Steps to Ascension

Posted on August 26, 2022 by marcia

Spiritual Growth: 12 Signs You’re Growing and Evolving

August 24th, 2022

So you’ve been devoting months, years, or perhaps even decades of your life to your spiritual practice.

But unlike physically tangible pursuits, there’s no easy way to know if you’re ‘making progress’ or not when it comes to your inner spiritual life.

If you’re wondering whether you’re actually growing and evolving and whether spiritual growth is indeed occurring in your life, keep reading.

What is Spiritual Growth?

Spiritual growth is the process of awakening to your true nature, purpose, and potential. When you undergo spiritual growth you experience an expansion in awareness and insight, also known as higher consciousness.

All spiritual growth has one objective: to help you embody your Soul or Higher Self. Once you are able to shift from ego to Soul, there is the potential for you to experience what is understood as spiritual enlightenment, self-realization, “heaven,” Oneness, or moksha in varying degrees.

Spiritual Growth: 12 Signs You’re Growing and Evolving

Image of a fern frond blossoming symbolic of spiritual growth

Here are the major signs that you’re growing and evolving on a spiritual level:

1. You embrace challenges as lessons and opportunities

Whether your car has just broken down, or someone you love is terribly ill, you sense that there’s an underlying lesson and opportunity in the obstacle before you. Instead of feeling like a victim, you feel like a student of life. In other words, you see that life is not happening to you, it is happening for you.

2. You see through the seduction of the material world

Once upon a time, you might have loved buying expensive things, focusing on enhancing your social status, earning more money, or even indulging in spiritual materialism. But now, you understand that the material world doesn’t ultimately bring you the deep happiness you seek.

3. Your sensitivity has heightened

In the past, you might have been living in a numb state where you were disconnected from your body, heart, mind, and soul. But now, you are a great deal more aware of what is going on inside and around you. As such, you might experience more empathic suffering, which can often feel like both a curse and a gift.

4. You feel more love and compassion (for yourself, others, and the world)

With heightened sensitivity, you also feel more connected to yourself and the world. You may feel higher levels of compassion and true empathy for others – even those who are harmful to themselves, others, and the planet. Your open heart brings you more joy, but also more pain. And yet, your heart is slowly learning how to expand and hold that pain.

5. You stop seeing life in black-or-white dualistic thinking

If you’ve been taught anything by your spiritual awakening, kundalini awakening, or dark night of the soul, it’s that there’s more to life than meets the eye. Something that may seem negative may turn out to be positive. Something that seems beautiful may actually be ugly deep down. Everything and everyone have two sides that are interdependent – nothing is totally black or white.

6. You can show more understanding toward difficult people

Because you can see underneath the surface of a person’s behavior – and the various wounds and traumas that may have caused them to misbehave – you no longer carry as much anger or resentment as you once did. You find it easier to show tolerance and understanding toward others, no longer reacting with as much judgment, condemnation, or self-righteousness.

7. You see that life is cyclical and like a spiral

Instead of getting stuck in one mode of being or mindset, you’re beginning to see that life is cyclical. There are good times and bad times. After spring comes autumn and after day comes night. All things are destined to come and go, rise and fall. As such, you don’t get as affected as you once did when life waxes and wanes – it’s just part of life and the journey of Ensoulment.

8. You become less attached to mental stories

Image of a hand catching a leaf, symbolic of spiritual growth

The more you become acquainted with your mind, the more you recognize that thoughts, ideas, and beliefs don’t actually define you. Instead, these mental occurrences are like clouds that float into the sky, and then eventually drift away. When you attach to mental thoughts and beliefs, you suffer. But when you recognize that your thoughts and feelings don’t define you – instead, you are the vast Consciousness beneath them – you find it easier to let go and find a sense of inner peace.

9. You find it easier to slow down and do nothing

Our thinking minds are always wanting us to “do,” “get,” “achieve,” “go-go-go!” but the soul, the spiritual center of our being, finds true nourishment in slowing down and enjoying life as it is. If you’re finding it easier to wind down, or at least catch the desire to constantly be “switched on” and change course, this is a clear sign of spiritual growth.

10. You are more interested in letting go of the old than gaining the new

As an ongoing student of the Tao Te Ching – an ancient wisdom text from the Taoist tradition – the topic of letting go constantly arises.

Among many verses on letting go, verse 44 packs quite a punch:

One’s own reputation—why the fuss?

One’s own wealth—why the concern?

I say, what you gain

is more trouble than what you lose

Therefore, a huge part of authentic spiritual growth is the capacity to be not only accepting of letting go, but actually preferring it to “gaining more.” The desire to accumulate is from the ego, but the desire to surrender and be free is from the soul.

11. You have more capacity to be discerning

Spiritual growth is not just about experiencing love, bliss, and expansion – although that is part of it. As we deepen and mature, spiritual growth is also about the capacity to think clearly and distinguish truth from falsehood. This ability to use the mind like a sword is what is known as spiritual discernment.

12. You can access more moments of ‘ordinary magic’

While it’s normal at the beginning of the spiritual journey to want glitch, glamor, and exciting sparkly experiences, the more we grow, the more we recognize the beauty of what is already here, right now. This ordinary magic can be accessed whenever we are present, grounded in the Now, and connected with the heart and soul.

from: https://wakeup-world.com/2022/08/24/spiritual-growth-12-signs-youre-growing-and-evolving/

The War On Children

Posted on August 16, 2022 by marcia

Boston Children’s Hospital Touts Hysterectomies And Other Mutilation For ‘Trans’ Minors

BY: JORDAN BOYD

AUGUST 12, 2022

Dr. Frances Grimstad of Boston Children’s Division of Gynecology

The hospital’s video series features doctors and other health care professionals promoting the butchering of children.

JORDAN BOYD

Boston Children’s Hospital is promoting the mutilation of healthy kids who claim to be “transgender” via “gender-affirming” hysterectomies, sterilization, and chemical castration despite the irreversible mental and physical damage those procedures cause.

For years now, BCH has mutilated children’s sexual organs under the guise of “inclusive reproductive health care for people of all gender identities and anatomies.” That includes prescribing hormones that suppress menstruation in underage girls and block the increase of testosterone in minor boys, phalloplasties and metoidioplasties for 18-year-old girls who want penises, vaginoplasties for 17-year-old boys who want vaginas, chest reconstruction and breast augmentation for children as young as 15, and even medically unnecessary hysterectomies for girls whom the hospital deems eligible for surgery.

Just this week, BCH scrubbed a video titled “What happens during a gender-affirming hysterectomy?” after facing backlash for promoting the surgery for minors who can’t consent and do not have the mental capacity to make such a life-altering decision.

An archived version of the footage shows Dr. Frances Grimstad, an obstetrician-gynecologist, describing the process of rendering teen women infertile by removing key female reproductive organs in the name of affirmation.

“A gender-affirming hysterectomy is very similar to most hysterectomies that occur,” Grimstad happily explains. “A hysterectomy itself is the removal of the uterus, the cervix, which is the opening of the uterus, and the fallopian tubes, which are attached to the sides of the uterus.”

