Thank you to our own Royal Australian Navy veteran Garry Goldsworthy for this:

If you thought Prince Andrews now infamous BBC interview where he was quizzed about his sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl was a train wreck, then youre definitely going to marvel at comedian Jon Stewarts interview with a US state senator on gun control.

It is, to put not too fine a point on it, the mother of all train wrecks. Where the BBC took almost an hour to unravel and then annihilate Prince Andrew, Stewart executes Oklahoma state Senator Nathan Dahm in under 10 minutes. Its quite something to watch particularly if you consider who Stewart is, or rather, who he is not.

Stewart, in case you dont know him, was the long-time host of the US comedy program The Daily Show. Were using air quotes here because The Daily Show was also once one of the highest rating news shows on cable television. And were using air quotes again because well, Stewart is a comedian and The Daily Shows lead-in program used to be Crank Yankers, a foul-mouthed US adult puppet television show.

Stewart retired from the program in 2015, just as Donald Trump was ascending the throne to the US presidency, prompting widespread (and increasingly desperate) demands for Stewarts return. He finally did come back, in September 2021, with The Problem with Jon Stewart. And the problem with that? The show is only available on Apple TV, one of the smaller of the online streaming services.

Even so, you can occasionally get some of his better interviews on Youtube. And on that note, without spoiling any of the one liners, its over to Stewart, who delivers what is almost certainly one of the truly great interviews of 2023 and were not even halfway through the year.

The post The Gun Control Interview That Goes Horribly, Terribly Wrong appeared first on New Matilda.

The National Union of Students the nations peak union for university students has called on the nations tertiary education sector to boycott the provision of training or technology for the AUKUS submarine program.

NUS Education Officer Xavier Dup, said the partnership increased the risk of war or nuclear environmental damage, and universities should not participate in it.

The AUKUS deal escalates the threat of war in which students and workers will suffer, Mr Dupe said. The government wants universities to provide research and skilled workers for this war drive, but students have a right to education thats for the public good, not an arms race that threatens our future.

In March, the Albanese government formalised its support for the development of a new security partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It followed the cancellation by the previous Morrison government of a $90 billion French contract to build military submarines in Adelaide.

The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pathway means that in partnership with the US and UK, Australia will become one of only seven countries world-wide the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India and Australia to operate nuclear-powered submarines.

In a joint Australia-US-UK statement, the governments claimed the pathway would deliver significant long-term strategic benefits for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. It strengthens the combined industrial capacity of the three partners, with increased cooperation making trilateral supply chains more robust and resilient, the joint statement read.

It will also cost Australia hundreds of billions of dollars: eight nuclear-powered submarines will be built in Adelaide, to begin service in the 2040s, and the Albanese government has revealed the full cost, including maintenance, will run anywhere from $268 billion to $368 billion, by 2055.

No gender confusion with these boys in a social experiment in 1965 pic.twitter.com/BpsI2plKum ISI (@4Mischief) May 6, 2023

The Albanese governments new National Net Zero Authority a body that will help workers in fossil fuel industries to transition into other employment has won high praise from two key bodies that savaged past governments over their climate change policies.

The Mining and Energy Union, which represents workers most affected by a reduction in fossil fuel mining, and the Climate Council of Australia, an independent community-based organisation, have both thrown their weight behind the federal governments announcement that it will create a new authority to help smooth the transition to renewables.

On Friday, the Albanese government announced the creation of the Net Zero Authority to ensure the workers, industries and communities can seize the opportunities of Australias net zero transformation.

The role of the Net Zero Authority will be to:

1. Support workers in emissions-intensive sectors to access new employment, skills and support as the net zero transformation continues.
2. Coordinate programs and policies across government to support regions and communities to attract and take advantage of new clean energy industries and set those industries up for success.
3. Help investors and companies to engage with net zero transformation opportunities.

General President of the Mining and Energy Union (MEU), Tony Maher described the Authority as a game-changer and said it would have workers backs at a time of rapid change in the energy sector.

Workers in coal-fired power stations and associated coal mines are living with the reality that the timeline for closure of coal-fired power stations is accelerating, Mr Maher said. Until now, co-ordinated federal support for coal-power workers and communities has been the missing piece when it comes to climate and energy policy.

[Fridays] announcement means that the future of workers in emissions-intensive facilities facing closure wont be simply left up to patchy employer programs and struggling local jobs markets.

The Authority will have powers to support workers into new jobs and to facilitate investment in affected communities to create the good jobs of the futur...

Introduction by DM:

It is becoming so overt. We reported before on the Covid-19 Diagnostic tests bought in 2018; and now Redacted reports on the hiring of a Covid-19 Researcher in November 2019. (Wow, and these researchers get fat salaries!). And then Ivan Hecko comments on Tedros trying to search the bat cave for the origins of Covid-19.

Covid-19 Researcher in...

Once the ABC was the place to turn for major events - like last nights Coronation. The Stan Grant Australia hating attitude has ended that. ABC last night was a flop. Stan bullied his way on to the ABCs coverage because it needed an Aboriginal voice. Weakling executives like ABC...

Nothing has changed. Bill Shorten certainly rates her.

 by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

Dear Readers, the Russell Pridgeon case is moving fast. He was arrested in October 2018 and for two years it moved too slow but as of February 2021 he was committed for trial. The trial will begin on June 5, 2023 at the Brisbane District Court.  I am very hopeful that the charges will be dropped before then. Already 5 of the 7 charges have been withdrawn. The two remaining have to do with conspiracy.

This is not to say that success is guaranteed. Dr Pridgeon thinks he may end up doing the Jailhouse Rock for many years. So he needs your support, please.  In the article at hand, I discuss yet one more illegal trick of the authorities, this time concerning a suppression order. It is described in Pridgeons book,...

The Albanese Governments new National Net Zero Authority has been praised as a game-changer for workers and communities affected by the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, according to the Mining and Energy Union (MEU).

The new statutory authority, announced on Friday, is aimed at providing support to workers in emissions-intensive sectors and energy regions to help them access new employment, skills, and other support as needed.

MEU General President Tony Maher said that the new Authority would provide a coordinated federal support system for coal-power workers and communities during a time of rapid change in the energy sector. He added that the future of workers in emissions-intensive facilities facing closure would not be left up to patchy employer programs and struggling local jobs markets.

The Authority will have powers to support workers into new jobs and to facilitate investment in affected communities to create the good jobs of the future, Maher said. The Government has listened and taken action to make sure that workers and communities reliant on emissions-intensive industries arent left to bear the brunt of national efforts to address climate change.

The Net Zero Authority was designed based on extensive consultation with workers, unions, and community representatives in energy regions already grappling with the massive changes caused by decarbonisation.

The MEU General President said workers in coal-fired power stations and associated coal mines were living with the reality that the timeline for closure of coal-fired power stations was accelerating, and until now, coordinated federal support for coal-power workers and communities had been the missing piece when it comes to climate and energy policy.

With [Fridays] announcement, Australia is setting out on a path of doing energy transition well. The benefits of the Net Zero Authority will flow through our regional communities in terms of jobs, economic activity and positive social outcomes for generations. We look forward to contributing positively to the Authoritys work in the years ahead, Maher said.

The post Mining Union Backs Albaneses New National Net Zero Authority appeared first on New Matilda.

Selfies inside The Abbey. No doubt about Julie's priorities.

