This Week's Must Reads - 18-24 December 2023

A summary of this week's most interesting news, studies, reports and articles

Dec 24, 2023

I spend a lot of time each day gathering new information and interesting articles. I then pick the most interesting topic and write about it but that leaves a lot of information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the best articles and information from this week. This weekly summary is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but more comprehensive daily summaries will be for paid subscribers only.

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Climate Change

Britain’s Net Zero Disaster and the Wind Power Scam. “This is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency,” assistant U.S. attorney Nicolas Roos declared in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, after accusing the defendant of building FTX on a “pyramid of deceit.” Much the same can be said about the foundations of Britain’s net zero experiment. Energy is complicated, and electricity is essential to modern society and our quality of life, but as with FTX, the underlying story is straightforward: wind power and net zero are built on a pyramid of deceit. Net zero was sold to Parliament and the British people on claims that wind-power costs were low and falling. This was untrue: wind-power costs are high and have been rising.
Destroying Farmland to Reduce Population. Everywhere you look, there is this scheme to reduce farming, which will reduce population. That was the whole theory of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) that the population would surpass the ability to grow food. That is the agenda. Wind generators or solar panels consume one-third of the farmland worldwide. This is what has inspired this thinking that we MUST reduce the population. War is a great tool for that, which is one reason they are pushing World War. They insist that industrial agriculture, which is employed by the majority of the developed world, is creating climate change.
The true cost of renewables.

Covid

Japanese Scientists Find Indisputable Evidence That All Covid Variants are Man-Made. A stunning Japanese study that has evolved from preprint to peer-reviewed publication suggests that all COVID-19 variants were engineered in biolabs and intentionally released upon humanity. First released in August 2023, the study, conducted by renowned Japanese virologists Professors Atsushi Tanaka and Takayuki Miyazawa of Osaka Medical University and Kyoto University, affirms that the push to keep COVID around is part of a nefarious deep state scheme to remove our individual freedoms and control us.
Cock-up or Conspiracy? Understanding COVID-19 as a 'Structural Deep Event'. First and foremost, it is necessary to dispel the idea that any attempt to understand intersections between political-economic agendas and COVID-19 is absurd or crazy. Applied to COVID-19, a ‘structural deep event’ reading would point toward a constellation of actors, with overlapping interests, working to advance agendas, and being enabled to do so because of COVID-19. Such a reading does not necessarily include or exclude the possibility of COVID-19 being an instigated event and one that functioned, in the widest sense, as a propaganda event enabling powerful actors to realise their goals. What are the grounds for seriously considering a ‘structural deep event’ reading?

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

Anders Tegnell’s lesson for the Covid Inquiry. Sweden's former State Epidemiologist is still being ignored. After thousands of hours of political inquisition and motivated reasoning, the UK Covid Inquiry has finally allowed mention of the single most important control group in the global lockdown experiment: Sweden. A written submission by former State Epidemiologist of Sweden Anders Tegnell, published in a dump of more than 700 documents on the final day before the Christmas recess, contains a barrage of uncomfortable facts delivered in typical Nordic deadpan.
This Silence Is Not Golden. At least the UK held public hearings, even if they were gamed from the start. There is a smidgeon of honesty that they held them at all. After all, the Covid era of public policy, in the US and all over the world, was the worst deployment of compulsory public policy in our lifetimes. It affected the whole of life in ways that were unthinkable even a year before. It was not an act of nature. It was designed and deployed by men in power. The silence is not golden. It’s dangerous. It is even treacherous. The Covid response ruined everything the world identified with America: freedom, rights, decentralism, commerce, individual liberty, and bravery in the face of trial. Governments together with all the commanding heights betrayed all those values. We need to know why. We need to know how. We need to know who. The silence could mean there is more to come. Which is to say that silence equals death.
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Economy/Energy/Finance

