Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 582
April 4, 2022
Germany’s Access to Russian Natural Gas: The Plot Thickens
Dmitry OrlovI promised to stop writing on this subject until something significant happened, and an entire day went by without anything significant, but now there’s this. German-language media has already been going crazy lately about future purchases of oil and natural gas. Since Germany is included in the list of “unfriendly countries” by Russia, it, like all the EU states, will only be allowed to purchase Russian natural gas for rubles, and not for euros or US dollars. And now comes this bit of news, which should make the German talking heads go super-double-crazy: Germany will be left without Russian gas because its contract is not with Gazprom but with its subsidiary Gazprom Germany, which Gazprom has abandoned.Barely a day or two ago, German officials were loudly declaring that their contract with Gazprom provides for payment in euros or dollars, and therefore Germany will not pay for Russian gas in rubles. That ought to make everything perfectly clear. However, Germany’s gas supply contract is with Gazprom Germania GmbH, located in Berlin, and not with actual Gazprom, headquartered in St. Petersburg! Do the German authorities even know that these are two completely different organizations?Gazprom Germania GmbH is the headquarters of the diversified conglomerate Gazprom Germania Group, which includes 40 enterprises operating in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Until Friday, it was a 100% subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom. On Friday, Gazprom pulled out of Gazprom Germania and no longer has anything to do with its former Berlin subsidiary. With that, Gazprom Germania has lost any connection to Russian gas. Worse yet, it is believed to be insolvent and likely to go bankrupt within a few weeks, at which point it will be liquidated. All of its customers will now be forced to buy gas from Gazprom Russia and it pay in… rubles. No rubles—no gas!Having imposed anti-Russian sanctions as demanded of it by Washington, Germany has already frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves. The country’s largest gas storage facility in Rehden (Lower Saxony) is only 0.5% full—an all-time low. Until this Friday, this vault, as well as a number of other facilities located at key points in Germany’s energy infrastructure, indirectly belonged to Russia’s Gazprom—but not any more! If earlier the German government threatened to nationalize Russian gas assets on its territory, now such threats have become hollow. Germany has nothing more that it can threaten to steal from Russia to force it to keep the gas flowing.[Instead, Germany’s representatives now have to fly to St. Petersburg and negotiate a new deal with Gazprom directly, in rubles. Except that they can’t do that either! According to the Energy Charter and the Third Energy Package of the European Union, every single supplier of energy resources to the EU is required to be part of the EU legal system—perhaps not directly, but definitely through subsidiaries such as Gazprom Germania GmbH. Thus, all of Gazprom’s contracts with buyers from the European Union were signed by Gazprom Germania GmbH and its other subsidiaries. It could not have been otherwise, for otherwise the contracts would be outside the jurisdiction of theEuropean Union and the Europeans considered this unacceptable.But now the Europeans will need to come to Russia and sign contracts under Russian law, with payment stipulated in rubles. Of course, the European Commission will never agree to this… and now we have to wait impatiently to see just quickly this “never” will come to an end.[…]
Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/99b3cc36-13d0-4c9e-a70a-8abac08b75ea
Mesopotamia: The Collapse of the Akkadian Empire
Episode 9: The Fall of Akkad and Gudea of Lagash
Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization
Dr Amanda H Podany
Film Review
In 2150 BC, the Akkadian Empire collapsed and broke into smaller kingdoms. Its fall is blamed on the sacking of the capitol Agade by hordes of Gutian nomads from the Zagros mountains to the west.
Some historians believe a severe drought affecting northern Mesopotamia around 2200-1900 BC triggered numerous empires to collapse, including the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Harappan civilization in the Indus valley and numerous states in the Aegean Region and southern Levant.
With the collapse of the Akkadian empire, the Gutians established their own state in northern Mesopotamia.
Unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia consisted of separate city-states for much of its history, and life changed very little for its southern residents after the Akkadian empire broke up. Many southern city-states had retained their own kings under the oversight of the Akkadian king. Also the drought was less severe in the south, resulting in less disruption from crop failure.
Following the collapse, the Second Dynasty of Lagash came to power in the kingdom’s capitol city Girsu. Gudea, the founder of the Second Dynasty, reigned from 2144-2124 BC and is extremely well known to modern scholars. Calling himself “governor” rather than “king,” Gudea is renowned both for his humility and his commitment to looking after his subjects. He protected women and orphans, freed people from debt and allowed women to inherit property. He engaged in only one military campaign in his entire reign.
