Dissecting Leftism

Thursday, September 29, 2022

We need to talk about "excess deaths"

Have both the vaccines and the lockdowns done long-term harm?

The Scottish Covid Recovery Committee is undertaking an inquiry into the cause of excess deaths. Data shows that the number of deaths in Scotland have been well above the 5-year average for most of the time since the pandemic began. Curiously, excess death figures far exceed those accounted for by Covid.

This long spate of unexpected deaths is highlighted by the recent passing of a notable Scottish athlete, 37-year-old Rab Wardell. He died from an apparent cardiac arrest while lying in bed next to his partner, Olympic champion Katie Archibald, two days after winning a Scottish mountain bike title.

Excess deaths are not only limited to Scotland – they have been noted around the globe.

While the death toll from Covid reached 5.94 million at the end of 2021, the WHO estimate excess deaths within the same time frame at around 15 million. A systematic analysis in The Lancet of deaths from around the world during 2020-21 put the figure of excess deaths at 18.2 million. This matches the model built by The Economist, which also suggests that the total excess deaths are over three times that accounted for by Covid. But most countries are (inconceivably) not actively investigating the causes of this mysterious mass death event.

What’s alarming is that excess deaths are increasing, even as Covid wanes.

If normal patterns were followed, the large number of excess deaths among the elderly, who are by far the most vulnerable to Covid, would have peaked in the first two years of the pandemic and then fallen to below-average levels in 2022 to compensate (as happens in bad flu seasons). However, excess deaths remain statistically higher than average for the elderly.

Excess deaths are also increasing in the young, again strongly suggesting that this is occurring for reasons other than Covid given the extremely low mortality rate for those under 40. The Telegraph reported on August 18 that, for the past 14 out of 15 weeks in England and Wales, there have been an average of 1,000 excess deaths each week, none of which were due to Covid.

There are various hypotheses to explain excess deaths.

From the early days of lockdowns, many warned of the negative consequences of such a blunt, draconian, and myopic strategy including the scientists from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford universities who drafted the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration and the tens of thousands of medical scientists and practitioners who have signed it.

Their concerns have sadly materialised. In America, deaths from drug overdose broke records in 2020 and 2021. They will likely do so again in 2022. In the UK and America, deaths from alcohol abuse increased by almost 19 per cent and 25.5 per cent, respectively. Youth suicide noticeably increased during the pandemic in the America, while a survey in Victoria found that nearly 10 per cent of Victorians, or some 600,000 people, seriously considered suicide during the height of the extended 2020 lockdown.

Furthermore, as I have written previously, the pandemic response has resulted in dramatic reductions in people seeking medical care for other deadly illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, leading to predictably protracted and elevated deaths from chronic illnesses that went undiagnosed and untreated, the debt of which will continue to manifest for years. Ironically, multiple studies have found no evidence that lockdowns reduced Covid deaths.

Another factor that has been little spoken about is mass vaccinations. This, dare we say it, unprecedented event needs to be considered in order to explain excess youth deaths.

A JAMA study that examined the data of over 192 million people in America who took the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna) found that the risk of myocarditis after receiving these vaccines was increased, especially in adolescent males.

An earlier JAMA study found that among the more than 2 million people in America who took mRNA vaccines, cases of pericarditis were even more numerous after vaccination than myocarditis.

A JAMA Cardiology study, examining more than 23 million people in four Nordic countries, also found increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccines, particularly in young males and especially after the second dose.

A recent paper in Circulation that examined more than 42 million people in England found that for men under the age of 40, the second dose of Moderna vaccine was associated with much higher incidents of myocarditis than SARS-CoV-2 infection itself.

Although the mechanism of how vaccines may be causing myocarditis remains unclear, a similar phenomenon had been described following smallpox vaccination in young people.

While the absolute numbers are fairly small, this phenomenon might well contribute to the sharp rise in the number of unexplained deaths among young athletes, which is a pattern seen globally across multiple sporting industries.

The negative effects of vaccines are not limited to inflammation of the heart. A thorough 2021 analysis of the Phase III trial data from Pfizer, Moderna, and Jansen vaccines concluded that they may have caused more negative side effects than having done good. The German Ministry of Health recently released a statement that the reporting rate of severe adverse reactions after a Covid vaccination in Germany was one in every 5,000 doses. Given most people have had at least two doses, the risk of severe adverse reaction is conceivably higher than one in every 2,000 vaccinated people.

Even for Covid itself, the vaccines may have negative effects. A September New England Journal of Medicine study found that in children between 5-11 years of age, the vaccines gave only temporary protection which then became negative within months (meaning that the vaccinated become more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated), whereas natural immunity from previous infection still offered around 50 per cent protection after a year. This begs the question, is the haphazard vaccination of children increasing their vulnerability to Covid?

The cultural tide regarding transparent analysis and public debate about vaccine adverse effects seems to be turning, while adult-like discussion has only recently become possible.

The former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson, who questioned the glowing vaccine PR in the early days of mass vaccine rollout, was banned from Twitter. He sued and won, as many of his criticisms and doubts have been shown to be accurate. What is most concerning is that the lawsuit revealed that the White House had pressured Twitter into banning Berenson, effectively curtailing journalistic inquiry into an issue affecting the entire human species. And Bereson is by no means the only one that had faced censorship.

If leaders around the world were willing to unscrupulously and severely disrupt the lives and livelihoods of billions of people for a virus that has killed 6.5 million people over two and a half years (for context, over 60 million people die each year), they are morally and ethically bound to at least investigate the causes of excess deaths that are three times as numerous, especially if some of the causes are likely the results of Covid policies. By the same token, those in leadership positions who had censored free inquiry, discussion, and debate during the pandemic should face serious scrutiny and consequences.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/we-need-to-talk-about-excess-censored/

***********************************************

California surgeon slams state's 'destructive' bill that would punish doctors for COVID 'misinformation'

A California surgeon spoke out Tuesday against a state bill that would punish doctors for spreading COVID-19 "misinformation" on key issues, including vaccinations and medications.

Dr. Peter Mazolewski, a board-certified general surgeon, ripped the proposal that now sits on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after legislative approval, telling host Dana Perino that the policy could be "destructive" and "dangerous."

"It'll be dangerous to patient care, it'll be destructive in the sense that there will be no scientific progression," he said on "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.

Mazolewski warned that the bill could also establish a "dangerous" precedent for similar bills to come, particularly for those concerning other medical conditions.

He added that the repercussions of restrictive medical information laws could be disastrous, creating a mass exodus from the industry across the state.

"We all know that there's been contemporary scientific consensus regarding COVID that has been wrong. It has actually been refuted partially and fully," he said.

"We can go back to many issues: One percent mortality, closing schools is healthy for our children, wearing masks helps prevent the dissemination, [if you get] vaccines you won't get ill at all, vaccines won't allow for transmission of disease. We know all of these have been refuted," he added.

Mazolewski said California medical boards would be empowered to determine appropriate punishments for doctors who commit relevant offenses.

In a joint Fox News op-ed, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Dr. Pierre Kory urged Newsom to "kill this terrible bill and prevent a hostile takeover of medicine by oppressive government censors."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-surgeon-slams-states-destructive-bill-punish-doctors-covid-misinformation

********************************************************

Record Deaths in Australia from COVID-19 Despite 96.4% of 16+ Fully Vaxxed

Despite the fact that the population of Australia is nearly universally vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, TrialSite has reported that record numbers of deaths accumulated at the beginning of 2022. This is despite the universal protection of the vaccine. Yet breakthrough infections led to growing numbers of deaths in the most at-risk cohorts such as the elderly.

Now, mainstream media starts to acknowledge the trend. Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald reports in “COVID complications Push Australian deaths to highest number in 40 years,” that based on an analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics population data that total deaths nationwide are 18% higher in the quarter when compared to the prior year, rising from 36,100 to 46,200 deaths.

Labeled as “COVID-19’s hidden impact,” more people have died in Australia in the March quarter than any time in the last 41 years. Half the deaths in this period were from COVID despite an overwhelming vaccination rate.

Australia is one of the most vaccinated populations in the world against COVID-19 yet as TrialSite reported earlier this year has experienced unprecedented pandemic related deaths. Does this trend evidence a failure of the COVID-19 vaccines?

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/record-deaths-in-australia-from-covid-19-despite-96.4-of-16-fully-vaxxed-9cff928d

****************************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

**************************************************

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Personality Typology in the Health Field

The article excerpted below is "deja vu all over again" for me. It starts out with a respectful mention of the old "type A" hypothesis about what personality type is most associated with heart disease. That shows how slow people are to learn from the evidence. The association between Type A personality and heart disease is simply not usually found. The hypothesis is a failed one. The measure used to detect a Type A was the JAS, which is psychometrically ludicrous, so its repeated failure to give the expected prediction is no surprise.

I did rather a lot of original research on the topic in the '80s, which you can find here

Bsically, all the "types" associated with cancer and heart disease suffered from over-inclusiveness. They combined into one several different personality traits. And if you de-confounded the set of traits you got better results.

I found, for instance, in my research that if you took just one of the components of Type A, which I called "freneticsm" you got both a more unidimensional trait and one which DID predict heart disease to some degree. The items of the new Freneticism scale are here

I am not aware of any follow-up on that by other authors but that is typical of the field. Nobody ever seems to learn anything from the overall body of research. Exciting bits are all that get attention

The most persuasive paper on personality and heart disease is probably the one by Eysenck, wherein he summarises the results of his collaboration with Grossarth-Maticek. At least some of Grossarth-Maticek's measures were however also rather poor psychometrically so some reservations about the results have to be held.

Temoshok and her colleagues expanded on Friedman and Rosenman’s idea of a “Type C” behavior pattern. Whereas Type B is the absence of Type A characteristics, they proposed that the Type C behavior pattern was constructed to be the polar opposite of Type A. These were hypothesized to exist on a spectrum, with Type A on one end, and Type C on the other.

According to Temsok and her colleagues, people conforming to a Type C behavior pattern are characterized as cooperative, patient, and unassertive. They suppress negative emotions, including anger, and comply with authorities. They may also feel helpless, hopeless, and with tendencies toward depression.

People with Type C personalities have a number of strengths. They are typically calm with a consistent and controlled demeanor. They tend to be creative and cooperate easily with others. They can be dedicated to their projects, helpful, and thoughtful about planning for the future.

However, they can also be resistant to conflict, which can sometimes turn into emotional repression. They can also be prone to perfectionism, anxiety, pessimism, or even depression. They have a tendency to defer their own needs to the needs of others.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a Type C personality, it may come with an increased risk of some health issues.

And one of them could be cancer.

Repressed Emotions and Cancer

In a study in the European Journal of Personality, Hans Eysenck and colleagues sought to determine whether personality types might predict deaths from heart disease and cancer. They gave 3,235 European subjects interviews and personality assessments to determine various personality traits. Then they tracked these subjects over the course of 10 years.

At the end of the 10-year period, the subjects were contacted again. If they had died, the researchers reviewed the cause of their death from their death certificates. In that way, the research team was able to connect personality traits with the ultimate cause of death.

At the 10-year follow-up, they found that 1,341 individuals from their original sample had died. These they categorized into different personality types based on their earlier personality assessments.

They found that 45 percent of those with what these researchers called “Type I” personality traits (similar to Temshok’s Type C behavior pattern in that they inhibit emotions) died of cancer. This group was much less likely to die of other causes, like heart disease.

