Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 467
January 22, 2023
Russians, Chinese and Iranians Boycott World Economic Forum
By Dmitry Orlov
I interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a newsflash from the Davos conference that is currently underway. More than 2700 participants are on hand, with nary a single Russian, or a Chinese, or an Iranian, and although delegations from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are present, their numbers are nowhere near those of their delegations in previous years—in short, this is an economic forum for, of and by the West.
There are plenty of topics for discussion, but the leading one is recession—more specifically, not recession as such but the expectation of its imminent arrival.
Of the 4410 business leaders surveyed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in October and November of last year, 74% forecast lower global growth during the nearest 12 months. This indicator was the worst since PWC started doing these surveys in 2011. Two out of five business leaders also expressed apprehensions that their company won’t be around ten years hence.
The current Davos conference is interesting in that, for the first time in its history, the West has so blatantly and publicly split from its geopolitical competitors, and that this means that the appellation “World” Economic Forum remains a mere vestige of a bygone era: it no longer represents the entire world.
WEF published a separate survey of chief economists of companies, two-thirds of whom believe that recession is due to arrive during 2023, with 18% of them stating that a decrease in economic activity is “highly probable and inevitable.”
Remarkably, over the past few years Davos has turned into more of a political gripe-fest than an economic confab, but in 2023 it has been forced to return to the unpopular subject of economics; apparently, fear over the fate of their portfolios is outweighing the urge to endlessly harrumph over big bad Russia, horrible Putin, authoritarian China and revisionist Xi. Davos is cutting off a huge part of the world economy from discussing their obviously common problems. This is most clearly characterized by a certain idea that is popping up more and more frequently.
This idea is that the secretive financial rulers of the world—if they ever even existed—have lost their mojo and their secretive levers of control no longer connect to anything real. If they were still in control, than the absolute shrieking madness of contemporary Ukraine would not be allowed to exist. You may believe European politicians to be idiots (it’s hard not to) but not the heads of major industrial concerns, and the fact that the West is sinking into a structural crisis speaks volumes about the disintegration of a single system of governance, at least as the West is concerned.
In the course of the past year, it has become clear that Russia’s role in the global economy is not quite as insignificant as it appeared. With a single hand gesture, the Kremlin can topple not just the energy markets, but many others as well, including food, fertilizer, metals, industrial gases and rare earths.
And when it comes to China, any attempt to disconnect the Chinese cars from the global train risks turning into an act of suicide. This is because for decades the West pumped China full of money, technologies and equipment for manufacturing everything that the West itself found insufficiently profitable or too polluting.
And now the West, awakened as if from a bad dream, suddenly decides to return to the conditions that obtained during the 1950s and 1960s, without energy and metals from Russia and without rare earths or industrial production from China. The current Davos is interesting to observe: here we gave Western captains of industry realistically considering the possibility of surviving without all that and suddenly realizing that there is a number of product and commodity positions which they will not be able to replace—not now, not ever.
There is another very significant factor that worries Western business even more than political and even military mayhem, and that is the rapidly shrinking labor market. All of a sudden, it is turning out that technical competence is far more important in this brave new world than diversity, brimming buckets of genders or even colorful feathers sticking out of one’s derriere. The West, which for several generations now has been pushing key technical personnel out to Southwest Asia, now has no idea how to get it to come back and is entirely unsure that this is even possible.
Here is a simple example: some time ago the Chinese concern FAW lured away Rolls Royce’s leading engineers and specialists, and also their head designer. Now the Chinese have not just modern technologies but also excellent design, and the Chinese are not the least bit shy about paying these people salaries that Western business can no longer afford. And since they can’t afford to compete on salary, inevitably at some point smiling Chinese entrepreneurs with suitcases of money will show up and scoop up any remaining high-technology. This is how the West lost Volvo and Lotus and a whole pile of other leading companies.
In spite of the looming recession thing, 60% of managers do not plan to lay off workers, and 80% do not plan to cut compensation: they are holding on to their technical personnel. Nevertheless, their outflow this year is expected to be quite high. “Power remains in the hands of employees who have the necessary skills,” said Bob Moritz.
