Category: zerohedge

On Saturday the entirety of Lebanon was plunged into darkness, with the electricity grid shut down completely after the small Mediterranean country’s two main power stations reportedly ran out of fuel.  “The al Zahrani and the Deir Ammar power stations stopped working after supplies of diesel were apparently exhausted, and energy production dropped to below 200 megawatts,” Sky News reports.

A Lebanese official has confirmed to Reuters that the blackout is expected to last multiple days. “The Lebanese power network completely stopped working at noon today, and it is unlikely that it will work until next Monday, or for several days,” the official said.

“The official said the state electricity company would try to use the army’s fuel oil reserve to operate the power plants temporarily, but that would not happen anytime soon,” Reuters noted.

Over the past months major Lebanese cities and towns have experienced periodic blackouts, but this looks to be the worst and most far-reaching and long lasting – increasing the misery of a Lebanese population still in the midst of an economic crisis, persistent fuel shortage, and which has seen the local currency plunge by 90% since 2019.

Much of the past year in Lebanon has witnessed scenes of sometimes miles-long lines at gas stations, with fights and disputes over supplies becoming almost routine. Residents and business owners have tried to endure via generators and hoarding personal fuel supplies insofar is possible for those who can afford it.

Lebanon’s electrical grid has shut down across the country – meaning residents are now entirely dependent on costly private generators for power, if they can afford it https://t.co/UXfrBqUxnv

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) October 9, 2021

Some Lebanese interviewed by Middle East Eye told the publication that moving about an entirely darkened city at night is like “reliving the civil war” – in reference to lengthy war and collapse of infrastructure that gripped the country from 1975 to 1990.

Further report details that energy authorities began warning last month that a severe nation-wide blackout was coming:

Lebanon’s state electricity company, Electricite du Liban (EDL), warned in September that the country could plunge into a total blackout in October, amid dwindling fuel reserves, as the company is unable to generate the minimum 600 megawatts needed daily for the network to function properly.

On 3 October, EDL once again raised the alarm as the electrical grid shut down across the country – meaning residents of Lebanon are now entirely dependent on costly private generators for power, if they can even afford it.

In recent weeks Lebanon has begun receiving Iranian fuel shipments, controversially with the help of Syria and Hezbollah – but for now it appears the tankers sent from Iran have been too little too late to alleviate the immediate crisis.

Authored by Hans Rentsch via RealClearEnergy.com,

On June 13th, the revised CO2 law failed at the Swiss ballot box. Judging from the rather confused debate following the rejection of the bill, one can hardly say that the shock in the politically competent circles had a beneficial effect in favor of more realism. Many commentators were surprised that the electorate put the brakes on climate policy, and many seemed puzzled about how to interpret the will of the people as expressed in the vote. In the referendum of May 2017, the revised Energy Act had been approved by a clear majority, but four years later a tight “no” to the revised CO2 Law followed.

No Inconsistency in Voting Behavior

Both legislative revisions are to be viewed as interconnected partial steps in the former energy minister Doris Leuthard’s Energiewende (energy transition project). First yes, then no – and that looks quite inconsistent. The VOTO and VOX studies from the follow-up surveys allow a comparison of the two votes. The crucial point sounds almost trivial: The electorate that approved the Energy Act in May 2017 was not the same electorate that voted against the CO2 Act four years later – even disregarding the demographic shifts. The main difference lies in the much higher voter turnout for the CO2 Act – almost 60 percent, versus just 43 percent for the Energy Act.

This high mobilization, well above the average of 46 percent, was due to the four other proposals that were voted on the same day, above all the two popular initiatives aiming at a reorientation of the agricultural policy. Due to radical requirements regarding the protection of drinking water and the use of pesticides for agriculture as well as upstream and downstream industries, these had led the farming sector to expect drastic consequences. In an extensive and expensive campaign, the associations of the agricultural sector fought the initiatives and lured many people to the polls in rural regions. According to an analysis by the survey institute GFS Bern, a double no to the agricultural initiatives is the strongest explanation factor for a no to the CO2 law. Obviously, it didn’t take a lot of additional energy to also write a no on the voting slip for the CO2 law. 

A detail from the VOTO-study is also worth being mentioned. Although the conservative Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) was the only major party to support the referendum against the Energy Act in 2017, the party was unable to mobilize its supporters. Only 38 percent took part in the vote, the lowest percentage of any party. The SVP, on the other hand, mobilized its supporters most strongly in the vote on the CO2 Act in June this year: 73 percent of SVP sympathizers took part in the vote – because of the two strongly mobilizing agricultural initiatives. The CO2 law, so to speak as the sidecar, bore the consequences. 

The Urban-Rural Divide and Other Gaps

Many comments on the vote complained about a growing urban-rural divide. As if this were something new! The same would have been visible in other referenda if one had looked more closely. The urban-rural divide only depicts the different political positions: urban Switzerland ticks left, rural Switzerland non-left. Instead of superficially complaining about a divide between town and country, it is worth looking at other ditches. It goes without saying that the differences between left and right are particularly great when it comes to issues that are as ideologically and morally charged as energy and climate policies. Supporters of the Green Party voted in favor of the Energy Act with a yes share of 94 percent, while only 16 percent of SVP party supporters voted in favor. Almost the same gap appeared in the referendum on the CO2 law: 93 percent versus 17 percent.

There are also astonishing divides within parties. The official voting recommendation of the national pro-business and pro-market party “FDP. Die Liberalen” was yes in both votes, but some cantonal FDP sections opposed the national pro decision. And a majority of the FDP party supporters voted against the official party line. In the referendum on the new Energy law, 53 percent rejected the bill, and no less than 63 percent voted against the revised CO2 law. In an opinion poll amongst party members before the elections to the lower house in autumn 2019, the party leadership was able to win support for a green “last-minute” swivel, obviously under the influence of the “Fridays for Future” strikes, very much inflated by the compliant media. However, such surveys typically produce declamatory statements at zero cost, while referenda on new legislation are about concrete measures and noticeable effects.

