admin

First German tourists land on Crete, stunning Greeks in Lockdown

The tourism season is to start officially on May 14, however, the first tourists already arrived in Greece and thus on Crete already on the last weekend of March.

Several regular flights from Germany landed in Heraklio and Chania over the weekend.

35 tourists arrived from Brandenburg and another 20 from Berlin in Chania.

15 of the tourists are reportedly to take part in a Germany reality TV show called “finding Prince Charming”, while the rest came just for holidays and will stay in various areas around Apokoronas and Kissamos. Some have interest to purchase real estate, the state broadcaster ERT reported.

Prior to their arrival on the island, the tourists had a PCR test that was “apparently” negative and had filled “all necessary information”.

Some of them spoke to local media zarpanews and said that they had not been vaccinated. Regarding the pandemic, they said they felt safer on Crete than in Berlin.

The arrival of the German tourists coincides with the Easter of the Catholic Church.

At the same time, German Lufthansa has increased its flights to the airport of Heraklio over the weekend with 5 scheduled flights in total that arrived from Frankfurt, Munich and Hannover. There will be two flights from Munich and Frankfurt for Crete per day, local media neakriti reported.

Beginning of April, the route Amsterdam-Heraklio of Transavia is expected to be launched.

Τhe tourists’ arrival on Crete was broadly broadcast in the country that is under nationwide lockdown with several regional units and municipalities including some on Crete to be in tougher restrictions due to coronavirus infections.

Schools are closed and so are restaurants, cafes and bars, retail stores and seasonal hotels.

The news stunned and also angered Greeks who are not allowed to travel to another regional unit or to move from municipality to municipality [and] they are not allowed to reach the sea unless only on foot and they must send an SMS if they want to leave their homes.

Greeks lashed out on social media and accused the government of “double standards”.

Some even suggested to be dressed like German tourists in order to visit their families in a village or another town, parents and children they haven’t seen since last November.

Speaking to TV channels on Monday morning, the tourists on Crete claimed that they send SMS to exit their hotel – only that the <13033> cannot accept SMS from foreign networks…

Apparently following the outcry, mainstream media report on Monday, that epidemiologists will most likely decide for the gradual lifting of the lockdown as of the end of the week.

Tourism Minister Haris Theoharis said on Sunday that tourists will be allowed to arrive in the country before May 14, “even in April”, as part of a “pilot program.”

PS: Obviously those on Crete were part of a “pre-pilot program”…

Source: Keep Talking Greece

admin

WHO Distances Itself From its Own ‘Whitewash’ Report Dismissing Covid Lab Leak Theory

No sooner had the World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday published its report into the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus, than the Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was making a public statement distancing the organisation from what observers are calling a “whitewash”.

The report, which had been conducted with heavy reliance on Chinese scientists and under pressure from Chinese authorities, concluded it was “extremely unlikely” that SARS-CoV-2 had escaped from a lab, claiming instead it was most likely the novel virus had passed from bats via an “intermediate animal host” before sparking an “explosive outbreak” in Wuhan in December 2019.

With a rare and welcome criticism of the Chinese Government, Dr Ghebreyesus said: “I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing” and insisted that “all hypotheses remain on the table”.

The United States, the UK and 12 other countries (Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea and Slovenia) issued a joint statement echoing the Director General’s concerns: “It is equally essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples.”

The European Union, more meekly, said that it regretted the delays and the “limited availability of early samples and related data”.

Dr Peter Ben-Embarek, head of the WHO mission at the centre of the controversy, defended his report, saying the “zoonotic origins” of the pandemic had been the agreed remit of the investigation rather than a potential laboratory accident. A defence which rather begs the question as to why the investigation was disbarred by design from looking into one of the key possibilities.

Dr Ben-Embarek, for reasons best known to himself, felt moved to offer a rather feeble defence of the Chinese Government’s lack of cooperation.

Of course there are areas where we had difficulties in getting down to the raw data, and there are many good reasons for that. In China, like in many other countries, there are restrictions on privacy laws that forbid the sharing of data, including private details to outsiders in particular. Where we did not have full access to the overall data, this has been put as a recommendation for future studies. So the idea is that, because we didn’t have time or because certain authorisation needs to be given before we could get access to the data, all that could be done in the second phase of studies.

Science journalist Matt Ridley aptly called it a “pure whitewash” when he appeared yesterday morning on Julia Hartley-Brewer’s show on talkRADIO. He pointed out that although the report concludes it’s very likely that an animal carried the virus to Wuhan, this conclusion is at odds with the 20-30 pages in the report which note that 45,000 animals in China have been tested for the virus and none have been found with it.

A lab escape was once dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

Back on February 19th 2020, 27 prominent scientists declared in the Lancet: “We stand together to condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” Another group of experts, on March 17th, proclaimed in Nature Medicine: “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”

Now, though, it is very much regarded as a plausible hypothesis.

Matt Ridley, who is writing a book on the subject, and Harvard medical geneticist Alina Chan explained why it is being taken seriously by experts in an eye-opening article in the Telegraph.

They write that, unlike SARS from 2003, SARS-CoV-2 was not found to mutate rapidly in early human cases, suggesting it was already well adapted to infecting human beings.

Furthermore, in May 2020, the director of the Chinese CDC announced that none of the animal samples collected from the Wuhan wet market had tested positive for COVID-19.

Ridley and Chan write:

“Yet there is little doubt that the pandemic began in Wuhan. All the early cases were in the city and the majority of the first recorded cases in other countries were among people who had travelled from Wuhan. Persistent attempts by the Chinese Government and scientists to play up possible origins in frozen-food imports and pre-Wuhan cases in Europe have been unpersuasive so far.”

“There is still no sign of an original animal source of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, or the rest of Hubei province. Horseshoe bats that live in the area have been extensively sampled for viruses for years without SARS-CoV-2-like viruses showing up. Therefore, the strongest connection between such viruses in Yunnan and the human outbreak in Wuhan is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the fact that it had collected SARS-like viruses from the Mojiang mine.”

“But this is circumstantial, not direct evidence. Although SARS leaked from a Beijing laboratory twice in 2004, infecting 11 people, there have been no public reports of an accident at the WIV. Moreover, RaTG13 is not SARS-CoV-2: there are significant differences between the viruses. This is why full transparency about all the viruses held in the WIV would be helpful, including all of the SARS-like viruses collected in the Mojiang mine.”

Unfortunately, the Institute’s database of more than 20,000 viruses was taken offline around the time of the outbreak for “security reasons”, and the WHO team were not given access to it.

The WIV is the foremost laboratory for studying these kinds of viruses in the world, and had collected large numbers of coronaviruses from hundreds of miles away. With no sign of a source in the wet market or animals, the coincidence that the outbreak began in the vicinity of such an institute is too great to be easily dismissed.

The theory was given a boost in January 2021 when the US State Department released a statement saying it had “reason to believe that several researchers inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses”.

More worrying is the prospect that the virus might not just be an escaped sample of a naturally occurring bat coronavirus, but an engineered virus from gain-of-function research. This may explain, for example, why it was already well adapted to human-to-human transmission.

Ridley and Chan again:

We know from published work that Dr Shi and her colleagues were not only analysing the genomes of viruses, they were also manipulating them.

This includes the creation of ‘chimera’ or hybrid viruses with genes taken from two different viruses. It also includes the testing of these viruses in ‘humanised’ mice, endowed with a certain human gene.

The practice of building chimera coronaviruses, sometimes leaving no trace of manipulation, is not new.

Such experiments have been conducted in select laboratories such as the WIV for years, for the purpose of understanding how novel viruses could spill over into humans. The ultimate goal is to create a universal vaccine for all SARS-like viruses.

The scientists might find it unbearable if they instead caused a pandemic. But they did not find it unthinkable.

In a 2015 article co-authored by Dr Shi these words appear: “Scientific review panels may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue… The potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens.”

SARS-CoV-2 is not so deadly as the bat virus that killed three of the six miners who caught it directly from the bats in 2012. The WIV held samples of nine bat viruses sourced from that Mojiang mine, one of which, RaTG13 was noted (though without making the link) by WIV researchers themselves to be very similar to SARS-CoV-2.

Could SARS-CoV-2 be an engineered version of those viruses, perhaps made less deadly but ready for human-to-human transmission? It’s one possibility, but without further access to samples and data, repeatedly denied by the Chinese authorities, scientists have no way to find out.

It’s very important we find out soon, though, so we can know exactly what we’re dealing with and what lessons we should learn.

Source: Will Jones – Lockdown Sceptics

Notes:

The Chimera (/kɪˈmɪərə/ or /kaɪˈmɪərə/, also Chimaera (Chimæra); Greek: Χίμαιρα, Chímaira “she-goat”), according to Greek mythology, was a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. It is usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat protruding from its back, and a tail that might end with a snake’s head. It was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra.

The term “chimera” has come to describe any mythical or fictional creature with parts taken from various animals, to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling.

Header: Angelo De Grande – ‘Non mi pungere’, Behance

admin

Wars and “Following the Science” are Sure Paths to Tyranny

In the first press conference of his presidency on March 25, 2021, Joe Biden announced that he had set a target of administering 200 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine before the end of his first 100 days in office.

