Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 513

Bill Gates’ ‘Magic Seeds’ Won’t Solve World Hunger But Will ‘Create Ecological Disaster’

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Bill Gates is rebranding genetically engineered seeds as “magic seeds” and says they’re the answer to world hunger, but according to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., a “failed, clumsy crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’ It creates an ecological disaster.”

Bill Gates said he believes the global community must invest in engineered crops using what he calls his “magic seeds” to solve world hunger.

Food aid alone cannot address the problem, Gates said in an essay accompanying the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) Goalkeepers 2022 Report, released earlier this month.

What is needed, he said, are “magic” seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to hot and dry climates or to grow three weeks faster than natural seeds.

“Temperature keeps going up,” Gates said. “There is no way, without innovation, to come even close to feeding Africa. I mean, it just doesn’t work.”

However, André Leu, organic farming expert, former president of IFOAM Organics International and author of “Growing Life: Regenerating Farming and Ranching,” criticized Gates for calling his genetically modified seeds “magical.”

“This is patently false and an example of spin doctoring by public relations companies to rebrand products that are widely regarded as Frankenfoods,” Leu told The Defender.

According to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., environmental activist, author and founder of Navdanya International, “[Natural] seeds as the source of life are magical. They hold their implicate order within them, and unfold to relocate the unique patterns and structures of life in its diversity.”

In contrast, Shiva said, “Genetically engineered seeds have been made to own life through patents.”

Shiva told The Defender:

“[Genetically engineered seeds] are a failed technology.

“Herbicide-resistant crops were supposed to control weeds. They have created superweeds. Bt toxin crops were supposed to control pests. They have created super pests, increased the need for pesticides, increased farmers’ debt and driven farmers to suicide in India.

“A failed, clumsy, crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’

“It creates an ecological disaster of monocultures of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] displacing the rich diversity of crops that we need for the health of people and the health of the planet.”

According to Gates, he’s concerned about the planet — at least how it may be impacted by climate change.

The BMGF on Sept. 6 released an “Agriculture Adaptation Atlas” that uses predictive modeling to estimate how climate change may affect growing conditions for crops in African countries.

The BMGF is also promoting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that processes the genome sequences of crops along with this environmental data to conjure up a data-based vision of what farms should look like in the future.

“From this computer model, researchers can identify the optimal plant variety for a particular place,” Cambria Finegold, director of digital development for CABI, an intergovernmental organization that is developing models for the BMGF, earlier this month told The Associated Press (AP). “Or they can do the reverse: pinpoint the optimal place to grow a specific crop.”

Finegold added:

“It’s not just, ‘how do we get through this crisis and get back to normal?’ It’s, ‘what does the future normal look like?’”

But critics pointed out this reliance on AI and genetically modified seeds would exacerbate environmental issues because the modified seeds require heavy use of fossil-fuel fertilizers, which must be transported across great distances, and pesticides that threaten biodiversity.

According to Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and AGRA Watch, a group that “works with partner organizations in Africa and the US to support sustainable, agroecological, socially responsible, and indigenous alternatives,” the BMGF’s industrial agricultural programs in Africa, including its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), cause biodiversity loss, hurt small-scale farmers and cause environmental harm — all while failing to solve hunger.

https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/embed/defender-sms-reminders-v2

Rachel Bezner Kerr, a professor of global development at Cornell University, told the AP there are existing alternatives — such as locally managed seed banks, composting systems that promote healthy soil and non-chemical pesticide interventions — that can build more resilient farming systems and reduce the need for food aid.

Kerr, a lead author of the food chapter of the latest report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that although the panel doesn’t make recommendations, “overall, the kind of focus on a few technologies and reliance on fossil fuel-based inputs isn’t in line with ecosystem-based adaptation” or a biodiverse future.

However, BMGF CEO Mark Suzman contended fertilizer is necessary. “You simply cannot meet overall productivity gains without it,” he said on a call with reporters, according to the AP.

Gates also dismissed alternative ideas.

“If there’s some non-innovation solution, you know, like singing ‘Kumbaya,’ I’ll put money behind it,” Gates told the AP in an interview. “But if you don’t have those seeds, the numbers just don’t work.”

Gates said, “When researchers in Kenya compared plots of this new [genetically modified] maize, which they called ‘DroughtTEGO®,’ with the old one, they saw the DroughtTEGO farms were producing an average of 66% more grain per acre.”

Shiva said genetically engineered crops and seeds aren’t the answer.

“To end world hunger we must stop treating food as a commodity and seeds as corporate ‘intellectual property,’” she told The Defender.

“To solve world hunger every farm must become biodiverse and ecological. Biodiversity intensification produces more nutrition per acre, with no dependence on external inputs of seeds and toxic agrochemicals as our report ‘Health Per Acre’ shows.”

“We can feed the people while regenerating the biodiversity of the planet,” Shiva said.

Leu agreed. “The scaling up of regenerative organic agriculture based on the science of agroecology would easily solve the global food insecurity crisis. It is low-cost, proven, and effective, and scaling it up globally would be less than the cost of developing one GMO crop.”

Claiming GMOs have no place in solving world hunger, Leu said:

“Despite more than 40 years of hype that GMO seeds were going to dramatically increase yields, solve pest and disease problems, reduce pesticide use, drought-proof crops, allow them to be grown in saline soils, and numerous other extravagant claims, this has not been achieved.

“The research by independent scientists — not by the scientists employed by the biotech companies who have an obvious conflict of interest — clearly shows that there have been no yield increases over conventional breeding.

