Alun Cairns, former Welsh Secretary, advised a firm on investing in a government scheme he helped run, then took a £30,000-a-year job as an advisor. Alun Cairns and Boris Johnson in July 2019.Frank Augstein - WPA Pool/Getty Images Alun Cairns met Elite Partners Capital Partners during a holiday in Singapore and discussed the Swansea Bay City Deal. The former Secretary of State for Wales later took a £30,000-a-year job with Elite Partners Capital. Cairns told a watchdog he had only incidental contact with Elite, though documents suggest much more. A former Cabinet minister took a job with a Singaporean private equity firm after giving it advice on securing investments in a £1.3 billion government-backed programme that he had direct oversight of.Documents obtained by Insider shed light on how Alun Cairns, a Conservative MP, got the £30,000-a-year side job, and the work he did to support the firm's goals while in office.They offer an insight into the limited scrutiny of how ministers sell their services after leaving office, and may further the widespread doubts about the effectiveness of the UK system of checks and balances. The Labour Party told Insider Cairns "has serious questions to answer" over whether the work is appropriate.Cairns met Elite Partners Capital in Singapore while on a family holiday in August 2019 to discuss details of the Swansea Bay City Deal, per the documents.The Swansea deal is a £1.3 billion programme of investment projects between the UK Government, the Welsh Government, local authorities, and private investors. As Secretary of State for Wales, the city deal was one of Cairns' ministerial responsibilities.Minutes of the meeting, taken by a Department of International Trade official working in Singapore, detail the specific support Cairns gave to Elite. The minutes were obtained by Insider through a Freedom of Information request.Elite was looking to invest in the Swansea City Deal programme, specifically the Swansea City and Waterfront Digital District project, the minutes show. The firm had already visited Swansea twice and was working through its due-diligence process. A meeting objective was for "EPC to be reassured of additional support" from the UK government.Cairns gave Elite details on delays to the Swansea City Deal, and supported its proposal to seek a commitment to become a long-term partner of Swansea Council. He said such a partnership would have "real value".The minutes conclude that the Wales Office would produce a fact sheet for Elite with information on the attractiveness of different projects, along with UK employment data.Cairns' private office — composed of officials working on his diary management and correspondence — was to see if he could provide a tour of Parliament to Elite executives on a visit to the UK later that month. It is unclear if such a tour did go ahead. Further government assistance was to be offered by the Department of International Trade in arranging meetings with senior officials at the Treasury and HMRC (the UK's tax revenue and customs agency) to discuss tax regimes.However, Cairns told the committee responsible for examining ex-ministers' jobs about none of the support he had given Elite in any detail while seeking official approval to take up a second job with Elite some months after quitting the front bench.In March 2021, Cairns told the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) that he had no involvement in policy development, decisions related to the company, contractual, or commercial decisions. The former minister made no reference to the £1.3bn project in Swansea.Cairns told ACOBA his meetings were to "highlight City and Growth Deal policies around Wales and the UK."He said he was unaware of "Elite Partners Capital investing in any City or Growth Deal plan or in seeking government assistance" in documents sent to ACOBA in connection with the role.The Vale of Glamorgan MP also told the arms-length moderating committee his role was to "champion investment opportunities in general", and that he had no role in contractual or commercial decisions.He said that "if any organisation wanted to pursue an investment opportunity further, they were passed to the Welsh Government or to the local City or Growth Deal team to develop further."Cairns's former department, the Wales Office, did not reject Cairns' claim to only ever have promoted investment opportunities in general terms in material it sent to ACOBA.It supported Cairns's claim that he made no regulatory or policy decisions that would have affected the firm, even though he was responsible for the investment programme in question.Cairns's request for approval from ACOBA of his job with Elite was granted. He joined Elite in June 2021 as an advisor to the board on "economic and political developments in the UK that could impact the group's international investments." He declared an annual income from Elite of £30,000 for up to 84 hours work, an hourly rate of at least £357.Cairns' office did not respond to several requests for comment. It is unclear whether Elite has actually invested in the Swansea City Deal programme, but most projects in the Swansea Bay City Deal are not yet at the stage of receiving private investment.A spokesperson for the Wales Office declined to comment. An ACOBA spokesperson told Insider it did "not consider any further action is required." The opposition Labour party said Cairns has "serious questions to answer" after Insider's findings.Jo Stevens MP, the shadow Welsh Secretary, told Insider: "Alun Cairns was cleared by ACOBA to take up his £30k-a-year second job with Elite after he submitted that his previous involvement with the company was very limited.""But the notes of his meeting with Elite whilst on a family holiday in the Far East, and the detailed actions he promised to take up for them afterwards, mean that he has serious questions to answer."These rules exist to ensure that when former ministers take up second jobs, there are no suspicions about improper influence or conduct."Parliamentarians and campaigners have long been critical of ACOBA. On January 11, Lord Jonathan Evans, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told a Parliamentary committee that ACOBA "doesn't have the teeth that it needs."The ACOBA chair, Lord Eric Pickles, has conceded how little it can accomplish, saying in April 2021: "ACOBA is not a watchdog, not a regulator. It has a very limited and defined role." It is more than two years since Cairns left his ministerial job, which brings looser rules. He is now free to lobby the UK government on behalf of Elite, and advise them on "work with regard to any policy [Cairns] had specific involvement or responsibility for as Secretary of State of Wales", according to the advice letter stating the committee's approval of the job sent by ACOBA to Cairns in April 2021.There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Elite. The firm did not respond to requests for a comment.As Insider reported in June 2021, one of Elite's investments in the UK is a £500 million property portfolio of 155 offices across the country, 99% of which are leased to the UK government. The primary occupier is the Department of Work and Pensions, which operates Jobcentres and back offices from the leased buildings. Elite also runs several other funds.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

From self-administering daily hormone shots to enduring rigorous testing, egg donors work for "every single penny," recent donors told Insider. Brigitte Adams looks at an ultrasound of her pregnancy at the Center for Fetal Medicine in Los Angeles, CA. After her own frozen eggs failed, she is pregnant with a donor egg and donor sperm.Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images Egg donor advertisements tout life-changing paychecks of up to $275,000 on social media.  But agencies and donors both agree that the process should not be confused as an easy way to make money. From giving yourself hormone shots to rigorous testing, here's what it's like to be an egg donor. The complex nature of the egg donation business is baked right into the name. A careful balancing act between the monetary and altruistic, egg donors are not supposed to be overly motivated by their paycheck.Of course, many are. After all, it's not just a donation — it's work.Both physically and emotionally tolling, egg donation is "in no way a process by which you can make a quick buck," four-time egg donor Gina-Marie Madow told Insider. "You work for every single penny there."The role of money in the $1 billion egg donation industry was decided in a 2016 class-action lawsuit, when a group of egg donors sued the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to eliminate its $10,000 compensation cap per donation.As a result, today donors can make much more than $10,000 a cycle, as evidenced by a quick Google search or a scroll through social media, where posts advertise upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many women choose to use the money to pay off student loans or go to graduate school, including two donors interviewed by Insider. "As an egg donor, you can receive up to $48,000 and help fulfill a family's dream," one Instagram ad from Fairfax Egg bank reads.Egg donor ads use big numbers to catch social media users' attention — but they don't always tell the full story.Facebook Ad LibraryThe advertisement features a young, blonde woman wearing a pink sweater and pearl hair clip. Smiling, she picks up the phone, immediately receives an orange pill bottle which she playfully shakes before she grabs her car keys and ... voila, a paycheck arrives. While advertisements like these may not be untrue, they don't show the full picture and can at times be misleading, said Madow, who is now the Director of Legal Services at ConceiveAbilities, an egg donor and surrogacy agency. Often, the compensation advertised is the payment for multiple donations — not just one. The Society for Ethics for Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS), a nonprofit working to define a set of ethical standards for egg donation and surrogacy programs, suggests monetary agreements should not "be dominating the ad nor in presentation format to call undue attention over other elements of the ad."However, "it's a delicate balance with finding the right way to attract women to their website," according to Madow. "It's up to the donor to ask really good questions and the agency to educate her honestly so that she knows what she's getting into."What donors are offering is really priceless. And they are very much aware of what their value is to future parents. Gail Sexton Anderson, founder of Donor ConciergeAdvertisements offering $100,000 per cycle or more usually come from confidential private clients or individuals searching for donors with a very specific set of characteristics. "I just think that those ads are not meant to attract the most qualified donor," Rachel Campbell, Circle Surrogacy's Manager of Egg Donation, told Insider. "They're meant to attract the donor who is in this for the money."Ultimately, it falls on the donor herself to fully understand what she's signing up for. On the agency side, personality tests and psychological evaluations help agencies determine if the donor is emotionally ready for the commitment, according to Donor Concierge founder Gail Sexton Anderson.But the long-term health effects of egg donation are still unknown due to the lack of research in the space, Anderson added.Women have reported developing breast cancer, fertility loss, and colon cancer following donation. For years, scientists have called for a mandatory national egg-donor registry and long-term data collection to better understand risks, which has yet to come to fruition. What's required to become an egg donorBefore all else, the donor's application must be approved and pre-screened in order to start the process. This requires genetic and fertility tests, medical screening, blood work, ultrasounds, and mental health assessments.Once approved, donors wait to be matched with a prospective parent — a process that can take days or months depending on how "in-demand" their characteristics are. Agency clients can filter down details like number of degrees, hair and eye color, height, and even religion. Most clients are "looking for someone who reflects you as much as possible," Anderson explained. "It's something that helps the intended parent to feel a little bit more at ease or in control of something that they have no control over."The matching process can range from anonymous or semi-anonymous to known. While first-time egg donor Eleanor Houghtaling told Insider she preferred her donation's anonymity, Madow said her favorite part about donating is getting to know the family she's helping.After a donor is matched with a client, the cycle begins. A full donation cycle typically requires two to three weeks of self-administered daily hormone injections, followed by around a month of screenings and monitoring appointments. Once the donor is medically and legally cleared for egg retrieval, the surgery is scheduled. During retrieval, the donor is placed under a mild anesthesia, and needle is stuck through the vaginal wall and into the ovaries to collect an average of 15 to 20 eggs, Parents.com reported. "The most difficult part of the process is physically taxing," Madow told Insider. "It's not fun injecting yourself with hormone medication and having a surgical procedure under anesthesia."She continued: "It's a commitment for a couple of months to get through the process, but it has a lifelong impact."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