In an earlier statement before the press, Biden said that it might be safe enough for the government to permit gatherings at people’s homes to celebrate the 4th of July.

Listening to the man who occupies the White House, it seems that our lives and how we live all depend on Joe Biden.

Some in the media have focused on the president’s recent stumbling up the stairway ramp while getting on to Air Force One, and wondered if at the age of 78 Biden can successfully put one foot in front of the other.

Others have suggested that without the written scripts prepared by his White House staff and projected onto a teleprompter or the notes in front of him at a podium, the president seems unable to always articulately say a handful of words without a gaffe or getting lost and confused in his own thoughts.

If anything goes wrong in the Biden administration’s policies for directing and planning our lives, no doubt a fallback position for some of our enlightened political paternalists likely will be that it is not the principle or practice of government-designed social engineering that is fundamentally flawed.

No, it’s just that, unfortunately, a man too old with some cognitive disabilities wasn’t quite up to overseeing the national tasks to be done, and which are capable of repair and improvement when the “right hands” are at the helm of government.

The EU Comedy of Confusions and Contradictions

Across the Atlantic, the European Union (EU) is mired in contradictions, confusions, and member-nation conflicts about lockdowns, vaccine safety, and national distributions of existing and projected supplies of the vaccine. At first, the EU member governments declared that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and effective. Then, some of them announced that its use might cause serious side effects and halted inoculations. This was followed by new statements that any such side effects were less of a risk than not having the injection.

EU governments have been bickering among themselves over the allocations of the vaccine supplies among the member nations, along with disagreements of how much of the vaccine should be shared with poorer and less developed countries in other parts of the world, and also whether AstraZeneca manufacturers have shortchanged the European Union compared to doses available to and taken by the British across the English Channel in the United Kingdom.

Whipsawed by their governments about whether or not to trust taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, those same governments are “shocked” that a good number of their own citizens, particularly in places like France, for instance, have chosen not to have the vaccination.

At the same time, large stores of the vaccine are “discovered” in warehouses as the very moment that various EU spokesmen appear before the press in near hysteria over the claimed short supplies of AstraZeneca being provided by the manufacturing facilities.

Fearful of supposed “third waves” of COVID-19 cases, countries like France and Poland have imposed new partial lockdowns.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared that Germany would have to again tightly shut things down over the Easter weekend to prevent a new outbreak of the coronavirus.

When German state governments and large crowds of demonstrators around the country adamantly opposed such renewed drastic steps, Merkel had to go on German television and reverse the severity of the announced lockdown, while at the same time publicly apologizing to the German people for so arrogantly presuming to tell them how to celebrate such a widely recognized and shared holiday.

Classical Liberalism was an Inoculation Against Collectivism

For more than a year, now, we have been in the grip of a massive “new wave” of a dangerous and deadly ideological virus that has the names political paternalism and social engineering.

It is often pointed out that the current coronavirus crisis is the first of this magnitude and global dimension since the infamous Spanish Flu from 1918 to 1920, during which estimates say that tens of millions of people, worldwide, may have died from that earlier virus.

But it is less often highlighted that a political virus of government control, regulation, restriction and planning enveloped all the major countries of the world at about the same time, a little over 100 years ago during the First World War.

After the 25-year European-wide war between, first, revolutionary and then Napoleonic France against Great Britain, Imperial Russia, Prussia, Spain, and some other minor countries that ended in 1815, a number of leading nations, of which Britain was preeminent, “inoculated” themselves against the all-dominating state through classical liberal reforms that recognized individual rights, personal and civil liberty, the sanctity of private property, the freedom of enterprise and mostly unrestricted international trade and investment, which were all bolstered by formal and informal institutional restrictions on government spending, taxing, borrowing, and the printing of paper money through introduction of constitutional limits and national gold standards.

Several leading European countries along with the United States and Canada in North America seemed to be successfully “immune” from the virus of collectivism in its various permutations into the second half of the 19th century.

But under the external appearance of political and economic “health” with widening liberty and growing prosperity, new variations of this dangerous ideological virus were infecting even the social bodies of the freest countries in the forms of increasingly aggressive nationalist and socialist ideas.

Symptoms were noticed and warned about by a few, by such “social diagnosticians,” for instance, as Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) in Great Britain and William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) in America, and Paul Leroy-Beaulieu (1843-1916) in France, and some others who are less well-known but who were no less clear in their stated fears. (…)

World War I Replaced Liberty with War and Welfare Planning

If government planning only had been a wistful socialist dream before 1914, with the coming of the First World War every one of the major belligerent powers in Europe soon imposed price and wage controls, production restrictions and planning targets, regulations or prohibitions on almost all goods imported or exported, and ended the gold standard to turn the handles of the monetary printing presses to fund the huge costs of what became a long and destructive four years of war. Personal freedoms and civil liberties were restricted or denied in the name of winning the war. (…)

Looking back at the consequences of the First World War, the German liberal economist, Gustav Stolper (1888-1947), observed in 1931 in the pages of Foreign Affairs magazine:

“Just as the war for the first time in history established the principle of universal military service, so for the first time in history it brought national economic life in all its branches and activities to the support and service of state politics – made it subordinate to the state… Not supply and demand, but the dictatorial fiat of the state determined economic relationships – production, consumption, wages, cost of living… At the same time, and for the first time, the state made itself responsible for the physical welfare of its citizens; it guaranteed food and clothing not only to the army in the field but to the civilian population as well…”

“Here is a fact pregnant with meaning; the state became for a time the absolute ruler of our economic life, and while subordinating the entire economic organization to its military purposes, also made itself responsible for the welfare of the humblest of its citizens, guaranteeing him a minimum of food, clothing, heating, and housing.”

War is a Deadly Virus for Spreading Bigger Government

The countries that were before 1914 still fairly and widely free in terms of economic liberty and personal freedom saw after World War I the collectivist virus’s residue remaining in the social and policy system of ideas, ready to reemerge with its virulent effects at any time.

In his insightful, but seemingly neglected study of The British Political Tradition (1983), historian William H. Greenleaf (1927-2008) explained in volume one of this work, on, “The Rise of Collectivism,” that once infected with the bigger government virus, it is never fully expunged from the affected society:

“It was the Great War which marked a sea-change… and which saw an alternation in respect of government control of a degree that beforehand would have seemed quite impossible and would have met with invincible opposition if suggested… The enduring impact of war on collectivist development is clearly indicated because the reversion is never to the status quo ante bellum… Although there is at the end of hostilities a decline from the extreme heights of government expenditures reached during the war itself, this fall stops at a level higher than that prevailing during the pre-war period. A substantial residue of the increased wartime activity remains…”

“This appears to result from the operation of three factors. First, there is an obvious and continuing impact in respect of debt commitments, payment of war pensions, and the like. Secondly, there are important fiscal effects of war concerning the level of taxation which is acceptable… New types of taxes are introduced and everyone gets used to the higher level of payment than was previously thought possible or desirable…”

“And thirdly, there is a general loosening of restrictions hitherto imposed on government activity… The state had come to control directly or indirectly a great part of the economic process; the enormous wealth and taxable capacity of modern industrial society now stood revealed. Why should these possibilities not be exploited to abolish poverty?… If tanks and bombers can be produced in many respects regardless of expense, why should not this later be the case for schools, hospitals, and houses?”

“Following the Science” Leading to More Government Control

And if the current incantation of “follow the science” and the experts who claim to know what science requires and dictates in terms of the social conduct of the entire population seems a new twist on the required role of the state, Greenleaf referenced the growing presumption and insistence in the 19th century that only government and its specialized bureaucrats could manage various matters concerning health. Here, too, was the assertion that the individual’s freedom of choice concerning a vaccination could be legitimately abrogated in the name of a “common good” defined by those in political authority. Explained Greenleaf:

“Once a scientific advance was made there was a growing pressure for government to act on this knowledge and use it as a basis for legislative regulation… A good example in the public health field is provided by the activity of the state in respect of smallpox vaccination as a major form of preventative medicine… The first formal state action was taken in 1808 when Parliament was induced to set up a National Vaccination Establishment to provide free vaccination at its London stations…”

“The moral and constitutional issues involved were revealed in the Parliamentary debate of 1872 about the legal enforcement of vaccination and the continual imposition of penalties for refusal to comply. Lyon Playfair, at the time perhaps the most influential MP with scientific knowledge, demolished an attempt to amend the Bill before the House [of Commons] saying that ‘individual disbelief in a remedy which science and experience had confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt was no justification for relieving the conscience of that individual at the expense of society’…”

“There is indeed a kind of general pattern in this particular example. First there exists a social problem, in this case the major scourge of smallpox. A prophylactic treatment is discovered by scientific research. Then government intervened to make the treatment in turn available, compulsory, and more effective. Clearly more and more intervention and powers of coercion are involved… In sum, therefore, scientific knowledge could aid or even produce pressure for government action by seeming to give this pressure intellectual justification and provide practical means of implementation.”