Microsoft not only should be in the courts for anti competitive behaviour but also fined for it.

Microsoft has (deliberately) not addressed a piece of code that was killing Firefox performance.

MANY people may have thought that Mozilla's Firefox product was inferior in quality to the alternative Microsoft product or that the programmers were lazy or incompetent.

The truth was that Microsoft was (deliberately) sabotaging Mozilla's product.

Too many calls to the Windows kernel were stealing Firefox's thunder.

Why it matters: Microsoft has released a crucial bug-fixing update to its Windows Defender antimalware application. Its arrival means that some unlucky Firefox users should now get a much smoother and better-performing experience while browsing the web.

Update (April 11): The Mozilla developer who worked on fixing this performance issue and reported it to Microsoft added the following on a Reddit thread, clarifying the nature of the bugfix:

"The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through ETW (Event Tracing for Windows)."

"For Firefox this is particularly impactful because Firefox (not Defender!) relies a lot on VirtualProtect - which is monitored by MsMpEng.exe through ETW. We expect that on all these computers, MsMpEng.exe will consume around 75% less CPU than it did before when it is monitoring Firefox."

The original story follows below:

For more than five years, the security protection provided by Microsoft Defender was negativel...

US President Joe Biden has been exposed as a hypocrite for continuing with the persecution of Julian Assange based on trumped-up espionage charges while at the same time Biden is accusing Russia []

Warning sign at United Nuclear spill site at Church Rock, N.M.Canadian company now endangering Dine' in New Mexico, and Aboriginals in Australia, with new uranium miningBy Brenda NorrellCensored NewsApril 3, 2023French translation by Christine Pratt:https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/Update: Dine' in Church Rock were not told about the new uranium miningRead the update at NM Political Report:https:

Ken Ham was asked if Muslims are going to hell. His answer:

Well, it doesnt matter if one is a Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, Mennonite, Muslim, Methodist, Hindu, Sikh, Orthodox Jew, or any other denomination or religious groupif a person has not repented of sin and received the free gift of salvation offered through the Lord Jesus Christ (being born again), they will be separated from God for eternity in a place the Bible calls hell. And sadly, the majority of people will go there as Jesus warned, Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many (Matthew 7:13).

Shorter Ken Ham: yes.

My exams look nothing like this. I must be doing them wrong.

Ive been giving open book, open notes, online exams with no proctors, no timing, nothin but heres some questions, have fun answering them for the last few years, prompted in part by the pandemic. I like it this way. It de-emphasizes rote memorization and requires them to understand the concepts (it also requires me to ask questions that cant be answered with a recitation or regurgitation.) I also encourage them to study together and collaborate on figuring it all out although they are required to write answers in their own words, no copying and pasting.

Anyway, all of my final exams are now written and posted to our Canvas site, and I have nothing more to do. Until Friday at 6pm, that is, when all these exams come winging back to me, demanding my immediate attention.

I think Ill go for a walk.

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Australian study supporting mask mandates earns expression of concern
• Leading primate researcher demoted after admitting he faked data
• Hindawi shuttering four journals overrun by paper mills
• Chemist in India loses seven papers, blames outsourcing of images
• Nature editors retract influential cancer paper with unreliable data 

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to more than 300. There are nearly 40,000 retractions in our database  which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, ...

a man who was high on meth when he fled from police on an e-scooter at speeds of 100kmh (62mph) pic.twitter.com/czJcm240pp clips that go hard (@clipsthatgohard) May 5, 2023

The National Plan Murders toll rose again this week with the total number of deaths rising to 20,410, up 155 from last weeks total of 20.255 on the 27th April 2023.

Post short link: https://wp.me/p1n8TZ-3gl

As usual, I emphasize the point of law that letting COVID-19 into Australia is a White collar crime that violates the following bio-terrorism and culpable homicide laws.

TERRORISM 101

No shit Sherlock! Biden says Americans don't give him high approval ratings because "all they've heard is negative news for three years" pic.twitter.com/cQXdC8YDS1 RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 6, 2023

Selected days for commemoration serve one fundamental purpose. Centrally, they acknowledge the forgotten or neglected, while proposing to do nothing about it. Its the priests confession, the chance for absolution before the next round of soiling.

These occasions are often money-making exercises for canny businesses: the days put aside to remember mothers and fathers, for instance. But there is no money to be made in saving writers, publishers, whistleblowers, and journalists from the avenging police state.

World Press Freedom Day, having limped on for three decades, is particularly fraught in this regard. It remains particularly loathsome, not least for giving politicians an opportunity to leave flimsy offerings at its shrine. These often come from the powerful, the very same figures responsible for demeaning and attacking those brave scribblers who do, every so often, show how the game is played.

Every year, we see reactions often uneven, and almost always hypocritical. The treatment of US journalist Evan Gershkovich is the stellar example for 2023. Here was the caged victim-hero scribbler, held in the remorseless clutches of the Russian Bear.

It gave US Secretary of State Antony Blinken an opportunity to do the usual cartwheel. Far too many governments use repression to silence free expression, including through reprisals against journalists for simply doing their jobs, goes his May 3 press statement. We again call on Russian authorities to immediately release Wall Street reporter Gershkovich and all other journalists held for exercising freedom of expression. What, then, of the Australian publisher and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange?

With unintended, bleak irony, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also thought it fitting to rope in the Secretary at a World Press Freedom Day event organised in conjunction with the Washington Post. Talking to his interlocutor, the Posts David Ignatius, Blinken spoke of efforts to fight back and push back around the world to help journalists, who in one way or another, are facing intimidation, coercion, persecution, prosecution, surveillance. This seemed grimly comical, given that the United States, through its agencies, has engaged in intimidation, coercion, persecution, prosecution and surveillance against Assange, whose scalp they continue to seek with salivating expectation.

In the course of the event, Ignatius and Blinken encountered Code Pink activists Medea Benjamin and Tinghe Barry. Both were keen to test the Secretarys lofty assessments about Washingtons stance on free expression and journalistic practice. Excuse me, we cant use this day without calling for the freedom of Julian Ass...

Are you an avid sports fan who loves to bet on your favorite team? Or are you just looking for a way to make some extra cash while enjoying the thrill of the game? Either way, TOTO betting might be the answer youre looking for.

TOTO is a popular form of sports betting in many countries around the world, particularly in Asia. It involves picking the winning teams or outcomes of multiple sports events, with the chance to win big payouts if youre successful. And with the rise of online betting sites, its easier than ever to get started with TOTO.

But if you want to maximize your winnings and become a master of TOTO betting, there are a few tips and tricks you should keep in mind. Here are some key strategies to help you succeed:

1. Do Your Research

Before you place any bets, its important to do your homework. This means researching the teams or players involved in the games youre betting on, as well as any other relevant factors like weather conditions or recent injuries. The more you know about the sport and its players, the better equipped youll be to make informed betting decisions.

2. Understand the Odds

In TOTO betting, odds determine the payout for each bet. Understanding how odds work is essential if you want to maximize your winnings. Essentially, odds represent the likelihood of a particular outcome happening. The higher the odds, the less likely that outcome is, but the greater the potential payout if it does occur. Conversely, lower odds indicate a higher likelihood of a particular outcome happening, but a smaller potential payout.

3. Manage Your Bankroll

One of the most important aspects of successful TOTO betting is effective bankroll management. This means setting a budget for how much youre willing to spend on betting, and sticking to it. It also means being smart about the size of your bets and not risking more than you can afford to lose.