Similarly, people that Eysenck categorized as “Type II” (which is similar to Temshok’s Type A behavior pattern of people with high stress) were much more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. They also found that people with other patterns of personality were less likely to die from either cancer or cardiovascular diseases.

Eysenck’s study suggests that the only relevant personality characteristics for cancer risk are repressing feelings or inhibiting closeness with loved ones.

Other research suggests it’s a tendency towards depressive symptoms that matter most.

For example, one systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 studies that together included over 1.4 million participants found a significant association between depression and overall cancer risk. Tendencies toward depression make up an important part of what we call the Type C personality.

Similarly, another review of 70 longitudinal prospective studies on personality research found that helplessness and repression of emotions are perhaps the most promising in explaining a potential contribution of personality on cancer prognosis.

People with Type C personalities also tend to be cooperative. Social support—having a strong network of family and close friends—was found to be a protective factor against this type of Cancer. Some aspects of Type C personality may actually foster health.

So rather than it being a Type C behavior pattern that’s associated with cancer, it may actually be a few traits within that pattern that matter most.

Does Personality Influence Cancer Risk?

If there really is an influence of personality on cancer risk, how would that work? What’s the physical mechanism?

One explanation is that people who often feel depressed have decreased lymphocyte proliferation and an overall decreased function in the body’s anti-cancer and anti-viral immunity. This may create greater susceptibility to cancer.

Indeed, in one prospective case-control study out of Finland, researchers found that patients with breast cancer were significantly more likely to have a high commitment—a feature of Type C personalities.

They suggest that it could be that the Type C pattern “could contribute to cancer risk through immune and hormonal pathways.” In other words, it may not be the personality traits themselves that affect cancer risk, but that patterns of thinking and behavior could impact the body’s immune system and hormones, and those changes may influence cancer risk.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/an-utterly-unexpected-risk-factor-for-malignant-melanoma_4746342.html

*****************************************************

Doctor Turns Against Messenger RNA COVID-19 Vaccines, Calls for Global Pause

A doctor who promoted COVID-19 vaccines is now calling for health authorities around the world to pause the administration of two of the most-widely utilized COVID-19 vaccines, saying that the benefits from the vaccines may not outweigh the risks.

“There is more than enough evidence—I would say the evidence is overwhelming—to pause the rollout of the vaccine,” Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist and evidence-based medicine expert, told The Epoch Times.

A paper from Malhotra detailing the evidence was published on Sept. 26.

Among the citations is a recent reanalysis of the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials that concluded that vaccinated trial participants were at higher risk of serious adverse events. He called the study a “smoking gun.”

Malhotra also pointed to the lack of reduction in mortality or severe disease in the trials, which were completed in 2020.

Taking into account death rates and other figures since then, the number of people who need to be vaccinated to prevent a single COVID-19 death ranges from 93,000 for people aged 18–29 to 230 for people aged 80 and older, according to an analysis of UK safety and effectiveness data by the Health Advisory & Recovery Team.

The author also noted that serious side effects have been detected after the trials, such as myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation.

Overall, looking at the absolute benefits and drawbacks of the vaccines, it’s time to halt their usage and allow authorities and other experts to closely examine the data to see if the vaccines should be used again down the road, according to Malhotra.

The paper was published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in two parts following peer review.

Pfizer and Moderna didn’t return requests for comment.

Reversal of Opinion

Malhotra received the Pfizer primary series in January 2021. He became a promoter of the vaccine, even appearing on “Good Morning Britain” to advise Indian film director Gurinder Chadha to get the vaccine. Chadha did so shortly after.

Malhotra said he began digging into vaccine data after his father, Dr. Kailash Chand, suffered a cardiac arrest at home approximately six months after receiving Pfizer’s vaccine.

The post-mortem showed two of Chand’s major arteries were severely blocked, even though Malhotra described his father as a fit person who didn’t have any significant heart problems.

Malhotra began reading about post-vaccination issues, including a study abstract in the journal Circulation that identified a higher risk of a heart attack following vaccination with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and a study from Nordic countries that identified a higher risk of myocarditis.

While authorities have claimed that myocarditis is more common after COVID-19 than vaccination, many studies have found otherwise, at least for certain age groups. Some papers have found no increased incidence of heart inflammation for COVID-19 patients.

Malhotra has come to believe that his father’s death was linked to the vaccine.

“I’ve always approached medicine and science with uncertainties because things constantly evolve. And the information I had at the time is completely different to the information I have now,” Malhotra told The Epoch Times. “And in fact, it is my duty and responsibility as the information has changed to act on that information. And that’s what I’m doing.”

Response to Criticism

After the new paper was published, critics noted that Malhotra is a board member of the Journal of Insulin Resistance.

He acknowledged the position but said the article went through an independent peer review process and that he has no financial links to the journal.

The doctor encouraged people to view his publication history, which includes articles in the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

He said he chose to submit the paper to the insulin journal for several reasons, including it being “one of the few journals that doesn’t take money from the pharmaceutical industry.”

“I don’t think that there’s any validity to question the integrity of the piece,” he said. “People can argue I’ve got an intellectual bias. We all have intellectual biases, but there’s certainly no financial bias for me.”

Paper Gains Support

Leading scientists say the new paper is important. “We fully believe that vaccines are one of the great discoveries in medicine that has improved life expectancy dramatically, however, mRNA genetic vaccines are different, as long-term safety evaluation is lacking but mandatory to ensure public safety,” Sherif Sultan, president of the International Society of Vascular Surgery, said in a statement.

Sultan also noted that the findings “raise concerns regarding vaccine-induced undetected severe cardiovascular side effects and underscore the established causal relationship between vaccines and myocarditis, a frequent cause of unexpected cardiac arrest in young individuals.”

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Stanford, said that Malhotra “makes a good case that there is considerable heterogeneity across age groups and other comorbid conditions in the expected benefits and expected side effect profiles of the vaccine” and “finds that while there may be a case for older people to take the vaccine because the benefits may outweigh expected harm that may not be the case for younger people.”

Dr. Campbell Murdoch, who advises the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the study “describes multiple systemic failures in the provision of safe and effective evidence-based medicine” and the situation has made it “impossible for patients and the public to make an informed choice about what is best for their health and life.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-pro-vaccine-doctor-calls-for-global-pause-of-messenger-rna-covid-19-vaccines_4754871.html

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Did the COVID Unvaccinated Fare Better or Worse Than the Vaccinated? The Results suggest no advantage from vaccination

After the fast spread of the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from China to the Western world, several large pharmaceutical companies quickly invented and manufactured COVID-19 vaccines, which were then made available to the public through emergency use authorization (EUA). And in late 2020, people around the world started to receive these vaccines.

According to Our World in Data, to date, 67.9 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. While only 22.5 percent of people in low-income countries have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination rates of developed countries are generally high—typically around 80 percent. For instance, the COVID-19 vaccination rates of the G7 countries are: 79.19 percent in the United States, 86.96 percent in Canada, 80.92 percent in France, 77.66 percent in Germany, 85.82 percent in Italy, 83.60 percent in Japan, and 79.97 percent in the UK.

However, in all countries and regions around the world, there are people who elect not to receive the COVID-19 vaccines for various reasons. They are a naturally occurring control group, as opposed to the vaccinated population (i.e. the experimental group). Indeed, the whole COVID-19 vaccine campaigns can be regarded as the unprecedented largest human clinical trials on vaccine safety, by design or not, as the vaccines’ long term safety data was not available when they were provided to people under EUA. Then, the unvaccinated population in different parts of the world are very unique large control groups in such a global clinical trial.

Due to the highly valuable health data of this unvaccinated population, between October 2021 and February 2022, a UK-based organization called Control Group Cooperative (CGC) independently collected their self-reported data on their health status, reasons for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, whether they have been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the severity of their symptoms for the ones that did get infected, and whether they’ve been subject to discrimination or victimization.

These data have then been analyzed by a team of researchers, who are entirely independent of the CGC and have received no funding for interpreting the findings of the CGC survey. Their recent report on their findings has been published on the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, which is a peer-reviewed scholarly open access journal.

What Is the Control Group Cooperative?

The Control Group Cooperative was founded in July 2021 to defend people’s inalienable rights to freedom of choice and bodily integrity. Actually, one of the core principles in public health is the respect of autonomy. The group is particularly concerned with the marginalization and stigmatization of COVID-19 unvaccinated communities around the world. The stakeholders of the cooperative believe that they are making a positive contribution to society by collecting health data from both the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated and the unvaccinated to facilitate a truly comparative analysis.

Their rationale is that there is no existing official control group designated by the governments or health authorities. However, since all the existing COVID-19 vaccines are experimental, and a true scientific experiment (i.e. a controlled experiment) requires at least one group (i.e. the control group) that doesn’t receive the experimental treatment, then the COVID-19 vaccine treatments must have a control group as well in order to properly evaluate their long-term efficacy and safety.

As of now, over 305,000 participants who have voluntarily elected to not be inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines, from over 175 countries have signed up to become part of the control group.

By joining the control group, the participants receive an ID card, which indicates that they “must not be vaccinated” due to their participation. The CGC stated on its website that this ID card is “not an official or legal exemption in any country.” Although these ID cards aren’t recognized by any authorities, many participants have reported that they had helped them avoid vaccination without informed consent, supported their position, and facilitated discussion with others.

Some governments and media personnel have tried to discredit the CGC by calling it a “potential scam.” For instance, upon discovering several ID cards issued by the CGC, the provincial government of Manitoba in Canada posted on its Twitter account that “data collected through the platform could not be used in an official trial to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated people,” as per a UK health body. However, the UK’s Medicines and Health Care products Regulatory Agency stated that the collection of health data from the public does not need its approval.

To be fair, it is very hard to evaluate the accuracy of the survey results from such a large scale global survey. It is also very challenging to evaluate whether the volunteers in this study are heavily biased or not. But, there is no clinical trial that could be designed at such a global scale, and the world needs the health data regarding this population. Therefore, even though the results from this study cannot be as well-designed as a regular clinical trial, the merit of this study cannot be simply denied for providing such valuable data from unique angles.

Findings of an Independent Analysis of the CGC Survey
When joining the CGC’s control group, the participants agree to fill out a monthly survey about their health status.

The aforementioned analysis was performed by a multinational team of independent researchers on the data collected from a cohort over a five month period from October 2021 to February 2022.

This cohort of 18,497 people is a sub-group of all participants (297,618 people as of late February 2022), and they had been carefully selected to be representative of the full dataset.

In the cohort, the largest unvaccinated populations are from Europe (40 percent), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand; 27 percent), and North America (United States and Canada; 25 percent). The respondents are from a total of 68 countries and six continents.

Among the 96.3 percent of the survey participants who disclosed their gender, 57 percent were female, and 43 percent were male. The largest numbers of respondents were found in the 50 to 69 age group, who are considered by the health authorities as at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection and severe illness/death after infection than the general public. The number of participants between the ages of 40 and 49 was also relatively large.

According to the survey, the five leading reasons behind the cohort’s decision to not receive COVID-19 vaccines include preference for natural medicine interventions, distrust of pharmaceutical interventions, distrust of government information on the vaccines, poor or limited trial study data, and fear of long-term side effects. They were of nearly equal importance. Each respondent could select more than one reason that he/she considered equally important.

