Note to the Democrats

stickdog · 2024-05-06T20:52:39+00:00

Even the NY Times has finally admitted unsafe.

See this pre-print and its footnotes 3, 10, 12, 19, and 20 reproduced below, as well as the omicron infection experiences of you and everyone you know, for a full confirmation of ineffective.

Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Bivalent Vaccine

... effectiveness was not demonstrated when the XBB lineages were dominant.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine Boosting in Previously Infected or Vaccinated Individuals

In multivariable analysis, boosting was independently associated with lower risk of COVID-19 among those vaccinated but not previously infected (hazard ratio [HR], .43; 95% confidence interval [CI], .41–.46) as well as those previously infected (HR, .66; 95% CI, .58–.76). Among those previously infected, receipt of 2 compared with 1 dose of vaccine was associated with higher risk of COVID-19 (HR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.21–1.97).

Risk of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) among those up-to-date and not up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccination by US CDC criteria

Results

COVID-19 occurred in 1475 (3%) of 48 344 employees during the 100-day study period. The cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was lower in the “not up-to-date” than the “up-to-date” state. On multivariable analysis, being “up-to-date” was not associated with lower risk of COVID-19 (HR, 1.05; 95% C.I., 0.88–1.25; P-value, 0.58). Results were very similar when those 65 years and older were only considered “up-to-date” after 2 doses of the bivalent vaccine.

Conclusions

Since the XBB lineages became dominant, adults “up-to-date” on COVID-19 vaccination by the CDC definition do not have a lower risk of COVID-19 than those “not up-to-date”, bringing into question the value of this risk classification definition.

Rate of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection During an Omicron Wave in Iceland

The probability of reinfection increased with time from the initial infection (odds ratio of 18 months vs 3 months, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.18-2.08) (Figure) and was higher among persons who had received 2 or more doses compared with 1 dose or less of vaccine (odds ratio, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.13-1.78). Defining reinfection after 30 or more days or 90 or more days did not qualitatively change the results.

History of primary-series and booster vaccination and protection against Omicron reinfection

The history of primary-series vaccination enhanced immune protection against Omicron reinfection, but history of booster vaccination compromised protection against Omicron reinfection.

stickdog · 2024-03-25T22:24:34+00:00

Excerpt:

Harvard researchers have ceased a long-running effort to conduct a small geoengineering experiment in the stratosphere, following repeated delays and public criticism.

In a university statement released on March 18, Frank Keutsch, the principal investigator on the project, said he is “no longer pursuing the experiment.”

The basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that the world might be able to counteract global warming by spraying tiny particles in the atmosphere that could scatter sunlight.

The plan for the Harvard experiments was to launch a high-altitude balloon, equipped with propellers and sensors, that could release a few kilograms of calcium carbonate, sulfuric acid or other materials high above the planet. It would then turn around and fly through the plume to measure how widely the particles disperse, how much sunlight they reflect and other variables. The aircraft will now be repurposed for stratospheric research unrelated to solar geoengineering, according to the statement.

The vast majority of solar geoengineering research to date has been carried out in labs or computer models. The so-called stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment (SCoPEx) was expected to be the first such scientific effort conducted in the stratosphere. But it proved controversial from the start and, in the end, others may have beaten them across the line of deliberately releasing reflective materials into that layer of the atmosphere. (The stratosphere stretches from approximately 10 to 50 kilometers above the ground.)

...

Proponents of solar geoengineering research argue we should investigate the concept because it may significantly reduce the dangers of climate change. Further research could help scientists better understand the potential benefits, risks and tradeoffs between various approaches.

But critics argue that even studying the possibility of solar geoengineering eases the societal pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They also fear such research could create a slippery slope that increases the odds that nations or rogue actors will one day deploy it, despite the possibility of dangerous side-effects, including decreasing precipitation and agricultural output in some parts of the world.

...

stickdog · 2024-03-25T21:30:28+00:00

Excerpt:

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We were all called lunatics, hobby virologists, conspiracy theorists and worse for our doubts that Covid was all that dangerous, that lockdowns were worth it, that mask mandates made any sense, and that excluding the unvaccinated from public life was remotely justifiable. A lot of us were banned and ostracised for saying these things. The RKI release shows that our public health managers were having exactly the same discussions in private the whole time. Our politicians told us that all of this lunacy was necessary because we had to FoLlOw ThE ScIenCe. In fact the scientists were mere tools of the prior political decision to force this entire pandemic theatre upon us; they functioned merely to lend the pandemic policies about which they themselves nourished hidden doubts a pseudoscientific aura.

The worst thing is that nothing will come of this, and nothing will come of the still greater revelations likely to follow either.

stickdog · 2024-02-18T01:28:38+00:00

Excerpt:

The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it’s been spending your taxes, it’s threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a “better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information.” Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he’s sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the Washington Examiner.

A year ago the Examiner published “Disinformation, Inc.”, a series by investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky describing how the State Department was backing a UK-based agency that creates digital blacklists for disfavored media outlets. Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, “thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model.”

