This Week's Must Reads - 4-10 September 2023

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

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

• New study suggests global warming could be mostly an urban problem. A new study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Climate, by 37 researchers from 18 countries suggests that current estimates of global warming are contaminated by urban warming biases. The study also suggests that the solar activity estimates considered in the most recent reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimated the role of the Sun in global warming since the 19th century.

• Chop Down Forests To Save The Planet? Maybe Not As Crazy As It Sounds [Actually it sounds crazy]. Bill Gates and other investors are betting Kodama Systems can reduce carbon dioxide in the air by chopping down and burying trees. Now if only Uncle Sam would get on board with tax credits, too.

• “I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published - I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work… I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.”

Covid

• ‘FDA Is Not a Physician’: Appeals Court Sides With Doctors on Ivermectin for COVID-19. A federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had overstepped its authority in their ruling that three doctors will be able to move forward with their lawsuit over the use of ivermectin off-label to treat COVID-19.

• Why BA.2.86 Covid strain is just another 'scariant': Global studies find variant is LESS contagious and deadly than previous versions. Chinese researchers also found BA.2.86 was about 60 percent less infectious than XBB.1.15 — the variant that was dominant in the US until EG.5, or Eris, emerged — which they said may explain why it is only being detected at low levels.

• Cockup or Conspiracy? Understanding COVID-19 as a ‘Structural Deep Event’. As debate over ‘The Science’ has increased, people are questioning whether there was more to COVID-19 in terms of underlying agendas, in particular with respect to global-level actors. Was it incompetence or coordination?

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• "Collapsing schools" means one thing: a control group. Even if you don't have school-aged children, it is unlikely to have escaped your attention that the country is being plunged into yet another schools' crisis, as several hundred of the places are now at risk of collapsing upon their inhabitants' heads. Already in the press, there is a phenomenal push to depict schools as too dangerous for children to go back to.

• “Where were all the anarchists during COVID 19?” “I find it incredible that self-identified “anarchists” could regard it as a bad thing to challenge the imposition, by fraudulent means, of a global corporate dictatorship! The only way this could have come about, in my opinion, is that the movement has been infiltrated and ideologically polluted on a massive scale”.

• British professor who is member of the Communist party appointed as chair of WHO advisory group. Professor Susan Michie, Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, will chair the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health.

• [2021] Covid-19 disruptions killed 228,000 children in South Asia, says UN report. The disruption in healthcare services caused by Covid-19 may have led to an estimated 239,000 maternal and child deaths in South Asia, according to a new UN report.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• Over £20bn now paid by the UK to the EU since fully exiting the bloc. Including the 11 month Transition Period this rises to over £33bn. In the last 12 months alone, the United Kingdom has given the EU Commission an astonishing £8.6bn. This is all because of the ‘Divorce Bill’ which Theresa May negotiated with the EU. There was never any legal justification for such a bill.

• The World’s Empty Office Buildings Have Become a Debt Time Bomb. From San Francisco to Hong Kong, higher interest rates and falling property values are bringing the commercial real estate market to a perilous precipice. In New York and London, owners of gleaming office towers are walking away from their debt rather than pouring good money after bad.

• NVIDIA – The Red Flags. No Smoke without a Fire. With industry giants like Stan Druckenmiller adding NVIDIA shares to their portfolios in size, it's no surprise that many chose to follow suit, with scant scepticism surrounding the company. But…Has the buzz around generative AI led to a surge in real demand for NVIDIA GPUs?

• The US Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) are still dropping and fast.

  

• US Home Purchase Applications Fall to Lowest Since 1995. A gauge of US mortgage applications for home purchases fell to a 28-year low last week, underscoring the stifling effect of high mortgage rates on buyer demand. The Mortgage Bankers Association index of home-purchase applications decreased 2.1% to 141.9, the lowest level since April 1995, according to data out Wednesday.

• Real-Estate Doom Loop Threatens America’s Banks. Regional banks’ exposure to commercial real estate is more substantial than it appears. With the commercial real-estate market now in meltdown, those trillions of dollars in loans and investments are a looming threat for the banking industry—and potentially the broader economy.

• US job openings have been dropping sharply.