Real estate investor warns US is entering the 'greatest' correction of his lifetime. "I just want to say that we’re entering the greatest real estate correction in my lifetime," private equity fund manager Grant Cardone told "FOX & Friends" on Thursday while discussing the state of the industry. "It’s [real estate correction] going to be a great opportunity for individuals, regular, everyday people to actually grab trophy real estate from institutions. This has never happened in the country," Cardone said. "It’s going to be at epic levels," he expressed.
The Truth About The Economy That The Mainstream Media Is Not Telling You. If it seems to you that the economic headlines that we are being fed by the mainstream media are completely and utterly disconnected from reality, you are definitely not alone. They tell us that inflation is under control, but I was just at the grocery store today and I could hardly believe the prices. They tell us that unemployment is “low”, but large companies are laying off workers in droves. And they tell us that things are getting better for the middle class, but the truth is that by mid-2024 the vast majority of Americans will have less money than they did in 2019…
Economist Claims 2024 Will Bring 'Biggest Crash of Our Lifetime' in US. An economist who focuses on consumer spending issued a dire warning about the U.S. economy in 2024. Mr. Dent, who owns the HS Dent Investment Management firm, told the outlet that U.S. markets are currently in a bubble that started in late 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "If I'm right, it is going to be the biggest crash of our lifetime, most of it happening in 2024. You're going to see it start and be more obvious by May.
Christmas is exposing the gulf between workers and the workshy. Lockdown upended attitudes towards employment. Now, Britain's productivity is being crushed by those who view it as a lifestyle choice. The entire public sector has slipped into near-catatonic lethargy, with productivity in June 5.7 per cent lower than pre-Covid. Lacking the ideas or inclination, perhaps both, to tackle this issue, the Government has instead increased headcount: there were an estimated 5.9 million employees in the public sector in September, up 135,000 on the previous year. More people are doing less, at a time when Britain is economically closer to Romania than it is to the US.
Has A “Silent Depression” Already Started In The United States? The Biden administration and the corporate media are telling us over and over that the economy is just fine, but the term “silent depression” has been going viral on TikTok. Housing, vehicles, food and just about everything else that we spend money on is far more unaffordable today than it was during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A realtor in Florida named Freddie Smith posted a video on TikTok with some absolutely startling numbers about the cost of living in the United States today, and that is what started the “silent depression” trend.
Amazon's humanoid warehouse robots will eventually cost only $3 per hour to operate. That won't calm workers' fears of being replaced. Designed by Agility Robotics, which Amazon has invested in as part of its Industrial Innovation Fund, Digit is only the latest of a string of warehouse robots the company has introduced over the last several years. However, most of the other warehouse robots have been cart-shaped or robotic arms, not humanoid like Digit. Digit costs about $10 to $12 an hour to operate right now, based on its price and lifespan, but the company predicts that cost to drop to $2 to $3 an hour plus overhead software costs as production ramps up, Agility Robotics CEO Damion Shelton told Bloomberg.
The top four banks have over $170 trillion in derivatives exposure which is more than the entire world’s GDP.

Health

Long-Term Use Of Statins Linked To Heart Disease: Studies. For decades, statins have been heralded as the reliable heroes in the battle against heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and globally. However, this seemingly flawless reputation has been called into question. A new expert review suggests that long-term use of statins may be inadvertently aiding the enemy by accelerating coronary artery calcification instead of providing protection. The review, published in Clinical Pharmacology, suggests statins may act as “mitochondrial toxins,” impairing muscle function in the heart and blood vessels by depleting coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), an antioxidant cells use for growth and maintenance. Multiple studies show statins inhibit CoQ10 synthesis, leading many patients to supplement.
Wheat Intolerance Might Be Due to Glyphosate – New Canadian Study. A scientific review identifies glyphosate as a possible cause of the global rise in wheat intolerance. This condition is increasingly reported by people who don’t have a diagnosis of celiac disease (a condition where your immune system attacks your own tissues when you eat the protein gluten), GMWatch reported. While no GM glyphosate-tolerant wheat is commercially planted in North America, glyphosate-based herbicides are often sprayed on non-GM wheat pre-harvest to desiccate it (“dry it down”).
This weed killer is banned in 50 countries. U.S. workers say it’s giving them Parkinson’s. The herbicide is paraquat, an extremely powerful weed killer that Mund — a crew worker with the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County — sprayed on vegetation as part of his job from about 1980 to 1985. Mund contends the product is responsible for his disease, but the manufacturer denies there is a causal link between the chemical and Parkinson’s. Research suggests the chemical may cross the blood-brain barrier in a manner that triggers Parkinson’s disease, a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder that affects movement.