The culprit was the Global Engagement Center, a little-known State Department entity created in Barack Obama’s last year in office and a surprise focus of Twitter Files reporting. The GEC grew out of a counter-terrorism agency called the CSCC and has a mission to “counter” any messaging, foreign or domestic as it turns out, that they see as “undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States.” The GEC-funded GDI rated ten conservative sites as most “risky” and put the Examiner on its “exclusion” list, while its ten sites rated at the “lowest level of disinformation” included Buzzfeed, which famously published the Steele Dossier knowing it contained errors and is now out of business.

In an effort to find out what other ventures GEC was funding — an absurd 36 of 39 2018 contractors were redacted even in an Inspector General’s report — the House Small Business Committee wrote the State Department last June asking for basic information about where the public’s money was being spent. State and GEC stalled until December 3 of last year, when it finally produced a partial list of recipients. Although House Republicans asked for an “unredacted list of all GEC grant recipients and associated award numbers” from 2019 through the current year, the list the Committee received was missing “dozens” of contractors, including some listed on USASpending.com.

...

In response to the outrage of this disclosure, the State Department sent its letter threatening in camera sessions until it gets a better “understanding” of how the Committee will use its “sensitive” information. That’s Beltway-ese for “We wouldn’t mind knowing the Examiner’s sources.”

About that: the State letter wrote that the Examiner’s records were “reportedly obtained from the Committee,” and included a footnote and a link to a Kaminsky story, implying that the Examiner reported that it got the records from the Committee. But the paper said nothing about the source of the documents, which as anyone who’s ever covered these types of stories knows, could have come from any number of places. It’s a small but revealing detail about current petulance levels at State.

“Anti-disinformation” work is not exactly hypersonic missile construction. There’s no legitimate reason for it to be kept from the public, especially since it’s increasingly clear its programs target American media companies and American media consumers, seemingly in violation of the State Department’s mission. The requested information is also not classified, making the delays and tantrums more ridiculous.

...

stickdog · 2024-02-14T22:09:55+00:00

Excerpt:

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MWO defenders absolutely deny that nearly all governments want to implement the pillars of the NWO and support the same global governance system, regardless of how blatantly obvious it is. And if it is true, they say, it doesn't matter anyway. The MWO is how we will all defeat the IRBO—which is all that matters—and build a global community of sovereign nations states who will make fairer, multilateral global governance decisions.

The idea that "they're all in it together" is preposterous, they claim. East and West are fighting each other for heaven's sake, you fool. Get behind the right political leaders for the sake of peace and stop doubting the good guys.

This rebuttal is like claiming that professional boxers beating each other to a pulp proves the pugilists are determined to resist the international boxing federation. It is tantamount to asserting that boardroom backstabbing is evidence that the corporate executives, enriched by the success of the company, are intent upon undermining the corporation they all profit from.

Not only is this geopolitical analysis predicated upon the idea that some politicians are suddenly trustworthy, and everything they say somehow constitutes evidence, it completely dismisses everything we have learned from historical researchers like Norman Dodd, Antony C. Sutton, Carrol Quigley, G. Edward Griffin, Patrick Wood and many more. It is as if history is no longer relevant.

No one who criticises multipolarity denies the reality of geopolitical competition; none of us think violent conflicts and wars between nation states and their proxies aren't real; not a single voice, warning against the MWO, thinks people aren't being killed as governments fight for supremacy and no one is arguing that governments are "all in it together"—assuming “it” refers to the creation of a multipolar world order.

Quite evidently, there is very real and bitter conflict between nations and it is causing immense suffering. In fact, one of our chief concerns is that the transition to a MWO will cause significantly more suffering.

What we are saying is that there is no disagreement on the pillars from any quarter. But this is no claim that national governments are “all in it together.” On the contrary, the fact that there is both conflict and, at the same time, global agreement on the pillars, suggests a “geopolitical reality” that no member of the multipolar fan club seemingly wants to discuss.

Agreement on the pillars does not suggest all national governments are of one, single hive mind. It suggests that governments do not control the global governance system. They are subject to it, just like the rest of us. The best they can achieve is "partner" status. And they are not senior partners.

The pillars did not originate with national governments. The pillars were mapped out by public-private globalist think tanks and international organisations that serve the interests of oligarchs.

As the Chinese government openly declares:

China maintains that for the world, there is only one system, which is the international system with the United Nations at its core, that there is only one order, which is the international order based on international law, and that there is only one set of rules, which is the basic norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. China actively participates in and leads the reform of the global governance system.

This “leadership” is transitioning the world to precisely the global governance system, replete with its SDGs, CBDC (digital money), surveillance, censorship and centralised global control of all nation states, that the oligarchs want. It is a bid to construct the latest iteration of the "New World Order."

This is also the global tyranny that, until very recently, nearly every Western commentator in the "independent media" was warning against.

Now, a growing chorus is suggesting we should accept the MWO because it will allegedly defeat the IRBO. This is a false dichotomy and a propagandist trap.

The IRBO is undoubtedly on its way out, but global oligarch networks haven't suddenly vanished. Far from it. We only need look at recent events to see who is actually profiting from them. The IRBO's demise is necessary for the birth of the MWO, and through it, establishment of the oligarch's NWO global governance technocracy.