His kingdom is believed to have been extremely rich, based on the E-ninnu Temple he built to the warrior god Ningirsu in the capitol city. Black wood from the Indus Valley was used in its construction, as well as gold, bitumen and lapis lazuli from other Near East countries.
Gudea also commissioned buildings in Ur, Nipur and Uruk, which means they must have been part of his kingdom.
Many stone statues of Gudea persist to the present day. The metal statues of other kings were melted down after their dynasties left power.
The son of Gudea was overthrown by the Third Dynasty of Ur.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/fall-akkad-and-gudea-lagash
April 3, 2022
Election Watchdog Finds 137,500 Ballots Unlawfully Trafficked In Wisconsin
Robert Gore
Straight Line Logic
Like the Hunter Biden laptop story, 2020’s election fraud is starting to surface. Whether anything will come of either story in our corruption-riddled society, no one can say. Don’t hold your breath. From Steven Kovac at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:
At least 137,500 absentee ballots were cast through unlawful vote trafficking throughout several of Wisconsin’s largest cities in the 2020 election, according to research presented last week to the state Assembly’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections by the public interest organization True the Vote (TTV).
Ballot trafficking is an activity in which absentee ballots and votes are solicited, sometimes in exchange for money or other valuables. They are then collected through a process called “harvesting” and delivered to drop boxes by intermediaries (someone other than the voter), who are often paid a per-ballot fee by partisan actors.
“An organized crime against Americans” is how TTV cyber expert Gregg Phillips described to the committee what happened in Wisconsin and elsewhere during the 2020 election.
Supporters of President Donald Trump protest outside State Farm Arena as ballots continue to be counted inside in Atlanta, on Nov. 5, 2020. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)Based on his 15-month study of election practices in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Michigan, Phillips estimates that at least 4.8 million votes were trafficked nationally.
[…]
USPS Contract Truck Driver Who Transferred 288,000 FRAUDULENT BALLOTS from NY to PA
As reported earlier by Cassandra Fairbanks new election fraud whistleblowers came forward on Tuesday, including one who witnessed the shipping of an estimated 144,000-288,000 completed ballots across three state lines on October 21.
The new information was made public at a press conference by the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, a national constitutional litigation organization.
The Amistad Project said that they have sworn declarations that state over 300,000 ballots are at issue in Arizona, 548,000 in Michigan, 204,000 in Georgia, and over 121,000 in Pennsylvania. They claim that their evidence reveals multi-state illegal efforts by USPS workers to influence the election in at least three of six swing states.
The whistleblower statements include potentially hundreds of thousands of completed absentee ballots being transported across three state lines, and a trailer filled with ballots disappearing in Pennsylvania.
Attorney Phil Kline said, “130,000 to 280,000 completed ballots for the 2020 general election were shipped from Bethpage, NY, to Lancaster, PA, where those ballots and the trailer in which they were shipped disappeared.”
Truck driver Jesse Morgan was present at the press conference and spoke for 9 minutes about his unbelievable ordeal. Morgan was tasked with delivering completed ballots to Pennsylvania from New York state.
This was explosive testimony.
Jesse Morgan: In total I saw 24 gaylords, or large cardboard containers of ballots, loaded into my trailer. These gaylords contained plastic trays, I call them totes or trays of ballots stacked on top of each other. All the envelopes were the same size. I saw the envelopes had return addresses… They were complete ballots.”
Jesse went on to say that he sat in Harrisburg for hours and when he was told to leave the supervisor at the post office would not give him a slip or an overtime slip so he could get paid. Jesse said the manager-supervisor was “kinda rude.”
Jesse’s testimony today revealed that employees at the United States Post Office were in on the conspiracy to steal the votes.
[…]
Amazon workers form first US union
RT
Employees of Amazon’s largest New York City warehouse have voted to unionize, overcoming the trillion-dollar company’s ferocious opposition, to become its first American workers to successfully organize. The vote came in on Friday, with 2,654 votes for and 2,131 against union membership, and while it remains to be officially certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Amazon has not challenged enough ballots to change the total.
Workers at the Staten Island facility known as JFK8 will become part of the Amazon Labor Union, whose demands include “more reasonable” productivity rates in the warehouse, higher wages, more paid breaks and vacations, among other demands.