“The only two things GMO crops have succeeded in doing are dramatically increasing the use of toxic pesticides such as glyphosate (Roundup) in our food, bodies, and environment and the profits of the large agribusiness pesticide companies.”

Leu emphasized the effectiveness of teaching organic farming methods to small-scale farmers to address hunger.

“The majority of food-insecure people are smallholder family farmers and others who depend on them in rural communities,” he said.

“We have proven many times that teaching good organic farming practices can increase their yields by over 100% so they can feed their families and local communities. They also get an income to pay for healthcare, education and many other things that are important for a good quality of life.”

Who really suffers and who profits from ‘philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy’?

The BMGF and the Gates-led AGRA say they aim to transform agriculture in Africa by increasing incomes and food security for millions of smallholder farmers.

On July 13, Gates pledged to donate $20 billion to the BMGF so it can increase its annual spending to “mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now.” The donation brought the foundation’s endowment up to $70 billion, CNBC reported in July.

The BMGF has spent $1.5 billion on grants focused on agriculture in Africa, according to Candid, a nonprofit that researches philanthropic giving.

But an independent evaluation of AGRA’s efforts, released in late February by the consulting firm Mathematica, found “mixed” outcomes on inclusive financial, output markets and farmer outcomes, The Defender reported.

According to Joeva Rock, Ph.D., assistant professor of development studies at the University of Cambridge who wrote a not-yet-released book about food sovereignty in Ghana, activists in Africa questioned whether the funds could have been better spent elsewhere.

In Ghana, field trials for four varieties of genetically modified seeds began in 2013, Rock told the AP.

“What would happen if those went into increasing funds to the national research centers in Ghana, to building roads, to building storage, to building silos or helping to build markets?” Rock said.

Food insecurity is not caused by low yields, Leu told The Defender. “It is caused by unfair and inefficient food distribution systems.”

Leu said:

“Industrial farming systems are not designed to feed the poor. The COVID-19  pandemic lockdowns and war in Ukraine are examples of why it is the wrong model.

“Growing food thousands of miles away from where it is needed instead of growing it locally is the problem. People are dependent on supply chains that can easily be disrupted.

“Also, food-insecure people are the poorest on the planet. Even if the food gets to their country, they can’t afford to buy it.

“On the other hand, we now have an obesity epidemic in the more affluent countries and regions due to an oversupply of calories empty of nutrition from industrial agriculture.”

In 2006, the BMGF joined with the Rockefeller Foundation to spur a “green revolution” in Africa by creating AGRA.

“Over the long term, the partnership, called Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), intends to improve agricultural development in Africa by addressing both farming and relevant economic issues, including soil fertility and irrigation, farmer management practices, and farmer access to markets and financing,” the groups said.

At its inception, AGRA declared Africa deficient in what it referred to as “improved inputs,” such as fertilizer and “advanced” seeds, and has worked to implement policies that would make African farmers use manufactured fertilizers, pesticides and engineered seeds — which are all patented products that generate profits for their owners.

AGRA Watch — founded to respond to and challenge AGRA’s policies — calls BMGF’s efforts “philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy.”

Although the BMGF and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” their alignment with transnational corporations such as Monsanto, and foreign policy groups such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), makes their motives suspect, according to AGRA Watch:

“[BMGF] takes advantage of food and global climate crises to promote high-tech, market-based, industrial agriculture and generate profits for corporations even while degrading the environment and disempowering farmers.”

A three-part video series “Rich Appetites: How Big Philanthropy Is Shaping the Future of Food in Africa” explains why exporting the U.S. agribusiness model to Africa is a “grave mistake” and exposes how “Big Philanthropy” — namely the BMGF — is destroying farming and food in Africa by seizing control from local interests.

As of Sept. 20, Forbes estimated Gates’ net worth to be around $104.4 billion.

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bill-gates-genetically-engineered-seeds-world-hunger-ecological-disaster/

Sept 22: Plandemic 3 Set to Rock the World

Madison Area Lyme Support Group

https://thehighwire.com/videos/plandemic-3-set-to-rock-the-world/  Video Here (Approx. 38 Min)

Plandemic 3 Set to Rock the World

Another eye-opening documentary uncovering the unprecedented pressure pushing the dangerous, toxic, experimental mRNA gene therapy injections.

The documentary details how government officials, politicians, entertainers, dating apps, and places of employment, have created, directed, and are taking part in the “greatest psychological fear campaign in human history”, causing unprecedented psychological pressure on all – including vulnerable children, pregnant women, and even babies to obtain an experimental, ineffective injection that doesn’t even meet the definition of a “vaccine.”

Del Big Tree interviews Mikki Willis, Director of the Plandemic series and comedian JP Sears.

Plandemic 3, Prelaunch Party is available now, on The Highwire. For more info go to thehighwire.com/plandemic3  An evening of celebration and fundraising, as the countdown to the world premiere of Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening has begun. Guest speakers include JP Sears, Del Bigtree, and the visionary filmmaker himself, Mikki Willis.

Once there you can sign up to get updates for the documentary.

Willis has also made his book “Plandemic” free in audio format.

For more:

 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/09/30/proof-that-the-pandemic-was-planned-with-purpose/

Via https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2022/09/22/plandemic-3-set-to-rock-the-world/

Corona Policy Aimed at “Changing Behavior,” Not Improving Health.

By Elze van Hamelen

Global Research

Part III of the Series: Worldwide, social engineering has become standard operating procedure for governments

Corona policy was primarily focused on directing citizen behavior such as wearing mouth masks, keeping a distance, staying home, and test and vaccination readiness – experimental measures with no scientific basis. This is evidenced by the large-scale use of behavioral scientists in implementation and communication of corona policy. The government and media are supported in this behavioral management by the RIVM (the Dutch CDC) Corona Behavior Unit and the government-wide Corona Behavior Team.

