Month: December 2021

The US has taken the hugely provocative action of sending a pair of reconnaissance aircraft over Ukraine amid accusations Russia has mustered some 100,000+ troops near the border in preparation for an incursion into Donbass. The flight happened early in the week and was revealed Wednesday.

It’s being described as “a first” for the Pentagon: “In a first for the US military, the US Air Force flew an E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft designed to gather ground intelligence over the eastern part of the country on Monday, a US European Command official told CNN Wednesday,” Business Insider writes.

An RC-135V Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft was also reported as joining the surveillance mission. The recon flights mission were carried out with the cooperation of Ukraine’s government, which a subsequent US military statement described as part of supporting “various US and coalition intelligence objectives.”

It came soon after Russia’s military announced the withdrawal of at least 10,000 troops from near the Ukrainian border back to their permanent bases, and ahead of Thursday’s Biden-Putin phone call. The US and Russia have also agreed to hold security talks over the question of NATO eastward expansion on January 10.

The surveillance flight appears an attempt of the US to gain a more precise and accurate assessment on the potential battlefield situation below, on both sides of the border, and to gain a count of Russian forces and armaments: 

The plane’s long, side-looking phased array antenna in the radome offers a 120-degree field of view and can gather information on ground forces across roughly 20,000 square miles, according to the Air Force. As CNN noted, an E-8C flying over Ukraine would potentially be able to observe military activities on both sides of the country’s border with Russia.

A senior Biden administration official recently described that after Biden and Putin last spoke by phone on Dec.7, “we continue to be gravely concerned about the nature of the Russian troop presence there” and “the capabilities that they have.”

Watchers of flight-tracking data reported the mission Monday near Russian-occupied territory. It involved an E-8C battlefield surveillance plane and an RC-135V Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft, data showed.https://t.co/hCKeHgGaVv

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) December 29, 2021

There was a follow-up reconnaissance flight on Thursday reported as well…

The US Air Force flew another spy plane over eastern Ukraine on Thursday morning to gather intel about the Russian military situation on the ground, per source. It was the second time this week that the US carried out such a mission & came just hours before Biden’s call w/Putin.

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 30, 2021

This week the US also pledged to assist Ukraine with border security related to the lengthy Russian border, including more funding – to the tune of about $20 million – to purchase video recording systems, drones, and personal protective equipment for Ukraine’s border guards.

Authored by Guantai Kathurima via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The continent has ripe conditions for Bitcoin to become the most common way to store and preserve value…

Africans stand to gain the most from Bitcoin and they are quickly realizing this fact and spreading the word. Most know that our corrupt “leaders” will not embrace the path to prosperity that El Salvador is on, due to their own self-interest. By opting out of the fiat-based legacy financial systems holding us back, we will create the change we want to see.

Bitcoiners in Africa are building and actively engaged in this peaceful monetary revolution. Let’s explore themes that will ensure more Africans are onboarded to the Bitcoin standard in 2022.

TRAIL BLAZERS

Orange-pilled Africans are leading the charge toward hyperbitcoinization by building the infrastructure needed to onboard fellow Africans to this idea whose time has come.

Ejara founder Nelly Chatue Diop is an inspiration for the world-class platform she is building while empowering women and girls in the continent to be all they can in this new industry. The Ejara wallet is true to the Bitcoin ethos of “not your keys not your cheese.” Self-custody will shift Africans’ mindsets to self-sovereignty, ensuring they do not give their hard-earned wealth to banks in unsecured loans, aka deposits.

USER-OWNED INTERNET

New infrastructure is making it possible for talented African artists, content creators and musicians to totally cut out the middlemen agencies who often take a huge share of their revenue.

Lightning payments on social media platforms such as Twitter enable people to actively grow their community while getting paid directly for the value they put out to the world.

Great minds, such as former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey working full time on Bitcoin at Spiral, are sure to offer Africans greater ways to reach international markets from which they have traditionally been marginalized from.