Grimstad notes that ovaries, which produce eggs, may also be removed in an attempt to convince young girls that they are boys.

BCH also appears to have taken down Grimstad’s profile on its website, but a bio on the Harvard Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Health Equity Research Collaborative page describes how the OB-GYN has participated in “clinical and research work surrounding transgender and intersex reproductive health” for years.

“She has been involved in trans health advocacy since her own adolescence, when she decided to pursue medicine to address disparities in care faced by these communities,” the page, which also states Grimstad’s pronouns, says. “Her interests center around optimizing reproductive health outcomes for both populations including hormonal and menstrual management, surgical care and family planning.”

Grimstad’s clip is part of a video series from BCH that positively frames genital mutilation and chemical castration for minors without addressing the irreversible damage, such as “sexual dysfunction, infertility, cardiac event[,] endometrial cancer,” and even transition regret that have resulted from those procedures.

The playlist, designed to help families “understand” gender and LGBT issues, includes 90 videos (some of which are currently hidden) of doctors and other health care professionals promoting the butchering of children. Some topics highlighted in the clips include: “Recovery after chest reconstruction,” “Let’s talk about sex (for trans folks),” “Why is hair removal necessary before phalloplasty?,” “What is tucking?,” and “Fertility preservation: What transgender patients should know.”

BCH not only brags about starting “the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States,” but also claims that laws from Republican states that have legislated against the maiming of minors in the name of transgenderism “are in direct opposition to our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusivity, as well as the standard of care that we live by.”

A BCH blog post from April also condemns conservatives’ attempts to classify these procedures as “child abuse” and claims that “caring” for trans-identifying children means “supporting kids who are exploring their gender identity, transitioning socially (for example, changing their pronouns, using an affirmed name, or modifying their clothing), or pursuing medical care.” In the article, the author repeats lies, some of the same ones touted by the Biden administration, that declining to mutilate children will result in more suicides.

BCH’s webpage describing its genital mutilation operation and chemical castration regimens for minors even includes a section that details how doctors at the hospital should “ask you what language you use to describe your body and its functions,” even if those answers deny biological reality.

BCH did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s questions or request for comment

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

from: https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/12/boston-childrens-hospital-touts-hysterectomies-and-other-mutilation-for-trans-minors/

Surveillance from the Floor

Posted on August 16, 2022 by marcia

Did Amazon Buy iRobot To Map Inside Your Home?

Amazon.com Inc.’s $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner company iRobot Corp. is a move by the megacorporation to use Roombas to map the interior of homes. This data type is a digital gold mine for Amazon because if marketers know more about what’s inside, they can easily create tailormade ads.

From a market perspective, Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot is to gain deeper insight into customers’ homes via the autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner called “Roomba.”

The latest model of the Roomba, called J7, has a front-facing, AI-powered camera that maps out each room and will identify nearly everything in its path, such as floor plans, where the kitchen is, which space is the master bedroom, and where the kids sleep, as well as items on the floor.

“Slightly more terrifying, the maps also represent a wealth of data for marketers. The size of your house is a pretty good proxy for your wealth. A floor covered in toys means you likely have kids. A household without much furniture is a household to which you can try to sell more furniture. This is all useful intel for a company such as Amazon which, you may have noticed, is in the business of selling stuff,” Bloomberg said.

Roomba’s surveillance from within the home is pure digital gold, as Amazon’s ambition to learn more about the customer will allow marketers to sell more junk.

Vice News said, “leaked documents acquired by Motherboard revealed that one of the goals of Astro [Amazon’s robot] was to create a robot that intelligently plotted out the interior of a user’s homes, even creating heat maps of highly trafficked areas.”

Amazon customers haven’t received Astro well for privacy reasons, and the same could happen with robot vacuums following the acquisition. Some on Twitter are already calling the Amazon/iRobot deal “pure dystopia.”

People are starting to catch onto Amazon’s mass surveillance program of the household:

So, what iRobot brings to Amazon is the ability to embed its vast surveillance infrastructure into what appears to be a harmless vacuum, but just as Echo smart speakers are always ‘listening,’ perhaps the vacuum will always be watching.

As a reminder, Amazon has a frightening partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency — maybe it’s time to ditch the Roomba.

from: https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/pure-dystopia-amazon-buys-irobot-map-inside-your-home

Smile for the Camera

Posted on August 16, 2022 by marcia

All the Data Amazon’s Ring Cameras Collect About You

The popular security devices are tracking (and sharing) more than you might think.

Amazon Ring doorbell camera mounted on wall

IF YOU WALK through your local neighborhood—providing you live in a reasonably large town or city—you’ll be caught on camera. Government CCTV cameras may record your stroll, but it is increasingly likely that you’ll also be captured by one of your neighbors’ security cameras or doorbells. It’s even more likely that the camera will be made by Ring, the doorbell and security camera firm owned by Amazon.

Since Amazon splashed out more than a billion dollars for the company in 2018, Ring’s security products have exploded in popularity. Ring has simultaneously drawn controversy for making deals (and sharing data) with thousands of police departments, helping expand and normalize suburban surveillance, and falling to a string of hacks. While the cameras can provide homeowners with reassurance that their property is secure, critics say the systems also run the risk of reinforcing racism and racial profiling and eroding people’s privacy.

Videos shared from security cameras and internet-connected doorbells have also become common on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, raking in millions of views. “Ring impacts everybody’s privacy,” says Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Most immediately, it impacts the people who walk down the streets every day, where the cameras are pointing out.”

While Ring is far from the only maker of smart doorbells and cameras—Google’s Nest line is another popular option—its connections to law enforcement have drawn the most criticism, as when it recently handed over data without warrants. So, what exactly does Ring collect and know about you?

What Ring Knows About You

Whenever you use any tech, it’s collecting data about you. Spotify uses the data it collects to work out your mood, Slack knows how many messages you send. Ring’s products are no different. Ring’s privacy policy—running 2,400 words—and its terms of service detail what it collects about you and how it uses that information. In short: It’s a lot.

Ring gets your name, phone number, email and postal address, and any other information you provide to it—such as payment information or your social media handles if you link your Ring account to Facebook, for instance. The company also gets information about your Wi-Fi network and its signal strength, and it knows you named your camera “Secret CIA Watchpoint,” as well as all the other technical changes you make to your cameras or doorbells.

In March 2020, a BBC information request revealed that Ring keeps detailed records of people’s doorbell activity. Every doorbell press was logged. Each motion the camera detected was stored. And details were saved every time someone zoomed in on footage on their phone. In just 129 days, 4906 actions were recorded. (Ring says it does not sell people’s data.)

Ring can also collect the video and audio your camera records—the system doesn’t record all the time, but it can be triggered when it senses movement. Ring says its cameras can detect movement “up to 155 degrees horizontally” and across distances of up to 25 feet. This means there’s a good chance cameras can be triggered by people walking down the street or pick up conversations of passersby. According to tests by Consumer Reports, some Ring cameras can record audio from about 20 feet away.