There was a very special divide in the sphere of influence of the traditional farmers’ party SVP, which was the only significant party in both referenda to oppose the bills. But in the case of the revised CO2 law the Swiss Farmers Association had recommended adoption, thus departing far from its political base. The informed observer suspects, that the Swiss Farmers Association had entered into an logrolling deal with economic interests that fought for the law, who in return promised to respect agricultural protection interests, especially in the case of new Free Trade Agreements.

Since the research institutes mandated to produce the VOX or VOTO studies still collect genderrelated data, somewhat old-fashioned, according to binary-biological gender, a gap between men and women becomes visible. Women had voted in favor of the Energy Act with a pro share of 64 percent, men only with 53 percent. In the referendum on the CO2 Act, women approved the law with a yes majority of 52 percent, while men produced only 45 percent yes votes. The difference was somewhat smaller than in the case of the Energy law. But the gender divide was of a more serious quality, because men dominated women by overturning the law approved by a majority of women.

The Educational Elite as the Spearhead of the Energiewende (energy transition)

There is also a wide gap in voting behavior based on the level of education. Highly educated people owning a university degree emerged from the referenda as the most convinced “energy transitioners.” The group with only basic vocational training or an apprenticeship rejected the Energy Act with around 55 percent no votes. In contrast, people with a tertiary education voted for the law with a three-quarters majority. In the vote on the CO2 bill, the differences were smaller, but with a pro share of around 70 percent, the bracket of the highly educated was still well above the approval rates of the groups with a lower level of education. These are typically people who have to cope with their everyday life and usually have other worries than using scarce material resources to express some ideal values.

An orientation based on certain morally rewarding values is widespread among the materially privileged educated elite. Such attitudes are often used for personal image cultivation, but such behavior is associated with costs. Just think of the high prices for “ethical consumption.” In an article in the leading Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the cultural scientist Wolfgang Ullrich wrote that to orient one’s life towards higher values is the bliss only of elites. Their privileged social position enables the “new moral nobility” to implement a value-conscious lifestyle and thus to rise above other people. The fact that the support for the Energy and the CO2 bills was so strong in the university educated and the cultural milieus can primarily be explained with this value orientation and not with a superior technical or economic insight into the effects of the new legislation. The prominent American moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt said in a speech, only slightly exaggerating, that highly educated people are not, as they themselves would think, better informed than others, they are just more adept at justifying their prejudices.

The rough categorization “highly educated” also blurs an important fact. In terms of numbers, the predominant university degrees stem from “soft” subjects generally referred to as humanities (typically with female over-representation) such as languages, psychology, journalism, media, law, political science, sociology, history, geography, ethnology and medical-social subjects. In contrast to the political-ideological spectrum of the entire electorate, there is a pronounced left-green “value bias” among university graduates in the above-mentioned fields of study. Such orientation towards self-defined values also reflects a tendency towards illusory social goals and a massive overestimation of political will and ability in the sense of: all we want is also feasible.

Farewell to Illusions: The Paris 2015 1.5 Degree Target

It goes without saying that the electorate’s no to the new CO2 law does not fit into the officially promoted path towards the projected energy transition and the intermediate targets of CO2 reduction in line with the Paris 2015 commitments. But how is the will of the people to be derived from the two seemingly opposed outcomes in the referenda on energy and climate policy? On the one hand, the participating electorates in the two votes differ greatly in many respects. On the other, the voting results obviously depend on whether a bill is presented to voters as a single issue or in a package with other projects of legislation.

In times of rising alarmist voices, nothing would be more useful than to engage in a sober analysis of the situation without prejudice and to part from all the illusions that shape current energy and climate policy. This applies in particular to the Fukushima-fueled Swiss Energiewende. 

The 1.5 degree target from the Paris 2015 conference and agreement and the connected grandiose “zero carbon” oaths are the great basic illusions. Unattainable goals are bound to make climate policy a constant failure. Why should the world state of 1850 at the end of the Little Ice Age with a CO2 concentration of 280 ppm represent a natural climate optimum for the environment, health, and nutrition? Furthermore, since the average global temperature has already increased by 1.1 degrees since then, and since the temperature reacts with a delay to today’s CO2 concentration of 415 ppm, the 1.5 degrees would probably also be exceeded, even if the human world were to stand still tomorrow.

Nonetheless, our responsible authorities continue to announce unperturbed that the 1.5 degree target of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement can be achieved, if we only want it. The blurred meaning of “we” is confusing the message. We in tiny Switzerland have nothing to do with reaching the 1.5 degree target. We have only made commitments to reduce greenhouse gases in solidarity, in the hope that the other Paris 2015 committed countries will do the same and stick to their nationally determined contributions (NDC). In light of the free-rider problem, this hope is built on sand. If, on the other hand, “we” is meant globally, it is outside of Switzerland’s political responsibilities and competencies.

The enormous technological and economic progress and the high level of prosperity in the societies of mass consumption in the western welfare states and in successful Asian countries as well as the development in poorer countries are outright unimaginable without the availability of fossil energy. From simple logics, it can be concluded that a brutal decarbonization of economies would be an extremely costly project – social costs expressed, economically correct, as opportunity costs. (Note: If scarce resources are put to a new use, they are missing elsewhere. The added value that is lost from the next best or even better use of these resources are economic costs). Moreover, the distribution conflicts to be expected from a radical decarbonization policy, both within and between states, would hardly be politically resolvable. Anyone who throws the catchphrase “climate justice” into the debate in order to remind rich countries of their special responsibility takes a narrow view. Because it is the technological and economic achievements of the countries shaped by western values that have massively reduced extreme poverty and child mortality worldwide and have more than doubled the average life expectancy since 1900 – with the greatest progress in the (formerly) poor countries of Asia and Africa. 

The public debate about the costs and benefits of an “ambitious climate policy” is characterized by vague warnings and illusions. The best-founded cost estimates of the long-term damage caused by climate change and the costs of climate policy are due to the American Yale economist William Nordhaus. In 2018, he received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to the “calculus” of climate policy. Nevertheless, his findings seem to have no effect on the usual current climate policy, which is by and large based on grandiose declamations, spilling scarce resources with mostly symbolic effect. Among climate activists of all kinds who live in the illusionary world of Paris 2015, Nordhaus has few supporters anyway. No wonder, because according to Nordhaus’ estimates, a climate policy that seeks to achieve the 1.5 degree target is unaffordable in practice. In the trade-off between the costs of climate policy and the damage caused by climate change, a warming scenario of around 3.5 degrees does best in the model simulations of Nordhaus. Even if many may doubt these model-based results or outright dismiss them as cynical, such cost-benefit comparisons are indispensable, not least because the model assumptions realistically reflect the way people think and act. The choice of a realistic discount rate for calculating present values of costs is of utmost importance here, but an ongoing debate among economists on this issue would call for a separate discussion.

