Gathered for their biennial General Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the U.S. and Canada overwhelmingly adopted a resolution affirming many of the laws, policies and practices of the State of Israel meet the definition of apartheid as defined in international law.

It was there for all to see.  Embarrassing, cloying, and bound make you cough up the remnants of your summit lunch, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III stopped by one of the vassal states to make sure that the meal and military service was orderly, the troops well behaved, and the weapons working as they should.  On the occasion of 2023 AUSMIN meetings, the questions asked were mild and generally unprovocative; answers were naturally tailored.

Seeing that Australia is now rapidly moving into the US orbit of client status its minerals will be designated a US domestic resource in due course and given that its land, sea and air are to be more available than ever for the US armed forces, nuclear and conventional, nothing will interrupt this inexorable extinguishing of sovereignty.

One vestige of Australian sovereignty might have evinced itself, notably in how Canberra might push for the release, or at the very least better terms, for the Australian national and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.  The publisher faces 18 counts, all but one of them pertaining to the Espionage Act of 1917, an archaic, wartime act with a dark record of punishing free speech and contrarians.  The Albanese government, eschewing the hailer approach in favour of quiet diplomacy and not offending Washington, has conspicuously failed to make any impression.

In April, an open letter to the US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, featuring 48 Australian MPs and Senators, including 13 from the governing Labor Party, argued that the Assange prosecution would set a dangerous precedent for all global citizens, journalists, publishers, media organizations and the freedom of the press.  It would also be needlessly damaging for the US as a world leader on freedom of expression and the rule of law.

Despite such concerns bubbling away in Parliament, Australias Foreign Minister Penny Wong was in no danger of upsetting their guests.  [W]e have made clear our view that Mr Assanges case has dragged for too long, and our desire it be brought to a conclusion, and weve said that publicly and you would anticipate that that reflects also the positive we articulate in private.  But, as ever, there are limits until Mr. Assanges legal processes have concluded.  The assumption, laid bare, is that Australia will only push for terms once the US secures its treasured quarry.

Blinken...

Women's World Cup 2023: Morocco earn historic win over South Korea

Computing Forever | July 25, 2023

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Source articles:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/with-no-green-way-to-fly-is-it-time-to-ration-air-travel/a1453720448.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/arid-41165827.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41183512.html

https://www.thelocal.se/20190401/swedens-temperature-rising-more-than-twice-as-fast-as-the-global-average

https://www.popsci.com/australia-heating-faster-rest-world/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47754189

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/12/12/NOAA-Arctic-warming-at-twice-the-rate-of-the-rest-of-the-planet/5141544580754/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/eastern-mediterranean-middle-east-warming-almost-twice-as-fast-as-global-average-report-finds

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-climate-change-warming-faster-rest-world-1750682

Shocking cost of road pricing scheme aimed at forcing motorists out of cars

...

RT.com July 29, 2023

Russia is always ready for any scenario, President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Saturday, commenting on a potential direct confrontation between the Russian and NATO militaries. The president was answering a question about recent near-collisions involving Russian and American aircraft in Syria.

No one wants that, the president added, pointing to the existing conflict-prevention lines that allow Russian and US officers to talk directly about any crisis situation. That fact that these lines still work shows that no side is interested in a conflict, he added. If someone wants it and thats not us then were ready, Putin added.

The Russian military has reported a total of 23 dangerous incidents involving Russian aircraft and those of the US-led coalition since early 2023, said Admiral Oleg Gurinov, the head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria. Most incidents took place in July, he added.

In 11 cases the Russian pilots recorded being targeted with Western aircraft-targeting systems. Such actions on the part of the US-led coalition led to the automatic engagement of onboard defense systems, which saw Russian aircraft releasing decoy flares, the admiral told journalists.

Moscow has also repeatedly warned Washington and its allies about the risks of a potential direct conflict between Russia and NATO, particularly amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Continued Western arms supplies to Kiev only extend the hostilities and make its Western backers engage in the conflict even deeper, Russia said.

Source

Kit Knightly Off-Guardian July 27, 2023

Last week it was reported that the Australian state of Victoria may be considering permanent facemask mandates to achieve zero-Covid.

Now, we dont need to get into the personal liberty implications of such a law, or  the near-infinite supply of evidence that masks dont work to prevent the transmission of respiratory disease.

They dont work, they never worked. Mandating them was a political move designed to make the fake Covid pandemic appear real, and their continued use is a symptom of brainwashing or a by-product of chronic virtue signaling.