The application of behavioral insights is taking off during corona, and various government departments are working together to develop “interventions” that make citizens more compliant with corona rules. “This is the first policy topic on which the government has deployed relatively large amounts of behavioral expertise,” BIN NL writes in report “Rich in Behavioral Insights” (2021). This behavioral expertise focuses on fueling autonomous and unconscious behavior by acting on emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, wanting to maintain a positive self-image, or wanting to belong to the group. Or, by presenting information or possibilities in such a way that the ‘right’ choice is automatically made.

At the beginning of the crisis, in March 2020, the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit will be established. The behavioral unit aims to “promote the physical, mental and social health of the population,” and is supported in this by an advisory board and several expert teams including 40 professors and 19 doctors. They conduct research with which they support government communication and policy. The unit reports to, among others, the National Coordinator for Terrorism and Security (NCTV, the Dutch version of ‘Homeland Security’) and the National Crisis Communication Core Team (NKC). In addition to BIN-NL, the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit, the government-wide Corona Behavior Team is was established. They cooperate on developing interventions to promote compliance. The NKC coordinates press and public communications, drawing on the behavioral recommendations of the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit and the Corona Behavior Team.

The commitment to behavioral guidance is very explicit in a memo released under a FOIA request from the Ministry of Health dated May 12, 2020: “It takes more to guide behavior. But it also takes more than nudging. It’s about thinking about the whole journey that people make in certain situations, contexts, moments in the day, and so on. And what choices they make in the process. What is difficult or easy to do? What can we do to help people exhibit the right behavior? You want people not to have to think. How do actions and choices come about? Key questions then are:

How can we properly engage the unconscious part of people with cues and prompts (e.g., washing hands, how does a new ritual arise?)?How do people stay intrinsically motivated?How can people themselves become experts in making good judgments?”

The RIVM Corona behavior unit is asked in the memo for advice and support: “In what way can we, in the very short term, give nudging a better place in the communication of the national government when it comes to monitoring measures?” The NKC applies these insights, by “rewarding exemplary behavior or speaking from ‘we’.” They are asked, “what need is there at the local and regional level, for example, a toolkit, or an overview of principles of nudging?”

The report “Rich in Behavioral Insights Edition 2021” that was published by BIN-NL, shows how efforts were made to manipulate citizen behavior, and that the focus was not on health outcomes. The research and interventions focused on whether citizens stay home after a positive pcr test, on willingness to test regularly, and on stimulating large-scale testing even when there are no symptoms. The behavioral scientists overlook the fact that the tests have no diagnostic value, and that asymptomatic transmission has not been scientifically proven – and that staying home when you have no symptoms but a positive test is of no medical benefit. Meanwhile, without context, the “infections” resulting from large-scale testing are presented day in and day out in the media as a measure of the pandemic, thus creating lingering fear.

Additionally, investigations documents that were released under FOIA, show even more explicitly that government interventions were focused behavior change. For example, in the summer of 2020, experiments were be conducted in Amsterdam and Rotterdam investigating the effect of wearing masks on distancing, a measure that the RIVM notes has “modest scientific support.” It was already known that wearing masks would not prevent the spread of the virus. The experiments measure do not measure any health indicators. One behavioral expert substantiates masking as follows: “Masks have become the most visible evidence of Covid”.  Seeing the masks causes anxiety, in addition they signal the “social norm,” who follows the rules, and who does not. They are very effective for continued obedience.

Fear

Similar to the Netherlands, the British government has several departments that advise on the application of behavioral knowledge. One such department is “SPI-B,” the “Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behavior,” was concerned in March 2020 because a large number of citizens see did not feel sufficiently threatened by the virus because they knew it posed no risk to their age group. Therefore, the behavioral unit recommended that ” The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard‐hitting emotional messaging based on accurate information about risk.” The British government followed with a campaign featuring images of elderly people on respirators with the messaging “Look her in the eyes. And tell you never bend the rules”. In Germany, a similar recommendation leaked out from the Interior Ministry. This recommendation to increase fear in became known as the ‘panic paper’. It is known that manipulating fear is one of the most effective ways to instell obedience.

Although no “panic paper” came out in the Netherlands, communication campaigns surrounding corona played on fear, for example by presenting images of mass graves and headlines and through headlines or advertisements such as:

“Nearly 170,000 new infections a day as British variant engulfs Netherlands” (AD, January 2021)“British variant more than 60 percent deadlier” (NRC, March 2021)“1.5 meters can save your mom’s life” (Amsterdam, 2020)“Keep your grandmother out of the ICU” (Amsterdam, 2020)“A corona test is free. Your grandma priceless” (Do What Must Campaign, The Hague).Behavioral guidance for vaccination readiness

“What kinds of messages are most persuasive for increasing vaccination willingness?”, this question was investigated by five scientists affiliated with the prestigious American University of Yale. They developed and tested messages aimed at self-interest, guilt and shame, anger, courage, trust in science, regaining personal freedom and economic freedom, and published their findings in the article “Persuasive messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions,” in the scientific journal Vaccine. The scientists write, “Persuasive messages evoke a sense that vaccinating is social, address concerns about how others see you, and also help convince others to get vaccinated, and condemn those who don’t.” The first part of the study was be conducted between May and July 2020, well before the first corona vaccine is developed, let alone temporarily authorized. The scientists do not address whether concerns about vaccine safety or effectiveness may be justified. The assumption is that vaccinating is the solution to the crisis, and the use of behavioral knowledge is desirable to increase vaccination willingness – an assumption that we also find among behavioral units and government in the Netherlands.