From the results, we can see that the participants were not refusing medical treatment, nor were they not caring of their own health, as sometimes portrayed by the media and/or authorities. To these unvaccinated people, they just did not think that there is only one way (the vaccine way) to help them medically, and they have been reasonably conservative in taking new vaccine products. No scientist in the world can claim that we understand every aspect of the new vaccine products.

Furthermore, since vaccine development in the past took 10 to 15 years on average to complete, many people are skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccines, which were invented so quickly by several major pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson) after receiving hefty funding from the U.S., German, and other governments. Moreover, the messenger RNA (mRNA) platform, based on which the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were invented, is a new technology, which hadn’t been used to produce vaccines previously.

Even before the vaccines were implemented, people knew that RNA molecules were unstable in the human body. However, the mRNA generated in the new vaccines have been modified to keep them more stable. Therefore, we don’t know whether any side effects from these modified mRNA molecules would be immediate, delayed, transient, or long term. Therefore, it’s reasonable for some people to want to wait and see the long-term effects of these new mRNA vaccines and to not trust their limited trial data.

Physical and Mental Health Status of the Unvaccinated Cohort

1) COVID-19 infection before survey

Prior to taking the survey, less than 20 percent of the participants had been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with the majority of the people aging from 20 to 69 years old.

2) COVID-19 infection during five month period

During the five month period from October 2021 through February 2022, in most parts of the world, the highly transmissible Omicron variant became the most prevalent strain, replacing the previously dominant Delta variant. As a result, many people became infected.

Most respondents reporting suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection on the survey questionnaire were between 20 to 69 years old, which is consistent with the infection situation prior to the survey. Specifically, the age group from 20 to 49 years old accounted for 10.7 percent of the respondents; and the age group from 50 to 69 years old accounted for 12.3 percent.

3) Severe illness situation of the infected respondents

Given that society had found no way to stop the spread of the Omicron variant, many were infected during this time period—this included many asymptomatic infections. Therefore, our main concern is with the respondents of the cohort who were seriously ill and/or hospitalized.

Fortunately, in the vast majority of the cases, the patients’ symptoms were mild and moderate. The rate of severe illness appeared to be very low (around 2 percent of all respondents). Only 74 individuals among the 5,196 (1.4 percent) confirmed or suspected infected respondents reported that they were hospitalized. This percentage might not be very accurate, as people who are very sick or hospitalized might not be healthy enough or willing to participate in this kind of survey. So, objectively, this kind of survey will have data skewing towards more healthy targets.

Nevertheless, the data here still indicates that this group of unvaccinated people were not more prone to the infection by Omicron, even though they were not protected by the vaccines. Otherwise, the percentage of infection and hospitalization rates among this group of people would be much higher. Therefore, this is a very important piece of data, as well as the core observation in this study.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-covid-unvaccinated-are-the-control-group-heres-how-they-fared_4745779.html

Monday, September 26, 2022

Potential Temporal Association Found Between Guillain-Barré Syndrome and COVID-19 Vaccination in Pediatrics

How do you like that heading? It's a typical academic heading that seems designed to make your brain freeze, is it not? But there is a serious issue involved and I think I can explain it simply.

The underlying issue is a serious one: What should we make of rare side-effects after any medical treatment? Conventionally they are a big deal. Whole medications -- such as Vioxx -- have been withdrawn when only a few serious side effects out of millions of doses have been reported. Millions had a good result from taking the medication but they were ignored. The tiny number who reported bad side-effects ruled the day. A helpful medication was withdrawn because it MIGHT kill you.

Is that rational? I don't think so. All medical and surgical procedures involve some risk. And we tolerate rather large risks sometimes. Paracetamol (Tylenol) kills thousands every year by destroying their livers yet it is regarded as a "safe" drug. Aspirin is actually safer

Much as I hate using a favorite Leftist phrase, I think we just have to tolerate rare events "for the good of the many". And I am strongly reinforced in that view by the fact that we can never be sure what the cause of the rare event was. The rare event may have immediately followed the medical intervention but that is no proof that the medication CAUSED the rare event. Side-effects can be important but rare side effects should be ignored in my view.

So we now come to Covid and the horrible Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Do 11 cases out of millions matter? If your kid got a horrible illness after receiving a Covid vaccine, would that matter? Every parent concerned would say it does

Fortunately or not, this is an even less clear-cut finding than usual. The incidence of GBS among kids who got the vaccine was not different from the normal incidence. What WAS of concern, however is that the onset of GBS among vaccine recipients FOLLOWED CLOSELY on receiving the vaccine -- creating the impressoion that it was the vaccine which caused the problem. And, as the philosopher David Hume contended a couple of centuries ago, conjunction in time is the WHOLE of causation. Hume however spoke of CONSTANT conjunction and the conjunction here was anything but constant.

So the jury is still out. There are some elements in the medical comnmunity who would see the findings below as troubling but I do not

My own account of causation is here

From the pre-COVID period to 6 weeks after vaccination, the reporting rate of GBS was significantly different, regardless of whether Brighton criteria was applied to the analysis. The authors noted that passive surveillance limitations warrant further analysis.

Findings from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database showed that although the prevalence of Guillain-Barré (GBS) syndrome following COVID-19 vaccination was not different in pediatrics compared with the general population, there was an increased prevalence within the first 6 weeks following vaccination, suggesting a potential temporal associaiton.1 The investigators noted that these findings warrant caution, as they were based off passive surveillance.

The study, presented at the 2022 American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) annual meeting, September 21-24, in Nashville, Tennessee, compared the rate of pediatric GBS following COVID-19 vaccination to the rate after influenza, human papillomavirus (HPV), and meningococcal vaccinations. Investigators used a pre-COVID period (October 2018-August 2019), prevaccine period (January 2020-November 2020), and vaccine period (December 2020-October 2021), as well as a risk period of probably cause-effect relationship, defined as 6 weeks post vaccination.

Led by Nizar Souayah, MD, Department of Neurology, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, the findings showed that the rates for GBS after COVID-19 vaccination were within the incidence rate of GBS typically reported in children. In total, there were 31, 3, 1, and 1 cases of GBS reported after COVID-19, influenza, HPV, and meningococcal vaccinations, respectively. Between vaccinations, the reporting rate of GBS after COVID-19 vaccination was significantly higher than the others, at 12.45 per 10 million (P <.005), followed by influenza (1.63), meningococcal (1.19), and HPV vaccinations (1.07).

High Proportion of Zilucoplan Responders Identified in Secondary Analysis of RAISE Trial
After 12 weeks of treatment with zilucoplan 0.3 mg/kg, almost three-fourths of patients demonstrated at least a 3-point reduction in Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living scores.

Using self-controlled and case centered analysis, the reported rate of GBS after COVID-19 vaccination between the risk and control periods was significantly different (90.32% vs 9.7%, respectively; P <.0001). The findings remained similar when all patients, regardless of Brighton criteria, were included.

COVID-19 has been shown to be associated with several of neurological complications, including GBS, which has been more prominently throughout the pandemic. Recent work by Kayla E. Hanson, MPH, et al further suggested an increased risk of GBS following COVID-19 vaccination with Ad.26.COV2.S (Janssen). The analysis comprised of 15,120,073 doses of COVID-19 vaccines from December 2020 to November 2021, including 483,053 Ad.26.COV2.S doses; 8,806,595 BNY162b2 doses; and 5,830,425 mRNA-1273 doses.

In total, 11 cases of GBS were reported in those vaccinated with Ad.26.COV2.S, resulting in an unadjusted incidence rate of 32.4 (95% CI, 14.8-61.5) per 100,000 person-years in the 1 to 21 days following vaccination that was significantly higher than the background rate. Overall, the adjusted risk ratio (RR) in the 1 to 21 vs 22 to 42 days following Ad.26.COV2.S vaccination was 6.03 (95% CI, 0.79-147.79). The unadjusted incidence rate of GBS after mRNA vaccines was 1.3 (95% CI, 0.7-2.4), and when compared with Ad.26.COV2.S vaccines, the adjusted RR was 20.56 (95% CI, 6.94-64.66).2

https://www.neurologylive.com/view/potential-increased-risk-guillain-barr-syndrome-pediatric-patients-following-covid-19-vaccination

***************************************************

FDA vaccine adviser warns healthy young people should NOT get new COVID booster: Says it's 'unfair to make them take a risk' after data suggested shot was not as effective as first batch

A top vaccine expert and pediatric doctor is cautioning parents of healthy young people to hold off getting the new COVID booster shot, saying it can carry risks and its efficacy hasn't yet been proven.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Advisory Committee, said he's not fully sold on the benefits of a third shot outweighing the harm.

'Who really benefits from another dose?' Offit said on CNN.

He did acknowledge that studies have shown people who are over 65, immuno-compromised or have a chronic ailments are less likely to be hospitalized with the virus if they've had a third or even fourth shot.

The newly developed dose, called a bivalent vaccine, is a cocktail of the original coronavirus strain combined with parts of the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. The hope being that people would be able to fight a broader range of more highly contagious virus mutations.

But writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Offitt said preliminary data suggested the new bivalent vaccines were actually worse at warding off COVID infections than the first generation of shots.

He highlighted data comparing Moderna's original COVID vaccine and its new bivalent update. Of a test group given both shots, 11 people who'd received bivalent vaccines contracted the virus, while just five people who received the original 'monovalent' shot caught COVID.

Offit warned that the Biden administration that 'overselling' the new bivalent vaccines without more data could 'erode the public's trust' in them.

He explained that the FDA's recent approval of a the new vaccine cooked up by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech comes with little assurances and some risks.

'A healthy young person is unlikely to benefit from the extra dose,' he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that vaccine side-effects, like myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart's outer lining, are rare, but they most often occur in adolescents and young men.

Myocarditis can even be fatal, with young people far less likely to suffer a severe COVID infection than older people.

'When you are asking people to get a vaccine, I think there has to be clear evidence of benefit,' he said, adding that it's unrealistic to have clinical trials of the latest dose. 'You'd like to have, at least, human data,' he said. So far, the only tests on the new shots have been done on lab mice.

'Right now they're saying we should trust mouse data,' he said, 'and I don't think that should ever be true.'

Offit voted against approval of the new vaccine.

'If there's not clear evidence of benefit, then it's not fair, I think, to ask people to take a risk no matter how small,' Offit said.

The doctor recently cautioned that pushing the new shot without the supporting evidence risks 'eroding the public's trust.'

He said the studies regarding the bivalent vaccine so far were 'underwhelming.'

The increased emphasis on boosters is at odds with President Joe Biden's recent announcement that 'the pandemic is over.'

'The pandemic is over,' Biden told 60 Minutes. 'We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, and so I think it's changing.'

The president's declaration runs counter with what his administration's health officials have been saying.

'We have a virus out there that's still circulating, still killing hundreds of Americans every day,' White House COVID-19 response coordinator, Ashish Jha, said at a September 9 press briefing.

'I think we all as Americans have to pull together to try to protect Americans … and do what we can to get our health-care system through what might be a difficult fall and winter ahead.'

He also may have submarined his own $22.4 billion request to Congress to continue the fight against the virus.