Middle East

A new Suez crisis threatens the world economy. Global shipping firms are suspending voyages in the Red Sea. Over a thousand miles from Gaza, a naval crisis is unfolding that could transform the war between Israel and Hamas into a global affair with implications for the world economy. Since December 15th four of the world’s five largest container-shipping companies, cma cgm, Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk and msc, have paused or suspended their services in the Red Sea, the route through which traffic from the Suez Canal must pass, as Iran-backed Houthi militants, armed with sophisticated weapons, escalate their attacks on global shipping flows. As one of the world’s major trade arteries suddenly closes, America and its allies are ramping up naval activity in the Middle East, and may even attack the Houthis, in order to re-establish free passage.
Netanyahu’s tactics are weakening Israel. Hamas’s jihadist ideology must be defeated – but Israel’s methods will only boost that hate-filled creed. Ben Wallace writes that Hamas is not interested in a two-state solution either. No – it is interested in a religious war with Jews, using Palestinians as cannon fodder. So, he absolutely defends Israel’s right to defend itself. But he also believes strongly in our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and expects all signatories to uphold them. Going after Hamas is legitimate; obliterating vast swathes of Gaza is not. Using proportionate force is legal, but collective punishment and forced movement of civilians is not.
Pentagon 'alarmed' over price tag of countering cheap Yemeni drones. Sanaa has reportedly fired at least 100 drones toward Israeli-linked commercial vessels for the past month in support of the Palestinian people. US estimates place the cost of the domestic-made drones at $2,000 each. In comparison, each munition used by US warships in the Red Sea cost between $1 million and $4.3 million. The US navy has reportedly shot down at least 38 of the drones fired by Yemen. "[The high cost] quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor,” Mick Mulroy, a former US defense official and CIA officer, told POLITICO. “We, the US, need to start looking at systems that can defeat these that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us.”

Politics

Germany Will Deploy Troops for First Time Since World War II. The announcement was made Monday in Lithuania, where Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas met with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, to outline a multiyear "Roadmap Action Plan" involving approximately 4,800 permanently stationed German soldiers. Both officials called the move a historical moment not just for their nations but for NATO as well. German troops, including those with families, will be stationed in the Lithuanian cities of Kaunas and Vilnius beginning in 2024, with most troops deployed in 2025 and 2026 and full-operation capability expected by 2027. In turn, Lithuania has committed to providing all necessary civilian and military infrastructure.
EU Commission opens formal proceedings against X under the Digital Services Act. On the basis of the preliminary investigation conducted so far, including on the basis of an analysis of the risk assessment report submitted by X in September, X's Transparency report published on 3 November, and X's replies to a formal request for information, which, among others, concerned the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel, the Commission has decided to open formal infringement proceedings against X under the Digital Services Act.
California Lt. Governor: ‘Explore Every Legal Option’ To Remove Trump From Ballot. California’s lieutenant governor sent a letter to the state’s secretary of state on Wednesday asking her to explore “every legal option” to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, just one day after Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled the former president would not be on the state’s 2024 primary ballot. In her letter, Kounalakis acknowledged there would be “political punditry” about a potential decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot but said “this is not a matter of political gamesmanship.”
Over 170 of Jeffrey Epstein's high-profile associates will be NAMED in court documents set to be unsealed in the first days of 2024. A judge has ruled to unseal documents that would name 177 Does who are Epstein's friends, recruiters and victims within the coming weeks. The material is related to a defamation case brought by Prince Andrew's accuser Virginia Roberts in New York against Epstein's madam Ghislaine Maxwell. The hundreds of files will shed new light on the late financier's sex trafficking operation and his network of influence.
Why We Love the Nutcracker. This ballet was created in that great time of innocence when all the world foresaw a beautiful future of unstoppable and unending peace, prosperity, and justice. Fully formed and just as wonderful as ever, it has leapt over the century of statism, the century of bloodshed and mass murder by states, and also the global evil of lockdowns that destroyed so much, and is presented to us right now in our hometown. We can sit in our lovely arts centers and drink it all in, and smile wide smiles for two solid hours. We can share in this vision of that generation we never knew. We can dream that dream too. The themes of The Nutcracker—a culture of free association, gift giving, personal and material growth, spiritual reflection and artistic excellence, dancing and dreaming—can and should be our future. We need not repeat the blunders of the past, the wars, horrors, and lockdowns; rather, we can make a new world with a new theme as joyful as the melodies that have again enraptured millions in this holiday season.
‘Diversity’ just means discrimination. Aviva's CEO has unwittingly revealed the backwardness of the ‘DEI’ agenda. Amanda Blanc, the chief executive of insurance company Aviva, has revealed that no white males can be recruited to senior posts without her say-so. Speaking last week at a Treasury Select Committee hearing on sexism in the finance industry, Blanc said that there can be ‘no non-diverse hire at Aviva without it being signed off by me and the chief people officer’. It was an admission that revealed a lot about the impact of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agenda on employment and public life more broadly. Thanks to DEI, it is now acceptable for a CEO to state that she will subject ‘non-diverse’ candidates – a coded reference to white males – to extra scrutiny. Which sounds very much like discrimination to me.
Obama lobbied to keep Claudine Gay as Harvard press despite antisemitism, plagiarism allegations: report. "According to a source familiar with the matter," The Jewish Insider wrote, "Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay’s behalf as she faced pressure to resign in the wake of her disastrous appearance before the congressional hearing on antisemitism." “It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable — including its composition,” said the source, "who was informed of Obama’s outreach and asked to speak anonymously to discuss a confidential matter," per Jewish Insider.
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Science