Examples of recommended messages include:

“Stopping covid is important because you can get sick, and die from it. It is dangerous for people of all ages. Getting vaccinated is the most effective way not to get sick.”“By getting vaccinated you can protect everyone around you, it reduces the risk of your family or people around you getting sick.“Imagine how guilty you feel when you make someone else sick…”“Imagine how embarrassed you feel when you make someone else sick…”“Those who do not take a vaccine are not brave, but reckless… they are putting their family’s health at risk.”“The only way to defeat covid is to follow scientific approaches… the people who refuse a vaccine are not aware of the science”“Every person who gets vaccinated reduces the likelihood that we will have to go back into lockdown.”

The messages are echoed almost one-to-one in the Dutch campaign to encourage vaccination readiness:

Hugo de Jonge: “Either you get vaccinated, or you get sick” (July 2021)

“Corona vaccination: ‘we roll up our sleeves. To protect yourself and those around you, vaccination is the most important step” (Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport)“Do you want to embrace the other again? Will you get vaccinated against corona?” (Poster in retirement home).“Slow vaccination suspected cause of high excess mortality in the Netherlands” (2022, Trouw)“An unvaccinated person in the ICU costs four to ten people their operation” (Trouw, October 2021)“Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema: vaccine refusers often ill-informed” (AT5, December 2021)“Unvaccinated people are egoists. Thanks to them society remains locked. (Noordhollands Dagblad).

In the Netherlands, there is a particularly strong commitment to regaining (!) freedom:

“Vaccination makes more and more possible” (Tv spot, Ministry of VWS)“OMT: end of January room for relaxations, provided enough booster shots are taken” (January, 2022).“Camping with my grandfather again, that’s what I do it for. Daan, 22 years old”. (Campaign Only Together)“I want to be able to just go to school again. That’s why I got the shot. Get your vaccinations without an appointment” (Girl year at 14, advertising GGD Amsterdam)“I feel like going to a festival again. Just give me the jab!” (GGD Amsterdam)“This weekend DJs at vaccination location NDSM to win over young people” (AT5, July 2021)“Heineken: the night belongs to the vaccinated” (Advertisement)

Later, pressure to get “vaccinated” has been greatly increased by stepping up pressure, coercion, threats of exclusion and intimidation:

“Non-vaccinated are often poorly educated, ‘right-wing Christian’ or immigrant” Trouw, November 2021)“Majority vaccinated think people without vaccinations can be refused entry to public places” (EenVandaag July 2021)Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge: “We continue to vaccinate, neighborhood by neighborhood, door by door, arm by arm” (Press conference, 2021)Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge: “I do not resign myself to the right to say no to vaccine” (Press conference, December 2021)

The slogans and messages play purposefully on automatic, unconscious processes. As a result, an image forms, under the radar, that if you get vaccinated you care about your family, are fulfilling your social duty, are helping society come out of lockdown, you are smart – because you understand the science, and that those who don’t participate are particularly antisocial, evil and stupid. None of the slogans provide real information that helps you make an informed, educated choice, worse, the unconscious image that is created causes a resistance to do go look at that information.

Replacing political debate with social engineering

The behavioral influence campaigns rest on the assumption that we are dealing with a potentially apocalyptic virus that justifies the extreme measures. But it was clear very early on in the crisis, in part because of the research of Stanford’s top virologist John P. A. Ioannidis, that we are dealing with a disease similar to severe influenza, which is primarily a risk to the elderly. Nor are the measures — such as 1.5-meter distance, wearing masks, mass testing, lockdowns, or achieving maximum ‘vaccination’ coverage — to prevent the spread of the virus that for most gives a 99 percent survival rate, had a good scientific foundation. What we now know, based on the investigation of documents that have been released under FOIA, is that this was also known to the government.

This shows the real problem with behavioral influencing: rational exchange based on scientific, factual information was not possible within the public domain. Indeed, it is actively censored, suppressed, blackballed and excluded. At the same time, the social engineers assume a consensus therefore behavioral control would be justified. Politics is replaced by social engineering.

Had real open discussion of alternatives been possible, the money spent on behavioral control, communication and surveillance could have gone instead to expanding care and supporting caregivers. Where the justification for manipulation starts with the assumption that citizens have “limited rationality,” and that the government must therefore ‘guide’ them in their choices, it morphes into the desire that those citizens should rather stop thinking for themselves altogether.

[…]

Via https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2022/09/21/covid-measures-biggest-social-conformity-event-in-history-corona-policy-was-aimed-at-changing-behavior-not-at-improving-health/

The History of Ordinary People in Medieval England

A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages: Scenes from The Town and Countryside of Medieval England

By Martin Whitlock

Robinson (2017)

Book Review

What impressed me most about this book is Whitlock’s superb depiction of everyday life and ordinary people prior to the Norman conquest. He describes a resurgence of a money economy (which significantly declined with the collapse of the Roman Empire) by the eighth century AD. By 1066 AD, England was a nation of market towns, each organized around a central church and a specialized industry.*

In the years preceding the Norman Conquest (1066), only 4,500 of a population of 2.5 million owned land. Ten percent were outright slaves.** Seventy percent were villeins (serfs) attached to landholding lords who could sell them to other lords. The latter spent most of their work week tilling the lord’s land and only two days or less cultivating the land that provisioned their families. Twenty percent of the population lived in towns and worked as artisans or merchants.