An Energy Transition Without Nuclear Power?

The illusions cultivated in Switzerland, including “fake facts,” also disseminated by official bodies in the federal administration, concern alleged savings in electricity consumption despite the planned electrification of mobility and buildings, the grossly overestimated future expansion of renewable energies wind, solar and hydropower, availability of electricity imports to cover the massively growing winter electricity production deficit, and the vague hopes for technological breakthroughs in electricity storage and in carbon capture and storage. All this has been reported in detail elsewhere, with no visible effect on current policies and projects. Political Switzerland is a heavy steamer with many actors in the engine room and at the helm.

The approval of the Energy Act in 2017 was primarily a vote in favor of phasing out nuclear energy. In the VOTO follow-up survey, four out of five respondents expressed a wish for a nuclear-free Switzerland. The images of the reactor explosion in Fukushima were still firmly imprinted on people’s minds. “Hard cases make bad law” is an old political adage that pops up here. We could have learned a lot from the Fukushima hard or even worst case, if we had analyzed the consequences more calmly, instead of announcing an “energy transition” two months after the disaster with the phasing out of nuclear energy. Winston Churchill is credited with observing that security lies in the multitude of variables that are available as options for action. If, based on costless wishes and on vague hopes, a county’s voting population restricts options for action, it must also be prepared to deal with a reality that might behave differently than hoped for.

After all, voices are now gradually being raised calling for a reassessment of nuclear energy in times of ruthless but very fragile targets for “net-zero 2050.” Due to the highest possible democratic legitimation by a popular vote, an exit from the nuclear phase-out currently seems practically impossible in Switzerland. What makes a turnaround even harder: the fundamentalistic rejection of nuclear energy is a central element of the mission and self-image of politically influential persons, parties and NGOs. A sober reassessment would be a betrayal of a fundamental position, to which one has been completely devoted for decades. Finally, if around four-fifths of those eligible to vote are in favor of phasing out nuclear energy, it takes civil courage to stand up and give the remaining fifth a vote.

A counter-experience to Fukushima that could stir up people’s mindset in a similar way favoring a more realistic energy policy, would be an electricity blackout provoking the failure of important systems. Such an event is not unrealistic under the pressures and constraints of the announced energy transition. Relevant warnings can be found in official risk scenarios for Switzerland. With the ongoing and increasing uncoupling from the European electricity network due to Switzerland’s rejection of an institutionally binding general agreement with the EU, these risks are rising. But as long as the perception and the media communication of accidents in the energy sector – not least thanks to the specters “Fukushima” and “Chernobyl” – are so distorted at the expense of nuclear energy, the prevailing opinions in the population should not be overestimated. Perhaps in a few years we shall see a climate youth on strike who – in contrast to today’s ideologically blind Fridays for Future activists – is calling for an exit from the “nuclear exit.” All to the benefit of ambitious climate targets.

*  *  *

(Note: This essay expresses a personal opinion and in no way presents an officially approved perspective of either the CCRS or the University of Zurich). 

Three British car thieves used a high-tech device disguised as a Nintendo Game Boy to steal cars in seconds, according to the BBC. 

West Yorkshire Police said the trio had a device that could unlock Mitsubishi Outlanders “in a matter of seconds.” 

The video footage shared by the BBC shows the men using the device to unlock an Outlander before reversing out of the driveway. Local police had enough evidence that they were able to track down the thieves. 

When officers arrested the men, they searched one of their cars and found a fake Nintendo Game Boy. It was noted the device was worth $27,000 as it can wirelessly unlock cars and then start Outlanders. 

Police said footage recovered from one of the thieves demonstrated “how quickly and easily the gadget gave them full access to the vehicles, accompanied by a commentary in mocking tones,” adding that the trio’s “significant investment required to buy one of the sophisticated devices suggested the thefts were planned and orchestrated crimes.” 

What comes to mind is the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds,” starring Nicolas Cage, who had to steal 50 luxury vehicles in 72 hours to save his brother. Just imagine if Cage and his team of thieves had this device to steal cars today, they could hit the quota in a fraction of time. 

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• With natural gas, coal, and oil prices all soaring this summer, it is clear that a successful energy transition will take decades not years

• Some energy transition proponents may have confused Covid energy demand destruction with a change in consumer behavior

• The truth is that an energy transition can only occur when clean energy can be provided both cheaply and reliably 

This year’s global demand for all three fossil fuels has sent a message to overly enthusiastic proponents of the energy transition – hold your horses.

Those who predicted last year the demise of oil, gas, and coal after the pandemic and those who said that peak oil demand was already behind us because lasting changes in consumer behavior would reduce the use of crude are now facing reality.  

Global oil demand is just a few months away from reaching pre-pandemic levels, while natural gas and coal demand have already exceeded the 2019 volumes.

Sure, international airline travel is still struggling because of COVID-related travel restrictions in place in many countries. But economies are bouncing back, industries are growing, and the world needs a lot of energy, once again.

Fossil Fuels Support Economic Growth

And fossil fuels continue to supply most of that energy and will do so for years to come. Last year’s slump in fossil fuel consumption is being erased, and those who expected oil, gas, and coal demand to never return to pre-COVID levels now know they were wrong.  

Also wrong were all those who hoped the ‘build back greener’ policies that governments pledged last year would suddenly lead to solar, wind, biofuels, sustainable aviation fuels, and hydrogen displacing fossil fuel-generated energy overnight.

Economies are recovering post-COVID, and consumer habits haven’t changed all that much: consumers still want a warm home, power, the latest tech gadgets, and to be able to freely travel and spend money.