The mask debate, such as it was, is over.

No, the only aspect of this development worth talking about is the evidence used to support the position and trust me, the quotes are entirely justified.

The study which claims to demonstrate the benefits of permanent masking was published in the Medical Journal of Australia last week and titled Consistent mask use and SARSCoV2 epidemiology: a simulation modelling study.

Simulation modelling study is very much the key phrase there. For those who dont know,  simulation modelling studies involve feeding data into a computer programme, then asking it to form conclusions.

Clearly, they are only as reliable and useful as the data you use. In fact, you can very easily make them produce any result you want by feeding in  the right (bad) data.

In this particular modelling study they started out by telling the computer that cloth masks reduce transmission by 53% and respirators reduced it by 80%:

Odds ratios for the relative risk of infection for people exposed to an infected person (wearing a mask v not wearing a mask) were set at 0.47 for cloth and surgical masks and 0.20 for respirators

Essentially, they told their computer that masks prevent diseaseand then said ok, computer, since you now know masks prevent disease   what would happen if everybody wore them all the time?

The computer then told them obviously   that nobody would get sick.

Because they made it logically impossible for it to say anything else.

But theres a bit more to it.

The next layer of interest is where they got their input data from.

After all there have been dozens of studies done on masks over the years, 98% of which say masks dont w...

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | July 27, 2023

Last week it was reported that the Australian state of Victoria may be considering permanent facemask mandates to achieve zero-Covid.

Now, we dont need to get into the personal liberty implications of such a law, or  the near-infinite supply of evidence that masks dont work to prevent the transmission of respiratory disease.

They dont work, they never worked. Mandating them was a political move designed to make the fake Covid pandemic appear real, and their continued use is a symptom of brainwashing or a by-product of chronic virtue signaling.

The mask debate, such as it was, is over.

No, the only aspect of this development worth talking about is the evidence used to support the position and trust me, the quotes are entirely justified.

The study which claims to demonstrate the benefits of permanent masking was published in the Medical Journal of Australia last week and titled Consistent mask use and SARSCoV2 epidemiology: a simulation modelling study.

Simulation modelling study is very much the key phrase there. For those who dont know,  simulation modelling studies involve feeding data into a computer programme, then asking it to form conclusions.

Clearly, they are only as reliable and useful as the data you use. In fact, you can very easily make them produce any result you want by feeding in  the right (bad) data.

In this particular modelling study they started out by telling the computer that cloth masks reduce transmission by 53% and respirators reduced it by 80%:

Odds ratios for the relative risk of infection for people exposed to an infected person (wearing a mask v not wearing a mask) were set at 0.47 for cloth and surgical masks and 0.20 for respirators

Essentially, they told their computer that masks prevent disease and then said ok, computer, since you now know masks prevent disease   what would happen if everybody wore them all the time?

The computer then told them obviously   that nobody would get sick.

Because they made it logically impossible for it to say any...

Over five hundred and twenty-five days ago, between the evening of February 13 and afternoon of February 14, 2022, four men were arrested for their participation in Freedom Convoy protests at the Alberta border town of Coutts.

They were charged with conspiracy to commit murder of police officers in support of a plot to overthrow the Government of Canada. They have been dubbed the Coutts Four.

The accused are self-employed fisherman Chris Carbert, who ran a landscaping and fencing business with nine employees. A Lethbridge, Alberta, resident, 42-year-old Carbert is a single father who has been raising his son since the boy was nine-months-old.

Another Lethbridge resident, and best friend of Chris Carbert since public school, is 49-year-old Chris Lysak. He is an electrician and father of two girls.

A third member of the Coutts Four accused of conspiracy to commit murder is 41-year-old Jerry Morin. He is a lineman who grew up near Vulcan, Alberta. The CBC states he resided in Olds, Alberta, at the time of his arrest. The fourth accused of these serious charges is Anthony Tony Olienkick. Tony, age 40, took part of the clean-up in High River, Alberta, after the 2013 floods.[1] He has a gravel truck and is self-employed, and the CBC has reported his home is in Claresholm, Alberta.

The Coutts Four have been denied bail. They have remained in custody for over 525 days with a trial date yet to be set. More pretrial motions will be heard between July 25 to 28 by the crown and defence lawyers at the Lethbridge court house. Since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215, kingdoms and democracies have allowed those charged with a crime to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. With that provision has come the right to be granted bail and to a speedy trial. When citizens are accused of a crime and left to rot in prison without having their day in court, their spirits can be broken and be persuaded to agree to plead guilty even when they are innocent.