4. Take Advantage of Bonuses and Promotions

...

Yes - the inner suburban leftists have taken over NSW. The lighting of the Opera House has become one of the Sydneys big virtue signaling sites. But not for the new Monarch - King Charles III Sydney celebrated the rainbow alphabet political movement just a few months ago. But it...

Introduction by DM,

A video from Richard Vobes. King Charles has asked the people to pay homage to him. Is this the right way round? Has he been captured by the bankers?

I remind the readers that He His name is prosecuting the child protectors in THE KING v PATRICK FINBAR MCGARRY ODEA, WILLIAM RUSSELL MASSINGHAM PRIDGEON, ANN KATHLEEN GREER AND ORS. Charles would be ashamed that his name is being used to prosecute those who gave up everything to protect children from harm. These children had spoken up, but they were silenced their abuse concealed by authorities.

 

The post Coronation Today, But Where Was He During Lockdown? appeared first on Gumshoe News.

ASIA:

 

High prices are starting to put pressure on small and midsize businesses in Japan, forcing a record number of them into bankruptcy as the country lags behind the West in passing along the increased costs to customers.  Fiscal 2022 saw 463 companies file for bankruptcy over rising prices or an inability to pass along costs, according to Teikoku Databank. The figure was 3.4 times the 136 cases of fiscal 2021. This March alone had 67 cases a record high for a single month. Comparing the July-September quarter of 2020 with the October-December quarter of 2022, the pass-through rate in Japan was 20.3% less than half of the 48.5% in the U.S. and the 58.1% in Europe.

 

 

The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today:

• NIKKEI 225 closed
• Shanghai decreased 15.96 points or -0.48% to 3,334.50
• Hang Seng increased 100.58 points or 0.50% to 20,049.31
• ASX 200 increased 26.90 points or 0.37% to 7,220.00
• Kospi closed
• SENSEX decreased 694.96 points or -1.13% to 61,054.29
• Nifty50 decreased 186.80 points or -1.02% to 18,069.00

 

The major Asian currency markets had a green day today:

• AUDUSD increased 0.00627 or 0.94% to 0.67557
• NZDUSD increased 0.00261 or 0.42% to 0.63041
• USDJPY increased 0.407 or 0.30% to 134.677
• USDCNY increased 0.00126 or 0.02% to 6.91626

 

Precious Metals:

 

Gold decreased 34.85 USD/t oz. or -1.70% to 2,016.26

Silver decreased 0.431 USD/t. oz or -1.65%% to 25.635

 

Some economic news from last night:

China:

Caixin Services PMI (Apr) decreased from 57.8 to 56.4

Australia:

Home Loans (MoM) increased from -1.2% to 6.5%

 

Some economic news from today:

India:

Bank Loan Growth increased from 15.7% to 15.9%

Deposit Growth remain the same at 10.2%

FX Reserves, USD increased from 584.25B to 588.78B

Hong Kong:

Foreign Reserves (USD) (Apr) decreased from 430.80B to 427.40B

 

 

EUROPE/EMEA:

 

The European economy avoided recession over the winter and pic...

BY DR ROGER WATSON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC |  MAY 5, 2023

Paradigm shifts in science are rare, but it seems we may have just had one. The RCT (randomised controlled trial), an experimental method used to test if medical procedures and drugs work, has long been considered the gold standard method of establishing the relationship between cause and effect. But it may just have been knocked off its perch and usurped by a new approach to seeking evidence.

Based on the first such study by James Lind in 1774 when he rid the Royal Navy of scurvy, the method in its simplest form involves giving one group of people a treatment and withholding it from another group and seeing if the treatment group fares better than the other (control) group. There is no evidence that Lind randomised the sailors on which he tested lemons as a cure for scurvy; randomisation, to avoid bias in who does and who does not receive treatment, was introduced much later. There are many modern variations on the theme of the RCT but, essentially, they are all designed to achieve the same thing.

As an experimental method for trying to settle whether treatments worked, the clinical trial took a while to catch on with the first RCT being published in 1948. Until that time, what was purported to work was based on power and opinion and, therefore, largely on who said it. Other, weaker designs based on observation and correlation abounded but, eventually, were superseded by the RCT.

Of course, not every RCT produces the same results due to an annoying phenomenon called regression to the mean whereby observed effects are often obtained one day and inverse effects are obtained on another day. To account for regression to the mean, it is considered necessary to combine the results of similar studies to be able to pinpoint, at any time, where the true effect lies. Thus, the science of meta-analysis arose which does precisely that and the most rigorous repository of such analyses is considered to be the...

In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game.

Consider the debate surrounding alleged threats to the BBCs independence, even as the BBC itself reports of its outgoing chairman:

As for Mr Sharps departure, I understand conversations between the BBC and the government have been had in recent days. Youd expect that.

The BBC chairman is a political appointment.

If that doesnt justify Twitter labelling every BBC journalist UK state-affiliated media, we dont know what does.

Or consider how, cap in hand, the Guardian now presents itself as a Media Lens-style operation, declaring at the end of its articles:

As a reader-funded news organisation, we rely on your generosity. Please give what you can, so millions can benefit from quality reporting on the events shaping our world.

We wonder how many readers funding this heroic mission are aware that, last year, Guardian editor, Kath Viner, received a 42 per cent pay rise of 150,000, taking her salary to 509,850. Brazen claims that the Guardian is free from commercial influence appear in the pages of a newspaper overflowing with corporate adverts on which it is deeply dependent. Last year, print and advertising generated revenues of 71.5m and 73.7m respectively. The Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which runs a 1.3bn investment fund.

Even if we try to imagine corporate journalists rising above this nonsense, its impossible to conceive of them examining deeper issues of med...

Bats and spidersit makes me think of Halloween, anyway. Ill stick a photo below the fold of a spider eating a bat so you can get into the festive spirit, too.

It seems there is a bit of a conflict going on in northern Australia, with bats snatching up spiders and spiders snaring bats.

Ms Maclean said there had been several other recorded incidents of bats caught in spider webs but, conversely, some microbats in the Far North were known to eat golden orb spiders out of their webs.

[Golden-tipped bats] have two large teeth that are specially housed in the bottom jaw, she said.

They can tell which side of the web the spiders in, they fly in, they grab the body of the spider with the teeth, and then they fly backwards out of the web with it.

They kind of suck the contents of the abdomen out they dont particularly eat the legs and things.

I dont feel at all bad if a bat occasionally meets a grisly end.

Every now and then I get articles that are seemingly unrelated, and I have to blog about them in one fell swoop. and that's

The post OF OCTOPUSES AND NANOWIRES appeared first on The Giza Death Star.

UNREAL! The Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, apparently does not  know that Work-for-the-Dole has been unconstitutional since 1946.

This posting: https://wp.me/p1n8TZ-3fZ

The following text makes it very clear that Jim Chalmers, the Federal Treasurer, is not really the best person for the job:

Now I see today that Peter Dutton says that we should bring back Work for the Dole, which I suspect might have been whats prompted your question. Ah, I think it troubling that Peter Dutton doesnt know that Work for...

J.G. Olsen / Financial Expositor

Its so intensely disgusting watching the strong turn on the weak, especially when it is done by a costumed gang masquerading as the legitimate, correct, good and the right. They have been destroying this individual, Kathleen Folbigg, for years and now they make a new ruling based on some rare genetic disorder which has turned up.

