Please do your own research. The information I share is only a catalyst to expanding ones confined consciousness. I have NO desire for anyone to blindly believe or agree with what I share. Seek the truth for yourself and put your own puzzle together that has been presented to you. I'm not here to teach, preach or lead, but rather assist in awakening the consciousness of the collective from its temporary dormancy.
Stress is a major problem for many people — a hectic, stressful job, a chaotic home life, bills to worry about and bad habits such as unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking can lead to a mountain of stress.
If your life is full of stress, there are some simple things you can do to get to a more manageable level.
Now, your life will probably never be stress-free. That’s not desirable (even if it was possible) because stress is something that challenges you and helps you grow—when it’s at a reasonable level. But when stress gets too high, it causes you to be unhappy and unhealthy.
One of the keys to success is taking a realistic, gradual approach to change. How do you do it? One change at a time. Change one habit a month and gradually, over the course of a year or two, you will find you have made long-lasting changes to many things in your life.
Not all of these tips may work for you. Each person is different. Pick and choose the ones that you feel will be effective for you, and give them a try. One at a time.
One thing at a time. This is the simplest and best way to start reducing your stress, and you can start today. Right now. Focus as much as possible on doing one thing at a time. Clear your desk of distractions. Pick something to work on. Need to write a report? Do only that. Remove distractions such as phones and email notifications while you’re working on that report. If you’re going to review email, do only that. This takes practice, and you’ll get urges to do other things. Just keep practicing and you’ll get better at it.
Simplify your schedule. A hectic schedule is a major cause of high stress. Simplify by reducing the number of commitments in your life to the essentials. Learn to say no to the rest — and slowly get out of commitments that aren’t beneficial to you. Schedule only a few important things each day, and put space between them. Leave room for down time and fun.
Get moving. Do something each day to be active — walk, hike, play a sport, go for a run, do yoga. It doesn’t have to be grueling to reduce stress. Just move. Have fun doing it.
Develop one healthy habit this month. Other than getting active, improving your health overall will help with the stress. But do it one habit at a time. Eat fruits and veggies for snacks. Floss every day. Quit smoking. Cook a healthy dinner. Drink water instead of soda. One habit at a time.
Do something calming. What do you enjoy that calms you down? For many people, it can be the “get moving” activity discussed above. But it could also be taking a nap, or a bath, or reading. Other people are calmed by housework or yard work. Some people like to meditate, or take a nature walk. Find your calming activity and try to do it each day.
Simplify your finances. Finances can be a drain on your energy and a major stressor. If that’s true with you, find ways to simplify things. Automate savings and bill payments and debt payments. Spend less by shopping (at malls or online) much less. Find ways to have fun that don’t involve spending money.
Have a blast! Have fun each day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Play with your kids — that can take your mind off everything and can be really hilarious. Play sports (with or without your kids). Board games are fun. Whatever you choose, be sure to laugh.
Get creative. Throwing yourself into a creative activity is another great way to de-stress and to prevent stress. Consider writing, painting, woodworking, playing music, sketching, cooking or making pottery, interior design or building things.
Declutter. Take 20 to 30 minutes and just go through a room, getting rid of stuff you don’t use or need anymore or find a better place for it. When you are done, you will have a nice, peaceful environment for work, play, and living. Do this a little at a time — make it one of your “fun activities.”
Be early. Being late can be very stressful. Try to leave earlier by getting ready earlier, or by scheduling more space between events. Things always take longer than normal, so schedule some buffer time: extra time to get ready, to commute, to do errands before you need to be somewhere, to attend a meeting before another scheduled appointment. If you get somewhere early, it’s good to have some reading material.
A new video overview of the COVID-19 vaccine label for AstraZeneca’s vaccine reveals that it’s made with MRC-5, a strain of aborted human fetal tissue.
The video was originally posted to Instagram. It walks the viewer through a closer look at the packaging labeling of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, beginning with the ChAdOx1-S (recombinant) designation on the label.
This ingredient leads the viewer down a rabbit hole of online research, eventually discovering that recombinant strains used in the vaccine are grown from the aborted fetal tissue of a 14-week-old aborted human baby.
Lockdowns and hygienic measures around the world are based on numbers of cases and mortality rates created by the so-called SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests used to identify “positive” patients, whereby “positive” is usually equated with “infected.”
But looking closely at the facts, the conclusion is that these PCR tests are meaningless as a diagnostic tool to determine an alleged infection by a supposedly new virus called SARS-CoV-2.
We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.”
The message was spread through headlines around the world, for instance by Reuters and the BBC.
Still on the 3 of May, the moderator of the heute journal — one of the most important news magazines on German television— was passing the mantra of the corona dogma on to his audience with the admonishing words:
Test, test, test — that is the credo at the moment, and it is the only way to really understand how much the coronavirus is spreading.”
This indicates that the belief in the validity of the PCR tests is so strong that it equals a religion that tolerates virtually no contradiction.
So to start, it is very remarkable that Kary Mullis himself, the inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology, did not think alike. His invention got him the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1993.
The reason is that the intended use of the PCR was, and still is, to apply it as a manufacturing technique, being able to replicate DNA sequences millions and billions of times, and not as a diagnostic tool to detect viruses.
Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the PCR tests used to identify so-called COVID-19 patients presumably infected by what is called SARS-CoV-2 do not have a valid gold standard to compare them with.
This is a fundamental point.
Tests need to be evaluated to determine their preciseness — strictly speaking their “sensitivity”[1] and “specificity” — by comparison with a “gold standard,” meaning the most accurate method available.
As an example, for a pregnancy test the gold standard would be the pregnancy itself. But as Australian infectious diseases specialist Sanjaya Senanayake, for example, stated in an ABC TV interview in an answer to the question “How accurate is the [COVID-19] testing?”:
If we had a new test for picking up [the bacterium] golden staph in blood, we’ve already got blood cultures, that’s our gold standard we’ve been using for decades, and we could match this new test against that. But for COVID-19 we don’t have a gold standard test.”
Jessica C. Watson from Bristol University confirms this. In her paper “Interpreting a COVID-19 test result”, published recently in The British Medical Journal, she writes that there is a “lack of such a clear-cut ‘gold-standard’ for COVID-19 testing.”
But instead of classifying the tests as unsuitable for SARS-CoV-2 detection and COVID-19 diagnosis, or instead of pointing out that only a virus, proven through isolation and purification, can be a solid gold standard, Watson claims in all seriousness that, “pragmatically” COVID-19 diagnosis itself, remarkably including PCR testing itself, “may be the best available ‘gold standard’.” But this is not scientifically sound.
Apart from the fact that it is downright absurd to take the PCR test itself as part of the gold standard to evaluate the PCR test, there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, as even people such as Thomas Löscher, former head of the Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine at the University of Munich and member of the Federal Association of German Internists, conceded to us[2].
And if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, COVID-19 diagnosis — contrary to Watson’s statement — cannot be suitable for serving as a valid gold standard.
In addition, “experts” such as Watson overlook the fact that only virus isolation, i.e. an unequivocal virus proof, can be the gold standard.
That is why I asked Watson how COVID-19 diagnosis “may be the best available gold standard,” if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, and also whether the virus itself, that is virus isolation, wouldn’t be the best available/possible gold standard.
But she hasn’t answered these questions yet – despite multiple requests. And she has not yet responded to our rapid response post on her article in which we address exactly the same points, either, though she wrote us on June 2nd: “I will try to post a reply later this week when I have a chance.”
No Proof For The RNA Being Of Viral Origin
Now the question is: What is required first for virus isolation/proof? We need to know where the RNA for which the PCR tests are calibrated comes from.
