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Why Did The WHO Bury This Damning Report On Italy’s COVID-19 Response? | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on December 13, 2020

The 102-page report said Italy’s pandemic plan had not been updated since 2006 and that, due to being unprepared, the initial response from hospitals was “improvised, chaotic and creative”.

Guerra was directly responsible for updating Italy’s 2006 pandemic plan, which might explain why he didn’t want a study highlighting that fact out there for all the world to see.

Sounds vaguely familiar. I am sure the warp speed rushed vaccine plan will go much better.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/why-did-who-bury-damning-report-italys-covid-19-response

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler Durden

Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

A World Health Organization (WHO) official reportedly removed an important study on Italy’s early response to the coronavirus pandemic. Ranieri Guerra, the Italian WHO official who removed the study, previously served as director-general for preventive health at the Italian health ministry from 2014-17.

The report – extremely critical of Italy’s haphazard early response to the pandemic – was supposed to be a blueprint for governments not yet hit by the coronavirus. Kuwait funded the report, written by WHO scientist Francesco Zambon and 10 colleagues across Europe. The Guardian:

Called An Unprecedented Challenge: Italy’s First Response to Covid-19, the document was published on the WHO website on 13 May before being taken down the next day, as first reported by the Guardian in August.

The 102-page report said Italy’s pandemic plan had not been updated since 2006 and that, due to being unprepared, the initial response from hospitals was “improvised, chaotic and creative”.

It took time for formal guidance to become available, the report added.

Guerra was directly responsible for updating Italy’s 2006 pandemic plan, which might explain why he didn’t want a study highlighting that fact out there for all the world to see.

The outdated plan is a crucial element in the preliminary investigations being carried out by prosecutors in Bergamo – the Lombardy province hardest hit during the first wave of the pandemic – into possible criminal negligence by authorities. Covid-related deaths in Italy surpassed 60,000 on Sunday, the highest toll in mainland Europe.

That number is surely much higher as Italy ran out of hospital beds early on in the pandemic and people were dying by the thousands in their homes.

The WHO is refusing to allow Zambon to testify at the hearings in Bergamo. Apparently, the organization would prefer to bury the news that it buried a potentially life-saving report for political reasons.

Zambon, who is based at the WHO’s office in Venice, has been summoned three times to speak to prosecutors but has been prevented from doing so by the WHO, which has insisted he and the other 10 researchers involved in producing the report should have immunity from testifying. Only Guerra was heard by prosecutors in early November but the contents of the hearing have not been disclosed.

After the first summons to Zambon and the other researchers was issued, the WHO said the regional prosecutors needed to follow diplomatic channels by making their request via Italy’s foreign ministry.

And Joe Biden wants to rejoin this band of criminal bureaucratic bumblers?

Things apparently got heated between Zambon, author of the report, and Guerra, whose failures might have killed thousands. Guerra apparently threatened to fire Zambon unless he altered the report to remove criticism of the outdated plan, the criticism that makes Guerra look criminally negligent. Zambon dutifully reported the threats to his superiors but the WHO did not open an internal investigation.

The WHO refuses to explain why the report was removed except to say it “contained inaccuracies and inconsistencies.”

Yeah, I’ll bet.

Is Guerra guilty of dereliction of duty and criminal negligence?

“The report did not criticise the Italian government but highlighted the criticalities faced in the management of the pandemic, starting from the premise of the old pandemic plan, which was only ‘reconfirmed’ and not updated in 2017,” Zambon said. “The team thoroughly checked this and found that all the plans that came after 2006 were just copied and pasted – not a word or comma was changed in the text.”

And we’re asked to put our faith in public health bureaucrats? I’ll pass.

*  *  *

The Full Report can be read here…

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The State Wants To Control You And Your Body

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

If you are not free to control your own body you are not free.

“Elliott explained that, under the planned system, people who are vaccinated for coronavirus will receive a special card — a vaccination passport — the possession of which will be required for them to do things other people will be prohibited from doing. She stated, the card will “be really important for people to have for travel purposes, perhaps for work purposes, for going to theaters or cinemas or any other places where people will be in closer physical contact when we get through the worst of the pandemic, so, yes, that will be essential for people to have that.”

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2020/december/11/announcing-a-vaccinations-based-caste-system/?fbclid=IwAR3bzVJ6RREfIiA5tgQm1N4E7RKRjNRmfb0FH66__akEdT94w6ZwouyiKFk

Written by Adam Dick

This week, Health Minister Christine Elliott of Ontario, Canada announced that the province is planning to implement what can be best described as a caste system that categorizes people, and determines their legally allowed activities, based on whether or not they have been vaccinated for coronavirus.

