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The Covid Network
A German IT project manager, who wishes to remain anonymous, has spent months creating an extensive and unique network document, labeled “The COVID Network Complex”.
For the first time, it shows you the complex network of relationships between non-governmental organizations (NGOs), companies, documents, and people.
There are 6,500 objects and over 7,200 links, including the financial flows, and in parts also the amounts that have flowed.
Only publicly available sources were used in the analysis.
In the case of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, you can already see on page 4 of the document that this foundation spent around 43 billion dollars in the period from 1994 to 2021 in the USA alone and distributed around half a billion in funds in Germany during this period.
The dossier is 170 pages long.
First, you will get some general information about people from government agencies, companies, and non-governmental organizations, as well as some important events or groups. Further on in this document, you will find a link analysis of these “stakeholders”.
The dossier can be download in PDF format here:
More at here Disclose TV
I Did Not Come To Lead Lambs, I Came To Awaken Lions
Not speaking clearly may be the first problem of politics. It is much like the old axiom, often misattributed to Burke, that for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing. In much of the world, conservatism has been living in fear since the last century. In Latin America, social-communism remains a plague because too many of its nations are beaten down day after day by years of compliance, of life without freedom, of criminal inertia and “populist” mafias.
From Venezuela to Argentina, they have had no chance of standing up to the Bolivarian monster of the sickle, the coca leaf, and the hammer. Argentina, only recently so wealthy, should have been the exception, but it was not: because the fears and complexes of the right outweighed the inefficiency and larceny of the Kirchnerist left wing. And that is saying something.
But there is light. A light that brings with it lessons for any country that aspires to live in freedom. It comes from a disheveled-looking guy, with a hint of old rock star in his expression, thoroughly unashamed. He is an economist and lecturer; his name is Javier Milei. He shouts like an angry bear, and he is a political outsider who decided a year ago that he would run as candidate for the Argentine national congress for the City of Buenos Aires.
Milei’s most repeated catchphrase during this summer’s campaign, unprecedentedly harsh against Kirchnerism and cultural Marxism, is a bombshell that resounds throughout the country: “I did not come to lead lambs, I came to awaken lions”.
And it has awakened them. Last September 12, in the open, simultaneous, and mandatory primary elections (PASO by its acronym in Spanish), Kirchnerism suffered a painful electoral fiasco in the ever decisive city of Buenos Aires, with 24.66 percent of the votes, while the moderate former President Macri’s Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change) grew to 28.19 percent, and, against all odds, the newcomer Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) became the third most voted force with 13.66 percent of the vote. Between now and the next elections, Milei has a vast field in which to grow, continuing his trend of the last few months.
The primary result is a symptom of something larger, not just an anecdote. Milei has been the most mentioned politician on the social networks; he has pulverized all the audiences during the campaign; and with his vehemence and casual style he has enticed a growing crowd of young voters to whom never before had anyone spoken to so outrightly against socialism, communism, and what Milei calls the “political caste.”
“We are going to overthrow the model that the political caste have defended,” he said at the closing of the campaign, “as all it has achieved is to turn the richest country in the world into one of the poorest countries in the world.” He has repeatedly hollered from half the stages in Argentina: There is not a single leftist model that offers good results, because “everywhere they have been applied, it has brought economic, social, and cultural disaster.” It may seem like stating the obvious to say this in Argentina. But Milei does not just state it, he screams it with his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
Dozens of headlines can be extracted from any of his speeches. “We, who love liberalism,” he said a few days ago, “operate on the basis of unrestricted respect for the life projects of others, based on life, property, and freedom. The others claimed that they loved the poor, but they multiplied them.” At the end of the day, he makes no secret of his one-hundred-percent liberal recipe for pulling nations out of the abyss of poverty.
More here at The American Conservative
Why Do Climate Alarmists Dislike Climate Realist-Optimists So Much?
F. A. Hayek, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist of the Austrian tradition, provided a possible answer to the question posed in the title. Although Hayek (1899-1992) to my knowledge had nothing to say about the climate controversy, his views on macroeconomics met with a similarly critical attitude from those who practiced economics at a level far, far removed from individual action. He too was in essence called a science denier, in this case the science was economics. Here’s what he said when contrasting the method of the natural sciences of “simple phenomena” with the methods of social and other sciences of “complex phenomena” (transcribed from an interview at 33:00):
All the things I have stressed–the complexity of phenomena in general, the unknown character of the data, and so on–really much more points out limits to our possible knowledge than our contributions which makes specific predictions possible. This incidentally [is] another reason why my views have become unpopular. Conception of scientific method became prevalent during that period [the 1930s, when he worked on his “pure theory of capital”] which valued all scientific theories from the nature of specific predictions at which it would lead. Now somebody who pointed out that specific predictions which it could make were very limited and that at most it could achieve what I sometimes call “pattern predictions,” or predictions of the principle, seemed to the people who were used to the simplicity of physics or chemistry very disappointing and almost not science. The aim of science in that view was specific prediction, preferably mathematically testable, and somebody who pointed out that when you applied this principle to complex phenomena, you couldn’t achieve this seemed to the people almost to deny [!] that science was possible.
