The Most Revolutionary Act

Uncensored updates on world events, economics, the environment and medicine

The Most Revolutionary Act
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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Obama’s CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies To Spy On Trump Campaign

Zero Hedge

Authored by Robert Chernin via RealClear Wire,

The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.

The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation’s intelligence operations.

The narrative that has been pushed for years, that the investigation into Trump’s campaign began with an Australian tip about a boastful Trump aide, now appears to be a cover for a more extensive and coordinated effort to undermine Trump. If reports are accurate, British intelligence began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies as early as 2015, long before the official narrative claims.

The implications of this are profound. It suggests an unprecedented level of collusion between U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. The use of foreign intelligence to circumvent American laws and surveillance limitations represents a grave threat to our nation’s sovereignty and the principles of democracy.

The fact that this operation was reportedly initiated at the behest of high-ranking officials within the Obama administration, including CIA Director John Brennan, only adds to the severity of the situation. Brennan’s alleged identification of Trump associates for surveillance by the Five Eyes alliance, and the directive to “bump” or make contact with them, illustrates a deliberate strategy to entangle the Trump campaign in a web of suspicion and intrigue.

Moreover, the reported involvement of foreign intelligence in crafting the Russia collusion narrative not only delegitimizes the subsequent investigation but also highlights the willingness of certain elements within the U.S. government to exploit international partnerships for domestic political gain. This revelation demands a thorough and transparent examination to ensure that such abuses of power are brought to light and severely punished to discourage them from being repeated.

As more details emerge, it is imperative that the American public demand accountability from those who orchestrated and executed this operation. The sanctity of our electoral process and the trust in our intelligence agencies are at stake. We must not allow the politicization of intelligence to go unchecked, nor can we tolerate the involvement of foreign powers in our democratic processes.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obamas-cia-asked-foreign-intel-agencies-spy-trump-campaign

Childhood Vaccine Schedule Led to ‘Greatest Decline in Public Health in Human History

By  Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Public health agencies have refused to study or to publicly release data comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, according to experts who spoke during Monday’s Senate roundtable discussion on “Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel.”

The roundtable, hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, also focused on COVID-19 vaccine contamination, the development of COVID-19 vaccines as part of bioweapons research and on censorship of journalists and scientists.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), participated in the roundtable. He told The Defender that the corruption of public health agencies was an “issue [that] came up again and again, with solid data,” during the roundtable.

Hooker, who also appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” on Monday to discuss how the current childhood vaccination schedule is harmful to children’s health, said CHD’s presence at the roundtable was important.

“It was very significant for CHD to have a seat at the table at the briefing and also significant how much Sen. Johnson knew of and appreciated our work,” he said. “We have a much wider reach than we give ourselves credit for and I believe we’ll get more such invitations to speak to and influence congressional representatives.”

“Sen. Johnson and several others are highly energized regarding the woeful pandemic response, including the society-wide release of mRNA technology, with an astounding increase in vaccine adverse events,” Hooker added.

‘Cumulative effect’ of childhood vaccine schedule has never been tested

During Monday’s roundtable, Hooker provided an overview of the childhood vaccination schedule in the U.S. and its expansion over the years.

“In 1962, children received five vaccine doses. In 1986, the schedule expanded to 25 doses of five different vaccine formulations. Shortly after the passage of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, the law was amended to … erect a liability shield protecting vaccine manufacturers — and the schedule expanded dramatically.”

The vaccine schedule has continued to expand. “By 2023, 73 doses of 16 different vaccine formulations were given to children up to age 18,” he said, adding that this expansion occurred despite a lack of safety testing.

“The FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] approved these formulations individually only with minimal and inadequate safety testing, and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has never tested the cumulative effect of the vaccine schedule on childhood health outcomes,” he said.

During the roundtable, Del Bigtree, CEO of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), also addressed the lack of sufficient testing.

“None of the 14 routine vaccines on the CDC’s recommended schedule … was ever put through long-term double-blind placebo-based safety trials prior to licensure,” Bigtree said. “Since this type of trial is really the only way to establish that a pharmaceutical product is safe, it is misinformation to state that the vaccines are safe.”

Hooker said research shows “that for every one child that is saved from death from COVID-19, there are 30 child deaths associated with the COVID-19 vaccine. So, the risk-to-benefit ratio in terms of mortality is 30 to 1.”

Bigtree said the incidence of chronic illness in children has significantly increased.

“In the 1980s, when we were giving 11 doses of about three vaccines, the chronic illness rate, which includes neurological and autoimmune disease, was 12.8%. Once we passed the 1986 Act and we had the gold rush of vaccines explode … the chronic illness rate, neurological and autoimmune disease skyrocket[ed] to 54%,” he said.

Bigtree also noted that the latter figure refers to data from 2011-2012, saying the situation may have worsened since then.