Elliott explained that, under the planned system, people who are vaccinated for coronavirus will receive a special card — a vaccination passport — the possession of which will be required for them to do things other people will be prohibited from doing. She stated, the card will “be really important for people to have for travel purposes, perhaps for work purposes, for going to theaters or cinemas or any other places where people will be in closer physical contact when we get through the worst of the pandemic, so, yes, that will be essential for people to have that.”

Politicians across the world have been spending billions of dollars on funding the rush into mass production of experimental coronavirus vaccines as well as on setting up means for quickly injecting these vaccines into as many people as possible. But, many people intend not to have the injections. To help overcome this resistance, don’t be surprised to see many more government officials across the world join Elliott in calling for the adoption of vaccinations-based caste systems. Such draconian caste systems would be right in line with other harsh measures, from stay-at-home orders to mask mandates to forced closing of businesses, that governments have been imposing for months on end in their coronavirus crackdowns.

For more information about the announced vaccinations-based caste system in Ontario, and to hear Elliott describe it, watch this recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/88_d5b3zBvk

Ontario’s new addition to its coronavirus crackdown was also discussed in the Thursday episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report.

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What He Said

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

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Just What You Have Been Waiting For-Stoicism In A Nutshell

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Bracing for impact

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

Note the common complaint about the lack of notice and lack of planning. This situation has been predicted for a decade. Remember Gates Event 201 from last October?

Yet people are putting their lives in the hands of a government that did absolutely nothing to prepare for this. Maybe that WAS the plan.

Comrade Wolf is doing what government does best. If it didn’t work the first time, lets do it again.

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=3ef2fea3f

Chris Sirianni, owner of The Brewerie at Union Station, said he was feeling frustrated, disappointed and heartbroken for his staff.

About 45 full-time and part-time employees were on Sirianni’s payroll Thursday at the popular downtown Erie restaurant at 123 W. 14th St.

Sirianni estimates he will likely lay off about 35 employees on Friday in response to the latest temporary state COVID19 mitigation guidelines outlined Thursday by Gov. Tom Wolf.

In an effort to curb the surging spread of COVID19, Wolf announced that indoor dining at restaurants, taverns, breweries, wineries, distilleries, social clubs and private catered events is prohibited for the next three weeks.

Wolf also announced the following COVID-19 mitigation measures, which are scheduled to begin on Saturday and continue until Jan. 4 at 8 a.m.: Indoor gatherings and events of more than 10 persons are prohibited.

Outdoor gatherings and events of more than 50 persons are prohibited.

Matthew Gurcza, of Erie, works out on an elliptical machine Friday at the Glenwood YMCA in Erie. Pennsylvania gyms will be closed beginning Saturday due to the latest temporary state COVID-19 mitigation guidelines outlined Thursday by Gov. Tom Wolf. [JACK HANRAHAN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

The Brewerie at Union Station owner Chris Sirianni estimates he will likely lay off about 35 employees on Friday in response to the latest temporary state COVID-19 mitigation guidelines outlined Thursday by Gov. Tom Wolf. [GREG WOHLFORD FILE PHOTO/ ERIE TIMES-NEWS]

Businesses serving the public may only operate at up to 50 percent of the maximum capacity, except as limited by existing orders to a smaller capacity limit.

Indoor operations at gyms and fitness facilities are prohibited.

All in-person businesses in the entertainment industry serving the public within a building or indoor defined area, including theaters, concert venues, museums, movie theaters, arcades, casinos, bowling alleys, private clubs, and all other similar entertainment, recreational or social facilities, are prohibited from operation.

In-person extracurricular school activities are suspended, but these activities may be held virtually.

All K-12 sports and club, travel, recreational and intramural sports are paused.

“The big thing is the state knew this was coming and there was no plan for any relief from the state,” said Sirianni, who is president of the northwest chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.

“The state is sitting on $1.3 billion in CARES money, and there’s no current plan for that money to filter down to businesses that are restricted or closed,” Sirianni said. “We had local representatives asking the governor to keep any extent of indoor dining available through the holidays knowing that major retailers will still be allowed to do business as usual.”

Restaurants and taverns will be allowed to offer takeout food service and takeout alcohol sales, outdoor dining, plus online sales and delivery.

Those restaurants include the ones located at the Millcreek Mall, including its food court, said Joe Bell, a spokesman for mall owners Cafaro Corp.

“We will be removing the seating, so that everything is takeout,” Bell said.

The new mitigation efforts will have less of an effect on the mall’s retail stores, which will have to limit their number of customers to 50% of maximum capacity, Bell said.

“The crowds have been self-regulating,” Bell said. “We’re not even close to the point where the 50% occupancy levels come into play.”