  

• Biden administration cancels remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic Refuge. In an aggressive move that angered Republicans, the Biden administration canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday, overturning sales held in the Trump administration’s waning days, and proposed stronger protections against development on vast swaths of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Health

• Translocation of gut commensal bacteria to the brain. The gut-brain axis, a bidirectional signaling network between the intestine and the central nervous system, is crucial to the regulation of host physiology and inflammation. Recent advances suggest a strong correlation between gut dysbiosis and neurological diseases, however, relatively little is known about how gut bacteria impact the brain.

• Who Should Not Use Ibuprofen. Popping an ibuprofen for that pounding headache or twisted ankle can provide quick relief from pain. But while this easily accessible, over-the-counter drug could temporarily mask discomfort and sometimes help a lot, experts say it does little to spur true healing. Furthermore, for certain groups of people, ibuprofen poses serious health risks that outweigh potential benefits.

• Cancer cases grow by 79% in young people - as 'alarming' study suggests key reasons. Researchers behind the study stress that while the number of cases has surged internationally since 1990, they stabilised in the UK between 2010 and 2019. [what has happened since 2019!?]

• The US quietly terminates a controversial $125m wildlife virus hunting programme amid safety fears. Two years after launching what officials hailed as a five year flagship project for hunting viruses among wildlife to prevent human pandemics, the US Agency for International Development is shuttering the enterprise.

Politics

• Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here. Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level. On August 25th, a new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union. Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be “illegal”, “disinformation” or “hate speech”.

• US fighter jets capable of nuclear bombing to be based in UK. Two squadrons of hi-tech F-35 As set to arrive at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk imminently. The stealth jets are designed to carry out tactical nuclear bombing and are capable of conducting air-to-air missions and intelligence gathering. It comes after official documents suggested US nuclear weapons could return to British soil.

• Billionaires Buying Large Swathes of Land Near Travis Air Force Base Unveil Plans for New City. The mysterious company that has been buying up large swathes of land near Travis Air Force Base in Solano County in Northern California has unveiled a new website detailing plans to build a new metropolitan city.

• The White House has extended EO 13848. This continues the national emergency with respect to foreign interference in US elections.

• Kim Jong Un reveals 'nuclear attack submarine'. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has held a ceremony to reveal a new submarine, which Pyongyang claims can carry nuclear weapons. A report in state media said the submarine strengthened the country's nuclear deterrent by "leaps and bounds".

• Former PM Sanna Marin quits Finnish politics to join Tony Blair Institute. Marin, who stepped down as leader of the Social Democrats after finishing third in April’s election, to resign as MP. Marin, who became one of Europe’s youngest leaders when she took office as prime minister in 2019 and oversaw Finland’s successful application to join Nato, formally stepped down as head of the Social Democrats earlier this month.

• UK Scores ‘Own Goal’ and Press Cheers. Even Euroskeptic papers have blindly called Britain rejoining an initiative to strengthen EU a “victory.” Do the authors of these pieces—not to mention the members of Rishi Sunak’s government—understand what they’re dealing with? If they bothered to read just the first two sentences of the official Horizon Europe website, they would learn that it is the initiative’s purpose to “[boost] the EU’s competitiveness and growth.”

• CIA Front Preparing Color Revolution in Indonesia. Documents passed anonymously to MintPress News reveal the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a notorious CIA front, is laying the foundations for a color revolution in Indonesia. In February 2024, citizens will elect their President, Vice President, and both legislative chambers.

• The political elite has given up on Britain. Labour and the Tories have joined forces to condemn Britain to national failure. Their views are virtually indistinguishable. Broken Britain exudes dysfunctionality, yet both parties are committed to business as usual.

Science

• The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel. Not long after the James Webb Space Telescope began beaming back from outer space its stunning images of planets and nebulae last year, astronomers, though dazzled, had to admit that something was amiss.

• Scientists Discover 'Pure Math' Is Written Into Evolutionary Genetics. Mathematicians delight in the beauty of math that so many of us don't see. But nature is a wonderful realm in which to observe beauty born out of mathematical relationships.

• Biotech company says it’s making implanted dopamine-making cells in patients’ brains. A California-based biotech company says it's successfully implanted lab-made neurons in Parkinson's patients' brains to stimulate a dopamine response — and if it works as intended, it could be a substantial advance in fighting the disease.

• Scientists grow human embryo in a lab without sperm, egg or womb. The ’embryo model’ even releases hormones that triggered a positive pregnancy test. Synthetic embryos would not be allowed to progress beyond a matter of weeks.