“We have no idea since then how bad this has gotten. But what you were looking at right there is the greatest decline in public health in human history,” he said.

Bigtree cited the Hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns as an example.

“The warning label lists nearly 50 potential side effects, many of them serious, and that is just the first vaccine given to a baby on their first day of life,” he said. “The safety study for that hepatitis B vaccine was only four days long and had no placebo comparator. That is not science, that’s insanity.”

“We currently have a lawsuit trying to have that vaccine removed until they do proper safety testing,” Bigtree said, referring to ICAN v. FDA, filed in March 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A decision is pending.

Government withholding data on outcomes for vaccinated, unvaccinated children

According to Hooker, government health agencies possess data on health outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated children but have refused to publicize it.

“They do not publish the results [or] let any independent scientist in to look at that information,” he said. “They refuse to publish the results and they really know why. It’s because the bloated vaccination schedule is responsible and is, I would say, in part responsible for the epidemic of chronic disorders that we see in children in the U.S.”

Hooker said public health agencies “have the records,” which are contained in “a database called the Vaccine Safety Datalink. It’s over 10 million individuals, with 2 million from 10 participating HMOs … I would say that within that database there are at least 10,000 unvaccinated children that can be studied.”

He added: “You are not able to access the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which has almost 30 years’ worth of research from these HMOs. It should be open to the public.”

Hooker said the CDC has not responded to “over 120 FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests” he submitted, adding that he has “gone through congressional representatives to get the Vaccine Safety Datalink itself. It is simply something that they will not do.”

According to Hooker, this is because of financial conflicts of interest involving the CDC.

“CDC buys and sells $5 billion worth of vaccines a year through the Vaccines for Children program. They also spend half a billion dollars a year … advertising and through public relationship campaigns for vaccinations in general, as compared to a woeful budget of $50 million that is being used for vaccine safety every year.”

During Monday’s roundtable, Rodney Palmer, a Canadian journalist formerly with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and CTV News, called for Big Pharma advertising and sponsorship of news programs to be investigated and prohibited.

Public health agencies ‘derelict in their duty … to protect children’

Speaking on the “War Room” Monday, Hooker said government health agencies have not fulfilled their duties toward the public.

“The CDC, FDA and NIH (National Institutes of Health) are derelict in their duty … to protect children and adults against vaccine injury in order to report to Congress the state of vaccine safety science, and their responsibility to the American public and to public health in order to protect the American public,” according to Hooker.

Hooker continued, “The CDC will not look at vaccinated versus unvaccinated children” because “they know what the outcome would be and independent researchers have shown that for a large number of chronic diseases, even infectious diseases, the unvaccinated children fare better, and the unvaccinated children are healthier.”

Noting that “28 vaccines are given in the first year of life, one vaccine on the first day of life and upwards to eight vaccines when an infant is just two months old,” Hooker said. “If you look at the aluminum toxicity alone, it far surpasses the single-day toxicity limit for aluminum exposure in newborns.”

“There is no study, no official study by the CDC, FDA, NIH where they’ve looked at the 28 vaccines in totality, what the cumulative effect would be versus completely unvaccinated children. They just refuse to do that study,” he said.

Hooker added that “When you look at developmental delays, when you look at asthma, when you look at ear infections, when you look at allergies, when you look at ADD [attention deficit disorder], ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], autism,” unvaccinated children fare “way better.”

Financial conflicts of interest involving public health agencies were further addressed by Booker in his interview with Bannon.

“50% of [the FDA’s] revenues come from Big Pharma through what’s called the Fast Track Program,” Hooker said.

“CDC buys and sells $5 billion worth of vaccines through the Vaccines for Children program. They buy them and then they distribute them to the public health departments of the states. And so, government agency capture is what follows from the financial entanglements with these agencies,” he added.

Hooker said this was the impetus for writing the book he co-authored with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave, titled “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.”

“The reason why Kennedy and I wrote the book is, we wanted to do these comparisons and really emphasize these are studies that the government refused,” Hooker said.

‘Many more people’ questioning the ‘vaccine construct’

Hooker told Bannon that despite government censorship, an increasing percentage of the public is becoming aware of adverse health outcomes related to childhood vaccines.

He said:

“Before the COVID-19 vaccine or COVID-19 pandemic, those of us that were concerned about vaccine safety were considered to be on the fringes. But more and more people started to question the government’s motives, the foisting of a completely new genetic technology on the population, untested.

“And so, many, many more people are opting out of vaccination … and many, many more people besides that are questioning the whole vaccine construct.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/childhood-vaccine-schedule-public-health-decline-senate-roundtable/

 

CDC Says Seniors Should Get Another COVID Booster, But Public Skeptical of Vaccine’s Efficacy

By  John-Michael Dumais

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday recommended an extra COVID-19 booster for seniors over 65 after its expert panel sparred over making it optional. Experts are wary of public “vaccine fatigue” with only 13% of children and 22% of adults getting the boosters in 2023.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday endorsed a recommendation that adults 65 and older get an extra dose of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended the additional dose for seniors, acknowledging their increased risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19 infection.

