Brandon's Karenwaffen NeoVaccinoidal Schismogenesis

theatlantic |  To understand how ideologically scrambling the Omicron wave has been, consider this: Some 2022 Democrats are sounding like 2020 Republicans. In spring 2020, many Republicans, including President Donald Trump, insisted that COVID was hardly worse than the flu; that its fatality risk was comparable to an everyday activity, like driving in a car; and that an obsessive focus on cases wouldn’t give an accurate picture of what was going on in the pandemic.

In the current Omicron wave, these Republican talking points seem to have mostly come true—for most vaccinated non-senior adults, who are disproportionately Democrats.

But Democratic talking points about the severity of COVID and the need for commensurate caution remain valid and not only for the sick and elderly. Ironically, they are especially true for the unvaccinated—a disproportionately Republican group that has seen their hospitalization rates soar this winter to all-time highs. About 9,000 Americans are dying of COVID every week. Preliminary state data suggest that more than 90 percent of today’s deaths are still among unvaccinated people. This year, COVID is on pace to kill more than 300,000 unvaccinated people who would, quite likely, avoid death by getting two or three shots.

Read: Should I just get Omicron over with?

The messiness of Omicron data—record-high cases! but much milder illness!—has deepened our COVID Rashomon, in which different communities are telling themselves different stories about what’s going on, and coming to different conclusions about how to lead their lives. That’s true even within populations that, a year ago, were united in their desire to take the pandemic seriously and were outraged by those who refused to do so.

A virus that seems both pervasive and mild offers an opening to people who are, let’s call them, “vaxxed and done.” The attitude of the VADs is this:

For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again. But this virus doesn’t stop. Year over year, the infections don’t decrease. Instead, virulence for people like me is decreasing, either because the virus is changing, or because of growing population immunity, or both. Americans should stop pointlessly guilting themselves about all these cases. In the past week, daily confirmed COVID cases per capita were higher than the U.S. in Ireland, Greece, Iceland, Denmark, France, the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and even Australia, one of the most COVID-cautious countries in the world. As the coronavirus continues its unstoppable march toward endemicity, our attitude toward the virus should follow a similar path toward stoicism. COVID is becoming something like the seasonal flu for most people who keep up with their shots, so I’m prepared to treat this like I’ve treated the flu: by basically not worrying about it and living my life normally.

It’s hard to put a number on how many people are in this group, but we have some hard data to prove that their ranks are growing. This past December, airports processed twice as many travelers compared with the same period in 2020, despite many flights being canceled. On several days, TSA-checkpoint numbers exceeded their totals from pre-pandemic 2019. This is not the picture of a country that is hunkering down for Omicron. It is the limited snapshot of a mostly vaccinated population with millions of people who are eager to move on.

I have a lot of sympathy for this group’s case, especially as it relates to schools. The risk of COVID to vaccinated teachers and even unvaccinated students seems lower than we initially thought. Meanwhile, the costs of remote schooling seem higher than we feared. The White House and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have come out strongly in support of keeping schools open. Other Democratic leaders, like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are fighting reluctant teachers to keep school in person. Even among pro-vaccine Americans, a growing number of people seem to be saying they are done with remote school as a baseline COVID policy.

Virus Gonna Virus - But Don't Worry - The Boosters Will Fix Everything

alexberenson |  From Singapore to the Netherlands to Iceland to Vermont. And coming soon to the entire northern half of the United States.

Alex Berenson Nov 12

875

488

This is not how it was supposed to go.

Deaths hitting new highs in Singapore (85% of the population fully vaccinated - NOT adults, the entire population):

A new lockdown in the Netherlands (70% fully vaccinated)

And in Iceland (76% fully vaccinated):

As Vermont - the most vaccinated American state (71% fully vaccinated) smashes highs for cases:

SO Much Harm To SO Many People - And Now The Harm Is Mandatory?

westernjournal |  New concerns are being raised about side effects from the Moderna vaccine against the coronavirus.

Swedish health officials have now decided that a moratorium on giving the Moderna vaccine to anyone under 31 will be extended indefinitely, the U.K. Daily Mail reported. The pause on the Moderna shots had been scheduled to end on Dec. 1.

Finland, Iceland and Denmark have taken similar steps. Norway is encouraging men under 30 not to get the Moderna shot, but is not mandating it.

For months, the Moderna vaccine has been under scrutiny because of data that shows young men who receive it are at increased risk for myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac around the heart.

The Daily Mail reported that one U.S. study that has not yet been peer-reviewed concluded that “young males under [age] 20 are up to six times more likely to develop myocarditis after contracting COVID-19 than those who have been vaccinated.”

The decision comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is putting Moderna’s plans for a shot aimed at the population from age 12 to 17 on hold due to concerns over risks of the ailments, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Although a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel on Thursday approved boosters for the Moderna and Johnson & Johson vaccines, there were some cautions raised, according to CNBC.

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro said there is an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis with either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, in particular after the second dose of the vaccines.

According to the Daily Mail, the data indicated the risk was 13 times greater for those getting the Moderna vaccine than for those who got the Pfizer vaccine.

 

Unvaccinated Looking Smarter Every Week

americanthinker |  There is a massive propaganda push against those choosing not to vaccinate against COVID-19 with the experimental mRNA vaccines. Mainstream media, the big tech corporations, and our government have combined efforts to reward compliance and to shame and marginalize non-compliance. Their mantra says that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Persons who choose not to vaccinate are characterized as unintelligent, selfish, paranoid people who don’t read much and live in a trailer park in Florida (or Alabama, or Texas, or name your state). Never has there been such an effort to cajole, manipulate through fear, and penalize people to take an experimental medical treatment.