Apart from a share of renewables for power generation, solar and wind, for example, are not really providing the energy and all the stuff consumers buy. Fossil fuels do. And they will continue to do so for at least another decade until the energy transition – including in industries other than power generation – accelerates.   

The share of renewable energy sources in electricity generation continues to rise, but renewables are incapable of meeting the rebounding power demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in July.

The IEA also says that if the world were to meet a net-zero target in 2050, it should stop investing in new oil, gas, and coal supply now.  

Yet, these days, both the most developed economies in Europe and the fastest-growing developing economies in Asia – China and India – are experiencing first-hand what undersupplied coal and gas markets mean: very high prices of energy commodities and power supply, and industries halting factories because of shortage of electricity or gas.

Coal And Gas Demand Back Above Pre-Covid Levels

The post-COVID economic recovery drove demand for oil, coal, and gas, with coal and gas consumption already exceeding pre-pandemic levels. As a result, the record slump in global emissions from 2020 is also being erased, posing another conundrum to the global fight against climate change.

On average, coal demand declined by 4 percent last year – the steepest drop since World War II – but it was already back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2020, the IEA says. 

“Coal use in the fourth quarter was 3.5% higher than in the same period in 2019, contributing to a resurgence in global CO2 emissions,” Carlos Fernández Alvarez, Senior Energy Analyst at the IEA, wrote in a commentary in March.

This year, coal demand is rebounding strongly in 2021, driven by the power sector, the agency said in its Global Energy Review 2021 in April. Natural gas demand is also bouncing back and is expected to erase the 2020 loss and push demand 1.3 percent above 2019 levels, as per IEA estimates in the same review.  

Oil Demand Set To Reach 2019 Levels Within A Few Months 

Oil demand is also on track to soon reach 2019 levels and exceed them. Many analysts and oil companies see global oil demand returning to the pre-crisis levels of 2019 as early as the start of next year, if not earlier, by the end of 2021. According to OPEC’s latest estimate, global oil demand in 2022 will average 100.8 million bpd and exceed pre-COVID levels.

The current gas, coal, and power crisis in Europe and Asia is also set to accelerate oil demand recovery in the winter if gas-to-oil switching becomes more widespread.

By early 2022, demand for all fossil fuels is expected to have reached or exceeded pre-pandemic levels, highlighting the challenges of the energy transition to secure reliable – and preferably affordable – energy for the world.

“The energy transition and decarbonisation are decade-long strategies and do not happen overnight,” Cuneyt Kazokoglu, head of oil demand analysis at consultancy FGE, told Reuters.

Last year’s slump in fossil fuel demand had nothing to do with the energy transition: it had everything to do with the lockdowns and economic decline, Kazokoglu said.

A rushed transition without considering the still enormous role that fossil fuels play in the economy and consumers’ lifestyle risks exposing the global energy market to supply crunches and price spikes.

“Prices for fossil fuels will remain volatile, perhaps more so than today since the risk of a supply-demand imbalance is greater in a market that is shrinking where the case for further investment is weak, which could produce short-term rallies,” Nikos Tsafos, the James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy and Geopolitics with at Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), wrote in a commentary last month.

The price of commodities critical for the energy transition – such as the key metals lithium, cobalt, nickel, or copper – are also prone to volatility, Tsafos notes.

The energy transition will not be smooth sailing and will take decades. In the meantime, fossil fuels will continue to support the global economy and the security of the energy supply.

Even the IEA, while saying that well-managed energy transitions would be the solution – not the problem – in the current gas and power crises, acknowledged that “The links between electricity and gas markets are not going to go away anytime soon. Gas remains an important tool for balancing electricity markets in many regions today.”  

Since the start of the August rapid evacuation of US forces from Kabul, Russia has been flexing its military might in central Asia – in particular with military drills with its regional ally Tajikistan, geared toward protecting the porous border as Afghans fled the Taliban, which included national Afghan troops abandoning their posts in droves – which saw them also flee into other neighboring countries like Uzbekistan. 

Reuters reports based on official statements that Moscow is now pledging to defend Tajikistan in the instance of a spillover in fighting or direct threats from terrorists launching strikes out of Afghanistan. Over the past weeks there have been reports that both Taliban and Tajik forces were engaged in troop build-ups on either side of the over 840-mile long border.

The Tajik side has accused the Taliban of seeking to use ethnic Tajiks in northern Afghanistan as potential terror proxies to strike inside of Tajikistan, resulting in ratcheting border tensions and rival build-up of forces. Tajiks remain Afghanistan’s second largest ethnic group, in many northern areas actually making up the majority of the local population.

“Russia is ready to protect its ally Tajikistan in the event of any incursions from neighboring Afghanistan, a senior diplomat was quoted on Friday as saying, amid Russian media reports of a militant Tajik group preparing a cross-border attack,” according to Reuters. 

“All necessary assistance will be provided to Tajikistan if required, both within the (Moscow-led) Collective Security Treaty Organisation framework and bilaterally,” the Russian official, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, said further as cited in Interfax.

“There are indeed reports that the Taliban cannot control the situation (in northern Afghanistan)… Still, we hope they will honor the promises they have made (about not attacking neighbors),” Rudenko added; however without provide further details. 

From late July through August, Russia began openly ramping up its arms transfers to Tajikistan, and also bolstered its own military base in the country – especially by sending tanks. Also by late August the two allies conducted major military drills, which included aerial assets, simulating repelling terrorist attacks from border regions. 

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

How does a fraud like Anthony Fauci find himself in the highest paid position in US bureaucracy? Well, Fauci’s career is a rather shocking testament to the reality of our government and our era – The more corrupt you are the more favors and promotions you will receive.

Fauci is well known as a shameless opportunist among many within the medical research community. For example, the creator of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test, Kary Mullis, had nothing but disdain for Fauci. Mullis was an interesting figure who valued scientific honesty above all else. He often warned that his PCR test could be exploited to inflate infection numbers by identifying remnants of a virus in person’s body without distinguishing whether or not they are actually “infected” (sick). Sadly, his test is no be used in this exact manner today to exaggerate infection rates of the covid-19 virus.