CDC Director Mandy Cohen said the recommendation allows older adults to “receive an additional dose of this season’s COVID-19 vaccine to provide added protection.”

She cited statistics showing that over half of COVID-19 hospitalizations late last year were among adults 65 and older, who also accounted for most deaths.

According to the CDC, the extra vaccine dose will restore protection that may have waned in older adults “at highest risk” since the previous fall booster shots.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in September recommended the “updated” COVID-19 vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 strain for everyone 6 months and older.

Yet as one user on X (formerly known as Twitter) pointed out, the XBB.1.5 strain is now rarely found in circulation:

The CDC on Feb. 23 issued an update on the changing threat of COVID-19, noting that while hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 were decreasing, “risks continue to be higher for older adults, infants and people with pre-existing medical conditions.”

“CDC recommends that everyone aged 6 months and older get an updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine,” the update stated — including “pregnant people … at any time during pregnancy.”

Vaccine fatigue clouds new booster guidance

The CDC’s move to endorse another COVID-19 vaccine booster for seniors comes amid intensifying “vaccine fatigue” among the public and medical experts.

According to The Associated Press, the ACIP committee engaged in a “lengthy discussion about whether to say older people ‘may’ get the shots or if they ‘should’ do so,” reflecting an ongoing debate about the necessity of additional boosters.

Some advisory panel members pushed for the more forceful “should” language to prod doctors into actively recommending the extra shot.

However, other doctors argued protection from the 2023 updated boosters has not significantly declined, citing recent studies that found no substantial waning immunity over six months post-booster.

COVID-19 vaccine uptake has steadily dropped with each offering, AP reported, citing CDC statistics showing only about “13% of U.S. children have gotten the shots and about 22% of U.S. adults” have received the updated booster. Vaccination rates reached just 42% among seniors 65 and older.

“People are tired of getting all these shots all the time,” Dr. David Canaday, a Case Western Reserve University infectious diseases expert who studies COVID-19 in older people, told AP. “We have to be careful about over-recommending the vaccine.”

CDC survey data show the public’s biggest concern is whether the shots will be effective, according to AP.

Fauci paper affirms limitations of mRNA vaccines

Amid the debate over appropriate COVID-19 booster recommendations, James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., in an article published on his Substack today, cited a paper by Dr. Anthony Fauci and colleagues that renewed questions about the fundamental limitations of mRNA vaccines against respiratory pathogens.

Published in January 2023, the paper highlighted the ongoing challenges of developing effective and long-lasting respiratory virus vaccines.

The authors stated, “The limitations of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines remind us that candidate vaccines for most other respiratory viruses have to date been insufficiently protective for consideration of licensure.”

“Vaccines have failed against respiratory viruses,” Lyons-Weiler wrote, paraphrasing the authors’ admission. “Pardon me while I pick up my jaw from the floor.”

The paper noted such viruses spread swiftly after initial lung infection, often before the body’s immune defenses fully respond. They transmit through the mucosa rather than triggering full-blown immune responses.

The viruses also have evolved strategies to moderately infect without causing immune system overreactions.

Fauci and co-authors pointed to knowledge gaps around tissue-specific and mucosal responses, immunologic memory, managing mutation-prone viruses like influenza and coronaviruses, and tailoring vaccines to diverse risk groups.

Lyons-Weiler suggested mRNA technology likely falls short if:

  • Eliciting mucosal immunity is vital, yet current vaccines only induce systemic immune responses.
  • Durability concerns demand frequent boosters.
  • Original antigenic sin” caused by prior vaccines compromises immune responses to later strains.

“According to Fauci, vaccines that focus on systemic immunity do not fully address the unique requirements for combating respiratory viruses,” he wrote.

“Where were these concerns prior to 2020? Why did policy not reflect this reality?” Lyons-Weiler asked.

Lyons-Weiler lamented that Fauci’s paper failed to cite his or other scientists’ papers warning that “spike-only vaccination would yield temporary, shallow [and] misfocused immunity.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-seniors-covid-booster-public-skeptical-vaccines-efficacy/

French Revolution: The Thermidorian Republic

Episode 32 The Directory: An Experimental Republic

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

During the moderate republic created by the Thermidorians (1795-99), France significant expanded their national territory in an effort to spread the Revolution abroad. Meanwhile the Jacobins, rebranding themselves as the Pantheon Club, campaigned for a return to universal male suffrage, public education and direct democracy.