The Rise of Scientism as a Tool for Political Paternalism

Part of the problem in all this, Greenleaf pointed out, drawing upon the frustrations and concerns of those inside and outside of the British government, already in the late 19th century, was to know what was really fact from fiction, what was a serious social matter or one that was only a minor social concern. Once the precedent was established that such things required governmental intrusion and imposition, it developed a momentum of its own in terms of more and more instances in which the claim was made for greater bureaucratic personnel and more authority to act. But how and who was to determine if these demands were reasonable and really necessary? Greenleaf explained the frustrations of one member of the British government at that time:

“Sir John Simon was one of those administrators who… was preoccupied with the need for the national government to legislate according to the precepts of science… R. R. W. Lingen (who was a very economy-minded Permanent Secretary to the Treasury during the third quarter of the [19th] century) was once faced with a demand from Sir John Simon [in 1871] for another vaccination inspector and minuted, ‘I do not know who is to check the assertions of experts when the government has once undertaken a class of duties which none but such persons understand’.”

Greenleaf went on to say that what this all reflected was the rise of “scientism,” the belief that the discoveries and methods of the natural sciences were not merely useful parts of human knowledge to assist individuals and associative groups to find better ways of achieving their respective goals and ends.

No, it was the presumption that “science” should direct and dictate social action, and since some might not understand or not want to follow “the science,” government had to increasingly impose what that science said was good for them, whether or not such people wished to follow where science was leading in terms of asserted social and economic policy. Such a mindset about science easily and almost naturally manifested itself in an increasingly coercive political paternalism.

New Waves of the Collectivist Virus in the 20th and 21st Centuries

All of the 20th century was a battle against the viral assaults of collectivism by the waning spirit of 19th century liberalism, with insufficient intellectual and ideological “anti-bodies” of liberty to ward off the infections.

Even when the collectivist “pandemics” of World War I, the interwar rise of communism, fascism, and Nazism, the Second World War, and the postwar growth in the interventionist-welfare state seemed to subside and degrees of freedom were restored or preserved, each time the assault has left less freedom in some corners of society, especially of economic liberty.

But since the beginning of the 21st century, the threats to freedom and the free society have intensified.

Following 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the intrusive, spying, surveillance state has reduced the private aspects of our lives, with things we say, write or do being recorded, watched and classified as being either loyal or subversive – with those in elected or appointed political power determining what counts as being in one category or another.

The newest attacks on the remnants of liberty now take two dangerous forms, one being the identity politics/cancel culture warriors who want to abolish the meaning of a free, autonomous, individual human being by demanding that each person’s personal and social sense of identity, “rights,” and deservedness be decided and dictated by the racial and gender group to which they are assigned by the “politically correct” new elite of “progressive” political paternalists. (…)

A Tyranny of Science Leading to More Political Paternalism

But this past year has added to this an equally serious threat: a tyranny of science.

By saying this, it is not implied that science, rightly understood, is at fault or a threat to liberty. Science is composed of sets of systematic methods of determining the objective nature of the world around us. In the physical, or “natural,” sciences it is an attempt at (with admittedly the sometimes-controversial phrase of Karl Popper’s) “conjectures and refutations.” The “scientific method” has built bridges that do not fall down, enabled men to travel to the Moon and back, and provided the capacity to disentangle the DNA of life. It has provided the ability to walk around with the smartphones that most of us have in our pockets, to design and use 3-D printers that carry unimaginable production possibilities and cost savings, and improved upon methods of farming and genetically engineered crops that have enabled hundreds of millions of people to have food to eat who otherwise might have starved.

No, by a tyranny of science, I mean the dominant political mindset that was seen already in the 19th century, as William Greenleaf explained, with Sir John Simon who believed that government should legislate and regulate and command all that people do and what is to be done to them according to the presumed “evidence” of science.

Listen to those declarations of Joe Biden referred to at the beginning of these words. He knows how many doses of a vaccine should be manufactured over what period of time, to inoculate which and how many people by a designated date. Clearly, he and his “scientific” advisors know how to direct and dictate that these goals and targets are reached. All relevant actors in the society, clearly, must conform to and fulfill “the plan.”

Joe Biden and his scientific experts know when and for what purposes people should be allowed to meet and socialize for holiday occasions. If Biden and his science advisors decide it’s safe, well, they will allow us to gather with friends and relatives for a 4th of July celebration. While there have been noticeable and cogent criticisms of and demonstrations against the political and scientific presumptions behind all of these declarations and dictates of the government, tens of millions of others have been sufficiently infected with the collectivist virus that they take it for granted that if the scientific “experts” say such and such, then, “of course,” government has to initiate the mandatory or pressuring policies that confine people’s actions and choices to what “the science” says.

The Corruptions and Crimes of Politicized Science

But what is the reality of politicized science?

Rather than allowing the free and competitive market to peacefully and creatively find ways for people to meet and manage the challenge of what has been and is a serious health crisis due to the coronavirus, the entire social and economic makeup of the society has been turned upside down with catastrophic effects on the lives of hundreds of millions of people due to lockdowns, shutdowns, production prohibitions and restrictions and commands, along with governmental dictates about who and what might be permitted as solutions to the epidemic. The government has decided – not you or me – who is to be vaccinated according to their imposed planned rationing and allocation. (…)

In New York, “the science” led the governor of the state to follow a nursing home policy that has caused the deaths of thousands who might otherwise have lived. And the same “science” convinced him, obviously, to hide from view what really was happening, while boasting about his leadership qualities as a politician who “follows the science.”

The same “scientific” leadership is before our eyes, as was summarized earlier, in the European Union.

Are entire populations to be once again locked up or are they to be let free from the restricting hands of government?

Is a particular vaccine safe or significantly hazardous, and who is to decide? Do your own nation’s citizens get the prescribed vaccine or is a political decision made to “share it” with others inside or outside of the EU? Do you stand firm that since the science dictates…? Or do you go on television and apologize for your lockdown arrogance, even as you mutter at the same time, “But the science says…”?

The United States and many other parts of the world are at a political crossroads.

Do we succumb to the collectivist virus and liberty continues to perish? Or do the fallacies and follies of those in not just one country’s government, but of virtually all governments, everywhere, finally make a growing number of people doubt and discount the necessity and rightness of those in political power determining the course of human events?

History has the habit of playing tricks on us and very often turning out in ways that many if not most of us could not even imagine. That is why, in spite of how things may look, it is never too late.

But if history is to tell a story of liberty rather than collectivism for the remainder of this century, then it behooves as many of us as possible to point out to our fellow citizens that the political emperors who say they are “just following the science,” are really not wearing any clothes.

Source: Richard M. Ebeling – AIER

admin

Amazon, Google reportedly oust Microsoft, Oracle in massive Israel cloud tender

Amazon and Google have ousted Microsoft and Oracle to become the two leading contenders to win a chance to build a massive cloud-based regional data center in Israel that is being pitched to the tech industry’s biggest international companies, according to Hebrew press reports.

The tech giants are competing in a tender for Israel’s flagship multi-billion-shekel project that would provide cloud services to entire public sector and military. The government is expected to announce the winners in about two weeks, TheMarker financial website said.

One or both of the two finalists could be chosen to provide the services, TheMarker said.

A spokesperson for the Finance Ministry told The Times of Israel that the names of the winners will be published when the tender process is complete. She could not say when that would be.

The cloud project, called the Nimbus, is one of Israel’s biggest information technology projects, and it will enable government ministries and other public entities to transfer servers and services into the cloud that will be set up by the winning firm.

The tender for setting up the data center, which is one of four tenders to be issued by the Nimbus project, was open only to international tech giants. It requires the winner to set up a local data center with servers to ensure that the information they contain remains within Israel.

Microsoft and Oracle are both leaders in providing cloud services to governments globally, and both have started setting up data centers in Israel. Furthermore, Microsoft reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month that it plans to invest over $1 billion in Israel through setting up the new data center and expanding its R&D activities locally.

The Calcalist financial website said that Microsoft’s failure to win the tender is because of an expected delay in the launch of its data center. This was scheduled to open in 2021, but that date has now been pushed back to 2022.

Oracle’s ousting was said due to technical parameters in its submission.

Oracle said in February it was setting up a new data center in Jerusalem to function as a regional cloud provider to serve Israeli clients.

The two tech firms may not wish to step aside, though, and may put pressure on government ministries to change the outcome of the tender or even resort to legal proceedings, reports speculated.

The Nimbus project is divided into four parts with four separate tenders: to provide cloud services to the government on a public platform; to help set out a government strategy to move operations to the cloud; to provide technical help in implementing the move; and an as-yet unpublished one to provide optimization services for use of the cloud, TheMarker said.

Source: Shoshana Solomon – TOI

admin

Likud MKs turn on Rivlin, claim he’s abusing his powers in bid to oust Netanyahu

Likud lawmakers lashed out at President Reuven Rivlin Wednesday, accusing him of being in cahoots with the prime minister’s rivals, after the president urged the various party leaders to engage in “out-of-the-ordinary coalitions, collaborations that cross sectors,” in order to break the extended political deadlock, and lamented the Netanyahu-led government’s failure to pass a budget.

The president is set to begin consultations with the political parties on Monday, following last week’s national election, the fourth in two years. On Wednesday, he is expected to task a candidate with forming a government.