However, as time has passed with this pandemic and more data accumulates about the virus and the vaccine, the unvaccinated are looking smarter and smarter with each passing week. It has been shown now that the vaccinated equally catch and spread the virus. Vaccine side effect data continues to accumulate that make the risk of taking the vaccine prohibitive as the pandemic wanes. Oral and IV medications (flccc.net) that work early in the treatment of COVID-19 are much more attractive to take now as the vaccine risks are becoming known, especially because the vaccinated will need endless boosters every six months.

First, let’s address the intelligence of the unvaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is multi-factorial and has little to do with level of education or intelligence. Carnegie Mellon University did a study assessing vaccine hesitancy across educational levels. According to the study, what’s the educational level with the most vaccine hesitancy? Ph.D. level! Those can't all have been awarded to liberal arts majors. Clearly, scientists who can read the data and assess risk are among the least likely to take the mRNA vaccines.

The claim that there’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated is, therefore, patently untrue. As a retired nurse from California recently asked, “Why do the protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that did not protect the protected in the first place?” If the vaccine works to prevent infection, then the vaccinated have nothing to worry about. If the vaccine does not prevent infection, then the vaccinated remain at some risk, and the unvaccinated would be less likely to choose a vaccine that does not work well.

The mRNA vaccine efficacy is very narrow and focused on the original alpha strain of COVID-19. By targeting one antigen group on the spike protein, it does help for the original alpha strain, but it is clear now it does not protect against Delta strain and is likely not protective against any future strains that might circulate. It also appears that the efficacy wanes in 4-6 months, leading to discussions about boosters.

Several authors have pointed out that vaccinating with a “leaky” vaccine during a pandemic is driving the virus to escape by creating variants. If the booster is just another iteration of the same vaccine, it likely won’t help against the new strain but will, instead, produce evolutionary pressure on the virus to produce even more variants and expose us to more side effects. Why, then, is this booster strategy for everyone being pursued?

This vast Phase 3 clinical trial of mRNA vaccines in which Americans are participating mostly out of fear is not going well. It is abundantly clear for anyone advocating for public health that the vaccination program should be stopped. Iceland has just stopped giving the Moderna vaccine to anyone which is a good step in the right direction. Sweden, Denmark, and Finland have banned the Moderna vaccine for anyone under the age of 30.

VAERS, our vaccine adverse effect reporting system, showed at the beginning of this week 16,000 deaths, 23,000 disabilities, 10,000 MI/myocarditis, 87,000 urgent care visits, 75,000 hospital stays, and 775,000 total adverse events. The VAERS system is widely known to under-report events, with an estimated 90 to 99% of events going unreported there.

Authority Crumbles When The Truth Is Shared

aeromagazine  |  The First Amendment of the US Constitution specifies that Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” In fairness, Congress has made no such law. The executive branch is simply stating that it will invoke its power to censor by fiat in collaboration with social media companies, on the pretext of a national emergency.

Given that the federal government enjoys the cooperation of the vast majority of media outlets, the fact that competing social media narratives are sufficient to prevent them from being able to convince the nation that their message is correct represents a significant problem with the message itself, the effectiveness of its communication or the credibility of their sources.

Of these three factors, credibility seems especially weak. Since the start of the pandemic, health leaders have made definitive statements that have subsequently needed to be reversed. First, early in 2020, they insisted the wearing of masks by the public was unnecessary, as it was not believed that the virus spread via airborne transmission. That was incorrect. The hypothesis that the origin of the virus was a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was labelled a conspiracy theory, but has now been deemed as likely as a natural origin. In late March, the current CDC cirector, Rochelle Walensky, announced that vaccinated individuals were unable to carry the virus, even though existing studies confirmed that they could both carry and spread it. The CDC later awkwardly walked these comments back. In May it was announced that vaccinated individuals were free to roam unmasked in most settings because they would not spread or contract the virus except in the rarest of circumstances. This directive has now been reversed again due to the rise of the Delta variant, as data have shown that vaccinated individuals may have the same viral load as the unvaccinated, and may indeed be able to spread it to others. The CDC says that vaccinated individuals should return to masking indoors. Even though some of these reversals were due to changing circumstances, the ongoing back-and-forth leads many to question the credibility of the messengers.

It has also become clear that leaders are disseminating misinformation—or, in some cases, disinformation—on behalf of those who know the truth but are making statements to the contrary.

In a 21 July 2021 CNN Town Hall, President Biden insisted: “You’re not gonna get Covid if you have these vaccinations.” This was a completely inaccurate statement. Vaccinated people have contracted Covid since the vaccinations began, and this trend is increasing now that the Delta variant is the dominant viral strain. Data from the Israeli Ministry of Health reveal that, at five months and six months after the second vaccine dose, individuals are only protected from symptomatic Covid at levels of 44% and 16% respectively. Meanwhile, a new study from Israel indicates that protection from serious disease has fallen to 80%.

It may be that this misinformation was conveyed accidentally as a result of inelegant delivery by the president. But this was a very dangerous statement, as it promoted a false impression that the vaccines are completely protective, and was likely to make many question and potentially resist the new announcement from the CDC that vaccinated people should wear masks indoors.