Following his release from prison, Gracchus Babeuf (see The Thermadorian Reaction and the Gilded Youth), who campaigned for redistribution and communal property ownership, became a Pantheon Club leader. When the Directory closed down the Pantheon Club, they went underground. Calling themselves a “Conspiracy of Equals,”* they formed revolutionary cells called the Secret Directory and plotted insurrection. Infiltration by police spies led to the arrest of Babeuf and his supporters, who used their trials as a platform to expound on their political goals. Nearly all of them were acquitted though some were deported. Babeuf and one supporter were guillotined.

Marx and other early socialists were inspired by Babeuf, whose trial allowed his political beliefs and strategies (especially the idea of organizing for revolution via small underground cells) allowed Jacobinism to live on.**

The Directorate allowed Catholic churches to reopen although churches were still banned from holding outdoors processions, ringing church bells or allowing non-juring  priests (priests refusing to swear loyalty to the Revolution) to hold mass.

The Directory also established a specialized university called the Grandes Ecoles that trained doctors, teachers, industrial experts and military and civil engineers. It also set up the National Institute, a think tank aimed at educating the common people in Enlightenment ideals. According to Desan, it developed an early theory of evolution 70 years before Darwin did.

In an effort to replace Catholicism with a new civic religion, the Directorate held public festivals every ten days and set up father-led workshops for groups of families to learn about Theophilanthropy, a new deist religion.*** People participating in these new workshops (there were 16 in Paris) read the Koran, Confucius, Socrates and Seneca. Theophilantropy never caught on in the provinces

Under the Directory, in 1793 the French government assumed responsibility from the churches for public education. They established guidelines for every district with more than 100 people to have one male and one female primary teacher. After Year 13 (1804), men had to pass a literacy test to vote.

They also established secondary schools for sons of urban property owners that taught science, history, math, philosophy and Enlightenment ideals. Even though the schools were secular and banned the teaching of religion, many of the first teachers were clergy.

In the provinces, many parents demanded the schools teach Catholicism, and some villages chased out chased out republican teachers.

Because The Directory was committed to a republic governed by elites, it never won popular support.


*The Italian revolutionary Filippo Buonarroti published a book called The Conspiracy of Equals, which informed the Carbinari (an underground Italian revolutionary movement).

**See The Inherent Right to Rebel: The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf

***In Deism, God is portrayed as a clock maker who, after creating and setting the universe in motion, left human beings to their own devices.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/149323/149385

GOP Rep. Buck introduces resolution asking cabinet to remove Biden through 25th Amendment

Ben Whedon

Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck on Monday introduced a resolution urging the cabinet to remove President Joe Biden from office under the 25th Amendment.

“The time has come for the vice president and the Cabinet to put our country first and move forward on invoking the 25th Amendment,” Buck told The Hill.

“The Hur report officially addressed what many Americans have long witnessed with their own eyes — that President Biden is no longer fit to successfully discharge the critical duties of his office,” he also said, claiming the special counsel’s account of Biden’s behavior indicated that the president had experienced “cognitive decline” and a “lack of mental stamina.”

Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified materials went public earlier this month. Hur wrote that the “investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” though he did not opt to bring charges against Biden, in part due to concerns his apparent mental state would sway a jury.

It “would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” the report stated. “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Speculation over Biden’s mental state and fitness for office has persisted through his tenure and a recent Quinnipiac University survey saw 64% of voters express the belief that Biden lacks the mental fitness for a second term.

Buck is not seeking reelection in 2024.

Via https://justthenews.com/government/congress/gop-rep-buck-introduces-resolution-asking-cabinet-remove-biden-through-25th

 

Scientists Expose Major Problems With Climate Change Data

By Alex Newman

‘Climate activism has become the new religion of the 21st century—heretics are not welcome and not allowed to ask questions,’ says astrophysicist Willie Soon.

Temperature records used by climate scientists and governments to build models that then forecast dangerous manmade global warming repercussions have serious problems and even corruption in the data, multiple scientists who have published recent studies on the issue told The Epoch Times.

The Biden administration leans on its latest National Climate Assessment report as evidence that global warming is accelerating because of human activities. The document states that human emissions of “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide are dangerously warming the Earth.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) holds the same view, and its leaders are pushing major global policy changes in response.

But scientific experts from around the world in a variety of fields are pushing back. In peer-reviewed studies, they cite a wide range of flaws with the global temperature data used to reach the dire conclusions; they say it’s time to reexamine the whole narrative.

Problems with temperature data include a lack of geographically and historically representative data, contamination of the records by heat from urban areas, and corruption of the data introduced by a process known as “homogenization.”

The flaws are so significant that they make the temperature data—and the models based on it—essentially useless or worse, three independent scientists with the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES) explained.

The experts said that when data corruption is considered, the alleged “climate crisis” supposedly caused by human activities disappears.

Instead, natural climate variability offers a much better explanation for what is being observed, they said.

Some experts told The Epoch Times that deliberate fraud appeared to be at work, while others suggested more innocent explanations.

But regardless of why the problems exist, the implications of the findings are hard to overstate.