Since the election yielded no sure winner, it was not immediately clear if he would entrust the task to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whose Likud party won the most seats but lacks a clear path to forming a coalition — or another, as-yet unspecified candidate such as Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid or Yamina’s Naftali Bennett who could muster more support.

“The president has a duty to respect the will of the electorate, to act as a statesman and to refrain from other considerations,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev said in a statement that was released as part of an apparently coordinated attack on Rivlin by Likud officials.

“It is not appropriate for a president who’s ending his term in about a month to make decisions contrary to the tradition that has always been practiced — handing a mandate to form a government to whoever gets the most recommenders,” Regev charged.

MK Shlomo Karhi and several other Likud lawmakers went a step further, accusing Rivlin of directly working to benefit New Hope chair Gideon Sa’ar, with whom he is known to have a close personal relationship, and calling on the president to recuse himself.

“The president’s personal ties and duty to Gideon Sa’ar, the latter’s mission to overthrow Netanyahu, together with the president’s hostility to the most likely candidate, Netanyahu… require the president to transfer [the decision on who should be] forming the government to the next in line, according to the law,” Karhi said.

Receiving the official election results earlier Wednesday, Rivlin said his central consideration in picking a candidate to form the next government would be their “chance of forming a government that will win the Knesset’s endorsement” — a possible indication that he wouldn’t necessarily pick the lawmaker with the most formal recommendations.

Rivlin said the extended political crisis was harmful to Israel’s democracy, and called for a government that will “pass the state budget, oversee the healing of damaged systems and citizens, and rescue state bodies from the political freeze we have landed in at a time when the people needs the state bodies more than ever.”

The president added: “I truly hope that the elected officials, representatives of the public, are able to hear the Israeli people and their call for out-of-the-ordinary coalitions, collaborations that cross sectors, working in a serious and dedicated way for the good of all of Israel’s citizens.”

If 61 or more of the 120 MKs recommend one candidate, Rivlin will almost certainly task that candidate with building a coalition. But if they don’t, there is no clear guideline as to how Rivlin must decide whom to entrust with leading the government, and few legal limitations.

By law, the prime-minister-designate can be any of the 120 newly elected MKs. She or he does not have to be the head of the largest party, or even the head of a party at all.

But senior Likud officials are claiming, without precedent or legal foundation, that Rivlin must appoint the candidate with the most recommendations.

“The president does not determine the election results! He must not become a political player,” said Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana and Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin in a rare joint statement Wednesday morning.

“Since the establishment of the state, all the presidents of Israel have given the first opportunity to form a government to the candidate who received the largest number of recommendations — and this should be the case this time as well,” the three said.

Responding to the barrage of Likud criticism, the president’s office noted that Rivlin has no obligation to appoint the candidate who receives the most recommendations, and said he would not be pressured by others into any specific decision.

“As the president said, the main consideration that will guide him in choosing the candidate on whom he will place the task of forming the government is the candidate’s chances of forming a government that will win the Knesset’s trust,” a statement from the president’s office said.

“This is what all the presidents of Israel have done for generations and this is how the president has acted in all the previous election campaigns,” the statement added.

Likud’s political rivals took a sharper tone in their response to the criticism of Rivlin, accusing Netanyahu of crossing a line.

“Likud’s attack on the president is further proof that there are only two options: either Netanyahu’s continued rule and a savage attack on state institutions, or joining the bloc of change and a change of government,” Yesh Atid chair Yair wrote on Twitter.

Also writing on Twitter, Blue and White head Benny Gantz charged, “There is no state institution that the prime minister and his accomplices will not trample on,” citing previous attacks on the justice system in defense of Netanyahu.

“President Rivlin, as you have always done, continue to perform your duties honestly, fairly, and with statesmanship, while considering all the considerations in choosing who to form a coalition, just as the law allows you to,” Gantz said.

Meretz chair Nitzan Horowitz similarly slammed the Likud efforts to discredit Rivlin, saying they “cross every boundary.”

On Monday, April 5, Rivlin will meet with representatives of all elected parties to hear whom they recommend be given the mandate, or the opportunity, to form the next government.

The same day will see the start of the evidentiary stage of Netanyahu’s criminal trial for alleged corruption — the years-long parallel process that is seen by many as the source of the country’s political paralysis.

Rivlin will then announce on April 7 who will be given the mandate to form the next government, based on who he assesses has the best chance of doing so.

Neither the pro- nor anti-Netanyahu blocs have a clear path to a majority coalition, with Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party and Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am faction holding the balance of power. Bennett, with seven seats, and Abbas, with four, have not committed to either bloc.

Lapid, whose 17-seat centrist party is the largest in the “change bloc” seeking to replace Netanyahu as premier, has met with several fellow faction leaders in recent days as part of coalition-building efforts. He has so far been endorsed by the Yisrael Beytenu (seven seats), Labor (seven) and Meretz (six) parties to form the next government — for a total of 37 backers. Five members of the six-strong Joint List may also recommend Lapid.

Gantz said Tuesday that his Blue and White party (eight seats) would “automatically” back Lapid, provided that support would lift him to a 61-strong majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Netanyahu, whose Likud won 30, can also expect the endorsement of Shas (nine), United Torah Judaism (seven) and Religious Zionism (six) — 52 seats in all.

Source: TOI

admin

Russia registers world’s first COVID-19 vaccine for cats & dogs as makers of Sputnik V warn pets & farm animals could spread virus

Rosselkhoznadzor, the state agency responsible for veterinary medicine, announced on Wednesday that the formula, developed by its researchers, had been officially registered for use.

Named Carnivac-Cov, the officials claim it is “the first, and to date, the only COVID-19 product in the world for animals.”

Clinical trials of the vaccine began in October last year, testing its potential on carnivores including dogs, cats, arctic foxes, minks and other animals.

According to the scientists, “the results of these studies allow us to conclude that the vaccine is safe and highly immunogenic, since all vaccinated animals that were tested developed antibodies to the coronavirus.”

Now, the team behind the jab says mass production of the vaccine can begin as early as April, using the facilities of Russia’s Federal Centre for Animal Health, the largest producer of veterinary medicine in the country.

In a statement, Rosselkhoznadzor said that “the vaccine is particularly important because, as the World Health Organization for Animal Health notes, some species are susceptible to COVID-19. Animal cases have been registered in many countries of the world.”

In Russia, the authorities say, two cases of cats infected with coronavirus have been registered, one in the capital, Moscow, and another in the Siberian city of Tyumen.

On Monday, Alexander Gintsburg, the director of Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V, the country’s first domestic COVID-19 vaccine for humans, warned animals could become a new frontline in the fight against the virus.

He said that the pandemic “has not yet realized its pathogenic potential… The next stage is the infection of farm and domestic animals. And when we protect humanity with the help of good vaccines within a year, pets will be infected by that time, and no one is going to get rid of their beloved pets.”

“Therefore,” he argued, “the focus of this pathogen will constantly be around us, and it will keep evolving. That is to say, we must be prepared for a long existence with this pathogen.”

In December, Denmark was forced to cull more than 15 million minks that were being reared for their fur over fears of a mutated form of the virus detected on several farms.

However, a number of the animals resurfaced from mass burial sites because of pressure from the gases produced during their decay. This sparked fears of contamination, and 4 million mink corpses are set to be exhumed as part of a plan to deal with the crisis.

Source: RT

admin

Watch: Egypt’s new capital almost ready, awaits public influx

Egypt prepares to start move to new capital, away from the chaos of Cairo.

At the heart of the city, workers are putting finishing touches to an avenue of ministries that echo the architecture of pharaonic temples and adjoin a raised Islamic complex, two domed parliament buildings and a sprawling presidential compound.

There will be a monorail passing through a business district where a 385-metre central tower is close to completion. Beyond, the contours of a 10km park stretching to a giant mosque are taking shape.

The city, known simply as the New Administrative Capital, is designed to operate with smart technology on virgin land away from the clutter and chaos of Cairo.

It will boast universities, leisure facilities and a diplomatic quarter.

But it has made halting progress, and after Emirati funding fell through shortly after it was announced in 2015, the military and government took on the estimated $25 billion cost of the first phase, injecting off-budget investment.

Some foreign loans and financing have been secured.

The coronavirus pandemic also slowed progress, and the first of three planned phases, covering 168 square kilometres, will not be completed when the government begins to move in.

“The rate of completion of the first phase has passed 60% across all projects,” said Khaled el-Husseiny, spokesman for the new capital.

He added that the delayed transfer of civil servants would begin in July, ahead of an official opening planned for the end of 2021.

Hi-Tech

Control centres will monitor infrastructure and security electronically, roofs will be covered in solar panels, payments will be cashless and 15 square metres of green space are allocated per inhabitant, officials said.

“We are trying to solve all the problems we had in the past in the new capital,” said Husseiny.

The finished city is expected to house at least 6 million residents, its second and third phases largely residential.

That will take decades to complete, although the government will be able to function normally while construction goes on, said Amr Khattab, spokesman for the Housing Ministry which is responsible for executing parts of the city.

How far and how fast Egypt’s centre of gravity shifts away from Cairo to the new capital 45 km from the Nile is unclear.

For now, thousands of residential blocks stand empty either side of a highway leading into the new city.