Initiatives by Africans for Africans, such as the Bitcoin Developers Academy by Fodé Diop, strives to teach African youth the skills they require to work on Bitcoin.

GETTING PAID IN BITCOIN

The new normal has seen African youth and young adults shift more to working remotely as job opportunities in the continent are very few, especially for the former who make up the biggest demographic. “Number go up” technology has made them cognizant of the opportunity of getting the most out of their time and effort by being paid in the best store of value on Earth, bitcoin.

On December 6, 2021, Bitwage made the world’s first salary payment via Lightning. This is revolutionary as Africans working remotely now can be paid instantaneously without huge service charges levied by Western Union, inconveniences of using PayPal when they decided to block access to one’s funds, or the several business days banks take to process wire transfers at exorbitant fees.

Getting paid in bitcoin will ultimately enable Africans to save more as no one wants to sell their sats. They will sell the amount they need to on P2P exchanges and safely self-custody the rest in affordable cold storage or hardware wallets such as Coldcard.

Free online courses with accreditations at Saylor Academy are already giving Africans the opportunity to get higher education thus very good jobs in the Bitcoin ecosystem internationally. Unemployment being very high in Africa, these are just some of the avenues people will explore to not just make ends meet but thrive in this new industry.

As an alumni of Pomp’s Crypto Academy on a full scholarship I know firsthand the great value to learn from world class coaches. Being part of a network laser focused on delivering value will empower like-minded Africans to get their stride and make meaningful contributions in this space.

EASE OF USE

Applications developed by Bitcoiners to specifically make onboarding people seamless with all the technical aspects all running safely on the backend such as the Hexa wallet will make it easier for millions of Africans across the continent to buy and hold bitcoin.

Sending and receiving sats through an experience devoid of mini heart attacks as a result of very long addresses guarantee that “Wanjiku” or “Akinyi” in the village can use Bitcoin without feeling intimidated.

Africans living in the diaspora can send sats to their friends and family as easily, moreover cheaply, as the numerous video or voice calls they use to communicate with them on WhatsApp, Signal or Zoom. The world becomes a global village due to monetary value being moved through space instantaneously.

DON’T TRUST, VERIFY

Rug pulls such as “Squid Game” prove to Africans that they need to go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole while doing due diligence to avoid scams in the crypto space that can lead them to losing their money as various pyramid schemes have done.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Reputable publications providing legitimate educational content in innovative ways (e.g., 21DaysOfBitcoin), along with consistent reporting on countries, corporations, leaders and celebrities who opt-in to Bitcoin on a daily basis, will encourage Africans to fully understand the legitimacy of bitcoin as the best asset they can ever own.

LEVEL UP

Buy and hold is the most recommended strategy, however, those with a slightly higher risk appetite can earn and borrow on the blockchain from their phone. This is a strategy many Africans can use to earn especially due to compound interest propelling them to better financial standing.

Following Dan Helds two-year journey on how to earn yield, with strategies such as covered calls, is another great way that Africans can quickly utilize to learn from legitimate industry leaders and start earning more sats.

WAKANDA FOREVER

From the golden era of Mansa Musa being the richest person who ever lived to the current richest human being and Forbes person of the year 2021 who hails from South Africa owning bitcoin, Africans know that they need to be on the right side of history during the largest wealth transfer in modern times.

France’s electricity grid is coming under strain, and the next cold snap could be devastating for the country as energy-intensive manufacturers would experience reduced power, according to a new report published by French power grid operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite (RTE). 

RTE said due to the lack of wind and nuclear power generation. The next cold snap would force it to cut electricity to energy-intensive companies to stabilize the grid. There’s even the possibility widespread rolling blackouts could be implemented for two hours to mitigate grid collapse during peak energy demand. 

The good news is that weather forecasting models provided by Bloomberg don’t show an imminent cold blast for the first half of January. 

“Based on the latest forecast for January, such meteorological events — including a severe cold snap — seem very unlikely for the start of the month, and less likely for the rest of the month,” RTE said. “Hence, the risk of power cuts is essentially ruled out at least for the start of January.”