[…]
Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/73cc8e64-f4e3-4836-9bbc-3027016ec153
January 21, 2023
German electricity to be rationed as EVs and heat pumps threaten collapse of local power grids
Paul Homewood
The Federal Network Agency is planning to ration the power supply to heat pumps and EV charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from collapse. Charging times of three hours to charge electric cars will be allowed so that they can cover a distance of 50 kilometers.
Electric cars, heat pumps and private solar systems are booming. This is pushing the power grids in cities and communities to their limits.
An expert quoted by the “FAZ” warns that the local power grids are in danger of becoming the bottleneck for the energy transition. According to estimates, expanding it would cost a three-digit billion amount.
The Federal Network Agency wants to ration electricity for consumers to prevent a collapse in supply.
Electric cars are booming, as are heat pumps and private solar systems on roofs. This should only be the beginning of the energy transition in Germany. But the energy industry is already warning that the local power grids in cities and communities are reaching their performance limits. This has been reported by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ). According to the report, the Federal Network Agency is planning to temporarily ration the power supply to heat pumps and charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from overload.
A year ago, the network agency confirmed a “network development plan” in which up to seven million heat pumps in households are expected for 2035. So far there have been around one million heat pump systems.
Enormous growth is also expected in electric vehicles. For large network operators such as Eon, the current figures are a challenge. “The applications for the connection of new systems are going through the roof, and we assume that the growth rates will continue to grow,” said Eon board member Thomas König. According to the “FAZ”, the electricity supplier registered around 100,000 new charging stations for electric cars in 2021.
Local power grids threatened to become the bottleneck for the energy transition, Krzysztof Rudion, professor at the Institute for Energy Transmission and High Voltage Technology at the TU Stuttgart, told the newspaper. “The expansion of the distribution network simply cannot keep up with the boom in heat pumps, electric cars and solar systems.”
In order to arm the distribution grids, between 100 and 135 billion euros would have to be invested in Germany in the next decade and a half, the FAZ reports, citing a new study by the management consultancy Oliver Wyman.
[…]
Elon Musk Demands Release Of Jefferey Epstein Client List
Elon Musk, Owner of Twitter is now on an all-out push for the release of the Jefferey Epstein client list.
Elon Musk has been making waves throughout social media after his acquisition of Twitter. Elon Musk exposed the Twitter files which essentially showed the truth about the censorship Twitter put on conservatives.
Twitter colluded with the US government to censor specific individuals and information being released to the public.
Elon Musk recently has been getting involved in the Jefferey Epstein client list.
Elon Musk has been pressuring the Department of Justice to release the Epstein client list to the public. He believes it is necessary for the public to know the truth about the Jefferey Epstein and his sex ring that is since been rumored many top names have been involved. with.
The DOJ has had crickets.
Lawsuits have been filed against JP Morgan executive who may have been involved in the Epstein List.
There are many question marks to as of who exactly was involved but many have ideas of who it could be.
The mainstream media has been completely silent over these developments.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out as Elon Musk continues to push.
Pentagon can’t account for $220 billion in gov’t property, fails fifth audit
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)Candace HathawayThe Blaze
A Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office revealed that the Department of Defense failed its fifth audit in a row after it could not account for at least $220 billion in government-furnished property, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
The DOD has been mandated by federal law to complete audits since 1994; however, the mandate was ignored for decades due to the agency’s massive size, according to Military.com. Since launching its first independent audit in 2017, the Pentagon has never passed.
The Pentagon failed its fifth audit in November after the agency could not prove expenditures for 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets. To perform this year’s overall audit of the DOD, which was expected to cost $218 million, the agency aggregated 27 separate audits conducted by approximately 1,600 auditors. According to Military.com, the auditors performed 220 in-person site visits and 750 virtual site visits.
The GAO’s study reported that auditors first alerted the DOD in 2001 that the agency failed to keep track of its government-furnished property.
“DOD’s lack of accountability over government property in the possession of contractors has been reported by auditors for decades,” the GAO report stated. “This longstanding issue affects the accounting and reporting of GFP and is one of the reasons DOD is unable to produce auditable financial statements.”
In 2014, the Pentagon reported that the estimated value of its GFP was at least $220 billion. However, according to the GAO’s study, that figure is likely “significantly understated.”
“For example, in fiscal year 2016, we reported that the Army indicated the actual number of these GFP assets is unknown and that actual quantities may be greatly different than the Army’s documented property records reflect,” the GAO report noted.