The completion of the business district, yet to be marketed, is set for 2023.

Electric train and monorail links are under construction. The first 50,000 civil servants expected to relocate to the new capital from this summer will be offered shuttle buses to get there.

Around 5,000 out of 20,000 housing units have been sold in the first residential district expected to open in May, said Khattab.

On Monday, Sisi’s office announced 1.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($96 million) in incentives for civil servants selected to move to the city.

Land sales

Officials say the city will eventually include social housing and is meant to finance itself through land sales, though it is unclear how much revenue these have generated.

Of the $25 billion cost for the first phase, about $3 billion is being spent on the government district, said Husseiny.

Some international financing has been secured for rail links, and a $3 billion Chinese loan has helped fund the business district, built by China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC).

Sisi, who has embarked on multiple infrastructure mega-projects and national development schemes, says other regions will not be neglected.

“We are not leaving Cairo, or Alexandria or Port Said or other provinces. We are moving forward with the old and the new together,” the president said last week.

The capital’s opening would mark the “birth of a new state”, he added.

Though there is support for the government’s argument that the new capital can reduce congestion in Cairo, there is also concern that it will be unaffordable and inaccessible to many.

“Some classes will be able to live there, others won’t,” said Alaa Ibrahim, a 39-year-old electrician in Cairo’s impoverished Imbaba district.

Source: REUTERS

admin

Study: Antibody levels drop 2 months after COVID vaccine

COVID antibody levels decline significantly two months after injection of the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, a new study shows.

According to a study which focused on staff members at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Ramat Gan in central Israel, serum antibody levels appeared to drop off roughly two months after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, potentially raising questions about the long-term efficacy of the vaccine and the possibility that additional doses may be required to maintain immunity.

But some experts say the study is not necessarily cause for alarm, noting that similar declines are observed with antibodies for other viruses, and that antibodies make up only part of the body’s immune system.

“Antibody levels aren’t the only indicator of the level of immunity,” said Dr. Orly Greenfield, the outgoing medical director for the Magen Israel program.

In an interview with according to Channel 12, Dr. Greenfield said the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine remains unknown, but added that there is no reason to believe the decline in antibodies indicates a loss of immunity.

“We still don’t know how effective the vaccine is, but we do know that as is the case with other vaccines, sometimes there is a drop in the quantity of antibodies after a certain period.”

While antibodies have received much attention in public discussions of the COVID vaccine, they make up only one part of the immune system, Greenfield emphasized.

“The body’s immune system is made up of multiple things – there are antibodies but also cell-mediated immunity; that is, cells which envelope viruses. That remains for the long-term. So these things still need to be studied, and we’re constantly following up and checking.”

“It is possible that while the antibody levels fall, we still have full immunity, like we had before.”

Prof. Arnon Afek, deputy chief of Sheba Medical Center, echoed Dr. Greenfield’s comments, saying the new study is not cause for concern.

“I think people need to remain calm,” said Afek, adding that hospital officials will continue to study the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine.

Previous studies of people who developed immunity following natural infection – that is, exposure to the virus and without the vaccine – have found that immunity remains even after antibody levels decline.

One study, conducted in Israel, found no connection between measurable serum levels of COVID antibodies and reinfection rates.

An earlier study, conducted in Qatar, tracked 43,044 people for up to 35 weeks, and found that just 0.02% experienced reinfection, suggesting that natural infection creates a high level of immunity for an extended period of time.

Source: David Rosenberg – Arutz Sheva

admin

Analist, despre proteste: ”E prima dată de la 1907 când ia foc țara” [RO]

Ceea ce se întâmplă în ultimele zile pare a impune o schimbare la nivelul guvernării.

În ciuda pasivității și neimplicării principalului partid de opoziție, PSD, manifestațiile s-au extins în toată țara, fără să fie nevoie să fie provocate de un vector politic.

România este nemulțumită de ceea ce i se ”servește”, este o frustrare și o nemulțumire a unei populații, până acum ascultătoare, față de incompetența și aroganța ”autorităților”.

Cunoscutul analist Bogdan Duca apreciază că, dintr-un punct de vedere este ceva inedit ce se întâmplă zilele astea” și anume că ”e prima dată de la 1907 când ia foc țara”.

”Nici la revoluție nu am avut până pe 22 decembrie decât două-trei focare revoluționare”, atrage atenția Duca, subliniind că, în schimb, ”acum iese lumea peste tot. Iese în mici orășele de care și uitaserăm”.

Ori asta înseamnă că ”pur și simplu s-a ajuns la disperare”. Ori, în aceste condiții, analistul avertizează că ”dacă nu se va opri isteria ipohondră, lucrurile vor deveni explozive”.

Și, avertizează din nou Bogdan Duca:

”… să nu creadă că vor scăpa dând înapoi cu câteva măsuri. Pentru că în momentul în care se va invoca valul 4 de rahat cu perje și pandemie, abia atunci va fi explozia cea mare”.

”Deci ce trebuie să știe guvernanții e că trebuie să revină la normalitate”, scrie analistul, subliniind – ”cu covid, fără covid, România trebuie să revină la normalitatea constituțională de dinainte de martie 2020”.

Mai mult, Duca punctează un adevăr evidențiat și de reprezentanți ai multor domenii:

”… ipohondrii să înțeleagă că nu doar că nu ne face plăcere fetișul lor medical, dar este prea costisitor pentru societate”.

Desigur, nimeni nu împiedică pe cei care vor să se mențină în același regim de ”securitate” sanitară, acceptând toate măsurile posibile și imposibile:

”Ah, vor ei să îl practice mai departe? Nicio supărare!”… dar, conchide analistul ”România trebuie să iasă acum din coșmarul lor”.

Fapt interesant, ceea ce transmite Bogdan Duca pare a fi agreat și resimțit întocmai și de cei care, în trecut, erau pe baricade opuse celor ce manifestă azi.

Așa că tentativele de ”rușii”, ”comuniștii”, ”fasciștii”, ”huliganii” nu prea mai țin.

Repetăm esența mesajului lui Bogdan Duca – ”dacă nu se revine la normalitatea constituțională, lucrurile vor deveni explozive”.

Source: SPUTNIK

admin

Țara protestelor: ”TOATĂ România a fost în stradă! A explodat mămăliga!” [RO]

În prim plan au fost cele câteva mii de persoane care au protestat aseară în faţa Palatului Cotroceni, după ce mai întâi fuseseră în Piaţa Victoriei și la Universitate.

Protestul a fost generat de măsurile și restricțiile impuse de autorităţi în contextul pandemiei de COVID-19.

Tot ieri, proteste ample au avut loc la Constanța, Botoșani, Brăila, Cluj-Napoca, București, Arad, Timișoara, Craiova, Oradea, Iași, Galați, Pitești, Vaslui ș.a.

Și, atenție, observatorii remarcă prezența aproape majoritară a tinerilor sub 30 de ani, mulți dintre ei fiind elevi și studenți – și foarte multe tinere.

Strigătul care se aude pregnant este ”LIBERTATE”, iar inamicul principal pare a fi secretarul de stat Raed Arafat, şeful Departamentul pentru Situaţii de Urgenţă, a cărui fotografie a fost arsă în public – precum Regulamentul Organic în timpul Revoluției pașoptiste!

De asemenea, s-a cerut și demisia președintelui Iohannis, după ce acesta a transmis un comunicat insultător la adresa manifestanților.

Protestatarii resping noile restricții, a căror utilitate NU o înțeleg și au manifestat și contra introducerii aşa-numitului paşaport COVID, dar şi împotriva vaccinării.

Prezentă în toate punctele fierbinți ale protestelor din București, activista pentru democrație și jurnalistă independentă Iosefina Pascal a scris un text – mesaj, care definește starea de spirit a protestatarilor și a saturației românilor față de măsurile restrictive.

”A EXPLODAT MĂMĂLIGA! TOATĂ ROMÂNIA A FOST ÎN STRADĂ!”, scrie Iosefina Pascal, înșirând mai multe aspecte care îi revoltă pe protestatari, afirmații din care redăm câteva:

– ”Arafat ne spune că se gândește până la toamnă dacă ne lasă să ieșim din case, Vlăduț traficantul de medicamente ne spune că nu avem creier”.

– ”Vlăduț instigă medicii la malpraxis, la încălcarea legii, la încălcarea Codului Deontologic și la exercitarea fără drept a unei activități! ”

– ”Se pregătește Marele Măcel în spitale și Marea ÎNCARCERARE a medicilor care vor accepta directivele lui Vlăduț”.

– ”REZIȘTII au SUBJUGAT justiția, l-am dat în fapt pe Stelian Ion!”

– ”Oamenii sunt internați cu forța, ilegal, la spitalele de psihiatrie!”

– ”Oamenii sunt chemați la poliție pentru că au criticat guvernanții și primarii pe Facebook!”

– ”Oamenii sunt amendați de miliție pentru că au chemat oamenii la proteste!”

În plus, Iohannis ”le plânge de milă reziștilor și protestatarilor din alte țări și susține abuzurile împotriva protestatarilor din România!”, fapt scandalos, subliniat și de noi.