The irony is that the Eastern independent media—where it exists—continues to question the oppression of global governance and remains highly critical of it. Yet some in the Western independent media seem pathologically averse to even acknowledging, let alone reporting, criticisms made by Russian independent commentators, for example.

As multipolar advocates claim that none of this is true, then I ask them to provide some evidence of one major economy that is not erecting the pillars. Can the MWO campaigners please explain how it is possible that all leading economies are pursuing the same policy platforms, simultaneously, without centralised, global coordination and policy control?

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stickdog · 2024-01-26T01:01:42+00:00

Of course, but reducing the overall impact of humans on the environment is a great goal regardless of climate change. There are hundreds of ways to do this that start with the worst offenders before we get to the personal carbon allowance the elites desperately want to foist on everyone except themselves.

The elite's "climate change is the greatest emergency in the history of humanity" is just their newest way to turn the compassionate sentiments and healthy collectivist instincts of us regular people against us.

Every time they bring up any rationing of carbon or curtailing of our rights to travel, our hearty and unanimous reply needs to be "YOU FIRST!"

stickdog · 2024-01-24T00:58:29+00:00

More Lunatics Running Our Asylum

stickdog · 2024-01-24T00:37:59+00:00

Many supporting links at the OP

Excerpt:

The vaccine mandates of the Covid pandemic were a radical departure from previous public health policies and norms in America. During the pandemic, often while it was still under an expedited “emergency authorization,” many children and adolescents were barred from colleges, summer camps, sports, arts programs and other activities if they hadn’t received the vaccine. Countless adults, similarly, were unable to work, go to a restaurant, a concert, a show, or participate in other social activities without proof of vaccination.

Unlike many other vaccines, given that someone’s Covid vaccination status was uninformative about whether they were infected or not, these mandates not were only an imposition on civil liberties, but also epidemiologically unsound.

Court documents from more than a half-dozen Covid vaccine fraud cases around the country shed new light on this fraught time in our history, and expose some inconvenient truths.

First, the cases suggest that media narratives around “anti-vaxxers” as an only-right-wing phenomenon were misleading.

In January 2022, Time magazine ran a story titled, “How the Anti-Vax Movement Is Taking Over the Right.” The piece detailed how the movement against vaccine mandates “was a window into a growing political cause that is beginning to unite a host of groups across the right.” And the article asserted that anti-mandate rallies “seemed to be driven by the same narratives that pulled thousands of Americans into the QAnon conspiracy.” NPR ran a piece on the “growing alliance between anti-vaccine activists and pro-Trump Republicans.” The widely covered Canadian trucker convoy—which began as a protest against vaccine mandates—was similarly portrayed as a coalescence of right-wing views. Beyond the media, the academy pushed this idea as well, for example a scholarly paper tying “anti-gender and anti-vaccine” positions together as part of “right-wing discourses.”

It is true that Republicans were vaccinated against Covid at a lower rate than Democrats. (Though, since people often answer polls and surveys with what they think is an acceptable response, rather than the truth, survey data can be notoriously unreliable.) Still, among the half-dozen or so vaccine fraud cases I reviewed, a number of the perpetrators were almost certainly on the left politically.

A midwifery in upstate New York called Sage-Femme, like many of the schemers, used its status as a medical center to order vaccine doses and receive genuine vaccine cards from the government. But instead of vaccinating patients the center destroyed the doses and filled out cards for patients erroneously saying they had been vaccinated. Sage-Femme racked up two separate indictments against different staff members.

Data suggest that midwives are almost universally left-wing, and inclined to be liberal and democrats. For good measure, midwives, by and large, are staunchly pro-choice, not a position associated with the political right.

Another fraud case is against Juli Mazi, a naturopath in California. Mazi allegedly gave patients “COVID-19 homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets,” but filled out official cards saying they had received the vaccine. Naturopaths almost definitionally exist as an alternative to the medical establishment, and their approach is aligned with a “holistic” or nature-based worldview typically associated with the far left, or, at the least, simply outside our traditional political alignments. It’s hard to view Mazi, who has Facebook posts that say “Hug trees, clean the seas, save the bees,” as right wing.

Julie DeVuono, a nurse practitioner, who worked at Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare, in Long Island, New York, was indicted for selling forged vaccination cards and making false entries into the state’s vaccination database. DeVuono is a “natural medicine oriented pediatric nurse,” who has advocated for cupping treatment while at an acupuncturist’s office—again, not exactly the profile of a typical right-winger.

This of course is not a systematic review of all vaccine fraud cases. But in the random sampling of court cases I reviewed it’s hard to argue that “anti-vax” sentiment—erroneously defined by the media as being against Covid vaccines or simply Covid vaccine mandates—was exclusive to the right, as much of the media narrative portrayed it to be.

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This isn’t to say the government does not have an obligation to prosecute fraud. Only that the resources for these sting operations and legal battles against the Covid vaccine card schemes could have been used for any number of other healthcare crimes of far greater magnitude. For example, medicare and medicaid fraud is estimated to cost in the billions-of-dollars each year; there is more than $1 billion in telemedicine fraud annually; and phantom billing, upcoding of services, duplicate claims and so on all cost in the billions.