In interviews Mullis has referred to Anthony Fauci as a “liar”, arguing that he is a bureaucrat that “doesn’t know anything about anything”. Mullis noted that people like Fauci have an agenda that is outside of the public good, and that they have no problem misrepresenting the science to the populace to achieve their goals. It should also be noted that YouTube has made it their mission to consistently erase any traces of the Mullis interviews mentioning Fauci from their website.

It is also not surprising that Fauci’s rampant fear mongering over AIDS in the 1980’s has gone mostly unmentioned by the mainstream media. His claim that 1 in 5 heterosexual Americans would be dead from AIDS by 1990 has been summarily memory-holed and the guy is treated like a scientific genius by the journalistic community in 2021.

If there is any justice in this world then Fauci should really go down in history as one of the primary initiators of the Covid pandemic, being that he was the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that funded Gain of Function research on corona-viruses at the Wuhan Lab in China. This is the same research that Fauci blatantly lied about to congress on multiple occasions. And, the Wuhan lab is the same lab that evidence suggests was the ground zero source of the Covid-19 outbreak.

It is important to note that it was Fauci and the NIH that LIFTED the ban on gain of function research on deadly viruses in 2017, and it was well known around this time that the Level 4 Wuhan lab in China was not secure.

If anyone is responsible for global covid deaths, it is Fauci, the Chinese government and anyone else involved in that gain of function research which is primarily used to WEAPONIZE viruses under the guise of creating “therapeutics.” Gain of function research was originally banned under the Biological Weapons Convention which went into effect in 1975, unless it was being used for therapeutics. Now ALL gain of function research that is revealed publicly is labeled as therapeutics even if it is actually designed to produce biological weapons. This is sometimes referred to as “dual use research.”

The prevailing narrative continues to be that even if the virus came from the Wuhan lab then it was surely an accident. I continue to believe according to the available evidence that Covid-19 was deliberately released in order to create a global crisis which could then be exploited by the establishment to introduce extreme controls over the populace to the point of medical totalitarianism. But of course, there is no smoking gun to prove this, only common sense.

If we take the notorious Event 201 into account things get a little weird. Event 201 was a war game held by the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its claimed purpose was to simulate the effects of a deadly coronavirus pandemic “spread by animals” to humans and to develop the policies governments and their corporate partners should employ to deal with it. Interestingly, this simulation was held in October of 2019, only two months before the REAL THING happened. Nearly every policy suggested by the participants of Event 201 has now been adopted by most governments, including the social media censorship campaign against anyone that questions the origins of the virus and the safety of the experimental mRNA vaccines.

Anthony Fauci and friends….

WEF founder Klaus Schwab was quick to announce at the start of the pandemic that Covid-19 was the “perfect opportunity” to launch the “Great Reset”, which is a globalist plan to completely erase free market systems and replace them with a highly centralized socialist framework. The WEF envisions a world in which carbon related power is banned, all financial transactions become digital and are monitored and controlled by central authorities, and they have even suggested that one day people will “own nothing and be happy”. This is a reference to the so-called “shared economy” of the future, where the concept of personal property is abolished and all people will live in communal housing collectives where necessities are rationed or rented out to them by the government.

Something must have went wrong with covid, however, because the Event 201 death estimates for such a virus were around 65 million within the first year of the outbreak. This of course never happened with Covid-19. So, the resistance to the mandates has been high, or much higher apparently than the globalists expected. They have been forced to engage in an endless fear campaign for the past 18 months over a virus with a mere 0.26% median death rate. It is a virus that well over 99.7% of all people will survive and it has an extremely low chance of long term effects on those who do actually end up hospitalized. In the majority of states the hospitalization rates are between 10-35 people for every 100,000 people infected.

These numbers come from the CDC and the medical establishment at large, yet they are ignored by propagandists like Fauci, just as Fauci has continued to ignore natural immunity as a factor in covid mandates. It might seem bizarre to almost any scientist, doctor and virologist not paid by the government, but Fauci has argued that natural immunity should be ignored when compared to vaccination. Multiple studies from around the world now show that natural immunity is up to 27 times more effective at preventing covid infection than the vaccines, but those with natural immunity are considered a threat to others under the new mandates unless they are also vaxxed.

This simply makes no sense from a scientific perspective until you realize that the mandates are not about science, they are about authoritarianism. Fauci is the US front man for a campaign of medical tyranny being imposed in every nation; this is why he does not care about natural immunity. The idea of it is inconvenient to his narrative, so he pretends it is inconsequential.

It is perhaps ironic that Fauci himself is becoming inconsequential as he is slowly fading away from the media limelight. I have noticed that ever since the NIH gain of function information was released to the public Fauci has been in the media less prominently. A documentary produced by National Geographic and soon to be distributed by Disney+ portrays the conman as a misunderstood savior and is sure to be a trash fire. That said, it does represent a clear last-ditched effort to save the man’s false reputation.

There is a good reason for all of this. Fauci’s distaste for personal freedom has been well documented and is making him extremely unpopular. He even recently argued on CNN in favor of vaccine mandates using this perverse position:

“There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.”

Fauci and his globalist ilk can be distilled down to this single mantra: Do as you are told for the greater good. But who gets to determine what the “greater good” is? Isn’t it disturbing that it’s always the same elitists that end up in that position? I know that leftists in particular love the idea of the vaccine mandates and worship Fauci, and they say we skeptics should “listen to the science”, but Fauci is not a scientist, he’s a door-to-door salesman, and as I’ve noted above the REAL science does not support the arguments for forced vaccinations or lockdowns.

Hell, I keep asking the same questions on the mandates in these articles and not a single leftists or pro-vax proponent has come up with a valid or logical response, but out of morbid curiosity I would love to see Fauci give his answers:

1) Covid has a median death rate of only 0.26%, so why should we take ANY risk on an experimental mRNA vaccine with no long term testing to prove its safety?

2) Why not give support to the 0.26% of people actually at risk from dying due to covid instead of spending billions of dollars on Big Pharma producing a rushed vaccine that you plan to force on the 99.7% of people who are not at risk?

3) In majority vaccinated countries like Israel, over 60% of covid hospitalizations are fully vaccinated people. The exponential rise of fully vaccinated patients in multiple nations suggests that the vaccines do not work. Why should we take a vaccine that has been proven not to be effective?