”Presa primește ordin prin lege să nu mai critice politicienii și faptele lor de corupție, după ce au primit finanțare guvernamentală de 70 de milioane de euro”, punctează Iosefina Pascal.

Alte aspecte:

– Ora 20:00 = toți suntem în acest moment în arest la domiciliu, fără vreo sentință judecătorească, fără vreo bază legală.

– Reacțiile adverse cauzate de vaccinuri negate de “specialiști” în ciuda mărturiilor publicate în exclusivitate de mine din partea cadrelor medicale din spitale.

– Pașaportul de vaccinare încalcă GDPR ul și CONDIȚIONEAZĂ libertatea de mișcare în Uniunea Europeană.

Jurnalista acuză și faptul că România ”protejează BIG PHARMA”, arătând că Valeriu Gheorghiță spune că ”nu răspund legal companiile producătoare de vacxinuri, deși UE spune că răspund!”.

”România nu mai are locuri la ATI, dar ține secțiile noi închise, iar în spitalele modulare PLOUĂ și bate vântul a pustiu”, mai scrie Iosefina Pascal, subliniind în final – ”Și aș mai putea continua… La nesfârșit, ca starea de alertă”.

Așa cum arătam, un text mesaj, care relevă clar o stare de spirit – pe care autoritățile par nu numai să o ignore, dar chiar să o întrețină.

Source: SPUTNIK

admin

‘Protecting Biden from further embarrassment’: YouTube to hide ‘dislikes’ on videos as users ruthlessly downvote president

YouTube has announced that it will temporarily hide how many ‘dislikes’ a video has received. The news went down poorly online,

The news went down poorly online, but President Joe Biden’s social media team might be happy with the change.

At a glance, the number of thumbs down a YouTube video has received can tell a user to steer clear.

The video could be boring or misleading, or the creator could say something so unpopular that thousands of viewers log in to downvote it to oblivion.

Then again, mass downvoting campaigns have been launched against some users, and YouTube claims to have listened to these users’ pleas.

The video platform announced on Tuesday that it would be hiding the number of dislikes on videos for some users over the coming weeks, as part of a “small experiment” launched “in response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns.”

Viewers will still be able to dislike videos, but only creators will be able to see how unpopular their content is.

Creators and viewers took to Twitter to complain about the experiment. “No one wants this,” Nerdrotic, a pop-culture YouTuber tweeted.

“Dislikes are helpful for a great many things and this is what puts YouTube above all others.”

“If twitter had a dislike button, you guys could see how much everybody hates this,” YouTuber Drew Gooden tweeted.

Amid the online freakout, some commenters suggested that President Joe Biden might be happy to see dislikes disappear from YouTube.

Since Biden took office in January, every single video posted by the White House has gotten more dislikes than likes. Oftentimes, videos of Biden speaking earn more than ten times as many thumbs down as thumbs up.

“Official White House YouTube team gonna be overjoyed at this,” right-wing pundit Paul Joseph Watson tweeted.

It is, of course, unclear if Biden’s social media team provided the “creator feedback” that YouTube cited as reason for hiding dislikes.

A significant number of dislikes on Biden’s videos may come from disaffected Trump voters, but Trump himself never saw a like-dislike ratio quite like Biden’s, despite the level of public opposition to his presidency.

Checking Trump’s videos is now impossible, however. The former president was banned from YouTube in January, when every major social media platform booted him for allegedly inciting a crowd of followers to riot in the US Capitol to protest Biden’s electoral win.

Source: RT

admin

Not Enough Vaccines for All the Political Spin

Last week’s election didn’t change a thing in the policy of political spin adopted by the Likud party and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The prime minister, with the help of yes-men called “ministers,” is continuing to impede proper management of the country.

Anything goes as long as it doesn’t undermine the campaign to save the criminal defendant from his legal fate.

On Friday, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit urged Netanyahu and his governing partner, Kahol Lavan Chairman Benny Gantz, to appoint permanent ministers to replace acting ministers whose terms have expired or are about to expire.

He particularly stressed the importance of appointing a justice minister, since “a situation in which the Justice Ministry remains without a sitting minister will cause severe damage to the ministry’s work and the government’s functioning … The many powers with which the justice minister is imbued, some of them important and significant, will be left with nobody able to exercise them.”

Gantz’s term as acting justice minister expires on April 1.

Netanyahu, however, isn’t interested in what’s good for the country, but primarily in what’s good for him.

In his view, the Attorney General isn’t a public servant seeking to promote good governance, but a brazen bureaucrat who is exceeding his authority and trying to undermine him and his Likud government.

The fact that what’s at issue is appointing a new justice minister only increases Netanyahu’s paranoia level, because the last permanent justice minister, Avi Nissenkorn, worked to defend the rule of law, in part by blocking the right wing’s wilder proposals.

After Netanyahu decided to demonstratively ignore Mendelblit’s recommendation and Gantz responded by not allowing the cabinet to meet on Monday, Netanyahu and his mouthpieces launched a new campaign.

Gantz is acting irresponsibly, they charged, because he’s “preventing contracts from being signed for millions of vaccines that are needed for Israel’s citizens in preparation for the next round of vaccinations.”

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Finance Minister Yisrael Katz were both thrown into this cynical battlefield. The former claimed that “Gantz will set us back by months. Our health isn’t a party to this political battle.” And Katz, with unparalleled chutzpah, said, “We have to separate the management of health and economic affairs during the transitional period from the existing political disputes and those to come.”

Both these ministers cooperated closely with a prime minister who deliberately didn’t separate politics from health, or his own good from that of the public; Netanyahu refused to pass a budget solely to create an opening for abandoning the prime ministerial rotation agreement.

Yet now, they have the nerve to demand that Gantz act responsibly rather than politically.

Instead of recycling spin and sowing unnecessary fear among the public, Netanyahu would do better to follow Mendelblit’s advance and appoint permanent ministers. And he should start with the justice minister.

Source: HAARETZ

  • The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

admin

The Iran-China deal is cause for Israeli concern

While Israel was busy with the domestic political imbroglio surrounding last week’s Knesset elections, a strategic threat that could threaten the country’s very existence was developing.

If the Iranian-Chinese alliance reaches its full potential, the Middle East could once again be dragged into a new cold war between superpowers.

Soviet support for the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s radical policies ensured him regional hegemony that threatened Israel for more than a decade. The American attempt to placate the Egyptian leader only made things worse.

Now, massive Chinese assistance to the radical regime in Tehran could provide Iran support in its attempts to impose its hegemony on the region within the framework of another kind of cold war now developing between Washington and Beijing.

Such Chinese support, along with U.S. President Joe Biden’s conciliatory tone, could pose the kind of strategic threat Israel has not seen since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In recent years, Israel has faced an escalating war with Iran in an attempt to prevent it from attaining the kind of power that would allow it to construct massive military infrastructure around its borders. Iran understands that only Israel can thwart its aspirations for hegemony. It has tried to deter Israel by threatening its population centers.

Most Arab regimes have also come to understand that only Israel is strong and determined enough to stop the ayatollahs. While the United States is more important, it is less reliable and determined. These Arab states were appalled by former U.S. President Barack Obama’s approach, but temporarily encouraged by that of his successor, Donald Trump.

Under Biden, they have begun to worry once again. That is the meaning of the Abraham Accords.

In many ways, the old, familiar Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been replaced by an Arab-Israeli coalition that opposes Iran and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and is suspicious of the new U.S. administration.

Trump’s determined stance offered a comprehensive response to the Iranian challenge. It did not relate merely to the nuclear threat.

A focused response in the form of the 2015 nuclear deal, which effectively bolstered Tehran’s position, does not effectively meet the challenge. What is required is a zero-sum game that seeks to harm Iran, mainly in the economic arena, and deters it from conflict by ensuring U.S. support for Israel’s military actions it.

When Iran engaged in numerous provocations against Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, Trump responded by assassinating Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force. Tehran didn’t dare offer a suitable response to the painful and humiliating blow it was dealt. But the main tool was sanctions that hit Iran’s economy to such an extent that, had they been in place for another four years, the ayatollah regime would have been unlikely to survive.

We are now witnessing something reminiscent of what we saw under the late U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower: deep economic and military involvement by a superpower competing with the U.S. and a conciliatory response from Washington.

China’s foreign minister signed a 25-year strategic deal, first drawn up during Chinese President Xi Ji Ping’s 2016 visit to Iran, aimed at increasing bilateral trade tenfold, to $600 billion in 10 years. The deal will provide China with priority access to huge investments in Iranian infrastructure, banking and communications.

The agreement also allows for joint military exercises and military cooperation in the future. In return, China is set to provide Iran with vast amounts of oil and gas in the long-term at relatively low rates.

This kind of agreement serves to effectively neutralize U.S. economic pressure, seriously bolsters Iran’s bargaining position and could herald a renewed Iranian effort toward regional hegemony.

The rate of its realization and its characteristics depend crucially on U.S.-China ties. This is a very important Chinese bargaining chip in the international area—one that was suspended under Trump and pulled out once again under Biden, with significant repercussions for Israel.