Mild temperatures and a flotilla of liquefied natural gas tankers have been a temporary relief for Europe, sending Dutch TTF natural gas and power prices lower in the last week. 

France’s grid remains under pressure but not as bad as last week when day-ahead power prices rose to the highest level since 2009 and have since halved. Prices remain at extremely high levels. 

Energy inflation is a politically sensitive issue for President Emmanuel Macron ahead of April’s presidential elections. If renewable power generation lags, nuclear reactors remain halted for maintenance, and natural gas prices remain elevated, then higher power bills into January and February could create more unpopularity for Macron.

Authored by Steven Symes via Motorious,

Soon, Brits will own nothing and will be happier for it…

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UK Government Transport Minister Trudy Harrison recently spoke at a mobility conference, addressing the future of personal mobility. In her comments, she said it was necessary to ditch the “20th-century thinking centred around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.” That’s right, she said the quiet part loud and showed the hand of a growing number of government officials.

Meanwhile, Dodge is eliminating a popular engine in the United States. Learn more here.

Harrison went on to praise not only public transportation but also bike share services, e-scooters, and ride sharing platforms. All of these are supposed to tune down how much carbon the UK is emitting into the atmosphere. As with all choices, this comes at a cost, particularly for those living in rural areas.

What’s more, 300 residents in Coventry recently expressed interest in giving up their personal cars. The tradeoff from the government reportedly would be a mobility credit worth up to £3,000. This mobility credit program has been going since March of this year, with 73 cars turned in and crushed. No, this isn’t a joke, but I wish it were.

Understandably, many Brits are upset about this. Some have asked if they should start riding their horse instead, all the in the name of “progress.” Others are tying this statement by Harrison with the looming government ban of internal combustion engines for cars by 2030. After all, EVs aren’t exactly cheap, so what better way to force people onto public transportation than by pricing them out of the vehicle market?

I’ve been calling out the elitist plan in some government circles to eliminate the private ownership of cars for some time. For many, the possibility that such a thing could be real leads to their minds lashing out at the source of such news, and so I’ve been called a “crazy conspiracy theorist” among other things for trying to shed light on this disturbing topic. Well, time has vindicated my stance and people in the UK are starting to wake up to the very real possibility they would be completely dependent on the government to be driven anywhere.

If you think this plan is limited to just the UK, you haven’t been paying attention. There have been other efforts to make private vehicle ownership a thing of the past, including a new measure in Southern California. The 2021 Regional Transportation Plan passed recently by the San Diego Association of Government’s board of directors is a $160 billion initiative just for the metropolitan area to boost public transportation.

That’s a hefty price tag for such a small area, so one of the ways officials have been planning to fund it is by levying a per-mile driving tax against citizens. That was such an unpopular move it was shelved, for now. But I have a funny feeling that driving tax is going to be revisited. Critics say that and other fines, fees, etc. are designed to nuke personal vehicle ownership for all but the wealthy. Expect to see similar measures in other cities and maybe entire states/territories in North America and beyond in the near future.

As unpleasant as politics are, if car enthusiasts and really everyone who enjoys going where they please when they please in their privately-owned vehicle don’t start taking a stand, our freedoms could be severely restricted in ways many have thought weren’t possible. Failing to do something to stop this push will end poorly for just about everyone.

Source: Express

Authored by Matt Agorist via The Free Thought Project,

According to a new documentary out of Denmark, which interviewed former victims, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly carried out experiments on 311 orphaned children. The experiments were meant to reveal psychopathic traits and map out the link between schizophrenia and heredity. According to the report, the children were tortured in clear violation of the Nuremberg Code of 1947 that introduced ethical restrictions for experiments on humans.

Hundreds of Danish orphans were unknowingly used in experiments backed by the CIA, according to Danish Radio, reporting on a new documentary called “The Search for Myself.”

According to the report, the experiments began in the early 1960s and spanned the course of two decades. They were conducted to investigate the link between heredity and environment in the development of schizophrenia. However, the children were not told what research they were involved in. Not even after the experiments ended. It was also funded in part by a CIA front associated with the MK-Ultra program.