As textbooks (e.g., White/Fenner. Medical Virology, 1986, p. 9) as well as leading virus researchers such as Luc Montagnier or Dominic Dwyer state, particle purification — i.e. the separation of an object from everything else that is not that object, as for instance Nobel laureate Marie Curie purified 100 mg of radium chloride in 1898 by extracting it from tons of pitchblende — is an essential pre-requisite for proving the existence of a virus, and thus to prove that the RNA from the particle in question comes from a new virus.
The reason for this is that PCR is extremely sensitive, which means it can detect even the smallest pieces of DNA or RNA — but it cannot determine where these particles came from. That has to be determined beforehand.
And because the PCR tests are calibrated for gene sequences (in this case RNA sequences because SARS-CoV-2 is believed to be a RNA virus), we have to know that these gene snippets are part of the looked-for virus. And to know that, correct isolation and purification of the presumed virus has to be executed.
Hence, we have asked the science teams of the relevant papers which are referred to in the context of SARS-CoV-2 for proof whether the electron-microscopic shots depicted in their in vitro experiments show purified viruses.
But not a single team could answer that question with “yes” — and NB., nobody said purification was not a necessary step. We only got answers like “No, we did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification” (see below).
We asked several study authors “Do your electron micrographs show the purified virus?”, they gave the following responses:
Study 1: Leo L. M. Poon; Malik Peiris. “Emergence of a novel human coronavirus threatening human health” Nature Medicine, March 2020 Replying Author: Malik Peiris Date: May 12, 2020 Answer:“The image is the virus budding from an infected cell. It is not purified virus.”
Study 2: Myung-Guk Han et al. “Identification of Coronavirus Isolated from a Patient in Korea with COVID-19”, Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, February 2020 Replying Author: Myung-Guk Han Date: May 6, 2020 Answer:“We could not estimate the degree of purification because we do not purify and concentrate the virus cultured in cells.”
Study 3: Wan Beom Park et al. “Virus Isolation from the First Patient with SARS-CoV-2 in Korea”, Journal of Korean Medical Science, February 24, 2020 Replying Author: Wan Beom Park Date: March 19, 2020 Answer:“We did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification.”
Study 4: Na Zhu et al., “A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China”, 2019, New England Journal of Medicine, February 20, 2020 Replying Author: Wenjie Tan Date: March 18, 2020 Answer:“[We show] an image of sedimented virus particles, not purified ones.”
Regarding the mentioned papers it is clear that what is shown in the electron micrographs (EMs) is the end result of the experiment, meaning there is no other result that they could have made EMs from.
That is to say, if the authors of these studies concede that their published EMs do not show purified particles, then they definitely do not possess purified particles claimed to be viral. (In this context, it has to be remarked that some researchers use the term “isolation” in their papers, but the procedures described therein do not represent a proper isolation (purification) process. Consequently, in this context the term “isolation” is misused).
Thus, the authors of four of the principal, early 2020 papers claiming discovery of a new coronavirus concede they had no proof that the origin of the virus genome was viral-like particles or cellular debris, pure or impure, or particles of any kind. In other words, the existence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is based on faith, not fact.
We have also contacted Dr Charles Calisher, who is a seasoned virologist. In 2001, Science published an “impassioned plea…to the younger generation” from several veteran virologists, among them Calisher, saying that:
[modern virus detection methods like] sleek polymerase chain reaction […] tell little or nothing about how a virus multiplies, which animals carry it, [or] how it makes people sick. [It is] like trying to say whether somebody has bad breath by looking at his fingerprint.”[3]
And that’s why we asked Dr Calisher whether he knows one single paper in which SARS-CoV-2 has been isolated and finally really purified. His answer:
I know of no such a publication. I have kept an eye out for one.”[4]
This actually means that one cannot conclude that the RNA gene sequences, which the scientists took from the tissue samples prepared in the mentioned in vitro trials and for which the PCR tests are finally being “calibrated,” belong to a specific virus — in this case SARS-CoV-2.
In addition, there is no scientific proof that those RNA sequences are the causative agent of what is called COVID-19.
In order to establish a causal connection, one way or the other, i.e. beyond virus isolation and purification, it would have been absolutely necessary to carry out an experiment that satisfies the four Koch’s postulates. But there is no such experiment, as Amory Devereux and Rosemary Frei recently revealed for OffGuardian.
The necessity to fulfill these postulates regarding SARS-CoV-2 is demonstrated not least by the fact that attempts have been made to fulfill them. But even researchers claiming they have done it, in reality, did not succeed.
One example is a study published in Nature on May 7. This trial, besides other procedures which render the study invalid, did not meet any of the postulates.
For instance, the alleged “infected” laboratory mice did not show any relevant clinical symptoms clearly attributable to pneumonia, which according to the third postulate should actually occur if a dangerous and potentially deadly virus was really at work there.
And the slight bristles and weight loss, which were observed temporarily in the animals are negligible, not only because they could have been caused by the procedure itself, but also because the weight went back to normal again.
Also, no animal died except those they killed to perform the autopsies. And let’s not forget: These experiments should have been done before developing a test, which is not the case.
Revealingly, none of the leading German representatives of the official theory about SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 — the Robert Koch-Institute (RKI), Alexander S. Kekulé (University of Halle), Hartmut Hengel and Ralf Bartenschlager (German Society for Virology), the aforementioned Thomas Löscher, Ulrich Dirnagl (Charité Berlin) or Georg Bornkamm (virologist and professor emeritus at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Munich) — could answer the following question I have sent them:
If the particles that are claimed to be to be SARS-CoV-2 have not been purified, how do you want to be sure that the RNA gene sequences of these particles belong to a specific new virus?
Particularly, if there are studies showing that substances such as antibiotics that are added to the test tubes in the in vitro experiments carried out for virus detection can “stress” the cell culture in a way that new gene sequences are being formed that were not previously detectable — an aspect that Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock already drew attention to in her Nobel Lecture back in 1983.
It should not go unmentioned that we finally got the Charité – the employer of Christian Drosten, Germany’s most influential virologist in respect of COVID-19, advisor to the German government and co-developer of the PCR test which was the first to be “accepted” (not validated!) by the WHO worldwide – to answer questions on the topic.
But we didn’t get answers until June 18, 2020, after months of non-response. In the end, we achieved it only with the help of Berlin lawyer Viviane Fischer.
Regarding our question “Has the Charité convinced itself that appropriate particle purification was carried out?,” the Charité concedes that they didn’t use purified particles.
And although they claim “virologists at the Charité are sure that they are testing for the virus,” in their paper (Corman et al.) they state:
RNA was extracted from clinical samples with the MagNA Pure 96 system (Roche, Penzberg, Germany) and from cell culture supernatants with the viral RNA mini kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany),”
Which means they just assumed the RNA was viral.
Incidentally, the Corman et al. paper, published on January 23, 2020 didn’t even go through a proper peer review process, nor were the procedures outlined therein accompanied by controls — although it is only through these two things that scientific work becomes really solid.
Irrational Test Results
It is also certain that we cannot know the false positive rate of the PCR tests without widespread testing of people who certainly do not have the virus, proven by a method which is independent of the test (having a solid gold standard).
Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there are several papers illustrating irrational test results.
For example, already in February the health authority in China’s Guangdong province reported that people have fully recovered from illness blamed on COVID-19, started to test “negative,” and then tested “positive” again.
A month later, a paper published in the Journal of Medical Virology showed that 29 out of 610 patients at a hospital in Wuhan had 3 to 6 test results that flipped between “negative”, “positive” and “dubious”.
A third example is a study from Singapore in which tests were carried out almost daily on 18 patients and the majority went from “positive” to “negative” back to “positive” at least once, and up to five times in one patient.