Everything now has to be genetic, because mRNA and mDNA is the new gravy train.

For those who missed the story, Folbiggs four babies died one after the other, so they put her in gaol. What did the doctors inject the deceased  babies with, and why isnt that being considered? Instead you can buy the book, Australias worst female serial killer. The title is based on the fact that the court handed dow...

This is an unspeakable and very real tragedy. It's not invented. It's there for all to see. But there'll be no demonstrations for those children. No speeches. And nothing from The Voice. Rest in Peace you poor little kids.

As on several prior occasions, liberal Bundestag vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki has used his parliamentary prerogatives to put a question to the German Health Ministry, and compel an answer. He asked what study results the Ministry could cite to demonstrate the efficacy of face masks. Lauterbach's crack team of virus understanders responded that, uh, it is a very complicated problem, and, in truth, well, actually, nobody really knows what effect masks really have. This is because "the effectiveness of individual measures ... cannot be examined in isolation, but only in conjunction with the other measures in place at any given time." In other words: they got nothing. After years of making kids mask for hours on end in school, and imposing arbitrary but quite obnoxious mandates on airplanes and public transit and clinics, they have no idea whether it did anything, and no plans even to find out whether it did anything. Suddenly all that manic masking enthusiasm has just evaporated....

The last Pieface in the state had closed its doors; not even a concession at a servo remained open. This is it, I thought, the golden age is at an end, its all drying up now, no one will ever prosper again. An echo rang outa small pop as if someone had taken a pin to the thin membrane covering a voidthe bubble had burst.

The post Fiction | Pieface appeared first on Overland literary journal.

...

What does this corporate wankspeak mean?

What does this corporate wankspeak mean?

LEST WE FORGET the reason we are. Our veterans. Watch my Acknowledgement in Parliament, not to Country but to our Veterans. Watch full video: link below https://t.co/Vh9iaai9v9 pic.twitter.com/xIAzcTNA4m Sarah Game MLC (@MLCGame) May 5, 2023

Aboriginal Aussie Soldiers There's a beautiful & timely message in here. when everyone enlisted as the same - all Aussies when everyone fought for a common goal - our country The result was #Equality #AnzacDay2023 pic.twitter.com/1AJnS6IQpH I'm So Over This! (@ImSooooOverIt)...

Celebrated journalist and filmmaker John Pilger writes (Consortium News 1 May 2023), today the world is facing the threat of fascism once more, as it did more than half a century ago. Many journalists then recognised that they had an important job to do, and that was to alert people to the fact. The same responsibility exists today. If writers continue to not listen, and worse, take part in its promotion, they help to usher in a new world war.

In 1935, the Congress of American Writers was held in New York City, followed by another two years later. They called on the hundreds of poets, novelists, dramatists, critics, short story writers and journalists to discuss the rapid crumbling of capitalism and the beckoning of another war. They were electric events which, according to one account, were attended by 3,500 members of the public with more than a thousand turned away.

Arthur Miller, Myra Page, Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett warned that fascism was rising, often disguised, and the responsibility lay with writers and journalists to speak out. Telegrams of support from Thomas Mann, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, C Day Lewis, Upton Sinclair and Albert Einstein were read out.

The journalist and novelist Martha Gellhorn spoke up for the homeless and unemployed, and all of us under the shadow of violent great power.

Martha, who became a close friend, told me later over her customary glass of Famous Grouse and soda:

The responsibility I felt as a journalist was immense. I had witnessed the injustices and suffering delivered by the Depression, and I knew, we all knew, what was coming if silences were not broken.

Her words echo across the silences today: they are silences filled with a consensus of propaganda that contaminates almost everything we read, see and hear. Let me give you one example:

On March 7, the two oldest newspapers in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, published several pages on the looming threat of China. They colored the Pacific Ocean red. Chinese eyes were martial, on the march and menacing. The Yellow Peril was about to fall down as if by the weight of gravity.

No logical reason was given for an attack on Australia by China. A panel of experts presented no credible evidence: one of them is a former director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a front for the Defense Department in Canberra, the Pentagon in Washington, the governments of Britain, Japan and Taiwan and the Wests war industry.

Beijing could strike within three years, they warned. We are not ready. Billions of dollars are to be spent on American nuclear submarines, but that, it seems, is not enough.Australias holiday from history is over: whatever that might mean.

There is no threat to Australia, none. The fara...

Make no mistake, its not about your convenience, and its not about saving the planet. It will be a complete impoverishment and enslavement of all the people, German MEP Christine Anderson said regarding the push for 15-minute cities. Shes right. The 15-minute city is marketed as a futuristic town where everyone will live within 15 minutes of essential services. They are marketing these cities as affordable, convenient, and virtuous as they combat climate change. The truth of the matter is that these cities are reminiscent of the Jewish ghettos during World War II or the Japanese internment camps in the US. They are designed to contain and control the people.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) claims that Paris will soon become a 15-minute city, and Milan and Melbourne are also running pilots to test this design. Every street will have a bike lane as it will be easier to reduce our access to cars. Reducing our access to personal vehicles will reduce our ability to travel outside of our 15-minute enclosures. Everyone will work within a 15-minute radius, their children will go to school within this 15-minute radius, and there will be no need to leave. The problem here is that they have the power to prevent people from leaving.

As Anderson said, governments can easily implement climate emergency lockdowns. The looming existential threat of climate change and worsening income inequality require us to urgently rethink our existing cities, and rapid urbanization makes it imperative that we create a new and better city-building template for cities to house fut...

A journal has issued an expression of concern for an Australian study that supported mask mandates after researchers raised several potential problems with the design and methodology of the study.

The article, The introduction of a mandatory mask policy was associated with significantly reduced COVID-19 cases in a major metropolitan city, was published in the journal PLOS ONE in July 2021. It has been cited 12 times, according to Clarivates Web of Science. 

In comments to Retraction Watch, the authors of the paper stood by their work, but a key critic said he still thought the work should have been retracted.

The research was led by scientists at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, and examined the impact of a mask mandate on COVID-19 cases in the Australian state of Victoria. 

Along with using case data from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, the team estimated mask use from photographs taken for the newspaper The Age before and after the government imposed a mask mandate. They also looked at an online survey of self-reported mask use. 

The researchers concluded that the study strongly supports the use of masks for controlling epidemics in the broader community.. 

In October 2021, Australian doctor and medical researcher Kyle Sheldrick, who has flagged issues with...

"... you were being realistic and they didn't want to hear it. ..." - Aussie climate and energy minister Chris Bowen has been accused of pushing aside experts who criticise his green energy fantasies.

The post May Day 2023 in Melbourne appeared first on The Pen.

Rocking back and forth on his hands. Poor old bugger.

Growing onions is easy, and they are one of the few things you can plant through winter in cooler areas.