Life expectancy was 35 years for men and 25 years for women (owing to high risk of death in childbirth).

Medieval England reached its peak population (6.5 million) in 1300. The fourteenth century saw a steep population decline, from a series of famines (1314, 1319-21), followed by the the Black Death in 1348. Owing to recurrent plague outbreaks (ending in 1666), England’s population wouldn’t fully recover until the 17th century. Declining population worked in favor of lower classes determined to curb feudal oppression by both gentry and church hierarchy.

For me the most interesting chapters concerned the origin of Common Law, which Whitlock distinguishes from Statute Law (ie laws passed by Parliament) and the systematic persecution of Jews in medieval England. According to Whitlock, Common Law was the system of royal justice that emerged from 1160-12. It’s first summarized by Henry of Bratton in On the Laws and Customs of England.

By the early thirteenth century, according to Whitlock, Jews were the primary financiers (the New Testament forbids Christians to lend money at interest) and paid huge taxes to the king for the right of residence and royal protection. In addition to moneylending, they also served as merchants and pawnbrokers and traded in precious metals, furs and jewelry.*** They enjoyed special status under Henry I (1100-1135), who received a percentage of all transactions conducted by Jewish merchants.

Under the influence of Pope Gregory IX, who condemned all Jews owing to their historic persecution of Christ, this tolerance was gradually reversed. Systematic persecution of English Jews escalated until their eventual expulsion from England in 1290 by Edward I (who inherited all their land). Following their departure, immigrant bankers from Venice and Florence (for some reason exempt from the Christian ban on charging interest) replaced the Jews as England’s principal financiers.

*Examples of eighth century industries include pottery kilns, armor manufacture, wool production for export, glass blowing and slave trading. Specific occupations (in most cases directly employed by the lord of their manor) recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book include millers, shepherds, pigmen, beekeepers, fish women, eel catchers, vintners, salt makers, quarry mean, carpenters, tilers and mason.

**People were enslaved after being defeated in war or committing crimes such as theft or working on Sunday. In some cases they were descendants of slaves or sold themselves into slavery to avoid starvation. Prior to the ban on slavery enacted in 1102, Anglo-Saxon slaves were shipped from Bristol for sale in Iceland, Scandinavia and Spain.

***In the Venetian city states that succeeded the Roman empire, Jews engaged in moneylending because they were forbidden to own land, farm or engage in most other professions. See https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/how-history-helps-us-understand-what-russia-and-china-are-up-to/

Global Excess Mortality Rates — Where’s the Investigation?

By Rob Verkerk Ph.D.

Are scientists and the media deliberately overlooking COVID-19 vaccines as a possible factor in global excess mortality rates?

We have previously pointed to official data in 2021 that shows a temporal association between the apparent rises in “excess mortality” among different age groups and the time each was exposed to COVID-19 “genetic vaccines” (here and here).

These data were in plain sight in the public domain, being based on official data from the nearly 30 mainly European countries carried on the euroMOMO portal.

Now, a year on, it’s nigh on impossible to hide the fact that in many industrialized countries that went full swing into intense control measures, from lockdowns, masks, genetic surveillance and “genetic vaccines,” people are dying at unexpectedly high rates.

The jabs or boosters may be a factor — but so may a bunch of other things, such as not gaining timely and proper medical attention, psychosocial stress and deprivation, along with a gamut of other potential co-factors.

The current apparent excesses in deaths over those that would have been expected is especially unusual given they have occurred during the northern hemisphere summer when deaths are normally at their lowest — and it is difficult to apportion blame to an invisible virus that on all accounts has lost virulence in its current guise.

According to The Guardian, even the U.K. Health Security Department argues summer heatwaves only explained around 7% of the excess mortality in July in England and Wales.

We have to ask ourselves what’s really going on.

Are the statistics tricking us, or is there something ominous going on that’s not being reported?

If the latter, how much effort is going into trying to unearth the causes of these deaths — and how many are, or could be, preventable?

[…]

Totality of evidence

[…]

We know now from multiple sources of official data from different countries that COVID-19-related deaths aren’t much of an issue at present, such as the lack of virulence of the circulating Omicron strains (something that might change given the selection pressure that is likely to ensue as more people opt for “genetic vaccination” this autumn).

Bear in mind, even these “COVID-19 deaths” (as tracked globally through Our World in Data, see Fig. 1) have often substantially overestimated deaths because COVID-19 was in the majority of occasions not found to be the primary cause of death.

Rather, it was only associated with deaths, having been determined by way of a flawed PCR test within, say, one month of death.

Yes, someone killed in a motorcycle accident who died 27 days after having received a false positive COVID-19 antigen test would be down in the official record as a “COVID-19 death.”

Multiple sources, all pointing to an unexpected rise in deaths in 2022

The following are five important sources that include country-specific, region-specific and global data that most reputable scientists (an ever more tricky characterization), I believe, would regard as being of high quality, and approaching the “totality of evidence” threshold, that we think paint a fairly complete picture of the excess death paradox we currently face.

1. Excess mortality data for England, from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (U.K.)

The first thing to note is the relative increase in excess mortality over the three successive summers (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Excess mortality in England between February 2020 and August 2022. Red notations added by the author. Source: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Methodology is given in a link in the second paragraph of the Introduction in the above document.

More than this, when you explore the data from this Office for Health Improvement and Disparities source, you find that some of the biggest excesses compared with expected deaths have occurred in the two youngest age groups, ages 0 to 24 years and 25 to 49.

Not only that, there are few differences in death according to the level of deprivation, which might have been caused by inadequate or poor quality diets or lifestyle effects.