As the labor shortage continues to pose problems, guests are increasingly being served by robots who act as receptionists or food couriers. A Savioke robot delivering items to a hotel guest.Photo By Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Hotels across the US are using room-service robots to help ease the effects of the labor shortage.  The robots deliver food or items to hotel guests and are always available.  They help hotel staff focus on crucial tasks like operating the front desk, per Fox Business.   Hotels across the US are using room-service robots to deal with staffing issues caused by a perpetual labor shortage.  The robots, created by Savioke, carry out simple tasks such as delivering meals or other items to guest rooms, Fox Business reported.Savioke CEO Steve Cousins told Fox Business in an interview that the robots allowed hotel staff to focus on crucial tasks, like manning the front desk, at a time when staff levels remain at record lows. Businesses in many industries are suffering from the effects of the labor shortage. Some have had to hike pay or slash operating hours, due to fewer levels of staff. In his discussion about the robots with Fox Business, Cousins said: "It's much more valuable for the front desk staff to be checking people in than to be running stuff up to a room." He added: "If the hotel manager has to come out and help you do deliveries, they're not selling rooms, which is their primary job."According to the outlet, the robots are available at any time on any day. Cousins said the robots do not replace workers but are an added "arsenal," which hotels count on for additional support. He added that hotels from New York to California have put down orders to purchase the robots. According to a statement on Savioke's website, the company "creates and deploys beautifully simple. sophisticated, and friendly service robots that work safely, securely, and reliably in human environments."Though it's becoming more common for businesses to use robots to tackle staffing issues, some say that there are drawbacks. This includes robots running away from guests wearing lots of jewelry or chatting too much.   Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

After the death of her father, Denise Netzley used her inheritance to move out of Los Angeles and spend six months living in Mexico and South Africa. Denise Netzley embracing nomadic living.Denise Netzley Airbnb is seeing users book longer stays, with 20% of nights booked for a month or more. One long-term traveller told Insider she has been living on Airbnb for the past six months. Although she's funding the trip with an inheritance, her monthly costs are comparable to her former rent. The decision came — as life-changing ones tend to do — in the middle of the night.It was January of last year and Denise Netzley said she had been thinking for several weeks about moving out of her apartment in Los Angeles and living for the foreseeable future on Airbnb."I woke up," she told Insider, "and I was just like, 'Yeah, I'm doing this, 100% I'm doing this.'"The following morning she started getting rid of what belongings she could, moved the rest into storage, and made reservations on Airbnb.At 59 years old, Netzley had some savings from a career producing ads for Hollywood films, followed by a personal assistant business that was winding down. She also received an inheritance following the death of her father three years ago, which she said made the whole plan possible.Denise NetzleyDenise NetzleyIn becoming a full-time Airbnb guest, Netzley was joining a growing set of power users who are booking longer and longer reservations on the platform.Company data show that roughly a fifth of nights booked were for stays longer than a month, CEO Brian Chesky said in a recent Twitter thread in which he announced that he too is now "living on Airbnb."The first reservation Netzley made was the one where she's currently living — in her father's birthplace of Kansas City, Missouri. From there she worked backwards, filling in the months with stays in Mexico and South Africa.In making the reservations, Netzley discovered by accident that some hosts offer discounts ranging from 15% to 50% when a reservation passes a certain length.In May of last year, Netzley handed over the keys to her LA apartment and departed for a six-week stay in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico."The first few days there I was completely overwhelmed, a fish out of water," she said. "But after the first week I got the lay of the land and I got comfortable enough to rent a car and start taking these day trips to different places, like Tulum."Denise Netzley in South Africa.Denise NetzleyNetzley's advice to similarly out-of-water fish is simple: "Sit at the bar in any restaurant when you go, people are going to be more inclined to be conversational. The bartender is going to help make connections. I just always sit at the bar almost anywhere I go."She spent August in a Kansas City neighborhood that she was considering to live post-travel before jetting off to Cape Town where a condo in a ten-unit building became her two-month base-camp for shorter jaunts around Africa."I found that I like having a home base," she said. "I just love the idea that I didn't have to schlep everything. I could just take a small bag and leave my stuff."Netzley added that she was able to get by with bringing about half the amount of stuff to Africa that she had brought with her to Mexico.And although she wasn't keeping a close eye on her budget, the purchasing power of the US dollar overseas meant that she was effectively living at a similar or lower monthly cost to what she would have paid in rent and expenses had she simply stayed in LA.On her way back to the US in December, she passed through Uganda and went on a gorilla trek that she said was the "absolute pinnacle" of the six-month journey.Now back in Kansas City at the same Airbnb host she stayed with in August, Netzley says she's "at a crossroads" trying to determine how she can continue to support her future travels, including launching a new business idea.Before she had set out in the first place, she had decided not to become attached to the inheritance money from her father, and now she's determined not to let this new business take over too much of her life."I've discovered in this travel — and in this year — that there's so much joy out there," Netzley said." I would never give up that for money, ever."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Researchers Worry COVID Will Quickly Develop Resistance To New Pills From Pfizer And Merck If it wasn't already bad enough that several experts have warned that US regulators are overlooking safety risks associated with the new generation of COVID therapeutic pills from Pfizer and Merck, researchers and regulators are also apparently worried that they might not even work - at least, not for long. According to a report in WSJ, researchers and academics are already taking steps to keep an eye out for signs that COVID is evolving in response to exposure to pills like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir. The hope is that the pills will save more lives, especially now that the vaccines and boosters have been surprisingly ineffective at prevent transmission and infection with the virus. "We know this is likely to happen at some point, so we need to beat it to the punch and nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand and starts to take over," said Katherine Seley-Radtke, a medicinal-chemistry professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, whose lab is studying antiviral combination therapies. The manufacturers of the pills say that the length of a course - which is taken over just five days, too short for the virus to develop immunity, they say. Then again, nobody knows for sure. Some believe what we know about how other viruses react to drugs might offer some insights: for example, HIV is more likely to develop a resistance to treatments consisting of a single drug, hence the use of cocktails. But HIV is a chronic disease, not an acute infection like COVID. For what it's worth, researchers working for Pfizer and Merck say they saw no signs of resistance emerging during their clinical trials. But those only included a few hundred people. And there's always the question of whether efficacy will fade when faced with new variants. "As with any virus, SARS-CoV-2 being no exception, there is a potential for the emergence of resistance that can impact existing therapies," the agency said. "As such, the FDA put mechanisms in place as part of the authorizations to help the agency understand the potential impact of variants on these products." Independent researchers cited by WSJ say they suspect Paxlovid might be more likely to cause resistance to develop. That's because Paxlovid stops the virus by blocking an enzyme—called protease which is involved in replication. Molnupiravir, on the other hand, is in a different class of antivirals. It stops the virus from multiplying by tricking an enzyme that SARS-CoV-2 needs to replicate into inserting errors into the genome of the coronavirus, short-circuiting the replication process and killing the virus. Using a combination of drugs might help prevent resistance from developing. But as things stand, with these new drugs still in short supply, that might not be realistic. Not to worry: Big Pharma is already looking at combining the new drugs with older (and less effective) treatments like remdesivir. With so much research needed, researchers are preparing to conduct nearly 20 new trials seeking to enroll more than 100 participants each will be starting in the near future. Tyler Durden Sun, 01/23/2022 - 07:35.....»»