The GAO claimed that the DOD is the “only major federal agency that has been unable to receive an audit opinion.”
Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord stated that he is “disappointed” the agency only made slight progress toward a clean audit this year.
“I would not say that we flunked. The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want,” McCord said.
The DOD did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
[…]
Via https://www.theblaze.com/news/pentagon-can-t-account-for-220-billion-in-gov-t-property-fails-fifth-audit
Jim Jordan Goes NUCLEAR After Pelosi Blocks Him From Jan. 6 CommitteeNOW PLAYING
Internet ERUPTS When Tom Brady Appears To Take Dig at Trump
Rand Paul ENDS Dr. Fauci’s Whole Career As He Panics and FREAKS OUT
Psaki SNAPS and Gets NASTY When a Reporter Finally Asks a Real Question
Psaki Makes STUNNING Admission: WH Actively Working With Big Tech Censors
Fox Reporter STUNS Psaki With Question She Clearly Wasn’t Expecting
Glenn Beck’s EPIC Takedown of Leftist LIES About America at CPAC 2021
Ancient Greek and Roman Pumps
Lecture 17: Lifting Water with Human Power
Understanding Greek and Roman Technology: From the Catapult to the Pantheon
Dr Stephen Ressler (2013)
Film Review
The Screw Pump
Ancient Greeks and Romans needed to pump water for fire fighting, irrigation, removing bilge water from ships and removing water from mines. The first pump they used was based on the sixth simple machine described by Archimedes (the screw).
The Archimedes screw pump was also called the cochleus because it resembled the spiral sea shell of a sea animal known as the cochleus. The Roman engineer Vetruvius gives detailed instructions in De Architektura for creating a pump screw.
Starting with a wooden dowel, you draw lines dividing it into eight equal pie shapes. After dividing its surface into equal squares, you wrap a narrow strip of wood around the dowel at a 45 degree angle to the squares. The process is repeated seven times, adding additional veins for each of the points on the grid, until the helix is half the diameter of the dowel. Then you encase the entire structure with wooden slats held together with iron bands (like a barrel).
Ressler shows us a screw pump he built himself following these instructions, substituting plastic case for the wooden one.* It was typically used to remove water from ancient mines.
Wheel and Axle Pump
During the third century AD, the Romans designed a wheel and axle irrigation pump called the tympanum. Consisting of a hollow wooden cylinder, the tympanum was divided into eight wedge shaped compartments on its horizontal axis. After being scooped up by the compartments, the water exited through an outlet adjacent to the axle.
It was powered by a slave treading the outer surface of the wheel. A 10 foot diameter wheel could produce 5,000 gallons of continuous flow water in an hour.
Bucket Wheel Pump
The bucket wheel pump was an improvement on the typanum, in that water only entered small compartments near the rim. A 12 foot bucket wheel could lift 1200 gallons per hour 12 feet.
Eventually the Romans combined multiple bucket wheels in tandem. An ancient Roman contraption made up of eight pairs of bucket wheels was discovered in an old Rio Tinto mine in Spain. When operated by 16 men, it would have lifted 2400 gallons per hour a total of 100 feet.
The Bucket Chain Pump
Vetruvius also describes a bucket chain pump in De Architechtura. This consists of a series of brown buckets on two chain loops driven by a tread wheel.
The Sakia
The Sakia is a Helenistic era invention still in use today. With the Sakia, an animal turns a capstan and the horizontal movement is transformed into rotary motion through a right angle gearing system.
The Force Pump
The final pump Vetruvius describes is the force pump (invented in the first century AD). It was used to spray cold water on heated mine walls to make them fracture. Initially made of steel, it was re-engineered in wood (which was much cheaper).In a force pump a piston valve moves up and down in each of two cylinders. When one piston lets water in, the other forces it up and sprays it out of a spout at the top.
*Although Ressler uses a crank, it wasn’t invented until much later. In Rome a full-sized screw pump was eight foot long and powered by a man walking on the outer casing. Powered by one man it produced 2,000 gallons per hour.