Of course my real aim was that the possible aims must be much more limited once we’ve passed from the science of simple phenomena to the science of complex phenomena. And there people bitterly resented that I would call physics a science of simple phenomena, which is partly a misunderstanding because the theory of physics [runs?] in terms of very simple equations. But that the active phenomena to which you have to apply it may be extremely complex is a different matter…. [On the other hand, in “intermediate fields” such as biology and the social sciences] their complexity becomes, I believe, an absolute barrier to the specificity of the predictions that we can arrive at. Until people learn themselves that they cannot achieve these ends, they will insist [on] trying and think somebody [who] believes it can’t be done is just old-fashioned and doesn’t understand modern science.
The relevance to the climate debate ought to be clear. Climate realist-optimists often point out that climates are too complex–with too many interacting and moving parts–to be spoken of and “projected” in the simplistic way that the alarmists routinely try to do. So they naturally dislike when credentialed scientists come along and point this out. This is why alarmists outrageously call the realist-optimists “deniers” and worse.
Resistance Is Futile: How The War On Terror Supercharged State Power
“What,” I sometimes ask students in a class I teach on the history of terrorism, “was the name of the Islamic State’s branch in Europe?” It is a trick question: the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) never set up a full-fledged European branch. The group’s self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, knew better than to try. By 2014, when ISIS formalized its split from al Qaeda and established itself as the dominant player in the global Salafi-jihadi movement, Western security services had figured out how to make it effectively impossible for the group to establish a base of operations in Europe or North America. Like al Qaeda before it, ISIS was only ever present in the West in the form of disparate cells and sympathizers. A traditional terrorist organization—with a functioning bureaucracy, regular meeting places, and in-house propaganda production—would, Baghdadi and his henchmen understood, have had as little chance of surviving in a contemporary Western country as the proverbial snowball in hell.
In fact, it has been decades since it was possible to run a major terrorist organization, capable of mounting a sustained campaign of large-scale attacks, in Europe or North America. Even the most notorious of the separatist movements and far-right militias that have originated in Western countries, and whose rhetoric can seem menacing, are comparatively small-scale operations; they survive because they kill relatively few people and never manage to attract the authorities’ full attention. The last high-impact terrorist organizations based in the West—the Basque separatists of ETA in France and Spain and the loyalist and republican paramilitaries in Northern Ireland—effectively collapsed in the 1990s under the weight of state countermeasures.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it seemed that was all going to change. And of course, the past two decades have witnessed some horrific attacks on Western soft targets: the bombing of a train station in Madrid in 2004, the attack on a concert venue in Paris in 2015, the assault on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, among others. But such crimes were not the work of locally based organizations, and none of the perpetrators was able to strike more than once. Although for a time such swarms of weakly connected attackers periodically outmaneuvered Western security and intelligence services, the latter have adapted and, quite definitively, prevailed.
Thomas Hegghammer at Foreign Affairs (archived here)
The Antiwar Comic: The War Against Protest
Shh. Don’t tell Facebook, YouTube or Twitter about this comic. Be a shame to retweet.
More comics at the Webomic Factory.
For Every Action There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction
I never speak it out loud, but recently I’m constantly repeating a movie our daughter used to watch when she was little. Over the Hedge I believe it was called. I constantly hear the little squirrel straining to see the end of the newly constructed impediment, in his little voice, “it never ends! It never ends THAT way too.”
That’s my current state of mind regarding our virally motivated political theater. I have discovered a couple new stouts though that are truly fantastic. Always have to find the hidden positives I suppose.
I mentioned a few months ago the correlation between disease prevalence and totalitarian attitudes within society. Linked a fascinating study.
This line of thinking led me to “The Parasite Stress Theory of Values and Sociality: Infectious Disease, History and Human Values Worldwide” by Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill
Fascinating book. Although it certainly wasn’t the intent of the book, it beneficially informed my understanding of World War II.
For many years I squarely placed the blame for WWII on the Treaty of Versailles, the unnecessary adoption of total blame for WWI on Germany and bankrupting the German economy. I have not downgraded my belief in those accelerants. All still true and all still relevant.
However, I now see this additional kindling. Perhaps just as flammable as the economic factors driven by Versailles.
