new mines and their rail lines.
I doubt piss poor planning is the cause, it is more deliberate and anti societal.
100
I consider all workers essential, I consider all governments non essential.
Lets get our politicians to recover the $444 million the LNP gave to the 6 employees of the GBR foundation, Slomo’s swimming pool and car park money, the 400 million he gave the French for the Subs we did not get, scratch that its now at $5 Billion.
The $1 Billion he just gave to the professional snorkelers association. The $10 Billion(to date and not 1 watt produced) he has spent pumping water up hill to the “big Battery”. That 10 Billion does not include poles and wires by the way.
Divvy that up amongst the masses or stop stealing it in the first place.
The Liberal party election music is catchy though. I was going to link the hour long version, but the Libs won’t be around to hear it through to the end.
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complementary
01
This just about sums it up…………………….
https://www.sott.net/article/466340-Is-it-possible-to-actually-know-what-has-been-and-is-going-on-in-Ukraine
Cheers,
John Knee Rotten
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John, that is EXCELLENT! Anyone interested in the Ukraine situation should read it.
..and coming from a NATO Intelligence officer it adds credence to what I have read on the Russian side. Ukraine is something they were forced to do something about, and most wonder why the West is trying to destroy them. No wonder Putin has over 80% approval in Russia, while no leader in the West has over 40%.
50
Good read, the more you know.
00
Nice pick up John. As others have confirmed, it is a must read by anybody with an interest in the Ukraine conflict.
I hope someone is keeping track of who gains through the many manipulations of the situation. My eyes are on the power brokers in Europe and the thoroughly corrupt US government and its agencies.
00
Meanwhile, 93 million miles / about seven seconds away:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-sun-is-way-more-active-than-official-solar-weather-predictions
30
Watch this space!
“TRUCKERS WERE RIGHT: Freedom Convoy protest was legal, judge says, and Ottawa is now being sued”
https://farmersforum.com/truckers-were-right-freedom-convoy-protest-was-legal-judge-says-and-ottawa-is-now-being-sued/
120
Wilson is also a lawyer for former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, who is suing the federal government for breaching the charter of rights by preventing unvaccinated people from leaving the country or getting on a bus, train or ship.
“Obviously we are going to be able to establish Charter breaches,” Wilson said, adding that the government restricted mobility, security of the person and freedom of conscience.”
100
And re the truckers
“Rex Murphy: Will anyone apologize for falsely accusing truckers of attempted arson in Ottawa?
The attempt to burn down an apartment building in Ottawa, which was so widely and wildly heralded during the Freedom Convoy protest, had nothing to do with the truckers”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-will-anyone-apologize-for-falsely-accusing-truckers-of-attempted-arson-in-ottawa
50
Breitbart Business Daily: The Rumble and the Ruble—How the West’s Sanctions on Russia Strengthen the Ruble and Threaten Globalization
So what was the world’s best performing currency of the past month?
You guessed it: the Russian ruble. After plunging to 139 rubles to the dollar on March 7, the ruble staged a dramatic comeback to around 80 rubles to the dollar. That’s only slightly weaker than where it was for almost all of last year. The recovery is equally impressive when compared with the euro. At the end of February, it took 89 rubles to buy a euro. In early March, that climbed to around 145 rubles. Now it is down to 87.32.
On Friday, the joke among foreign exchange traders was that the Russian central bank was going to have to cut interest rates to keep the ruble from getting too strong and making its exports too expensive. That’s unlikely, but the point is important: the sanctions on Russia were intended to cripple its currency on the global market in order to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy. The recovery indicates that the sanctions, even as they have been strengthened both by official measures and private companies renouncing business ties with Russia, are not working as advertised.
The biggest reason for this, of course, is natural gas. Russia began to demand recently that Europe pay for natural gas in rubles instead of euros.