With no climate crisis, the justification for trillions of dollars in government spending and costly changes in public policy to restrict carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions collapses, the scientists explained in a series of interviews about their research.

[…]

“When people ask about global warming or climate change, it is essential to ask, ‘Since when?’ The data shows that it has warmed since the 1970s, but that this followed a period of cooling from the 1940s,” astrophysicist Willie Soon said.

While it is “definitely warmer” now than in the 19th century, Mr. Soon said that temperature proxy data show the 19th century “was exceptionally cold.”

“It was the end of a period that’s known as the Little Ice Age,” he said.

Data taken from rural temperature stations, ocean measurements, weather balloons, satellite measurements, and temperature proxies such as tree rings, glaciers, and lake sediments, “show that the climate has always changed,” Mr. Soon said.

“They show that the current climate outside of cities is not unusual,” he said, adding that heat from urban areas is improperly affecting the data.

“If we exclude the urban temperature data that only represents 3 percent of the planet, then we get a very different picture of the climate.”

Homogenization

One issue that scientists say is corrupting the data stems from an obscure process known as “homogenization.”

According to climate scientists working with governments and the U.N., the algorithms used for homogenization are designed to correct, as much as possible, various biases that might exist in the raw temperature data.

These biases include, among others, the relocation of temperature monitoring stations, changes in technology used to gather the data, or changes in the environment surrounding a thermometer that might impact its readings.

For instance, if a temperature station was originally placed in an empty field but that field has since been paved over to become a parking lot, the record would appear to show much hotter temperatures. As such, it would make sense to try to correct the data collected.

Virtually nobody argues against the need for some homogenization to control for various factors that may contaminate temperature data.

But a closer examination of the process as it now occurs reveals major concerns, Ronan Connolly, an independent scientist at CERES, said.

[…]

Since the early 2000s, various governmental and intergovernmental organizations creating global temperature records have relied on computer programs to automatically adjust the data.

Mr. Soon, Mr. Connolly, and a team of scientists around the world spent years looking at the programs to determine how they worked and whether they were reliable.

One of the scientists involved in the analysis, Peter O’Neill, has been tracking and downloading the data daily from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Global Historical Climatology Network since 2011.

He found that each day, NOAA applies different adjustments to the data.

“They use the same homogenization computer program and re-run it roughly every 24 hours,” Mr. Connolly said. “But each day, the homogenization adjustments that they calculate for each temperature record are different.”

This is “very bizarre,” he said.

“If the adjustments for a given weather station have any basis in reality, then we would expect the computer program to calculate the same adjustments every time. What we found is this is not what’s happening,” Mr. Connolly said.

These concerns are what first sparked the international investigation into the issue by Mr. Soon and his colleagues.

Because NOAA doesn’t maintain historical information on its weather stations, the CERES scientists reached out to European scientists who had been compiling the data for the stations that they oversee.

They found that just 17 percent of NOAA’s adjustments were consistently applied. And less than 20 percent of NOAA’s adjustments were clearly associated with a documented change to the station observations.

“When we looked under the hood, we found that there was a hamster running in a wheel instead of an engine,” Mr. Connolly said. “It seems that with these homogenization programs, it is a case where the cure is worse than the disease.”

A spokesman for NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information downplayed the significance, but said the agency was working to address the issues raised in the papers.

“NOAA uses the well-documented Pairwise Homogenization Algorithm every day on GHCNm (monthly)—version 4, and the results of specific adjustments to individual station series can differ from run to run,” the spokesman said, adding that the papers in question didn’t support the view that the concerns about the homogenization of the data made it useless or worse.

“NOAA is addressing the issues raised in both these papers in a future release of the GHCNm temperature dataset and its accompanying documentation.”

Urban Heat Islands

One of the major flaws in the temperature data that creates a need for homogenization in the first place is the so-called urban heat island effect.

[…]

When Mr. Connolly and other scientists created a temperature record using only rural temperature stations, almost half of the global warming alleged by the U.N. body disappeared.

Indeed, the rural-only datasets match the weather balloon and satellite data much more closely.

Taken together, the rural-only record shows that the moderate warming is likely just a recovery from the Little Ice Age from about A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1900, which itself followed the Medieval Warm Period from about A.D. 800 to A.D. 1200 that saw Vikings farming in Greenland.

“The Medieval Warm Period seems to have been about as warm as the modern warm period, but only when we use the rural-only record,” Mr. Connolly said.

[…]

Blending Rural and Urban Data

A separate issue with homogenization algorithms was examined in another paper published last year in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

The problem, which Ronan Connolly and his colleagues refer to as “urban blending,” involves the comparisons made between temperature records from one station and others in the surrounding area.

If one seems way out of sync with the others, the program assumes it was a non-climactic bias that should be corrected.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this is that it allows urban warming to contaminate the entire temperature record by blending it with rural data.