Eerily, the examinations took place in a basement at the Municipal Hospital in Copenhagen. The director and producer of the documentary, Per Wennick, was actually a victim of the CIA and subjected to these experiments as a child. In the documentary, he recalled being placed in a chair, getting electrodes put on his arms, legs, and chest around the heart and having to listen to loud, shrill noises, which attempted to incite a psychological response.

“It was very uncomfortable”, Wennick told Danish Radio.

“And it’s not just my story, it’s the story of many children.”

By his own admission, he was promised “something funny” before being taken to the hospital.

“I think this is a violation of my rights as a citizen in this society. I find it so strange that some people should know more about me than I myself have been aware of.”

According to historian, PhD, and museum inspector at the Danish Welfare Museum, Jacob Knage Rasmussen, this was the only known experiment in Danish history that used children under state care for research — and it was funded by the CIA in violation of the Nuremberg Code.

“I do not know of similar attempts, neither in Denmark nor in Scandinavia. It is appalling information that contradicts the Nuremberg Code of 1947, which after World War II was to set some ethical restrictions for experiments on humans. Among other things, informed consent was introduced, which today is central to the world of research”, Knage Rasmussen told Danish Radio.

He emphasized the vulnerability of the group in the custody of the state, who had nobody to complain to.

According to Danish Radio, the idea to experiment on the vulnerable children came from American psychologist Zarnoff A. Mednick, who was then a professor at the University of Michigan.

According to Wennick and the National Archives, the research project was co-financed by the US health service. In the first year alone, the project was supported with what today corresponds to DKK 4.6 million ($700,000). It also received funding from the Human Ecology Fund.

The Human Ecology Fund was a CIA funded operation through the Cornell University College of Human Ecology Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology to support covert research on brainwashing. It was also connected to research under the MK-Ultra program in which social scientists, including anthropologists, were led (mostly unwittingly) to provide input into interrogation techniques still in use today.

Danish psychiatrist Fini Schulsinger dedicated his doctoral dissertation to the experiments in 1977, titling it, “Studies to shed light on the connection between heredity and environment in psychiatry.”

While researching for the documentary, Per Wennick managed to locate 36 boxes at the Psychiatric Centre Glostrup in Hvidovre that detailed the CIA’s unscrupulous child experiments. However, when the center got word of the documentary, they began shredding the documents.

Danish Radio reports that Kent Kristensen, associate professor of Health Law at the University of Southern Denmark, pointed out that the shredding of the documents was illegal.

“I think it’s a huge failure for the former orphanage children who are interested in the pieces of their own childhood to get a total story made about their own lives. That possibility is deprived of them if you shred the research material,” Knage Rasmussen told Danish Radio.

Indeed. It also details the CIA’s depravity and violations of the Nuremberg code. If history is any indicator, however, no one will be held responsible for exploiting these children and it will be swept under the rug, likely escaping any scrutiny by the mainstream media.

Attention is an increasingly valuable form of currency in the Information Age.

In 2021, a handful of companies stood out from the pack, dominating the conversation and influencing society in both positive and negative ways. After vigorous internal debate, here is Visual Capitalist’s list of companies that defined 2021:

• Robinhood

• Pfizer

• Coinbase

• Tesla

• TikTok

• Facebook/Meta

We looked at a number of metrics to select these companies, including Google search and news volume, performance relative to competitors, industry-specific indicators, and more.

Many of these are digital companies, and all have massive reach, scale, and influence. Interestingly, many of these companies also faced controversies along with their success, and were caught up in movements that were bigger than themselves.

With this context in mind, let’s dive in.

Robinhood

Robinhood’s eventful year reached its peak when the stock trading app was caught in a frenzy involving retail traders, short sellers, and “meme stonks”. It did not take long for Robinhood to go from hero to villain in this story. As the Gamestop stock shot up past $400, trading was halted and position limits were initiated on the app.