Source: JNS – Dan Schueftan

Header: People passing in front of anti-american mural propoganda slogan depict statue liberty skeleton on the wall of the former united states embassy, Central district, Tehran, Iran.

admin

Vaccine passports are being compared to yellow Stars of David from the Holocaust

Political activists, including Rep. Madison Cawthorn and a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, are comparing the idea of “vaccine passports” to Nazi Germany, with many invoking the yellow Stars of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.

Vaccine passports refer to documentation that would allow those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to access public spaces such as gyms, malls, museums or theaters that would require such proof in the future.

The Biden administration is working on creating a vaccine passport system as vaccination numbers ramp up, according to The Washington Post.

Israel, which has inoculated the majority of its population of 9 million, has been implementing a vaccine passport system for about a month.

Supporters of the idea say it will allow vaccinated people to enjoy a relative return to normalcy while encouraging others to get the vaccine.

But some opponents have implied that the idea of opening recreational spaces to those who aren’t at risk of COVID is similar to the Nazis’ persecution Europe’s Jews, which culminated in genocide.

“Proposals like these smack of 1940s Nazi Germany. We must make every effort to keep America from becoming a ‘show your papers society,’” said Cawthorn, a freshman Republican congressman from North Carolina, according to Fox News. “The Constitution and our founding principles decry this type of totalitarianism.”

Earlier this year, Cawthorn sparked concern among some Jewish leaders in his district when he tweeted an adaptation of a popular poem about the Holocaust, apparently to advertise his online campaign store.

Others tweeted that vaccine passports are comparable to the yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to wear in public that were inscribed with the word “Jew.”

“Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?” the Libertarian Party of Kentucky tweeted on Monday.

Defending the comparison, the party tweeted later that day that vaccine passports are “a complete and total violation of human liberty. This is the stuff of totalitarian dictatorships.”

In a Tuesday tweet that has since been deleted, the Libertarians also condemned “banksters and politicians” and displayed a quote, ostensibly by a member of the Rothschild family, about how being able to “issue and control a nation’s money” is more important than being able to write laws.

The false notion that the Jewish Rothschild family controls international finance is an age-old anti-Semitic stereotype.

Richard Grenell, former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Germany and a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, tweeted a meme showing a Nazi Gestapo officer in the Quentin Tarantino film “Inglorious Basterds” saying,

“You’re hiding unvaccinated people under your floorboards, aren’t you?” The original line from the movie uses similar wording in referring to Jews.

“Speak up now. #slipperyslope,” Grenell wrote.

In Britain, conservative pundit James Delingpole tweeted, “Wouldn’t it be better just to cut to the chase and give unvaccinated people yellow stars to sew prominently onto their clothes?”

The trend is the latest instance of people, generally but not only on the political right, equating public health mandates they don’t like to the Holocaust — a practice that anti-Semitism watchdogs and Holocaust scholars have repeatedly condemned. In the past, anti-lockdown activists have compared COVID-related public health restrictions to the Holocaust. In 2019, before the pandemic, some anti-vaccine activists compared themselves to Jews suffering under the Nazis, also by appropriating yellow stars.

“To compare COVID-19 rules to the slaughter of millions in the Holocaust is disgusting, wrong and has no place in our society,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted last year.

On Tuesday, the ADL and others noted that in 2019, Grenell tweeted, “Never compare the Holocaust to anything. Ever.” At the time, Grenell was referring to a Holocaust comparison coming mostly from the political left that gained prominence when Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called immigrant detention camps on the Southern border “concentration camps” and invoked the phrase “Never again,” terms most commonly associated with the Holocaust.

Following the Ocasio-Cortez statement, several Jewish organizations either urged caution in using Holocaust analogies or came out against the comparison. Others, mostly on the left, endorsed the New York lawmaker’s words. Some of the cautioning groups, including the ADL, have also come out against other comparisons of Trump or his policies to Nazis or the Holocaust.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum said in a statement that week that it “rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”

Grenell’s 2019 tweet was referencing that statement.

Source: Ben Sales – Arutz Sheva

admin

Covid Vaccine Nonsense

The efforts to require every American to be injected with an experimental vaccine for COVID-19 are based on the false notion that vaccination will protect recipients from becoming infected with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, or protect them from passing along the infection to other people.

The FDA, the CDC, the NIH and the pharmaceutical companies involved have all stated very clearly that there is no evidence to support this idea.

None of the three experimental COVID-19 vaccines now being distributed in the United States have been demonstrated to protect against infection with or transmission of the virus believed to cause COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), or even prevent symptoms of COVID-19 disease from developing.

This fact is indisputable, yet media, medical providers, and politicians continue to repeat the lie that vaccination provides “immunity to COVID-19” and even sources like the Mayo Clinic make irresponsible and unsubstantiated claims that vaccination “might prevent you from getting” or “spreading” COVID-19. The same lies are the basis for President Biden’s hard press for mass vaccination to “make this Independence Day truly special.”

On February 27, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it had “issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the third vaccine for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” the Janssen (Johnson&Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine.

This announcement is virtually identical to the EUAs previously issued for COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-Biontech and Moderna.

In each of the EUAs, the FDA has been careful to avoid any claim that the vaccines provide protection against infection or transmission of the virus.

Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have each publicly stated that the vaccines have NOT been shown to prevent infection or transmission.

All of their regulatory documents and commentary addressing the issue state clearly that there is no evidence that the vaccines affect either infection with or transmission of the virus, nor do they prevent symptoms of COVID-19 from appearing.

THE US GOVERNMENT POSITION

The FDA’s Briefing Document analyzing clinical trial data for the Pfizer vaccine, released the day before the FDA’s issuance of an EUA for that vaccine, noted (on page 47):

“Data are limited to assess the effect of the vaccine against asymptomatic infection”

And:

“Data are limited to assess the effect of the vaccine against transmission of SARS-CoV-2 [virus] from individuals who are infected despite vaccination.”

The FDA Briefing Document on the Moderna vaccine stated the same fact, while also describing plans for a future clinical trial to measure infection prevention, but that will not be completed until December 31, 2023 (p.47). The FDA’s review of the Janssen vaccine noted the same “limited” data…

to assess the effect of the vaccine in preventing asymptomatic infection… and definitive conclusions cannot be drawn at this time.”

“Limited data” means there is in fact no evidence to support those conclusions.

The CDC Advisory Committee that recommended emergency use of the Moderna vaccine noted:

“… the level of certainty for the benefits of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine was… type 4 (very low certainty) for the estimates of prevention of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and all-cause death.”

The CDC guidance to Covid vaccine administrators (January 2, 2021) asks:

“Can a person who has received a COVID-19 vaccine still spread COVID-19? At this time, we do not know if COVID-19 vaccination will have any effect on preventing transmission.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) on January 26, 2021 similarly admitted:

“We do not know whether the vaccines will prevent infection and protect against onward transmission.”

This is all very confusing due to the language the FDA, NIH and other agencies use to describe the potential effectiveness of the vaccines. For example, in the NIH analysis of the Janssen vaccine data, the authors note the vaccine’s reported effectiveness in “preventing moderate and severe COVID-19 in adults.”

This deliberately blurs the distinction between infection with a virus (SARS-Cov-2) and the illness called COVID-19.

The NIH claims the Janssen vaccine prevents or lessens symptoms of the illness COVID-19, but is silent on whether the vaccine prevents infection or transmission of the virus said to cause COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). The similar analysis for the Moderna vaccine notes, however:

“There is not yet enough available data to draw conclusions as to whether the [Moderna] vaccine can impact SARS-CoV-2 transmission.”

Unfortunately, we have seen many reports over the last few months of deaths attributed to COVID-19 days and weeks after vaccination (…), confirming that vaccinated people can and do become infected with the virus.

Health officials have avoided blaming these deaths on side effects from the vaccines themselves. Instead, they say these deaths are the result of infections with the virus (SARS-Cov-2) acquired after receiving the vaccines.

Particularly devastating reports from an isolated Kentucky monastery describe how two nuns died of COVID-19 after receiving Covid-19 vaccines, despite the complete absence of any cases of infection in the monastery during the ten months prior to vaccination.

Moderna’s chief science officer was quoted in the British Medical Journal about the clinical trials in 2020 that resulted in the FDA’s decision to grant a EUA to the Moderna shot:

“Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission,” Zaks said,

“… because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods, and that becomes operationally untenable.”

The most important questions about the experimental COVID-19 vaccines were not even asked during the clinical trials: Do these experimental vaccines prevent infection with the virus and do they prevent transmission of that virus? The short answer is No.

The FDA has stated clearly in each of the Covid vaccine Briefing Documents (see Moderna document …, Pfizer …, Janssen …) that the trials were not even designed prove or disprove a hypothesis that the vaccines prevent infection or transmission of the virus, or even prevent symptoms of COVID-19 from developing.

The FDA issued Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for the Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen vaccines on December 11 and December 18, 2020, and on February 27, 2021, respectively.

The EUAs indicate that the vaccines “prevent severe COVID-19,” that is, they don’t prevent infection or development of symptoms after infection, but they may make the illness less severe.