Even Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, conceded in February that the PCR tests are “only 30 to 50 per cent accurate”; while Sin Hang Lee from the Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory sent a letter to the WHO’s coronavirus response team and to Anthony S. Fauci on March 22, 2020, saying that:
It has been widely reported in the social media that the RT-qPCR [Reverse Transcriptase quantitative PCR] test kits used to detect SARSCoV-2 RNA in human specimens are generating many false positive results and are not sensitive enough to detect some real positive cases.”
In other words, even if we theoretically assume that these PCR tests can really detect a viral infection, the tests would be practically worthless, and would only cause an unfounded scare among the “positive” people tested.
This becomes also evident considering the positive predictive value (PPV).
The PPV indicates the probability that a person with a positive test result is truly “positive” (ie. has the supposed virus), and it depends on two factors: the prevalence of the virus in the general population and the specificity of the test, that is the percentage of people without disease in whom the test is correctly “negative” (a test with a specificity of 95% incorrectly gives a positive result in 5 out of 100 non-infected people).
With the same specificity, the higher the prevalence, the higher the PPV.
In this context, on June 12 2020, the journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt published an article in which the PPV has been calculated with three different prevalence scenarios.
The results must, of course, be viewed very critically, first because it is not possible to calculate the specificity without a solid gold standard, as outlined, and second because the calculations in the article are based on the specificity determined in the study by Jessica Watson, which is potentially worthless, as also mentioned.
But if you abstract from it, assuming that the underlying specificity of 95% is correct and that we know the prevalence, even the mainstream medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt reports that the so-called SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests may have “a shockingly low” PPV.
In one of the three scenarios, figuring with an assumed prevalence of 3%, the PPV was only 30 percent, which means that 70 percent of the people tested “positive” are not “positive” at all. Yet “they are prescribed quarantine,” as even the Ärzteblatt notes critically.
In a second scenario of the journal’s article, a prevalence of rate of 20 percent is assumed. In this case they generate a PPV of 78 percent, meaning that 22 percent of the “positive” tests are false “positives.”
That would mean: If we take the around 9 million people who are currently considered “positive” worldwide — supposing that the true “positives” really have a viral infection — we would get almost 2 million false “positives.”
All this fits with the fact that the CDC and the FDA, for instance, concede in their files that the so-called “SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests” are not suitable for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
positive results […] do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”
Remarkably, in the instruction manuals of PCR tests we can also read that they are not intended as a diagnostic test, as for instance in those by Altona Diagnostics and Creative Diagnostics[5].
To quote another one, in the product announcement of the LightMix Modular Assays produced by TIB Molbiol — which were developed using the Corman et al. protocol — and distributed by Roche we can read:
These assays are not intended for use as an aid in the diagnosis of coronavirus infection”
And:
For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.”
Where Is The Evidence That The Tests Can Measure The “Viral Load”?
There is also reason to conclude that the PCR test from Roche and others cannot even detect the targeted genes.
Moreover, in the product descriptions of the RT-qPCR tests for SARS-COV-2 it says they are “qualitative” tests, contrary to the fact that the “q” in “qPCR” stands for “quantitative.” And if these tests are not “quantitative” tests, they don’t show how many viral particles are in the body.
That is crucial because, in order to even begin talking about actual illness in the real world not only in a laboratory, the patient would need to have millions and millions of viral particles actively replicating in their body.
That is to say, the CDC, the WHO, the FDA or the RKI may assert that the tests can measure the so-called “viral load,” i.e. how many viral particles are in the body. “But this has never been proven. That is an enormous scandal,” as the journalist Jon Rappoport points out.
This is not only because the term “viral load” is deception. If you put the question “what is viral load?” at a dinner party, people take it to mean viruses circulating in the bloodstream. They’re surprised to learn it’s actually RNA molecules.
Also, to prove beyond any doubt that the PCR can measure how much a person is “burdened” with a disease-causing virus, the following experiment would have had to be carried out (which has not yet happened):
You take, let’s say, a few hundred or even thousand people and remove tissue samples from them. Make sure the people who take the samples do not perform the test.The testers will never know who the patients are and what condition they’re in. The testers run their PCR on the tissue samples. In each case, they say which virus they found and how much of it they found. Then, for example, in patients 29, 86, 199, 272, and 293 they found a great deal of what they claim is a virus. Now we un-blind those patients. They should all be sick, because they have so much virus replicating in their bodies. But are they really sick — or are they fit as a fiddle?
With the help of the aforementioned lawyer Viviane Fischer, I finally got the Charité to also answer the question of whether the test developed by Corman et al. — the so-called “Drosten PCR test” — is a quantitative test.
But the Charité was not willing to answer this question “yes”. Instead, the Charité wrote:
If real-time RT-PCR is involved, to the knowledge of the Charité in most cases these are […] limited to qualitative detection.”
Furthermore, the “Drosten PCR test” uses the unspecific E-gene assay as preliminary assay, while the Institut Pasteur uses the same assay as confirmatory assay.
According to Corman et al., the E-gene assay is likely to detect all Asian viruses, while the other assays in both tests are supposed to be more specific for sequences labelled “SARS-CoV-2”.
Besides the questionable purpose of having either a preliminary or a confirmatory test that is likely to detect all Asian viruses, at the beginning of April the WHO changed the algorithm, recommending that from then on a test can be regarded as “positive” even if just the E-gene assay (which is likely to detect all Asian viruses!) gives a “positive” result.
This means that a confirmed unspecific test result is officially sold as specific.
That change of algorithm increased the “case” numbers. Tests using the E-gene assay are produced for example by Roche, TIB Molbiol and R-Biopharm.
High Cq Values Make The Test Results Even More Meaningless
Another essential problem is that many PCR tests have a “cycle quantification” (Cq) value of over 35, and some, including the “Drosten PCR test”, even have a Cq of 45.
The Cq value specifies how many cycles of DNA replication are required to detect a real signal from biological samples.
“Cq values higher than 40 are suspect because of the implied low efficiency and generally should not be reported,” as it says in the MIQE guidelines.
MIQE stands for “Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments”, a set of guidelines that describe the minimum information necessary for evaluating publications on Real-Time PCR, also called quantitative PCR, or qPCR.
The inventor himself, Kary Mullis, agreed, when he stated:
If you have to go more than 40 cycles to amplify a single-copy gene, there is something seriously wrong with your PCR.”
The MIQE guidelines have been developed under the aegis of Stephen A. Bustin, Professor of Molecular Medicine, a world-renowned expert on quantitative PCR and author of the book A-Z of Quantitative PCR which has been called “the bible of qPCR.”
In a recent podcast interview Bustin points out that “the use of such arbitrary Cq cut-offs is not ideal, because they may be either too low (eliminating valid results) or too high (increasing false “positive” results).”
And, according to him, a Cq in the 20s to 30s should be aimed at and there is concern regarding the reliability of the results for any Cq over 35.
If the Cq value gets too high, it becomes difficult to distinguish real signal from background, for example due to reactions of primers and fluorescent probes, and hence there is a higher probability of false positives.
Moreover, among other factors that can alter the result, before starting with the actual PCR, in case you are looking for presumed RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the RNA must be converted to complementary DNA (cDNA) with the enzyme Reverse Transcriptase—hence the “RT” at the beginning of “PCR” or “qPCR.”
But this transformation process is “widely recognized as inefficient and variable,” as Jessica Schwaber from the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine in Toronto and two research colleagues pointed out in a 2019 paper.
Stephen A. Bustin acknowledges problems with PCR in a comparable way.
For example, he pointed to the problem that in the course of the conversion process (RNA to cDNA) the amount of DNA obtained with the same RNA base material can vary widely, even by a factor of 10 (see above interview).
Considering that the DNA sequences get doubled at every cycle, even a slight variation becomes magnified and can thus alter the result, annihilating the test’s reliable informative value.