...

One may argue that the prosecutions of the vaccine card frauds happened not solely or specifically because of the financial stakes, but rather that the harms from the crimes here are societal, in the form of making fellow citizens less safe. Indeed, this assertion was made in many indictments. But a look at the dates of some of these cases immediately disproves that line of argument. The plastic surgery case, the Van Camp case, and other cases cited actions as late as spring 2022. This was long after it was widely known that the vaccines did not stop infection or transmission, which was the only ethical and logistical justification for mandates.

This raises the third, most important issue: the mandates were so feared and loathed by significant and diverse numbers of citizens that they were willing to become criminals rather than comply. (Even among the distributors only some of them appeared solely motivated by money. Many cited philosophical opposition to the mandates as their motivation.) Just the smattering of cases I reviewed represents thousands of regular citizens who felt compelled to fake their vaccination status.

Perhaps some portion of them had already been infected and knew what many European governments had acknowledged, and what has been a basic truism in immunology over centuries—that for many viruses past infection tends to confer robust protection. The US was fairly unique in not allowing “natural immunity” to substitute for being vaccinated. (A salient side note: many of the state requirements for the pediatric vaccine schedule—for MMR, chickenpox, and so on—specifically make exemptions to the vaccine requirement if the child had prior infection.)

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The prevalence of people with fake cards calls into question the effectiveness of mandates. And it also suggests a lack of wisdom by health professionals to understand the consequences of interventions. Requiring individuals to have a medical product injected into their bodies that they so strenuously did not want that they were willing to commit fraud in order to give the illusion of compliance were bound to cause far more indignance and distrust than officials had planned for.

stickdog · 2024-01-24T00:32:31+00:00

Thanks.

stickdog · 2024-01-24T00:29:59+00:00

Yeah. The fires were caused arson. Not climate change. Would you agree or disagree?

Can you explain how the muddled motivations of the deranged arsonist change the fact that the fires were caused by arson?

And personally, I am not a climate change denier.

What I am is a "the threat of climate change makes austerity for average humans beings the highest possible good" denier.

Did you know that our richest oligarchs have been trying to find some way, any way, to sell all of us on the tremendous "benefits" of austerity for all of us serfs since at least the 1970s?

So I am asking you, are will willing to endorse authoritarian austerity on all of us serfs in the name of "combatting climate change" as 77% of the top 1% now insist is necessary?

Put more succinctly, do you demand austerity for the masses because of climate change?

stickdog · 2024-01-18T02:35:01+00:00

Excerpt:

World leaders meeting in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) this week are set to discuss concerns about the potential for a future pandemic that could cause 20 times more fatalities than Covid-19.

It’s known by the placeholder name of Disease X, with the term used to refer to planning for a hypothetical future international epidemic caused by a pathogen as yet unknown to cause human disease, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In a session entitled “Preparing for Disease X”, a panel led by the WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will talk about “novel efforts needed to prepare healthcare systems for the multiple challenges ahead” if we are to be ready for a much more deadly pandemic, the WEF said.

The WHO ranks Disease X as a priority disease in its awareness campaigning, alongside Covid-19, the Ebola virus, Zika virus, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

Disease X was added to the list in 2018 as the WHO sought to open up discussions about tackling a global pandemic in the future.

The WHO has prioritised research and development in an emergency context for all these diseases, stating that the blueprint “explicitly seeks to enable early cross-cutting R&D [research and development] preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown Disease X”.

“Worldwide, the number of potential pathogens is very large, while the resources for disease research and development (R&D) is limited,” the WHO had previously said in a statement.

Along with Dr Tedros, the session this Wednesday will feature Brazilian health minister Nisia Trindade Lima, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s chair of the board Michel Demaré, Royal Philips CEO Roy Jakobs, and Indian hospital chain Apollo’s executive vice-chairperson Preetha Reddy.

To be clear, scientists don’t yet know what kind of virus might lead to the next pandemic – or, in other words, what Disease X will turn out to be.

Many people think it could be a coronavirus – like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes illness with Covid-19 – or a new strain of influenza.

“This concept [of Disease X] was one of the lessons we learned from this [Covid] pandemic,” said Dr Thomas Russo, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

...

stickdog · 2024-01-18T02:13:20+00:00

Yep. They may as well call their efforts The Ministry of Misinformation.

stickdog · 2024-01-18T00:59:45+00:00

Abstract

Background: Most government efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic revolved around non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and vaccination. However, many respiratory diseases show distinctive seasonal trends. In this manuscript, we examined the contribution of these three factors to the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Pearson correlation coefficients and time-lagged analysis were used to examine the relationship between NPIs, vaccinations and seasonality (using the average incidence of endemic human beta-coronaviruses in Sweden over a 10-year period as a proxy) and the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic as tracked by deaths; cases; hospitalisations; intensive care unit occupancy and testing positivity rates in six Northern European countries (population 99.12 million) using a population-based, observational, ecological study method.