41
DEA Issues Warning on U.S. Fentanyl Influx of 2021: ‘Enough to Kill Every American’
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is warning federal, state, and local law enforcement of an impending nationwide spike in fentanyl-related “mass overdose events” and reported the amount of the drug infiltrating into the United States in 2021 was enough “to kill every American.”
“Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate,” DEA administrator Anne Milgram said. “Drug traffickers are driving addiction, and increasing their profits, by mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs.”
20
And they struggle to work out (or pretend to struggle) how to do capital punishment lethal injections properly.
30
A regular user of opioids could easily require 15-20-fold higher dose to kill him. It is the intermitant and occaisional user who is at risk.
20
China Admits Nine Provinces Saw Birth Rates Decline in 2021
Birth rates across nine Chinese provinces and autonomous regions decreased in 2021, the state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday.
“As of Sunday [April 3], 23 provinces and autonomous regions in China had released demographic data on birth rate for 2021. The data showed that nine provinces experienced a natural negative increase in population in 2021,” according to the Chinese state-run newspaper.
The nine provinces and regions included Hebei (which surrounds China’s national capital, Beijing), Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Shanxi, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, and Heilongjiang.
“Among them, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi all registered negative natural population growth rates for the first time in recent decades,” the Global Times noted on April 6.
China contains 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions.
“In terms of birth rates, only two out of 23 provinces — Guizhou and Qinghai — had a birth rate of more than 1 percent [in 2021],” the Global Times observed on Wednesday.
China’s declining birth rate is a result of the nation’s decades-long child limits for married couples. The Chinese Communist Party enforced a strict one-child policy on nearly all families from about 1980 to 2016, implementing it through forced abortions and infanticides.
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Biden Admin Prioritizes Climate Fantasies While Famine Threatens The World
President Joe Biden would seemingly rather virtue signal about climate change than act on the near-term implications of a potential global famine.
President Joe Biden says he is “working out” how to mitigate global food shortages. But action speaks louder than words — and so does inaction.
Global food supply chain chaos has increased due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Countries across the globe are scrambling to increase food production. However, America is not one of them, because President Joe Biden would seemingly rather virtue signal about climate change than act on the near-term implications of a global famine.
Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, with soil similar to that of the American Midwest. It is one of the largest exporters of wheat and corn in the world. Those exports were a lifeline for millions of people, including many who live in “global crisis zones” and have no reliable agriculture of their own — until now.
The World Food Program warned Ukraine’s supply chain is “falling apart.” Those problems will worsen if Ukrainians cannot plant crops this spring.
On top of this, Putin threatened to restrict food sales from Russia — also one of the world’s largest exporters — to only “friendly” countries. Understanding the impending crisis, the European Commission has opened up conserved agricultural land for cultivation and distributed $550 million to European farmers to increase production.
President Biden refused. As an explanation, his Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the National Grain and Feed Association that re-opening the farm land would have “a significant and detrimental impact on producers’ efforts to mitigate climate change.”
This is not the first time President Biden placed his environmentalist image above common sense and human life. U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry’s obsession with cutting a Green New Deal with Communist China caused him to overlook slave labor in Xinjiang.
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Ukraine provides 8% of global wheat trade:
Russia: US$7.9 billion (17.6% of total wheat exports)
United States: $6.32 billion (14.1%)
Canada: $6.3 billion (14%)
France: $4.5 billion (10.1%)
Ukraine: $3.6 billion (8%)
Australia: $2.7 billion (6%)
Argentina: $2.12 billion (4.7%)
Germany: $2.1 billion (4.7%)
Kazakhstan: $1.1 billion (2.5%)
Poland: $1 billion (2.3%)
Romania: $948.8 million (2.1%)
Lithuania: $910.7 million (2%)
Bulgaria: $699.2 million (1.6%)
Latvia: $649.2 million (1.4%)
Hungary: $630.6 million (1.4%)
So hardly the breadbasket of Europe.
Australia is heading for a bumper 2021-22 season with wheat exports expected to reach AUD10.3bn. So Australia will be filling a sizeable part of any Ukraine gap.