• Could an 'Earth-like' planet be hiding in our solar system's outer reaches? Astronomers are racing to explain peculiar orbits of faraway objects at the edge of our solar system. Among the many mysteries that make the furthest reaches of our solar system, well, mysterious, is the exceptionally egg-shaped path of a dwarf planet called 90377 Sedna.

• “QBism”: The most radical interpretation of quantum mechanics ever. A relatively new interpretation of quantum mechanics asks us to reimagine the process of science itself. "QBism," or "Quantum Bayesianism," offers a radical interpretation of quantum physics, suggesting that quantum states are not objective realities. Instead, the interpretation posits that quantum states reflect our subjective understanding and interactions with the quantum world.

Technology

• [2019] China’s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced. New research suggests that a controversial gene-editing experiment to make children resistant to HIV may also have enhanced their ability to learn and form memories. Now, new research shows that the same alteration introduced into the girls’ DNA, deletion of a gene called CCR5, not only makes mice smarter but also improves human brain recovery after stroke, and could be linked to greater success in school.

• X’s privacy policy confirms it will use public data to train AI models. X’s recently updated privacy policy informed its users it would now collect biometric data as well as users’ job and education history. According to an update to another section of the policy, the company additionally plans to use the information it collects and other publicly available information to help train its machine learning and AI models, it says.

Ukraine

• Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky held in anti-corruption drive. One of Ukraine's most powerful oligarchs is to be held in custody for two months on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. Mr Kolomoisky is a wealthy businessman involved in Ukrainian media, oil and banking. His TV channel gave Mr Zelensky his break with the comedy series Servant of the People, before he backed the former actor's bid for the presidency.

• Ukraine’s ‘biggest arms supplier’ orchestrated 2014 Maidan massacre, witnesses say. Once denounced by Zelensky as a “criminal,” gun runner Serhiy Pashinksy has become the top private supplier of arms to Ukraine. Eyewitness testimony has fingered Pashinsky as the architect of a bloody false flag operation which propelled the 2014 Maidan coup and plunged the country into civil war.

• Elon Musk was asked to activate Starlink in Sevastopol. He refused as he believed the intent was to sink the Russian fleet at anchor. Musk says he didn’t want SpaceX to be complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation. However, many MSM outlets didn’t see it that way, calling Musk a Putin Suck-up.

• Interview with Andor Sándor, former head of intelligence of the Czech Republic: I'm afraid we'll be drawn into a war. If the United States had not pressed for Ukraine's membership in NATO, the war would not have broken out. Admitting Ukraine to NATO would mean that Russia is weak. The only country that loses nothing from this conflict is the United States. But the West as a whole is losing a lot, or has already lost a lot.

Vaccines

• FDA, CDC Hid Data on Spike in COVID Cases Among the Vaccinated. COVID-19 cases among vaccinated seniors soared in 2021, according to newly disclosed data that was acquired by U.S. health agencies but not presented to the public.

• Spike Protein Found in Blood 6 Months After mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination. Astudy published in the journal Proteomics Clinical Applications on August 31, 2023, found persistence of spike protein in the blood of people who received mRNA COVID‑19 vaccines at six months after vaccination.

• CDC Repeatedly Advised People With Post-Vaccination Conditions to Get More Doses. A network composed of experts from inside and outside the U.S. government repeatedly recommended that people who suffered adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination receive additional shots, even when the experts could not rule out the vaccines as the cause of the events.

• A Deeper Dive Into the Role of Spike Protein in Myocarditis and Blood Clotting After COVID-19 Vaccination. In this series, “Promise or Peril: Alarming COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Issues,” the authors explore how the introduction of mRNA technology lacked an adequate regulatory framework, setting the stage for serious adverse events and other concerns related to inadequate safety testing of lipid nanoparticles, spike protein, and residual DNA- and lipid-related impurities, as well as truncated/modified mRNA species.

• Through the Distorted Lens. The Dual Views of Risk Data. Most people have difficulty understanding what different levels of risks mean to them and translating them into decisions they make in everyday life. Those that stand to gain from this public misinterpretation of the significance of various risks know this full well, and manipulate the way in which statistics are presented to further their ends. Pharmaceutical products are often sold and marketed using relative risk reduction (“RRR”) rather than absolute risk reduction (“ARR”).