So how can it be that those who claim the PCR tests are highly meaningful for so-called COVID-19 diagnosis blind out the fundamental inadequacies of these tests—even if they are confronted with questions regarding their validity?
Certainly, the apologists of the novel coronavirus hypothesis should have dealt with these questions before throwing the tests on the market and putting basically the whole world under lockdown, not least because these are questions that come to mind immediately for anyone with even a spark of scientific understanding.
Thus, the thought inevitably emerges that financial and political interests play a decisive role for this ignorance about scientific obligations. NB, the WHO, for example has financial ties with drug companies, as the British Medical Journalshowed in 2010.
And experts criticize“that the notorious corruption and conflicts of interest at WHO have continued, even grown“ since then. The CDC as well, to take another big player, is obviously no better off.
Finally, the reasons and possible motives remain speculative, and many involved surely act in good faith; but the science is clear: The numbers generated by these RT-PCR tests do not in the least justify frightening people who have been tested “positive” and imposing lockdown measures that plunge countless people into poverty and despair or even drive them to suicide.
And a “positive” result may have serious consequences for the patients as well, because then all non-viral factors are excluded from the diagnosis and the patients are treated with highly toxic drugs and invasive intubations. Especially for elderly people and patients with pre-existing conditions such a treatment can be fatal, as we have outlined in the article “Fatal Therapie.”
Without doubt eventual excess mortality rates are caused by the therapy and by the lockdown measures, while the “COVID-19” death statistics comprise also patients who died of a variety of diseases, redefined as COVID-19 only because of a “positive” test result whose value could not be more doubtful.
[1] Sensitivity is defined as the proportion of patients with disease in whom the test is positive; and specificity is defined as the proportion of patients without disease in whom the test is negative. [2] E-mail from Prof. Thomas Löscher from March 6, 2020 [3] Martin Enserink. Virology. Old guard urges virologists to go back to basics, Science, July 6, 2001, p. 24 [4] E-mail from Charles Calisher from May 10, 2020 [5] Creative Diagnostics, SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Multiplex RT-qPCR Kit.
The ongoing purge of dissenting voices, shadow censorship and outright ban is the trademark of the Deep State: a rogue faction that has infiltrated all aspects of government and is now taking over the United State of America. The Republic is at risk. We have never faced such a danger before.
The Internet is an integrated part of our society and it has a huge impact on our daily lives. It is the modern day agora — the principal medium for communication, conducting business, exchange of information, the center of the artistic, spiritual and political life.
The Internet must be protected at all costs!
Trump Signs Executive Order Stripping Social Media Companies Of “Liability Shield”:
Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people.
In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet. This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power. They cease functioning as passive bulletin boards, and ought to be viewed and treated as content creators.
The growth of online platforms in recent years raises important questions about applying the ideals of the First Amendment to modern communications technology. Today, many Americans follow the news, stay in touch with friends and family, and share their views on current events through social media and other online platforms. As a result, these platforms function in many ways as a 21st century equivalent of the public square.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube wield immense, if not unprecedented, power to shape the interpretation of public events; to censor, delete, or disappear information; and to control what people see or do not see.
As President, I have made clear my commitment to free and open debate on the internet. Such debate is just as important online as it is in our universities, our town halls, and our homes. It is essential to sustaining our democracy.
Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse. Tens of thousands of Americans have reported, among other troubling behaviors, online platforms “flagging” content as inappropriate, even though it does not violate any stated terms of service; making unannounced and unexplained changes to company policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints; and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse.
Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets.
At the same time online platforms are invoking inconsistent, irrational, and groundless justifications to censor or otherwise restrict Americans’ speech here at home, several online platforms are profiting from and promoting the aggression and disinformation spread by foreign governments like China.
One United States company, for example, created a search engine for the Chinese Communist Party that would have blacklisted searches for “human rights,” hid data unfavorable to the Chinese Communist Party, and tracked users determined appropriate for surveillance. It also established research partnerships in China that provide direct benefits to the Chinese military.
Other companies have accepted advertisements paid for by the Chinese government that spread false information about China’s mass imprisonment of religious minorities, thereby enabling these abuses of human rights. They have also amplified China’s propaganda abroad, including by allowing Chinese government officials to use their platforms to spread misinformation regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to undermine pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
As a Nation, we must foster and protect diverse viewpoints in today’s digital communications environment where all Americans can and should have a voice. We must seek transparency and accountability from online platforms, and encourage standards and tools to protect and preserve the integrity and openness of American discourse and freedom of expression.
Sec. 2. Protections Against Online Censorship. (a) It is the policy of the United States to foster clear ground rules promoting free and open debate on the internet. Prominent among the ground rules governing that debate is the immunity from liability created by section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act (section 230(c)). 47 U.S.C. 230(c).
It is the policy of the United States that the scope of that immunity should be clarified: the immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection for those who purport to provide users a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions stifling free and open debate by censoring certain viewpoints.
Section 230(c) was designed to address early court decisions holding that, if an online platform restricted access to some content posted by others, it would thereby become a “publisher” of all the content posted on its site for purposes of torts such as defamation.
As the title of section 230(c) makes clear, the provision provides limited liability “protection” to a provider of an interactive computer service (such as an online platform) that engages in “‘Good Samaritan’ blocking” of harmful content.
In particular, the Congress sought to provide protections for online platforms that attempted to protect minors from harmful content and intended to ensure that such providers would not be discouraged from taking down harmful material. The provision was also intended to further the express vision of the Congress that the internet is a “forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” 47 U.S.C. 230(a)(3). The limited protections provided by the statute should be construed with these purposes in mind.
In particular, subparagraph (c)(2) expressly addresses protections from “civil liability” and specifies that an interactive computer service provider may not be made liable “on account of” its decision in “good faith” to restrict access to content that it considers to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.”
It is the policy of the United States to ensure that, to the maximum extent permissible under the law, this provision is not distorted to provide liability protection for online platforms that — far from acting in “good faith” to remove objectionable content — instead engage in deceptive or pretextual actions (often contrary to their stated terms of service) to stifle viewpoints with which they disagree.
Section 230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike.
When an interactive computer service provider removes or restricts access to content and its actions do not meet the criteria of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), it is engaged in editorial conduct. It is the policy of the United States that such a provider should properly lose the limited liability shield of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) and be exposed to liability like any traditional editor and publisher that is not an online provider.
(b) To advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this section, all executive departments and agencies should ensure that their application of section 230(c) properly reflects the narrow purpose of the section and take all appropriate actions in this regard. In addition, within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary), in consultation with the Attorney General, and acting through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), shall file a petition for rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting that the FCC expeditiously propose regulations to clarify:
(i) the interaction between subparagraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of section 230, in particular to clarify and determine the circumstances under which a provider of an interactive computer service that restricts access to content in a manner not specifically protected by subparagraph (c)(2)(A) may also not be able to claim protection under subparagraph (c)(1), which merely states that a provider shall not be treated as a publisher or speaker for making third-party content available and does not address the provider’s responsibility for its own editorial decisions;
(ii) the conditions under which an action restricting access to or availability of material is not “taken in good faith” within the meaning of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) of section 230, particularly whether actions can be “taken in good faith” if they are:
(A) deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider’s terms of service; or
(B) taken after failing to provide adequate notice, reasoned explanation, or a meaningful opportunity to be heard; and
(iii) any other proposed regulations that the NTIA concludes may be appropriate to advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this section.
Sec. 3. Protecting Federal Taxpayer Dollars from Financing Online Platforms That Restrict Free Speech. (a) The head of each executive department and agency (agency) shall review its agency’s Federal spending on advertising and marketing paid to online platforms. Such review shall include the amount of money spent, the online platforms that receive Federal dollars, and the statutory authorities available to restrict their receipt of advertising dollars.