Bail Is Granted to Those Accused of Having Committed Murder, and Lesser Charges in Canada

In Canada, when someone is charged with committing a crime, they are released on bail. This includes for those charged with murder. For example, on September 2021, 31-year-old Umar Zameer was released on bail after being charged with first-degree murder of Toronto Police Constable Jeffrey Northrup.[2] In April 2022, Marlena Isnardy was released on bail after while awaiting her trial for the charge of murdering 27-year-old Matthew Cholette in Kelowna, British Columbia.[3] A case of double murder in the city of Mission in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, concerned the deaths of Lisa Dudley and her boyfriend Guthrie McKay. Accused of first-degree murder, Tom Holden was released on bail.[4] And in March 2023, 22-year-old Ali Mian was released on bail as he awaited trial to answer to charges of second....

• During a transcribed interview, Laura Dehmlow, the Section Chief of the FBIs Foreign Influence Task Force, revealed that FBI personnel who warned social media companies about a potential Russian hack and leak operation in the 2020 election knew that Hunter Bidens laptop was not Russian disinformation.
• The FBI made an institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions from social media companies about the laptops authenticity, leading the companies to conclude that the New York Post story on the laptop was Russian disinformation.
• The FBIs failure to alert social media companies about the authenticity of the laptop prevented millions of Americans from having a clear understanding of a significant issue in the 2020 presidential election, as it resulted in the suppression of the story by Twitter and deamplification by Facebook.  Read More

The post Congressional Testimony Asserts FBI Knew Biden Laptop Was Not Russian Disinformation appeared first on The Clarion Project.

As the ancient Greeks reminded us, bone cold definitions as starting points are essential in any discussion.  One current discussion, insignificant to posterity but amusing for advertisers and the presently bored, is the ludicrous reactions to a plastic doll rendered into celluloid form.  And as a doll, it can be no other.  Mattels Barbie has become, courtesy of Greta Gerwig, a talking point so silly it deserves to be treated trivially.  But money, advertising, and Mattel, wont allow that.

Commentators, whatever their ilk, cannot help themselves.  Jourdain Searles, evidently struggling to earn a crust or two, asks two banal questions.  This first: In a cinematic landscape drowning in IP, would a live-action film about the Barbie doll, Mattels flagship toy, be held up as proof of the continued commodification of cinema as an artform?  The second is not much of an improvement: And in a more progressive cultural landscape, could a woman-directed film about Barbie dolls be feminist?  Not necessarily.

The New York Times does not disappoint in its silliness. Can a doll with an ingratiating smile, impossible curves and boobs ready for liftoff be a feminist icon?  No, it cannot, but stating something so embarrassingly asinine is very much in character with this field.

From the conservative, domestic, home stove huggers, this is distinctly not on.  Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire lamented the unironic use of the word patriarchy more than 10 times.  Toby Young in The Spectator moaned that, The film is a gender studies seminar disguised as a summer blockbuster,.  Kyle Smith, formerly a National Review critic, echoed the grievance in the Wall Street Journal.  As bubbly as the film appears, its script is like a grumpier-than-average womens studies seminar.

Young goes a bit deeper in opining that Barbie is an act of self-flagellation a way of doing penance for a sin of being associated with a brand that was insufficiently woke in the past.  Dont be too white; dont be too thin.  This paean to female empowerment is a plea for forgiveness from the titans who run Mattel, but I suspect it will be another case of Go woke, go broke.

On Sky News Australia, one researcher even thought it worthwhile her time, and ever...

Caicedo is seen clutching her chest during a training run

Andrew Prentice and James Cooney Daily Mail July 28, 2023

Breakout World Cup star Linda Caicedo may not feature again in the tournament after the Colombian collapsed at training in distressing scenes that were caught on video.

The young gun, 18, was rushed to hospital and was unconscious for at least 90 seconds as medics and terrified team-mates rushed to her aid at the teams base in Sydney.

The rising star was later released from hospital but is unlikely to feature in her countrys match against Germany on Sunday.

Footage shows the star jogging with teammates before she suddenly stops, clutches her chest and falls to the ground.

Concerned players gather around her before a woman who appears to be a member of the training staff sprints to the scene, closely followed by other team staffers, one of whom was carrying a kit bag.

EL MOMENTO QUE PREOCUP A TODO UN PAS

Linda Caicedo, ya recuperada, entrena con normalidad junto a sus compaeras.