ALU, which launched last April in an effort to organize JFK8 and the three other Amazon facilities on Staten Island, is a grassroots effort established by a former colleague who got the axe for his own worker organizing efforts in 2020. Founder Christian Smalls was fired as a warehouse manager a month after the Covid-19 pandemic hit New York, accused by Amazon of violating social distancing rules while he himself claimed the company had retaliated against him for protesting its lackluster Covid-19 safety precautions.
Smalls’ protest attracted the attention of Amazon’s general counsel, who dismissed him in a company memo as “not smart or articulate” and suggested he be used to smear all employee resistance as similarly incompetent. But the former warehouse worker doubled down on his organizing efforts, denouncing the company’s Dickensian treatment of its workers at rallies and even suing Amazon for alleged racial discrimination, using the executive’s comments as evidence.
After watching an effort by Amazon workers to unionize in Bessemer, Alabama, fail, Smalls formed ALU, reasoning that a brand-new union made up of solely Amazon employees was the best way to take on the mega-corporation.
The Bessemer warehouse staged a do-over vote after the NLRB ruled Amazon inappropriately interfered in its previous effort to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union last year. While the votes were counted as of Thursday, with pro-union numbers lagging behind, the NLRB and Amazon have both challenged over 100 votes, and it remains to be seen who will be victorious.
Amazon responded with disappointment to the Staten Island election results, revealing in a statement posted to its website that the company is “evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and US Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election.”
Workers might object to this characterization, however, reportedly laboring in a workplace papered with banners reading “Vote No,” forced to attend mandatory weekly anti-union meetings, and subject to the depredations of Global Strategy Group, a polling firm closely tied to Democratic political groups. The company launched a spin-heavy website on which it attempted to frame its own benefits as superior to those offered by unions, though it’s not clear whose unions they compared themselves to, given that no American Amazon employees are union members.
[…]
Via https://www.rt.com/news/553147-amazon-union-formed-smalls-nyc/
Tennis World Rocked as FIFTEEN “Fully Vaccinated” Players Unable to Finish Miami Open
2nd Smartest Guy in the World
The DEATHVAX
slow kill bioweapons continue to be unrelentingly effective and hazardously unsafe. Perfectly jiving with the 300% mortality surge for Fifa soccer players since the “vax” rollout, we now have FIFTEEN elite tennis athletes unable to complete a single tournament.
MIAMI The tennis world reacted with shock after favorites Paula Badosa and Jannik Sinner had to retire during the quarterfinals of the Miami Open. Badosa, soon to be the number three in the world, became unwell during her match against Jessica Pegula and left the court in tears.
Badosa, who was comforted by her American opponent, decided to stop after consultation with her physiotherapist. Pegula reached the semifinals of the Miami tennis tournament for the first time in her career after Badosa’s resignation, reported Yahoo Sports.
In the men’s tournament, the Italian phenomenon Jannik Sinner was forced to withdraw. He gave up after 22 minutes in the game against Francisco Cerundolo, the number 103 in the world ranking. “When I served at 3-1 and 30-0, I saw him bend over. It was very strange,” Cerundolo said during an interview. “I hope he’s okay, he’s a great player.”
The 23-year-old Argentinian surprisingly reached the semifinals with his first participation in the master tournament in Miami.
It was the second game in a row that ended prematurely for the tennis fans. Fans reacted with shock to the bizarre tennis day. “What is going on?” someone asked.
What could possibly be going on? By Janus! What kind of mysteriously mystifying “coincidences” could be transpiring at a single event?
Fifteen “coincidences” no less.
ALL players by mandate had to have been “fully vaccinated” to participate.
Via https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/bombshell-tennis-world-rocked-as
April 2, 2022
NY and CA data on 30 million Americans prove natural immunity provides 3 times more protection than vaccination vs. infection
Meryl Nass MD
As I was browsing CDC reports from January 2022 in the MMWR yesterday, I came across a study of cases and hospitalizations in the vaxxed and unvaxxed from the Departments of Health of California and New York, plus CDC scientist coauthors. There are several reasons why this paper is very important.
The data came from the states themselves, which did their own calculations before CDC could apply its statistical adjustment magic and muddy the water regardign the results.Because NY and CA, like other states, collect vaccination data from all vaccine providers in the state, the quality of the data is likely to be very good. Other studies that rely on self-reports of vaccinations, antibody tests or medical records have less reliable data. About 3/4 of the adults were vaccinated.There are over 20 million people included in California’s cohort, and over 10 million in New York’s cohort, so the level of certainty about the results will be high.Having said that, I must now warn you that the study is written up in what is an incredibly confusing way. I suspect this was done deliberately, probably by the CDC coauthors, in order to misdirect readers into focusing on the minutiae of two week periods (delineated in a 1.5 page Table 2 that should be ignored).