NATO's "Space Policy" Outlines Readiness To Jointly Respond To Attacks In Space Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times, NATO made public its official “overarching Space Policy” this week, outlining how it would protect its members from space attacks, citing threats from potential adversaries. The U.S.-led alliance said its collective defense principles will be extended to outer space in response to developments made at last year’s Brussels Summit. “At the 2021 Brussels Summit, Allies agreed that attacks to, from, or within space present a clear challenge to the security of the Alliance, the impact of which could threaten national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security, and stability, and could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional attack. Such attacks could lead to the invocation of Article 5. A decision as to when such attacks would lead to the invocation of Article 5 would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis,” the document states. Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty states that an attack on any one of the 30 allies will be considered an attack on them all. Until now, it has only applied to more traditional military attacks on land, sea, or in the air, and more recently in cyberspace. Considering that members have recognized that space is essential to NATO’s deterrence and defense, NATO will consider a range of potential options, for council approval, across the conflict spectrum to deter and defend against threats to or attacks on allies’ space systems, it said. Around 2,000 satellites orbit the earth, over half operated by NATO countries, ensuring everything from cellphone and banking services to weather forecasts. Military commanders rely on some of them to navigate, communicate, share intelligence, and detect missile launches. In December 2019, NATO leaders declared space to be the alliance’s “fifth domain” of operations. Many member countries are concerned about what they say is increasingly aggressive behavior in space by China and Russia. Space has become “increasingly important” for the security and prosperity of NATO members, the alliance added. “Space is an inherently global environment and any conflict that extends into space has the potential to affect all users of space. Even in cases where NATO is not involved in conflict, Allies’ space systems could be affected,” the document reads. NATO noted that a number of nations are developing counter-space and anti-satellite systems. “Potential adversaries” in particular are pursuing the development of a wide range of capabilities from non-kinetic (such as dazzling, blinding, and jamming of space assets) to kinetic destructive systems (such as direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, on orbit anti-satellite systems, and laser and electromagnetic capabilities), it said. “Such space destruction, disruption, degradation, and denial capabilities are further exacerbated by the susceptibility of space to hybrid approaches and the associated difficulty of attributing harmful effects to space systems. Some threats, such as signal jamming and cyber attacks, can potentially be caused also by non-state actors, including terrorist organizations.” The document says, “Many threats to Allies’ space systems originate in the cyber domain and are likely to increase.” NATO said it would carry out its activities in outer space in accordance with international law, including the U.N. Charter, “in the interest of maintaining international peace and security and promoting international cooperation and understanding.” Baiba Braze, NATO assistant secretary general for public diplomacy, said in a statement on Twitter on Monday that it is “no surprise” that space is essential to NATO’s deterrence and defense. “Space has fascinated our imagination for centuries,” said Braze. The UK Space Command expressed support for the policy, saying on Twitter, “Space is a congested & competitive domain which is increasingly important for civilian and military activities.” “We rely on #space systems for everything from weather forecasts & navigation to intelligence & missile detection. But potential adversaries could threaten our freedom to operate, including with anti-satellite systems. #NATO’s new space policy sets out our approach,” said NATO Press Officer Dylan P. White. Tyler Durden Sun, 01/23/2022 - 07:00.....»»