Ethnicities also had an influence with white and mixed ethnicities being most impacted, while black and Asian ethnicities, were least affected.

This pattern, whether or not it is coincidental, follows the pattern of COVID-19 “vaccine” uptake — Johnson’s government pushing hard but ineffectually to get black and Asian ethnicities to be less “hesitant.”

There were also some differences in region, and it’s of interest that low COVID-19 “vaccine” uptake and highly polluted London had the lowest excess mortality of any of the regions.

2. Excess mortality from Germany, 2020-2022

In their ResearchGate preprint analyzing excess mortality in Germany between 2020 and 2022, Christof Kuhbandner (University of Regensburg) and Matthias Reitzner (University of Osnabrück) have applied actuarial science to get to the bottom of the excess mortality figures in Germany.

Long and short of it — with different, interesting and transparent methodology — here are some of the top line findings:

In 2020 there was no apparent significant excess mortality.Excess mortality started rising as of April 2021 for reasons other than COVID-19 caused or associated mortality.Nearly all of these excess deaths were in the age groups between 15 and 79 — hence not including the oldest most frail members of society that have historically been shown to be the most likely to succumb to respiratory infections.

3. EuroMOMO — regional excess mortality data mainly from Europe

Readers and supporters of Alliance for Health International have been led by us so often to the euroMOMO website.

That’s the deal — we have to keep looking as every time we look, we get to see a snapshot in time. We only start to get a more complete picture of what’s going on when we see all the snapshots together in our “COVID Crisis Album.”

The excess mortality in the youngest age group across all 28 euroMOMO countries/regions continues for 2022 and is deeply disturbing as it includes the youngest and most vulnerable in society between the ages of 0 and 14 years.

But there is a noticeable trend for excesses that have occurred at a time when Omicron has caused little in the way of mortality, in a number of countries.

[…]

Figure 3. Excess mortalities (as z-scores) in Europe during week 29 (July 18-24) 2022. Credit: EuroMOMO.

[…]

What’s killing people?

“They” — including the mainstream science and medical establishment, governments and much of the media — are largely mute on trying to unpick what’s going on.

When they do recognize the paradox of excess mortalities now that the pandemic is viewed by most as largely over or in a temporary lull prior to another assault this northern hemisphere Autumn, the one consistent thing you find is the lack of any mention of the possible role of those infernal “genetic vaccines.”

This shouldn’t be a surprise given the extraordinary suppression of information on the scientific discourse around these gene-altering products, as reported by Ety Elisha, Josh Guetzkow and colleagues in the peer-reviewed journal HEC Forum that has been informed by the forcibly released Pfizer data that reveals just how much the regulators knew about lack of effectiveness and significant harms when they issued emergency authorization in 2020.

[…]

What’s the real mix of contributory factors?

Honestly? We don’t know! But we could add a few additional points to Prof Sridhar’s list that might be worth looking into, should any researchers be interested (but who will fund them?):

Suicides.Loneliness.Depression and anxiety.Lack of purpose or meaning in life.Inappropriate diets.Inappropriate lifestyle.Breakdown in social relationships.Lack of timely access to effective healthcare services.Lack of early diagnosis of serious, life-threatening conditions or diseases.Short, medium and longer-term harms of “genetic vaccines.”Increased autoimmune diseases triggered by “genetic vaccines.”Increased infectious disease prevalence from compromised immunity from social isolation and “genetic vaccines.”Enhancement of chronic diseases by dysregulated immune system and persistent systemic inflammation, triggered by repeated exposure to COVID-19 “genetic vaccines.”Sub-optimal treatment of COVID-19 disease (e.g. remdesivir).Failure to implement effective early treatment (e.g. as per FLCCC [Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance] protocols).Inappropriate use of mechanical ventilators.Unwarranted placement of DNR (“do not resuscitate”) notices on care home residents.Unjustified use of powerful sedatives (e.g. midazolam) known to contribute to deaths in nursing homes.

Even this is a partial list, supplementary to that of Prof Sridhar.

However, in light of what we know now about COVID-19 “genetic vaccine” harms, their omission as potential contributors to the clearly evident excess mortalities in many countries is a grave — and likely deliberate — scientific oversight.

An oversight that is likely killing and injuring people, unnecessarily.

Society normally has ways of dealing with deliberate oversights of this nature, through the courts and penal system.

Maybe that’s still to come?

If there’s one feeling I have about any retribution, it is that in the years to come, this omission and violation of human rights and human life will be seen for what it is by the majority, not just a growing minority.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/global-excess-mortality-rates-deaths/

German Energy Prices Soar 1000% as Companies Go Bankrupt

Dr Eddy Betterman

Remember back at the start of the covid plandemic when the media generated mass hysteria about toilet paper hoarding? It looks like that was a foreboding of things to come as German toilet paper manufacturer Hakle, along with a growing number of other producers in Deutschland, is closing up shop due to skyrocketing energy costs.

Citing a “tenfold increase in gas and electricity prices,” the German manufacturer says it simply does not make sense to continue producing toilet paper at these prices because it would not sell for a profit compared to cheaper toilet paper produced somewhere else where energy costs are more normal.

Shoe retailer Görtz is in the same boat, announcing closure due to low sales. Then we have automobile supplier Dr. Schneider, steel producer ArcelorMittal, and many others. (Related: Check out our earlier coverage to learn more about the dire situation in Germany with energy inflation.)

“With a tenfold increase in gas and electricity prices, which we had to accept within a few months, we are no longer competitive in a market that is 25% supplied by imports,” says Reiner Blaschek, CEO of ArcelorMittal, which is closing down plants both in Bremen and Hamburg.