ASIA:

 

The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today:

• NIKKEI 225 closed
• Shanghai increased 27.18 points or 0.82% to 3,350.46
• Hang Seng increased 249.57 points or 1.27% to 19,948.73
• ASX 200 decreased 4.30 points or -0.06% to 7,193.10
• Kospi decreased 0.46 points or -0.02% to 2,500.94
• SENSEX increased 555.95 points or 0.91% to 61,749.25
• Nifty50 increased 165.95 points or 0.92% to 18,255.80

 

The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today:

 

• AUDUSD increased 0.00041 or 0.06% to 0.66731
• NZDUSD increased 0.00519 or 0.83% to 0.62779
• USDJPY decreased 0.751 or -0.56% to 133.929
• USDCNY decreased 0.00168 or -0.02% to 6.91932

 

Precious Metals:

Gold increased 11.02 USD/t oz. or 0.54% to 2,050.04

Silver increased 0.312 USD/t. oz or 1.22%% to 25.907

 

Some economic news from last night:

China:

Caixin Manufacturing PMI (Apr) decreased from 50.0 to 49.5

Australia:

Trade Balance (Mar) increased from 14.151B to 15.269B

New Zealand:

Building Consents (MoM) (Mar) increased from -9.4% to 7.0%

 

Some economic news from today:

India:

M3 Money Supply decreased from 10.0% to 9.5%

Hong Kong:

Retail Sales (YoY) (Mar) increased from 31.3% to 40.9%

 

EUROPE/EMEA:

 

The major Europe stock markets had a negative day today:

• CAC 40 decreased 63.06 points or -0.85% to 7,340.77
• FTSE 100 decreased 85.73 points, or -1.10% to 7,702.64
• DAX 30 decreased 80.82 points or -0.51% to 15,734.24

 

The major Europe currency markets had a mixed day today:

• EURUSD decreased 0.00483 or -0.44% to 1.10107
• GBPUSD increased 0.00125 or 0.10% to 1.25765
• USDCHF increased 0.00235 or 0.27% to 0.88605

 

Some economic news from Europe today:

Germany:

German Trade Balance (Mar) increased from 16.1B to 16.7B

German Services PMI (Apr) increased from 53.7 to 56.0

Spain:

Spanish Unemployment Change decreased from -48.8K to -73.9K

Spanish Services PMI (Apr) decr...

The Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes will today give evidence to the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the first formal truth-telling process into injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria, where she is expected to be questioned about the over imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  

Last week, despite calls from Aboriginal, human rights and community organisations to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 without exceptions, the Andrews government announced it will raise the age to only 12 by the end of 2024, and may consider raising it to 14 in 2027. The Yoorrook Justice Commission has previously recommended urgently raising the age to 14 in line with medical evidence and international standards. 

In March, the Andrews Government announced limited changes to Victorias bail laws that will fall far short of the reforms called for by Aboriginal and community legal services and the family of Veronica Marie Nelson, a strong Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman who passed away in custody after being pushed into prison by unfair bail laws. 

The Human Rights Law Centre today reiterated calls for the Andrews government to fully and properly implement critical reforms that would immediately reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experiencing injustice, harm and death at the hands of the criminal legal system.  

Alongside broader transformational change, urgent action is needed from the Andrews government to: 

• Implement Poccum's Law, the blueprint for overhauling discriminatory bail laws which are resulting in unsentenced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being locked up in pre-trial detention at alarming rates.  

• End the status quo of police investigating themselves and dodging accountability for misconduct, deaths in police custody and discriminatory policing.  

• Stop the pipeline of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children into prisons by raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old, with no exceptions.  

• Implement OPCAT, the United Nations anti-torture protocol designed to prevent the abuse of people behind bars.  

• Properly resource self-determined alternatives to the criminal legal system that are being led by Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people, communities and organisations. 
   

Amala Ramarathinam, Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said:  

Victoria's record spending on prisons and policing, alongside discriminatory laws, institutional racism and racist policing are a toxic co...

Doctors will be free to prescribe ivermectin 'off-label' from June 1st 2023, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced today. This is a reversal of a national ban on off-label prescribing of ivermectin, which the TGA enacted on September 10th 2021, in an attempt to prevent doctors from prescribing the drug to treat Covid. At the time, the TGA stated that the restriction was necessary because: People would be at risk if they took ivermectin instead of getting vaccinated;People who took ivermectin may choose not to get tested or to seek medical care if they had symptoms;Social media posts were promoting higher doses of ivermectin than what is normally recommended for approved uses;There had been a 3-4 fold uptake in ivermectin and the TGA was worried about a shortage disadvantaging vulnerable people who really needed the drug.

In a 'business deal of the century' brokered by the Swiss government, Switzerland's largest bank and its financial pride and joy was acquired by its smaller rival USB for a meagre $3.2 billion. The current affairs sections of the leading news agencies have recently been populated by the breaking news that Credit Suisse had to be sold but to the lowest bidder this time or so it seems. Though this takeover deal, brokered in such a frantic haste over the course of just a few days by the Swiss government stands in silent testimony of this colossal collapse, there is a question hovering in mid air, why did Credit Suisse have to be sold so suddenly 'at such short (banking) notice', given that the giant bank has existed for 166 years with a superb banking tradition among other cutting-edge world banks? If we want to answer this question, we need to bear in mind that the bank at the moment of its acquisition had more than $100 billions in its assets so its financial balance was rather...

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan will sit for transcribed interviews.

A new tweet by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Paul Grewal has sparked interest and speculations in the crypto community. The CLO expressed his appreciation to Ripples General Counsel, Stuart Alderoty, for their meeting, stating they needed to meet more often.

In response, Stuart Alderoty thanked him for chatting with their legal team. After the tweet, two top lawyers in the community supported the strategic meeting, and some others called on Coinbase to relist XRP on its marketplace. 

Ripple And Coinbase OfficlainsLeading The Battle, Deaton

One of the notable reactions to the meeting between Ripple and Coinbase CLOs came from CryptoLaw founder John Deaton. 

Deaton is the attorney representing thousands of XRP holders. His response to the tweet was that the picture shows two valiant General Counsels leading the front line in battle. Further, Deaton wrote that he tipped his cap to Alderoty and Grewal to express his respect. 

By saying frontline in battle, Attorney Deaton reiterates his position that the crypto industry is battling with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Notably, the attorney shared a tweet to that effect in March, calling every stakeholder in the industry to meet and share strategic ideas to win the war. 

Following the recent tweet, the two firms battling SECs lawsuit may have listened to Deatons suggestion. 

Another prominent figure that responded to the recent development was the Australian-based lawyer Bill Morgan. The lawyer stated that teamwork against a common foe is the best strategy to win. 

However, Morgan further said he doesnt regard Coinbase as a friend of XRP holders as it ceased secondary market trading in its exchange. 

Crypto Users Call For XRP Relisting

Other responses following the recent tweet were calls for Coinbase to relist XRP. A Twitter user going by Jon Mann, who responded, asked Coinbase to relist XRP, stating that the meeting is the tag team the Ripple community has been waiting to see.

...

Alain Badiou is undoubtedly among the greatest of living philosophers; one that may fairly be credited with rescuing philosophy from academic irrelevance, and the twin enemies of scientism and historicism. For Badiou, philosophy does not merely interpret the world (as Marx famously asserted in his Theses on Feuerbach). For an interpretation of the world, we would do better to look to myths, religions, and the various wisdom schools. Philosophy, presupposing mathematics, is a fundamentally rational and conceptual rather than hermeneutic undertaking, aimed at answering the question: does there exist anything with a universal value, and if so, how is this possible? Badiou secured his place in the philosophical pantheon with three massive tomes, which together provide a rigorous account of Truths, or the production in time and space of things to which we may ascribe universal value: Being and Event (1988), Logics of Worlds (2006), and The Immanence of Truths (2018).