(b) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency shall report its findings to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
(c) The Department of Justice shall review the viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each online platform identified in the report described in subsection (b) of this section and assess whether any online platforms are problematic vehicles for government speech due to viewpoint discrimination, deception to consumers, or other bad practices.
Sec. 4. Federal Review of Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices. (a) It is the policy of the United States that large online platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, as the critical means of promoting the free flow of speech and ideas today, should not restrict protected speech. The Supreme Court has noted that social media sites, as the modern public square, “can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.”
Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1737 (2017). Communication through these channels has become important for meaningful participation in American democracy, including to petition elected leaders. These sites are providing an important forum to the public for others to engage in free expression and debate. Cf. PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 85-89 (1980).
(b) In May of 2019, the White House launched a Tech Bias Reporting tool to allow Americans to report incidents of online censorship. In just weeks, the White House received over 16,000 complaints of online platforms censoring or otherwise taking action against users based on their political viewpoints. The White House will submit such complaints received to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
(c) The FTC shall consider taking action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, pursuant to section 45 of title 15, United States Code. Such unfair or deceptive acts or practice may include practices by entities covered by section 230 that restrict speech in ways that do not align with those entities’ public representations about those practices.
(d) For large online platforms that are vast arenas for public debate, including the social media platform Twitter, the FTC shall also, consistent with its legal authority, consider whether complaints allege violations of law that implicate the policies set forth in section 4(a) of this order. The FTC shall consider developing a report describing such complaints and making the report publicly available, consistent with applicable law.
Sec. 5. State Review of Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices and Anti-Discrimination Laws. (a) The Attorney General shall establish a working group regarding the potential enforcement of State statutes that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices.
The working group shall also develop model legislation for consideration by legislatures in States where existing statutes do not protect Americans from such unfair and deceptive acts and practices. The working group shall invite State Attorneys General for discussion and consultation, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
(b) Complaints described in section 4(b) of this order will be shared with the working group, consistent with applicable law. The working group shall also collect publicly available information regarding the following:
(i) increased scrutiny of users based on the other users they choose to follow, or their interactions with other users;
(ii) algorithms to suppress content or users based on indications of political alignment or viewpoint;
(iii) differential policies allowing for otherwise impermissible behavior, when committed by accounts associated with the Chinese Communist Party or other anti-democratic associations or governments;
(iv) reliance on third-party entities, including contractors, media organizations, and individuals, with indicia of bias to review content; and
(v) acts that limit the ability of users with particular viewpoints to earn money on the platform compared with other users similarly situated.
Sec. 6. Legislation. The Attorney General shall develop a proposal for Federal legislation that would be useful to promote the policy objectives of this order.
Sec. 7. Definition. For purposes of this order, the term “online platform” means any website or application that allows users to create and share content or engage in social networking, or any general search engine.
Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
In a flurry of conflicting reports about the novel coronavirus, its symptoms, transmission routes, along with the ever-growing list of illnesses that it allegedly causes, we seem to be no closer to understanding the outbreak than when it started.
Three months into the pandemic, we have learned almost nothing. Okay, we’ve learned a few things. But the real truths are rarely related to the virus or the cures.
To start with, we have learned about the hellbent nature of the Silicon Valley tech giants to censor any dissenting view when the opposing narratives don’t align with the pharma vaccine agenda.
For example, take Dr. Anthony Fauci’s concealment of an approved hydroxychloroquine treatment: It cured coronavirus infections as far back as 2005.
What about the continual attacks on the vaccine risk aware community? The latter made up of scores of professionals, from doctors and scientists to lawyers and researchers. Not a conspiracy theorist among them.
Yet, that is not how the vaccine monolith in the mainstream press treats them. They are vilified, called out as “anti-vax” heretics when many of them are no such thing.
They are simply educated and informed individuals persistently seeking – and in some cases demanding – the scientific evidence to prove vaccines are safe. Two decades later, they’re still waiting.
There are currently at least 119 vaccines in this fast-tracked pipeline, with at least nine of them being directly funded by the Gates Foundation.
Will the (eventual) chosen candidate(s) brought to market cause severe injuries? Will they kill you?
Censorship And Bad Models
When the Plandemic, the movie, burst onto the scene and went viral (you can watch it at that link), it garnered millions of views. Its hashtag #PlandemicMovie captured the imagination of millions of people by feeding them a fist-full of little known Red Pills.
Twitter banned and deleted the hashtag, while Big Pharma proxies attacked the truth problem from both edges of the same sword in an attempt to make the awareness campaign disappear. It failed. In fact, she publicly refuted her critics on LondonReal with Brian Rose.
Plandemic, which features former NIH virologist Dr. Judy Mikovits, whose new book Plague of Corruption, about the institutional fraud of medicine carried out in one of the United States’ healthcare agencies, surged to number one on Amazon’s bestseller list on May 7 and later in the week, became a New York Time bestseller too. Talk about a one-two punch.
How did pharma counter the double body blow?
They attacked the messenger with the obligatory character assassination and smeared the movie as conspiratorial. Right. And Epstein’s suicide ‘jumped the shark’ of believability, forever killing the conspiracy theory label. But that hasn’t stopped the COVID-19 vaccine train from leaving the station.
Pharma still has many problems to overcome beyond a book and a movie by a former government scientist.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) at the Senate Hearings on the COVID-19 attacked the model that persuaded the world to shut down societies and wrongly lock people in their homes.
Sweden and Belarus are two examples of countries that let healthy people carry on with their lives, while they sheltered the frail and the elderly.
How did this global shut down happen?
A model contrived by recently resigned professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial College in the U.K. His ‘assessment’ and predictive model has been thoroughly debunked as a fraud.
Software engineers found incompetent source code and critiqued his model with blistering reviews.
During the delay, Ferguson brought it a team of coders from Microsoft to help but all they could produce was a Ford Pinto instead of a Ferrari.
He fired at Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is supposed to be running the NIH division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
“And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all,” Paul said.
“I don’t think you’re the one person who gets to make the final decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge, that we can safely open the economy. And the facts will bear this out.”
The verdict is in: The American people are sick of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Neil Ferguson. They see these two as nothing more than fear-mongering scientists who got the Nostradamus predictions of doom wrong.
CDC Corruption From Agent Orange To COVID19
Even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has walked back its inflated COVID-19 deaths model by 40 percent, decreasing the predicted deaths from 67,000 to 37,000.
What many people are finding out is that the CDC has lumped in other categories of illness under the COVID19 umbrella of deaths.
The CDC lumped pneumonia and influenza deaths together with the COVID-19 deaths. The Cares Act incentivized hospitals to add coronavirus illness and death to death certificates even without testing, inflating the actual cases and mortality rate.
The CDC finally corrected its cooked books. But as of May 13, John Hopkins University continues to show the inflated number — of 83,000 deaths in the U.S. instead of using the adjusted CDC number.
Why is this happening? It’s not about the threat of the virus. It’s being done to ensure that Gates can lead the globalist’s agenda to vaccinate everyone on the planet.
The CDC played a big role in the disastrous lockdowns in the United States deploying faulty test kits.
The United Kingdom rejected 200,000 test kits from China that were defective and found to be contaminated with the SARS-CoV2 virus.
Had those tests been used, they all would have all registered positive. But such shady, shoddy tactics merely moved on to the next country.
Recently, Tanzania found similar issues with the test kits given to the African nation. The prime minister, who is a trained biologist, set a quality-control trap for the foreign health invaders.
He tested a goat, a quail, and a pawpaw fruit, giving them names, genders, and ages. Once the tests were conducted, the government sent the kits to the designated laboratory.