The result is that urban and rural data are blended together, allowing some of the urban warming to be mixed in with the rural data that doesn’t have the problem.

[…]

Other ProblemsHistorical temperature data don’t really exist prior to the 1970s, which hampers any type of long-term study.

And outside of Europe and North America, there’s very little coverage.

Until recently, data from the oceans—making up more than two-thirds of the planet’s surface—were also sparse, confined primarily to occasional readings from major shipping lanes in the Northern Hemisphere.

NOAA has been criticized for allowing more than 90 percent of its climate stations to be affected by the urban heat bias, The Epoch Times reported in January, citing scientists and a separate study examining NOAA’s temperature records.

By 2022, about 96 percent of the stations failed to meet the agency’s own standards for reliability, a study by meteorologist Anthony Watts revealed.

[…]

Via https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/prominent-scientists-challenge-key-data-underlying-climate-change-agenda-5593800

 

 

 

US senators slam Biden’s strategy against Red Sea operations

Press TV

A bipartisan group of US senators has slammed President Joe Biden’s handling of the Yemeni army’s attacks against Israeli-linked vessels, as well as American and British ships in the Red Sea.

The senators on Tuesday contended Biden should seek congressional authorization for ongoing military action against the Yemen-based movement.

The United States has been carrying out near-daily strikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who have said their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with Palestinians.

The Houthi Ansarullah movement said Yemen’s attacks against shipping in the Red Sea will only stop after the Israeli regime ends its aggression and blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The American strikes have so far failed to halt the  Yemeni attacks, which have upset global trade and raised shipping rates.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said during a congressional hearing with Pentagon and State Department officials that he had serious concerns about the legal authority the Biden administration was relying on for the strikes but also what impact they were having.

“Trying to re-establish deterrence, I don’t think you’re going to do it if the 200 strikes become 400 strikes, 800 strikes, 1,200 strikes,” Kaine said.

“I think you will re-establish deterrence when we get a hostage deal that leads us to a truce, that leads us to humanitarian aid into Gaza, that leads us to the ability to discuss, whatever that truce period is, can be extended,” he added.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that its strikes have so far destroyed or degraded 150 missiles and launchers along with radars, weapons storage areas and drones.

Asked whether Yemen’s Red Sea operations would end in case a ceasefire is reached between the Israeli regime and the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, said Mohammed Abdul-Salam, who is also the chief negotiator of the Ansarullah movement.

He added that the situation would be reassessed if Israel ended its siege on Gaza and allowed humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian territory.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after resistance movements in the territory carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Israeli settlers and military forces in occupied Palestine.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop retaliatory strikes until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 people and wounded around 70,000, come to a complete end.

The maritime attacks have forced some of the biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

“The Constitution requires Congress to authorize acts of war. … We swore an oath to follow the Constitution. If we believe this is a just military action and I do, then we should authorize it,” Senator Chris Murphy, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East subcommittee.

Murphy, a Democrat, said he would be in talks with his colleagues to introduce such an authorization.

Senator Todd Young, the subcommittee’s senior Republican, also questioned the Biden administration’s strategy.

“It’s imperative that the administration respond to these actions while demonstrating it is both a strategy for deterring aggression and appropriate legal doctrine,” said Young. “To date, I have not seen such a strategy put forward.”

The US Constitution gives Congress the right to authorize war, but US law gives the White House the authority to launch limited foreign military action.

The United States and the United Kingdom have been carrying out strikes against Yemen since early January after Washington and its allies offered Israel their full support amid attacks by Yemeni forces on Israeli-linked ships sailing to and from the occupied territories through the Red Sea.

Separately on Tuesday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that US “preemptive” strikes on Yemen on Monday had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missiles, three unmanned surface vessels and a drone in the Arab country.

It claimed that the destroyed missiles were being prepared to launch toward the Red Sea.

Two days earlier, the US and the UK said that they had targeted at least 18 military sites in eight locations across Yemen. The attacks included strikes against underground weapons and missile storage facilities, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, they added.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/02/28/720927/US-senators-slam-Biden-s-strategy-against-Red-Sea-operations

China’s unexpected gains from the Red Sea crisis

 

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Giorgio Cafiero

The Gaza war’s expansion into the Red Sea has created an international maritime crisis involving a host of countries. Despite a US-led bombing campaign aimed at deterring Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned navy from carrying out missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea, the armed forces continue to ramp up attacks and now are using “submarine weapons.”

As these clashes escalate dangerously, one of the world’s busiest bodies of water is rapidly militarizing. This includes the recent arrival to the Gulf of Aden of a Chinese fleet, including the guided-missile destroyer Jiaozuo, the missile frigate Xuchang, a replenishment vessel, and more than 700 troops – including dozens of special forces personnel – as part of a counter-piracy mission.

Beijing has voiced its determination to help restore stability to the Red Sea. “We should jointly uphold the security on the sea lanes of the Red Sea in accordance with the law and also respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries along the Red Sea coast, including Yemen,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized last month.