“We see an urgent need for political action to get energy prices under control immediately.”

Germany’s bakery industry, which relies heavily on affordable energy, facing extreme hardship

Another important sector that often gets overlooked is the bakery industry, a staple in German culture. Bread and pastry manufacturers have long relied on affordable energy, and staying in business without it is going to be a challenge, if not impossible.

“For bakeries, the energy crisis is now worse than the Corona pandemic,” an industry source and affected baker from Heilbronn is quoted as saying.

“We have the problem as a micro baker that we have to adjust our prices to the raw material and energy prices, of course, which also burdens the customer, if he is also a bit tighter on cash.”

One area baker saw his monthly gas bills go from 3,000 euros to 11,000 euros, a nearly 400 percent increase.

Needless to say, insolvencies are on the way. A business simply cannot afford to remain operational when energy prices nearly quadruple, especially in a global market where other countries can produce similar items with much cheaper energy.

“What we are seeing now is just the tip of an iceberg,” one report explains.

“Increased energy prices are affecting all industries, whether directly, as in the case of steel mills and bakeries, or indirectly, as in the case of shoe retailer Görtz. If politicians do not take countermeasures here, Germany will fall into a severe and long-lasting recession, with mass unemployment and a massive loss of prosperity.”

In the comment section, someone pointed out that Germany is just the first domino to fall.

“What happens in Germany doesn’t stay in Germany,” this person wrote. “Expect the same.”

“And it is not yet winter,” responded another.

“Massive loss of prosperity, massive unemployment, long-lasting recession: sounds like the 1930s all over again,” said someone else. “Dangerous times.”

Keep in mind that the United Kingdom currently faces similar shutdowns as upwards of 60 percent of factories throughout the island country risk going under – if they haven’t already.

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2022/09/22/energy-prices-in-germany-soar-1000percent-companies-go-bankrupt/

New Zealand: Coroner Rules Myocarditis Caused by Covid Vaccine Led to Dunedin Man’s Death

The partner of a Dunedin man who died shortly after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine says getting the jab was the worst decision of their lives. (Source: 1News)

By Matty Lloyd

One News

A coroner has found a 26-year-old Dunedin man died of myocarditis, due to vaccination with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

Rory Nairn died at his home in November last year after receiving his first dose of the vaccine.

He had experienced myocarditis-like symptoms for nearly a fortnight following his jab, which he received on November 5.

Myocarditis is a rare side effect of the vaccine involving the heart.

Coroner Sue Johnson opened an inquiry into his death, not to determine civil, criminal or disciplinary liability but to establish when and where Rory died and the cause and circumstances around his death.

The inquest lasted three days in the High Court at Dunedin and heard from witnesses including Nairn’s fiancé Ashleigh Wilson, the person who vaccinated him, Medsafe and Te Whatu Ora Southern.

The inquiry was a fact-finding exercise to consider whether the coroner needs to make specified recommendations which may reduce the chances of further deaths in similar circumstances from happening again.

Johnson today released her findings into the cause of Nairn’s death in which she states “I am satisfied from the written evidence I have received, and the oral evidence heard at inquest that I have sufficient evidence to now establish the following: A. Where Rory died; B. When Rory died; C. The cause of Rory’s death”.

Vaccine caused myocarditis – coroner

After hearing evidence from pathologist Dr Noelyn Hung, Johnson said she is satisfied that the Covid-19 vaccine caused the myocarditis from which Nairn died.

[…]

Via https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/09/20/myocarditis-caused-by-covid-vaccine-led-to-dunedin-mans-death-coroner/

Ukraine’s Zaporozhye Region bids to join Russia

Residents of Zaporozhye during the national congress on the issue of holding a referendum on joining Russia in the Railway Workers’ Recreation Center in Melitopol. ©  Sputnik

RT

Vote on strategically important province to start Friday.

Zaporozhye Region in northeastern Ukraine will hold a referendum from 23-27 September on whether its people want to secede from the country and join Russia, the local administration’s head has announced. 

A petition calling on the region’s military-civilian administration to hold such a vote was issued on Tuesday by a local group tasked with representing the general public. They asked the region’s authorities “to immediately organize a referendum on the issue of joining our region to the Russian Federation.”

“We want certainty and a stable happy future for our homeland,” the civic body’s head, Vladimir Rogov, said during a gathering in the city of Melitopol. “We are ready to fulfill our right for self-determination and settle once and for all the issue of the territorial status of our region.”

Later in the day, Evgeny Balitsky, the head of the region’s military-civilian administration, issued an order to hold a general vote as requested, scheduling it for September 23 to 27.

Rogov acknowledged that people in the Kiev-controlled part of the region were unlikely to participate under the current circumstances. Voters there would risk retaliation from the Ukrainian government if they did, he explained. 

The region is split between Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-controlled parts. The latter includes the provincial capital Zaporozhye, located near the northwestern border of the region.  

READ MORE: Donbass republics reveal date of votes on joining Russia

Earlier on Tuesday, a similar initiative was issued in Kherson Region, which is mostly controlled by Russian forces. The local administration’s head, Vladimir Saldo, ordered on Tuesday to hold a general vote on whether or not to join Russia.

Saldo picked the same timeline as his counterpart in Zaporozhye Region. The same dates were announced by the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics on Tuesday for their respective referendums on joining Russia.