When all the tests came back positive, Tanzania fired the head of the lab.
Is this how the CDC and the WHO plan to operate and provide “global health security” and “pandemic preparedness” — their slogans — in the future?
Is this how the U.S. and global health agencies misspent billions in taxpayers’ money, wasted on faulty equipment and broken models while shutting down the world’s healthy economies?
Little of this makes any sense now. But soon it might with 2020 hindsight and multiple investigations, not just congressional hearings.
Why would the U.S. decimate its workforce, resulting in more than 33 million suddenly unemployed and 20 million more underemployed? Who benefited from this catastrophe?
It certainly was not in the best interest of bio-security or global health.
Lies, fraud, taxpayer theft, censorship, fake models, cooked data, shoddy science, preloaded positive tests, and compromised and incompetent scientists and politicians, and so much more prop up the pandemic disaster.
Was the ultimate goal to conceal the Plandemic from the public? It’s certainly starting to look that way.
The neo-fascist governors in New York, Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Wisconsin, Hawaii, California, and Washington, who locked down their economies to “flatten the curve,” turned out to flagrantly lie their a bait-and-switch deception.
Remember, the governors and their staffs continue to get paid, while their constituents suffer doesn’t make sense, unless…
The real goal is to vaccinate everyone.
That would empower Big Pharma to continue to promote the “vaccines safe and effective” mantra. They may not be able to mandatory force people to be vaccinated, but they could make life so miserable it would be difficult to resist.
What if being vaccinated with this experimental vaccine was required to renew your driver’s license? your passport? go to work? go to a sports event? get groceries? get your hair cut? go to a restaurant? see your doctor and use your health insurance?
This vaccine, being developed under the liability-free protection of the 2005 PREP Act, could include nanotechnology, stray viruses and chemicals that are known carcinogens.
Would we ever know what is really coming through that needle?
And even if we did know, we would have zero recourse if the vaccine harmed – or killed us.
To pull off this ugly and grandiose plan they didn’t need to create a global panic and outbreak.
Their dark goals are waking up the masses. A recent survey found that nearly 50% of Americans will refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
If that same survey were carried a year ago, it likely would have registered less than 10% who would have objected.
Now that humankind has been locked down over a bogus virus backed by sham science, people are paying attention.
The number of people won’t be taking a coronavirus vaccine will only grow as the year marches on and more dark truths are revealed.
The more this human-made fraud is exposed, the more people will leap off the vaccine bandwagon without looking back.
To accomplish a big goal, such as launching a new business, writing a novel or starting an exercise regime, productivity experts will often suggest getting up early. You can get a lot done in a quiet house with no distractions or interruptions. While this is sound advice, it’s easier said than done.
“You might think getting up earlier is just a matter of discipline, but it actually takes much more than that,” says Julie Morgenstern, time management expert and author of Never Check Email in the Morning (Touchstone; 2005). “The truth is, your entire ecosystem has been built around sleeping later.”
When you try to change your morning routine, several obstacles will stand in your way. It’s possible to overcome them, however; the key is to start the night before. Morgenstern offers six strategies to make getting up early work for you:
1. Change your mindset. Many people fight going to sleep because they want to get more done – they have separation anxiety from the day. But Morgenstern teaches her clients to think differently.
“Consider sleep the beginning of the next day,” she says, adding that this mind shift can change the way you look at sleep and make it exciting. “Sleep becomes an active element; you’re charging up your battery.”
2. Adjust your bedtime. Many of us are already sleep deprived, and stealing another hour of sleep will just set you up for failure. The only way to be successful is to go to bed earlier. Determine how many hours of sleep your body requires and count backwards from there.
“Getting up earlier requires a fundamental shift in your neuro-pathways,” she says. “While the change makes total sense to you the day before, actually doing it the next morning is hard work and requires you to break a lot of patterns.”
3. Adjust other nighttime activities. You’ll also have to adjust the time you eat dinner as well as after-dinner decompression activities, such as reading, says Morgenstern.
“You’re not being realistic if you say you’ll get up early but then don’t build everything else into your day” accordingly, she says. Also, eat dinner no less than two to three hours before bed, which is optimal for being able to fall asleep and sleep well.
4. Prepare for your morning activity. Sometimes what keeps us in bed isn’t fatigue, but the fact the morning task we’ve planned is overwhelming. To make these activities less daunting, prep the night before and organize your equipment. Set out your gym clothes, yoga mat or running shoes, if you’re planning to exercise. If you’re going to be on your computer, tidy your home office, and preprogram your coffee maker.
“Starting something new can feel complicated,” says Morgenstern. “Take the time to prepare and you’ll increase your chances for success.”
5. Turn off electronics. At least 90 minutes before bed pull the plug on electronic activities, such as watching television, checking email or social media or reading on an e-reader.
“Science says it’s a source of energy and over-stimulates us,” she says. “It’s like drinking a Red Bull before bed – there’s no way you’ll fall asleep.”
She suggests replacing it with something relaxing, such as listening to music, drawing, or prepping meals for next day.
6. Create a pre-bedtime routine. Give yourself peace of mind and time to unwind by creating a calming pre-bedtime routine. For example, make a ritual of checking the windows and locks. Dim the lights and stretch. Or take a leisurely walk.
“This routine will help you fall asleep quickly and easily,” she says. “It will also significantly increase your chances of getting up in morning.”
I do not write these words for my contemporaries. We are the damned. It is our lot now to watch as the lamp of liberty is extinguished, our burden to bear witness to the final flickering of the flame of freedom.
No, I don’t write these words for my peers; I write them for those yet to come. The inhabitants of that future dystopia whose birth pangs we are experiencing. The remnant of once-free humanity who might—through some miracle I can’t even imagine—come across this electronic message in a bottle.
I know that it’s almost hopeless. That the chance of these words surviving the coming internet purge are slim at best. That even if—against all odds—this message does wash up on your digital shores, the chance of these words being understood by you is even slimmer. Not because you don’t understand English, but because you no longer use these words I’m writing: Freedom. Humanity. Individual.
Still, I am here to record the end of an era. So I will press on in the hope against hope that someone, somewhere in that future Digital Dark Age, will have eyes to see and ears to hear.
We know what it means when billionaires start telling us that only their new experimental mRNA vaccines will be able to release us from this nightmare. When they threaten to mark us with invisible ink tattoos to ID the vaccinated. When they tell us that we will not be able to buy or sell or participate in the economy until we can prove our “immunity.”
Oh, sure, some still deny it. But they are only fooling themselves. They’re afraid to admit that it’s true. Many are still under the old conditioning that told them to bleat “conspiracy theorist” at anyone questioning authority.
We have a name for that kind: “sheep.” Or, sometimes, “sheeple.” The masses in our day are kept in the pen by the jackbooted sheepdogs of the police state and led along by the political puppets who act as their shepherds. Occasionally a wise old-timer in the flock cottons on to the game, but the shepherd has only ever fleeced the flock, so he resigns himself to his fate. Why struggle? It’s mostly painless.
Never did the sheeple suspect that someday the shepherds would lead them to the slaughter.
It is a term of derision, of course. “Sheeple.” But I like to think that it doesn’t just speak to our stupidity. It speaks to a naivety, an innocence. We are trusting and gentle creatures by nature. Peaceable. Cooperative. That is nothing to be scorned. If it weren’t for the predators in our midst, our failings would be counted as virtues.
But I am not here to say that. I am here to say this: Resist! Struggle! Fight!
You are not cogs in a machine, despite what the shepherds of your day may be telling you. You are free and beautiful human beings. You are not born under the authority of another. You choose how you live your life, not some bureaucrat, not some police robot, not some “immunity checkpoint” algorithm or QR code.