Film can be viewed free on Kanopy with a library card.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/146678/146714
January 20, 2023
Big Egg Producers Behind ‘Collusive Scheme’ to Gouge Consumers, Farm Group Says
By Kenny StancilCommon Dreams
As U.S. egg producers rake in record profits amid soaring prices, a farmer-led advocacy group focused on building a just and sustainable food system on Thursday implored the Federal Trade Commission to “promptly open an investigation into the egg industry, prosecute any violations of the antitrust laws it finds within, and ultimately, get the American people their money back.”
Just before testifying at an open meeting of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Farm Action sent a letter to agency chair Lina Khan detailing its “concerns over apparent price gouging, price coordination, and other unfair or deceptive acts or practices by dominant producers of eggs such as Cal-Maine Foods, Rose Acre Farms, Versova Holdings, and Hillandale Farms, among others.”
As Farm Action explained, “Egg prices more than doubled for consumers last year — going from $1.79 in December 2021 to $4.25 in December 2022 for a dozen large Grade A eggs.”
Major egg producers and their allies have blamed surging prices on a “supply disruption” triggered by the deadliest outbreak of avian influenza in U.S. history, calling it “‘act of God’ type stuff,” the letter notes.
Based on its analysis of publicly available industry data, however, Farm Action determined that while the avian flu outbreak killed roughly 43 million egg-laying hens nationwide in 2022, “its actual impact on the egg supply was minimal.”
According to the letter:
“After accounting for chicks hatched during the year, the average size of the egg-laying flock in any given month of 2022 was never more than 7-8% lower than it was a year prior — and in all but two months was never more than 6% lower.
“Moreover, the effect of the loss of egg-laying hens on production was itself blunted by “record-high” lay rates observed among remaining hens throughout the year.
“With total flock size substantially unaffected by the avian flu and lay rates between 1-4% higher than the average rate observed between 2017 and 2021, the industry’s quarterly egg production experienced no substantial decline in 2022 compared to 2021.”
Nevertheless, the “weekly wholesale price for shell eggs climbed from 173.5 cents per dozen at the end of February to 194.2 cents in the middle of March,” the letter continues.
[…]
According to Farm Action, major egg producers’ massive price hikes are unjustifiable. In addition to the avian flu outbreak, some have attributed skyrocketing egg prices to higher feed and fuel costs, but “the dominant producers’ course-of-business documents suggest these claims have little merit,” the letter states.
“For example, in a presentation to investors just this month, Cal-Maine noted that total farm production and feed costs in 2022 were only 22% higher than they were in 2021.”
“The real culprit behind this 138% hike in the price of a carton of eggs,” says the letter, “appears to be a collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%.”
Max Bowman, the chief financial officer of Cal-Maine — the nation’s largest producer and distributor of eggs — has admitted as much, saying in a recent statement that “significantly higher selling prices, our enduring focus on cost control, and our ability to adapt to inflationary market pressures led to improved profitability overall.”
CNN reported last week that “there have been no positive tests” of avian flu at any of Cal-Maine’s facilities, and yet the company’s net average selling price per dozen conventional eggs more than doubled last year.
The corporate giant, which controls roughly 20% of the egg market, is behind several popular brands, including Farmhouse Eggs, Sunups, Sunny Meadow, Egg-Land’s Best and Land O’ Lakes eggs.
“Contrary to industry narratives, the increase in the price of eggs has not been an ‘act of God’ — it has been simple profiteering,” Farm Action’s letter argues.
“For the 26-week period ending on Nov. 26, 2022, Cal-Maine reported a 10-fold year-over-year increase in gross profits — from $50.392 million to $535.339 million — and a five-fold increase in its gross margins.”
“Cal-Maine’s willingness to increase its prices — and profit margins — to such unprecedented levels suggests foul play. That Cal-Maine — the leader in a mostly commoditized industry with, presumably, the most efficient operations and the greatest financial power — will quintuple its profit margin in one year without any compelling business reason is plainly an indication of market power,” the letter continues.
[…]
“We urge the FTC to exercise the full scope of its authorities — under the Sherman, Clayton, and FTC Acts — to identify, challenge, and uproot anti-competitive arrangements that suppress competition among egg producers and enable dominant firms like Cal-Maine to extort consumers for the eggs they need every day.”
In November, “antitrust trailblazer” Khan led the agency in issuing a new policy statement restoring its commitment to “rigorously enforcing” the FTC Act’s prohibition on “unfair methods of competition,” including what critics have called “predatory pricing.”