Images of the Present Time (Columbia University Press, 2023) contains a series of three seminars delivered between 2001 and 2004. The first section presents a sustained philosophical analysis of contemporary nihilism and is initially taken up with the question of identifying the emblem, that is, the master signifier of the present time and Badious claim is that democracy is that emblem, a political system that does not prohibit or restrain, or not excessively. This raises the question of how democracy is correlated with freedom: given that fewer and fewer things are prohibited, what does that say for freedom under this regime? Ultimately, not so much: as Descartes already knew, indiscriminate freedom, or the freedom to do whatever you want, is at best the lowest degree of freedom. Thinking youre a free Subject just because whatever you want to do or say is not prohibited is sheer nonsense. It is true, for example, that almost nothing is prohibited in public speech, yet that does not mean that something significant has been publicly pronounced if nothing is prohibited and yet nothing, properly speaking, has been said, freedom does not exist.

Badious central thesis is that, at the present time, there is no world in fact, there is no present, strictly speaking. Why isnt the democratic world a world? In brief, because it is a world in which everyt...

The corruption engaged in by the Democratic Party leadership appears to be never-ending and no one is ever held accountable. A recent report described how Michael Morell, the former acting Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, colluded with Antony Blinken, who was then a senior official in the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign, to prepare and find signatories to a letter to discredit those seeking to exploit the emerging Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which was threatening to do real damage to the Biden electoral prospects. Following in the footsteps of the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign, which sought to use fabricated information from the Steele dossier to smear Donald Trump and some of his advisors, Blinken suggested that Morell promote the argument that the laptop story involved Russia and should be dismissed as little more than a disinformation operation ordered by President Vladimir Putin. At the time, there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Russia had had...

Profligate, a betrayal of public service, a misspending of state goods, a fiscal barbarism. By any estimation, recent efforts regarding sport in the small Australian state of Tasmania, unmoored from the mainland, distant, and, in many ways, depressed, has become the unexpected centre of a debate: Why on earth should the public purse at both State and Federal level fork out hundreds of millions in dollar currency for a stadium for Australian Footballs newest recruit? There are, lets face it, other handy alternatives.

Historically, Australian sport has been bosom-tied to corrupt administrative and state management. Administrators of the myriad sporting codes are typically conceited in assuming they provide a service for an increasingly obese populace. The sports personalities turn up and play; spectators turn up in their colours, pies and beers; the sporting hierarchs can then claim they are doing society a service. The logical equation that follows from this is revenue raising for the facilities as long as the sporting body is not the one doing it.

What is being proposed in Tasmania, a state suffering from chronic homelessness, chronic indigence and desperation on the health front, is a carbuncle stadium on a waterfront at Macquarie Point, a project that promises to cost $715 million. Those attending it will not be doing so for an aesthetic appreciation of the view: they will be in the enclosed stadium itself, watching the gladiatorial performance. All of this is deemed necessary for Tasmanias imminent welcome into the fold of the Australian Football League (AFL).

The jaundiced view from the Tasmanian Liberal government, led by Premier Jeremy Rockliff, is that having a spanking new stadium to accommodate a spanking new team at Macquarie Point is just the ticket. The suggested price tag of contribution from his government: $375 million.

In an exercise of indulgent and shameless deception, Rockliff, as the AFLs Manchurian Candidate, has dressed the entire enterprise up as an urban renewable project like no other that has ever been seen here in Tasmania. Entertainment, he dreams, will be coupled with the unlocking of potential, where we can build a world-class multipurpose entertainment and sporting where all Tasmanians can enjoy.

From the Commonwealth, $240 million is promised in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is calling an exciting project, in addition to $65 million towards upgrading the UTAS Stadium in Launceston. Albanese has been busy fluffing up matters by claiming that this whole act of profligacy had less to do with football than a grand exercise in social redevelopment, an exercise of structural oxygenation that will produce (no modelling, evidence or otherwise is supplied) 4,200 jobs.

Attempts have been ma....

Bitcoin adoption is inevitable in the long run, but putting political division aside and building a broad coalition will shorten that path.

This is an opinion editorial by Jason Maier, a teacher and author of A Progressives Case For Bitcoin. Disclaimer: This book was published by Bitcoin Magazine.

Does Bitcoin need progressives?

The simple answer to this question is no, Bitcoin doesnt need progressives. We can all quote the memes by heart: Bitcoin doesnt care. Tick tock, next block. Bitcoin is inevitable. Bitcoin cant be regulated. I believe each of these mottos are true, in their own ways, in the long term. But recently, I have devoted a lot of energy to answering the converse of this question, namely: Do progressives need Bitcoin?

My book answers this more intricate question thoroughly in the affirmative. And while its easy to conclude, with confidence, that Bitcoin doesnt need progressives, it might be interesting to consider why you should care at all that Im on a mission to orange pill as many progressive liberals as I can. Its true that Bitcoin doesnt care. But I think you should.

Shortening The Long Run

As clear as it is to me that Bitcoin will ultimately succeed, it is also clear that the support of liberals and those on the left of the political spectrum, while not an absolute necessity, is important nonetheless. Even if Bitcoin is inevitable in the long run, there is an awful lot of time between now and the end of that long run. That time can be filled with growing adoption, innovation and promoting freedom money across the planet. Or that time can be filled with political fighting at every level of every government across the globe. Plenty of people reading this may not care, or they may even welcome the fighting. But in the long run, Ill be dead and the world would be a better place if more people understood and used Satoshi Nakamotos innovation before my stack of corn gets passed along to my children.

There are Bitcoiners who do not align with me politically, but nonetheless support my work. These folks like to remind me that Bitcoin is money for enemies. This is not only true, but actually an important property of all good money. Furthermore, it is also critical to remember that, in this narrow sense, no Bitcoiner is your enemy, regardless of how they align themselves within the lega...

 

The thing I love most about my neighborhood (aside from the people, of course) is also the most fragile.

When I first moved here, I had no idea that fully half of the stunning street trees would be gone within 10 years. I did not picture my future self lingering over old Google Streetview captures, longing for the days where there was a massive, mature tree in front of every home, and wistfully remembering a time when you could walk the full length of the block in a rainstorm and barely get wet.

Those days are gone, and that lush and endless canopy is just a bittersweet memory now. The reason for all that devastation? Dutch Elm Disease (DED).

Because virtually all the trees in my neighborhood were elms, when DED arrived on the scene, they were all under threat. But it could just as easily be the trees where you live, succumbing to emerald ash borer, oak wilt or laurel wilt, chestnut blight, or the Asian longhorn beetle.

What all these insects and pathogens have in common is their ability to devastate tree populations in short order. Sometimes trees slowly decline and eventually die, others succumb quickly and become unstable and hazardous. Death is a natural part of the life cycle of all living things. So why are these particular threats so dangerous?

The answer is that in towns and cities across North America, urban forests are often made up primarily of just one or two tree species. These are called monocultures. And when you have a huge population of one type of tree, a single disease spreads rapidly and can wipe out thousands of trees in short order.

...

 

Neil O'Brien The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

The ban on off-label prescribing of the anti-viral drug has been in place for over 18 months

By Rebekah Barnett |  Dystopian Down Under | May 3, 2023

Doctors will be free to prescribe ivermectin off-label from 01 June 2023, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced today.