Wolf’s mitigation orders mean that the YMCA of Erie County planned to close its fitness centers Friday evening at all four locations: Glenwood, Downtown, Eastside and County.

The Y’s childcare services will remain open, and the Y will continue its meal service and other programs it hosts remotely, said Tammy Roche, the Y’s vice president of financial development, membership and marketing.

“We certainly will comply with the governor’s mitigation efforts,” Roche said. “Though we don’t want to see the Y close. Right now we need the wellness, to move our bodies, to reduce stress and feed our spirits.”

Nearly 400 people work at the four local Y branches, Roche said. Most of them work in childcare and will continue their jobs, but others who work in the fitness centers could be laid off.

Customers will have the option to freeze their memberships, cancel them or donate their fees over the next week weeks.

Fearing and expecting rising COVID-19 numbers this winter, Dave Litz Jr., owner of the Sloppy Duck Saloon at 726 W. Bayfront Parkway in Erie, closed his restaurant in early October. He hopes to reopen in April or May.

“I feel real bad for the restaurant industry,” Litz said. “They’re (restaurant owners and staff) are taking it hard. Operating with limited seating is tough and now these guidelines are eliminating that.”

Litz said his staff totaled 37 employees before the onset of the pandemic in March. He operated his restaurant with 14 employees this past summer.

“In early October, we anticipated the COVID numbers would get worse and decided to close the Sloppy Duck,” Litz said. “We usually do a lot of Christmas events. We’re looking for better times this spring and we’re hoping to see a different world. We decided to hunker down and ride it out and, hopefully, open this spring in better times.”

Sirianni said that while he believes the restaurant industry has demonstrated resiliency during the past 10 months of the pandemic, December is a time when restaurants and taverns “make their bottom line to get them through what is traditionally a very rough January.”

“We’re fine with mitigation measures,” Sirianni said. “Public health is what we’re about. The problem is the way the state has delivered these restrictions. From day one, the state has given the industry only a 24-hour notice before each shutdown. Businesses can’t operate like that.”

The COVID-19 mitigation measures announced Thursday also will put a three-week halt to open and league bowling at numerous Erie-area bowling lanes.

“Financially, we’ll be able to weather the three weeks,” said Tom Lytle, owner of Westway Lanes, 8674 West Ridge Road, in Girard Township. “You kind of save money all winter to get through the summer, which is a dead period. Still, it’s going to hurt.”

League bowling runs from September through April and represents a substantial portion of income for area alleys.

“It’s going to be lost revenue. What’s tough in the bowling industry is that league bowling numbers are on the decline. It’s getting harder and harder to make money, and that’s where we pay the bills.”

Lytle estimates he has about 400 league bowlers at Westway Lanes.

“This will affect us more than the COVID shutdown in March.”

David Kacprowicz, who has owned Erie’s Eastland Bowl, 3729 McClelland Ave., since 2012, said the threeweek shutdown will mean a loss of revenue from pro shop and bowling ball sales, open bowling, league bowling and walk-in customers.

“I don’t like it, but I understand it,” Kacprowicz said. “I’m not discouraged by it. I’m taking a positive approach that we’ll be able to open up again in January.”

Kacprowicz just wants everyone to comply with mask mandates and social distancing.

“COVID cases are out of control,” he said. “I wish everybody would abide by the simple request of wearing a mask and social distancing.”

Kacprowicz said he expects the seven employees on his payroll to file for unemployment compensation.

Mark Wattle, owner of Greengarden Lanes, 158W. 38th St., in Erie, knows that feeling.

“I have to lay off 21 employees at Christmas. How can it get worse than that?” Wattle said. “I wish the best to all the small businesses and I hope they get back on their feet when this is over.” Staff writer David Bruce contributed to this story. Contact Ron Leonardi at rleonardi@timesnews. com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNLeonardi.

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America’s Deceitful Elite | Chronicles

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

None of us lied or judged each other, and no one went over the top about Trump or Biden, yet every single person there was highly politicized and very well informed.

Which is in contrast to the behavior of the mouthpieces of our elites. America has a cancer gnawing away at its system called the Fourth Estate—the elite media. It is a ghastly cancer that eats away at America’s organs and produces puss instead of healthy red blood cells. It’s time for Americans of every political persuasion to take notice and take action against it.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/america-s-deceitful-elite/

By Taki Theodoracopulos

Lying is the new normal as far as our governing elite are concerned. Of course, I’m talking about the news organizations, Big Tech, “woke” billionaires, and the celebrity class of illiterate know-nothings on social media.