Kiev previously stated that it would not recognize the outcome of the proposed plebiscites. The Ukrainian government threatened any would-be voters with criminal prosecution and a prison term of up to 12 years.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/russia/563170-zaporozhye-region-referendum-russia/

The True Story of the Great Fire of London

The Dreadful Judgement: The True Story of the Great Fire of London

By Neil Hanson

Corgi Books (2001)

Book Review

Hanson begins this book with detailed historical background on the period in which the great fire of London occurred. In the century between 1566 and 1666, London’s population had quadrupled in 100 to 300,000. The poor areas within the city walls were extremely overcrowded. According to Hanson, as many as 2,000 tenants could be crowded into a single wooden tenement. In addition to overcrowding, the city was also in the grips of a 10-month drought and at the tail end of a plague epidemic. Fear of plague miasma* resulted in a May 1, 1666 law requiring all buildings to keep a fire burning during the day (which was believed to ward it off).

Even though house fires were fairly common in the capitol city, London’s fire fighting equipment, which hadn’t been updated since Roman times, was extremely primitive. Each of London’s 120 churches were required by (poorly enforced) laws to have leather buckets, axes and fire hooks** available at all times.

Hanson goes on to describe in excruciating detail how an easterly gale force wind whipped up a fire storm that expanded so quickly that it entrapped people who showed any hesitation in exiting the city walls. It continued to spread for four days until the gale abated, despite heroic efforts to contain the fire by pulling down and even blowing up buildings in its path. It’s believed the majority of residents evacuated the city to camp out in the fields surrounding the walls.

In all, five-sixth of the area within the London city walls was destroyed. This included 13,000 residential buildings, 87 churches and the halls of 852 livery companies.

Once the wind died down, it became possible to extinguish smoldering fires by creating fire breaks and via bucket brigades and residents’ efforts to smother them with long handled brooms. Under the direction of King Charles II, his brother the Duke of York, the army, navy and the King’s guard, 1,000 people who had fled the city returned to help extinguish fires that continued to burn.

Although isolated areas continued to smolder until Mar 1667, a week following the fire, all evacuees had either moved to other counties or returned inside the walls to live in makeshift shacks and tents or to shelter in remaining churches, company halls, inns and taverns. Even though all the bakers and brewers had fled, there was plenty of food, thanks to supplies the King requisitioned from surrounding counties and the release of ship’s biscuit from the naval stores.

The immediate death rate is estimated at several hundred to several thousand. With 80% of the city left homeless and jobless, many thousands more died the following winter of starvation and cold.

The cause of the fire, which started in a baker’s home workshop was never precisely determined. There were powerful rumors it was started by Papists opposed to Protestant rule or hostile French or Dutch agents (England happened to be at war with with both countries). A mentally unstable Swedish naval officer was tried and hanged for starting the fire (based on confession under torture) for starting it, despite serious doubt (even at the time) of his guilt.

What I liked best about the book was Hanson’s exquisite depiction of daily life in 1666 London.

*Miasma – According to obsolete medical theory, infectious diseases such as cholera or the black death were caused by miasma, a noxious form of “bad air,” originating from rotting organic matter.

**A fire hook was a large hook on a long pole used to pull down wooden houses to create a fire break.

***Also known as hard tack needed to be soaked overnight or smashed with a hammer or rock to be edible.

Korea – Mysterious Beginnings

Episode 23: Korea – Mysterious Beginnings

Foundations of Eastern CIvilization

Dr Craig Benjamin (2013)

Film Review

In this lecture, Benjamin explores the effect of Korea’s geography and climate on its early development.

He credits Korea’s failure to be subsumed by its neighbor China to its rugged mountainous landscape. Seventy percent of Korea is covered in steep mountains, making navigation between the East and West coast extremely difficult. Moreover unlike the majority of modern nations, it remains heavily forested.

Located in the same temperate latitude as Denver, it’s the same size as Britain and Utah. Surrounded on three sides by water, it shares a border with both China and Russia. Although separated from Japan by the sea of Japan, the archipelago is visible from the east coast of Korea.

Blessed with rich mineral resources (mainly gold, copper, tin and iron), Korea was the world’s largest gold producer during the first half of the 20th century.

It has only one (extinct) volcano Baikdu, also it’s highest mountain, with a volcanic lake associated with early Korean deities.

Owing to the steep drop of its mountains along its coasts, it has no significant bays or harbors suitable to facilitate urban development. Its three main river systems (which gave rise to its major cities) are Taedong in the North (location of North Korea’s capitol Pyongyang) and the Han (location of South Korea’s capitol Seoul) and Kum in the South.

As in China, there is archeological evidence that pre-human hominids (Homo erectus) using hand axes, flake tools and fire also migrated from Africa to Korea 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. Owing to the wide land bridge connecting China, Korea and Japan before the last Ice Age ended (and sea levels rose), similar remains and tools are found in Japan.

Paleolithic* remains show early humans lived in extended families in small caves or small dwellings in simple villages. They foraged, fished and hunted deer, wild board and macaques.

The Neolithic period saw waves saw waves of migrants who crossed the Yellow Sea land bridge. They lived in small dwellings heated by a central hearth, used distinctive pots used to store food from domesticated plants and supplemented their diet by hunting (of dogs, cats, water buffalo, boor, deer, dolphins and whales).

Neolithic** Koreans were ritually buried with jewelry and masks suggesting they believed in an afterlife.

*The Paleolithic, aka the Old Stone Age, is a period in prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominids 3.3 million years ago to around 10,000 BC.

**The Neolithic, aka the New Stone Age, refers to a period characterized by agriculture and fixed human settlement between 10,000 BC and around 3,300 BC when bronze tools were developed.

Film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5808608/5808655