Australia must also have a glut in wine production going by prices on offer for wine.
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Explosive Pennsylvania Testimony Explains How Leftist Money Infiltrated Election Offices In 2020
This evidence should be enough for the Pennsylvania legislature to recognize there is a real problem when private money and private actors collaborate with election officials.
The Democrat governor’s office in Pennsylvania colluded with left-wing activists to secure millions of dollars in private money to run get-out-the-vote efforts in blue counties in the swing state in 2020, new, explosive testimony revealed. The Pennsylvania legislature heard this testimony, backed up by email evidence, on Tuesday during the first public hearing on two new bills seeking to block private grants.
Tuesday’s public hearing began with statements by the respective primary sponsors of the bills that seek to ban dark money from elections, with Sen. Lisa Baker speaking in support of Senate Bill 982 and Rep. Eric Nelson encouraging passage of House Bill 2044. Pennsylvania investigative journalist Todd Shepherd then testified at length on the results of his extensive probe into the insertion of private funds into the 2020 election.
– How the Left Opened This Battlefront
– Activists Push for Ballot Trafficking Dropboxes
– Equal Protection Problems
– Other Evidence of Vote Mismanagement
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A Pure Hypothetical…
What if an aging, dim-witted crook became president?
In the meantime, you want to identify other opportunities. Having been surrounded and solicited by the nation’s rich and mega-rich all throughout the nearly 50 years you’ve helped helm the ship of state as a federal elected official, a lifetime lived on a government salary doesn’t seem the reward to which you feel entitled.
What to do?
With no time to waste in what you believe to be your final term in federal office, you grab two cutouts whom you can trust not to sell you out. One is a son with substance abuse issues to serve as the bag man; the other a sibling to help oversee the troubled son, who will be traipsing the globe to pocket the lucre from foreign sources in exchange for your perceived ability to influence events.
The foreign money is crucial, as it doesn’t have quite the troublesome reporting requirements of domestic revenue sources; and far less attention from the press, though they wouldn’t pay much attention anyways since you’re on the “good team.” Further, the incurious press will allow you to take your son along on your federal travels. Not a bad way to lower your overhead. Even if the president knew about your “unofficial” use of federal resources, he wouldn’t raise a stink, because it would ruin his legacy’s risible “no scandals” talking point.
Of course, the perception of your ability to peddle influence will wane when your time in federal office concludes. Still, given your impending status in some quarters as an expert in foreign policy and an elder statesman, there will still be those willing to pay to play. Best to establish a foundation or chair at a friendly university. Such institutions will love the prestige that comes with hosting someone of your stature on campus, almost as much as your ability to help tap your old network to raise funds for the university. And, hey, neither you nor that university have any qualms taking foreign money—lots and lots of foreign money.
Near the end of your term, your party’s ruthless front-runner stumbles from an unforced error. From your perch as vice president, you let it be known you are willing to run for president if it helps your party and the country. But the ruthless front-runner manages to weather the storm and to put a shot across your bow.
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Applying International Standards to 2020 Elections
What if we applied the principles of election integrity we expect from other countries to the United States?
In many parts of the country, matching a signature on a voter list with that on an absentee ballot was the only way to verify the identity of the voter. To handle the huge number of mail-in ballots compared to previous elections, signature matching processes were changed or eliminated without proper transparency or consideration, shortcuts were taken and safeguards dropped, which weakened security and diminished confidence in the validity of millions of ballots in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Mail-in or absentee ballots lacking an outer security envelope would normally be ruled invalid, but in Pennsylvania they were accepted, contrary to international practice and norms.
In most elections worldwide, mail-in ballots must be postmarked by a specified date (usually Election Day) to be counted, but in Wisconsin and Michigan employees of the United States Postal Service were instructed to backdate late arriving ballots so they could still be counted.