A regulatory U-turn

This is a reversal of a national ban on off-label prescribing of ivermectin, which the TGA enacted on 10 September 2021, in an attempt to prevent doctors from prescribing the drug to treat Covid.

At the time, the TGA stated that the restriction was necessary because:

• People would be at risk if they took ivermectin instead of getting vaccinated
• People who took ivermectin may choose not to get tested or to seek medical care if they had symptoms
• Social media posts were promoting higher doses of ivermectin than what is normally recommended for approved uses
• There had been a 3-4 fold uptake in ivermectin and the TGA was worried about a shortage disadvantaging vulnerable people who really needed the drug

So, instead of launching a nationwide education campaign and recommending that the Australian Government throw a few million dollars at bolstering the national stockpile of ivermectin, the TGA effectively banned the drug for all but a narrow set of uses.

The TGA has now relaxed the ban because, there is sufficient evidence that the safety risks to individuals and public health is low when prescribed by a general practitioner in the current health climate.

It would seem, though, that there was sufficient evidence of ivermectins safety all along. In July 2021, Rebecca Weisser wrote in Ivermectin. Its as Aussie as Vegemite, for Spectator Australia:

As for safety, 3.7 billion doses of ivermectin have been used since 1987 and in 30 years, only 20 deaths following its use have been reported to the UNs Vigi-Access database. Compare that to remdesivir, which has been given emergency use authorisation to treat Covid in Australian hospitals. In 12 months, there have been 551 deaths reported. Indeed, a study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association this week found remdesivir did not increase survival, just time spent in hospital.

The TGAs stated concerns over ivermectins safety back in September 2021 seem incoherent when taken alongside....

On the morning of May 2^nd a report headlined Palestinian Khader Adnan dies in Israel jail after 86 days on hunger strike appeared on the BBC News websites Middle East page.

The BBCs euphemistic portrayal of Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a militant group rather than an Iranian backed terrorist organisation designated by the UK, the US, the EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel clearly does not contribute to readers understanding of the reason for Adnans detention.

Readers of that report were not informed that Khader Adnan had been arrested in February for suspected membership in a terror group, support for a terrorist organisation and incitement or that he had been indicted and was being held in custody until the completion of the legal proceedings.

As the day went on amendments were made to the BBCs report (but not including the main photo caption describing Adnan as an May 2^nd was credited to...

Smoking Mirrors May 3, 2023

Dog Poet Transmitting.

You know they like to disturb the surface of the water= the surface of life; so that you cant see the clear reflection. They pose as one thing, which they are not, to conceal what they are behind a series of masks that are all devoted to misrepresentationmisinterpretation and misdirection.

We know that Rupert The Sly Weasel was behind calling Arizona early for the last presidential election. Arizonas vote was stolen so that the person in charge of the voting could be made governor of Arizona. We know that Rupert The Sly poses his news conglomerate as a conservative organ to give the appearance of opposition to CNN and The Bezos Post.

They are all in bed together, doing evil things badly with poor technique.

Rupert The Sly doesnt really have a political perspective. He is into wielding power; as are they all. He and his fellow Satanists like to keep the public guessing. He knows that generally the publics common appetites rule their good sense. They are easy to manipulate. Those who think they are informed are played off against each other by The Appearance of opposition games played between make-believe foes at war with one another, which they are not.

They are The Ruling Class. They are for the most part especially in these Times of Material Darkness also ruled by The Ruling Class of the nether regions for the purpose of celebrating the nether regions of the physical body, while they dwell in hot confining places within. For them this heavy-with-time carnal coupling is how they understand divinity. They look upon humanity as stolen cars that they drive with impunity. If they crash a particular car they just steal another.

Those in the upper reaches of negative spiritual possession are not usually treated as throwaway vehicles until they intend to throw them away. They do not want to spoil or reveal the illusion whereby they control those driven by appetite and desire. They got a good thing going in a bad way, BUT for whatever the mysterious intentions of the ineffable may be, this is how it goes. Good and Evil emerge from the same source.

Better to accept the reality of this even if you dont understand it than to keep trying to find another answer when there is no other reality-based answer.

he that overcometh and keepeth my works until the end, to him, will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and I will give him the morning star.

There are several levels from which to understand all inspired scripture. There is the surface meaning. There is the deeper meaning, and there...

1.00 AUD = 0.00002 BTC
0.00010 BTC = 4.35 AUD
Converter

Media blackout as politicians in EU, US, UK, Brazil, Ireland, Canada, and Australia seek to jail citizens for wrongthink under the cover of a Big Lie about "hate speech"

By Whitney Webb | Unlimited Hangout | May 3, 2023

Recent revelations that the renowned linguist and political activist met with Jeffrey Epstein several times have surprised and confused many. Why was Epstein interested in meeting with Noam Chomsky? And why did Chomsky agree to meet him despite his past? The answer may surprise you.

On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published a report detailing information contained within a trove of previously unreported documents of the deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Those documents, which have not been publicly released and appear to have been passed solely to the Journal, included Epsteins private calendar and meeting schedules. The documents, per the Journal, contain thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017 and as the report notes detail Epsteins dealings with several prominent individuals whose names were not on his flight logs or his infamous little black book of contacts. One of these individuals is the renowned linguist, political commentator and critic of capitalism and empire, Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky, who has previously discussed the Epstein case in interviews and who has maintained that Epsteins ties to intelligence agencies should be considered a conspiracy theory, had not previously disclosed these meetings. Chomsky, when confronted by Journal reporters, was evasive, but ultimately admitted to meeting and knowing Jeffrey Epstein.

Many, largely on the left, have expressed dismay and confusion as to why someone with the political views of Chomsky would willingly meet, not once but several times, with someone like Jeffrey Epstein, particularly well after Epsteins notoriety as a sex trafficker and pedophile. As this report will show, Epstein appeared to view Chomsky as another intellectual who could help guide his decisions when it came to his scientific obsessions namely, transhumanism and eugenics. What Chomsky gained in return from meeting with Epstein isnt as clear.

Why Did Chomsky Meet with Epstein?

According to the Journal, Chomskys meetings with Epstein took place during the years 2015 and 2016, while Chomsky taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. Chomsky told the Journal that he met with Epstein to discuss topic...

ASIA:

 

Core consumer inflation in the Japanese capital beat expectations in April and an index cutting fuel costs rose at its fastest pace in four decades, underscoring the challenge the central banks new chief faces in keeping interest rates ultra-low. The core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food but includes fuel costs, rose 3.5% for Tokyo in April from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, faster than the markets average rise of 3. 2% and well above the 2% BOJ target. It accelerated from a 3.2% gain in March. Core CPI, which strips out fresh food and fuel costs, rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, up from 3.4% in March, the data showed. The core-core index, which the BOJ watches closely to measure the trend of inflation, rose at its fastest annual rate since April 1982, when it rose 4.2%.