Jolynn Dellinger, a senior lecturing fellow focusing on privacy and ethics at Duke University’s school of law, says recording audio when someone is on the street is a “serious problem” for privacy and may change how people behave. “We operate with a sense of obscurity, even in public,” Dellinger says. “We are in danger of increasing surveillance of everyday life in a way that is not consistent with either our expected views or really what’s best for society.” In October 2021, a British woman won a court case that said her neighbor’s Ring cameras, which overlooked her house and garden, broke data laws.

Ring’s privacy policy says it can save videos of subscribers to its Ring Protect Plan, a paid service that provides an archive of 180 days of video and audio captured. The company says people can log in to the service to delete the videos, but the company may ultimately keep them anyway. “Deleted Content and Ring Protect Recordings may be stored by Ring in order to comply with certain legal obligations and are not retrievable without a valid court order,” the privacy policy says.

Ring can also keep videos shared to its Neighbors’ app—an app where people and law enforcement agencies can share alerts about “crimes” and post their videos of what is happening around the homes. (There are rules about what people are allowed to post.)

Ring’s privacy policy and terms of service allow it to use all this information it collects in multiple ways. It lists 14 ways the company can use your data—from improving the service Ring provides and protecting against fraud to conducting consumer research and complying with legal requirements. Its privacy policy includes the ambiguous statement: “We also may use the personal information we collect about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.” Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall says this could apply if the company added features or use cases that are not already covered by its privacy policy. “We would provide additional notice or get permission as needed,” Rall says.

While Ring’s privacy policies apply to those who purchase its devices, people who are captured in footage or audio don’t have a chance to agree to them. “Privacy, security, and customer control are foundational to Ring, and we take the protection of our customers’ personal and account information seriously,” Rall says.

Ultimately, you agree to give Ring permission to control the “content” you share—including audio and video—while you own the intellectual property to it. The company’s terms of service say you give it an “unlimited, irrevocable, fee free and royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide right” to store, use, copy, or modify content you share through Neighbors or elsewhere online. (Audio recording can be turned off in Ring’s settings.)

“When I went out to buy a security camera last year, I looked for ones only that did local storage,” says Jen Caltrider, the lead researcher on Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included, which evaluates the privacy and security of products. Caltrider says people should try to keep as much control of their data as possible and not store files in the cloud unless they need to. “I don’t want any company having this data that I can’t control. I want to be able to control it.”

How Ring Works With Police

Ring’s deals with police forces—both in the US and the UK—have proved controversial. For years, the company has partnered with law enforcement agencies, providing them with cameras and doorbells that can be given to residents. By the start of 2021, Ring had partnered with more than 2,000 US law enforcement and fire departments. Documents have shown how Ring also controls the public messaging of police departments it has partnered with. “There is nothing mandating Ring build a tool that is easily accessible and helpful to police,” Guariglia says.

Rings’ terms of service say that the company may “access, use, preserve and/or disclose” videos and audio to “law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties” if it is legally required to do so or needs to in order to enforce its terms of service or address security issues. Government officials could include any “regulatory agency or legislative committee that issues a legally binding request for information,” Rall says. For the six months between January and June 2022, Ring says it had more than 3,500 law enforcement requests in the US.

In December 2021, researchers at New York University’s (NYU) Policing Project released an audit of Ring’s relationship with law enforcement and the way its Neighbors app works. (Ring provided data to the audit’s authors about how the service functions.) The report details concerns that Ring could exacerbate police bias against Black and brown communities and notes a lack of transparency around how Neighbors works.

“We see a lot of risk in having police responding to calls about homeless people or low-level drug use,” says Max Isaacs, a staff attorney with the Policing Project and a coauthor of the audit. “When police are relying on private devices like Ring devices, it creates a democratic deficit, because now police can greatly expand their surveillance capabilities,” Isaacs says. Citizen-on-citizen surveillance, which Isaacs calls “lateral surveillance,” lacks scrutiny. “They can have thousands of cameras in a jurisdiction … without any legislative oversight.”

In response to the NYU audit, Ring said it made more than 100 changes to its service. These changes hint at how the app may have previously been misused by law enforcement agencies. Police are now required to use official accounts to request content about crimes, Ring will not donate devices to law enforcement bodies, and it will “no longer will participate in police sting operations.”

Ring also agreed to stop citing the impact its cameras have on crime—previous claims say it reduces crime in areas—until that has been verified by an independent study. “Ring also reviewed all of its marketing and social media materials to remove any claims about crime reduction,” the report says. The change that will do most to protect people’s privacy may be the introduction of end-to-end encryption, which means the company can’t access recordings of users who have the feature enabled. However, it isn’t turned on by default. Here’s how to turn it on.

Update 10:30 am ET, 8-5-22: Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall’s statement that the company “would provide additional notice or get permission as needed” pertains to other ways Ring may use your personal information, not to its data-retention policies.

from: https://www.wired.com/story/ring-doorbell-camera-amazon-privacy/

GeoPolitics and Why to Move to Russia

Posted on August 15, 2022 by marcia

THAT VERY STRANGE RUSSIAN COMMERCIAL

August 14, 2022 / Joseph P. Farrell /

I’m publishing this early, on a Sunday, because there’s a little bit of chatter on the internet about a very strange Russian television commercial that’s been making the rounds, mostly on YouTube. That in itself is worth some commentary, but we’ll get back to that later, as it forms part of today’s high octane speculation. I was first made aware of this commercial last Friday (Aug 12, 2022) during our members’ vidchat when someone first mentioned it, and another member chimed in and said that they’d also seen it.

After the vidchat I quickly went searching for the commercial, and any information that might corroborate that the commercial is genuine, and indeed a product of the Russian government. Welll, according to this article from the U.K. Express, the commercial is indeed genuine, so I’m going to throw caution to the winds and run with it:

‘This for real?’ Moscow ridiculed as ‘move to Russia’ ad sparks hilarious Twitter slapdown

Now in case you missed the commercial itself while you were watching Sean Vannity on Faux News, or whoever-it-is on SeeBS or whatever, here it is:

So in that short minute, the case for moving to Russia is reduced to the following 16 points:

(1) delicious cuisine: check, I have to admit that I miss my mother’s beef Stroganoff, although she wasn’t Russian (for that matter, I also liked her chicken paprikash, and she wasn’t Hungarian either, but Orban makes a good case too);

(2) Beautiful women: well, check, at least they seem to know what women are in Russia (beautiful or not), and the last time I checked, they’re not letting men swimmers compete against women swimmers just because the former “identify” as the latter, which makes one wonder if Ron De Santis is either Russian, or a Russian agent. His lack of gender confusion is…well, it’s just highly suspicious;

(3) Cheap gas: well, that’s probably a check. I don’t know, because I haven’t bought any gas in Russia lately, or for that matter, ever. I imagine, however, that the way the Germans are wincing, it’s probably true. I know it’s not nearly as cheap here as it was when Orange-Man-Bad was president.

(4) Rich history: check, Russia certainly has that, and with several intriguing nooks and crannies well worth exploring. Take it from me, because I used to teach Russian history in college.