The CDC director declared that this was a pandemic of the unvaccinated—and was soon echoed by President Biden. A large number of health leaders and media contributors have continued to parrot this phrase. But case data from Israel, the UK and many other countries prove that vaccinated individuals are being significantly impacted. Israel recently announced that 60% of its hospitalised Covid patients were fully vaccinated. The newest Public Health England technical report reveals that 25% of Delta hospitalisations and 54% of Delta deaths have occurred in the fully vaccinated. Iceland has achieved a vaccination rate of almost 90% among adults, but still needed to reinstate public health measures due to a surge in Delta infections. Now that the Delta variant has taken hold in the US, there have been numerous instances of vaccinated individuals being infected, including the notable breakthrough infections in Provincetown, Massachusetts that were a central factor prompting new CDC guidance on indoor masking. It is clear that the Delta variant has produced a much more complicated landscape, in which merely the amount of vaccine that has been administered is a less significant data point. In short, it is false to claim that the pandemic affects only the unvaccinated.

In addition to being inaccurate, the narrative that the pandemic now only affects the unvaccinated has created division and hostility between different groups, which is extremely unhelpful given the many cases of shootings in the US, as well as violent outbursts in public spaces including airlines. I have seen vitriolic statements on social media by vaccinated individuals who are blaming the unvaccinated for the Delta variant, even though it was discovered in autumn of last year, before vaccinations were available to the general public. Even some in the media have engaged in blaming the unvaccinated. CNN host John Berman insisted: “If the unvaccinated aren’t to blame, who is?” We urgently need to promote a climate in which people work together rather than being turned against one another.

Some leaders have suggested that increased vaccination levels will arrest the surge in the Delta variant. After the second dose, it takes 35 days with Pfizer or 42 days with Moderna to achieve fully vaccinated status. It is obvious that new vaccinations, which take more than a month to provide full protection, cannot prevent a viral surge that is presently underway. Additional vaccines may indeed help more people to have better health outcomes if they were to become infected—but that is an entirely different claim.

 

The Lie And The Cover-up Only Ever Magnify The Heinousness Of The Crime...,

medialens  |  As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.

A major witness in the US case against Julian Assange has just admitted fabricat­ing key accusati­ons in the indictment against the Wikileaks founder. These dramatic revelations emerged in an extensive article published on 26 June in Stundin, an Icelandic newspaper. The paper interviewed the witness, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a former WikiLeaks volunteer, who admitted that he had made false allegations against Assange after being recruited by US authorities. Thordarson, who has several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and financial fraud, began working with the US Department of Justice and the FBI after receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution. He even admitted to continuing his crime spree while working with the US authorities.

Last summer, US officials had presented an updated version of their indictment against Assange to Magistrate Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser at the Old Bailey in London. Key to this update was the assertion that Assange had instructed Thordarson to commit computer intrusions or hacking in Iceland. 

As the Stundin article reported:

‘The aim of this addition to the indictment was apparently to shore up and support the conspiracy charge against Assange in relation to his interactions with Chelsea Manning. Those occurred around the same time he resided in Iceland and the authors of the indictment felt they could strengthen their case by alleging he was involved in illegal activity there as well. This activity was said to include attempts to hack into the computers of members of [the Icelandic] parliament and record their conversations.

‘In fact, Thordarson now admits to Stundin that Assange never asked him to hack or access phone recordings of MPs.’

Judge Baraitser’s ruling on 4 January, 2021 was against extradition to the US. But she did so purely on humanitarian grounds concerning Assange’s health, suicide risk and the extreme conditions he would face in confinement in US prisons.

The Stundin article continued:

‘With regards to the actual accusations made in the indictment Baraitser sided with the arguments of the American legal team, including citing the specific samples from Iceland which are now seriously called into question.

‘Other misleading elements can be found in the indictment, and later reflected in the Magistrate’s judgement, based on Thordarson’s now admitted lies.’

The Stundin article further details Thordarson’s lies and deceptions, including mispresenting himself as an official representative of WikiLeaks while a volunteer in 2010-2011, even impersonating Assange, and embezzling more than $50,000 from the organisation.

By August 2011, Thordarson was being pursued by WikiLeaks staff trying to locate the missing funds. In fact, Thordarson had arranged for the money to be sent to his private bank account by forging an email in Assange’s name. That month, Thordarson sought a way out by contacting the US Embassy in Iceland, offering to be an informant in the case against Assange.

Denmark Suspended Use Of The Astrazeneca mRNA Jabs

NYTimes |  Denmark suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine because of concerns about possible links to an increased risk of blood clots, the Danish Health Authority announced on Thursday. Iceland and Norway later also announced suspensions in administering the shots.

Danish authorities said all use of the vaccine in the country would be halted for at least 14 days after several severe cases of clots were reported among people who had received the shot, the national broadcaster DR reported.

Still, Danish health officials said they could not yet know if the clots — including a case in which a patient died — were caused by the vaccine, and that an investigation was launched to be “on the safe side.”

Within hours, the European Medicines Agency said in a statement that there is currently no indication the vaccine “has caused these conditions.” The agency, which is Europe’s main drug regulator, said the vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks, and countries can continue to administer the vaccine while the cases of blood clots are investigated.

The agency’s safety committee is already looking into all cases involving blood clots reported after AstraZeneca vaccinations.

Amid the flurry of suspensions, the Netherlands announced that it would continue to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine despite the concerns voiced by other countries.

The company did not have an immediate response to the suspensions.