As the largest trading nation in the world, China depends on the Red Sea as its “maritime lifeline.” Most of the Asian giant’s exports to Europe go through the strategic waterway, and large quantities of oil and minerals that come to Chinese ports transit the body of water.

The Chinese have also invested in industrial parks along Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coasts, including the TEDA–Suez Zone in Ain Sokhna and the Chinese Industrial Park in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan City for Primary and Downstream Industries.

Chinese neutrality in West Asia

Prior to the sending of the 46th fleet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, Beijing’s response to Ansarallah’s maritime attacks had been relatively muted. China has since condemned the US–UK airstrikes against Ansarallah’s military capabilities in Yemen, and refused to join the western-led naval coalition, Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG).

China’s response to mounting tension and insecurity in the Red Sea is consistent with Beijing’s grander set of foreign policy strategies, which include respect for the sovereignty of nation-states and a doctrine of “non-interference.”

In the Persian Gulf, China has pursued a balanced and geopolitically neutral agenda resting on a three-pronged approach: enemies of no one, allies of no one, and friends of everyone.

China’s position vis-à-vis all Persian Gulf countries was best exemplified almost a year ago when Beijing brokered a surprise reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in which it played the role of guarantor.

In Yemen, although China aligns with the international community’s non-recognition of the Ansarallah-led government in Sanaa, Beijing has nonetheless initiated dialogues with those officials and maintained a non-hostile stance – unlike many Arab and western states.

Understanding Beijing’s regional role 

Overall, China tries to leverage its influence in West Asian countries to mitigate regional tensions and advance stabilizing initiatives. Its main goal is ultimately to ensure the long-term success of President Xi Jinping’s multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and keep trade routes free of conflict.

Often labeled by the west as a “free rider,” China is accused of opportunistically benefiting from US- and European-led security efforts in the Persian Gulf and the northwestern Indian Ocean without contributing to them.

But given China’s anti-piracy task force in the Gulf of Aden and its military base in Djibouti, this accusation isn’t entirely justified.

Beijing’s motivations for staying out of OPG were easy to understand: first, China has no interest in bolstering US hegemony; second, joining the naval military coalition could upset its multi-vector diplomacy vis-à-vis Ansarallah and Iran; and third, the wider Arab–Islamic world and the rest of the Global South would interpret it as Chinese support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rejecting the OPG mission has instead bolstered China’s regional image as a defender of the Palestinian cause.

Speaking to The Cradle, Javad Heiran-Nia, director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran, said:

[Beijing’s] cooperation with the West in securing the Red Sea will not be good for China’s relations with the Arabs and Iran. Therefore, China has adopted political and military restraint to avoid jeopardizing its economic and diplomatic interests in the region.

Dropping the blame on Washington’s doorstep

Beijing recognizes the Red Sea security crisis to be a direct “spillover” from Gaza, where China has called for an immediate ceasefire.

As Yun Sun, co-director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, informed The Cradle:

The Chinese do see the crisis in the Red Sea as a challenge to regional peace and stability but see the Gaza crisis as the fundamental origin of the crisis. Therefore, the solution to the crisis in the Chinese view will have to be based on ceasefire, easing of the tension and returning to the two-state solution.

Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, agrees, telling The Cradle:

Chinese diplomats have been carefully commenting on the events, but in Beijing’s narrative, the rise of attacks is a consequence of Israel’s war in Gaza – and perhaps more importantly the US policy in support [of] the Netanyahu government.

But in January, after the US and UK began their bombing campaign of Ansarallah targets in Yemen, China began to weigh in with serious concerns about the Red Sea crisis. Beijing noted that neither Washington nor London had received authorization for the use of force from the UN Security Council, and, therefore, as Sun explained it, the US–UK strikes “lack legitimacy in the Chinese view.”

How the Red Sea Crisis benefits Beijing

China has capitalized on intensifying anger directed against the US from all over the Islamic world and Global South. The Gaza war and its spread into the Red Sea have delivered Beijing some easy soft-power gains and reinforced to Arab audiences the vital importance of multipolarity.
This point was drummed home by Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization, when he told the 2023 Doha Forum:

The fact that there is only one single country which [on 8 December, 2023] vetoed the United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine War should convince all of us that we should be very lucky living not in the unipolar World.

Certainly, China has experienced some economic repercussions from the Red Sea crisis, although the extent of this is difficult to calculate. Yet Beijing’s political gains appear to trump any associated financial losses. As Sun explained to The Cradle, “The crisis does affect China, but the loss has been mostly economic and minor, while the gains are primarily political as China stands with the Arab countries on Gaza.”

In some ways, China has actually gained economically from the Red Sea crisis. With Ansarallah making a point of only targeting Israel-linked vessels, there is a widespread view that Chinese ships operating in the area are immune from Yemeni attacks.