There have been about 54,000 new cases of the virus on average over the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins University, with about 400 Americans succumbing to the virus every day.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11247181/FDA-vaccine-adviser-says-healthy-young-people-SHOULDNT-COVID-booster.html

Sunday, September 25, 2022

BBC Collaborates with Facebook to Purge Vaccine-Injured Groups Online

A major media member of the [Leftist] Trusted News Initiative (TNI) has warned a primary tech member about vaccine injury groups gaming the system to avoid algorithm detection and thus scrutiny.

In what could be described as a dangerous move, the BBC collaborates with Facebook to shut down vaccine injury support groups by universally referring to them as “anti-vaccine” or “anti-vaxxers” and calling out the ways that they use carrot emojis to hide from Facebook their true identity. Members of the TNI are collaborating to purge social media participants that are part of vaccine-injured groups. Even if some of them, or even many of them, are in fact vaccine injured, the policies of the BBC and Facebook, as well as other media and social tech companies assume that there are absolutely no vaccine-injured persons and that such persons have no rights whatsoever to share their stories.

The BBC reports that “several groups, one with hundreds of thousands of members, in which the emoji appears in place of the word ‘vaccine.’” The BBC’s Zoe Kleinman wrote that Facebook parent company Meta was alerted, and the groups were removed.

According to a statement from Facebook:

“We have removed this group for violating our harmful misinformation policies and will review any other similar content in line with this policy. We continue to work closely with public health experts and the UK government to further tackle Covid vaccine misinformation.”

Yet the BBC’s Kleinman reports that the groups are back even though they were taken down from Facebook. According to Kleinman, the groups the BBC and Facebook label as anti-vax groups sought to rebrand themselves as places where people can share vaccine stories, for example sharing “banter, bets and funny video.”

But behind the scenes, the groups were using code words for communication purposes. For example, “Do not use the c word, v word or b word ever” (covid, vaccine booster). The particular group has 250,000 members.

Marc Owen-Jones, a misinformation specialist at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, shared that instead of using words such as “Covid-19” or “Vaccine,” the group was instructed to use emojis of carrots as an example apparently to evade the fake news detection algorithms reports Ms. Kleinman.

In the BBC piece, it’s identified that an Online Safety Bill could come into law which would lead to “steep penalties for failing to identify removing harmful material on their platforms.”

What if there are actually vaccine-injured persons? Currently, the BBC doesn’t recognize that there are actually adverse events and some deaths, albeit rare, that occur with the COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, even at a rare rate of one-tenth of one percent hundreds, this would translate into hundreds of thousands of vaccines injured in the United States alone.

TrialSite has been chronicling dozens of deaths from COVID-19 vaccines involving governments making compensatory payouts. Is it not allowed by the Trusted News Initiative to speak the truth about this situation? In the United States, over 224 million people have received at least a primary series vaccine in the USA. Estimates of vaccine injury in the USA vary from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands and possibly even over one million.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 2022, 16,336 preliminary death reports have been recorded although just because such an incident is reported in VAERS doesn’t mean that the event is correlated to the vaccination.

TrialSite’s founder Daniel O’Connor went on the record, “Do individuals that are actually injured by COVID-19 vaccines have a right to share their situation, their stories on any social media? Of course, they should. There is something terribly off if such a reality is constantly being covered up.”

Of course, this kind of group is quite different from a truly anti-vaccine-focused activist group that stands opposed to all modern vaccines. TrialSite recently launched a suite of social features including authoring, Q&As, and groups. Separate from its media platform—which focuses on objective, unbiased news which includes articles that report on the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as challenges that may surface—features such as TrialSite Groups exist to allow people to communicate and engage on topics involving medical research, less the fear of censorship.

TrialSite’s O’Connor shared, “There are legitimate vaccine injured groups such as React19. They have lots of members that are really suffering and it's not fair that these groups are censored. That is why we have partnered with groups such as this one to ensure they receive objective, unbiased coverage from media and that alternatives to Facebook are in place—social tech platforms that won’t profile and censor people just because they represent an inconvenient truth for certain centers of power and authority.”

TrialSite connected with React19 https://react19.org/co-founder Brianne Dressen who informed the media that in their support groups with “well over 20 thousand Covid vaccine injuries have been systematically shut down leaving us no choice but to reboot and hope people find us. These groups are an essential source of support and for many they are a lifeline. These people are disabled and are not allowed to talk about what happened to them. If they do talk about it, they are punished. If they persist, they will be isolated from their community and eventually shut down all-together.”

But why would someone legitimately injured not be able to talk about their actual health condition or situation. TrialSite’s Daniel O’Connor shared “that’s because this pandemic has been thoroughly politicized. The confluence of government health and media industry powers have driven a paradigm for combatting Covid-19 which includes a universal vaccination scheme as a means of controlling the virus, however imperfect the strategy.

It’s like a war—in fact legally it is a sort of war given the contracts government established with industry fall under establish defense-like countermeasures against an invisible enemy—in this case an RNA virus.” So how the government has set up and executed this pandemic response has left little to no means for people injured by the vaccine—and there are recognized side effects, adverse events and actual injuries albeit rare, even deaths.” Like in any war the TrialSite founder continued “there will be innocent casualties.” He continued “and hence the unprecedented coordination between government, corporate media and big tech to systematically censor countervailing discussions that are quickly identified and labeled as misinformation.”

React19’s Dressen further pointed out the growing plight of the vaccine injured “Cutting off a sick person’s connection to others and not allowing them to talk about their disease, the outcome is catastrophic. This has led to permanent disability and in some cases death. It is truly barbaric that this has been done so deliberately on such a large scale with cooperation of governments, tech companies and the media. Not only is this permitted but it is encouraged and celebrated. This censorship is abuse and discrimination against the disabled. Until this changes, good people will remain sick, many will decline, and some will die. I wish that was an exaggeration, but that is the facts.”

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/bbc-collaborates-with-facebook-to-purge-vaccine-injured-groups-online-f05740be

*********************************************************

Australia’s disastrous ‘Zero Covid’ experiment

What if I told you that lockdowns and zero-Covid mania did far more harm than good to human life?

Unlike sharp lockdowns in Europe and the Americas, Australia’s early lockdown in March 2020 did reduce Covid cases to zero for a time. Flush with this success, Australia imposed sharp travel restrictions on Covid-ravaged countries around the world. Australian ex-pat citizens were barred from coming home, even if their visit was to care for elderly parents suffering from isolation.

Despite this extraordinary policy, Covid kept coming back to Australia. Over and over again, entire regions were locked down whenever a few cases were found. Through October of 2021, Melbourne’s residents had suffered through nearly 270 days of lockdown – the most in the world.

Schools closed and children suffered. Vital medical treatments were delayed or cancelled, including for cancer patients. The initial purpose of the lockdowns was to protect the Australian healthcare system, but even in 2021, when there was almost no Covid circulating, queues for care lengthened. Depression and anxiety levels skyrocketed, especially among young people. Thousands of small businesses shut down forever.

Australia’s initial zero-Covid ‘success’ created a trap. Official public health exaggerated the risk of death from Covid. This, despite the fact that studies found that Covid infection primarily poses a high 5 per cent+ mortality risk for unvaccinated elderly people. For the young, survival rates exceeded 99.9 per cent. For young and old Australians alike, the lockdowns imposed far more harm than Covid.

Public support for lockdown stayed high in Australia on the heels of public health propaganda that Covid infection posed a high risk of death for all, regardless of age or underlying health condition. And the government obliged, implicitly promising a zero-Covid future that it knew it would never be able to deliver.

The advent of a vaccine in December 2020 should have provided a way out of the zero-Covid trap. At great cost, the lockdown policy had ‘worked’, but there was no endpoint to it that did not involve isolation from the international community forever.

Perhaps complacent because of its zero-Covid ‘success’, the government delayed securing contracts with vaccine manufacturers. Since lockdown was popular, It did not feel the urgency to vaccinate that the rest of the world felt. At the beginning of August 2021, only 16 per cent of Australians were fully vaccinated.

And the public health officials used the vaccination campaign to chase an impossible goal – herd immunity through universal vaccination. Covid spread in many countries with high levels of vaccination, infecting vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike. The vaccine, effective in reducing mortality risk from Covid infection for the elderly, is ineffective at stopping disease spread. Nevertheless, government and public health officials demonised the unvaccinated, often rendering them second-class citizens.

When the Omicron wave arrived, the inevitable happened in Australia. Zero-Covid and lockdowns failed, and the disease spread everywhere. By May 2022, Australia passed America in total Covid cases per capita, and by August 2022, Australia passed the European Union. If Australian policy aimed to keep Australia free of Covid, it failed.

With two and a half years of hindsight, an evaluation of Australia’s lockdown-focused zero-Covid strategy is possible. On the plus side, Australia delayed the inevitable spread of Covid throughout the population to a time after the development, testing, and deployment of a vaccine. Despite having experienced more Covid cases per capita than the US, it has a fraction of the number of Covid-attributable deaths per capita.

On the negative side is the tremendous burden on the Australian population that has come from being isolated from the rest of the world for such a long time and from the intermittent lockdowns the government imposed on the people. All-cause excess deaths – below baseline levels in 2020 – were 3 per cent above baseline in 2021, despite zero-Covid, and are far above baseline thus far in 2022. Among the causes of this spike in excess deaths are the lockdowns themselves.

After the vaccine arrived, Australia’s decision to use it to free itself from its zero-Covid trap was smart. However, Australia failed to vaccinate its population with urgency, exposing its people to a full year of zero-Covid harms. If the government had adopted the strategy of vaccinating for focused protection of older and high-risk populations, Australia could have opened much earlier.

So, the best case for Australia’s Covid strategy is that it delayed the entry of Covid in-country until the development of effective vaccines. However, it’s not even clear whether the strategy saved lives, with cumulative all-cause excess mortality on par with Sweden’s focused protection strategy. And the harm done by disconnecting Australia and other developed economies from the rest of the world included millions of poor people thrown into poverty. Ultimately, Australia’s zero-Covid strategy was a grand, immoral, and incoherent failure.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/australias-disastrous-zero-covid-experiment/

Friday, September 23, 2022

FBI hero paying the price for exposing unjust ‘persecution’ of conservative Americans

Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and using an “overzealous” January 6 investigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.

Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.

He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 subjects accused of misdemeanor offenses.

This American hero, the father of two small children, has blown up his “dream career” because he could not live with his conscience if he continued to be part of what he sees as the unjust persecution of conservative Americans.

“I have an oath to uphold the Constitution,” he told supervisors when he asserted his conscientious objection to joining an Aug. 24 raid on a J6 subject in the Jacksonville, Fla., area. “I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”

Friend, who did not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said he told his immediate boss twice that he believed the raid, and the investigative process leading up to it, violated FBI policy and the subject’s right under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial and Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.

Multiple violations

In his whistleblower complaint to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, obtained by The Post, Friend lays out multiple violations of FBI policy involving J6 investigations in which he was involved.

He says he was removed from active investigations into child sexual exploitation and human trafficking to work on J6 cases sent from DC. He was told “domestic terrorism was a higher priority” than child pornography. As a result, he believes his child exploitation investigations were harmed.

He also has reported his concerns about a politicized FBI to Republican members of Congress, among 20 whistleblowers from the bureau who have come forward with similar complaints.

Among Friend’s allegations:

The Washington, DC, field office is “manipulating” FBI case management protocol and farming out J6 cases to field offices across the country to create the false impression that right-wing domestic violence is a widespread national problem that goes far beyond the “black swan” event of Jan. 6, 2021.