A Litany Of Absurdity Via The Brownstone Institute, Allison Pearson writing for the Telegraph recounts her anti-lockdown views from early on, and how so many people who implemented draconian policies are now running from them and their own responsibility. In the course of her column, she provides a list of absurdities imposed on the British people. This column is excerpted below. At the end of the Second World War, Gaullists and Communists insisted that the majority of the French people had played a part in the Resistance. Actual figures for those who actively opposed the Nazis vary between 400,000 and 75,000. Something not entirely dissimilar is happening now as the Government prepares to lift Plan B restrictions next week, and fervent advocates of lockdown try to distance themselves from its dire consequences. Scientists whose mathematical models persuaded anxious ministers to impose drastic restrictions on human freedom not even seen during the Blitz are suddenly keen to emphasise that these were merely worst-case “scenarios”, not something on which you’d want to base actual policy. Did they mention that at the time, I wonder? Or has the Eddie-the-Eagle reliability of their predictions given rise to a certain hasty revisionism? Sorry, that’s unfair. Eddie the Eagle never predicted up to 6,000 Covid deaths a day this winter (actual number: 250). Michael Gove, the Cabinet’s most hawkish lockdown supporter, admitted last week to the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs that he was a “bedwetter” who got things badly wrong (unlike Boris) when he called for further restrictions over Christmas. Wes Streeting, the shadow Health Secretary, now says that we must never lock down again without explaining why the useless, No-opposition Opposition party not only failed to challenge any of the destructive rules, but continually called for them to be stricter. Cracks are even opening up in the wonkish façade of the Behavioural Insights Team, the so-called Nudge Unit, which bears much of the responsibility for terrifying the British people into complying with measures so cruel that I predict future generations will refuse to believe we ever allowed them to happen. Simon Ruda, co-founder of the team, told Unherd: “In my mind, the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public.” Eh? It’s a bit like the kid who drops a banger in the tin of fireworks, claiming he never meant to start a fire. Honest, guv! For those who were part of the lockdown Resistance, it is gratifying, but also oddly unbearable, to see the people who attacked us admitting that the “misinformation” we were accused of spreading 18 months ago turns out to be remarkably close to the truth. I am not a particularly rebellious person, and certainly not a brave one, but if I encounter any kind of injustice, my inner Welsh dragon starts breathing fire. I can’t help it. During the lockdowns, Idris the Pearson dragon seldom stopped fuming at the thousands of harrowing stories which readers shared with me. Like the lecturer who emailed about one of his students, a glorious young man, who fell to his death after hiding on the roof when police raided his house because a small party there breached lockdown regulations and the lad didn’t want to get into trouble. He paid with his young life for the stupid rules that were made – and repeatedly broken, as we now know – by middle-aged men in Westminster. When the Resistance dared to suggest that some lockdown measures were disproportionate, crazy and unsupported by science, let alone common sense, we were reviled. That is no exaggeration. I regret to say your columnist was called, in no particular order, a Covid denier (I nursed my entire family through the virus), a granny killer (I didn’t see my own mother for 18 months) and a spreader of disinformation. When I protested on social media that putting padlocks on the gates of playgrounds was a terrible idea, back came a fusillade of vicious accusations: “You want people to die!” To question the official narrative that nothing mattered except keeping people safe from Covid was heresy. Witches like me had to be burnt at the stake before we could spread our subversive ideas to all Sage-fearing people. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? It is now widely acknowledged that the NHS was never overwhelmed (that’s why the Nightingales were shut without being used). And even those prophets of doom at the BBC finally acknowledged this week that half of “Covid deaths” since Christmas are not actually “from” Covid but “with” Covid. That is not to deny that some of us came up with occasional wrong answers. I certainly did, although I will be proud for the rest of my life that my Planet Normal co-pilot, Liam Halligan, and I had the guts to keep asking the questions. Admittedly, the lockdown tragedy did have its moments of unintentional comedy. Who can forget the immortal exchange between Sky News’s Kay Burley and the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock? Burley: “How long will the ban on casual sex last?” Hancock [serious face]: “Sex is OK in an established relationship, but people need to be careful.” Careful, unless you were the Secretary of State for Health, of course, in which case sex outside your established relationship was fine and dandy because, well, it was with a colleague. What No 10 would doubtless call a “work event”. How did we listen to that bonkers, ahem, advice with a straight face? With the UK set to be one of the first countries to come out of the pandemic, I thought it was worth starting to compile a list of the most lunatic measures. Lest we forget. Some of my followers on Twitter offered these. I’m sure you will have your own. 1. “Church yesterday. Wafer but no wine for communion. Service followed by wine and biscuits to mark the vicar’s retirement.” 2. “The one where you could work in a control room with multiple people for 12 hours then be breaking the law if you sat on a bench drinking coffee with one of them.” 3. “Forming a socially distanced queue at the airport before being sardined into a packed plane with the same people, two hours later.” 4. “Swings in our local park put into quarantine or removed – even though children were barely at risk from Covid as swings were outside.” 5. “No butterfly stroke allowed while swimming.” 6. “Pubs with no volume on the TV.” 7. “Not allowing people to sit on a park bench. My elderly aunt kept fit by walking her dog every day, but she needed to rest. Since that rule, she stopped going out. She went downhill and died last April.” 8. “I got thrown out of a McDonald’s for refusing to stand on a yellow circle. I was the only customer.” 9. “Yellow and black hazard tape across public seats and benches outdoors.” 10. “I’m stuck in the infant in-patient ward with my nine-day-old sick baby, post C-section, unable to look after him. My husband (same household) is not allowed to be here with us. I’m having panic attacks, which is preventing me from producing milk for the baby.” 11. “I was advised by a council worker to keep my dog on a lead because people might stop to pet her and congregate too closely.” 12. “My bed-ridden mother-in-law with dementia in a care home where only ‘window visits’ were allowed. Mum was on the first floor. Had to wait for someone to die on the ground floor so she could be moved down there and finally seen by her family. After 12 months.” 13. “Two people allowed to go for a walk on a golf course. If they took clubs and balls, it was a criminal offence.” 14. “The one-way system in my local pub, which meant that to visit the loo you had to make a circular journey through the building, ensuring you passed every table.” 15. “My dad was failing in his care home. We weren’t allowed to visit him until the doctor judged he was end-of-life care because of one positive case in the home. We had 24 hours with him before he passed.” 16. “People falling down the escalator on the Underground because they were frightened of touching the handrails – even though you couldn’t get Covid from surfaces.” 17. “Rule of Six. My wife and I have three children so we could meet either my wife’s mum or her dad, but not both at the same time.” 18. “Nobody solved an airborne virus transmission with a one-way system in Tesco.” 19. “How about not being allowed for several months – by law – to play tennis outdoors with my own wife? We’d have been further apart from each other on court than in our own home.” 20. “On two occasions, I was stopped and questioned while taking flowers to my mother’s grave. One time, a police officer even asked for my mum’s name. No idea what he would have done with that information.” 21. “Birmingham City Council cutting the grass in two-metre strips – so the weeds could social-distance?” 22. “Northampton police checking supermarket baskets for non-essential items.” 23. “All the children at school were asked to bring in a favourite book, but it had to be quarantined for two days before being ‘exposed’ to the rest of the class.” 24. “Dr Hilary on Good Morning Britain advising people to wear masks on the beach – and that it would be a good idea to swim in the sea with one on, too.” 25. “Gyms and exercise classes forced to close, but fast-food outlets remained open.” 26. “They taped off every other urinal in my workplace.” 27. “Sign on the inside of work bathroom door: close toilet lid before flushing to prevent plumes of Covid-19.” 28. “We held our carol service in a local park, but had to send out invitations by word of mouth, rather than email, so we’d have plausible deniability if stopped by police.” 29. “Having to wear a disposable apron and gloves while visiting my mother in a care home, while she was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling Perspex wall.” 30. “Scotch eggs. You couldn’t drink in a pub unless you also had a ‘substantial’ meal.” 31. “Testing of totally healthy people and making them stop work based on a questionable positive test result, when they have no symptoms, creating NHS staff shortages, cancelled operations. Things that, you know, actually kill people…” 32. “My son works in the NHS on the Covid ward and could go to the local Sainsbury’s for his lunch. But when we were ill and isolating at home, he had to isolate as well – for 10 days.” 33. “My eight-year-old granddaughter telling me they weren’t allowed to sing Happy Birthday at school for her friend’s ninth birthday.” 34. “It was illegal to see your parents in their back garden, but legal to meet them in a pub garden with lots of other people.” 35.  “I had to abandon my weekly choir practice – but my husband was allowed to sing as a spectator at a football match.” 36. “They removed all the bins in Regent’s Park and Hampstead Heath.” 37. “Having a flask of tea or coffee on a walk meant it was classified as a picnic – and thus verboten.” 38. “Bring your own biro to a dental appointment to fill in a form declaring you do not have Covid.” 39. “My neighbour refused to hang the washing out to dry – they thought the sheets might catch Covid and infect them.” 40. “My 12-year-old had to sit alone at her grandfather’s funeral – her first experience of one – even though we drove there together and hugged outside. There were three officials watching us all to ensure we didn’t break the rules.” 41. “We could only go outdoors once a day for exercise.” 42. “In pubs, wearing a mask to get from the door to the table, and the table to the toilet – but not wearing a mask while sitting down.” 43. “People in a Tier 3 area walking two minutes down the road for a pint in Tier 2.” 44. “In Wales, supermarkets were allowed to stay open, but the aisles containing children’s clothing and books were taped off.Because buying a baby’s jumper is so much more perilous than picking up a pint of milk.” 45. “The pallbearers all but threw my mother’s coffin in the grave and ran away. They had her down as a Covid death, but she died of cancer.” 46. “The one-way systems around supermarkets that led to people being forced into parts they didn’t want to be in, making them spend more time in the shop – while Covid simply circulated over the top of the shelves.” 47. “Children abandoned by social services and left in the clutches of terrible parents.” 48. “Police breaking into our student house and pinning my girlfriend by the neck up against the wall. I said: ‘This is England – you’re not allowed to do that.’” 49. “Residents of care homes forgetting who they were during the long months when family were not allowed to visit them.” 50. “Dying alone. How many died alone? How many?” Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 23:00.....»»

"Career Advancement Tied To Whether You Have Kids" As China's Birth-Rate Hits Record Low After China's once-in-a-decade census had already corrected the number of births in the country downwards considerably in 2020, Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that the latest release from the National Statistics Bureau of China (NBS) shows that in 2021, even fewer babies were born in the country. The statistic only counted 10.62 million births in 2021, down from twelve million in 2020. Meanwhile, China's population stagnated at around 1.41 billion people. You will find more infographics at Statista The country's fertility rate stood at 1.3 children per woman in 2020. It has been below the 2.1 threshold necessary for a stable population since the 1990s. Despite the early warning signs, China only scrapped its long-standing one-child policy in 2016, as fear of overpopulation gave way to fear of aging societies. The 7.5 births per 1,000 people last year is the lowest birth rate since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, attributed the falling fertility rate to China's economic and social development. Countries tend to experience lower birth rates in line with economic development as increased education access and concentration on careers become new priorities for the population. That is certainly the case elsewhere in Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea where birth rates have fallen to new lows. The situation is especially concerning in South Korea where there were more deaths than births last year. However, in the wake of the sinking birth rate and rapidly aging population, the Chinese government has been ramping up efforts to encourage people to have more children. As RT reports, in addition to allowing couples to have up to three children in 2021, officials have also adopted policies aimed at reducing financial pressure on families and creating more beneficial conditions for raising children. Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert for the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said that birth numbers are likely to fluctuate in the 10 million range before declining further in the absence of more policy changes. “Career advancements could be tied to whether you have children or not; economic incentives; or even direct cash payouts by society to meet the cost of raising a family,” Huang suggested to Reuters. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 23:30.....»»