As well, Robinhood’s stated goal of democratizing finance came under scrutiny due to their pay-for-order-flow business model, where sensitive user trade activity data is sold to the highest bidder who then gets ahead of the trade, otherwise known as “front-running”.

Despite the controversy, Robinhood’s platform now has over 22 million users, many of whom are younger, first-time investors. While they have key attractions like zero commission trades, they were also accused of gamifying investing with features like confetti shooting across the screen after a trade is made (a feature that was removed after media criticism).

The company frequently made front page financial news in early 2021, and while the often negative press didn’t get in the way of their IPO—which commenced in late July—it has affected investor sentiment. Since their 52-week high of $70 per share in August, the stock has fallen some 70% towards the $18 range.

Furthermore, the SEC is rumored to be launching an investigation into them. With these headwinds, investing on Robinhood has probably fared better so far than investing in Robinhood.

Pfizer

Perhaps there was no bigger story in 2021 than COVID-19 vaccines.

Early in the year, the race to secure vaccines was on. Wealthy countries scrambled to buy stock and roll out widespread vaccination programs ahead of spring.

And the companies that managed to produce efficient vaccines saw the biggest benefits, like pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The company’s COVID-19 vaccine, made in partnership with German firm BioNTech, ended up becoming the world’s most-preferred vaccine to fight the pandemic.

The company is forecasting revenue of $36 billion from its vaccine this year.

Competing vaccines from Moderna and AstraZeneca also saw their parent companies rise in both market cap and newsworthiness. All of the involved pharma companies have also faced constant scrutiny, with many countries in the world struggling to secure COVID-19 vaccines, and others dealing with vaccine hesitancy.

As the pandemic continues with the Omicron variant quickly spreading around the globe, Pfizer and its competitors will continue to be impactful into the new year. The company announced a COVID-19 antiviral pill that is planned to be released in the near future, and more effective vaccines and boosters against other variants are still a hot commodity.

Coinbase

2021 was a pivotal year for cryptocurrency. Prices reached new highs, and institutions and retail investors alike poured into the market.

With its user-friendly app and focus on security, Coinbase was well positioned to benefit from this surge in interest. The exchange started off the year by more than doubling its transacting user base as Bitcoin prices shot to new heights.

It’s easy to underestimate the influence of the company’s IPO—especially as its share price slid as the crypto market cooled off—but the exchange’s very entry into the public markets was a huge boost in legitimacy for crypto, paving the way for similar companies to IPO in the future.

Tesla

Nobody captures attention and creates controversy quite like Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk.

Most of Tesla’s actions are tied closely to the famous entrepreneur, who’s known for his brazen online presence. Musk’s social media persona is so strong, one tweet can send Tesla’s stock plummeting, like it did last year after Musk told Twitter that “Tesla’s stock is too high imo.”

While naysayers are quick to criticize Tesla and Musk, the company has some impressive numbers to back up its hype. 2020 was already a ridiculous year for Tesla—its stock surged by nearly 700%, and with a valuation of $630 billion, it became one of the most valuable companies in the world.

This momentum carried over into 2021. This year, revenue rose each quarter, and in October, the company’s market value surpassed $1 trillion.

Tesla was also intertwined within other societal narratives over the course of the year. The automaker’s move from California to Texas was part of a larger conversation about the “Bay Area exodus”, as jurisdictions in Texas and Florida looked to steal Silicon Valley’s thunder.

Musk’s Tesla stock sales generated a lot of buzz in Q4 as well.

Seemingly in response to criticism over inequality and tax avoidance, Musk ran a Twitter poll to decide whether or not to sell a significant portion of his Tesla holdings. After a majority “yes” vote, the Tesla CEO now appears to have sold off enough stock to hold up his end of the bargain.

TikTok

TikTok was already popular in 2020, but this year truly solidified its status as a cultural phenomenon.

The app topped a billion users in 2021, just five years after its launch in 2016. For context, it took Facebook and Instagram nearly eight years to hit that same milestone.