As a result, he was listed as lead agent in cases he had not investigated and which his supervisor had not signed off on, in violation of FBI policy.

FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.

The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.

The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBI’s Daytona Beach resident agency “for investigation and arrest.”

The Jacksonville area was “inundated” with “guardian” notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on people’s doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go inside the Capitol.

Friend says he was punished after complaining to his bosses about being dragged into J6 investigations that were “violating citizens’ Sixth Amendment rights due to overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.”

His top-secret security clearance was suspended last week because he “entered FBI space [his office] and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems [an employee handbook and guidelines for employee disciplinary procedures] to an unauthorized removable flash drive.”

In a Sept. 16 letter from the head of FBI human resources, he was told he was losing his security clearance also because he “espoused beliefs which demonstrate questionable judgment [and demonstrated] an unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations.”

Reprisals from bosses

In his whistleblower complaint, Friend describes “reprisals” from his supervisors after he voiced his conscientious objections.

He says they ignored his complaint about “manipulative casefile practice [which] creates false and misleading crime statistics, constituting false official federal statements.

The hypocrisy and disconnect of the partisan Jan. 6 probe
“Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from an isolated incident at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.

“At no point was I advised or counseled on where to take my disclosure beyond the reprising officials above; the threatened reprisal constituted a de facto gag on my whistleblowing.”

On Aug. 19, he first told his immediate boss, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Greg Federico, that he believed “it was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses and opined that the subject would likely face extended detainment and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.

“I suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant.”

Federico told him it would have been better to just “call in sick” rather than voice his objection and “threatened reprisal indirectly by asking how long I saw myself continuing to work for the FBI.”

Four days later, Friend was summoned to Jacksonville to meet his next-level bosses, Assistant Special Agents in Charge Coult Markovsky and Sean Ryan, about his refusal to join the SWAT raid.

He told them about his concerns over “irregular” case handling of J6 matters that he believed were in violation of a legal rule known as “Brady” that requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that would exonerate a defendant.

They asked if he believed any J6 rioters committed crimes and he replied: “Some of the people who entered the Capitol committed crimes, but others were innocent. I elaborated that I believed some innocent individuals had been unjustly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced.”

Markovsky then asked Friend if J6 rioters who “killed police officers” should be prosecuted, even though no such thing happened. When Friend pointed out that “there were no police officers killed on January 6, 2021,” Markovsky told him he was being a “bad teammate.”

Both agents “threatened reprisal again by warning that my refusal [to go on the SWAT raid] could amount to insubordination. References were made to my future career prospects with the FBI.”

Friend was labeled AWOL the day the raid took place and stripped of his pay.

A week later, he was told to meet the top agent in Jacksonville, Special Agent in Charge Sherri Onks, who told him he needed to do some “soul searching” and decide if he wanted to work for the FBI.

When he told her “many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI executive management,” she told him his “views represented an extremely small minority of the FBI workforce.”

She then shared the emotional experience of fearing for her own life on Jan. 6, 2021, when she was sitting on the seventh floor of the secure J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters, after protesters one mile away “seized the Capitol and threatened the United States’ democracy.”

Agents used as ‘pawns’

Friend says his concerns are shared by large numbers of rank-and-file FBI agents across the country who believe they are being used as pawns to pursue the political agenda of the bosses in Washington, DC.

These kinds of abuses of the law are a “morale killer” for field agents, he says.

Many agents, who joined the FBI in the wake of 9/11, are keeping their heads down because they are close to their 20-year retirement with full pension. But he says they are equally disgusted at being forced to take part in the politicization of federal law enforcement.

Other whistleblowers say that disquiet grew after the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Aug. 8.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is working with these heroic FBI agents, has been trying to introduce legislation to strengthen the bureau’s woefully inadequate whistleblower protections. Friend’s complaint will be a test case.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Aug. 11, Grassley alleged that a committee of FBI field agents had been to see Wray to express the concerns of agents in all 56 field offices across the country that “the FBI has become too politicized in its decision-making.” Grassley further alleges “those concerns were removed from this year’s final report” of the FBI’s Special Agents Advisory Committee.

Wray ignored Grassley’s letter along with a dozen other letters from the dogged Iowa senator alleging gross malfeasance at the bureau.

But unrest is growing among field agents about the weaponization of the FBI against the Biden administration’s political opponents under Wray. He can’t ignore it for long.

https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/fbi-hero-paying-the-price-for-exposing-unjust-persecution-of-conservative-americans

Thursday, September 22, 2022

A Covid stocktake: Where are we up to on lockdowns, mandates and vaccines?

In an article in the Epoch Times on 9 September, Julie Ponesse tells Canada’s students that Covid control measures by university administrations ‘will stop as soon as you say “no”’. Moments we should all have said no were when our communities were put under house arrest, citizens were banned from the bedside of dying family members and the healing rituals of funerals (remember a masked Queen sitting all alone at her husband’s service?), police prevented us enjoying health-sustaining access to beaches and parks and governments and corporations mandated facemasks, QR codes and digital vaccine certificates: all self-harms done supposedly for the greater good.

The lockdown and vaccine narratives are falling apart at the seams. Canada’s new opposition leader Pierre Poilievre is staunchly libertarian, anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination mandates who supported the truckers’ Freedom Convoy. My jaw is still on the floor after hearing Jacinda Ardern say ‘we all just need to respect people’s individual decisions’. In the UK, former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s break from official policy led Liz Truss to rule out future lockdowns. On 11 August, the CDC’s revised guidance returned much of the responsibility for risk reduction from institutions to individuals and shifted from sweeping population-wide precautions to targeted advice for vulnerable groups. ‘The effects of lockdown may now be killing more people than are dying of Covid’, says the UK Telegraph, including a rise in the rate of prostate cancer deaths from 7 to 26 per cent. The mainstream Financial Times reports the US decision to roll out new booster shots without clinical testing on humans – already dubbed the mouse vaccine by some – could undermine public trust and deepen vaccine hesitancy.

In Australia the push to end all special Covid measures is led by NSW Premier Dominic Perrotet against stiff resistance from some states and experts who insist there’s ‘no scientific basis’ to end them. What scientific basis was there to introduce them, pray tell? Last year, UK ‘experts’ warned Boris Johnson of catastrophe unless he cancelled his planned ending of restrictions and Anthony Fauci warned of disasters in states that rejected his recommended restrictions. Both were proven dead wrong.

In a press briefing on 6 September, White House Covid response coordinator Dr Ashish Jha explained people can get their flu and Covid booster vaccines in one visit: ‘I really believe this is why God gave us two arms – one for the flu shot and the other one for the Covid shot’. Was this a Freudian slip revealing the religious dogma that lies behind Covid policy? Used in ancient and medieval times, mass closures were discredited in Western epidemiology in the last century and replaced by the concept of herd immunity built through naturally-acquired and vaccine-induced infections. An analysis by Michael Senger concludes that, based on bioterrorism fears in the national security community after 9/11, the CDC had insinuated China’s lockdown measures during the Sars epidemic as US federal policy by January 2004. They called it ‘social distancing’ to disguise its origins.

Debbie Lerman has distilled a lockdown blueprint centred on a relentless fear campaign reinforced by stressing uniqueness, worst-case scenarios, not knowing what to expect and ‘we’re all equally at risk’, on the one hand; and the abandonment of all previous policies in favour of universal mandates to isolate, test, trace, mask up, vaccinate and so on on the other. Based mostly in junk science, they terrified the people into demanding draconian ‘health’ measures whose primary, intended purpose was to cynically exploit emotional distress to ensure compliance with unprecedented, untested, ineffective and destructive policy interventions. They succeeded.

Covid poses such miniscule risk to children that vaccinating them is ‘all risk, no benefit’. Denmark banned vaccines for healthy under-18s from 1 July. Yet on 19 July, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) granted provisional approval for administering Spikevax vaccines to children aged 0.5–5 years. NSW Health data show 99.9 per cent of Covid-related deaths in the last six months were among adults despite over 95 per cent being vaccinated and 68 per cent being boosted.

An article in the British Medical Journal shows 12 to 15-year-old healthy boys are four times more at risk of myocarditis after a second Pfizer vaccine than of hospital admission for Covid. A new study in preprint estimates that to prevent just one Covid hospitalisation in 18-29 year olds (university age), 22,000-30,00 previously uninfected must be boosted. But for every one hospitalisation prevented, there are 18 to 98 serious adverse events. A complementary peer-reviewed article in Vaccine seems to suggest, albeit tentatively, that added risks of serious adverse events are 2.4 and 4.4 times higher than the reduced risk of hospitalisation for Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Some experts point to a worrying trend of rising excess mortality among under-14s in 28 European countries. A study of almost 900,000 5 to 11-year-old children in North Carolina (New England Journal of Medicine) adds to concerns that vaccines don’t just lose their effectiveness within months; they also destroy natural immunity.

The global drug industry has a particularly scandal-ridden history. In an Australian class action case in 2009, court documents revealed Merck had prepared a ‘hit list’ of doctors who criticised Vioxx for its deadly cardiovascular side-effects. On 4 February, 2021, Merck – which makes patent-free low profit ivermectin and has been selling it for years – publicly questioned its safety. How often does a drug company badmouth its own product? The British Medical Journal documented a compromising 96 per cent of the TGA’s 2020–21 budget came from industry sources, raising serious questions about regulatory capture. Last year the TGA banned the use of ivermectin for Covid treatment.

A month later Merck announced the development of a new antiviral drug for which it sought emergency use authorisation from the Federal Drug Administration. This cannot be granted if an existing treatment is available. Banning ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine was essential to grant emergency use authorisation for high-profit Covid vaccines and drugs. Yet a major large-scale study from Brazil published on 31 August found that, compared to regular users, non-use of ivermectin increased the risk of Covid-related mortality by 12.5 times and dying from Covid by seven times.

The Therapeutic Goods Regulation (1990) restricts provisional approvals to medicines for ‘the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of a life-threatening or seriously debilitating condition’. This would appear to rule out provisional vaccine approval for children below five. On this basis, a group of lawyers is aiming to file a crowd-funded case in the High Court against the TGA’s decision. On past form, don’t hold your breath for the courts to uphold citizens’ autonomy over the health bureaucracy’s infinite if inscrutable wisdom.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/09/a-covid-stocktake

***************************************************

Simple steps to treat that distressing loss of smell

As many as 1.2 million people in the UK are estimated to have persistent smell disorders due to infection with Covid-19.

The problem typically lasts at least six months and, for some, their sense of smell will never fully return, according to a report in the BMJ in July.

Initially, it may be due to the infection causing inflammation in nasal tissue. But chronic cases may arise from nerve damage.

Covid can interfere with the sensitivity of our olfactory receptors, proteins on the surface of nerve cells in our noses that detect molecules associated with odours, reported researchers at Columbia University in the U.S. in the journal Cell in February.

The problems Covid can cause range from smelling things that are not there (phantosmia) to a complete loss of smell (anosmia).

Our sense of smell often diminishes naturally with age, with an estimated third of over-80s affected, but thanks to Covid there is an impetus to find ways to cure it.

Scientists are vying to produce the first ‘robot nose’ — an implant that picks up smell signals and transmits them into the brain.