Non-Citizen Voting Push Is Part Of Agenda To Rid America Of Citizenship: Election Expert Authored by Charlotte Cuthbertson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The recent New York City law to allow at least 800,000 noncitizens to vote in municipal elections is unconstitutional and likely to be overturned in court, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s election law reform initiative and former member of the Federal Election Commission. “It’s actually pretty clear that it violates the New York State Constitution—it has a provision that specifically says that you have to be a citizen to vote in all elections in the state of New York, and that includes local elections,” Spakovsky told The Epoch Times on Jan. 19. “I also think it is bad from a policy point of view, because it basically cheapens and diminishes the concept of citizenship. “It ought to be something that makes American citizens mad, particularly because of the potential number of aliens that’s involved.” Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, at an immigration event in Washington in this file photo. (The Epoch Times) New York City Mayor Eric Adams allowed the measure to become law on Jan. 9, which includes the provision that voting noncitizens must be in the city for 30 days or more and have authorization to work. “I believe that New Yorkers should have a say in their government, which is why I have and will continue to support this important legislation,” Adams said in a statement. “I believe allowing the legislation to be enacted is by far the best choice, and look forward to bringing millions more into the democratic process.” The following day, the Republican National Committee filed a suit in the New York Supreme Court along with City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borrelli, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), and other Republicans. Poll workers help voters inside a polling location in Austin, Texas, Oct. 13, 2020. (Sergio Flores/Getty Images) The law applies to legal aliens, but Spakovsky said New York City’s sanctuary policies that shield illegal aliens would open the floodgates. “Does anybody really believe that the election department is going to investigate the lawful status of any alien who registers to vote?” he said. “And so that means, of course, that lots and lots of illegal aliens will also get registered to vote.” Although he doesn’t think any states will try to change their election laws to include voting rights for noncitizens, Spakovsky said there’s a push from the progressive left to change the concept or definition of “citizen.” “The whole point of the open borders crowd is to do two things: one, extinguish the line between legal and illegal aliens in this country. And second, to frankly, get rid of the whole concept of citizenship,” he said. New York City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a Democrat, told colleagues before the recent vote that many noncitizens struggle to become citizens but should still be able to vote in the meanwhile because they pay taxes and live and work in the city. “They want to be citizens, they want to be able to vote for the president, but at least we have the opportunity to allow them to vote for the elected officials that are representing them in the city,” said Chin. However, Spakovsky said paying tax doesn’t make someone a citizen. “My response to that is that first of all, the vast majority of illegal aliens do not pay taxes. In fact, they get free rides from many jurisdictions,” he said. “This is being pushed by the progressive left today because they believe that aliens will vote for them … and keep them in power.” A Border Patrol agent organizes illegal immigrants who have gathered by the border fence after crossing from Mexico into the United States in Yuma, Arizona, on Dec. 10 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Spakovsky said the inability for the Trump administration to get a question placed on the 2020 Census about citizenship status was a major win for the progressive left to blur the lines between citizen and noncitizen. “One of the main reasons they wanted that done is for apportionment purposes, they did not want congressional seats apportioned based on citizen population—if they did, places like California would lose congressional seats,” he said. “That’s why California probably has four or five more congressional seats than they should have, because of the huge population of illegal aliens in the state.” The Biden administration supports the creation of a citizenship pathway for millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. A decade-old estimate puts the number of illegal aliens at 11 million, and since then, millions more have crossed the southern border. Tyler Durden Sun, 01/23/2022 - 00:00.....»»

Starlink Satellites May Disrupt Detection Of Near-Earth Asteroids, Study Warns There is growing concern among astronomers that Elon Musk's SpaceX satellites in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) may interfere with a ground-based detection system used for identifying near-Earth objects (NEOs) (otherwise known as asteroids).  The new study, titled "Impact of the SpaceX Starlink Satellites on the Zwicky Transient Facility Survey Observations," warned images taken by a telescope in California have been recording streaks from Starlink satellites that could make it much harder to discover NEOs.  Twilight images taken by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an instrument that operates from Caltech's Palomar Observatory near San Diego, scans the night sky every 48 hours, searching for NEOs. Between November 2019 and September 2021, researchers found "5301 satellite streaks that can be attributed to Starlink satellites."  "We find that the number of affected images is increasing with time as SpaceX deploys more satellites. Twilight observations are particularly affected—a fraction of streaked images taken during twilight has increased from less than 0.5% in late 2019 to 18% in 2021 August," lead author of the study Przemek Mróz wrote. Mróz believes by the time Starlink launches 10,000 satellites, nearly all twilight images from ZTF will have streaks, making it more challenging to identify NEOs by the end of the decade.  To minimize the streaks, researchers said redesigning Starlink satellites with visors to block "sunlight from reaching the satellite antennas to prevent reflection" could reduce brightness (thus decreasing streaks in ZTF images).  So what are the implications of the streaks in ZTF imagery? The study's co-author Tom Prince warned:  "There is a small chance that we would miss an asteroid or another event hidden behind a satellite streak..."  Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 22:30.....»»

Germany Roiled By "Political Earthquake": Navy Chief Resigns After Saying "Putin Deserves Respect", Warning China Is "Not A Nice Country".....»»

Big Tech Forcing MPs To Self-Censor In Australian Parliament: Craig Kelly MP Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Australian members of Parliament are curating their speeches to avoid triggering censorship from Big Tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook, according to United Australia Party (UAP) leader Craig Kelly MP. In a wide-ranging interview with Emeritus Law Professor David Flint, Kelly, who last year resigned from the Liberal Party to join the UAP, said Big Tech companies had become the “de facto Hansard” in reference to the official transcript of Parliamentary debates used across Commonwealth countries. “On the floor of Parliament, I have to think, ‘If I say these words, will YouTube delete this?’” he told Flint in an episode of Australia Calling, which can be viewed on The Epoch Times website, as well as Rumble and YouTube. “I think we need to enshrine ‘freedom of speech,’ especially in the age of these large tech giants who have so much control of what goes into the media,” he said. “People talk about the Murdoch media having so much control, they have nothing on the control that Facebook and YouTube do.” “It’s also controlling other groups like Sky News Australia and other independent media commentators who use YouTube and Facebook to post their interviews and content,” he added. “They know in certain areas if they talk about something which is contrary to the economic interests of those (Big Tech) companies, they will have their platforms taken down.” Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister Scott Morrison during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on May 13, 2021. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images) Kelly called on the platforms to be recognised as publishers saying they could not have it “both ways.” “Facebook and YouTube today have taken the role of the ‘Old Town Square.’ They’ve got the right to say who goes into the Town Square, who’s allowed to stand up on the soapbox, and who’s allowed to speak and who is not allowed to speak,” he said. Big Tech’s moderation of content has become an increasingly contentious issue with concerns platforms are not doing enough to curb online bullying, while at the same time, warnings or suspensions have been handed out in response to discussion on politics or COVID-19. For example, Prof. Nikolai Petrovsky, lead researcher at Vaxine which is behind Spikogen (or COVAX-19)—now being rolled out in Iran—had his LinkedIn account restricted over “multiple violations” of the user agreement. According to an email from LinkedIn posted online by Petrovsky, the social media company took action against the researcher when he wrote comments questioning the efficacy of vaccines, the use of mandates, and the manufacturing safeguards behind the drugs. “Which media channels to trust and have integrity? Does anyone find these comments offensive?” the professor wrote. Part 3 of the interview with Craig Kelly MP coming Thursday, Jan. 27. Watch Next Part 1 – Craig Kelly interview on Rumble Part 2 – Craig Kelly interview on Rumble Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 22:00.....»»