You do not need permission to buy or to sell or to assemble or to speak your mind or to leave your house. You are not an “asymptomatic carrier” of whatever virus your misleaders are telling you to be afraid of. You do not have to shelter in place because someone in a white lab coat told you to.
I want you to understand that, once upon a time, the government didn’t have the right to know where you were, who you were meeting with, what you were purchasing and what you were doing 24/7. Hell, the government didn’t even have the ability to do that.
I need you to know that there was a time when you could leave your house when you wanted. Travel where you wanted. Buy and sell as you saw fit. Meet your neighbors. Rally. Protest. Party.
Live. As free human beings are meant to live.
Oh, what am I saying? These words. This language. It makes no sense to you, does it? These concepts don’t exist in your time, do they?
You go where you are told to go. You stay home when you are told to stay home. You shut up when you are told to shut up. You think what you are told to think. . . . You don’t think what you are told to not think.
I can’t blame you, after all. You’re trusting and naive and peaceful. Like a sheep.
But oh how I weep for what you have become. I tried to avert it. Please believe me. I really tried.
But the lamp of liberty is being extinguished. And I am bearing witness.
I don’t know if history is something you study anymore, but in case it is not: UK Foreign Secretary “Sir” Edward Grey made his observation about the lamps “going out all over Europe” at the end of the so-called “Twelve Days.” According to the mainstream history books of our age, that was the period during the summer of 1914 that the British government was said to be trying to avoid a World War. We are asked to believe that this prescient remark proved Grey to be a sage diplomat who was wracked with grief over the pain and suffering that he sensed was about to be unleashed upon the world.
But this is history-by-the-winners of the worst kind. In truth, Grey was himself one of the conspirators who were actively working to bring about the First World War. What’s more, the source of this quotation is in fact Grey himself; it was first recorded in Grey’s own post-war memoir. Any tears he may have shed over the snuffing out of those lamps were crocodile tears, to be sure.
One can well imagine that the history books of your era will record that Bill Gates made a similarly portentous remark at the onset of this corona crisis. Gazing out the window of his $127.5 million, 66,000-square foot-Xanadu 2.0 mansion in Washington State—the then-epicenter of the US outbreak—Gates’ post-coronavirus memoir will no doubt tell us that he remarked to an underling, “The lights are going out all across the globe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
But his memoir will no doubt fail to inform us that he was smirking as he said it.
To my children, or my children’s children, or whatever remnant of once-free humanity happens to unearth these words in that God-forsaken future we are goose-stepping into: I’m sorry. I failed you. We all failed you.
But remember this: As long as the blood of your forebears flow through your veins, the lamp of human freedom shall not be extinguished forever.
Going into a self-quarantine or just working from home, can have many complex issues and complications beyond having enough food and supplies for two weeks.
In terms of entertainment, it also probably means you’re in for a lot of boredom, a lot of Netflix, and a lot of browsing the internet.
But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you’re confined to your home.
According to Fast Company, Google Arts & Culture teamed up with over 2500 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.
Now, you get “go to the museum” and never have to leave your couch.
Google Arts & Culture’s collection includes the British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim in New York City, and literally hundreds of more places where you can gain knowledge about art, history, and science.
This collection is especially good for students who are looking for ways to stay on top of their studies while schools are closed.
Take a look at just some of Google’s top museums that are offering online tours and exhibits. Museums around the world are also sharing their most zen art on social media to help people cope with staying home.
This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on the museum’s virtual tour.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Google’s Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary eras.
National Gallery Of Art, Washington, D.C.
This famous American art museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including many renderings of clothes from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The second is a collection of works from Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.
Musée D’Orsay, Paris
You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.
National Museum Of Modern And Contemporary Art, Seoul
One of Korea’s popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google’s virtual tour takes you through six floors of Contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.
Pergamon Museum, Berlin
As one of Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer – even if you can’t physically be there. This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Explore the masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you’re actually wandering its halls.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Anyone who is a fan of this tragic, ingenious painter can see his works up close (or, almost up close) by virtually visiting this museum – the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
European artworks from as far back as the 8th Century can be found in this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
This less well-known gallery houses the art collection of one of Florence, Italy’s most famous families, the de’Medicis. The building was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 specifically for Cosimo I de’Medici, but anyone can wander its halls from anywhere in the world.
MASP, São Paulo
The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a non-profit and Brazil’s first modern museum. Artworks placed on clear perspex frames make it seem like the artwork is hovering in midair. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous display for yourself.
National Museum Of Anthropology, Mexico City
Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 23 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Mayan civilization.
Sadly, not all popular art museums and galleries could be included on Google Arts & Culture’s collection, but some museums are taking it upon themselves to offer online visits. According to Fast Company, the Louvre also offers virtual tours on its website.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your thoughts? Many of my clients have expressed frustration, even anguish, with their relentless experiences of self-imposed mental interrogation. It occurs as an irresistible urge to analyze practically everything they think, but especially the unwanted, spontaneous thoughts that just pop into their mind.
Consider a young woman we’ll call Jessica. She sought treatment for anxiety, but within a short period of time, it was clear that she was caught in a self-defeating mental trap. Any negative, unwanted thought triggered an agonizing process of self-analysis.
She’d ask herself over and over “what caused me to have this thought,” “what does it mean,” “what if I get stuck and become more and more anxious,” or, “I need to find a way to get better control of my mind.” She spent hours analyzing thoughts that suddenly popped into her head. She’d also overanalyze what people said to her, always questioning whether a negative intention was meant. By her own admission, Jessica was “stuck in her head.”
Can you relate? Do you find yourself caught in a distressing cycle of overanalyzing your thoughts? Overthinking is a prominent characteristic of worry, rumination, and obsessive thinking. But it is not limited to these conditions. It can be a problem in its own right, and yet few people recognize the negative effect it can have on our emotional health, happiness, and well-being. Many people have concluded that overthinking is part of their personality; they’ve not realized that strategies are available to counter this anxiety-inducing habit.
The Overthinking Mind
I am using the term “overthink” to refer to an excessive tendency to monitor, evaluate, and attempt to control all types of thought.1 Overthinkers are not only highly aware of their thoughts, but they also spend a lot of time trying to understand the causes and meaning of their thoughts.
Sometimes this can be a useful characteristic if our thoughts are significant, and we need to decide on the best course of action. For example, if I have a thought like, “Should I leave my spouse and file for divorce?” “I’m going nowhere in this job; maybe I need new employment,” or “I’m having chest pains; maybe I should go to the hospital,” I need to pay attention to these thoughts. Ignoring the thought or not taking it seriously could be disastrous.
Overthinking is a problem for another type of thinking that I discussed in a previous post: negative intrusive thoughts. When we pay too much attention to such thoughts, overanalyze their meaning, and try too hard to control them, we can slip into unhealthy forms of thought, like worry, rumination, obsession, and the like. And when we overanalyze negative, intrusive thoughts, we can end up anxious, depressed, frustrated, and guilt-ridden.
Signs of Overthinking
If you’re wondering whether overthinking is a problem for you, consider the following questions:
Are you easily aware of what you’re thinking at any given moment?
Do you often question why you are having certain thoughts?
Do you often look for the deeper meaning or personal significance of your thoughts?
When feeling upset, do you often focus on what you are thinking?
Do you have a strong need to know or understand how your mind works?
Do you feel it’s important to have strict control over your thoughts?
Do you have a low tolerance for spontaneous, unwanted thoughts?
Are you often in a struggle to control your thoughts?
If you answered yes to many of these questions, it’s possible you have a tendency to overthink.
There are two dangers to this. If you are overthinking important issues in your life, you can get stuck in indecision, avoidance, and procrastination. A person thinking about their relationships, health, career, self-identity issues, and the like needs to spend time in thoughtful reflection, but too much time in the head can be costly. On the other hand, we all have negative, intrusive thoughts that are best left alone. Spending time on these thoughts can lead to significant personal distress.