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit might be a crude way of describing this process.
Forget about the various waves, which are irrelevant.
In fact, I would recommend you avoid reading the text of the paper altogether, unless you want to struggle through it for a few laughs. CDC must have selected their most turgid writers to put this together.
The laughs come when you compare the Summary (Conclusions) with what the paper actually showed. More laughs can be had by reading the “at least 7 ways we might be wrong” section at the end. They are not belly laughs, but grimaces about how far “The Science” has fallen.
Instead of reading, simply study Table 1 and the Figure. You can find them at the end of the article.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm
Or just read this sentence: “Whereas French and Israeli population-based studies noted waning protection from previous infection, this was not apparent in the results from this or other large U.K. and U.S. studies.“
Table 1 (above)
The California (CA) data:
Vaccinated, no prior COVID vs Unvaccinated with prior diagnosis: 0.3% of each cohort wound up in hospital, i.e., vaccination was equal to natural immunity at preventing hospitalization. Not better.
How about cases?
In CA, of those who were vaccinated but had not previously had COVID, 15.5% got COVID
Of those unvaccinated but had had COVID, 5% got COVID Natural immunity was 3x better at preventing cases.
Now to the New York (NY) data:
Vaccinated, no prior COVID: 18.2% got a case of COVID.
Unvaccinated with prior COVID, 6.2% got COVID. Natural immunity was 3x better at preventing cases.
If you then take a look at the Figure, you are supposed to only notice the unbroken line representing cases in the unvaccinated who had no natural immunity.
FIGURE. Incident laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among immunologic cohorts defined by vaccination and previous diagnosis histories — California, May 30–November 13, 2021*,†
But turn your attention to the broken lines that hug the X axis of the graph. They reveal that from July till early November 2021, when the data collection ended, natural immunity provided better protection against hospitalization than vaccination.
How did CDC report this? They deliberately misrepresented the results, concluding that everyone needed vaccinations, even those with natural immunity.
Scientific misconduct is a crime when the researchers used DHHS funds for their research. Misrepresentation of results falls under the rubrik falsification. Here are CDC’s conclusions:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm
What are the implications for public health practice?
Although the epidemiology of COVID-19 might change as new variants emerge, vaccination remains the safest strategy for averting future SARS-CoV-2 infections, hospitalizations, long-term sequelae, and death. Primary vaccination, additional doses, and booster doses are recommended for all eligible persons. Additional future recommendations for vaccine doses might be warranted as the virus and immunity levels change.
[…]
Via https://merylnass.substack.com/p/ny-and-ca-data-on-30-million-americans
How Goldman Sachs profits from war in Ukraine, loophole in sanctions
Yahoo NewsGoldman Sachs, the giant New York investment bank, is cashing in on the war in Ukraine by selling Russian debt to U.S. hedge funds — and using a legal loophole in the Biden administration’s sanctions to do it.
As the Western world scrambles to defend Ukraine by locking down Russian money, the company is acting as a broker between Moscow’s creditors and U.S. investors, pitching clients on the opportunity to take advantage of Russia’s war-crippled economy by buying its debt securities low now and selling them high later, according to four financial world sources familiar with the strategy.
An investor who declined a Goldman trader’s offer to add Russian debt to his hedge fund’s portfolio — because of the war — said the trader suggested he could “just put it in your personal account” to avoid scrutiny.
That does not violate the U.S. sanctions regime, but it is very different from the public face Goldman is putting on its relationship with Russia. In an emailed statement, Goldman is telling the public that it is “winding down” its business in Russia, portraying its actions as supportive of America’s effort to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There is nothing illegal about brokering Russian debt trades. In fact, the Biden administration gave investment firms a green light to trade in Russian assets.
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said in an email Thursday: “Winding down our operations in Russia and supporting our clients around the globe in managing and closing out their market obligations are not mutually exclusive. We have robust systems and controls throughout our organization to ensure we are not trading with sanctioned counterparties.”
When U.S. officials sanctioned Russian banks this month, it became illegal for U.S. companies to do business directly with major Russian financial institutions. But the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, issued a memo affirming the legal legitimacy of trading Russian assets in “secondary markets” — those not directly involving the Russian banks. That’s why Goldman can act as a broker.