I smelled a rat way back in 2015 when I read the opening remarks of Hillary Clinton’s address to the Women in the World Summit. “Deep seated cultural codes and religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,” she said. I was not surprised to hear her say that then, and I am not surprised that so many of her ilk have followed her advice. We have a society that has lost faith in faith, and which relies on spin doctors for the cleansing of their souls. Satan, whose chief enemy is the church, seems to be winning, at least in times such as these.

I spent election night giving a party at my home in New York’s Park Avenue. My guest of honor was Prince Pavlos of Greece, heir to the Greek throne that has not existed since 1974. Michael Mailer, son of Norman and a very close friend of mine, was my cohost and the only lefty of the group. The rest were a couple of Anglo-Americans, a beautiful Russian artist, and a very close childhood buddy who fathered children with both model Elle Macpherson and actress Uma Thurman.

My only rule was that no politics would be discussed until after dinner, which began around 9 o’clock and ended at midnight. By that time everyone was so drunk we forgot to even turn on the idiot box. It was just as well because the results were hardly forthcoming.

None of us lied or judged each other, and no one went over the top about Trump or Biden, yet every single person there was highly politicized and very well informed. I’d say we were evenly divided, four for Trump and four for Biden. Incidentally, everyone at dinner was college educated and successful, but more importantly, they were all brought up to respect the opinions of others.

Which is in contrast to the behavior of the mouthpieces of our elites. America has a cancer gnawing away at its system called the Fourth Estate—the elite media. It is a ghastly cancer that eats away at America’s organs and produces puss instead of healthy red blood cells. It’s time for Americans of every political persuasion to take notice and take action against it.

I am aware that Trump has not always acted with dignity or decorum, in fact the times that he did, such as at Mount Rushmore, can be counted in one hand. But as Marc Antony said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Trump never was given credit for the very good things he did, in fact the media turned hysterical after every one of his triumphs.

You might suppose if the virus hadn’t arrived in time to ruin the economy and rescue the Democrats from a Trump landslide, I would not be writing this, and yet I would have written exactly the same words. Never have I seen such a one-sided contest, with smug, hate-filled, arrogant TV faces night after night bombarding us with lies about the most abused president ever.

The mainstream media painted, however subtly, Christians as nuts and 74 million Trump voters as bigots, racists, and illiterate yahoos. Righteous journalists insisted that blacks ought to feel oppressed. Even after election results showed a record number of blacks voted Republican, MSNBC anchor Joy Reid claimed the country is filled with a “great amount of racism, anti-blackness, and anti-wokeness.” New York Times columnist Charles Blow saw the election results as “confirming the power of the White Patriarchy.”

In a bad novel or movie, the big shots of the country’s cosmopolitan elite would meet in Aspen and form a gang to control America: Big Tech with its digital control of data, the media with its control of information, Ivy League universities with the ability to indoctrinate our children, and the entertainment industry that passes all of the above messages on to us peasants.

In the real world, this has taken place not after a meeting but through osmosis. The elite came to realize their common interest in controlling the agenda by delegitimizing people like us. Big Tech knows everything about us through digital data, the universities are busy indoctrinating our children, and half the country has been labeled bigots, wild-eyed Christian fanatics, white supremacists, and racist troglodytes by the media.

So what is to be done? This is not a movie but reality. The Sulzbergers, Bezoses, Dorseys, and Zuckerbergs need to be resisted and—if I had my way—arrested and deprived of their privileges. Pope Francis, instead of preaching in favor of open borders, should be resisting the daily attacks upon the Catholic Church by The New York Times and Hollywood. And we should blacklist movies, newspapers, and companies that paint conservatives as bigots. The real bigots are mentioned above.

Have a very merry Christmas!     

Taki Theodoracopulos

Taki Theodoracopulos is a writer living in New York, London, and Gstaad. In addition to his long-running High Life column in The Spectator, Taki writes Under the Black Flag for each number of Chronicles, and publishes Taki’s Magazine, a webzine.

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The West in Crisis: Subversion From Within – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2020

It is revealing that hundreds of millions of members of minority groups born into societies outside the Western domain are eager to leave their own countries and come to live among us. So much so that if we did not have barriers to hold them back, we would be overrun and that in short order. If we were such an unjust and oppressive civilization as it is claimed, this situation would surely not have arisen

Their allegations, however, are not borne out by facts. As it happens, the West was the first civilization that accorded equal rights to all those within its realms and is the only one that does so consistently. Not only does the West take special care to protect its minorities, it affords them special rights and privileges.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/vasko-kohlmayer/the-west-in-crisis-subversion-from-within/

By Vasko Kohlmayer

It was in the 1960s that the left convinced itself that there is something fascistic about patriotism and something perversely “patriotic” about running down America. Anti-Americanism – a stand-in for hatred of Western civilization – became the stuff of sophisticates and intellectuals as never before.