What’s so appealing about TikTok? Experts have many theories, but in an interview with Forbes, John Holdridge, GM of Fullscreen, puts its simply: “TikTok’s success can be attributed to how it flips what we think of as social media on its head, while at the same time returning us all to roots of the original appeal–the ability to go viral.”

TikTok’s short-style video format has become so popular that it’s inspired a slew of copycat apps, especially in regions like India where TikTok is banned.

Even established companies like Meta have tried to mimic TikTok’s success. In 2020, Instagram launched “reels,” its own short-form video feature where users can create and share 30 second videos. But Instagram reels failed to overtake TikTok’s growth—instead, reels has become a place for users to share and promote their TikTok videos.

Facebook/Meta

Facebook frequently finds itself in the news, given its status as the world’s largest social network. In 2021, however, it was for two different reasons.

The first was the U.S. Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. In the aftermath of this event, many blamed Facebook for not doing enough to mitigate the negative effects of its platform—mainly polarization, conspiracy theories, and hate speech.

The controversy reached its peak in September 2021, when internal files leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen were published. These documents exposed Facebook’s internal struggles with combating misinformation, as well as employee dissent.

Ultimately, Facebook weathered the storm and opted to shed its baggage with a new name. Not only does this help the company disassociate from its previous scandals, it also lines up with Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitions of pioneering the metaverse.

Following the announcement, “metaverse” exploded overnight and became one of the hottest topics of 2021. The word “Meta” has also become incredibly valuable—Meta (the company) recently completed a $60 million deal to acquire the trademark assets of Meta Financial Group, a regional U.S. bank.

Honorable Mentions

While the companies highlighted above were undeniably influential in 2021, any list like this is bound to be subjective and open to debate. Here is a shortlist of other companies that we considered for the Companies that Defined 2021 list:

Reddit

The surge in investment that propelled Robinhood and Coinbase to new heights was partially fueled by communities on Reddit. One of the most fascinating moments of the year came when Reddit user u/deepfuckingvalue appeared before the House Committee on Financial Services proclaiming, “I am not a cat” and “I like the stock”.

On the business front, the “Front Page of the Internet” saw double-digit user growth during the pandemic, and now has a valuation of $10 billion after a hefty round of funding.

OpenSea

NFTs had a Cambrian explosion alongside the crypto bull run, with OpenSea emerging as the dominant marketplace this past year. In the second half of 2021, OpenSea made up 95% of NFT trading volume on major marketplaces, and has transacted $1.42B in volume in December so far.

While it seemed OpenSea was planning an IPO after their CFO Brian Roberts commented how “you’d be foolish not to think about it [OpenSea] going public,” user backlash resulted in Roberts later tweeting that the company is not actively planning an IPO. Whether or not OpenSea does set sail onto the public markets, they’ll soon have some serious competition from Coinbase’s own NFT marketplace currently in the works.

Netflix

Despite intense competition from rival streaming platforms, Netflix will finish the year on top once again. The company has a number of impressive tallies in the win column this year.

First, Squid Game was a cultural phenomenon, quickly becoming the streaming service’s number one show, and also the world’s most Googled TV show of 2021.

Next, Netflix’s Red Notice is likely the most watched new movie of 2021, logging well over 300 million hours of viewing time. Not bad, considering its tepid score of 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. It remains to be seen whether deep-pocketed competitors like Disney+ are able to dethrone Netflix, but for now, the company is as culturally relevant as ever.

SpaceX

The fact that Elon Musk has two companies in this conversation points to why he was named Time’s Most Influential Person for 2021.

SpaceX has made launching rockets drastically cheaper in recent years, which helps explain its massive reported valuation of $200 billion. The company, which is the top commercial launch provider in the U.S., will round out the year with 31 launches.

Which companies would you add to this list?

Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute,

Back in March of 2020, when the coronavirus fearmongering from politicians and big money media was taking off, an outbreak of coronavirus and several deaths on the Diamond Princess cruise ship was among the examples used to stir up dread of coronavirus among the American populace.

However, people who looked critically at the Diamond Princess situation realized that it suggested coronavirus did not pose an especially great threat.