Magnus Heunicke, the Danish minister of health, posted a message on Twitter confirming that the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine had been suspended, “following a signal of possible serious side effects in the form of fatal blood clots.”

 

Probative Cognition: Impossible Patterns And Materials That Aren't Supposed To Exist

oakridger  |  “If nuclear fission can occur naturally near the surface, why wouldn’t it occur deep in the earth?” Hollenbach asked.

Using SCALE nuclear safety analysis codes, Hollenbach simulated a georeactor that would function as a fast neutron breeder reactor and have an energy output (under 3 terawatts) that would enable it to heat the planet’s core and power its magnetic field for 4.5 billion years, the widely accepted age of Earth. The initial density and relative abundance of uranium isotopes that he assumed for his simulation were based on what is determined to be present in a certain kind of meteor that is almost oxygen-free (as Earth was during its formation).

By absorbing neutrons, the uranium isotope U-235 would break into lighter elements more readily than the much more abundant uranium isotope U-238, releasing considerable heat energy and neutrons that will trigger more fission, or self-sustaining chain reactions. Free neutrons absorbed by U-238 nuclei can cause the formation of plutonium-239, another nuclear fuel. This process, known as breeding, can significantly extend the lifetime of a nuclear reactor. 

Hollenbach’s calculations also generated data on the fission products that would result from uranium fission deep within Earth, as well as from radioactive decay. He showed that two helium isotopes, He-3 and He-4, would be produced in the same relative proportion by georeactors as helium isotopes found in basalt extruded from volcanic lavas in Hawaii and Iceland. Because helium is a light noble gas that does not react with other materials, it could migrate from a georeactor to hot spots on Earth’s surface. “The only way helium is produced on the Earth is through fission or decay of heavy elements,” he said.

When helium was first discovered in the 1960s on Earth’s surface, it was assumed that helium gas in space was trapped in the surface during Earth’s formation. Hollenbach said trapped helium would have outgassed during Earth’s molten stage. He found that the ratio of He-3 to He-4 at the surface corresponds to the ratio calculated to be produced by deep-Earth fission. It’s not the same as the ratio of helium isotopes formed in the air by cosmic rays (which is up to 34 times lower). 

Because most fission products are lighter and less dense than nuclear fuel in a georeactor, Hollenbach said, they most likely migrate away from a georeactor after accumulating there. As a result, the georeactor’s energy output will stop decreasing and start to rise again.

The Earth’s magnetic field varies in strength and has flipped its polarity over millions of years. These changes, he suggested, could be explained by georeactors that turn on and off. 

“The cyclic nature of geomagnetic field reversals and periodic high volcanic and plate tectonic activity indicate a varied power source,” he said.

If beryllium-10 and certain noble gases were discovered in deep mantle magmas and volcanic lavas and if anti-neutrinos could be detected, such evidence would help validate the georeactor model, he added. A FORNL participant suggested that Hollenbach confer with researchers at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. 

Hollenback asserted that an even better understanding of georeactors could be attained through simulations using advanced software on today’s supercomputers — if funding for such a study is available.

 

After The Panicdemic Reset?

yanisvaroufakis |  You said that “either we unite with progressives around the planet in a shared struggle for justice, or we surrender to the forces of nationalism and free-market fundamentalism”, how could reuniting progressives help in any way?and what is your plan beside the website?  

Let me give you a simple example: During every recent crisis, bankers banded together and forced governments to apply socialism – for them! The price was austerity and hardship for almost everyone else. This led to discontent. Discontent then breeds fascism, xenophobia, nativism, ultra-nationalism. The representatives of this misanthropic type of politics unite across borders (look at the love in between Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Le Pen, Salvini etc.). Is it not the time for progressives to band together in the interests of the majority in every country, on every continent?

This is what our Progressive International is about. How are we organising this, besides a website? In two ways. First, by putting together a global plan for shared, green prosperity. (We must be able to answer questions such as “How much should we spend on fighting climate change? Where will the money come from? How will we redistribute wealth from the few to the many and from the Global North to the Global South?”) Secondly, by organising global actions in support of local causes (e.g. a global campaign in support of a few striking women workers in, say, India). To accomplish these hugely hard, but essential, tasks the Progressive International has put together a Council, comprising leading activists from around the world, and a Cabinet, consisting of a few dedicated organisers working on our campaigns on a day-to-day basis. Our next meeting will take place on 18^th September in Iceland, under the aegis of Katrin Jacobsdottir, the country’s Prime Minister.

What should be the role of the state in all of this, specially after the Covid 19 and critics to capitalism and private sectors which was not able to cope with the crisis?

The state’s role is crucial. Even politicians inspired by small-government libertarianism have had to call for governments to step in and, effectively, save everyone. The question is not whether the state has a role. The question is: On whose behalf is the state acting?

Why Are "Our" Strains Of Coronavirus Different From Asian Strains Of Coronavirus?

spectator |  One of the great mysteries of coronavirus is how the epidemic has become much more severe in Europe and North America than in the Far East. A disease which appeared to be on the wane in China, South Korea and elsewhere in mid-February suddenly erupted with a vengeance in Europe in March, with death tolls quickly surpassing those in Wuhan. Various explanations have been offered: from the Chinese lying about the extent of cases and deaths to the difficulties of enforcing lockdowns and launching intrusive tracking and tracing strategies in western democracies.