According to Farm Action:
“What Cal-Maine Foods and the other large egg producers did last year — and seem to be intent on doing again this year — is extort billions of dollars from the pockets of ordinary Americans through what amounts to a tax on a staple we all need: eggs.
“They did so without any legitimate business justification. They did so because there is no ‘reasonable substitute’ for a carton of eggs. They did so because they had power and weren’t afraid to use it.”
“This kind of organized theft is exactly what Congress — and the public it represents — ’empowered and directed’ the FTC to prevent,” the group concluded. “The FTC should do nothing less.”
In addition to regulatory action, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) argued last weekend that Cal-Maine’s “corporate greed” exemplifies why “we need a windfall profits tax.”
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cost-eggs-price-gouging-ftc/
Massive Strikes Hit France: More Than One Million People Join 200 Protest Marches
Countercurrents
A massive strike has hit France on Thursday. Workers and other earners joined hands in protesting pension reform. Trade union sources said the number of people joining more than 200 protest marches was 2 million. Police had to use tear gas to contain the protesters in Paris.
Teachers, railway workers and public sector employees abandoned joined the protest marches to oppose a planned increase in the retirement age
Citing France’s interior ministry, media reports said:
About 1.12 million people took part in protests across France.
Of the about 1.12 million people who joined the protests, 80,000 were in Paris alone, BFMTV said.
Earlier in the day, Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade union, estimated the total number at 2 million, with 400,000 protesters in Paris.
More than 200 demonstrations took place across France on Thursday amid a nationwide strike against pension reform, at the initiative of eight leading French trade unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Usa, Solidaires, FSU). The largest protests were held in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Nantes.
Train services, schools, flights and scores of businesses in France were disrupted on Thursday as labor unions organized mass protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age to 64, a move bitterly opposed by the French public.
The largest marches took place in Paris.
A large-scale protest began at the Republic Square in Paris. The demonstrators included representatives of various industries, supporters of the Yellow Vests movement, as well as black bloc radicals. The protests turned violent after radicals began throwing stones, bottles, flares and firecrackers at the police. In response, the police used tear gas and began to push the crowd back by force. Police arrested 38 people in Paris so far.
Amid the demonstrations, police officers clashed with black-clad anarchists, who regularly show up at protests in France to spar with police. Video footage showed armored officers using tear gas and batons on the black-clad bloc and other nearby protesters.
Similar demonstrations were held in the cities of Nantes, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille and Toulouse, and in more than 200 other locations across the country.
France’s eight largest trade unions participated, meaning that schools, railways, airports, power plants and other vital utilities were operating at a drastically reduced capacity on Thursday.
As few as one in five high-speed TGV train lines were running, the rail operator SNCF said, while Eurostar said that several connections with the UK were canceled. More than 40% of primary school teachers didn’t show up for work, CNN reported, citing the French education ministry.
Macron’s government is urging parliament to pass a bill that would raise the retirement age for most French workers from 62 to 64, a result that would still see these workers getting their pensions three years earlier than most of their European counterparts.
While the government insists that this reform is necessary to stop the country’s pension system from sliding into deficit, the unions argue that the system should instead be buoyed by increasing taxes on the wealthy rather than by squeezing more productivity out of aging workers.
“It is rare for French unions to all agree on something, so it demonstrates the seriousness of the issue,” CGT leader Philippe Martinez told France24 on Thursday morning.
[…]
British Strike Wave Approaches General Strike Levels
British rail workers strike along with many other unions. | Photo: bbc.co.ukBy Gerry Scopppettuolo, January 18, 2023
Since Britain’s Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) went on strike last June a torrent of working-class anger throughout the United Kingdom has been unleashed that today resembles a general strike across many industrial sectors.
The Trade Union Congress (similar to the U.S. AFL-CIO) fully backs the RMT which is a member of the World Federation of Trade Unions, the progressive/socialist global labor federation representing 100 million union members and internationals from Bangladesh and Vietnam to Italy and Greece,
The RMT and its 45,000 members have launched days-long rolling strikes across the UK. In December 100,000 nurses in England, Northern Ireland and Wales also walked out over salary and staffing shortages. Nurses, represented by the Royal College of Nurses Union (RCN), had never gone on strike before this month. At the same time, 115,00 postal workers were on strike for a week. The British Postal service was sold off and privatized in 2013. At this moment 45,000 teachers are on strike in Scotland and 20, 000 ambulance drivers have just gone out. 100,000 unionized Government workers will be going out on strike on Feb 1. London bus drivers have engaged in intermittent strikes and today (January11) ambulance drivers have also initiated rolling strikes.