Mail-in ballots also facilitated a practice called “ballot harvesting,” in which political operatives go door to door picking up ballots from homeowners. This undermines the secrecy of the ballot and introduces opportunities for intimidation and vote buying, and in places like senior homes and apartment blocks enables one person to collect, fill in, and submit numerous ballots. Ballot harvesting decreases the security and credibility of election processes and is consequently contrary to international best practices.
Voter Registration and Voter ID: The U.S. government has provided hundreds of millions of dollars through its foreign assistance to support voter registration processes in other countries. An accurate voter list and effective voter ID are seen as essential for deterring malpractice and cheating, and for enhancing voter confidence in the integrity of the process. American foreign policy also promotes the Open Election Data Initiative, which advocates internationally for transparent and publicly accessible election data.
Domestically, again, the picture is quite different. The average accuracy of state-maintained voter lists is far below what would be considered minimally acceptable overseas.
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and of course being the US , everything is fragmented , State by State, County by County so there are no consistent rules or oversight. I guess if you assume only corruption and the Fed level then this is a good thing and it could have been worse (which is something to contemplate )
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“Canada: The Federal Climate Plan – Far Out of Touch with The World, With First Nations, with Its Regions, and The Feds Just Don’t Care”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/08/canada-the-federal-climate-plan-far-out-of-touch-with-the-world-with-first-nations-with-its-regions-and-the-feds-just-dont-care/
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A Danish offshore wind farm has declared a no-go zone around its windmills after a complete assembly of three blades and the hub departed company and fell into the ocean. Fair dinkum, why would you feel the need to sail your boat anywhere near those mechanical disasters.
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I don’t know what amateur fishing is like, if there is any, in those waters but trawlers would not be disturbing the area daily. Each structure would be a mini artificial reef.
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According to Mariana Alves-Pereira there is a fish desert around operating wind farms due to low frequency “sound” – in the question period of her talk. A quick search suggests not a lot is known except that the noise of pile driving during building drives away marine mammals.
https://livestream.com/itmsstudio/events/8781285/videos/196181579
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Apparently there’s is no legislation anywhere to show what the effects will be when wind turbines are placed in a marine environment. To date , it has been shown that the turbulence behind the blades interferes with currents , rain fall and causes the water layers to be mixed . Mixing of temperature and depth layers would interfere with marine life.
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The numpties from Extinction Rebellion are starting their proteste in London today. I’m going along to take some photos. I’ll post them somewhere on the net and post the link here so people can have a good laugh.
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Until the 12th of never, when the clock turns 13, James Macpherson ridicules the IPCC AR6.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/04/the-ipcc-say-the-world-is-ending-again/
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A book reviewed
“Saturday Snippet: Demographics and the rise and fall of nations”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/saturday-snippet-demographics-and-rise.html
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It appears they have found a cure for COVID https://twitter.com/i/status/1512378455077584901
The horses knew all along.
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Documentary with Dr Robert Malone
Headwind 2
Starts screening at EpochTV at 8:30pm US eastern time. (In about 40 mins)
10:30am Aus eastern time.
https://m.theepochtimes.com/epochtv
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Preview trailer
https://m.theepochtimes.com/headwind-dr-robert-w-malone_4382543.html
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Preview write up
https://m.theepochtimes.com/cinema-documentary-review-dr-robert-malone-in-headwind-2-people-in-the-eye-of-the-storm_4382935.html
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There is an explanation for Disney’s war on children
When it comes to Hollywood and the NBA, for example, the big bucks are coming from China, not America. And when it comes to Disney, the main profit center isn’t children; it’s young adults who, Peter Pan–like, refuse to grow up.
The brilliant Daniel Greenfield makes this point in an article entitled “Disney’s Business Model is Turning Kids into Dysfunctional Adults: Its customer base isn’t kids. It’s messed up adults.” Greenfield, as always, has done the research, and, in the case of Disney, he points to the fact that Disney’s most fanatic consumers are in the over 18 demographic:
Disney isn’t for kids anymore. Its movie business is dominated by Marvel blockbusters. Half of Disney+ subscribers, its big bet on the home streaming future, are adults with no children.