But then have we really been fighting the same disease? A pre-publication paper from a team at the University of Sheffield and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico suggests one reason that Europe and North America might have suffered much more than East Asia from Covid-19 is that we have been fighting a mutation of the virus which causes it, SARS-CoV-2. The team have analysed the ‘spike protein’ in the virus and found 14 different mutations, but one in particular has caused them concern. 

Early in the outbreak – and this was true in Europe as well as in Asia – samples of the virus contained a version of the protein known as D614. But a different version, G614, began to emerge in samples from both Europe and China. In Italy and Switzerland, from early on, it was found to be the dominant version. Elsewhere in Europe, too, G614 rapidly displaced D614 – and seems to have a competitive advantage over it. Germany had a small outbreak of D614 followed by a second eruption of cases of G614. In Britain G614 quickly took over from D614. The same happened in North America – although the pattern is different across the country. In New York, samples have been almost entirely G614 whereas in Washington state – which has won praise for its handling of the epidemic – D614 has been more prevalent. The authors have been unable to track the evolution of D614 and G614 in China after 1 March owing to a lack of samples, but in Japan and Taiwan, early samples were all D614, with the G614 becoming more prevalent after 1 March.

The good news is that the G614 version of the virus does not seem to result in a greater risk of hospitalisation – indicating that it doesn’t cause a more serious form of the disease. However, that does leave open the possibility that the G614 version is much more easily transmissible –perhaps explaining why this disease has proved so much harder to contain in some places than others.

Other mutations were found to be of lesser importance, though do show some interesting patterns. One mutation was found only in Iceland – a country which has been praised for its low number of infections and deaths, in spite of not imposing a full lockdown – and another uniquely in Belgium, the country with the highest death rate in the world.

what are the panama papers?

theatlantic |  News organizations from around the world have published investigations based on a massive trove of leaked documents they say reveal corruption and questionable business dealings of world leaders, politicians, sports stars, and others.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said Sunday it received encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based company that sells offshore shell companies around the world, from an anonymous source more than a year ago. The leak amounts to approximately 11.5 million documents—or 2.6 terabytes’ worth of data—on 214,000 shell companies spanning a period between the 1970s and 2016.

The documents, which have been dubbed the “Panama Papers,” contain mostly emails, PDF files, and photo files belonging to Mossack Fonseca, one of the largest providers of offshore financial services. They may represent the world’s biggest-ever leak of classified information.

“The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows,”Süddeutsche Zeitung said in its report. “It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 news outlets in nearly 80 countries. Almost 400 journalists have combed through the documents over the past year.

Some of the products of that research were published Sunday. The BBC reportedthe leak reveals information about 72 current or former heads of state, including Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak, and Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi. 

It reported Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stored millions of dollars of investments in Iceland’s major banks in an offshore company. The Guardian reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s associates secretly moved as much as $2 billion through offshore accounts. Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Juan Pedro Damiani, the Uruguayan lawyer who is president of the country’s most popular soccer team and a FIFA ethics expert, managed companies through which FIFA members may have received bribes.

speaking out against brazenly abusive members of the fascist ruling-class will soon be hate speech!!!

theintercept |  Adoption of this “anti-Semitism” definition clearly would function to prohibit the advocacy of, say, a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or even the questioning of a state’s right to exist as a non-secular entity. How can anyone think it’s appropriate to declare such ideas off limits in academic classrooms or outlaw them as part of campus activism?

To ban the expression of any political ideas in such a setting would not only be wildly anti-intellectual but also patently unconstitutional. As UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky put it today in an LA Times op-ed: “There unquestionably is a 1st Amendment right to argue against (or for) the existence of Israel or to contend that it should meet (or not have to meet) higher standards of human rights than other nations.” Even the now-retired Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman — while arguing that “the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community” — acknowledged in May that such bans would be clearly unconstitutional:

Legislation that bars BDS activity by private groups, whether corporations or universities, strikes at the heart of First Amendment-protected free speech, will be challenged in the courts and is likely to be struck down. A decision by a private body to boycott Israel, as despicable as it may be, is protected by our Constitution. Perhaps in Europe, where hate speech laws exist and are acceptable within their own legal frameworks, such bills could be sustained. But not here in America. But none of that seems to matter to Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband, Richard Blum. Not only is Blum demanding adoption of the State Department definition, despite the fact that (more accurately: because) it would encompass some forms of BDS activism and even criticisms of Israel. 

But, worse, he’s also insisting that it be binding and that students who express the ideas that fall within the State Department definition be suspended from school or expelled. And he’s overtly threatening that if he does not get his way, then his wife 0- “Your Senior Senator” — will get very upset and start publicly attacking the university, a threat that public school administrators who rely on the government for their budgets take very seriously.

This behavior is as adolescent as it is despotic. Does anyone believe that college and post-graduate students should be able to express only those ideas about Israel that Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband deem acceptable?

It’s no mystery what this is really about. The Israeli government and its most devoted advocates around the world are petrified at the growing strength of the movement to boycott Israeli goods in protest of the almost five-decade occupation. As Foxman conceded, the boycott idea “seems to be picking up steam, particularly on college campuses across the United States. While no universities have yet adopted or implemented BDS, there are a growing number of campuses — now up to 29 — where student organizations have held votes to determine whether they support BDS.” Just this week, the City Council of Reykjavik, the largest city in Iceland,voted to boycott all Israeli goods as long as the occupation persists (days later, the City quickly retracted the vote, citing the unexpectedly intense “backlash” from Israel).

meticulously planned parenthood WILL NOT be taken slowly because tards are scared of it...,

SA |  The official policy of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine is as follows: “Whereas preimplantation sex selection is appropriate to avoid the birth of children with genetic disorders, it is not acceptable when used solely for nonmedical reasons.” Yet in a 2006 survey of 186 U.S. fertility clinics, 58 allowed parents to choose sex as a matter of preference. And that was seven years ago. More recent statistics are scarce, but fertility experts confirm that sex selection is more prevalent now than ever.