Among those more levelheaded individuals was John P.A. Ioannidis, a Stanford University professor of medicine and professor of epidemiology and population health.

Looking at the infection and fatality numbers from the Diamond Princess, Ioannidis concluded in a March 17, 2020 Stat News article that the coronavirus case fatality rate in the general population would be no greater than the one percent case fatality rate on the cruise ship and would most likely be much lower, noting that the Diamond Princess had “a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.”

Ioannidis got it right.

But that did not stop government from shutting down much of the American economy and violating freedom Americans had long assumed secure, all in the name of countering the hyped coronavirus threat.

Fast forward to December of 2021. We are now well into the phase of gaming the coronavirus panic where governments are applying intense pressure on people to take experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots. Having already blown way out of proportion the threat from coronavirus, politicians and people in the big money media repeatedly assert the safety and effectiveness of these shots despite the abundant evidence that the shots are far from being either safe or effective.

Just as the Diamond Princess cruise ship coronavirus outbreak helped expose early on the preposterousness of the fearmongering regarding coronavirus, now outbreaks of coronavirus on cruise ships are helping expose the preposterousness of claims that the experimental coronavirus vaccine shots are effective.

Meryl Kornfield wrote Saturday at the Washington Post regarding the situation of coronavirus outbreaks on cruise ships whose crews and passengers are required to have taken the shots:

At least six sailings on Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Carnival and others last week were altered by coronavirus outbreaks as cruise ships prepared for pre-pandemic levels before sailings were paused. Although vessels that have resumed cruising have beefed up coronavirus precautions — requiring vaccinations and testing passengers — the wave of new infections, fueled by the quickly proliferating omicron variant, has knocked the devastated industry and alarmed cruisers.

As in the early months of the coronavirus scare, considering critically what is happening on cruise ships now provides a means to see past the disinformation. The reality on cruise ships, in March of 2020 and in December of 2021, has provided a strong contrast to, respectively, the hyped danger of coronavirus and the hyped efficacy of the experimental coronavirus vaccine shots.

A tidal wave of “smash-and-grab” robberies are plaguing upscale stores in major US cities, with thieves making off with millions of dollars. The latest incident occurred at a Palm Beach boutique shop that was hit twice in two weeks. 

According to local news CBS 12, Only Authentics, a high-end designer bag shop, was targeted by thieves, the first on Dec. 14 and the second on Christmas Eve. Approximately $1.5 million of Hermes, Chanel, Kelly and, and Birkin handbags were stolen. 

Several bags are worth more than six figures each, store owner Virgil Rogers said. 

“It’s almost like we’re on the wild, wild west here,” he told CBS12 News reporter Andrew Lofholm.

This is exclusive video obtained by @CBS12 where you can see criminal’s face during the Xmas Eve break-in. pic.twitter.com/q8Tui1SFxZ

— Andrew Lofholm (@AndrewLofholm) December 28, 2021

After the first break-in, Rogers said he had a special film placed on all storefront windows, making it harder to break through. 

“We as citizens living on Palm Beach Island especially, we almost live in a bubble, we do, it’s very sad and now it’s come to the homefront and your own home, what’s going on elsewhere,” Rogers said.

These incidents, called smash and grabs, are well organized and allegedly conducted by criminal gangs who take the loot and resell it online. Luxury retailers from multiple California cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, to Palm Beach, have been ideal targets for robberies because of high merchandise items. 

Major retailers are fed up with the rash of incidents. They have penned a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to pass legislation that would make it harder for thieves to resell stolen goods on online marketplaces that do very little to verify the identity of sellers.

“As millions of Americans have undoubtedly seen on the news in recent weeks and months, retail establishments of all kinds have seen a significant uptick in organized crime in communities across the nation,” the letter said. 

Over a ten-day period in November, smash and grab robberies totaled a whopping $350 million in losses for retailers in Los Angeles. 

Smash and grabs have also moved from cities to suburbs, and some are worried that criminal gangs could soon target upscale homes.