DSPORTS, en Australia pic.twitter.com/02vIjZisaU

DSportsCo (@DIRECTVSportsCo) July 27, 2023

Continues

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse  | July 26, 2023

As an internal medicine physician and cardiologist I am in tune to diseases seen and presented at morning report at big academic medical centers. I can tell you over the decades each year there are a few cases of malaria. Travel history and contact tracing are never precise enough to declare where it came from. Malaria gives us a chance to talk about the characteristic life cycle of organism (plasmodium species), the mosquito vector, use of diagnostic testing including the blood smear etc.

So I was suspicious a few days ago when I heard about malaria in the U.S. as making a comeback and some patients asking me about bug spray. Now I see why there could be a manufactured interest in the age-old illness that is well treated with medicationsa mRNA vaccine.

Alexa Cook at NewsHub is reporting: A team of researchers from Victoria University of Wellingtons Ferrier Research Institute, the Malaghan Institute and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia have developed an mRNA-based vaccine that can effectively target and stimulate protective immune cell responses against the malaria-causing parasite.

...

MEMO | July 26, 2023

Eight major pro-Israel Jewish organisations from seven different countries have united to create a new task force to defend Israel under the guides of combatting anti-Semitism. The groups in the Task Force Against Anti-Semitism have all embraced the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and placed defending Israel from criticism at the centre of their work.

Calling themselves J7, the anti-Palestinian taskforce comprises prominent Jewish organisations from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Argentina and Australia: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organisations; the Board of Deputies of British Jews; Conseil Reprsentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF); the Central Council of Jews in Germany; the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA); Delegacin de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA); and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

Anti-Semitism is rising around the world, especially in countries where there are large Jewish populations. We needed to meet these challenges through coordinated action, ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt told Haaretz. This new coalition of major organisations representing seven large Jewish Diaspora communities in liberal democracies will provide a formal framework for coordination, consultation and formulating global responses to anti-Semitic threats against the Jewish people.

Greenblatt is one of the key proponents of the idea that anti-Zionism and legitimate criticism of the state of Israel equate to anti-Semitism. He is spearheading the initiative. The idea for the J7 came out of conversations I had with partners in France over our shared challenges and concerns. When we reached out to these seven communities, there was instant enthusiasm about the importance of the seven of us consulting, and what we might achieve working together.

The collaboration comes as Israel faces sharp criticism for its political shift to the far-right. Internally the occupation state is facing the prospect of a civil war, according to former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; internationally, a consensus is emerging about Israels practice of apartheid. With the highly...

Kit Knightly Last week it was reported that the Australian state of Victoria may be considering permanent facemask mandates to achieve zero-Covid. Now, we dont need to get into the personal liberty implications of such a law, or  the near-infinite supply of evidence that masks dont work to prevent the transmission of respiratory disease. They

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | July 27, 2023

Like the war that necessitated it, Russias decision not to renew the United Nations and Turkish-brokered grain deal is bad for the world but not wholly unprovoked.

The deal allowed Ukraine safe passage for its grain laden ships through the mined and blockaded Black Sea ports so it could continue to export its agriculture to the world.

On July 17, Russia announced its decision not to renew the deal.

It has repeatedly been reported that Russias decision is retaliation for Ukraines recent sabotage of the Kerch Strait bridge that links Crimea to the Russian mainland. But President Vladimir Putin had announced the distinct possibility of suspending the agreement prior to the attack on the bridge.

During a July 13 question period, in a response to a journalist, Putin said, prior to the attack on the bridge, We can suspend our participation in this deal.

Putin gave two reasons for suspending the deal after having extended this so-called deal many times. The first is that, though it was Russia that suspended the deal, it was the West that broke it. As for the conditions under which we agreed to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian grain, yes, there were clauses in this agreement with the United Nations, according to which Russian interests had to be taken into account as well, Putin said. Not a single clause related to what is in the interests of the Russian Federation has been fulfilled.

Announcing the decision not to renew the deal four days later, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that charge; Unfortunately, the part of the Black Sea agreement that concerns Russia has not yet been fulfilled. As a result, it has been terminated. However, he added that As soon as the Russian part [of the deal] is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of this deal. Putin made a similar pledge in his answer to the journalist. One option, he said, is not first the extension and then the honouring of promises, but first the honouring of promises and then our participation. What do I mean? We can suspend our participation in this deal, and if everybody once again says that all the promises made to us will be fulfilled, let them fulfil themand we will immediately join this deal. Again.

George Beebe of the Quincy Institute has...