— Jonah Goldberg

I am among those who believe that our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

— Aiden Wilson Tozer

What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing… by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.

— Malcom Muggeridge

There is no question that by nearly any metric the West is by far the most successful civilization in history. Among its many spectacular accomplishments, the West has attained affluence and material prosperity that were previously unimaginable. Its scientific advancements and technological progress seem like the stuff of science fiction. Its military power and strength are without equal. But not only do Westerners enjoy unprecedented degree of wealth, health and security, they are also guaranteed unequalled personal liberties and political rights. In short, the West has achieved what those who lived in other civilizations could only dream of. The affluence, freedoms and safety available to Westerners are by any historical measure beyond extraordinary. One clear present-day indicator of the West’s staggering success is the countless people from all over the globe willing to take great risks and pay almost any price to come and live here.

All of this notwithstanding, there is an ominous feeling, however, that we are a civilization whose days are numbered. Despite our immense wealth, technological capabilities and military power, there is a growing sense that the West is under an attack it may not be able to withstand.

This attack has not been unleashed by some powerful external enemy. Nor could it have been since no external foe is strong enough to take on this civilization. The attack has come from within. Neither was it launched suddenly. Rather it has been a progressive operation. Low level and barely perceivable in the beginning, it has been gathering in strength over a period of decades. Its initial phase could be compared to a partisan campaign with a shot taken here and there. Emboldened by a lack of proper response on the part of those it sought to subvert, the enemy expanded its field of hostilities and achieved surprising victories. Invigorated and encouraged by the gains, the foe has recently thrown away all of its disguises and has come out into the open in full force. It has shown itself stronger than most would have imagined with the result that we are now locked in an all-out battle for survival. It is an indication of our malaise that many people are still not fully aware of this.

The enemy ranks are made up of those who harbor an aversion toward their own culture and society. Of those there are many, their numbers stoked up by decades of systematic anti-western indoctrination by the schools and the media. Charging Western civilization with oppression and racism, they claim that our socio-economic system is inherently unjust. Western style liberal democracies, they allege, discriminate and exploit racial minorities, women, homosexuals, transexuals, non-binary people, multi-gender persons, cross-genders and – apart from the select elite chosen from white males – everyone else who happens to abide in the west.

Their allegations, however, are not borne out by facts. As it happens, the West was the first civilization that accorded equal rights to all those within its realms and is the only one that does so consistently. Not only does the West take special care to protect its minorities, it affords them special rights and privileges. This applies to minorities across the spectrum and encompasses race, gender, sexual orientation and whatever other minority criterion exists or may yet be discovered by the progressive illuminati. It is revealing that hundreds of millions of members of minority groups born into societies outside the Western domain are eager to leave their own countries and come to live among us. So much so that if we did not have barriers to hold them back, we would be overrun and that in short order. If we were such an unjust and oppressive civilization as it is claimed, this situation would surely not have arisen

But facts do not seem to make much difference to these civilizational malcontents. Driven by frustration and anger that are out of kilter with reality, they do not confine themselves to mere verbal critiques but seek to translate their feelings into action. They do this by maligning and undermining the values, beliefs and institutions that have made this civilization what it is. The decades of their persistent efforts have borne fruit. Having been subjected to years of denigration and criticism, Westerners have lost confidence in the fundamental probity of their own culture. Wholesome qualities that once propelled the west to greatness – such as self-denial, deferred gratification, thrift, independence, faithfulness, devotion, etc. – are now commonly ridiculed and despised. They have been increasingly supplanted by such insalubrious tendencies as self-indulgence, pleasure seeking, victim-playing, promiscuity, vulgarity and profligacy. Because the West’s cultural and moral foundation have been undermined, the institutions they support cannot but malfunction. Schools, for instance, now routinely teach young people destructive and immoral ideas. Most importantly, they have been for years inculcating students with abhorrence for their own cultural heritage. At the same time the unceasing barrage of decadent propaganda has loosened the bonds of the nuclear family with the result that co-habitation, divorce and out of wedlock births have increased at alarming rates. Because of the general acceptance of profligacy and lack of restraint, western currencies have been steadily losing their purchasing power due to unsustainable levels of debt incurred throughout all layers of our financial system. We could go on but let us say for now that nearly all Western institutions have been – to one degree or another – impaired and marked by decline.

As a consequence of this – and because the West has lost faith in itself – we now stand as a fragile and weakened civilization. This situation has been brought about two complementary courses of action: the long-term efforts of civilizational saboteurs and the failure of the rest to protect their culture, institutions and heritage.