Here Comes The Pivot: JPM Sees Sharp Slowdown In US Economy, "No Further Hawkish Developments From The Fed" For much of the past month we have been warning that as the broader investing public has been fascinated by the mounting speculation that the Fed will hike 4 times (or even "six or seven" times, thank you Jamie Dimon) and commence shrinking its balance sheet, the US economy had quietly hit a major air pocket  and - whether due to Omicron or because the vast majority of US consumers are once again tapped out (see more below) - US GDP growth is now rapidly collapsing and may turn negative as soon as this or next quarter as the US economy contracts for the first time since the covid shutdowns in Q1/Q2 2020. 10Y yield LOD 1.82128% as market realizes that Fed is hiking "six or seven times" into a deep slowdown — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 20, 2022 Throw in the lack of a new Biden stimulus (BBB is dead as a doornail, courtesy of Manchin), and soaring gas prices (Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America all see Brent hitting triple digits in the near term, while a Russia-Ukraine war would send oil to $150 and crash the global economy), and we are willing to go on the record that a recession before the November midterms is virtually assured. But while this is obviously a wildly contrarian view for now, especially with the labor market still supposedly helplessly backlogged with a near record number of job openings coupled with still soaring inflation, others are starting to notice... Tightening into a slowdown… Déjà vu? pic.twitter.com/pczXzMVSxb — Julien Bittel, CFA (@BittelJulien) January 22, 2022 ... and so is the bond market, which traditionally is the first to sniff out major market inflection points, and which after surging to multi-year highs earlier this week, yields have suddenly slumped. Nowhere is it clearer what is coming than in the ongoing collapse in the yield curve which at the fulcrum 5s30s, is just 30bps away from where the Fed was when it ended its tightening cycle in 2018. So it was with some surprise that we were reading the latest big bank weekly reports where precisely this slowdown is being increasingly flagged. Consider the following from JPMorgan's latest Fixed Income Strategy note by Jay Barry (available to professional subs), who writes that JPMorgan's Economic Activity Surprise Index (EASI) "has swung sharply into negative territory in recent weeks, indicating data have underperformed relative to consensus expectations." This was punctuated by the December retail sales data, as the important control group fell 3.1% over the month (consensus: 0.0%). The weakness in data, JPM explains for the benefit of the Fed which in hopes of recovering its "credibility" after destroying it in 2021 when it said inflation was transitory and is now scrambling to fix its error is now willing to crash the market just to reduce aggregate demand, "indicates consumption should moderate in 1Q22." And since consumption accounts for 70% of US GDP, guess what that does to overall US growth? Or don't guess and read what JPM now expects: "we forecast growth decelerated from a 7.0% q/q saar in 4Q21 to a trend like 1.5% in 1Q22." It's not just retail sales, however, or that recent Empire Fed Manufacturing Survey, which just suffered its 3rd biggest monthly drop in history (with only March and April 2020 worse)... ... more locally, initial claims surged 55k to 286k in the week ending January 15, their third straight increase and the highest weekly reading since October. And while the seasonal volatility in claims around the new year could be amplifying the rise, this was the survey week for the January employment report and presages a much weaker payroll growth this month. In fact, as we discussed in our December jobs report commentary, it is now likely that January payrolls will be negative. Of course, one can blame the Omicron spike in December for much of this slowdown, and many do - especially those who confused the surge in inflation in 2021 as a "transitory" phenomenon - and are now using covid as a smokescreen to argue that the current slowdown is transitory, but the reality is that there is much more to the current sharp slowdown, and Bank of America's  Michael Hartnett put it best on Friday when he said that the "End of Pandemic = US Consumer Recession" (more here). Here is the punchline of what the BofA CIO said: "retail sales 22% above pre-COVID levels... ...payrolls up 18mn from lows, inflation annualizing 9%, real earnings falling a recessionary 2.4%, stimulus payments to US households evaporating from $2.8tn in 21 to $660bn in 2022, with no buffer from excess US savings (savings rate = 6.9%, lower than 7.7% in 2019 & and the rich hoard the savings), and record $40bn MoM jump in borrowing in Nov'21... ... "shows US consumer now starting to feel the pinch." Alongside the realization that an exit from covid means the US is entering a consumer recession, comes Hartnett's admission that any Fed hiking cycle will be short (it not sweet) and will be followed by easing as soon as 2023!.  Indeed, according to Hartnett, while the broader economy certainly needs more hikes to contain inflation, it will take far fewer rate hikes to crash markets, because "when stocks, credit & housing markets have been conditioned for indefinite continuation of "Lowest Rates in 5000 Years" might only take a couple of rate hikes to cause an event (own volatility)". And since Wall Street always leads Main Street (sorry peasants), it is Hartnett's view that the current "rates shock" is grounds for an imminent "recession fear", and as noted above, the Fed hiking into a slowdown guarantees not only an economic a recession but also a market crisis. The only question at this point is when will the Fed realize that it can't possibly hike rates enough to offset the surge in inflation which incidentally is not demand driven, but is due to continued supply constraints, over which the Fed has no power! Which is why JPMorgan's economists go on a limb and perhaps seeking to assure markets, write that "next week’s FOMC meeting will not present the case for further hawkish developments".... and "is only likely to ratify expectations next week and not surprise market participants with another hawkish pivot." Putting it all together is Goldman Sachs, which agrees with JPMorgan that there will be no hawkish surprises from the Fed, and wrote on Friday that if anything, the Fed will be more dovish than expected, and as such Goldman sees "the conditions in place for a large cover rally into and around the FED next week and when month-end new capital comes back into the equity markets, with corporates dry powder." Of course, there is always the risk that Joe Biden, now beyond dazed and confused and terrified of the upcoming Democratic implosion after the Nov midterms... ... does not realize how devastating a market crash will be for the US economy where financial assets are now 6.3x greater than GDP... ... and will order Powell to keep hiking and tightening just to break inflation's back (as discussed above, and as Blackrock also noted recently, the Fed is completely powerless to halt supply-driven inflation), even if it means the destruction of the entire wealth effect that the Fed spent the past 13 years trying to create. In that case, all bets are off. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 17:00.....»»

Unmask America Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute, Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings.  This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covid. We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of covid infections. Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus - former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams in February 2020.  The story changed from "masks don't work," to "masks may work," to "masks work and you must wear one." Now the narrative switches yet again: "cloth masks don't work, so you should wear a surgical or 'well-fitted' mask," or even wear two! Note that even as covid evolves into a less dangerous omicron variant, we are supposed to increase the hysteria level by wearing masks intended for surgeons maintaining a sterile environment over open wounds. We are told this by the same political, medical, and media figures who have been "frequently wrong but never in doubt" about all things covid over the past two long years. And they spoke with just as much bogus certainty then as they do now. Perversely, the Biden administration recently ordered 400 million surgical N95 masks for distribution across the country. Since N95 masks are considered disposable, and meant to be worn at most perhaps 40 hours, it is unclear what happens in a week or two when 330 million Americans run out of their "free" personal protective equipment. The UK has sensibly ended its mask mandates, both in public places (offices and other workplaces, bars, restaurants, sporting events, theaters) and thankfully schools. One young university student broke down in tears at the news, lamenting the inhumanity of her experience over the past two years. As British Health secretary Savid Javid stated, "We must learn to live with covid in the same way we live with flu." Amen. The arguments against masks are straightforward. Masks don't work. Or at least cloth masks don't. Even the CDC now admits what Dr. Anthony Fauci told the world in February 2020: cloth masks don't work and there is no reason to wear one:  "The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you." I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location. CNN's dubious medical expert Dr. Lena Wen, previously an uber-masker, now tells us cloth masks are "little more than facial decorations. And heroic skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya cites both a Danish study and a Bangladeshi study which found cloth masks show little efficacy in preventing covid.  Are we seriously prepared to wear tight and uncomfortable surgical masks all day to evade omicron? Masks are filthy. Humans lungs and our respiratory system are designed to inhale nitrogen and oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is literally a waste product, removed from the blood via our lungs. Masks may not trap injurious levels of carbon dioxide against our nose and mouth, but they certainly get filthy very quickly unless changed constantly. They also encourage mouth breathing, which can cause "mask mouth" symptoms including acne, bad breath, tender gums, and lip irritation. Why would we ever interfere with natural breathing unless we felt sick, displayed symptoms, and were worried about infecting others? And in that case, why not just stay home? Masks are dehumanizing. Humans communicate verbally and nonverbally, and masks impede both forms. Masks muffle and distort our words. Our facial expressions are important cues to everyone around us; without those cues communication and understanding suffer. Infants and toddlers may be most affected, as a lack of facial engagement with parents and loved ones impedes the human connections and attachments formed during childhood. Perhaps most disturbing, however, are the symbolic effects when millions of Americans dutifully wear masks based on flimsy evidence provided by deeply unimpressive people. Facelessness--the lack of individual identity, personality, and looks-- is inherently dehumanizing and dystopian. Like prison or military uniforms, masks reduce our personal characteristics. Mask are muzzles, symbols of rote acquiescence to an ugly new normal nobody asked for or voted for. Risk is inevitable. Risk is omnipresent, and heavily subjective (e.g., covid risk varies enormously with age and comorbidities). Nobody has a right to force interventions like masks onto others, just as nobody has a right to a hypothetical germ-free landscape. Exhalation is not aggression, short of purposefully attempting to sicken others. People wearing masks arguably shed slightly fewer covid virus particles than those not, but this does not justify banning the latter from public life. As always, the overwhelming burden of justification for any intervention—including mask mandates—must rest on those proposing it, not those opposing it.  In sum, Americans are not children. Tradeoffs are part of every policy, whether government officials admit this or not. We know how to coexist with flu, just as we live with countless bacteria and viruses in our environment. We will similarly coexist with covid. The goal is not to eliminate germs, and zero covid is an absurdity. A healthy immune system, built up through diet, exercise, and sunlight will always be the best frontline defense against communicable disease. But diet, exercise, and sunlight cannot be outsourced to health officials or mandated by politicians. Whatever slight benefits masks may provide are a matter for individuals to decide for themselves. People who feel sick with symptoms should stay home. We can all wash our hands frequently and thoroughly. Otherwise it is time for Americans to assert themselves against the dubious claims and non-existent legality of government covid measures.  It is time to get back to normal life, and that starts with visible human faces. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 17:30.....»»