4) If you believe the vaccines actually do work despite all evidence to the contrary, then why should vaccinated people fear anything from unvaccinated people? How are we a threat to them?

5) If the vaccines don’t work, then doesn’t this mean the mandates are pointless and the people that are most safe are the people with natural immunity? Shouldn’t we be applauding the naturally immune and encouraging treatment instead of useless vaccination?

6) Since the vaccines actually don’t work according to the data, isn’t it time to stop blindly dismissing treatments like Ivermectin and focus on trials and studies that research these alternatives? Why the vitriolic propaganda campaign to label Ivermectin nothing more than “horse paste” when it is actually a long used Nobel Prize winning treatment for human ailments? Is it because the experimental covid vaccines would lose their emergency authorization status under the FDA if effective treatments exist?

7) Why are government funded scientists so keen on defending Big Pharma to the point of ignoring all data that contradicts their claims? Are you just embarrassed of being wrong, or are you corrupt?

8) Who decided you are qualified to determine what constitutes the “greater good?”

Globalists and errand boys like Fauci will never be able to answer these questions without twisting the narrative. They will say “What about the 700,000 dead in the US?” to play on the idea that the freedom minded lack empathy for their fellow man. Of course, around 40% of those deaths are patients from nursing homes with preexisting conditions, so we have no idea if they died from covid or from their previous ailments. Also, millions of people die every year from a plethora of communicable diseases including the flu and pneumonia, and we never tried to lock down the entire country and crush people’s civil rights because of this.

If we maintained a running tally of flu and pneumonia deaths year after year as we are doing with covid, then the ever increasing number of bodies would seem just as forbidding. Society cannot function when it is preoccupied with death.

Yes, around 0.26% of people die from covid, but life goes on for everyone else. Our freedoms are more important than your irrational fears. Our freedoms are more important than globalist agendas for centralization. Our freedoms ARE the greater good. Without them our society dies, and as our society dies millions more people will die from the inevitable collapse and tyranny that will follow; far more than will ever die from covid.

This is why nothing Fauci says has any relevance to us. He is so transparent in his corruption that he might as well be invisible. We will continue to ignore his declarations and admonitions and we will continue to fight back against the vaccine passports and restrictions. When all is said and done, if Fauci, Biden and other globalist puppets try to use force to impose their agenda upon us then there will come a day very soon when they will be held accountable for their crimes against humanity, and then they will wish they were invisible.

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It comes as no surprise that the federal government is continuing its crusade against ghost guns, or ready-to-assemble gun kits, also known as 80% lowers. The latest is Sen. Chuck Schumer, who demanded that the Biden administration crackdown on these untraceable firearms. 

“There is absolutely no doubt about it – ghost guns continue to haunt New York, and pose a serious threat to our public safety,” Schumer told reporters earlier this week.

“We’re asking the administration to act: Close the ghost gun loophole as quickly as we can,” he added. “Stop ghost guns from coming into our city, our communities that are killing [people], particularly our kids.”

Schumer said ghost guns are sold as separate components and don’t need a background check to purchase. He warned when these components are pieced together, they create a fully operational firearm that can end up in the wrong hands of “felons” and “spousal abusers.”

The Senate majority leader said the ATF should define these “partially complete frames” as firearms and subject buyers to background checks. 

In May, the Department of Justice proposed a rule that would require gun shops and online retailers to conduct background checks on those who wanted to purchase 80% lowers. The proposed rule also wanted manufacturers to add serial numbers to the frames. He predicted that if the federal government passed such a law, it would prevent ghost guns from ending up in the wrong hands. 

But not so fast, says Baltimore-based gunshop and gun policy advocacy group The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN), who warned that more regulation of the firearms industry would only push criminals to print 3D weapons.

“Nowadays, all someone needs is a 3D printer off Amazon, a few spindles of pla filament, and a CAD file to print a weapon at home. There’s simply no way for the government to continue a regulation spree on the industry and for any successful outcomes to materialize. It’s a losing war, just like the war on drugs.

“What will the Feds ban next? 3D Printers?” TMGN opined. 

During the last year and a half of panic gun buying, mostly due to the virus pandemic and social unrest of 2020, Americans also hoarded ghost gun kits in anticipation the government would crack down on these unserialized frames. 

If there’s one thing the government likes doing, it’s the art of control, and the best way to do that is to continue regulating the gun industry into non-existence. 

Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) removed an AI chatbot from its website after it went ‘haywire’ and provided people with inappropriate answers to COVID-related questions, according to Singapore newspaper Today. 

Dubbed “Jamie,” the AI chatbot uses Natural Language Processing engine to figure out questions asked by the public. 

Things recently took a turn for the worse when the chatbot left some residents in disbelief by its answers about family planning advice when asked about the virus. 

An example of one of the conversations posted on Reddit shows one user asking the AI chatbot, “My son tested covid positive what should I do?”

The chatbot responded: 

“You should practice safe sex through the correct and consistent use of condoms, or abstinence, for at least the whole duration of your female partner’s pregnancy.”

Another conversation posted online shows a resident asking, “Where can I get an ART?” ART refers to rapid antigen tests. However, the chatbot was far from helpful and offered the “polio vaccine” instead. 

MOH was quick to remove the chatbot from its website after what it calls “misaligned” replies. Local media reports Ask Jamie is functional on dozens of other government websites and appears to be working fine. It remains a mystery why the chatbot gave terrible advice when residents asked COVID questions. 

Authored by Fabian Ommar via The Organic Prepper blog,

When it comes to how we see and prepare for SHTF, thinking in terms of real and probable rather than fictional and possible can make a big difference. Even though SHTF has many forms and levels and is in essence complex, random, diverse and unsystematic, some patterns and principles are common to the way things unfold when it hits the fan.

With Toby and Selco’s Seven Pillars of Urban Preparedness as inspiration, I came up with a different list of the 15 dynamics and realities of collapses.

#1 SHTF is nuanced and happens in stages

Thinking about SHTF as an ON/OFF, all-or-nothing endgame is a common mistake that can lead to severe misjudgments and failures in critical areas of preparedness. Part (or parts) of the system crash, freeze, fail, or become impaired. This is how SHTF happens in the real world. And when it does, people run for safety first, i.e., resort to more familiar behaviors, expecting things to “go back to normal soon.” 