Hitler and Mussolini both were well known germaphobes. I mentioned this fact in the same writing I referenced above. Most of Hitler’s policies that led to unforgivable acts of Democide began with endeavors that most anyone would applaud. Statewide efforts to clean up factory waste and working environments. Statewide coordinated efforts to stave off deadly bouts of Tuberculosis.
Hitler bathed 4 times per day. He was obsessed with hygiene. So was Mussolini, who even attempted to outlaw handshaking in Italy.
Thinking through all this I wondered how it was that these guys came to be this way?
Then something hit me I hadn’t considered before.
The Spanish Flu
Germany and Italy both were struck hard by the Flu in 1918. Everyone was. Living through this sort of epidemic obviously had severe implications on the culture and personalities of those who survived.
Hitler was 29. He had just survived WWI as a young officer. Watching many of his brothers and sisters fall to both disease and warfare. Mussolini was 35.
Now, watching our currency implode from the inside out, even while we’re assured the economy is somehow healthier than ever and seeing our culture being shaped through our perception of COVID19, I just can’t help but wonder how many Hitlers we’re grooming and how ready we might be to adopt the sort of control measures required for totalitarian policies?
Certainly, we’re far more evolved now than just a couple generations past, right? Certainly, we’ve learned from those events and would never tolerate or allow people to speak in such ways any longer.
Right?
Well, that’s not promising.
At least Americans can count on civilized rationality from their political class within the most ordered society in history, right?
Joe Biden: “Our patience is wearing thin with unvaccinated Americans”
Oh.
Look. There’s a fundamental divide manifesting itself into kinetic conflict. This happens from time to time and it’s really nothing new. There are always varying surface level catalysts that make these events appear much different and even get taught much differently in school rooms for generations.
Bottom line though, core principles are being challenged. This conflict drives right at the very heart of what it is to exist and how people interpret the world around them and what it means to facilitate a life experience within this construct of reality.
I’m seeing battle lines drawn in the sand. Calls for secession (good). The issue driving our Covid hysteria is precisely the same issue that led to the first Civil War.
Crazy statement? You think so? Off my rocker?
I’ve argued for years that slavery itself was little more than an excuse to fight, not the driving reason the conflict erupted.
- Read the Corwin Amendment. The North offered permanent, constitutionally protected slavery rights to the South if they would remain in the Union
- Read collections of letters sent home from soldiers (North and South alike) and read their firsthand words about what they felt, experienced and what compelled them to be there risking their lives. None of them mentioned slavery
- Every nation on Earth other than the USA (exemption for Haiti) ended slavery without violence. It ended because facilitating labor within a free society turns out to be much more profitable and productive.
So. What drove us to conflict? Core principles.
The North was predominantly settled by English. Crown loving loyalists. The revolution itself was deeply unpopular. These folks believed in the righteousness and need of a strong central authority. The Crown or otherwise. They had lived under such constructs for many, many generations.
The South was predominantly settled by the Celts. The source of these awesome accents. They largely fled central authority to escape the Crown, pursue religious freedom and individual liberty. Research the history between England and the Celtic countries in the many generations preceding North American settlement. It’s pretty ugly. They had pushed back against abusive authority for many, many generations. You can imagine the sorts of skepticism of authority being passed along across generations, dinner table to dinner table.
It’s no mistake then that the founding politicians from the South such as Jefferson and Washington were enormous advocates of individual liberty and the founding politicians from the North such as Madison and Hamilton, were enormous advocates of the creation of a strong central authority.
This was the driving factor that led to conflict in 1861. Northern politicians moving to control economic outcomes in the agricultural South.
Individual liberty vs Central planning and authority.
While today’s conflict might be dressed up in epidemiology and lab coats, it’s the same central core principle that comes to bear and drives people to resist.
Even to violence if pushed hard enough.
And our current federal government has, as yet, shown no signs of letting up on the efforts to control.
Newton’s Third Law observes that for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. If object A exerts a force on object B, object B also exerts an equal and opposing force on object A.
Don’t mistake this rule as applicable only in material interactions.
Five Myths About Drone Warfare
Myth 1. It’s “precision bombing”
Myth 2. Drone warfare is ethical
Myth 3. If the war is legal so is the weapon
Myth 4. Drones are a triumph of technology
Myth 5. Drones are effective
Aerial bombardment has not created peaceful states, nor defeated IS, nor stopped the violent deaths of innocents, nor abated sectarian conflicts, nor alleviated suffering. These wars have led to endemic anarchy, mass exodus of civilians, death, poverty and generations living with the trauma of war. They have contributed to the rise of theocracy and jihadism. Wars rage, as millions are radicalised, disillusioned and despairing.
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