Seeing Red: Is The Heydey Of Pandemic Stocks Over? The stock market, and the stocks that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, are off to a rough start in 2022. As Visual Capitalist's Jenna Ross points out, if you’ve been watching your investment accounts, chances are you’ve been seeing a lot of red. Shaken by the uncertainty of a pandemic recovery and future interest rate hikes, investors have been selling off their stocks. This market selloff—which occurs when investors sell a large volume of securities in a short period of time, leading to a rapid decline in price—has investors concerned. In fact, search interest for the term “selloff” recently reached peak interest of 100. Which stocks were the hardest hit, and how much are their prices down so far this year? The Lackluster Returns of Pandemic Stocks Pandemic stocks and tech-centric companies have suffered the most. Here’s a closer look at the year-to-date price returns for select stocks. Netflix fueled the selloff after it reported disappointing subscriber growth. The company added 8.28 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, which is less than the 8.5 million it added in the fourth quarter of 2020. It also projects to have slower year-over-year subscriber growth in the near term, citing competition from other streaming companies. Meanwhile, Coinbase stock lost nearly a quarter of its value so far this year. As the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have plummeted, investors worry Coinbase will see lower trading volume and therefore lower fees. The contagion also spread to other pandemic stocks, such as Zoom and DocuSign, as investors began to doubt the staying power of stay-at-home stocks. Following the Herd While investor exuberance drove many of these stocks up last year, 2022 is beginning to paint a different picture. Investors are worried that rising rates will negatively impact high-growth stocks, because it means it’s more expensive to borrow money. Not only that, but they also may see Netflix’s growth as harbinger of things to come for other pandemic stocks. The psychology of the market cycle also plays a role—amid these fears, investors have adopted a herd mentality and begun selling their shares in droves. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 18:00.....»»

Wife Stands Off With Hospital To Keep Her Husband Alive, And Wins Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Sentiments expressed in random phone calls for Anne Quiner as her husband Scott lay in a hospital bed breathing through a ventilator ranged from “I hope your husband dies a vegetable” followed by a litter of profanity, to “he should have taken the vaccine; I hope he dies,” before hanging up. Anne and Scott Quiner at Gooseberry Falls State Park in 2018. (Courtesy of Anne Quiner) While not the traditional Hallmark expressions for one to get well soon, Quiner said it was a feeling shared among some of the doctors at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, where Scott had been hospitalized for COVID-19 complications in November. In one recorded phone call with Dr. Linda Soucie in which Quiner was fighting to keep Scott on the ventilator, Soucie told Quiner, “Unfortunately, if we could turn back time and he had gotten the vaccine, then he wouldn’t be here,” just after Soucie had told Quiner, “After three years, I think we’ve gotten pretty good at determining who’s going to make it and who’s not, and unfortunately Scott’s in that range of the group that is not going to make it.” In a recorded conference call, doctors told Quiner that they would be taking Scott off the ventilator on Jan. 13 because he would not recover due to what they said were his “destroyed lungs from COVID pneumonia,” and that their attempts at decreasing sedation only caused him pain. Quiner told The Epoch Times that her petitions for alternative treatments, as well as to keep Scott on the ventilator, had been met with contempt. With doctors determined to take Scott off the ventilator, Quiner sought legal counsel. Making It Out Alive Marjorie Holsten, Quiner’s attorney, told The Epoch Times that she filed a motion for a temporary restraining order that prevented the hospital from taking Scott off the ventilator. Mercy Hospital then hired its own law firm that objected to the temporary restraining order on the basis that Holsten and Quiner’s position isn’t “supported by medical science.” Because of this, the hospital requested that the court issue an order authorizing the hospital to take Scott off the ventilator. The judge sided with Holsten, issuing the order based on the standard that irreparable harm would result if not issued, which Holsten said was easy to establish because if Scott had been taken off, he would have died. On Jan. 15, Scott was transferred out of Mercy Hospital and taken to an undisclosed hospital in Texas, where Holsten said the doctors have reported Scott to be malnourished, having lost 30 pounds underweight, and dehydrated. Both Holsten and Quiner said doctors in Texas were “horrified” by Scott’s condition when he arrived. “One doctor said he didn’t know how Scott made it out of that hospital alive,” Quiner said. “He looked at his chart and said, ‘I can’t believe the heavy, sedating drugs they put him on.’” The hospital was following a rigid late-treatment COVID protocol that has “very likely killed many people,” Holsten said. Mercy Hospital is a part of the Allina Health hospital system. When reached for comment on Scott’s treatment, a spokesperson for Allina Health told The Epoch Times that Allina Health “has great confidence in the exceptional care provided to our patients, which is administered according to evidence-based practices by our talented and compassionate medical teams. Due to patient privacy, we cannot comment on care provided to specific patients,” and that the hospital system wished “the patient and his family well.” Currently, Holsten said Scott is “making tremendous progress.” “Yesterday, Scott started following the doctor’s hands with his eyes, and now he’s blinking in response to questions,” Holsten said. “He was able to nod his head and move his legs for the nurse.” The ordeal became a manifestation of Quiner’s biggest fear in taking Scott to the hospital after his symptoms worsened, Quiner said. Since the beginning of COVID-19, rumors of neglectful treatment of COVID patients in hospitals fueled by financial incentives have circulated. ‘It’s a Bounty on People’s Lives’ Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and immunologist who has contributed to mRNA vaccine technology, said in a December 2021 interview on The Joe Rogan Experience said that the financial incentives aren’t rumors. “The numbers are quite large,” Malone told Rogan. “There’s something like a $3,000 basically death benefit to a hospital if it can be claimed to be COVID. There’s a financial incentive to call somebody COVID positive.” The hospitals receive a bonus, Malone added, from the government if someone is hospitalized and able to be declared COVID positive. “They also receive a bonus—I think the total is something like $30,000 in incentive—if somebody gets put on the vent,” Malone said. “Then they get a bonus, if somebody is declared dead with COVID.” It was Stew Peters, a podcaster on The Stew Peters Show, that broke Quiner’s story and garnered audience support that facilitated Scott’s release. After sending the two recordings Quiner made of her conversations with her doctors to her patient advocate and Minnesota State Rep. Shane Mekeland, they both then contacted Peters who Quiner said called her “right away.” “He told me, ‘If you don’t get social media involved and get this viral, they will kill your husband and you won’t have any say in it at all,’” Quiner said. “That’s when Stew got me on his show and within moments the hospital got like 300,000 phone calls. They had to shut their phone lines down.” Quiner said it was Peters and his audience that were responsible “for helping me save my husband’s life.” “Without their taking action, Scott would have died,” Quiner said. At one point, there were so many phone calls that Quiner said the hospital began denying that Scott was a patient there. “Our audience flooded the hospital and Frederickson & Byron Law Firm (the firm that represents Mercy Hospital) with calls, making them all aware that the world was watching,” Peters told The Epoch Times. The Stew Peters Show put a team together that included Attorney Thomas Renz and coordinated with a doctor to take Scott’s case and the hospital where Scott was transferred. On the Stew Peters Show, Dr. Lee Vliet, president and chief executive officer for the physician-founded Truth for Health, a nonprofit that has promoted early COVID treatment to keep people out of hospitals, said the CARES Act has documented hospital incentive payments. “Hospital administrators know that they will be extra for doing the PCR tests and positive test results,” Vliet said. “A COVID diagnosis means admission to the hospital. On admission, there is an incentive payment. Use of remdesivir provides a 20 percent bonus payment from our government to the hospital on the entire hospital bill for that COVID patient.” The use of remdesivir gives the hospital a 20 percent bonus payment from Medicare instead of other medicines, such as ivermectin, Vliet said. “It’s a bounty on people’s lives, basically, to use remdesivir and prevent access to other medications such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin,” Vliet said. She echoed Malone’s statement on hospital incentives for putting a patient on a ventilator and declaring a patient deceased from COVID. In addition, she said the coroner gets a financial incentive for a COVID diagnosis. She added that medical practices are paid more under Medicare and Medicaid services based on a higher percentage of their patients being vaccinated. On average, she said, it has been calculated that hospitals receive a bonus of $100,000 minimum for every COVID patient who has the elements of COVID diagnosis with remdesivir and ventilator treatment before a COVID cause of death. Vliet cites her research in an editorial in the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons titled, “Biden’s Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals’ Incentive Payments for COVID-19.” ‘She Just Wants to Keep Her Husband Alive’ Married 35 years with three children, Quiner and Scott have been through much together, she said, and in these last few months, Quiner has faced some of the hardest parts without him. After 14 years, amid fighting to keep her husband alive, Quiner had to put their dog Toby down earlier in January because he could no longer walk. “One morning I got up and he could not get up at all,” Quiner said. Quiner has been verbally attacked not just through phone calls but through news and social media, platforms her children warned she avoid. “My family told me not to even go on to Twitter because I didn’t want to read what they were writing about me,” Quiner said. Still, Holsten said Quiner continues to fight. “She’s a trooper, and she hasn’t sought any of this,” Holsten said. “She just wants to keep her husband alive.” On his transfer to Texas, Quiner said she’s relieved. “That’s the first thing I felt,” Quiner said, “relief that he’s out of that hospital and in safe care.” Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 18:30.....»»