By “normal behaviors,” I mean everything from hoarding stuff (toilet paper?) to rioting, looting, and crime, and yes, using cash – as these happen all the time, even when things are normal. But no one becomes a barterer, a peddler, a precious metals specialist in a week. Society adapts as time passes (and the situation requires). That’s why preppers who are also SHTF survivors (and thus talk from personal experience) insist that abandoning fantasies and caring for basics first is crucial. This is not a coincidence. It is how things happen in the real world. 

Recently I wrote about black markets and the role of cash in SHTFs, emphasizing these things take precedence except in a full-blown apocalypse – which no one can say if, when, or how will happen (because it never has?). Now, I don’t pretend to be the owner of the truth, but those insisting changes in society happen radically or abruptly should check this article about the fallout in Myanmar.

#2 Everything crawls until everything runs

Number two is a corollary to #1. SHTF happens in stair-steps, but most people failing to prepare and getting caught off-guard is evidence of the difficulty of the human brain to fully grasp the concept of exponential growth. It bears telling the analogy of the stadium being filled with water drops to illustrate this.

Let’s say we add one drop into a watertight baseball stadium. The deposited volume doubles every minute (i.e., one minute later, we add two more drops, then four in the next minute, eight in the next, then sixteen, and so on). How long would it take to fill the entire stadium? Sitting at the top row, we’d watch for 45 minutes as the water covered the field. Then at the 48-minute mark, 50% of the stadium would be filled. Yes, that’s only 3 minutes from practically empty to half full. At this point, we have just 60 seconds to get out: the water will be spilling before the clock hits 49 minutes.

This is an important dynamic to understand and keep in mind because it applies to most things. Another example: it took over 2 million years of human prehistory and history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and less than 250 years more to grow to almost 8 billion. 

#3 The system doesn’t vanish or change suddenly

Based on history, the Mad Max-like scenario some so feverishly advocate is not in our near future.  

The Roman Empire unraveled over 500 years. We may not be at the tipping point of our collapse or the last minute of the flooding stadium, as illustrated in #2 above. But time is relative, and those 60 seconds can last five, ten, fifteen years. Things are accelerating, but there’s no way to tell at which point in the curve we are.

That doesn’t mean things will be normal in that period. A lot has happened to people and places all over the Roman empire during those five-plus centuries: wars, plagues, invasions, droughts, shortages, all hell broke loose. Our civilization has already hit the iceberg, and the current order is crumbling. There will be shocks along the way, some small and some big. But SHTF is a process, not an event.

#4 History repeats, but always with a twist

That’s because nature works in cycles, and humans react to scarcity and abundance predictably and in the same ways. Also, we’re helpless in the face of the most significant and recurring events. But things are never the same. Technology improves, social rules change, humankind advances, the population grows. This (and lots more) adds a variability factor to the magnitude, gravity, and reach of outcomes.

What better proof than the COVID-19 pandemic just surpassing the 1918 Spanish Flu death toll in the US? It’ll probably do so everywhere else, too. Even if we don’t believe the official data (then or now), we’re not yet out of this new coronavirus situation. 

#5 SHTF is about scarcity

A shrink in resources invariably leads to changes in the individual’s standard of living or entire society (depending on the circumstances, depth, and reach of the disaster or collapse). Then it starts affecting life itself (i.e., people dying).

Essentially, when things really hit the fan, abundance vanishes, and pretty much everything reverts to the mean: food becomes replenishment, drinking becomes hydration, sleeping becomes rest, home becomes shelter, and so on. Surviving is accepting and adapting to that. 

#6 The consequences matter more than the type of event

I’ll admit to being guilty of debating probable causes of SHTF more often than I should, mainly when it comes to the economy and finance going bust. That’s from living in a third-world country, with all the crap that comes with it. 

It’s what I have to talk, warn, and give advice about. I still find it essential to be aware and thoughtful of the causes. But it’s for the consequences that we must prepare for: instability, corruption, bureaucracy, criminality, inflation, social unrest, divisiveness, wars, and all sorts of conflicts and disruptions that affect us directly.

#7 Life goes on 

Humankind advances through hardship but thrives in routine. We crave normalcy and peace, and over the long term, pursue them. Contrary to what many think, life goes on even during SHTF. And things tend to return to normal after the immediate threats cease or get contained. 

At least some level of normal, considering the circumstances. For example, in occupied France, the bistros and cafés continued serving and entertaining the population and even the invaders (the Nazi army). It was hard, as is always the case anywhere there’s war, poverty, tyranny – but that doesn’t mean the world has ended. 

#8 SHTF pileup

Disasters and collapses add instability, volatility, and fragility to the system, which can compound and cause further disruptions. Sometimes, unfavorable cycles on various fronts (nature and civilization) can also converge and generate a perfect storm.

It’s crucial to consider that and try to prepare as best we can for multiple disasters happening at once or in sequence, on various levels, collective and individual – even if psychologically and mentally. And if the signs are any indication, we’re entering such a period of simultaneous challenges.

#9 Snowball effect

Daisy based her excellent article on the 10 most likely ways to die when SHTF on the principle of large-scale die-off caused by a major disaster, like an EMP or other. This theory is controversial and the object of endless discussions. Some say it’s an exaggeration. But in my opinion, that’s leaving a critical factor out of the equation.

Consider the following: according to WPR and the CDC, before COVID-19, the mortality rate in the US was well below 1% (2.850.000 per year, or about 8.100 per day). If the mortality rate increases to just 5%, this alone would spark other SHTFs, potentially more serious and harmful than the first.

That five-fold jump in mortality would result in more than 16 million dead per year or 44.000 per day. That’s 5% we’re talking about, not 20 or 30. If there’s even a protocol to deal with something like that, I’m not aware. It would be catastrophic on many levels over a shorter period (say, a few months).

Early in the CV19 pandemic, some cities had trouble burying the dead, and the death rate was still below 1%. Sure, other factors were playing. But the point is, things can snowball: consequences and implications are too complex and potentially far-reaching. Think about the effects on the system.