(5) World famous literature: again, check, and probably several checks. Dostoyevsky alone would have put Russia on the literary map, and he’s just one of very many. And while we’re on the subject, isn’t it a bit ironic and creepy that Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard resembles more the modern USSA than it does Russia, they having gone through their “cherry orchard” dark ages-evil empire moment called the Soviet Union? Who can forget the fun and frolic with Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria, huh?

(6) Unique architecture: yup, check: they have everything from Byzantine, classical, and European to that unique style that can only be called “Soviet Modern Ugly”, sort of the Russian equivalent in spartan ugliness to the German Bauhaus school, only the Soviet style isn’t nearly as ugly. The only uglier style is the Obama Presidential Library Style that infects modern America.

(7) Fertile soil: well, a probable check here. Again, I don’t know, and I’m the last person anyone should ask, because after years of careful and studious neglect, I’ve managed to kill my mother’s old Swedish ivy plant. I know nothing about soil conditions, and particularly Russian soil conditions, except I do know that the Russian government doesn’t like GMOs, has banned than, and that this has to be good for the soil. That one factoid alone makes me extremely suspicious of Western motivations in backing the regime in Kiev (and yes, I’m going to keep spelling it and pronouncing it that way, just to be irritating).

(8) Cheap electric and water: again, a probable check, because I don’t know, I’m not there. That said, we do have a couple of members of this website who actually maintain rather spacious apartments in St. Petersburg (a city full of that unique architecture) and when they told me how cheap their rent was for such a large city, I was flabbergasted, so I can believe the cheap water and gas, though I suppose like everywhere else, it depends on local conditions.

(9) Ballet: ok, check. I’m not a big ballet fan as one might have guessed, probably for the same reasons I’m just not a big opera guy. But, once that’s on the record, the music itself has become part of the standard repertoire. Who of us haven’t heard The Nutcracker or Swan Lake? If you haven’t, well, then that sort of makes the commercial’s point: you’re a modern western cretin, and the commercial isn’t targeting you to move to Russia. Had I been in charge of making the commercial for the Russian government and its evil-super-criminal-genius-and-never-to-be-trusted-byzantine-mastermind Vladimir Putin, I would have stressed “Great music” rather than ballet, with perhaps a snippet of Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev playing in the background.

(10) Cheap taxi and delivery: well, a probable check on that one too, though I haven’t had to ride any Russian taxis or have any packages delivered in that country, although my guess is, yea, that’s probably true too.

(11) Traditional values: ok, check. You don’t get to dress up in outlandish costumery and purple hair, call yourselves “Pussy Riot”, and carry on in a lewd fashion in an Orthodox Cathedral and call it a “protest” without being clapped in the slammer; up to that point, apparently, it was ok to dress as outlandishly as your liked, and to call yourself whatever offensive name you wished; you just don’t get to do that in church.

(12) Christianity: ok, check. Granted, the Christianity in Russia is, well, Russian Orthodox by and large, but so what? When Kirill wakes up and realizes that the Church is missing a golden opportunity to put some real weight behind an Orthodox western rite complete with hierarchy, then who knows where that will lead. (Here’s a hint Kir: neither Antioch nor ROCOR know what they’re doing… dig in your archives long enough and you’ll find out what I’m talking about… have your people contact my people; let’s talk.)

(13) No cancel culture: well, ok, check, but with caveats: when are we talking about here? Certainly there was a lot of “canceling” being done under the aforementioned Mssrs Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria. But I grant the basic proposition: no one carted Pussy Riot off to a gulag; rather, one gets the impression that Pussy Riot would be entirely ok with putting the entirety of the Russian Church back in the gulag.

(14) Hospitality: check: this one deserves some ‘splaining. While I’ve not been to Russia, I have been around a lot of Russians, and yes, I can vouch for the hospitality. WARNING (and I learned this trick far too late to do me any good): don’t drink the vodka (the next point on the list). Claim that you’re an alcoholic. I’m still suffering a hang-over with a half-life of 243 years because I drank vodka with Russians, and I’ll still be suffering that hang-over long after I’m dead.

(15) Vodka: check (see point 14 above).

(16) An economy that can withstand thousands of sanctions. Well, ok, check. To listen to the western propatainment media tell it, Russia’s economy is on its last legs and will implode at any moment. Now, in my humble and uninformed opinion, that’s probably right up there with The Ukraine is Winning Hugely meme we’ve been watching. We’re supposed to be gloating that the Russian military is doing so poorly. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but I don’t see the American military anywhere close, and one wonders how its “reality fluid” approach to basic metaphysical categories would fare. If the captured American-and-NATO trained fascist military units are any indicator, then they wouldn’t fare too well. It was, after all, Russian 152mm cannon firing point blank into the Reichstag, and not German 15omm cannon firing point blank into the Kremlin, that ended the last little fascist saber-rattling episode, as I recall.

Finally, the commercial ends with a cheery “Time to Move to Russia” and then a not-so-cheery “Winter is Coming.”

Now I’ve taken a lot of time to review this commercial, because frankly, it intrigued me. Why produce such a thing at all? After all, Russian media has been all but totally banned in the west. In a way, it was easier when I was a boy to dial up the English language service of Radio Moscow than it is to tune into Russian television now. Why go to the production expense to produce such a commercial, when buying advertising time on Deutsche Welle or SeeBS or FAUX news or the Canadian Broadcorping Castration is a foregone negative conclusion? Why produce something that millions of people won’t see? Or rather, why produce something that the Western media and their masters won’t let millions of people see?

One obvious answer is that this commercial may be a typical dye-the-waters operation to see who is paying attention in the alternative media, and how the commercial circulates there. In which case, I’m happy to help. But the other possibility is that we’re also looking at the next phase of a campaign. If you’ve been paying attention to Russia lately, you’ll have noted that it’s not exactly on Mr. Globaloney’s bandwagon because it’s been insisting that there can be no global order that cancels national sovereignty, and more importantly, that global order does not arise without respect to culture and tradition. That’s a fancy way of saying that a merely technocratic approach to global order is doomed to failure. It’s a commercial deliberately designed to highlight the failures of the globalist cabal and their programs, and, indeed, to invite those who crave for an expression of traditional European culture to move to the one place where it still has a living expression, in spite of the best efforts of Bolshevik technocrats and their Pussy Rioting lackeys to crush it.

One can see this by contempleting the implied negative message of the commercial: (1) delicious cuisine, versus poor nutrition, “fast food” and eating bugs; (2) Beautiful women, versus not knowing what a woman is; (3) Cheap gas, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (4) Rich history, versus people that cannot even read and who do not even know, nor are taught, their own; (5) World Famous Literature, versus a population that can barely write and scrawl its own name; (6) Unique architecture; versus collapsing footbridges designed by “inclusive and diverse” committees; (7) fertile soil; versus soil polluted and corrupted, and robbed of nutritional value by “argibusiness”; (8) cheap electric and water, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (9) Ballet, versus the bump-whump of subwoofers in vehicles drumming out a primitive jungle beat and screaming unrelenting iambic pentameter, for everyone to hear; (10) cheap taxi and delivery; versus lockdowns (11) Traditional values; versus collapsing reality and epistemological solipsism; (12) Christianity, versus hollowed out ecclesiastical institutions, bishopettes, mangled and gutted “liturgies”, “inclusiveness” and empty churches, (13) no cancel culture, or rather, a culture period, and one not apologizing for existing.