Emboldened by their societies’ weakness and apathy, these saboteurs feel that their final goal may be in sight. We have seen a dramatic eruption of their destructive enthusiasm in the late spring and summer of this year when they came out in force under the guise of anti-racism protests. The term saboteur does not, of course, only encompass the vandals wreaking havoc in the streets but also their enablers and protectors in the media, government, transnational organizations, academia and other institutions. In the course of this year, we watched as these players spewed a steady stream of fiery condemnations of western societies as being irredeemably racist, discriminatory and otherwise oppressive. This was naturally accompanied by calls for a radical remaking of our socio-economic model communicated through the catch phrases such as the “The Great Reset,” “The New World Order” and “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Even as it has attained unprecedented levels of wealth, technological advancement and power, Western civilization finds itself today in an existential crisis and at a point of mortal danger. It is a great irony that the civilization that has provided its people with more affluence, comfort, security, freedom and rights than any other is in danger of being destroyed from within by malcontents that it itself nurtured.

“Know your enemy” said Sun Tzu in his Art of War. The great question, then, is this: what motivates these domestic subversives to act in this way? What is the source of the psychological impulses that make them hate and strike against their own societies which – although far from perfect – nevertheless belong to the most equitable and humane civilizational stream that has emerged from the currents of history?

This is the question we need to find the answer to if we hope to hold back and repulse the insidious forces that threaten the survival of what is left of Western civilization.

The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer Vasko Kohlmayer [send him mail] is a naturalized citizen.

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Automobile tires, not climate change, are killing West Coast salmon – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on December 11, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/automobile_tires_not_climate_change_are_killing_west_coast_salmon.html

By Anthony Watts

From the “where the rubber meets the road” department comes this bombshell finding that flies in the face of claims about the universal boogeyman of “climate change” killing salmon due to it supposedly raising water temperatures in streams where they spawn.

Just last year, PBS and Popular Science were screaming about “climate change” being the cause of salmon deaths with headlines like “Climate Change is Killing Salmon in the Pacific Northwest” and “Climate change is cooking salmon in the Pacific Northwest.”

It seems they were wrong — dead wrong.

New research from the University of Washington published December 3 in the journal Science, exonerates “climate change” in the salmon-killing caper and finds a surprise villain: an additive to automobile tires, not “climate change.”  In fact, the researchers specifically ruled out climate change-driven water temperature increases as a cause.

Basically, the process works like this: stormwater runoff carries tire wear rubber particles into streams from the nearby roads, where a chemical called 6PPD-quinone, a biproduct from the 6PPD preservative added on tires to prevent breakdown by ozone, leeches into the water.  It has been determined that this chemical is highly toxic to salmon.  Researchers say they identified 6PPD-quinone as the “smoking gun” behind salmon deaths in freshwater streams.

Here are some relevant quotes from the University of Washington press release, “Tire-related chemical is largely responsible for adult coho salmon deaths in urban streams,” italics mine:

“We had determined it couldn’t be explained by high temperatures, low dissolved oxygen or any known contaminant, such as high zinc levels,” said co-senior author Jenifer McIntyre, an assistant professor at WSU’s School of the Environment, based in Puyallup. “Then we found that urban stormwater runoff could recreate the symptoms and the acute mortality.”

“[We]…found something called 6PPD, which is used to keep tires from breaking down too quickly.”

“It’s like a preservative for tires,” Tian said. “Similar to how food preservatives keep food from spoiling too quickly, 6PPD helps tires last by protecting them from ground-level ozone.”

“But when 6PPD reacts with ozone, the researchers found that it was transformed into multiple chemicals, including 6PPD-quinone (pronounced “kwih-known”), the toxic chemical that is responsible for killing the salmon.”

“This chemical is not limited to the Puget Sound region. The team also tested roadway runoff from Los Angeles and urban creeks near San Francisco, and 6PPD-quinone was present there as well. This finding is unsurprising, the researchers said, because 6PPD appears to be used in all tires and tire wear particles are likely present in creeks near busy roads across the world.”

The findings suggest that this is a worldwide problem, and because this research focused only on salmon, who knows where else in nature this chemical might be causing trouble?

Historically, climate activists like to use “climate change” as an immediate go-to cause for anything they can’t explain, which is why I refer to it as the “universal boogeyman.”  Now that real science without a climate-change agenda has been published on the salmon issue, we can move from a baseless blame game to a solution.

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute.  Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts.  He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues.  He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.

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Google/YouTube is erasing all evidence of election fraud – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on December 11, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/googleyoutube_is_erasing_all_evidence_of_election_fraud.html

By Andrea Widburg

Google/YouTube didn’t try to be subtle.  It announced on Wednesday that it would delete any videos that so much as mentioned the word “fraud” in connection with Joe Biden’s patently fraudulently ascension to the top of the ticket in the days after the November 3 election.  The implications of this are so enormous that it’s currently difficult to assimilate all of them, let alone understand what needs to be done to hang on to American liberty.