“A lot of U.S. clinics offer non-medical sex selection,” says Jeffrey Steinberg, director of The Fertility Institutes, which has branches in Los Angeles, New York and Guadalajara, Mexico. “We do it every single day. We did three this morning.”

In 2009 Steinberg announced that he would soon give parents the option to choose their child’s skin color, hair color and eye color in addition to sex. He based this claim on studies in which scientists at deCode Genetics in Iceland suggested they could identify the skin, hair and eye color of a Scandinavian by looking at his or her DNA. "It's time for everyone to pull their heads out of the sand,” Steinberg proclaimed to the BBC at the time. Many fertility specialists were outraged. Mark Hughes, a pioneer of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the whole idea was absurd and the Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying that “no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized." Likewise, Kari Stefansson, chief executive of deCode, did not mince words with the WSJ: “I vehemently oppose the use of these discoveries for tailor-making children,” he said. Fertility Institutes even received a call from the Vatican urging its staff to think more carefully. Seifert withdrew his proposal.

But that does not mean he and other likeminded clinicians and entrepreneurs have forgotten about the possibility of parents molding their children before birth. “I’m still very much in favor of using genetics for all it can offer us,” Steinberg says, “but I learned a lesson: you really have to take things very, very slowly, because science is scary to a lot of people.” Most recently, a minor furor erupted over a patent awarded to the personal genomics company 23andMe. The patent in question, issued on September 24th, describes a method of “gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations." 23andMe would first sequence the DNA of a man or woman who wants a baby as well as the DNA of several potential sperm or egg donors. Then, the company would calculate which pairing of hopeful parent and donor would most likely result in a child with various traits.

Illustrations in the patent depict drop down menus with choices like: “I prefer a child with Low Risk of Colorectal Cancer; “High Probability of Green Eyes;” "100% Likely Sprinter;" and “Longest Expected Life Span” or “Least Expected Life Cost of Health Care." All the choices are presented as probabilities because, in most cases, the technique 23andMe describes could not guarantee that a child will or will not have a certain trait. Their calculations would be based on an analysis of two adults’ genomes using DNA derived from blood or saliva, which does reflect the genes inside those adults’ sperm and eggs. Every adult cell in the human body has two copies of every gene in that person’s genome; in contrast, sperm and eggs have only one copy of each gene and which copy is assigned to which gamete is randomly determined. Consequently, every gamete ends up with a unique set of genes. Scientists have no way of sequencing the DNA inside an individual sperm or egg without destroying it.

“When we originally introduced the tool and filed the patent there was some thinking the feature could have applications for fertility clinics. But we’ve never pursued the idea, and have no plans to do so,” 23andMe spokeswoman Catherine Afarian said in a prepared statement. Nevertheless, doctors using PGD can already—or will soon be able to—accomplish at least some of what 23andMe proposes and give parents a few of the choices the Freemans made about their second son.

why the "body of 'stupid conservatives" is a problem for every u.s. citizen and every nation around the globe

truthdig |  Although the United States, in the words of columnist Nicholas Kristof, is “the most powerful colossus in the history of the world,” it lags significantly in quality of life for its citizens. In the Social Progress Index 2015 the U.S. does not make the top 10, or even top 15. The global study measured “basic human needs,” “foundations of wellbeing” and opportunity. 

Overall, the U.S comes in at 16th, and some indices are particularly startling.

As Kristof writes in The New York Times: “The index ranks the United States 30th in life expectancy, 38th in saving children’s lives, and a humiliating 55th in women surviving childbirth. O.K., we know that we have a high homicide rate, but we’re at risk in other ways as well. We have higher traffic fatality rates than 37 other countries, and higher suicide rates than 80. We also rank 32nd in preventing early marriage, 38th in the equality of our education system, 49th in high school enrollment rates and 87th in cellphone use.”

The top countries in the study are Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand and Canada. Of the 133 countries rated, Central African Republic comes in last, right after Chad and Afghanistan.

“One way of looking at the index,” says Kristof, “is to learn from countries that outperform by having social indicators better than their income levels. By that standard, the biggest stars are Costa Rica and Uruguay, with New Zealand and Rwanda also outperforming.” 

In a time of ever-greater economic inequality, it’s worth remembering that everything isn’t just dandy if some Americans are doing extremely well. What counts is how we are doing as a people.

will scotland imitate iceland and free itself from the vampire squid?

medialens |  Craig Murray was scathing about the leaders of the main Westminster political parties, and their last-ditch desperate trip to Scotland last Wednesday to 'save the Union':

'Cameron, Miliband and Clegg. Just typing the names is depressing. As part of their long matured and carefully prepared campaign plan (founded 9 September 2014) they are coming together to Scotland tomorrow to campaign. In a brilliant twist, they will all come on the same day but not appear together. This will prevent the public from noticing that they all represent precisely the same interests.'