The bottom line that I’m suggesting here is that this commercial is not a one-off. It’s but the latest chapter in a long series of messages of culture and tradition and history that post-Soviet Russia has been sending. So far, they’ve been sending that message – at the popular level at least – mostly to their own population. In so far as they have sent that message to the West, it’s been to the Western leaders, who, of course, are stupid and tone-deaf and unable to hear it. But the western populations… they are a different matter. This is a serious message, addressed to them. And I suspect it’s only the first of many. There is even a carefully calculated geopolitical aspect to it, but I’ll leave that for you to guess, and perhaps take it up at another time.

… See you on the flip side…

from: https://gizadeathstar.com/2022/08/that-very-strange-russian-commercial/

Long Term Effects on Sperm Count, Fertility from Pesticides

Posted on August 15, 2022 by marcia

Sounding the Alarm on Connection Between Fertility and Pesticide Exposure

A systematic review of scientific studies on pesticides and fertility finds exposure associated with lower semen quality, DNA fragmentation and chromosomal abnormalities.

Published in the journal Andrology, the review is yet another warning from a long string of researchers sounding the alarm over the connection between global fertility and toxic chemical exposure.

With data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicating roughly one in five couples are unable to conceive after a year of trying, and trends continuing to slope downwards, it is critical that contributing factors be identified so that protective changes can be made.

After screening more than 1,300 studies, researchers narrowed their review down to 64 papers assessing semen parameters and DNA integrity after pesticide exposure. Each study is analyzed for its design, the pesticide investigated, the population studied, controls and reproductive effects determined.

Pesticides are evaluated for their impacts to sperm quality and DNA integrity based on their chemical class. Organochlorine insecticides, which are all banned but still persistent in soil, air, water and food in the United States, include a range of impacts to sperm quality.

Higher levels of DDT or its breakdown metabolite DDE are associated with lower semen count, and motility and morphology below normal threshold values established by the World Health Organization (WHO). (Under WHO threshold values, a sub-fertile condition is defined by values lower than the fifth percentile of the general population.)

Several studies find that as organochlorine concentrations increase in individual males, sperm parameters also fall.

In addition to sperm quality, organochlorines are associated with chromosomal aberrations in several studies, including effects such as sperm disomy, where sperm have extra or missing chromosomes. This can result in viable offspring, but those offspring are at greater risk of abnormalities.

Organophosphate, the class of insecticides that replaced the organochlorines as they were phased out, also present a range of deleterious impacts. These chemicals include pesticides like malathion, still widely used, and chlorpyrifos, which is only now being phased out of agricultural use.

Effects on sperm parameters are particularly pronounced for individuals in farming regions or with a history of occupational pesticide work.

However, studies on the general population also show cause for concern, finding total sperm count and concentrations inversely related to urinary metabolites of organophosphate insecticides.

Apart from sperm quality, the literature reveals several studies showing organophosphate exposure resulting in missing or extra chromosomes in sperm, with particular attention paid to diethyl phosphate, a non-specific organophosphate metabolite.

Synthetic pyrethroids are also singled out in the scientific literature for their links to sperm damage. These are the insecticides that are replacing the organophosphates, as they are being phased out for their myriad health hazards.

Unfortunately, the game of whack-a-mole played by the pesticide industry with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s allowance has not resulted in chemicals that are safer for long-term human fertility.

Like organophosphates, occupationally exposed individuals are particularly affected, with pyrethroid factory workers showing higher rates of sperm abnormalities and lower motility than non-exposed individuals. Factory workers are also more likely to exhibit DNA fragmentation in their sperm.

Another concentration-dependent relationship is found, with individuals reporting higher levels of urinary 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA), a non-specific pyrethroid metabolite, having a lower sperm counts, disomy and a greater chance of exhibiting sperm morphology below WHO thresholds.

Beyond these three classes, scientists did find evidence of negative associations with carbamate class insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, but the low number of studies does not allow for extensive analysis. Mixtures of various pesticides are cited as having similar effects to the three main pesticide classes investigated though firm results were difficult to specify due to lack of complete information.

In general, occupationally exposed workers are most at risk, with chronic exposure being associated with greater sperm defects.

The results of the study are concerning in light of steadily declining sperm counts. A 2017 study found that sperm counts since 1973 have fallen by nearly 60%.

One author of that study, Shanna Swan, Ph.D., captured public attention regarding sperm declines through her book “Countdown,” which goes into great depth regarding the impact of environmental chemicals on human fertility.

Watch Dr. Swan’s talk, “Modern Life and the Threat to the Future,” at Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 National Forum, Cultivating Healthy Communities.

Researchers have been sounding the alarm on the impact of pesticides on fertility for decades. In 2013, a previous literature review evaluating pesticide impacts on fertility found pesticides strongly associated with declines in sperm count.

As she recounted in a presentation at Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 National Pesticide Forum Dr. Swan’s own work is borne out of efforts to try to disprove a paper published in 1992 by Carlsen et al., which highlights significant declines in sperm quality since the late 1930s.

As the human civilization grapples with a range of cascading crises, from climate change to the insect apocalypse and global biodiversity crisis, we may be missing the chance to address one of the most critical aspects to the continuation of humanity as we now know it.

Originally published by Beyond Pesticides.

from: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/male-fertility-toxic-pesticide-chemical-exposure/

Download for Free: Robert F. Kennedy’s New Book — ‘A Letter to Liberals’

Of Elephants and Belief

Posted on August 15, 2022 by marcia

Are Your Thoughts and Beliefs REALLY Yours? The Story of the Spotted Elephant

June 3rd, 2022

By Dr. Michelle KmiecGuest Writer for Wake Up World

To explain the concept of molding your thoughts and beliefs to someone else’s i of what is or isn’t, we must take a look at how our minds work when it comes to believing or not believing that something exists. Whether it is true or not. This is especially important today when most of us get our news stories in single sentence alerts, and from single sources that already align with your belief system. Of course, this is exactly how we hope science doesn’t work.

Many perceive the human mind is of finite boundaries. In other words, we must be able to see things in a tangible manner; in a way that the mind can perceive the information. (Of course, our minds are not finite, but the Scientific Method has not evolved to take that into account; at least not yet). We make it finite by putting any gathered information in some sort of order. In mental boxes or file cabinet so that we are able to understand the information that enters our senses. If we see something that doesn’t make sense, we can’t just allow it to be simply something that doesn’t make sense…we must make sense out of the nonsense.

How is this done?

By using previously gathered information, which at all costs must be explainable, repeatable, and tangible in order to be considered “real”. Never mind that this method excludes a multitude of existing information. Kind of like how important evidence can be thrown out of a court of law due to improper procedures.