Findings: The waves of the pandemic correlated well with the seasonality of human beta-coronaviruses (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1). In contrast, we could not find clear or consistent evidence that the stringency of NPIs or vaccination reduced the progression of the pandemic. However, these results are correlations and not causations.

Implications: We hypothesise that the apparent influence of NPIs and vaccines might instead be an effect of coronavirus seasonality. We suggest that policymakers consider these results when assessing policy options for future pandemics. Limitations: The study is limited to six temperate Northern European countries with spatial and temporal variations in metrics used to track the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic. Caution should be exercised when extrapolating these findings.

...

3.2. Influence of Vaccinations on Pandemic Progression in Northern Europe

The number of deaths relative to the total population and infection number decreased shortly after the introduction of vaccines, continuing into the spring and summer of the same year, prompting many to infer that the vaccination programmes were successfully beginning to end the pandemic [23,24]. However, as shown (Figure 5), throughout autumn/winter 2021, deaths began increasing again despite the percentage vaccinated (all ages) being on average of 72.6% (min 70.74%–max 77.05%).

Several explanations have been offered for this—chiefly suggesting some combination of the evolution of new variants of the virus and/or the possibility that the vaccine efficiency wanes over time [28,29]. However, we note that there are reasons to consider the possibility that the vaccines were simply not as effective as originally hoped. For instance, studies from June–August 2021 found that the mean viral loads were similar for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the Delta variant surge regardless of symptoms [103]. Additionally, a UK Health Security Agency report (3 March 2022) found that the rates of all COVID-19 cases were between 1.7 (80 years or over) and 3.4 times higher (40–49 years) among those who had received at least three vaccine doses compared to the unvaccinated in all age groups of 18 years and older [104]. This suggests that the promising initial claims that these COVID-19 vaccines were very effective at reducing the likelihood of infection [5,6,7,8] were not as robust as hoped. Indeed, Kampf (2021) noted that the high “rate of symptomatic COVID-19 cases among the fully vaccinated breakthrough infections” since July 2021 contradicts the expected reduction in transmission among the vaccinated population [27].

Despite the high incidence of “breakthrough infections”, some justified the continued use of COVID-19 vaccines as a means of substantially reducing COVID-19 severity and/or death [28,29,105]. However, although the magnitude of the third pandemic wave seemed to be reduced for Ireland, the UK and Sweden after the introduction of vaccination (in comparison to the first two waves), the opposite was observed for Demark, Finland and Norway, i.e., these countries had a comparatively larger third wave than the preceding two waves (Figure 5). These unexpected trends are even more pronounced if the progression of the pandemic is measured through cases (Figure S3a), positivity rate (Figure S3b), hospitalisations (Figure S3c) or ICU occupancy (Figure S3d). Therefore, as for NPIs, we should be careful not to prejudice our analysis of the effectiveness of these COVID-19 vaccines with our expectations of what should be.

...

In terms of cases, we would expect to see a negative correlation between the vaccination rates and the progression of the pandemic. That is, as the vaccination rates increased, we would expect the incidence of cases to generally decline, perhaps with a lag of a few weeks. However, for many of the countries, there is a positive correlation (Finland, Norway, Denmark and Ireland) which seems perfectly level through all time lags except in the case of Norway where there is a barely perceptible increase in correlation. The correlation values for Sweden remain negative but not significant and the values for the UK slowly move from a negative to a positive correlation although all these values are also not significant (Figure 6a).

Therefore, this analysis failed to identify any evidence that the vaccines reduced the incidence of cases in any of the Northern European countries.

...

Meanwhile, for the other three countries (Denmark, Norway and Finland), we can see that vaccination is positively correlated with death for all lags up to 8 weeks. Again, this is the opposite of what should be expected if the vaccination programme had been effective in reducing the number of deaths.

Therefore, our analysis also fails to identify any evidence that the vaccines have reduced the number of COVID-19 deaths in any of the Northern European countries.

...

stickdog · 2024-01-18T00:03:06+00:00

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today declared that “misinformation and disinformation” are greater threats to the global business community than war and climate change.

“For the global business community, the top concern for the next two years is not conflict or climate,” she said in her speech at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. “It is disinformation and misinformation, followed closely by polarisation within our societies.”

The solution, according to von der Leyen, is for businesses and governments to collaborate to quash disinformation. “Many of the solutions lie not only in countries working together but, crucially, on businesses and governments, businesses and democracies working together,” she said. “While governments hold many of the levers to deal with the great challenges of our time, business have [sic] the innovation, the technology, the talents to deliver the solutions we need to fight threats like climate change or industrial-scale disinformation.”

To illustrate her point, von der Leyen mentioned the upcoming election-heavy year, calling it “the biggest electoral year in history”, and warned that bad actors may exploit the openness of democracies to influence elections with disinformation.

In the latest WEF Global Risk Report, misinformation and disinformation were ranked as a greater risk to the world than everything but extreme weather. Polarisation, the housing crisis, cyberattacks, economic downturn, supply-chain disruptions, and even nuclear war ranked beneath misinformation in the WEF risk report. Misinformation was rated more than three times higher in risk level than the erosion of free speech.