The EUAs explicitly deny any evidence that the Pfizer, Moderna or Janssen vaccines prevent infection, or prevent hospitalization or even death from COVID-19 after vaccination. The highly publicized “success rates” of the vaccines refer only their potential ability to lessen the severity of those symptoms, but there is “no data” that they prevent the infection that could cause those symptoms.

MANDATING VACCINATION UNDER EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION IS IMPERMISSIBLE
An EUA is not “FDA Approval.”

An EUA indicates that a product has not been fully tested but, despite the obvious risks, distribution is permitted because the government declared a “public health emergency” in January 2020.

As the FDA notes in its Information Sheet for the Moderna shot:

“The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine has not undergone the same type of review as an FDA- approved or cleared product.”

The FDA granted EUAs for all three experimental vaccines after less than five months of clinical trials, with most of trial data still to be collected. All three vaccines will be in clinical trial status through January 31, 2023.

According to comments from vaccine scientists in September 2020 (prior to the COVID-19 EUA issuances), no vaccine had ever before been distributed on an EUA basis.

“We don’t do EUAs for vaccines,” [Dr. Peter] Hotez said, “It’s a lesser review, it’s a lower-quality review, and when you’re talking about vaccinating a large chunk of the American population, that’s not acceptable.”

Three months later, the FDA issued EUAs for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but with explicit guidance that the vaccine “has not undergone the same type of review as an FDA- approved or cleared product.”

Indeed, the highly experimental nature of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, in particular, is extraordinary as that vaccine is the first and only product the company has ever been allowed to distribute, and it was allegedly developed in only two days.

Any use of an experimental vaccine under an EUA must be voluntary and recipients must be informed “of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, of the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product, and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks.

This information is repeated in small print on each of the FDA COVID-19 vaccine Fact Sheets, but it is largely ignored.

Dr Amanda Cohn, the executive secretary of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was asked in October 22, 2020, if the new COVID-19 vaccines could be legally required. She responded that, under a EUA:

Vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented and they won’t be able to be mandatory.”

Under EUA status, the government is not permitted to require COVID-19 vaccinations because the vaccines are not FDA-approved and recipients are clinical trial participants. This is why states cannot legally require vaccination, despite suggestions by some legislators to do just that.

Indeed, the US military is barred from mandating the vaccines. This ban on government vaccine mandates explains why some private companies are trying to require vaccination of employees, which makes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance on this issue potentially relevant.

THE EEOC GUIDANCE ON COVID-19 VACCINATION DOES NOT AUTHORIZE VACCINE MANDATES

The EEOC updated its guidance on the issue of Covid-19 vaccination on December 16, 2020.

This update appeared five days after the FDA issued an EUA for the Pfizer vaccine and two days prior to issuing the Moderna EUA. Based on this timing, we can safely assume that the EEOC was well-aware of the contents of the FDA briefing documents and Fact Sheets, specifically the FDA statements about the lack of proof that the vaccines prevent infection with or transmission of the virus (SARS-CoV-2).

The EEOC guidance evaluates the idea of employer Covid-19 vaccine mandates under the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) “direct threat” analysis:

The ADA allows an employer to have a qualification standard that includes ‘a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of individuals in the workplace.’“

But the EEOC’s analysis presupposes that vaccines protect against infection, which is false.

The “direct threat” doctrine is an employer’s potential defense to a claim of disability discrimination under the ADA. According to the EEOC, “A conclusion that there is a direct threat would include a determination that an unvaccinated individual will expose others to the virus at the worksite.”

The specific but theoretical “direct threat” described here is one allegedly posed by an unvaccinated person who might become infected with the virus (SARS-CoV-2) and then spread infection to the workplace.

But no “determination” of such a threat is possible. The EEOC was careful to state only that a direct threat defense “would include” such a “determination.” The EEOC took no position on this issue because officials there were likely aware there has been no determination that vaccination prevents infection or transmission, and none is possible with current data.

Aspirational claims that vaccination “might” [be eventually be shown to] prevent infection or that “some data tends to show” such an effect are insufficient bases for a direct threat defense.

The US Supreme Court ruled in Bragdon v Abbott (1988) that the assertion of a direct threat defense must be evaluated “in light of the available medical evidence,” noting that “the views of public health authorities, such as the U.S. Public Health Service, CDC, and the National Institutes of Health, are of special weight and authority.”

Overcoming the long-standing protections of the right to bodily integrity and informed, voluntary consent to medical treatment requires articulation of an actual and imminent, not theoretical, threat presented by an unvaccinated person in the workplace.

The CDC, the National Institutes of Health and numerous other “public health authorities” have all stated that there is no evidence to show that vaccination prevents viral infection or transmission, a fact the EEOC should have presented but did not.

The EEOC guidance does not provide any legal cover for employers to require vaccination. The guidance proposes that employers might be successful in proving a direct threat if they were able to prove facts which, it turns out, cannot be proven.

Even more importantly, according to the CDC, more than 29 million Americans (and likely many, many more) have already contracted the virus (SARS-CoV-2) and recovered from it.

A recent NIH study demonstrates that these millions of “recovered” people have long-lasting, and likely permanent protection from re-infection.

They present no threat of infection or transmission of the virus. However, under a blanket employer vaccine requirement, these people who are already immune would still be required to get vaccinated. It makes no sense logically or legally to require the vaccination of people who already have more protection from the virus than people who get vaccinated.

WHAT IS THE THREAT PREVENTED BY MANDATORY VACCINATION?

Outside the employment context, companies are demanding proof of vaccination from travelers and even movie- and concert-goers, based on the same debunked idea that vaccination with one of the COVID-19 vaccines will prevent the theoretical spread of the virus in trains, planes, movie theaters and concert halls among low-risk populations. But the relevant government agencies have all stated clearly that that the vaccines do not prevent infection or the spread of infection.

The benefit from any vaccination lies with the recipient of the vaccine. In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, vaccinated people may have fewer symptoms after becoming infected.

While this is an important consideration for many people, this benefit has nothing to do with preventing the spread of the virus SARS-Cov-2.

A vaccinated person presents at least the same “risk” of infection and transmission of the virus (if not more risk) as a person who is not vaccinated. At best, vaccination might prevent a more serious case of COVID-19 illness from developing.

The vaccines do not prevent infection or the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. They can have little or no impact on stopping transmission.

Because no one has shown that vaccination prevents infection or transmission of the virus SARS-CoV-2, a fact undisputed by all official sources, this also means that vaccination cannot help to achieve the goal of herd immunity.

“Herd immunity” means that a population can be protected from a virus after enough of the population has become immune to infection, either through exposure to the virus and later recovery, or through vaccination.

But with COVID-19, there is no proof that vaccination makes anyone immune to the virus SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 vaccination cannot play any meaningful role in the pursuit of herd immunity because the COVID-19 vaccines do not provide immunity from infection.

Oddly, the WHO contradicts itself in arguing that COVID-19 vaccination promotes herd immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19, claiming:

“To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.”

This statement is simply false. It also contradicts the WHO’s prior admission that “We do not know whether the vaccines will prevent infection and protect against onward transmission.”

If the WHO has already acknowledged that it “does not know if” the COVID-19 vaccines protect people from becoming infected or transmitting the virus, it is a deliberate lie to claim that somehow these vaccines can lead to herd immunity.

A far more useful strategy than forcing people to accept an experimental vaccine that does not even protect them from infection would be to instead protect those most vulnerable to serious illness or death as a result of infection.

Tens of thousands of renowned doctors and scientists in the U.S. and around the world proposed such a strategy in October 2020.

Unfortunately, the media and Silicon Valley tech monopolies attacked and effectively censored discussion of this common sense approach as “anti-science” and “right wing” by removing discussion of the proposal from nearly all media platforms.

Yet the fake “scientific” approach to herd immunity touted by the WHO, US government agencies and politicians, and media monopolists is blatantly dishonest, and has nothing to do with “science.”

The push by private companies to require vaccination and “immunity passports” is similarly based on private financial interests, not scientific research.

Government scientists admit that the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of the virus they say causes COVID-19, but many of these same scientists also dishonestly claim the vaccines will somehow prevent the spread of the virus, leading to herd immunity.

Such an approach is not only unscientific and dishonest. It’s nonsense.

Source: P Jerome – Off-Guardian

admin

Eldest ‘Righteous Among Nations’ passes away

According to an announcement of the Polish Embassy in Israel, Anna Koźmińska, awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations” title by Yad Vashem passed away last week at the age of 101.

Koźmińska was the oldest surviving Righteous Among the Nations.

In the years 1942-1945, Anna and her stepmother Maria hid eight-year-old Abraham Jablonski, who was smuggled out of the Lodz ghetto by family and friends.

The two took care of the boy, helped him move around freely without having to fear for his life. Using his fake ID, Abraham even served as assistant pastor at the famous Jasna Góra Monastery in the city of Częstochowa.

Having survived the Holocaust, Jablonski moved to Israel.

In 1991, Yad Vashem awarded Anna and Maria the “Righteous Among the Nations” award for their actions, after it was discovered that the two had also hidden and assisted three other Jews during the war.

Koźmińska also received a medal of honor from the President of Poland in 2016. The Polish government declared a national holiday in memory of Poles who helped save the lives of local Jews on March 24, the date of her passing.

Source: Arutz Sheva