But isn’t information and evidence still exactly what it is…information and evidence?

And what happens when there is the need to prove something that isn’t really based on our definition of what is deemed to be real or not? Well, there is a hierarchy of so-called credible people that we automatically trust to tell us when something is real or isn’t real. Let’s explore how this works by looking at the following playful example:

NEWS ALERT: The Little Orange Elephant With Bright Red Dots

A person claims that they saw a little orange elephant with bright red dots, no bigger than a mouse, walk by.

Okay, well, besides being extremely unfashionable with such coloring, this occurrence may be a bit hard for you to believe. But… what if it was your friend that had seen the little elephant? What would you think? Would you believe them? Well, if you are like most of us, you might be thinking your friend may have a small problem and should consider seeking some “professional” help!

And what if it was the homeless fellow living on the street that saw this little orange elephant? What would you think then? I would wager a guess that you’d be crossing to the other side of the street in a pretty fast sprint!

Now let’s say that the person who saw this unlikely creature was the very eccentric artist who is known for her imagination? Would this make a difference? We may think “how cute” it is that she, “thinks” she saw a little orange and red elephant and, by the way, not at all unusual given the character of this creative artist.

Now let’s say that it was an influential person, such as some credible scientist, who saw this little colorful trunk-nosed animal. What would we think now? This is where we begin to really break the rules of “what is,” or perhaps where the “what is” was created.

Most of us would still probably think that this scientist had inhaled a few too many chemicals in his lab, while a few of us may stroke our chins and wonder, “what if he did see this thing? I mean he isn’t just anybody…he’s a scientist after all!”

Okay, okay…are you still hanging with me because now it’s really starting to get good!

Now let’s say that at the most recent annual conference of the Nobel Prize winners (now THESE are the most credible, influential people on the planet, right?) EVERYONE saw this little orange elephant with bright red dots walking across the stage. (And I’m not even going to go crazy by saying the little elephant was dancing across the stage…he was just merely walking; because that’s more believable, right?) Of these highly regarded scientists, how many would admit they saw this little guy? How many would believe it was, perhaps, some sort of terrorist attack? And once word had gotten out, how many of us would be glued to the 24-hour sensationalist cable news channels?

“Did you hear about the alleged little elephant sighting? They said he had red dots!”

“Did this really happen?”

“Are there more little elephants roaming our cities, or was this the only one?”

“Maybe they are really little aliens disguised as orange elephants with bright red dots and they are going to take over the planet!”

You know there would be a series of point-counter-point interviews with “specialists” from various arenas—if you watch cable news channels, by now you realize that there are specialists for everything! Perhaps there is a Cryptozoologist (the study of unknown animals…a “pseudoscience” of course) and a Zoologist (the study of known animals…you know, “real” science) for a “balanced” debate.

Or maybe there is another debate between a Republican strategist and Democratic strategist—after all, it is a known fact that most scientists, as well as most of the academia, are “demo” liberals and it would be just like them to come up with something wacky like this to take the public’s focus away from the real issues – so say their Republican counterparts!

So the bigger question here is…how many people would now believe this all to be true? That there indeed is a little orange elephant with bright red dots no bigger than a mouse running around out there…and it’s still on the loose! I would even bet that there would be an immediate creation of something like The Colorful Little Elephant Society (TCLES)—website, theme song and all!

So, as with anything abstract or “imaginary,” it can be difficult for most people to comprehend information presented in this fashion, even for many scientists! Up until now, we have been comfortable with the certainty of Newtonian Physics that tells us to neatly place everything that is considered “known” into solid theories which ultimately become universal laws. So this shows how the scientific method requires specific criteria in order for something to be proven as truth and classified as “real”.

But what about those people who have been healed from “incurable” diagnoses outside of the required criteria? What of those who have survived cancers (even stage 4) from “alternative” methods? What of those who have been cured of diabetes in only a few months? And what of those who have been totally healed through energy medicine—the most intangible form of health care known (or unknown) to man yet?

We are in the infancy stages of this new idea. Many call it new science, new age, quantum physics. But whatever the term used, the essence of this theory scares many who have relied upon what is considered “known”. And it is incomprehensible to those scientists who feel they must be able to “touch” it, record it and most importantly control it.

Imagine when the idea that our world was not really the center of the universe was presented to the scientists of that time. The confusion, even denial, they must have felt. How can we expand our mind and see what we “think” isn’t there, yet, “know” that it really does actually exist? There is a story that on their first encounter with the Europeans, the American Indians could not see the first strange ship as it approached their shores, mainly due to the fact that it was not in their psyche to recognize it. Perhaps the same may be said about UFO sightings.

Isn’t it possible that this can also be applied to medicine? I think yes!

We seem to always want to “box” up different concepts and then forever rely on these packages for all things that require an explanation. And just like we are reluctant to throw away the boxes we have carefully stored in our attics, we continue to allow ourselves to be buried deeper and deeper in our dogmatic box. We stand with such dogmatic arrogance and conviction that we even deny the possibility of new and different concepts simply because we find it impossible to “box” the “unboxable”.

So why would some of us believe that this little orange elephant with bright red dots does exist, while others simply refuse to believe it? What if it turned out that quantum theory proves that parallel universes do in fact exist and that for a few moments we saw an example of something that lives in another world—a world that simultaneously exists with our own.

If what we actually “know” to be true is in fact not true, where does this put our current beliefs and moreover, our strongly dogmatic position of what reality really is?

Science, via quantum physics, has found that everything we believe to exist really doesn’t exist as we think it does. Based on that premise, how can we state with true conviction what is real and what is not? How can we continue to trust those few who are so entrenched in a medically dogmatic position, even when it is obvious that the system is not just broken, but is decaying from its very core?

Pop Quiz: What color was the little elephant? Did you remember the elephant as orange or did pink pop into your head first? If you thought orange, good for you! If you thought pink, then this is a perfect example of the power of dogmatic belief in action!

Originally published at onlineholistichealth.com and reproduced here with permission.

from: https://wakeup-world.com/2022/06/03/are-your-thoughts-and-beliefs-really-yours-the-story-of-the-spotted-elephant/

MInd Control & the Power of the Press

Posted on February 18, 2022 by marcia

Researchers Study Crafting Messages for Vaccine Compliance

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

February 16, 2022

In a study sponsored by Yale University — and started before COVID-19 shots were rolled out — researchers tested different messages of how to best persuade people to get injected.

Officially titled, “Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake,”¹ the researchers must have had some forethought that people would be wary of an experimental gene therapy, and set to work to decipher the best propaganda campaign to ensure their widespread uptake.

The study’s abstract starts out with questionable statements from the start, parroting the myth that “Widespread vaccination remains the best option for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ending the pandemic.”² The authors do not, however, expand on how this is so, considering that just three months after the shot those who are injected are just as likely to pass COVID-19 to their close contacts as those who do not get the shot.^3,4

The reasons why people may be reluctant to get COVID-19 shots — such as safety and efficacy concerns — are also ignored by the study,⁵ which is only concerned with how to best use psychological tactics to get people on board with being injected.