Murray nailed what is at stake when he said that the 'three amigos' 'offer no actual policy choice to voters', and he gave a list showing how tightly they march together:

'They all support austerity budgets
They all support benefit cuts
They all support tuition fees
They all support Trident missiles
They all support continued NHS privatisation
They all support bank bail-outs
They all support detention without trial for "terrorist suspects"
They all support more bombings in Iraq
They all oppose rail nationalisation'

In short:

'The areas on which the three amigos differ are infinitesimal and contrived. They actually represent the same paymasters and vested interests.'

These 'paymasters and vested interests' are surely trembling with fear at the power now residing in the hands of voters in Scotland. As George Monbiot observes:

'A yes vote in Scotland would unleash the most dangerous thing of all - hope.'

He expands:

'If Scotland becomes independent, it will be despite the efforts of almost the entire UK establishment. It will be because social media has defeated the corporate media. It will be a victory for citizens over the Westminster machine, for shoes over helicopters. It will show that a sufficiently inspiring idea can cut through bribes and blackmail, through threats and fear-mongering. That hope, marginalised at first, can spread across a nation, defying all attempts to suppress it.'

Whatever happens on Thursday, skewed media performance on Scottish independence - in particular, from the BBC - has helped huge numbers of people see ever more clearly the deep bias in corporate news media.

trade in services agreement

wikileaks |  Today, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, which covers 50 countries and 68.2%¹ of world trade in services. The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. In a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre by the parties, the draft has been classified to keep it secret not just during the negotiations but for five years after the TISA enters into force.

Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures², proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.

TISA negotiations are currently taking place outside of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. However, the Agreement is being crafted to be compatible with GATS so that a critical mass of participants will be able to pressure remaining WTO members to sign on in the future. Conspicuously absent from the 50 countries covered by the negotiations are the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. The exclusive nature of TISA will weaken their position in future services negotiations. 

The draft text comes from the April 2014 negotiation round - the sixth round since the first held in April 2013. The next round of negotiations will take place on 23-27 June in Geneva, Switzerland.

Current WTO parties negotiating TISA are: Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, which includes its 28 member states Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

China and Uruguay have expressed interest in joining the negotiations but so far are not included.

[1] Swiss National Center for Competence in Research: A Plurilateral Agenda for Services?: Assessing the Case for a Trade in Services Agreement, Working Paper No. 2013/29, May 2013, p. 10.

[2] For example, in June 2012 Ecuador tabled a discussion on re-thinking regulation and GATS rules; in September 2009 the Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, convened by the President of the United Nations and chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, released its final report, stating that "All trade agreements need to be reviewed to ensure that they are consistent with the need for an inclusive and comprehensive international regulatory framework which is conducive to crisis prevention and management, counter-cyclical and prudential safeguards, development, and inclusive finance."

Read the Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex

Read the Analysis Article - Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex

Recommended reading

• On the Wrong Side of Globalization, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, March 15, 2014.
• U.S. Foreign Trade in Services: Trends and Policy Challenges, by the Congressional Research Service, May 15, 2014.
• TISA versus Public Services, a Public Services International study by Scott Sinclair and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, April 28, 2014.
• Public Citizen's Finance Regulation Factsheet
• Our World is Not for Sale Factsheet on TISA

global riot epidemic due to demise of cheap fossil fuels

guardian |  If anyone had hoped that the Arab Spring and Occupy protests a few years back were one-off episodes that would soon give way to more stability, they have another thing coming. The hope was that ongoing economic recovery would return to pre-crash levels of growth, alleviating the grievances fueling the fires of civil unrest, stoked by years of recession. 

But this hasn't happened. And it won't.

Instead the post-2008 crash era, including 2013 and early 2014, has seen a persistence and proliferation of civil unrest on a scale that has never been seen before in human history. This month alone has seen riots kick-off in Venezuela, Bosnia, Ukraine, Iceland, and Thailand. 

This is not a coincidence. The riots are of course rooted in common, regressive economic forces playing out across every continent of the planet - but those forces themselves are symptomatic of a deeper, protracted process of global system failure as we transition from the old industrial era of dirty fossil fuels, towards something else.

Even before the Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia in December 2010, analysts at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned of the danger of civil unrest due to escalating food prices. If the Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO) food price index rises above 210, they warned, it could trigger riots across large areas of the world.

why is violent crime so rare in Iceland? Evangelii Gaudium may have an answer

uscatholic | Earlier this week I read at the BBC about an incident in Iceland and mentally filed it in the category “Stories you’ll never see in the United States.”  From the report: "Icelandic police have shot dead a man who was firing a shotgun in his apartment in the early hours of Monday. It is the first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation in Iceland, officials say."

I had to stop and read it again. The first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation…ever? That couldn’t be right. The article does go on to say that indeed, the incident is “without precedent” in Iceland.

Intrigued, I clicked on a related link that sought to explain “Why violent crime is so rare in Iceland.” I had no idea just how rare. A 2009 United Nations report on homicides lists the following numbers of homicides per country: Brazil - 43,909; United States - 15,24; Iceland – 1. One homicide in an entire year!

Certainly, there are many differences between the United States and Iceland. But as the report pointed out, the reason for the lack of violent crime is not due to a lack of guns--there are actually an estimated 90,000 guns in a country of 300,000 people. The biggest contributing factor? “There is virtually no difference among upper, middle, and lower classes in Iceland," explains the article. "And with that, tension between economic classes is non-existent, a rare occurrence for any country….A study…found only 1.1% of participants identified themselves as upper class, while 1.5% saw themselves as lower class.”