As many as 1.2 million people in the UK are estimated to have persistent smell disorders due to infection with Covid-19
+4
View gallery
As many as 1.2 million people in the UK are estimated to have persistent smell disorders due to infection with Covid-19

At Virginia Commonwealth University in the U.S., surgeon Daniel Coelho is developing a device to bypass our normal smell system, in which sensory nerve cells at the top of our nose detect odour molecules and send signals via the olfactory nerve to the olfactory bulb, the area in the brain that processes smell.

The new device aims to detect chemical odours from the air via a sensor that’s worn on spectacles and sends the information to the olfactory bulb (at the bottom of the brain, near the back of the nose).

Carl Philpott, a professor of rhinology and olfactology at the University of East Anglia, is working on a simpler approach, involving vitamin A (retinoic acid) nose drops.

The hope is the vitamin will encourage natural repair in the smelling cells in the lining of the nose.

A study of 170 patients suffering loss of smell, published in the journal European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology in 2017, showed that 37 per cent treated with the vitamin drops could identify more smells correctly, compared with 23 per cent of patients given a placebo. For his new study, 38 patients will receive a 12-week course of daily nasal vitamin A drops. He hopes to have results early next year.

Meanwhile, stem cells are being suggested as a future therapy, says Graham Wynne, a chemist who is on the scientific advisory board of Fifth Sense, a charity dedicated to smell and taste disorders.

‘A healthy human olfactory system has an efficient and well-known repair system, where the tissues lining the nose replace themselves every few weeks,’ he says.

The repair mechanism can break down, however, due to viral attack or age-related wear and tear. It’s hoped that stem cells may kickstart the repair mechanism.

Marianna Obrist, a professor of multisensory interfaces at University College London, is the co-founder of a company pioneering a high-tech smell-training therapy.

Smell training involves sniffing and identifying four scents — usually rose, eucalyptus, lemon, and clove — for 15 seconds, twice a day, over several months. This trains people to use their remaining smell sense more accurately and hopefully strengthen it.

You can do smell training at home, by spending 20 seconds sniffing four strong scents.

Professor Obrist’s OWidgets system, currently being trialled, consists of a computer-controlled smell-delivery box (which can emit up to six scents) and a smartphone app that controls the device and reminds you to do the next session.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11228101/Why-mild-Covid-linked-long-term-heart-trouble.html

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Scientists on alert as new Covid strain tears through ’multiple countries’

A new Covid variant is ripping through “multiple countries”, with experts fearing it could be even more transmissible than the BA. 5 Omicron strain.

Named BF. 7 – short for BA. 5.2.1.7 – the new variant is spreading faster than most other variants of interest that scientists are currently tracking in the US.

While it accounted for 1.7 per cent of sequenced infections in America last week, it now represents 25 per cent of cases in Belgium, while Denmark, Germany and France have each recorded 10 per cent of the world’s identified cases, Fortune reports.

Dr Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, told the publication the US Centres of Disease Control (CDC) recently named it as a separate strain after cases hit one per cent, with that figure expected to grow.

“The same growth advantage in multiple countries makes it reasonable to think that BF. 7 is gaining a foothold,” Dr Ray said, adding that it could prove to be more transmissible than parent strain BA.5.

The rise of the new variant is of particular concern as it’s growing steadily compared to other Omicron subvariants, and because the northern hemisphere is heading towards winter, when Covid is most worrying.

And Dr Ray said there was also a chance an entirely new variant could soon emerge. “It’s been a while since we went from Alpha to Beta to Gamma to Delta, then to Omicron,” he said. “We may be complacent. This may be feeding into the notion that this is behind us.”

The news is all the more concerning given US President Joe Biden this week stated that the “pandemic is over” – despite a daily death toll in the hundreds in America. He told CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday US time that while Covid was still a concern, the worst had passed.

“We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. But the pandemic is over,” he said. “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing.”

Mr Biden’s surprising comments came after the World Health Organisation declared the end of the pandemic was “in sight” last week, after announcing weekly deaths had dropped to the lowest level since March 2020.

“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.”

But the world needed to step up to “seize this opportunity”, he added. “If we don’t take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty.”

However, that message did not go down well in China, where an aggressive Zero Covid category is still being pursued via mass testing and brutal lockdowns months after the rest of the world moved on.

The WHO announcement was originally reported by some local news outlets and shared on social media, but was then quickly censored, given Covid Zero is inextricably bound to President Xi Jinping’s Covid strategy.

Xi is widely expected to secure a historic third term in power in October, with some speculating the country’s Covid rules might potentially be relaxed after that point.

According to WHO’s latest epidemiological report on Covid-19, the number of reported cases fell 28 per cent to 3.1 million during the week ending September 11, following a 12 per cent drop a week earlier.

https://www.news.com.au/world/scientists-on-alert-as-new-covid-strain-tears-through-multiple-countries/news-story/d7975efbc4350976900a6ea0c834d9be

***************************************************

Drug Companies Test New Booster on Eight Mice and Zero Humans, FDA Approves It Anyway. With no efficacy or safety data, the agency is enthusiastically promoting a fifth COVID shot

On Aug. 31, 2022, the Food and Drug Administration authorized bivalent boosters reformulated to target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. At the authorization meeting, FDA officials announced the approval of these new boosters for emergency use based on data from eight mice in a Pfizer study. At the same time, the FDA revoked authorization for the original monovalent boosters—meaning anyone subject to a booster or “up-to-date” mandate will have to take the bivalent booster, which has no proven safety or efficacy data in human beings.

While the flu vaccine is also approved on a yearly basis without full trials, the mRNA COVID vaccines do not share the flu shot’s decadeslong track record of observed safety. The population most likely to be mandated to take a bivalent booster consists largely of college students. The young men in this population are the exact demographic that face heightened safety concerns, specifically around myocarditis, as documented in multiple peer-reviewed studies. In fact, during a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend the bivalent boosters, the agency presented updated myocarditis data that confirmed the rates of myocarditis in young men were about 2-to-3.5 times higher (slide 35) than the agency had claimed last year (slide 13). Nevertheless, the FDA and CDC moved to recommend the bivalent boosters for anyone over the age of 12 without human clinical trials.

This is just the latest episode in the FDA’s less-than-thorough approach to new COVID vaccine approvals. For example, in May 2022, the FDA authorized monovalent Pfizer boosters for children ages 5-11 based on laboratory data that showed heightened antibody response levels in just 67 children.

During the opioid crisis, the FDA famously failed to demand adequate research, disregarded safety concerns, and allowed Purdue Pharma to promote oxycodone for uses that were never borne out by testing. Later, it was revealed that the agency had been plagued by ethical issues: When the FDA convened advisers to address mounting oxycodone safety concerns, for instance, five out of 10 of these advisers had received payments from Purdue, and another three had received payments from other opioid manufacturers.

The continuation of unchecked conflicts of interest, and several recent authorizations for uses of new medical products that are in many ways unproven, demonstrate that the FDA is essentially unresponsive to public outrage, culminating in the bizarre spectacle of the agency promoting bivalent boosters on social media through unsubstantiated claims of efficacy, acting not as a neutral regulator but actively advertising on behalf of pharmaceutical companies with government purchase contracts. The FDA’s disregard for its congressional mandate is not unique to this moment—it is a symptom of its decadeslong transformation into an agency captured by the corporations it is tasked with regulating.

When Kelley Krohnert, a mother and career IT expert from Georgia, watched the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting held on June 17, 2022, she noted a slide that listed COVID as the fourth-leading cause of death for children under 1 and the fifth-leading cause for children aged 1-4 in the United States. This same slide was originally used at the FDA’s June 15 Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting, when FDA advisers voted to authorize vaccines for children under 5. Krohnert immediately recognized that the slide was citing a preprint by researchers in the United Kingdom. This preprint not only used death statistics that included deaths where COVID was not an underlying cause—it also compared a 26-month cumulative total for COVID deaths to a 12-month total for other deaths. In Krohnert’s analysis, COVID fell to ninth place for children under 1 and into a four-way tie for eighth place for children aged 1-4. When the researchers corrected their preprint to adjust for some of the errors Krohnert found, COVID fell below influenza and pneumonia as a cause of death for children under 5.

“I didn’t have to do a complex statistical analysis to find these errors,” Krohnert told me. “If this is the standard for what goes into these presentations, what kind of vetting is going into that data?”

This lack of vetting is a central issue in the FDA’s approval process. The key question for any drug authorization is, “Do the benefits outweigh the risks?” When a disease’s risks are exaggerated, one side of this equation is skewed, and the equation is also affected by exaggerating the benefits of a treatment or ignoring the potential risks of that treatment. The data presented in recent FDA meetings has been consistently nonobjective and skewed to favor drug approval.

For the authorization of vaccines for children under 5, boosters for children 5-11, and the new bivalent boosters, the FDA has relied heavily on measures of antibody levels as the main “benefit” side of the equation. This is despite the fact that Pfizer has admitted that there is “no established correlate of protection” between antibody levels and immunity. Both the CDC and the FDA already advise against the use of antibody testing to determine levels of immunity. Essentially, this metric has been deemed inadequate by the very regulatory agency that is now consistently accepting it as a substitute for clinical trials.

This lack of real efficacy data has been accompanied by a disregard for potential safety issues. European Union regulators have already warned that frequent boosters can weaken the immune system; the FDA is apparently unconcerned. The FDA also disregarded the fact that for pediatric vaccines, Pfizer observed a higher rate of severe COVID in its vaccine group (table 5). Furthermore, the FDA allowed the company to ignore 365 symptomatic cases in its trial, and to use only the last 10 symptomatic cases after the third dose to claim 80% efficacy (tables 19 and 20). This is significant because Pfizer saw negative efficacy between doses 1 and 2. In a vaccine meant to prevent illness for an age group that is already at extremely low risk, this data should have been a red flag for the FDA. Why, then, has the body charged with protecting Americans from inadequately tested products been so eager not just to authorize these products for emergency use, but to enthusiastically recommend them?

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was one of only two advisers who voted against VRBPAC’s recommendation for reformulated boosters in June. I asked him about his vote as an FDA vaccine adviser and longtime advocate for vaccination. He told me he believed the thinking behind the bivalent boosters was sound. “The problem for me,” he said, “was I just didn’t think the data that were presented on June 28th to our committee made that case compellingly.”

I asked Offit if he felt there was political pressure to vote a certain way. “I never feel pressure when I cast my vote,” he answered. “I voted no.” However, he said, “I think the way that they were presented, I think it was clear that the FDA and the World Health Organization wanted to go in this direction.” It was notable that the day after the FDA’s vote, the White House announced its purchase of 171 million bivalent booster doses from Pfizer and Moderna for $4.9 billion. “You felt that the train sort of had left the station,” Offit said.

In 2020, the Trump administration was widely criticized for rushing vaccines and pressuring the FDA. Although the Biden administration has exerted similar, if not more pressure, it has enjoyed a conspicuous absence of criticism. Before the FDA’s expert panel could even meet to discuss vaccines for children under 5, for example, the White House’s COVID czar, Ashish Jha, publicly announced a precise date for when they would become available. In other words, Jha appeared to know the FDA’s decision before it had allegedly made one.

Notably, President Joe Biden’s election campaign reversed a long-standing trend of Republican candidates receiving far more campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry: In 2020, Biden outraised Trump from Big Pharma by a margin of 2 to 1. Several political appointees in the Biden administration, moreover, have ties to vaccine manufacturers, including the president’s chief campaign strategist, Anita Dunn, who worked for Pfizer before joining his team. Biden also ran his election campaign on the promise to “shut down the virus”; it turned out that there were more U.S. COVID deaths in 2021, when vaccines were widely available, than in 2020, when they were not. Rather than reckon with this fact and readjust its strategy, the administration has doubled down by putting increased political pressure on an already compromised FDA.