How to Curb Overthinking
If you suspect you’re falling prey to overthinking, there are several steps you can take:
Know your triggers. Even the most ardent overthinkers don’t do it all the time. Probably there are certain thoughts or issues that are more likely to trigger overthinking. If you’re a worrier, for example, thoughts about the future may be more likely to trigger overthinking. For another person, it may be thinking about their competence or whether they are liked by others. Whatever the case, it’s important to know the “hot spots” that trigger your overthinking.
Be aware of overthinking. To reduce overthinking, you need to know when it’s happening. What are the telltale signs that you’re overthinking? Is it when you’re trying to interpret the meaning of an intrusive thought when it probably has no hidden meaning? Is it when you’re trying too hard to control or suppress the thought? Or is it when you become frightened or anxious with the thought? There may be other signs that indicate you’ve slipped into overthinking.
Fully embrace its futility. You won’t be able to curb overthinking as long as you believe it has value. Review your past experiences with overthinking and write down how it helped. Did the overthinking result in any meaningful solution or revelation? Were there more positive or negative consequences associated with it?
Disengage. When people are “too much in their head,” this signifies over-engagement with unwanted thoughts. The opposite approach is to disengage from the thought. So, the best way to curb overthinking is mindful acceptance in which we observe but don’t evaluate our unwanted thoughts. A second approach is focused distraction, in which we shift our attention to another train of thought or activity, without engaging in an attempt to resolve or understand the unwanted thought we’re overthinking.
Overthinking can be harmful to our emotional health, especially when it’s directed at unwanted, spontaneous, negative thoughts, images, or memories. Fortunately, we can learn to curb this unhelpful way of thinking through greater self-awareness and the practice of mental disengagement.
References
1 Janeck, A.S. Calamari, J. E., Riemann, B. C., & Heffelfinger, S. K. 2003. Too much thinking about thinking?: metacognitive differences in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 17(2): 181-195.
2 Clark, D. A. 2018. The Anxious Thoughts Workbook: Skills to Overcome the Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts that Drive Anxiety, Obsessions & Depression. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Here’s a stylized look at what it looked like in the 1700’s:
For decades the official Stonehenge guidebooks have been full of fascinating facts and figures and theories surrounding the world’s greatest prehistoric monument. What the glossy brochures do not mention, however, is the systematic rebuilding of the 4,000 year old stone circle throughout the 20th Century.
This is one of the dark secrets of history archaeologists don’t talk about: The day they had the builders in at Stonehenge to recreate the most famous ancient monument in Britain as they thought it ought to look.
Cement
This picture bellow shows workers on the site in 1901 in a restoration which caused outrage at the time but which is rarely referred to in official guidebooks. For it means that Stonehenge, jewel in the crown of Britain’s heritage industry, is not all it seems. Much of what the ancient site’s millions of visitors see in fact dates back less than 50 years.
Circa 1901
And at the early stages of restoration around 1920
From 1901 to 1964, the majority of the stone circle was restored in a series of makeovers which have left it, in the words of one archaeologist, as ‘a product of the 20th century heritage industry’. But the information is markedly absent from the guidebooks and info-phones used by tourists at the site. Coming in the wake of the news that the nearby Avebury stone circle was almost totally rebuilt in the 1920’s, the revelation about Stonehenge has caused embarrassment among archaeologists. English Heritage, the guardian of the monument, is to rewrite the official guide, which dismisses the Henge’s recent history in a few words. Dave Batchelor, English Heritage’s senior archaeologist said he would personally rewrite the official guide. ‘The detail was dropped in the Sixties’, he admitted. ‘But times have changed and we now believe this is an important piece of the Stonehenge story and must be told’.
Cambridge University archeological archivist and leading Stonehenge author Christopher Chippindale admitted: ‘Not much of what we see at Stonehenge hasn’t been touched in some way’. And historical research student Brian Edwards, who recently revealed that the nearby Avebury Monument had been totally rebuilt, has found rare pictures of Stonehenge being restored. He said: ‘It has been as if Stonehenge had been historically cleansed’. ‘For too long people have been kept in the dark over the Stonehenge restoration work. I am astonished by how few people know about it. It is wonderful the guide book is going to tell the full story in the future.’
A million visitors a year are awe-struck as they look back in time into another age and marvel at the primitive technology and muscle-power which must have been employed transporting the huge monoliths and raising them on Salisbury Plain. They gasp as they are told about this strangely spiritual site…. mankind’s first computer, its standing stones and precise lintels, lining up magically and mysteriously with the heavens above and the solstice suns.
But now, as if to head off a potential great archaeological controversy – and following interest displayed by historical researcher Brian Edwards and a local newspaper, the brochures will be re-written, to include the ‘forgotten years’. The years when teams of navvies sat aboard the greatest cranes in the British Empire to hoist stones upright; drag leaning trilithons into position, replace fallen lintels which once sat atop the huge sarsens. As Mr Edwards – the erstwhile enfant terrible of British archaeology following revelations that nearby Avebury was a total 20’s and 30’s rebuild by marmalade millionaire Alexander Keiller – says: ‘What we have been looking at is a 20th Century landscape, which is reminiscent of what Stonehenge MIGHT have been like thousands of years ago. It has been created by the heritage industry and is NOT the creation of prehistoric people. What we saw at the Millennium is less than 50 years old.’
Restoration in 1901, up-righting the tall stone that can be seen leaning above:
The Restoration and Rebuild
The first restoration of Stonehenge was launched 100 years ago this year.
And, in 1901, as the builders went to work, The Times letters column was full of bucolic missives of complaint. But the first stage of ‘restoration’ thundered ahead regardless and the style guru of the day, John Ruskin, released the maxim which was to outlive him…. ‘Restoration is a lie,’ he stormed. Nevertheless the Stonehenge makeover was to gather momentum and more work was carried out in 1919, 1920, 1958, 1959 and 1964. Christopher Chippindale, curator at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Anthropology, and author of Stonehenge Complete, admits: ‘Nearly all the stones have been moved in some way and are standing in concrete.’
A stone was straightened and set in concrete in 1901, six further stones in 1919 and 1920, three more in 1959 and four in 1964. There was also the excavation of the Altar stone and re-erection of the Trilithon in 1958.
The guide book ‘Stonehenge and Neighbouring Monuments’ , and the audio tour of the Henge omit any comprehensive mention of the rebuilding in the 20th Century. Only on page 18 is there a slight reference…’A number of the leaning and fallen stones have been straightened and re-erected.’ But even that official guide book does contain clues to the large scale restoration, which was not deemed worth a full entry.
Why does John Constable’s 1835 painting of the Henge on pages 18 and 19 look so vastly different from the latter-day pristine photograph across pages 28 and 29? REASON: A lot of restoration work had taken place in between the two images being recorded. And, during long hot summers it would be possible – if one could get near to the stones – to see the turf peeling back to reveal the concrete boots into which the majority of the stones are now set. A dead give-away, but difficult to spot now as proximity to the Henge is limited. Our pictures clearly show the rebuilding in progress. Some were discovered by Mr Chippendale and were used in a revised edition of his book. Many of those have since been lost. Others were found by Mr Edwards who unearthed guide books from the time when Stonehenge was not ashamed of its past and featured photographs and stories of the resorations. ‘The news is sensational,’ said Mr Edwards, a decorate student at the University of the West of England. ‘Once I realised how much work had been carried out, I was amazed to discover that practically no-one outside of the henge know of its reconstruction in the last 100 years. I have always thought that if people are bothering to make a trip to Stonehenge, from home or abroad, then the least they should expect is a true story.’
The World We Live In 