Turns out “Nothing” doesn’t exist. Instead, there is “quantum foam”. Traditional concepts of “nothing” or empty space have been challenged by recent advancements in our understanding of quantum mechanics. It turns out that the vacuum of space is not as empty as we once thought. Instead, it is teeming with activity at the quantum level, giving rise to a phenomenon known as “quantum foam.” This article will explore the concept of quantum foam, its significance, and the implications for our understanding of the universe.
Mesopotamian bricks unveil the strength of Earth's ancient magnetic field. Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have yielded important insights into a mysterious anomaly in Earth's magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new study involving University College London researchers. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes how changes in the Earth's magnetic field imprinted on iron oxide grains within ancient clay bricks, and how scientists were able to reconstruct these changes from the names of the kings inscribed on the bricks. The team hopes that using this "archaeomagnetism," which looks for signatures of the Earth's magnetic field in archaeological items, will improve the history of Earth's magnetic field, and can help better date artifacts that they previously couldn't.
Researchers use Moore's Law to calculate that life began before Earth existed. Geneticists Richard Gordon of the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida and Alexei Sharov of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore have proposed, in a paper uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, that if the evolution of life follows Moore's Law, then it predates the existence of planet Earth. The two researchers acknowledge their ideas are more of a "thought exercise" than a theory proposal, but at the same time suggest their calculations ought to be taken seriously.
The Moon’s Far Side Is Inexplicably More Conductive, Korean Lunar Orbiter Reveals. There’s something odd about the far side of the Moon, scientists have concluded based on data from the Korean Pathfinder Lunor Orbiter. The results are yet to be published, but suggest a discrepancy between the conductivity of the near and far sides, which so far lacks a plausible explanation. The Moon does not have a global magnetic field the way the Earth does, although it once did. However, like Mars, it has some intriguing local fields.
Does quantum theory imply the entire Universe is preordained? The popular idea that quantum physics implies everything is random and nothing is certain might be as far from the truth as it could possibly be. In this perspective, the quantum Universe has two basic laws: a deterministic one of temporal evolution and a simple one that picks an initial wavefunction for the Universe. Hence, the quantum Universe satisfies strong determinism. The physical laws permit exactly one cosmic history of the Universe, albeit one described by a wavefunction that superposes many classical trajectories. There is no contingency in what the Universe as a whole could have been, and no alternative possibility for how it could have started. Every event, including the first one, is explained; the entire wavefunction of the Universe for all times is pinned down by the laws. The probabilities of quantum mechanics do not exist at the level of the basic physical laws, but can nonetheless be assigned to coarse-grained and partial descriptions of bits of the Universe.