#10 SHTF is a situation, but it’s also a place 

Things are hitting the fan somewhere right now. Not in the overblowing media but the physical world: the Texas border, third-world prisons, gang-ruled Haiti, in Taliban-raided Afghanistan, in the crackhouse just a few blocks from an affluent neighborhood, under the bridges of many big cities worldwide, in volcano-hit islands. 

There are thousands of places where people are bugging out, suffering, or dying of all causes at this very moment. If you’re not in any SHTF, consider yourself lucky. Be grateful, too: being able to prepare is a luxury. 

#11 Choosing one way or another has a price

Being unprepared and wrong has a price. However, so does being prepared and wrong. Though some benefits exist regardless of what happens, the investment in terms of time, finance, and emotion to be prepared could be applied elsewhere or used for other finalities (career, a business, relationships, etc.) rather than some far-out collapse.

Since so much in SHTF is unknown and open, and resources are limited even when things are normal, survival and preparedness are essentially trade-offs. We must read the signals, weigh the options, consider the probabilities, make an option, and face the consequences. That’s why striving for balance is so important.

#12 SHTF is dirty, smelly, ugly

This is undoubtedly one of the most striking characteristics of SHTF: how bad some places and situations can be. Most people have no idea, and they don’t want to know about this. Those who fantasize about being in SHTF should think twice. Abject misery and despair have a distinct smell of excrement, sewage, death, rotting material, pollution, trash, burned stuff, and all kinds of dirt imaginable. And insects. The movies don’t show these things. But bad smells and insects infest everything and everywhere, and it can be maddening. 

During my street survival training, I get to visit some really awful places and witness horrible things. The folks eventually going out with me invariably get shocked, sometimes even sickened, when they see decadence up and close for the first time. Even ones used to dealing with the nasties – it’s hard not to get affected. 

For instance, drug consumption hotspots are so smelly and nasty that someone really must have to be on crack just to stand being there. It’s hell on earth, and I can’t think of another way to describe these and other places like third-world prisons, trash deposits, and many others. Early on, being in these places would make me question why I do this. It never becomes “normal.” We just adapt. But seeing these realities changes our life and the way we see things.

#13 The Grid is fragile

It’s baffling how this escapes so many. Most people I know are in constant marvel with modern civilization. They look around, pointing and saying, “Are you crazy? Too big to fail! There’s no way this can go away! Nothing has ever happened!“. 

We have someone to take our trash, slaughter, process our food, treat our sick, purify our water, treat our sewage, protect us from wrongdoers and evil people (and keep them locked), control the traffic, and defend our rights. 

Peeking behind the curtains is a red pill moment. What keeps The Grid up and running is not something small, but it’s fragile. The natural state of things is not an insipid, artificially controlled environment. On the positive side, it makes us feel more grateful, humble, and also more responsible.  

#14 The frog in the boiling water

That’s you and me and everyone around us. There’s no other way around it. We’re the suckers who get squeezed and pay the bill whenever something happens, anywhere and everywhere. It’s always our freedom, rights, money, and privacy that gets attacked, threatened, stolen.  

Not only because the 1% screws us at the top, but because we’re the big numbers, the masses. And only those who work and produce something can bear the brunt of whatever bad happens to society and civilization. 

Make no mistake: whenever the brown stuff hits the fan, it will fall on us. It’s no reason to revolt but to acknowledge that, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves. 

#15 People can make things worse

Just have a look around and see what’s happening. Selco himself will tell you that the most dangerous thing about the SHTF is other people.

Conclusion

Sometimes, the mechanics, brutality, and harshness of SHTF end up in the background of personal narratives and emotional accounts. Being more knowledgeable and cognizant of some general aspects of collapses may allow flexibility, creativity, improvisation, adaptation, resiliency, and other broad and effective strategies.

Or, simply provide material for reflection and debate, really. 

Either way, even those who haven’t been through collapse can still learn from history, from others’ experiences, from human behavior, from the facts. Just be sure to see the world for what it is and not from what you think. Because it will go its own way, and reality will assert itself all the same.

What are your thoughts about the dynamics of an SHTF scenario? Are there any you want to add? Does this match up with your personal expectations? Let’s discuss it in the comments.

*  *  *

Fabian Ommar is the author of The ULTIMATE Survival Gear Handbook and  Street Survivalism

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

For the handful of nations armed with nuclear weapons, the circumstances under which they’d be used are always an important consideration. This is particularly true of the United States, which has one of the world’s largest arsenals, and is the only nation that has used nuclear arms offensively during a war.

Often debated, but as yet never confirmed, is the possibility of “no first use,” a promise to the world that the US won’t attack anybody with nuclear arms. At present, China is the only nuclear power with a no first use policy, while India has a somewhat more limited promise not to nuke non-nuclear states. The US has so far refused calls to take such a position.

President Biden is in the process of debating a new nuclear posture like finally making a “no first use” pledge. The Obama Administration was reportedly close to such a move, but ultimately changed its mind.

The upshot would be that nuclear first strikes are morally unconscionable, and that the “no first use” policy is really a bare minimum of decency, even if it is a level of decency above and beyond not having actively started a nuclear holocaust yet.

The debate is likely to be a high-profile one, as despite the straightforward ethical decision there are some outspoken proponents who favor the US remaining ambiguous on who it will nuke, and when. Biden is believed to be at least considering “no first use,” and Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) is positioning himself as the primary opponent, claiming US allies are “very, very upset” with the prospect of changing posture.

Sen. Risch, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that such a pledge would give comfort to the enemy, adding that “there are scenarios where you can imagine a first strike.”

“A legally-binding no-first-use commitment—through congressional legislation or a multilateral treaty—would make a nuclear first-strike order illegal, drawing a clear line for US military officers.” @jmsleight in @BulletinAtomic https://t.co/8FweByyONe

— Global Zero (@globalzero) October 6, 2021

Advocates say a proper policy change would reduce the chances of getting into a civilization-ending nuclear war with China or Russia by reducing the risk that either of them comes to the mistaken belief that the US is about to nuke them. Throughout the Cold War, such confusion happened, and nearly resulted in devastating exchanges.