What about the theme parks?
60% of Disneyland visitors were adults with no children. Only 36.7% of Disney World visitors had children under 18. The largest demographic for the theme parks, like the movies, are millennials. They are also members of the fandoms who are likeliest to spend money on licensed merchandise, and on toys and movie tie-ins that are Disney’s bread and butter.
And Disney is rapidly adapting with theme parks and resorts that emphasize its Marvel and Star Wars properties more than classic fare. Its Galactic Starcruiser hotel, aimed at Star Wars fans, costs $4,809 for two adults. Why bother with kid stuff when you can sell $13 beers?
Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, who care deeply about their children growing up to be happy, healthy, normal adults, aren’t Disney’s target market. Instead, Disney is directing its resources to the same dysfunctional adults you see screaming on college campuses because their professor forgot to give them a trigger warning before exposing them to the work of an awful, cisgender, heterosexual White male like William Shakespeare.
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“”Bloody energy”
I’ve said on several occasions that we simply don’t know the truth about what’s going on in the Ukraine war. Both sides are corrupt; both sides are creating increasingly effective propaganda about their and their opponent’s actions; and neither side can be trusted.
Nevertheless, for students of propaganda, there’s a great deal to be learned from the Ukraine war. ”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/bloody-energy.html
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Nevertheless, for students of propaganda, there’s a great deal to be learned from the Ukraine war. I’m sure it’ll be studied as a public relations exercise for many years to come. One of the most effective pieces of propaganda I’ve seen so far comes from the Ukrainian side, targeting ongoing European purchases of oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuel energy from Russia.
Whoever put that together deserves the European equivalent of an Oscar for its brilliant simplicity. Regardless of where one stands over the war, its basic argument is essentially unchallengeable: that buying Russian fuel supports the Russian war effort. I’m sure Russia can (and probably will) produce countervailing advertisements that supporting Ukraine is to support N@zi extremists (which is also true to at least some extent); but “Bloody Energy” has an immediacy, a connection to everyday life, that is almost unanswerable.
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O.O.
As I read it those are the words of Peter Grant who owns that blog.
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Yep; as everything I submit becomes the words of Jo Nova, well at least until that fateful day a person’s dna becomes the root of a permanent digital identity and interesting times beset us all.
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Progressive Crime Syndicate
Understanding the Progressive Mind II.
In a previous article, I explained that “progressivism is a criminal mentality.” By progressivism, I mean every political philosophy that regards itself as “revolutionary,” or “transformative,” that describes itself as socialist, communist, fa@cist or ji@hadist – or that believes “the moral arc of the universe that bends towards justice.” The belief that history is marching towards justice is a cult ideology refuted by the mass genocides of the modern era, which were carried out by M@rxists and N@zis. The belief that the world is marching towards justice, that progressives are “on the right side of history” is a delusion that will justify any atrocity and already has.
The Biden administration is fully aware that what it is doing is illegal – criminal. Otherwise, why fly the undocumented “migrants” to destinations across the country in the dark of night? Why conceal their destinations? Needless to say, taxing Americans to fund a secretive mass breaking of American law is another form of theft – one that characteristically expresses radicals’ contempt for their fellow citizens.
The obvious goals of this progressive assault on American sovereignty are two-fold: 1) the transformation of the electorate to benefit progressives; and 2) the dilution of America’s unique culture, since illegal immigration circumvents the processes of citizenship, which are traditionally an introduction to American values, along with a oath to defend them.
The assault on America’s borders began in earnest with the 2004 creation of law-breaking “Sanctuary Cities.” These cities suspended the application of immigration laws blocking immigration officials from doing their jobs. The Sanctuary Cities campaign was, in fact, a criminal attack on America’s immigration laws, which were federal in nature and therefore could not be altered by municipal authorities. The illegal actions succeeded because of the support of Democrat elected officials. If ever there was a case of sedition, this was it.