Technology

Chinese brain warfare includes sleep weapons, thought control. China‘s military is developing advanced psychological warfare and brain-influencing weapons as part of a new warfighting strategy, according to a report on People’s Liberation Army cognitive warfare. The report, “Warfare in the Cognitive Age: NeuroStrike and the PLA’s Advanced Psychological Weapons and Tactics,” was published earlier this month by The CCP Biothreats Initiative, a research group. The report identified two recent studies by China‘s army that open-source researchers say indicate the Chinese military is augmenting “hard power” weapons with new types of arms to help win wars without conventional weapons. The new arms include biological weapons designed to induce sleep or sleep-related disturbances in enemy troops. The goal is to impair cognition and alertness.

Ukraine

With Western aid stalled, Ukrainian troops run low on artillery shells. The ammunition shortage is deepening the already palpable anxiety in the Ukrainian capital, as U.S. and European aid stalls and winter sets in. “The guys are tired — very tired,” he said. “They are still motivated — many people understand that they have no other choice.” “But you can’t win a war only on motivation,” he continued. “You should have some kind of a numerical advantage, and with the weapons and weapons systems, it only gets worse and worse. How long can we last? It’s hard to say, but it can’t be long. Everyone understands this.” “I hope the U.S. government understands,” he added, “that keeping Ukraine safe with ammunition is much cheaper than rearming Poland and the Baltic countries if Ukraine will fall.”
Top Ukraine Defense Official Held Over Multi-Million Fraud. Police have arrested a senior Ukrainian defence ministry official suspected of embezzling 36 million euros for the purchase of much-needed artillery shells in the war against Russia, officials said Friday. Prosecutors said the official, whose identity they did not reveal, had developed a system under which he bought artillery shells at inflated prices. "The director of one of the main defence ministry services has been placed in detention," said the prosecutors' statement. Ukraine has had to deal with a series of corruption scandals in recent months, including several others within the defence ministry.

Vaccines

EU dumps more than 200million Covid vaccines – costing taxpayers £3.4billion. In the years since the first coronavirus vaccines were given the green light towards the end of 2020, EU countries have taken delivery of 1.5billion doses - three for every person in Europe. However, many have ended up in landfills across the continent. The figures were calculated using available data suggesting that EU countries have discarded, on average, 0.7 jabs per person. Top of the league is the Baltic nation of Estonia, which ditched more than one dose per inhabitant, followed closely by Germany. The analysis - based on a total of 19 countries - puts the minimum figure at 215million. However, if the average waste rate is projected across the rest of the bloc, it could be as high as 312million. In Ireland alone, 850,000 vaccine doses are believed to have been thrown away.
Gene-based COVID-19 vaccines: Australian perspectives in a corporate and global context. Key phase III clinical trials for these products are yet to be fully completed, despite administration to billions of people. Mass vaccination of workforces has been mandated, and vaccine mandates correlate with excess mortality. Neither risk nor cost can justify these products for the vast majority of people. We should pause, reflect, and reaffirm essential freedoms, welcome the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, embrace natural immunity, and lift all mandated medical therapy.
Presence of viral spike protein and vaccinal spike protein in the blood serum of patients with long-COVID syndrome. This study, in agreement with other published investigations, demonstrates that both natural and vaccine spike protein may still be present in long-COVID patients, thus supporting the existence of a possible mechanism that causes the persistence of spike protein in the human body for much longer than predicted by early studies. According to these results, all patients with long-COVID syndrome should be analyzed for the presence of vaccinal and viral spike protein.
DOD to study whether COVID-19 vaccine helped or hurt troops. Included in the annual defense authorization bill passed by Congress earlier this month is language calling for “a study to assess and evaluate any health conditions and adverse events arising in service members on active duty one year after receiving the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.” Researchers will be required to report their findings back to lawmakers in December 2024.