Americans Are Forming Tenant Unions In Backlash Against Corporate Landlords The resurgent American labor movement is coming for America's landlords. Perhaps taking a cue from the warehouse workers, digital-media employees and Starbucks baristas who have waged high-profile unionization drives over the past year or so, it appears tenants across the nation are forming "tenant unions" to gain leverage over their landlords, with many rebelling against corporate landlords in particular, according to a report from WSJ. That's a problem for Blackstone and the other private equity giants that found an opportunity in the pandemic-inspired housing market frenzy. While tenant unions have existed in some form for over a century, WSJ says that - particularly in high-cost cities like NYC and San Francisco - the organizations are seeing a resurgence. Hundreds of new tenant unions have been formed during the pandemic, estimated Katie Goldstein, director of housing campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy. The progressive organization with 50 affiliate groups across the country is one of a handful of activist networks advising tenant unions. WSJ's reporter even confirmed that the increase was indeed happening with landlord trade organizations, which responded that many of the new organizations only have a few members. But before mom-and-pop landlords start to panic, these tenant 'associations' actually have little legal power or standing. Unfortunately (for landlords), some progressive lawmakers are talking about maybe trying to change that. Some lawmakers in San Francisco, responding in part to tenant complaints, said they plan to consider this year a proposal to force city landlords to meet with tenant unions. The proposal would impose temporary rent reductions on landlords that fail to do so. Then again, some people who spoke with WSJ shared stories about how tenants unions did help them avoid an eviction when a new corporate landlord took over. Alicia Roberts spent years living at the Paradise Apartments in St. Petersburg, Fla. When Paradise sold to a new landlord in April, she expected a new stove. Instead, she missed a rent payment and got an eviction notice. Not long after she was told to leave, she joined the St. Petersburg Tenants Union... [...] If it wasn’t for the union, Ms. Roberts said, “I’d probably be gone.” If nothing else, the trend is a symptom of a hard fact of life. Because the reality is, even before the latest inflationary wave, many American workers have been struggling with the consequences of stagnant wages and rising rents, health-care costs and tuition inflation, much of which amazingly escaped the notice of the CPI numbers for years. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 19:00.....»»

"Unseemly": NPR Refuses To Correct Story After Supreme Court Deems It False Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, National Public Radio (NPR) is refusing to correct a story that was challenged by a trio of Supreme Court justices, triggering a flood of criticism. Citing anonymous sources, reporter Nina Totenberg said Chief Justice John Roberts “asked the other justices to mask up,” or wear masks, because Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concerns for her safety amid the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Totenberg said that because Justice Neil Gorsuch refused the request—Gorsuch has not worn a mask on the bench recently—Sotomayor began attending oral arguments from her chambers. In rare public statements a day later, all three justices responded to the report. Sotomayor and Gorsuch said Sotomayor did not ask Gorsuch to wear a mask, adding that “while we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.” Even worse for NPR, which is partially funded by taxpayer money, Roberts said separately that “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.” Despite the direct challenges to the story, though, NPR has not issued a correction. “The chief justice issued a statement saying he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench'. The NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come ‘in some form.’ NPR stands by its reporting,” Totenberg wrote in a follow-up story. Ask and requests are synonyms that mean essentially the same thing. The only change to the initial piece was hyperlinking to the new one. An NPR spokesman told The Epoch Times via email that the outlet “continues to stand by Nina Totenberg’s reporting.” Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University, said that the decision not to correct the story means NPR is calling the justices liars, “which, frankly, comes off as unseemly.” “The justices have made a public statement and, if NPR wants to dispute it, they need to do more to provide context and even identify their source. The general public knows NPR is a largely agenda-driven news outlet, and they will lose in a credibility contest with Supreme Court justices,” he added. Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images) The NPR spokesman and Totenberg declined to answer or did not respond to several sets of questions, including whether any other NPR employees verified the sources cited by Totenberg, who was fired from the National Observer for plagiarism. While Totenberg said Roberts “asked” other justices to wear masks in her story, during an appearance on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” prior to the justices’ statements, she said Roberts “suggested” that the other justices don face coverings. NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride, said that the different descriptions mean the story “merits a clarification, but not a correction.” “After talking to Totenberg and reading all justices’ statements, I believe her reporting was solid, but her word choice was misleading,” she wrote. The reporter told McBride that she did not know how Roberts allegedly conveyed what she claimed he did. “In the absence of a clarification, NPR risks losing credibility with audience members who see the plainly worded statement from Roberts and are forced to go back to NPR’s story and reconcile the nuances of the verb ‘asked’ when in fact, it’s not a nuanced word,” McBride said. Readers and listeners have apparently contacted the outlet expressing concern over what happened. “In order for the story to be true as NPR first reported, Roberts would’ve had to have asked ‘in some form,’ but he said he didn’t, full stop,” one said. Joe Concha, a media critic at The Hill, wrote on Twitter that “NPR couldn’t have handled this any worse,” linking to McBride’s piece. The Society of Professional Journalists says ethical journalism should be “accurate and fair” and recommends reporters largely stick to sources that are clearly identified. Reporters should also “respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity, and fairness,” the group said, adding that mistakes should be acknowledged and corrected promptly and corrections and clarifications should be explained, “carefully and clearly.” Totenberg later spoke to the Daily Beast, criticizing McBride for the column. “She can write any [expletive] thing she wants, whether or not I think it’s true. She’s not clarifying anything!” the reporter said.  “I haven’t even looked at it, and I don’t care to look at it because I report to the news division, she does not report to the news division.” Responding to Justice Roberts’ direct challenge to her reporting, she claimed that “I did not say that he requested that people do anything, but ‘in some form’ did.” Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 19:30.....»»

10 Travel Destinations For Post-Pandemic Life On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. The resulting travel bans decimated the tourism industry, and international air travel initially fell by as much as 98%. Almost two years later, travel is finally back on the table, though there are many restrictions to consider. Regardless, a survey conducted in September 2021 found that, as things revert to normalcy, 82% of Americans are looking forward to international travel more than anything else. To give inspiration for your next vacation (whenever that may be), Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu created this infographic listing the 10 most visited countries in 2019, as well as three of their top attractions according to Google Maps. Bon Voyage Here were the 10 most popular travel destinations in 2019, measured by their number of international arrivals. *Estimate | Source: World Bank France was the most popular travel destination by a significant margin, and it’s easy to see why. The country is home to many of the world’s most renowned sights, including the Arc de Triomphe and Louvre Museum. The Arc de Triomphe was built in the early 1800s, and honors those who died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In 1944, Allied soldiers marched through the monument after Paris was liberated from the Nazis. The Louvre Museum, on the other hand, is often recognized by its giant glass pyramid. The museum houses over 480,000 works of art, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Art isn’t the only thing that France has to offer. The country has a reputation for culinary excellence, and is home to 632 Michelin-starred restaurants, the most out of any country. Japan comes in at second, with 413. While You’re There… After seeing the sights in Paris, you may want to consider a visit to Spain. The country is the southern neighbor of France and is known for its beautiful villages and beaches. One of its most impressive sights is the Sagrada Familia, a massive 440,000 square feet church which began construction in 1882, and is still being worked on today (139 years in the making). The video below shows the structure’s striking evolution. At a height of 172 meters, the Sagrada Familia is approximately 52 stories tall. Another popular spot is Ibiza, an island off the coast of Spain that is famous for its robust nightlife scene. The island is frequently mentioned in pop culture—Netflix released an adventure/romance movie titled Ibiza in 2018, and the remix of Mike Posner’s song I Took a Pill in Ibiza has over 1.4 billion views on YouTube. Beaches Galore If you’re looking for something outside of Europe, consider Mexico or Thailand, which are the 7th and 8th most popular travel destinations. Both offer hot weather and an abundance of white sand beaches. If you need even more convincing, check out these links: The 13 Best Beaches in Mexico The Best Resorts in Mexico: 2021 Reader’s Choice The Best Night Markets in Bangkok, Thailand The Best Rooftop Bars in Bangkok Expect Turbulence Under normal circumstances, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year by international tourists. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTCC), this spending accounted for an impressive 10.4% of global GDP in 2019. Travel restrictions introduced in 2020 dealt a serious blow to the industry, reducing its share of global GDP to 5.5%, and wiping out an estimated 62 million jobs. While the WTCC believes these jobs could return by 2022, the emerging Omicron variant has already prompted many countries to tighten restrictions once again. To avoid headaches in the future, make sure you fully understand the rules and restrictions of where you’re heading. Tyler Durden Sat, 01/22/2022 - 20:00.....»»

"Russia Secretly Plotting Regime Change In Ukraine": UK Govt Issues Astounding Charge.....»»