 

The major Asian stock markets had a negative day today:

• NIKKEI 225 closed
• Shanghai closed
• Hang Seng decreased 234.65 points or -1.18% to 19,699.16
• ASX 200 decreased 70.00 points or -0.96% to 7,197.40
• Kospi decreased 22.99 points or -0.91% to 2,501.40
• SENSEX decreased 161.41 points or -0.26% to 61,193.30
• Nifty50 decreased 57.80 points or -0.32% to 18,089.85

 

The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today:

• AUDUSD increased 0.00092 or 0.14% to 0.66702
• NZDUSD increased 0.00207 or 0.33% to 0.62277
• USDJPY decreased 1.556 or -1.14% to 134.974
• USDCNY decreased 0.00934 or -0.13% to 6.92436

 

Precious Metals:

Gold increased 18.59 USD/t oz. or 0.92% to 2,034.87

Silver increased 0.144 USD/t. oz or 0.57%% to 25.531

 

Some economic news from last night:

Australia:

Retail Sales (MoM) (Mar) increased from 0.2% to 0.4%

AIG Manufacturing Index (Apr) decreased from 5.6 to -20.2

New Zealand:

Unemployment Rate (Q1) remain the same at 3.4%

Employment Change (QoQ) (Q1) increased from 0.2% to 0.8%

 

Some economic news from today:

India:

Nikkei Services PMI (Apr) increased from 57.8 to 62.0

 

EUROPE/EMEA:...

As coal power operators respond to the new carbon tax by accelerating plant closures, Australia's big battery, the Snowy 2 pumped hydro project, has just announced more cost and delivery time blowouts.

Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, a concise show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (5/3/23).
As always, take the information discussed in the video below and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant.
(https://www.rokfin.com/TLAVagabond)(https://www.bitchute.com/channel/24yVcta8zEjY/)

https://rumble.com/embed/v2ja4hm/?pub=2q643

Video Source Links (In Chronological Order)

(63) The Vigilant Fox on Twitter: "Another Bank Failure Just Made Chase Bank Even More Powerful "The transaction [of First Republic] makes JPMorgan Chasealready the nations biggest bankeven more massive." The era of MEGA banks is upon us, paving the way for CBDC financial slavery. https://t.co/ftuD8V93DV" / Twitter
(66) Matt Allen on Twitter: "Congresswoman Lois Frankel sold First Republic Bank in March before the stock dropped 80% After she sold First Republic, she bought JP Morgan Chase which just bought First Republic. She clearly had inside information. If me or you did this then we would be in prison. https://t.co/blvDMF2ag6" / Twitter
FvKqXF4WAAElfk- (828840)
East Palestine resident experiencing lesions, stomach pain, shortness of breath since train derailment | Fox News
https://emergency.cdc.gov/newsletters/coca/12092020.htm
(64) Scott C. Smith on Twitter: "As aired on @newsnation : "'Fentanyl of chemicals Independent tester finds dioxins in East Palestine" Investigative journalist, @RichMcHugh , did a great job for the community of #eastpalestine & all affected communities from the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the https://t.co/kJiDVicvWA" / Twitter
East Palestine Archives - The Last American Vagabond
(70) Benny Johnson on Twitter: "Joe Bidens notecard doesnt ju...

A new report has found that Google is breaking its October 2021 promise to not sell ads on YouTube videos containing climate disinformation.

The Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) collected 200 examples of climate disinformation YouTube videos, which collectively serve ads to over 73 million viewers. But thats probably the tip of the iceberg, CCDH head of research Callum Hood told the New York Times. Of those videos, (with 18 million total views), 100 meet Googles very narrow definition of climate disinformation, which applies only to denial of the existence or human causes of climate change.

The second set of 100 videos meets CAADs definition of climate disinformation, which accounts for popular tactics like greenwashing. These videos amassed 55 million views, demonstrating the weakness of Googles current definition of climate disinformation.

During the course of the research, only eight videos in the researchers dataset were demonetized by Google. Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know its hard to see if theyve kept them, said CCDHs Head of Research Callum Hood in a press release.

Despite Googles green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry. Brands featured in ads on climate denial included Politico, Google itself, and the new Jane Fonda movie 80 for Brady. Ms. Fonda told the Times she was appalled that an ad for one of my movies appears on one of those videos, and hope YouTube stops this practice immediately, and found it abhorrent that YouTube would violate its own policy [while] the earth is burning.

For a Deeper Dive: 

New York Times

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, sign up for daily ...

This is a bit of a light hearted post, but with an interesting observation. I quite enjoy watching videos of people who move to Germany. Their surprise at things taken for granted gives me food for thought as well as amusement. Some themes seem to be constant: Germans walk. For fun. No matter whether the immigrant is from the US or Vietnam, they are both fascinated and appalled by the German passion for going for walks.

Or the utter confusion of rental flats not having a kitchen. The answer to that is: Germans dont move and love their kitchens. We plan them more carefully than the bedroom. And we really dont like moving. Theres a saying that goes moving twice is like burning down once, so once we moved in, we try not to move out again. The idea of buying a starter home is as alien as the idea of buying an AR 15 at Walmart. So unless youre moving into a student flat or a shared apartment, bring your own kitchen.

These matters are constants, but of course, other things will seem more or less strange, depending on your country of origin. But then theres a noticeable difference not in between people from different countries, but of US Americans of different genders. American women will often be full of praise: they can easily and cheaply get fresh produce! Childcare is only 150 bucks a month! Oh, and did I mention healthcare? US American men on the other hand complain about not being allowed to kill endangered species and pour oil down the drain. Its tyranny, I tell you!*

 

• Yes, you need a fishing license. Yes, you have to pass a test, showing that you know the fish, if and when youre allowed to catch them, minimum size and what bait is ok. Oh, and that you can kill a fish quickly. No Ive been fishing in the USA since I was 5 does not count. No, you are not allowed to wash your car at home. Washing it with soap will introduce pollutants into the wastewater. You have to go to a carwash where the wastewater will be filtered to remove motor oil and other pollutants.

The company, now having raised $21.21 million, system later in May.

Fedi, Inc., a U.S.-based developer of community-empowering financial and data technology utilizing Fedimints on Bitcoin, has raised $17 million in a Series A round of financing. 

operating system aimed at the builder community later this month. Fedi seeks to empower individuals to collaborate through "federations" made up of friends, families, neighbors, nonprofit organizations, social clubs, businesses, conferences and other forms of community to take control of their money, data and digital lives while protecting user privacy and autonomy.

The open-source Fedimint protocol, on which Fedi is built, makes it easy for developers to build additional apps and modules to complement Fedi's offerings and give more options to users. It provides a resilient, privacy-protecting, and simple way for people who dont have access to or dont trust centralized alternatives to secure and use their data and money, a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine explained.

The financing round was led by Ego Death Capital, with participation from Block, Kingsway, Trammell Venture Partners and Timechain, among others. This funding brings Fedi's total funding to $21.21 million. Fedi CEO Obi Nwosu said that the interest in the round allowed them to select investors that are fully aligned with the future they are trying to create with Fedi.

Fedi's community or "second-party" custody model offers a secure alternative to third-party cryptocurrency exchanges, cloud backup services and encrypted messaging apps. The system's underlying technology is readymade for rapid expansion and can be adapted to do virtually all the things people currently use their smartphone or computer to do. The system aims to answer the security, privacy and trust deficiencies of current alternatives, bringing users benefits similar to self-custody without technical or financial barriers to entry.

Fedi is offering a truly decentralized and federated way not only to custody bitcoin but to take back control of everything that matters in your digital life, said Jeff Booth, co-founder of Ego Death Capital and lead investor for this series. Its hard to overstate what this combination of technologies makes possible, and while I expect Fedi to be at the forefront, Im just as excited by what people are going to build around it. It is truly something that can bring value and a brighter future for billions of people, he added.

 

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