After many international container shipping lines decided to reroute around South Africa to avoid Ansarallah’s missiles and drones, two ships operating under the Chinese flag – the Zhong Gu Ji Lin and Zhong Gu Shan Dong – continued transiting the Red Sea.
As Bloomberg reported early this month:

Chinese-owned merchant ships are getting hefty discounts on their insurance when sailing through the Red Sea, another sign of how Houthi attacks in the area are punishing the commercial interests of vessels with ties to the West.

US officials have since implored Beijing to pressure Iran into ordering the de-facto Yemeni government to halt maritime attacks. Those entreaties have failed, however, largely because Washington incorrectly assumes that Beijing holds influence over Tehran and that Iran can make demands of Ansarallah. Regardless, the fact that the US would turn to China for such help amid escalating tensions in the Red Sea is a boost to Beijing’s status as a go-to power amid global security crises.

China also has much to gain from the White House’s disproportionate focus on Gaza and the Red Sea. Since October–November 2023, the US has had significantly less bandwidth for its South China Sea and Taiwan files. In turn, this frees Beijing to act more confidently in West Asia while the US remains distracted. According to Heiran-Nia:

The developments in the Red Sea will keep America’s focus on the region and not open America’s hand to expand its presence in the Indo–Pacific region, [where] America’s main priority is to contain China. The war in Ukraine has the same advantage for China. While the connectivity of the Euro–Atlantic region with the Indo–Pacific region is expanding to contain China and increase NATO cooperation with the Indo–Pacific, the tensions in [West Asia] and Ukraine will be a boon for China.

Ultimately, the Red Sea crisis and Washington’s failure to deter Ansarallah signal yet another blow to US hegemony. From the Chinese perspective, the growing Red Sea conflict serves to further isolate the US and highlight its limitations as a security guarantor – particularly in light of its unconditional support for Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/chinas-unexpected-gains-from-the-red-sea-crisis

Red Cross asking blood donors if they’ve been “vaccinated” for COVID: If so, call us first to see if you’re still eligible

American Red Cross asking potential blood donors if they’ve been “vaccinated” for COVID: If so, call us first to see if you’re still eligible

Dr Eddy Betterman

Social media is abuzz with new claims that the American Red Cross RapidPass app is now asking potential blood donors if they have been “vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) before allowing them to give.

“Have you EVER had a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine?” allegedly reads Question 79 of RapidPass.

“If you answer ‘YES’ to this question, please call 1-800-Red Cross (1-800-733-2767) before coming in to donate to determine if this will affect your eligibility,” reads the information box below the question.

American Red Cross confirms giving tainted blood

Another thing that also came to light this week is a video recording of a call between an undercover journalist and an official at the American Red Cross who confirmed that the organization does not separate blood donations based on vaccination status.

Conservative political commentator and media host Steven Crowder shared the video to his X account – watch below:

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2024/02/29/american-red-cross-asking-donors-vaccinated-covid/

Russia Will Soon Become the World’s 4th Largest Economy

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Feb. 29, 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Feb. 29, 2024. | Photo: X/ @Quijanomacanche

teleSUR Newsletter

Education is the most important guarantee for Russia’s sovereignty, President Putin said.

On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin presented his annual report to the Assembly of the Russian Federation, where he highlighted that his country has managed to maintain a thriving economy despite Western sanctions related to the Ukrainian special military operation.

In his address to both legislative chambers, he highlighted the role of Russian workers, who have demonstrated their ability to tackle the most complex tasks and face any challenge.

“In 2023, the Russian economy grew at a rate above the world average. We will surpass not only the main countries of the European Union but all the countries of the Group of Seven,” he said, highlighting that Russia is already the main European economy and the world’s 5th largest economy when taking into account its purchasing power parity.

“The pace and, above all, the quality of growth allow us to affirm that we will take another step in the near future and become one of the four economic powers in the world,” Putin stated, recalling that the population is a factor that will allow higher levels of growth to be achieved.

“In 2030, the country will have 8.3 million citizens between 20 and 24 years old. In 2035, there will be 9.7 million in this age range, that is, 2.4 million more young people than today,” he said and emphasized that Russian development depends on maintaining qualified personnel.

“We are making the dreams of the current generations come true. Tomorrow, we will have to help the new ones,” Putin said, linking Russia’s national well-being to the success of the education of young people and the altruistic work of teachers.

“That is the most important guarantee for Russia’s sovereignty and the continuation of our history,” he stressed and announced the launch of new projects to maintain a demographic profile adequate for economic development.

Among them are projects to improve the life expectancy and quality of life of families with children, support the birth rate, and strengthen the education of young Russians. To achieve this last goal, Russia will invest 4 billion euros to create 40 university campuses by 2030.

[…]

Via https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Will-Soon-Become-the-Worlds-4th-Largest-Economy-Putin-20240229-0007.html