Two years later, having witnessed scant resistance from Republicans, and gotten away with his brazen action, Obama decided to expand the scope of his crime. He undertook a second executive action, this time granting provisional amnesty to 4 million illegal aliens under the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program – an expansion of DACA.
That opened the floodgates to the destructive invasion of the country we are witnessing today, although to achieve its true fruition it had to wait several years until Joe Biden destroyed America’s borders on the first day of his presidency, and invited all of South America and even unaccompanied minors to enter America anonymously. In practice, the invitation extended to the entire world. In this way America was fundamentally and illegally and unconstitutionally transformed by a party that was now completely dominated by progressive criminals.
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Meme of the Day #33
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“It’s Important to let Monsters Speak, So We Know Precisely What They’re Thinking”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/09/its-important-to-let-cretins-speak-so-we-know-precisely-what-theyre-thinking/#comments
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“Neil Oliver, The COVID Schemes Cost Billions, But the Aftermath Costs are Worse Than Money
April 9, 2022 | Sundance | 8 Comments
Neil Oliver takes a look at the economics of COVID and how government intervention and spending has crushed the working class. However, it is not the financial aspects that carry the worst debt in the aftermath, there is a human cost that can never be repaid or recreated.”
https://youtu.be/AOlLQ_hKbQw
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Well, we go to the polls 21 May.
That wasn’t hard now, was it?
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Well, this is an interesting slant- From the sitrep article today at thesaker.is
“From an interior army report at Fort Benning, here’s what the U.S. Army expert says about Russian BTGs as compared to the equivalent American BCTs (Brigade Combat Teams). [article about artillery follows]….
But with that said, here’s why I think a confrontation between Russia / NATO may be very unlikely. The simple reason is that, particularly in today’s global economic depression (which is really what it is if you look past the fudged figures), the U.S. economy is nearly kept afloat entirely by its MIC, which has emerged as probably the most significant remaining U.S. export and manufacturing potential – its military arms. To retain this final vestige of economic authority, the U.S. has to keep up the ‘mythos’ and image of invincibility of its arms and military products.
Given what you saw above in the report, it is an absolutely undeniable fact that at the minimum, in any Russia vs. Nato engagement, the opposing side would suffer some humiliating defeats to their vaunted systems like the F-35s, Patriots, U.S. Carrier Groups, advanced drones, missiles & PGMs, etc, etc. The scale of the shock and disruption this would create for the U.S. MIC is too heavy to bear. They would never risk their cashcows being ‘exposed’ on the world stage, and having all the mythical mystique stripped away.
Any even small incursion by the U.S. risks a massive image blowback that would destroy the credibility of American arms world wide. They cannot risk showing the world the superiority of Russian systems. Imagine the gungho U.S. sending in F-35s to help Ukraine only to see them get shot down by Russian S-400s? Do you realize the symbolic shockwaves the shootdown of American F117s over Serbia sent around the world? And do you realize that the entire F117 line was literally retired due to that ONE highly humiliating and symbolic event? What would happen when several of U.S.’s key systems are shown in high-definition youtube videos to be completely overrated when Russian systems expose them? It is too great a risk to bear. They cannot allow the last dying profitable sector of their economic engine to be taken offline.”
Well, its a bit like having battleships in WW2 and leaving them in harbour because they were too expensive to lose.
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You don’t like the US do you?
There were not ever been F117s [plural] shot down. There was one only and that because they flew the same route every night.
The F117 was the first aircraft over Bagdad and it came back. Those skies were HEAVILY defended.
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I was watching a “true” crime the other day, the genre being a favourite of Mrs Y.
The show was about a psychopathic teenager who over time feed her boyfriends depression and encouraged him to suicide. She then did various fundraisers for suicide prevention to keep herself in the limelight and demonstrate virtue.
Towards the end the narrator described the teenager as a psychopath with strong narcissistic tendencies, who manufactured crises and then tried gather kudos by “solving” them. It struck me that she probably would have made a good politician, especially in Victoria.
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