Fears about the democratisation of information have been an enduring theme at WEF conferences in recent years. Having been concerned by the threat of disinformation in the context of 2016 election interference and Covid-19, Davos attendees say they’re now focusing on the risks of AI.

“The disruptive capabilities of manipulated information are rapidly accelerating, as open access to increasingly sophisticated technologies proliferates and trust in information and institutions deteriorates,” the risk report reads. “Even as the insidious spread of misinformation and disinformation threatens the cohesion of societies, there is a risk that some governments will act too slowly, facing a trade-off between preventing misinformation and protecting free speech, while repressive governments could use enhanced regulatory control to erode human rights.”

stickdog · 2024-01-17T23:44:02+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

Well, I was just unbanned there, so I should really get rid of this post, but I am going to leave it up as shameless self-promotion for anyone who misses my previous incessant posting of scientific critiques of constant COVID injections.

Until further notice, you can find all the most recent COVID injection news that's pfit to print here.

stickdog · 2024-01-17T21:39:48+00:00

Another interesting thing about this is that until very recently, I was able to see the entire list of moderators for the DebateVaccine website. Now, that list has been hidden from me.

Instead of the previous list of roughly a dozen moderators that used to appear, not all I see in a single button "MESSAGE THE MODS", and all the individual mod accounts have been blocked from my view.

Is this a reddit feature that normally goes into effect with any permaban, or is this special for me?

stickdog · 2024-01-16T17:56:41+00:00

My thoughts exactly

stickdog · 2024-01-15T23:34:36+00:00

Excerpt:

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Ok, so digging a bit into travel bans, you’ll recognize that there have been travel bans based on big storms in the past here in New York. However, those are issued by the local government (i.e. County Executive), after a state of emergency is declared. They are not issued by the Governor, nor are they issued without an emergency declaration. By the way, the travel ban is still in effect for most of Erie County today. Anybody surprised?

Does anyone see the correlation here between government overreach, their quest for “centralized” power, and their fear mongering? It’s the same thing the Governor and her DOH have been doing with their hideous “quarantine camp” regulation that I have been fighting in court for nearly two years now! The name of that case is Borrello v. Hochul, and you can read the details and case history here. Connecting the dots to the analysis at hand, you will note that the quarantine camp regulation tried to take the power from (elected) judges (in keeping with our law) who have the authority to temporarily quarantine sick, dangerous people, and shift that power to unelected, statewide, DOH employees and appointees who have zero accountability to We the People. Under their quarantine camp reg, the Governor and her DOH would have centralized control over 19 million New Yorkers, to force you to lockdown in your home, or they could force you (with the use of police) to go to a quarantine center/ facility/ camp (pick your noun), without any proof you are sick, indefinitely, with no procedure by which you can regain your freedom, and with no declared state of emergency! The fear factor used to try to justify the authoritarian power grab here is the threat of death… If we don’t lock people up who are possibly exposed to a disease, then you might die. Swap out “possibly exposed to a disease” and put in its stead “unclean.” What does that make you think of?

My next question: do you see any similarities here to Hochul’s probably illegal climate lockdown? I say “probably illegal” because I couldn’t find the supposed legal authority that she’s relying upon to prohibit people from driving. If you know what she is relying upon, feel free to post it in the Substack comment section below.

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stickdog · 2024-01-11T20:49:34+00:00

Obviously, the OP lives in a bizarre fantasyland where Democrats are trying to win, trying to help the working class, and trying to appeal to the working class. But I still find it interesting.

stickdog · 2024-01-08T18:40:10+00:00

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion.

stickdog · 2024-01-07T02:57:40+00:00

Right.

"The rape is coming from inside the house."

stickdog · 2024-01-07T01:10:11+00:00

Great question. But why isn't he talking about his close relationship with Epstein is an even better one.

stickdog · 2024-01-07T00:06:35+00:00

The children of Gaza didn't kill themselves.

stickdog · 2024-01-06T22:59:11+00:00

Excerpt:

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In a new update to the developing story, the Daily Mail reported this week that intelligence sources say the operation was most likely a "honeypot" blackmail operation intended to entrap influential figures. The term honeypot (or honey trap) comes from the world of espionage. It is believed to be a practice involving the use of a covert agent using a romantic or sexual relationship to compromise a target.

At the time of the arrests, the DOJ stated that beginning in July 2020, suspect Han Lee of Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with James Lee and Junmyung Lee, operated an "interstate prostitution network" with multiple brothels in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, as well as in Fairfax and Tysons, Virginia. All three suspects are South Korean nationals.

The suspects were charged with conspiracy to coerce and enticement to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity. The sex workers were flown in from Los Angeles and Las Vegas and often moved from one location to another. The suspects would meet the women at the airport, buy them groceries, move them into the brothel locations, and then begin offering them to potential clients.

The DOJ accuses the suspects of using two now-defunct websites— bostontopten10.com and browneyesgirlsva.blog—to entice potential clients with appointments with young Asian women in either greater Boston or eastern Virginia. The websites advertised nude Asian models for professional photography as a front for prostitution offered through appointments with women listed on the sites. The websites listed the height, weight, and bust size of women available for appointments.