Under pressure from the private sector, the Conservative government in Parliament is seeking to pass a so-called “minimum hours” law which would require workers in certain industries to provide minimum hours of work, ostensibly to keep essential services running, essentially a forced labor tactic. The introduction of this proposal last week seems to have increased strike activity as workers thus far show no signs of backing down with literally tens of thousands joining the strike wave every day. An historic confrontation between labor and the state is looming with predictions of up to a million strikers hitting the bricks by Feb 2 when, as announced by its executive board, the RCN will be sending 300,000 more nurses out on strike.
Overriding issues of health and safety and an official inflation rate of 12% are driving desperate workers to stay out and picket in freezing temperatures. British railway workers are required to work a mandatory 7-day workweek, the kind of unsafe and grueling schedule they share with their sisters and brothers in the U.S. where engineers and signalmen in the 110,000 members union workforce toil with no guaranteed sick days. The Biden administration attempted to crush an impending strike with a tentative agreement that was rejected by the rank and file, leaving a stalemate. Massive nursing vacancies in the UK. have led to intolerable nurse-patient ratios in British hospitals, stretching out labor just as in the U.S..
[…]
Via https://wibailoutpeople.org/2023/01/20/british-strike-wave-approaches-general-strike-levels/
What’s Behind Jacinda Arden’s Resignation?
Guy Hatchard
NEW Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigned last night after months of rumours. Ardern, whose popularity has plummeted during the last six months, told us she ‘had nothing left in the tank’.
The backstory to this resignation is a tale of woe. Ardern said she wants to be remembered as someone who tried to be kind. The subtext is: the country is in an unprecedented mess but don’t blame me. School attendance is running at just 67 per cent on any given day. Machete-wielding teenagers are ram-raiding liquor, tobacco and luxury stores daily in an unprecedented crime wave. The health system is overwhelmed. Ardern’s government promised to build 100,000 new homes over three years. It has delivered 1,500.
Our tourist, farming and hospitality industries have never recovered from lockdowns and border closures. It takes months to get a visa to visit NZ and the government says it only wants rich people to come. Ardern insisted on universal Covid vaccination mandates. There is a suspicion that our 90 per cent vaccination rate has left most people in a lethargic fog. Excess all-cause deaths are still running 15 per cent above the long-term trends, and it is not Covid.
History will judge Ardern harshly, but don’t blame her alone. This was a Parliament who woke up on all sides of the house to the weakness of our constitutional arrangements (there are none). The Bill of Rights was tossed aside and no one in Parliament cared.
The leader of the National opposition Chris Luxon said if he was in power, he would withdraw benefits from unvaccinated single mothers. David Seymour, leader of the ACT party, said those losing their jobs through vaccine mandates only had themselves to blame. Labour’s coalition partner, the Greens, led by example. They encouraged mothers in labour to ride to hospital on a bicycle.
Revelations this week (here and here) that Ardern personally overruled her scientific advisers who were expressing doubts about the safety of Covid vaccines for young people and the wisdom of mandates have circulated very widely and no doubt this further undermined confidence in the government.
Political insider and right-wing commentator Cameron Slater published an article ten days ago saying that out of all the politicians he has known (and he has known most since Muldoon in the 70s) Ardern is the only one he rates as truly evil.
Ardern introduced ‘rule by regulation’. Adopting the enabling model favoured by fascists in the 1930s, her government has empowered authorities to tell us all what to do, when to stay at home, and where not to go. The courts, the Human Rights Commission and the broadcast regulators have all followed the government line meticulously which has had a devastating effect on business, families, communities and professions. To cement her policies, Ardern introduced massive government funding of our media and broadcasters.