Guilt, Anger, Embarrassment or Cowardice — What Works Best?

The full study, which was published in the December 3, 2021, issue of Vaccine,⁶ involved two experiments. The first tested “treatment messages” designed to affect people’s intentions about whether or not to get the shot. For the control group, subjects were exposed to a message about bird feeding, while others read the baseline vaccine message, as follows:

“To end the COVID-19 outbreak, it is important for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 whenever a vaccine becomes available. Getting the COVID-19 vaccine means you are much less likely to get COVID-19 or spread it to others. Vaccines are safe and widely used to prevent diseases and vaccines are estimated to save millions of lives every year.”

For the experiment, the following messages were added to the baseline message:⁷

Personal freedom message	Economic freedom message
Self-interest message	Community interest message
Economic benefit message	Guilt message
Embarrassment message	Anger message
Trust in science message	Not bravery message

For example, the guilt message, which is designed to work by social pressure, reads:⁸

“The message is about the danger that COVID-19 presents to the health of one’s family and community. The best way to protect them is by getting vaccinated and society must work together to get enough people vaccinated. Then it asks the participant to imagine the guilt they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”

Never mind that this statement is false, since they can still spread the disease if they’re injected. Similarly misleading messages designed to demean, guilt and shame people into getting the shot include:⁹

“If one doesn’t get vaccinated that means that one doesn’t understand how infections are spread or who ignores science.”
“Those who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are not brave.”
“[I]t asks the participant to imagine the embarrassment they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”
“[I]t asks the participant to imagine the anger they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.”

The researchers explained it this way:¹⁰

“One subgroup of messages draws on the idea that mass vaccination is a collective action problem and highlighting the prosocial benefit of vaccination or the reputational costs that one might incur if one chooses not to vaccinate. Another subgroup of messages built on contemporary concerns about the pandemic, like issues of restricting personal freedom or economic security.

We find that persuasive messaging that invokes prosocial vaccination and social image concerns is effective at increasing intended uptake and also the willingness to persuade others and judgments of non-vaccinators.”

Propaganda Messages Created With No Scientific Support

It’s ironic that the study includes a “trust in science” message, since the messages used in the study were created in early or mid-2020, before science was available to support them. Yet, as noted by a Children’s Health Defense (CHD) article, “The messages tested by the researchers have been woven into mainstream media narratives and public health campaigns throughout the world.”¹¹

In the second part of the study, the most effective messages from part one were tested on a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. This included the baseline message along with community interest, community interest + embarrassment, not bravery, trust in science and personal freedom messages.

They found that, compared to the control group, psychological messages that involve community interest, reciprocity and embarrassment worked best, leading to a 30% increase in intention to get injected, along with a 24% increase in willingness to tell a friend to get injected and a 38% increase in negative opinions of those who decline to get the shot.¹²

The messages are designed to not only impact people on an individual level, but also further divide society by encouraging people to pass negative judgment onto others and pressure others to comply with “social norms.” According to the researchers:

“Viewing vaccination through the lens of a collective action problem suggests that in addition to increasing individuals’ intentions to receive a vaccine, effective public health messages would also increase people’s willingness to encourage those close to them to vaccinate and to hold negative judgments of those who do not vaccinate.

By encouraging those close to them to vaccinate, people are both promoting compliance with social norms and increasing their own level of protection against the disease. Also, by judging those who do not vaccinate more negatively, they apply social pressure to others to promote cooperative behavior.”

Shots as a ‘Morally Right Choice’

Since the pandemic began, conforming to confusing and questionable public health mandates has been made an issue of moral superiority — to the point that those who questioned mask mandates were labeled as “grandma killers.”¹³

In an article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020, it’s further noted that “vaccination is a social contract in which cooperation is the morally right choice.”¹⁴ It further suggests that, under this social contract, people should change their behaviors toward those who choose not to get injected, and, indeed, people who are “especially compliant,” i.e., vaccinated, were less generous to those who were not.¹⁵ Further:¹⁶

“If so, vaccinated individuals should reciprocate by being more generous to a vaccinated other. On the contrary, if the other doesn’t vaccinate and violates the social contract, generosity should decline.”

Propaganda Aimed at Making People Feel ‘Disgusting’

CHD pointed out that one of the authors of the Yale study, Saad Omer, “has an extensive interest in public health messaging” and was behind the “Building Vaccine Confidence Through Tailored Messaging Campaigns” in 2020, which used social media to convince people to get COVID-19 and other shots.¹⁷

Working with the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts Working Group on COVID-19 Vaccines, Omer detailed what worked in the past to increase the uptake of the HPV vaccine, and suggested it could work for COVID-19 shots. The solution, he said, involved appealing to values and stooping so low as to make a person feel disgusting while presenting vaccines as a form of purity. CHD quoted Omer, who said:¹⁸

“We wanted to test out, can we have a purity-based message? So we showed them pictures of genital warts and described a vignette, a narrative, a story, talking about how someone got genital warts and how disgusting they were and how pure vaccines are that sort of restore the sanctity of the body.

So we just analyzed these data. This was a randomized control trial with apriori outcomes. We found approximately 20 percentage point effect on people’s likelihood of getting an HPV vaccine in the next 6 months … We are trying out liberty-based messages or liberty-mediated messaging around this behavior related to COVID-19 outbreak.

That wearing a mask or taking precautions eventually make you free, regain your autonomy. Because if the disease rates are low, your activities can resume.”

This is similar propaganda to what’s being used to promote vaccine passports, with many willingly giving up freedoms that, once gone, may be difficult, if not impossible, to get back. By showing proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 shot, via a digital certificate or app on your phone, the hope is that you can once again travel freely, attend a concert or enjoy a meal in your favorite restaurant, just like you used to.

Except, being required to present your “papers” in order to live your life isn’t actually freedom at all — it’s a loss of freedom that you once had, one that disappeared right before your eyes and one that’s setting the stage for increased surveillance and control, and erosion of your privacy.

Propaganda Is the Real Misinformation

Carefully crafted messages that play on your emotions and moral compass are just one part of the campaign to ensure public compliance with the mainstream narrative. Fact checking is another tool being used in order to control virtually everything you see and hear online, in order to serve a greater agenda.¹⁹

Take the term “conspiracy theory,” which is now used to dismiss narratives that go against the grain. According to investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, this is intentional, as the term itself was devised by the CIA as a response to theories about the assassination of JFK.

Debunked, quackery and antivaccine are all terms that are similarly being used as propaganda tools. “There’s a whole cast of propaganda phrases that I’ve outlined that are cues. When you hear them, they should make you think, ‘I need to find out more about it,’” Attkisson says.²⁰

Likewise, CHD explained, “The efforts to eliminate ‘misinformation’ resulted in unprecedented censorship of virtually anything that steps outside of state-sanctioned consensus and the creation of a captive audience primed to accept a singular narrative.”²¹

It’s important to remain aware that messages are being carefully crafted to mold human behavior to comply with COVID-19 shots and other public health measures — and to recognize that the use of propaganda is perfectly legal, even in the U.S.