The brothels operated in Unit 245 at the Avalon Mosaic in Fairfax, Virginia, and Unit 649 at the Hanover Tysons in Tysons Corner, VA.

The DOJ also claims that between December 2019 and October 2023, Han Lee “deposited just under $795,000 of cash into her personal Bank of America bank accounts." Lee also used around $109,000 in cash to make payments on her Bank of America credit card account. The DOJ said the Bank of America account was used for "travel-related purchases and other expenses associated with brothel operations."

Regarding the potentially high-profile clientele, investigators stated they "believe there are potentially hundreds of yet to be identified customers that may include other professional disciplines not included in the list above."

Intelligence experts, including former US intelligence officials, spoke anonymously to the Daily Mail warning that the operation may have been a blackmail operation organized by a foreign nation. The Daily Mail reports:

"They believe the brothels – allegedly masterminded by a 41-year-old South Korean woman – targeted politicians, high ranking government officials and defense contractors.

"But the mystery is which country was behind the scheme. Russia, China, Korea itself, or even Israel are al[l] seen as possibly being behind the scheme.

"'Having the Koreans out front could have been a false flag to give China or another country plausible deniability if the plot unraveled,' a one-time CIA senior operations officer told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview."

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stickdog · 2024-01-06T21:00:31+00:00

Excerpt:

You can see the common theme of the constant prudential tip-toeing around Russia’s redlines so as not to excessively provoke Putin.

They go on to express that the CIA is keen to distance itself from any of Ukraine’s more provocative actions, like the Nordstream attack, or strikes on Russian territory.

But the key portion of the article, which comes next, is the admission that Biden dispatched CIA director Burns to Russia on the eve of the invasion in late 2021. They had been watching Russia’s troop buildups, and in essence sent Burns to deliver a final warning of consequences should Russia proceed with an invasion. Though Putin ended up “snubbing” the CIA head by staying in a Sochi resort and refusing to meet him in person, he did take his secure phone call from Sochi.

What comes next is the heart of the entire article and is one of the most significant and remarkable admissions of the entire war. It is a must read:

image

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And that angle could very well be their attempt to distance themselves from an increasingly erratic and unpredictable Ukrainian ‘mad dog’, which has increasingly gone ‘off the leash’, refusing to play by those previously established rules. The article goes on to highlight this next:

One crisis was averted. But a new one was brewing. Strikes inside Russia were continuing and even increasing, contrary to the fundamental U.S. condition for supporting Ukraine. There was a mysterious spate of assassinations and acts of sabotage inside Russia, some occurring in and around Moscow. Some of the attacks, the CIA concluded, were domestic in origin, undertaken by a nascent Russian opposition. But others were the work of Ukraine—even if analysts were unsure of the extent of Zelensky's direction or involvement.

Given the above, could the CIA have been using such publications to absolve itself? This would further play into the chief theme that the CIA is very diligently trying to signal its ‘gentlemanly’ intentions to Russia so that no misunderstandings or un-planned escalations can occur.

The article segues this into the Nordstream attacks in such a way as to almost suggest the entire thing was written merely to absolve the CIA of those attacks, and pin the blame entirely on Ukraine.

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After the foolhardy drone attack on the Kremlin in the center of Moscow, the article notes that even Poland had begun warning the CIA that Ukraine was, in essence, a refractory mad dog:

A senior Polish government official told Newsweek that it might be impossible to convince Kyiv to abide by the non-agreement it made to keep the war limited. "In my humble opinion, the CIA fails to understand the nature of the Ukrainian state and the reckless factions that exist there," says the Polish official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.

This is quite interesting for the following reason. Firstly it could explain Poland’s own later distancing from Kiev, the fruits of which we’re seeing now. Even brazen Poland may have started getting cold feet after they realized that Ukraine’s entire MO would likely revolve around trying to rope Poland into WW3. Not only were there several missile attacks on Polish territory for which Ukraine tried to frame Russia, but there were increasing reports in recent weeks from Russian intel sources that Ukraine intended to escalate this plan in the near future.

It’s clear that Poland has recently seemed to have a big shift vis a vis Ukraine—the turning point was several months back after the failed NATO summit and Zelensky’s subsequent disrespectful rhetoric. That is when Duda openly called Ukraine a “drowning man that would pull everyone down with him.” It all went down hill from there.

But it could also explain the US’s new cold posture and seeming snub of Ukraine. For instance, many are currently complaining that the US has $4B drawdown authority funds remaining yet they’ve announced no further funding will be allotted. This mysteriously comes on the heels of repeated Ukrainian strikes to sensitive targets in Crimea, as well as senseless attacks on Belgorod. Could the CIA have finally seen the light, preached earlier by Poland, and perhaps convinced the Biden administration that this mad dog is getting too unhinged to continue safely supporting? It could at least have something to do with it, if not be entirely responsible for the cold stance switch.

In fact, this is suggested by the very next paragraph in the article:

In response, the senior U.S. defense intelligence official stressed the delicate balance the Agency must maintain in its many roles, saying: "I hesitate to say that the CIA has failed." But the official said sabotage attacks and cross border fighting created a whole new complication and continuing Ukrainian sabotage "could have disastrous consequences."