You cannot discuss what Google just did without first turning to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he wrote as a warning about the dangers of a modern totalitarian government.  The book’s protagonist, Winston Smith, is a member of Big Brother’s party who works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth.

In fact, there is no “truth” in Oceania.  Instead, the only “truth” is Big Brother’s perpetual perfection.  In his job, Winston receives messages telling him to locate past predictions from Big Brother that events had proven to be wrong.  He is responsible for rewriting the statements (using a method similar to today’s speech recognition technology) to conform to actual events.  Then:

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of ‘The Times’ and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

Having had a refresher course in how completely evil totalitarian dictatorships work, you’re ready for Google/YouTube’s announcement about its new policy.  The policy rejoices under the Orwellian name “Supporting the 2020 U.S. election,” which actually means squelching all challenges to the massive human and electronic fraud that pushed Biden over the top.  The announcement begins by assuring everyone:

Our main goal going into the election season was to make sure we’re connecting people with authoritative information, while also limiting the reach of misinformation and removing harmful content. The work here is ongoing and we wanted to provide an update. 

As you may recall, if your memory hasn’t been memory-holed, in pursuit of this main goal, Google/YouTube systematically censored any negative coverage about Biden — most especially reports about Hunter Biden’s sexual and drug debauchery and about his corrupt dealings with China and Ukraine, including written evidence and first-person statements about Biden’s knowledge of and profiting from Hunter’s deals.

Now that Operation Big Brother Phase One has succeeded, and the AP has declared Biden the winner (something that supersedes silly little things like constitutional requirements for victory), YouTube/Google is ready for Operation Big Brother Phase Two – the Memory Hole:

Once you get past the self-serving language, you get to the meat of the matter, which I’ve highlighted:

Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come. 

Google/YouTube has not removed a single video about the Russia Hoax, even though the Mueller Report, albeit reluctantly, totally discredited it.  It also has not removed a single video about the Ukraine hoax.  Indeed, so far as I know, it has never removed a single video attacking Donald Trump.

Harmeet Dhillon appeared on Tucker Carlson to discuss what Google/YouTube is doing:

#Thread (2/2): @Youtube wants to shame #ContentCreators away from discussing the #Election2020 — they are trying to elicit a Pavlovian response. @Google seems to have learned this from #China. Thank you @TuckerCarlson for having me on tonight! pic.twitter.com/JFhp6YbtU5— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) December 10, 2020

It is to be hoped that, as the Supreme Court justices contemplate the overt, extreme, and outcome-changing constitutional violations that the left visited on the 2020 presidential election, they also consider what will become of America if the justices put their imprimatur on the left’s election fraud and its ability to rewrite history in a way that Big Brother would envy.  Right now, the only person who can keep us from traveling down this road to becoming the United States of Oceania is Donald Trump.

NOTE: Here at American Thinker, as long as this policy is in effect, we will do everything we can to avoid relying on YouTube videos.  However, we can’t yet embed videos from other sites such as Rumble, although we’re working on the problem.  Meanwhile, we encourage content-providers to abandon YouTube immediately.

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The Essence Of Progressivism Is Refusal To Deal With Reality — Manhattan Contrarian

Posted by M. C. on December 11, 2020

To be a woke progressive the first requirement is that you must refuse to acknowledge the real world as it exists. You must pretend that the world is something else, something immediately transformable into a fantasy of perfection through coercive collective action. You also must firmly close your eyes to any facts or evidence that might contradict such progressive fantasy, and indeed you must demand that any such facts or evidence be suppressed and never mentioned.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-12-9-the-essence-of-progressivism-is-refusal-to-deal-with-reality

Francis Menton

Reality is harsh. Let’s face it, our world is imperfect, often even deadly. Not only that, it’s always going to be imperfect. So let’s get to work on enjoying our brief lives as best we can amidst the imperfection, while striving for such incremental improvements to the world as are within our modest capabilities.

If you think that way, you definitely are not “woke.” To be a woke progressive the first requirement is that you must refuse to acknowledge the real world as it exists. You must pretend that the world is something else, something immediately transformable into a fantasy of perfection through coercive collective action. You also must firmly close your eyes to any facts or evidence that might contradict such progressive fantasy, and indeed you must demand that any such facts or evidence be suppressed and never mentioned.