[…]
Via https://news.yahoo.com/goldman-sachs-profits-ukraine-war-004757561.html
Gazprom Halts Gas Shipments To Europe Via Critical Pipeline After EU Refuses To Pay in Rubles
Zero Hedge
After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.
GAZPROM HAS STOPPED DELIVERIES OF RUSSIAN GAS TO GERMANY VIA YAMAL-EUROPE PIPELINE
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 2, 2022
Instead of flowing toward Germany and the EU, gas supplies on Friday and Saturday started flowing in the opposite direction, according to Gascade, the network operator.
In recent months, the EU has already boosted imports of LNG from the US…
…and despite President Biden’s promise to bolster to exports to the EU (although he stipulated that not all of this additional capacity would come from the US), researchers at Goldman Sachs have already shown that US exports of LNG are already at capacity.
Another problem for pipeline-dependent Europe: the continent presently doesn’t have the infrastructure to allow it to rapidly ramp up imports of LNG, which must be carefully processed and “regassified” before it can be distributed to utilities and other distributors of energy.
But it’s not just the Germans who must now make due without Russian gas supplies. British energy major Shell is being cut off from Russian supplies in response to the UK’s economic sanctions on Russia, said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“London wants to be the leader of everything anti-Russian. It even wants to be ahead of Washington! That’s the cost!” Peskov outlined.
So far, the UK is the only country to have imposed sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian natural gas are made. The measure effectively denies Britain the ability to pay for the commodity, and has forced Gazprom to walk away from the sales and trading arm. In accordance with Putin’s decree that Russian gas be paid for in rubles, Gazprom has set up foreign-currency accounts for customers where their currencies can be converted into rubles on the Moscow exchange.
Now that Putin is turning up the pressure, the European nations have a difficult choice ahead: either they can play ball and demonstrate to the world that their efforts to wean themselves off of their dependence on Russian energy have been mostly in vain. Or they can face a “catastrophic” economic crisis as energy prices soar, leading to rationing, blackouts and other measures that will make the 1970s oil crisis in the US look like child’s play.
[…]
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazprom-halts-gas-shipments-europe-critical-pipeline
UK Sleepwalking Into Food Crisis
Zero Hedge
The National Farmers’ Union has warned the UK is sleepwalking into a food security crisis. Soaring energy and fertilizer costs have led to an unprecedented situation where growers’ margins have collapsed, forcing many to halt growing operations.
Reuters says because of the inclement weather in the UK. Farmers grow cumbers, plant peppers, aubergines, and tomatoes in vast greenhouses. Greenhouses use natural gas for heat, but after last year’s surge in gas prices exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, the crops have become uneconomical to produce.
Trade body British Growers said the average cost to produce a cucumber in Britain before the energy crisis was around 25 pence, which is now more than doubled and set to hit 70 pence when higher energy prices fully kick in.
“Gas prices being so sky-high, it’s a worrying time,” grower Tony Montalbano said.
“All the years of us working hard to get to where we are, and then one year it could just all finish,” Montalbano said.
He noted his 30,000 square meters of glasshouses at Green Acre Salads business, which supplies major supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons, are shuttered because costs outpace market prices. In fact, the farmer would be losing money if he were to grow.
Compared with this time last year, European gas prices are up a mindboggling 500%.
Fertilizer prices have tripled since last year, along with soaring prices for packaging, diesel, freight, labor, and everything related to running a grow operation.
“We are now in an unprecedented situation where the cost increases have far outstripped a grower’s ability to do anything about them,” said Jack Ward, head of British Growers.
With many greenhouses offline, this will inevitably push down the output of produce for supermarkets and result in persistent and or even higher food inflation when overall inflation is at historic levels.
To give an idea of just how bad the situation is, the Valley Growers Association, whose members produce about 75% of Britain’s cucumber and sweet pepper crop, said 90% of farmers didn’t plant in January. Others said they would not grow with elevated gas prices.
“There’s definitely going to be a lack of British produce in the supermarkets,” association secretary Lee Stiles said. “Whether there’s a lack of produce overall depends on where and how far away the retailers are prepared to source it from.“
The UK could increase imports of produce, but countries worldwide are implementing protectionism measures to keep farm goods domestically to mitigate shortages due to the Ukraine conflict disrupting the global food supply.
[…]
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