As one can see, Ukraine’s recalcitrant flaunting of the ‘unspoken rules’ could have finally contributed to making the US realize that it was suicidal to continue supporting such a brazenly fractious mad dog whose sole intention has clearly become to embroil the world in WW3 as a last ditch escape from its own self-sealed fate.

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stickdog · 2024-01-01T23:42:18+00:00

Excerpt:

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Honestly, even if I weren’t a free speech absolutist, the self-regard and confusion of the people pushing this line would set me off. The combination of preening self-righteousness and total incoherence is really remarkable here. For example, Nathan Tankus of Notes on the Crises, an economics blogger, very loudly and ostentatiously took his newsletter to Ghost due to the supposed transphobia of Substack. This mostly engendered discussion about Substack, but it probably should have instead put the spotlight on Ghost, which was designed to allow for no central moderation at all and thus certainly hosts transphobia and all manner of other ugly content. It’s so fucking bizarre! “I can’t stand the refusal to moderate the transphobia off of this platform, so I’m moving to a service that has no ability to moderate transphobia” is ridiculous and incoherent on its face. Hell, Ghost even makes it hard for you to tell when someone’s using a Ghost install at all, so it’s difficult to even know who’s hosting the Bad Stuff! The logic here is so strained and unworkable that it leads me to conclude that Tankus simply found that he wasn’t seeing the kind of financial success he was hoping for on Substack and went through with his whole peacocking exercise in a desire to brand himself as A Guy Who Really Cares, and in doing so harvest more subscriptions.

Wordpress? Really? The backbone of a vast portion of the written content on the web, and thus certainly a repository of far-right attitudes? Let’s not just talk about Wordpress run on private server space, let’s look at Wordpress.com, which is hosted by Wordpress itself. Here’s the blog West Hunter. I wouldn’t ever want to censor this blog because I wouldn’t want to censor any blog, but let me tell ya, that’s an ugly, ugly place! It’s been written by the late Henry Harpending, considered a white nationalist by the SPLC, and Gregory Cochran, a physicist who a) pushes race science and b) believe homosexuality spreads pathogenically. These are certainly the kinds of guys that Katz would want to force off of Substack, were they on there. Instead they’re not just using a Wordpress install, they’re hosted by Wordpress - which is frequently celebrated as a purer, more progressive alternative to Substack! Google’s Blogger service? Though he hasn’t written there for years, notorious race-science proponent Steve Sailer’s blog is hosted on Blogger. I’m sure there are many, many more examples for any given blogging service. What are we to conclude from the fact that so many prominent platforms are home to offensive content? That we just need to get much more aggressive about cleaning up the ol’ web, free expression be damned? No, I think the conclusion is that the problem is not with platforms, the problem is that the world is full of bad people who believe bad things. And it is so indicative of the liberal mindset to insist that there’s One Weird Trick to stopping the far right, like you can flip a switch and just turn of Nazism.

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I’m sorry to repeat myself, guys, but I must: we fought a war against fascism that killed 4% of the world’s population, and yet fascism survived. You can’t stop it by tweaking the terms of service. The only thing liberals know how to do anymore is to work the refs - to beg someone in authority to run in and enforce some sort of rules that, they’d like to imagine, secretly run the universe. This was stupid, entitled behavior ten years ago. But after the election of Donald Trump, it stands as something else, something darker. Do you remember the cry that rang out when Trump was elected and in the first years of his presidency? “This is not normal!” As if “normal” ever meant anything, and as if there was some benevolent clockmaker watching over it all who could adjust the dials and fix it so that our country was normal again. How on earth so many educated and successful professionals continue to believe that there is some celestial authority out there who will eliminate fascism if only we pass the right legislation, I cannot understand. Not one of us will live to see the elimination of fascism. Luckily, actual fascism is a tiny fringe ideology that has no power. Unluckily, mainstream conservatism, and its great enabler mainstream liberalism, are bad enough.

By the way, Jonathan, The Atlantic is run by Jeffrey Goldberg, who helped lie us into the Iraq war and admitted in his book to abusing Palestinian prisoners when he was a literal prison camp guard. Great company you keep there! And, indeed, he is vastly more influential than any of the people you want to deplatform. You strengthened him and his position and the ideology he serves; you put money in his pocket. Does that feel good? Like you’re on the side of the angels? Sometimes, it feels like none of our hands are clean.

stickdog · 2024-01-01T23:19:24+00:00

Excerpt:

There are reports that there has been a run on ATMs in Ukraine. Accordingly, Ukrainians withdrew the equivalent of a billion dollars from their accounts in one day, which could become a problem for the Ukrainian banking and financial system.

The reason for the run is a bill that is intended to support the forced conscription of a further 500,000 people to the front, which is being discussed in Ukraine. According to the bill, people who evade the draft would be banned from carrying out financial transactions or selling property.

Since many men in Ukraine have been hiding from forced conscription for a year and a half and many who have not previously been affected are now afraid of the conscription and are thinking about going into hiding, cash will suddenly become indispensable if the law comes into force. As a result, many have plundered their accounts and are now hoarding cash at home.

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stickdog