Among numerous illustrations of this point, perhaps the most striking is the current hysteria sometimes going by the name “anti-racism.” Here, the official progressive fantasy is that any under-representation of blacks (or other minority group of your choice) at designated heights of society can only be the result of “systemic racism.” Therefore all must commit to the coerced program of “anti-racism,” whereupon, I presume, perfection will promptly be achieved.

Over the past several months, you cannot have missed the parade of major societal institutions — large corporations, banks, law firms, universities, and so on — caught with insufficient numbers of minorities in their ranks and pledging to rectify the situation immediately if not sooner. As a handful of examples, here is a list from Ongig.com from July of the “awesome” “diversity” commitments of 25 major companies; or here, from Glassdoor.com from August, a list of diversity commitments from another 12 major companies; or here, from the American Bar Association, a list of hundreds of signatories, including dozens of major law firms, to the ABA’s “Pledge for Change” to increase diversity. You can easily find many, many more examples with simple internet searches.

In a post back in August, I predicted that the latest round of affirmative action commitments would be no more successful than prior rounds that have been going on for the past fifty years or more. The main basis for my prediction was my personal experience of involvement in affirmative action efforts of a major law firm over several decades, and awareness from that experience of the difficulty of moving metrics in any significant way. In simple terms, there is a very limited pool of qualified candidates. You can make job offers to all of them, but all of your dozens of competitors will also make offers to all of them, and in the end you will actually employ very few. You can also try making job offers to obviously unqualified candidates. Many of these will accept your offer, but in nearly every case they will fail quickly in a rather cruel process.

In the past I have put some effort into trying to find publicly-available data illustrating the difficulty of finding minority candidates for top jobs in sufficient numbers to meet “diversity” demands; but I have had limited success. In the current City Journal, Heather Mac Donald weighs in with a piece titled “The Bias Fallacy,” making the case that bias against minorities explains little if any of their under-representation in certain positions and professions. To her credit, Ms. Mac Donald has managed to find considerable data illustrative of the limitations of the minority talent pool relative to some of the top positions at major corporations and law firms. I give a good deal of credit to Ms. Mac Donald for finding these data, which exist only for certain categories and certain years. Here are some examples:

  • From a Survey of Earned Doctorates, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, for 2017: The percentage of doctorates awarded to blacks was 2.0% in chemistry, 1.7% in “engineering disciplines,” 1.2% in physics, 1.0% in computer science, and 0.9% in mathematics and statistics. So then, how exactly are companies looking to hire, say, computer science PhDs, all supposed to find 13% blacks to fill the ranks?
  • From my own legal profession, here are some statistics on scores earned by blacks on LSAT and bar examinations: “In 2004, only 29 blacks, representing 0.3 percent of all black LSAT takers, scored 170 or above on the LSAT, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The average entrance score was 170 for the top-ranked law schools. There were 1,900 whites who scored at least a 170, representing 3.1 percent of all white test takers. Of black test takers, 1 percent—or 108 blacks nationwide—scored at least 165 in 2004, 165 being the average for the top ten law schools. Over 10 percent of white test takers—or 6,689 whites nationwide—scored at least 165. That gap has only grown, and it affects law school outcomes. Of black law school graduates, 22 percent never pass the bar exam after five tries, compared with 3 percent of white test takers, according to a study by the Law School Admissions Council.”

Ms. Mac Donald goes through similar data taken from results of admissions tests for business schools (GMAT) and medical schools (MCAT), both of which show equally dramatic divisions. She concludes:

There simply are not enough competitively qualified black candidates to go around. Moreover, one-third of all black males have a felony conviction.

Of course the information that Ms. Mac Donald presents here constitutes a piece of the real world that is inconvenient to the current narrative. So what is the response? Increasing numbers of schools are going in a direction of no longer requiring the entrance exams as part of the admission process. If you had noticed that trend, and were wondering the reason for it, here is Ms. Mac Donald’s take:

As long as data on the skills and behavior gap remain available, it is possible to challenge the myth of bias, at least in theory. So those facts must themselves be canceled, as well as anyone who publicizes them. That is the ultimate motivation for the movement to end the use of standardized tests in admissions. . . . The reason to eliminate standardized assessments is rather to put the College Board and the Educational Testing Service out of business entirely—and with them, any possibility of an objective measure of intellectual skills.

The idea is that if you just refuse to deal with reality, it will go away, and perfection will then dawn. But unfortunately, you can only ignore reality for just so long. In the law firm business, at some point within the first year or two, a young associate will be tasked with writing a fully-researched legal brief on a complex subject with a very short deadline (say, 24 hours), where the brief needs to be right on the first try. If an associate can’t do it, that will be immediately apparent. If you have been denied the ability to screen for ability by criteria like LSAT scores or law school grades, you are just setting large numbers of young people up for failure. In the real world, this is not a nice thing to do.

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