If your primary job occupation is to work for the firm across the table, how can you be an effective regulator?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/pfizer-moderna-test-covid-booster-eight-mice-zero-humans-fda-approves-anyway

BACKGROUND

Home (Index page)

A simple definiton: Conservatism is all about preserving traditions and resisting sudden change

Deep down: The essence of conservatism is caution. The essence of Leftism is anger

Leftists use the rest of us as a tool to make themselves feel better

The extreme Right are actually the extreme Left

"Social justice" is inherently tyrannical

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party. And now a "Deplorable"

When it comes to political incorrectness, I hit the trifecta. I talk about race, IQ and social class. I have an academic background in all three subjects but that wins me no forgiveness

Access past and present backups for all my current blogs

Some personal memoirs

Memoir highlights

My annual picture page

Subject index to my academic journal articles

Consolidated list of links to all my writings

The sidebar entries here had become very extensive. I have therefore divided them into two. The first half is below and the second half is here -- including some comments on Jews

References to "Leftists" below are to preachers of Leftism, not the ordinary Leftist voter

As a good academic, I define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

So an essential feature of Leftism is that they think they have the right to tell other people what to do. They see things in the world that are not ideal and conclude therefore that they have the right to change those things by force. Conservative explanations of why things are not ideal -- and never can be -- fall on deaf ears

That Left and Right are so hostile to one-another is most unfortunate. Broadly, the world needs Leftists to highlight problems and conservatives to solve them. But the Left get angry with conservatives when conservatives point out that there are no good solutions to some problems

Conservatism is as much a respect for reality as a respect for tradition. But tradition summarizes a lot of reality. So conservative thinking must change as reality changes. There is no unchanging body of doctrine in conservatism. Conservatism is an attitude, a realistic attitude. Leftists, by contrast, believe whatever suits them, reality regardless

Giorgia dal Italia -- my favourite politician

What the Left routinely forgets: As Henry Hazlitt pointed out: “The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities,” -- Voltaire.

Social justice is injustice. What is just about taking money off people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not earned it? You can call it many things but justice it is not

But it is the aim of all Leftist governments to take money off people who have earned it and give it to people who have not earned it

Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, 'social justice.’ - Thomas Sowell

At the most basic (psychological) level, conservatives are the contented people and Leftists are the discontented people. Conservatives don't think the world is perfect but they can happily live with it. And both those attitudes are largely dispositional, inborn -- which is why they so rarely change

Revolution is the ultimate desideratum for Leftists

Patriotism is a happy thing. No wonder Leftists have difficulties with it

Leftists' manifest desire is to destroy their country from the inside with division and hatred

The Left Doesn't Like Christmas because Christmas is just too happy for them

Former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo switched from Democrat to the Republican Party, saying, “A conservative is a liberal who was mugged the night before.”

Who is this Leftist? Take his description of his political program: A "declaration of war against the order of things which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists". You could hardly get a more change-oriented or revolutionary programme than that. So whose programme was it? Marx? Lenin? Stalin? Trotsky? Mao? No. It was how Hitler described his programme towards the end of "Mein Kampf". And the Left pretend that Hitler was some sort of conservative! Perhaps it not labouring the point also to ask who it was that described his movement as having a 'revolutionary creative will' which had 'no fixed aim, _ no permanency, only eternal change'. It could very easily have been Trotsky or Mao but it was in fact Hitler (O'Sullivan, 1983. p. 138). Clearly, Nazism was nothing more nor less than a racist form of Leftism (rather extreme Leftism at that) and to label it as "Rightist" or anything else is to deny reality.

A rarely acknowledged aim of Leftist policy in a democracy is to deliver dismay and disruption into the lives other people -- whom they regard as "complacent" -- and they are good at achieving that.

As usual, however, it is actually they who are complacent, with a conviction of the rightness and virtue of their own beliefs that merges into arrogance. They regard anyone who disagrees with them with contempt.

Leftists are wolves in sheep's clothing

Liberals are people who don't believe in liberty

Leftist principles are as solid as foam rubber. When they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong they really mean it.

Leftists FEAR the future

There is no dealing with the Left. Their word is no good. You cannot make a deal with someone who thinks lying and stealing are mere tactics, which the Marxists actually brag about

Montesquieu knew Leftists well: "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."

Because they claim to have all the answers to society's ills, Communists often seem "cool" to young people

German has a word that describes most Leftists well: "Scheinheilig" - A person who appears to be very kind, soft natured, and filled with pure goodness but behind the facade, has a vile nature. He is seemingly holy but is an unscrupulous person on the inside.

The new faith is very oppressive: Leftist orthodoxy is the new dominant religion of the Western world and it is every bit as bigoted and oppressive as Christianity was at its worst

There are two varieties of authoritarian Leftism. Fascists are soft Leftists, preaching one big happy family -- "Better together" in other words. Communists are hard Leftists, preaching class war.

Equality: The nonsensical and incoherent claim that underlies so much Leftist discourse is "all men are equal". And that is the envier's gospel. It makes not a scrap of sense and shows no contact with reality but it is something that enviers resort to as a way of soothing their envious feelings. They deny the very differences that give them so much heartburn. "Denial" was long ago identified by Freud as a maladaptive psychological defence mechanism and "All men are equal" is a prize example of that. Whatever one thinks of his theories, Freud was undoubtedly an acute observer of people and very few psychologists today would doubt the maladaptive nature of denial as described by Freud.

Socialism is the most evil malady ever to afflict the human brain. The death toll in WWII alone tells you that

“Hanlon’s razor”: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

American conservatives have to struggle to hold their country together against Leftist attempts to destroy it. Maduro's Venezuela is a graphic example of how extremely destructive socialism in government can be

The standard response from Marxist apologists for Stalin and other Communist dictators is to say you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. To which Orwell retorted, ‘Where’s the omelette?’

You do still occasionally see some mention of the old idea that Leftist parties represent the worker. In the case of the U.S. Democrats that is long gone. Now they want to REFORM the worker. No wonder most working class Americans these days vote Republican. Democrats are the party of the minorities and the smug

"The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women — of all classes — detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion — mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined." —T.S. Eliot

We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people -- Churchill

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others" -- Cicero. See here

The Left have a lot in common with tortoises. They have a thick mental shell that protects them from the reality of the world about them

Definition of a Socialist: Someone who wants everything you have...except your job.

A good article on Leftist hate

The real history of social Darwinism

One cheer for Jon Burge

Leftist writers usually seem quite reasonable and persuasive at first glance. The problem is not what they say but what they don't say. Leftist beliefs are so counterfactual ("all men are equal", "all men are brothers" etc.) that to be a Leftist you have to have a talent for blotting out from your mind facts that don't suit you. And that is what you see in Leftist writing: A very selective view of reality. Facts that disrupt a Leftist story are simply ignored. Leftist writing is cherrypicking on a grand scale

So if ever you read something written by a Leftist that sounds totally reasonable, you have an urgent need to find out what other people say on that topic. The Leftist will almost certainly have told only half the story

Leftists commonly have the Cyclops syndrome: to see with only one eye, in only one dimension and only half of reality.

We conservatives have the facts on our side, which is why Leftists never want to debate us and do their best to shut us up. It's very revealing the way they go to great lengths to suppress conservative speech at universities. Universities should be where the best and brightest Leftists are to be found but even they cannot stand the intellectual challenge that conservatism poses for them. It is clearly a great threat to them. If what we say were ridiculous or wrong, they would grab every opportunity to let us know it

A conservative does not hanker after the new; He hankers after the good. Leftists hanker after the untested

Just one thing is sufficient to tell all and sundry what an unamerican lamebrain Obama is. He pronounced an army corps as an army "corpse" Link here. Can you imagine any previous American president doing that? Many were men with significant personal experience in the armed forces in their youth.

'Gay Pride' parades: You know you live in a great country when "oppressed" people have big, colorful parades.

A favorite Leftist saying sums up the whole of Leftism: "To make an omelette, you've got to break eggs". They want to change some state of affairs and don't care who or what they destroy or damage in the process. They think their alleged good intentions are sufficient to absolve them from all blame for even the most evil deeds

In practical politics, the art of Leftism is to sound good while proposing something destructive

Leftists are the "we know best" people, meaning that they are intrinsically arrogant. Matthew chapter 6 would not be for them. And arrogance leads directly into authoritarianism

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His clever short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out

Insight: "A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him." —Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Leftists think of themselves as the new nobility

Many people in literary and academic circles today who once supported Stalin and his heirs are generally held blameless and may even still be admired whereas anybody who gave the slightest hint of support for the similarly brutal Hitler regime is an utter polecat and pariah. Why? Because Hitler's enemies were "only" the Jews whereas Stalin's enemies were those the modern day Left still hates -- people who are doing well for themselves materially. Modern day Leftists understand and excuse Stalin and his supporters because Stalin's hates are their hates.

"Those who see hate everywhere think they're looking thru a window when actually they're looking at a mirror"

Hatred has long been a central pillar of leftist ideologies, premised as they are on trampling individual rights for the sake of a collectivist plan. Karl Marx boasted that he was “the greatest hater of the so-called positive.” In 1923, V.I. Lenin chillingly declared to the Soviet Commissars of Education, “We must teach our children to hate. Hatred is the basis of communism.” In his tract “Left-Wing Communism,” Lenin went so far as to assert that hatred was “the basis of every socialist and Communist movement.”

Karl Marx in his own words

If you understand that Leftism is hate, everything falls into place.

The strongest way of influencing people is to convince them that you will do them some good. Leftists and con-men misuse that

Leftists believe only what they want to believe. So presenting evidence contradicting their beliefs simply enrages them. They do not learn from it

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves.

Leftists who think that they can conjure up paradise out of their own limited brains are simply fools -- arrogant and dangerous fools. They essentially know nothing. Conservatives learn from the thousands of years of human brains that have preceded us -- including the Bible, the ancient Greeks and much else. The death of Socrates is, for instance, an amazing prefiguration of the intolerant 21st century. Ask any conservative stranded in academe about his freedom of speech

Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Leftists don't understand that -- which is a major factor behind their simplistic thinking. They just never see the trade-offs. But implementing any Leftist idea will hit us all with the trade-offs

Chesteron's fence -- good conservative thinking

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley"[go oft astray] is a well known line from a famous poem by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. But the next line is even wiser: "And leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy". Burns was a Leftist of sorts so he knew how often their theories fail badly.

Mostly, luck happens when opportunity meets preparation.

Most Leftist claims are simply propaganda. Those who utter such claims must know that they are not telling the whole story. Hitler described his Marxist adversaries as "lying with a virtuosity that would bend iron beams". At the risk of ad hominem shrieks, I think that image is too good to remain disused.

Conservatives adapt to the world they live in. Leftists want to change the world to suit themselves

ABOUT

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I imagine that few of my readers will understand it, but I am an unabashed monarchist. And, as someone who was born and bred in a monarchy and who still lives there (i.e. Australia), that gives me no conflicts at all. In theory, one's respect for the monarchy does not depend on who wears the crown but the impeccable behaviour of the present Queen does of course help perpetuate that respect.