Ardern’s government, in an absurd overreach, funded a nationwide effort to discredit critics of policy, labelling them terrorists. This has divided a formerly egalitarian society, instituting a Stasi-like snitch culture that encourages us to report a neighbour. Government Disinformation Project employees appeared on funded films aired on television labelling knitting, blond hair, braids, vaccine hesitancy, love of natural foods, yoga and motherhood as signs of terrorism that should be reported to the intelligence services (view it here if you can stand watching this nasty piece of propaganda and hate).
Why did Ardern suddenly change overnight in August 2021 from being a kindly figure saying she would never mandate vaccines, to being one of the world’s most draconian proponents? We can only speculate. NZ is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence network. Given the Pentagon’s recently revealed massive involvement in US Covid policy and gain of function research funding, was she fed information that a bioweapon was in play?
For a couple of weeks now government announcements and advertisements encouraging vaccination and boosters have been conspicuously absent. Has the penny finally dropped? We doubt it. It will take an honest, intelligent politician (are there any?) to roll back Ardern’s dictatorial powers and kickstart New Zealand. Why would any aspiring newby give up that much power? The prospect will be too intoxicating.
Ardern was a protege of Tony Blair and Klaus Schwab of WEF. They must bear some blame too. What fantasies of global power did they offer to a young person who was given to idealistic dreaming that segued into fanaticism?
Our final verdict: It is not Ardern but the whole NZ Parliament elected in 2020 that will be judged as the worst in our short history as an independent island nation, formerly famous for championing the underdog and offering opportunity to all. Ardern’s resignation has lit the bonfire of modern democracy.
[…]
Via https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/whats-behind-jacinda-arderns-resignation/
Why Arabs Bolster Energy & Security Cooperation With Russia in Defiance of Western Sanctions
Ekaterina Blinova
Arab countries have not joined the anti-Russian sanctions, despite pressure from the West, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed during his press conference this week. What’s behind the Arab world’s resilience?
“The policy of the West in the East has gone bankrupt,” political analyst Vladimir Ahmedov told Sputnik.
“[Middle Eastern players’] trust in the United States, the leading western European states – the former colonizers who had colonies in this region – has already been largely lost,” the specialist in the modern history of Arab countries and senior research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences continued.
New major players have entered the global arena: China, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the scholar emphasized.
Ahmedov believes that the sanctions imposed against Russia are dictated by purely political considerations of a narrow circle of the western political elite. Meanwhile, the system of international relations and the world order has been undergoing changes, and the indirect proof of this is the position taken by the Arab countries, according to him.
“Russia’s policy in the East at the present time, and Russia’s policy in the world in general, has changed in comparison with the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s,” the researcher continued. “Now it is a resolute policy aimed at defending [Russia’s] national state interests and the national interests of third countries. It impresses the countries of the East and, above all, the countries of the Middle East, which have been waiting for such a policy for a long time. This policy is in great demand in the East and therefore it meets with approval and understanding.”
In light of this, Russia’s efforts to mediate the Israeli-Palestine conflict as well as those in Syria and Iraq – mentioned by Lavrov during his Wednesday presser – are steps in the right direction, according to the scholar. In addition, Russia’s military presence in Syria serves as a stabilizing factor, he added.
Meanwhile, the West’s Ukraine strategy looks like nothing so much as its previous Middle Eastern policies. The West is using Ukrainians much in exactly the same way it previously used Arabs in order to reach its geopolitical objectives, and Middle Eastern players are well-aware of that, according to the researcher.
“Russia is not fighting against Ukraine or the fraternal Ukrainian people, but against the West, which wants to dismember Russia, belittle its role, minimize it, and so on,” Ahmedov said. “And [the Western policy] does not meet with any approval from the political elites of the East, who themselves suffered from it previously.”
Russia shares the same “geopolitical space” with the countries of the region and its objectives there include not only maintaining working ties with Middle Eastern players but also to protect its “soft underbelly” from extremist and terrorist elements reinvigorated by the Arab Spring havoc, the researcher explained.
In addition, Russia’s experience as a power broker in the region could come in handy for the West, since the latter has proven incapable of solving regional conflicts on its own, continued the scientist. According to him, European countries have no other alternative but to deal with Russia in the Middle East in the future if they want to ensure their security in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.
Ahmedov noted that while Moscow cannot ensure a complete comprehensive settlement and stabilization of the situation in the Middle East, it can help regional players reach these goals.
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