The situation in Iceland came to my mind as I’ve been reading more of Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium. One of the quotes from the recent exhortation says: "When a society--whether local, national, or global--is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programs or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility" (59). The pontiff clarifies: It’s not because people who are excluded from systems are provoked to violence; the main issue here is that the system itself is unjust.

It certainly seems that in Iceland, where there are fewer people on the fringes, there seems to be a great deal more tranquility than in the United States, with our huge divide between the wealthiest the poorest, and increasing economic segregation. “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” Pope Francis asks. Will we ever see a day when the system shifts? It’s hard to tell, but if it does, it could help pave the way toward a more peaceful tomorrow.

the playbook we should all be focused on....,

guardianlv | As the saying goes, “there are two sides to every story,” but a more accurate articulation of this phrase would be “in any story, there are multiple sides, viewpoints, opinions and perspectives.” The story in Iceland is no exception. Socialist and Marxist blogs here in the U.S. say that there’s been a massive U.S. news conspiracy and cover up about the revolution in Iceland because the U.S. media is controlled by corporations, including banks, and the “powers that be” don’t want U.S. citizens getting any ideas to stage a revolution of their own. Some conservative Icelandic bloggers claim that while there was, indeed, a revolution, it did not lead to a successful or widely accepted new constitution. 

They say the situation in Iceland is worse than ever, and that international news reports of an effective democratic uprising leading to a better government are simply myths. Social media commenters are scratching their heads over why they were robbed of the story of Iceland’s pots and pans revolution.

As with most narratives, the truth may lie somewhere in the middle of all of these varying perspectives. One thing is clear, though: it’s nearly impossible to find one mainstream U.S. news report of the pots and pans revolution in Iceland, the resignation of Iceland’s entire government, and the jailing of the bankers responsible for the economic collapse there. Whether or not the revolution led to a more fair government or a workable and effective constitution is irrelevant to the fact that the U.S. media has essentially skipped over this story for the past five years.

Is it possible that mainstream media sources purposely covered up the Iceland story to appease their corporate sponsors? It doesn’t seem likely, and yet, what explanation could be given as to why this news never made it to the front pages of our most trusted media organizations here in the U.S.?

As Iceland struggles to regain its footing with a new government, U.S. citizens may or may not be able to look to Iceland as an example of perfect democracy in action. The real question, though, is why weren’t U.S. citizens given the information about the ousting of the Icelandic government and the jailing of the unscrupulous bankers? Are journalists in control of the mainstream media or is there some truth to accusations that big business may, in fact, be strong-arming reporters to keep quiet about world events that could inspire similar actions here in the U.S.?

sigurdur thordarson: greazy grima wormtongue serving the all seeing eye...,

slate | When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder’s attitude and quickly signed up to the cause. But little more than a year later, Thordarson was working as an informant spying on WikiLeaks for the U.S. government—embroiling himself as a teenager in one of the most complicated international events in recent history.

In a series of interviews with Slate, Thordarson has detailed the full story behind how, in an extraordinary sequence of events, he went from accompanying Assange to court hearings in London to secretly passing troves of data on WikiLeaks staff and affiliated activists to the FBI. The 20-year-old Icelandic citizen’s account is partly corroborated by authorities in Iceland, who have confirmed that he was at the center of a diplomatic row in 2011 when a handful of FBI agents flew in to the country to meet with him—but were subsequently asked to leave after a government minister suspected they were trying to “frame” Assange.

Thordarson, who first outed himself as an informant in a Wired story in June, provided me with access to a pseudonymous email account that he says was created for him by the FBI. He also produced documents and travel records for trips to Denmark and the United States that he says were organized and paid for by the bureau.

The FBI declined to comment on Thordarson’s role as an informant or the content of the emails its agents are alleged to have sent him. In a statement, it said that it was “not able to discuss investigative tools and techniques, nor comment on ongoing investigations.” But emails sent by alleged FBI agents to Thordarson, which left a digital trail leading back to computers located within the United States, appear to shine a light on the extent of the bureau’s efforts to aggressively investigate WikiLeaks following the whistle-blower website’s publication of classified U.S. military and State Department files in 2010.

Late last month, Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning was convicted on counts of espionage, theft, and computer fraud for passing the group the secrets.  During the Manning trial, military prosecutors portrayed Assange as an “information anarchist,” and now it seems increasingly possible that the U.S. government may next go after the 42-year-old Australian for his role in obtaining and publishing the documents. For the past 14 months, Assange has been living in Ecuador’s London Embassy after being granted political asylum by the country over fears that, if he is sent to Sweden to face sexual offense allegations, he will be detained and subsequently extradited to the United States.

Meanwhile, for more than two years, prosecutors have been quietly conducting a sweeping investigation into WikiLeaks that remains active today. The FBI’s files in the Manning case number more than 42,000 pages, according to statements made during the soldier’s pretrial hearings, and that stack of proverbial paper likely continues to grow. Thordarson’s story offers a unique insight into the politically-charged probe: Information he has provided appears to show that there was internal tension within the FBI over a controversial attempt to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the whistle-blower group. Thordarson gave the FBI a large amount of data on WikiLeaks, including private chat message logs, photographs, and contact details of volunteers, activists, and journalists affiliated with the organization. Thordarson alleges that the bureau even asked him to covertly record conversations with Assange in a bid to tie him to a criminal hacking conspiracy. The feds pulled back only after becoming concerned that the Australian was close to discovering the spy effort.