I imagine that most Americans might find this rather mad -- but I believe that a constitutional Monarchy is the best form of government presently available. Can a libertarian be a Monarchist? I think so -- and prominent British libertarian Sean Gabb seems to think so too! Long live the Queen! (And note that Australia ranks well above the USA on the Index of Economic freedom. Heh!)

The Australian flag with the Union Jack quartered in it

Throughout Europe there is an association between monarchism and conservatism. It is a little sad that American conservatives do not have access to that satisfaction. So even though Australia is much more distant from Europe (geographically) than the USA is, Australia is in some ways more of an outpost of Europe than America is! Mind you: Australia is not very atypical of its region. Australia lies just South of Asia -- and both Japan and Thailand have greatly respected monarchies. And the demise of the Cambodian monarchy was disastrous for Cambodia

Throughout the world today, possession of a U.S. or U.K. passport is greatly valued. I once shared that view. Developments in recent years have however made me profoundly grateful that I am a 5th generation Australian. My Australian passport is a door into a much less oppressive and much less messed-up place than either the USA or Britain

Following the Sotomayor precedent, I would hope that a wise older white man such as myself with the richness of that experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than someone who hasn’t lived that life.

"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit

It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.

"Intellectual" = Leftist dreamer. I have more publications in the academic journals than almost all "public intellectuals" but I am never called an intellectual and nor would I want to be. Call me a scholar or an academic, however, and I will accept either as a just and earned appellation

Some personal background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 80 at the time of writing in 2024. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here

I completed the work for my Ph.D. at the end of 1970 but the degree was not awarded until 1974 -- due to some academic nastiness from Seymour Martin Lipset and Fred Emery. A conservative or libertarian who makes it through the academic maze has to be at least twice as good as the average conformist Leftist. Fortunately, I am a born academic.

Despite my great sympathy and respect for Christianity, I am the most complete atheist you could find. I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful. I am not at all original in that view, of course. Such views are particularly associated with the noted German philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Unlike Carnap, however, none of my wives have committed suicide

In my teenage years, however, I was fortunate to be immersed (literally) in a very fundamentalist Christian religion. And the heavy Bible study I did at that time left me with lessons for life that have stood me in good stead ever since

Very occasionally in my writings I make reference to the greats of analytical philosophy such as Carnap and Wittgenstein. As philosophy is a heavily Leftist discipline however, I have long awaited an attack from some philosopher accusing me of making coat-trailing references not backed by any real philosophical erudition. I suppose it is encouraging that no such attacks have eventuated but I thought that I should perhaps forestall them anyway -- by pointing out that in my younger days I did complete three full-year courses in analytical philosophy (at 3 different universities!) and that I have had papers on mainstream analytical philosophy topics published in academic journals

IQ and ideology: Most academics are Left-leaning. Why? Because very bright people who have balls go into business, while very bright people with no balls go into academe. I did both with considerable success, which makes me a considerable rarity. Although I am a born academic, I have always been good with money too. My share portfolio even survived the GFC in good shape. The academics hate it that bright people with balls make more money than them.

I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak. Some might conclude that I must therefore be a very confused sort of atheist but I can assure everyone that I do not feel the least bit confused. The New Testament is a lighthouse that has illumined the thinking of all sorts of men and women and I am deeply grateful that it has shone on me.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

Most teenagers have sporting and movie posters on their bedroom walls. At age 14 I had a map of Taiwan on my wall.

A small personal note: I have always been very self-confident. I inherited it from my mother, along with my skeptical nature. So I don't need to feed my self-esteem by claiming that I am wiser than others -- which is what Leftists do.

As with conservatives generally, it bothers me not a bit to admit to large gaps in my knowledge and understanding. For instance, I don't know if the slight global warming of the 20th century will resume in the 21st, though I suspect not. And I don't know what a "healthy" diet is, if there is one. Constantly-changing official advice on the matter suggests that nobody knows

As well as being an academic, I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

It would be very easy for me to say that I am too much of an individual for the army but I did in fact join the army and enjoy it greatly, as most men do. In my observation, ALL army men are individuals. It is just that they accept discipline in order to be militarily efficient -- which is the whole point of the exercise. But that's too complex for simplistic Leftist thinking, of course

A real army story here

It's amusing that my army service gives me honour among conservatives but contempt from Leftists. I don't weep at all about the latter. I am still in touch with some of the fine people I served with over 50 years ago. The army is like that

This is just a bit of romanticism but I do have permanently located by the head of my bed a genuine century-old British army cavalry sword. It is still a real weapon. I was not in the cavalry but I see that sword as a symbol of many things. I want it to be beside my bed when I die

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and there is JUST ONE saying of Hitler's that I rather like. It may not even be original to him but it is found in chapter 2 of Mein Kampf (published in 1925): "Widerstaende sind nicht da, dass man vor ihnen kapituliert, sondern dass man sie bricht". The equivalent English saying is "Difficulties exist to be overcome" and that traces back at least to the 1920s -- with attributions to Montessori and others. Hitler's metaphor is however one of smashing barriers rather than of politely hopping over them and I am myself certainly more outspoken than polite. Hitler's colloquial Southern German is notoriously difficult to translate but I think I can manage a reasonable translation of that saying: "Resistance is there not for us to capitulate to but for us to break". I am quite sure that I don't have anything like that degree of determination in my own life but it seems to me to be a good attitude in general anyway

And something that was perceptive comes from the same chapter. Hitler said that the doctrines of the interwar Social Democrats (mainstream leftists) of Vienna were "comprised of egotism and hate". Not much has changed

I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.

COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.

You can email me here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR" -- and that preference has NOTHING to do with an American soap opera that featured a character who was referred to in that way

SIDEBAR EXTENSION HERE

DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:

"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism"
"Australian Politics"
"Education Watch International"
"Political Correctness Watch"
"Greenie Watch"
Western Heart

BLOGS OCCASIONALLY UPDATED:

"Marx & Engels in their own words"
"A scripture blog"
"Recipes"
"Some memoirs"
To be continued ....
Coral reef compendium.
Queensland Police
Australian Police News
Paralipomena (3)
Of Interest
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia

BLOGS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED

"Food & Health Skeptic"
"Eye on Britain"
"Immigration Watch International".
"Leftists as Elitists"
Socialized Medicine
OF INTEREST (2)
QANTAS -- A dying octopus
BRIAN LEITER (Ladderman)
Obama Watch
Obama Watch (2)
Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site
Michael Darby
Paralipomena (2)
AGL -- A bumbling monster
Telstra/Bigpond follies
Optus bungling
Vodafrauds (vodafone)
Bank of Queensland blues

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Some more useful links

Alt archives for "Dissecting Leftism" here or here
Longer Academic Papers
Johnray links
Academic home page
Academic Backup Page
General Backup
General Backup 2
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia

Selected reading

MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM

CONSERVATISM AS HERESY

A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF NAZISM

Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
Leftist Racism
Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.

Cautionary blogs about big Australian organizations:

TELSTRA
OPTUS
VODAFONE
AGL
Bank of Queensland
Queensland Police
Australian police news
QANTAS, a dying octopus

INTERESTING BLOGS by others
(My frequent reads are starred)

10 o'clock scholar
Agitator*
AMCGLTD
American Thinker
ASTUTE BLOGGERS
Baby Troll
Bad Eagle
Belmont Club*
Betsy's Page
Bill Keezer
Blackfive
Bleeding Brain
BLOGGER NEWS
Blowhards
Bob McCarty
Booker Rising
Brian Leiter scrutinized
Brothers Judd*
Brussels Journal
Bullied and Badgered, Pressured and Purged
Bureaucrash
Candle in dark
Catallarchy*
Classical Values
Clayton Cramer*
Climate audit
Climate science
Colby Cosh
Cold Fury
Common-sense & Wonder*
Community Pride Childcare
(Clearwater, Florida)
Confront the Left
Conservative Grapevine
Conservative Oasis
Conservative Political Forum
Conservatives Anonymous
Critical Mass
Cronaca*
Daily Caller
Danegerus
Dead Cat Bounce
Dean's World
Dhimmi Watch
Discover the networks
Discriminations
Dodge Blog
Dr Helen
Dr Sanity
Drunkablog
Ed Driscoll
Dyspepsia
Eddy Rants
Electric Venom
Endiana
Enter Stage Right
Eugene Undergound
Evangelical Ecologist
Fighting in the Shade
Find the best gun
Fourth Rail
Free Patriot
Gates of Vienna
Gay and Right
Gene Expression*
Ghost of Flea
Global warming & Climate
Gold Dog
Grumpy Old Sod
Hack Wilson
Hall of Record
Heretical Ideas
Hitler's Leftism
Hugh Hewitt
Hummers & Cigarettes
IMAO
Icecap
Inductivist
Instapunk
Intellectual Conservative
Interested Participant
Jihad Watch
Jim Kalb
Junk Food science
Junk Science
Just One Minute
KBJ
Knowledge is Power
Ladybird Deed
La Shawn
Laudator
Libertyphile
Lone Wacko
Lubos Motl
Luskin
MA firearm safety
Main Street Radical
Mangan
Margaret Thatcher Foundation
Maverick Philosopher
Medicine World
Michelle Malkin
Moderate Voice
Moorewatch
National Center
National Scene
Neo Con Blogger
Never Yet Melted
New Zeal
Northeastern Intelligence Network
Not PC
On the Right Side
Orator
Overlawyered
Parable Man
ParaPundit*
Pedestrian Infidel
Poli Pundit
Prof Bainbridge
Promethean Antagonist
Qando
Qohel
Random Observations
Rand Simberg
Random Jottings
Red State
Rhodey
Rhymes with Right
Right Nation
Right Thinking
Right Wing news
Roadkill
Ron Hebron
Rottweiler
Schansberg
SCSU Scholars*
Sharp Blades
Sharp Knife
Should Know
Shrinkwrapped
Silent Running
Smallest Minority
Squander 2
Steve Sailer
Stop the ACLU
Stuart Buck
Talking Head
Tim Worstall
Truth and consequences
Two-Four Net
Urban Conservative
Urgent Agenda
Vdare blog
View from Right
Viking Pundit
Vodka Pundit
Watt's up with that
Western Standard
Bill Whittle
What If
WICKED THOUGHTS*
Wiki Law
Winds of Change
Wizbang
World of Reason
World Terrorism news

Education Blogs

Early Childhood Education
Education Bug
Eduwonk
Joanne Jacobs*
Marc Miyake*

Economics Blogs

Adam Smith
Arnold Kling
Chicago Boyz
Cafe Hayek
Econopundit
Environmental Economics
Jane Galt
S. Karlson
D. Luskin
Marginal Revolution
Mises Inst.

Australian Blogs

A E Brain
Brookes News
Catallaxy
Fortress Australia
Kev Gillett
Hissink File
ICJS*
Oz Conservative
Slattery
Tim Blair
WESTERN HEART*
Cyclone's Sketchblog

England

Anglo Austrian
Burning our Money
Campaign Against Political Correctness
England Project
Norm Geras
House of Dumb
IQ & PC
Limbic Nutrition
Majority Rights*
NHS Doctor
Policeman
Samizdata
Sean Gabb
Sterling Times
Englishman's Castle

Scotland

Freedom & Whisky
A Place to Stand

ISRAEL

IsraPundit
Steven Plaut
Think Israel

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here