As CHD continued, “And thanks to a multibillion-dollar budget from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we are under the influence of the best messages money can buy — whether or not those messages are true.”²²

from: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/02/16/covid-19-vaccine-messaging.aspx?ui=f460707c057231d228aac22d51b97f2a8dcffa7b857ec065e5a5bfbcfab498ac&sd=20211017&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art2HL&cid=20220216_HL2&mid=DM1115583&rid=1409869533

(PLEASE NOTE: This article will be available on the site for 48 hours. It can be accssed in Mercola’s Censored Library after that time.)

Where’s Your Crypto?

Posted on February 17, 2022 by marcia

CNBC Investigations

Fraudsters are using bots to drain cryptocurrency accounts

Published Tue, Feb 15 20227:00 AM ESTUpdated Tue, Feb 15 2022 8:16 AM EST

Scott Zamost @scottzamost

Eamon Javers @EamonJavers

Key Points

Fraudsters are selling bots on Telegram that are designed to trick investors into divulging their two-factor authentication, leading to accounts being wiped out.
Crypto investors are being targeted around the country.
Dr. Anders Apgar, a Coinbase customer, said his account had a balance of more than $100,000 in crypto when it was hacked during a robocall

Dr. Anders Apgar was out for dinner last month with his family, and his phone would not stop buzzing. It looked like a robocall, so he tried to ignore it.

But the calls would not stop. Then his wife’s phone also started to ring.

“When she picks it up, a banner came across, a notification that says, ‘Your account’s in jeopardy,’” he said.

The warning, which he said was a text message, prompted him to pick up his phone. That was when the couple’s nightmare started.

It’s the kind of nightmare many crypto account holders around the country are facing as hackers target a boom in the industry, cybersecurity experts said.

The Apgars, who are both Maryland-based obstetricians, began investing in cryptocurrency several years ago. By December, their account had grown to about $106,000, mainly held in bitcoin. Like millions of investors across the country, their account is with Coinbase, the country’s largest cryptocurrency platform.

When Apgar picked up the phone, a female voice said, “Hello, welcome to Coinbase security prevention line. We have detected unauthorized activity due to failed log-in attempt on your account. This was requested from a Canada IP address. If this (is) not you, please press 1, to complete precautions recovering your account.” The call lasted just 19 seconds.

Alarmed, Apgar pressed 1.

He said he cannot remember if he manually entered his two-factor authentication code or if it came up automatically on his screen. But what happened in that moment led to his account being locked in less than two minutes. As Apgar has not regained access, he said he assumes the fraudsters stole most if not all of the crypto, but he can’t be sure.

“It was just dread and an emptiness of just, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t get this back,’” he said.

The Apgars were targeted by a particularly insidious type of fraud that takes advantage of two-factor authentication, or 2FA. People use 2FA, a second level of security that often involves a passcode, to safeguard a range of accounts at crypto exchanges, banks or anywhere else they carry out digital transactions.

Dr. Anders Apgar

CNBC

But this new type of fraud goes right at that 2FA code, and it uses people’s fear of their accounts being hacked against them. In taking action they think will protect them, they actually expose themselves to thieves.

The fraud tool is called a one-time password, or OTP, bot.

A report produced by Florida-based cybersecurity firm and CNBC contributor Q6 Cyber said the OTP bots are driving substantial losses for financial and other institutions. The damage is hard to quantify now because the bot attacks are relatively new.

“The bot calls are crafted in a very skillful manner, creating a sense of urgency and trust over the phone. The calls rely on fear, convincing the victims to act to ‘avoid’ fraud in their account,” the report said.

The scam works in part because victims are used to providing a code for authentication to verify account information. At first listen, the robocalls can sound legitimate — especially if the victim is harried or distracted by other things at the moment the call comes in.

“It’s human nature,” said Jessica Kelley, a Q6 Cyber analyst who authored the report. “If you receive a call that tells you someone’s trying to sign in to your account, you’re not thinking, ‘Well, I wasn’t trying to.’”

The bots began showing up for sale on messaging platform Telegram last summer. Kelley identified at least six Telegram channels with more than 10,000 subscribers each selling the bots.

While there is no official estimate on the amount of crypto stolen, Kelley said fraudsters routinely brag on Telegram about how well the bots have worked, netting for each user thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto. The cost of the bots ranges from $100 a month to $4,000 for a lifetime subscription.

“Before these OTP bots, a cybercriminal would have to make that call himself,” Kelley said. “They would have to call the victim and try to get them to divulge their personal identifiable information or bank account PIN or their 2FA passcode. And now, with these bots, that whole system is just automated and the scalability is that much larger.”

“Once the victim inputs that 2FA code, or any other information that they requested the victim put in their phone, that information gets sent to the bot,” Kelley said. The bot “then automatically sends it to the cybercriminal, who then has access to the victim’s account.”

She said criminals could “potentially steal everything, because with these transactions, they can do them one after the other until the amount is basically drained.”

In a statement to CNBC, a Coinbase spokesperson said, “Coinbase will never make unsolicited calls to its customers, and we encourage everyone to be cautious when providing information over the phone. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from a financial institution (whether Coinbase or your bank), do not disclose any of your account details or security codes. Instead, hang up and call them back at an official phone number listed on the organization’s website.”

David Silver, another Coinbase customer, knew the company would not be calling him. He recently received a robocall saying there was a problem with his account.

“And immediately, it was an electronic voice that told me it was Coinbase Fraud Department,” he said. “And I immediately turned to the lawyer sitting next to me and said, ‘Start videoing.’ I knew instantaneously what this was and what it was going to be.”

Attorney David Silver

CNBC

Silver knew what the call was about because he is not just a Coinbase client — he is an attorney who specializes in cryptocurrency and financial fraud cases.

Silver pressed 1 and found himself on a live call. A person got on the line pretending to be a Coinbase employee.

“And they immediately started telling me things that I know are in violation of what Coinbase would do,” he said. “For instance, they will never ask for your password. They will never try and take over your computer.”

Silver asked if he could be sent an email verifying that the call was from Coinbase. The answer was no.

“And their answer was no because there’s only certain ways that you can mask the email coming directly from a domain that nowadays, the domain carriers such as GoDaddy, Google — it’s very hard to spoof email coming from the domains,” he said. “And they weren’t willing to send me the email. I would say that was my last shred of hope that they were legitimate is when I asked them to send me the email and they said no.”

After nearly seven minutes, Silver was asked to share his computer screen. He ended the call.

“I’m not surprised I got the call. But I do question how they had my personal cell phone number and where they’re getting that information to tie me to Coinbase,” he said.

Apgar said he wishes he had never answered the phone. To make matters worse, he has been unable to get his account access restored, he said. When CNBC reached out to Coinbase about the Apgars regaining access to their account, a company spokesperson said the matter was turned over to its security team.

Apgar said Monday that he had just responded to an email from Coinbase to help restore access to the account.

Customer service at Coinbase has been a widespread problem, CNBC found last year. Customers around the country said hackers were draining their accounts but when they turned to Coinbase for help they could not get a response. After the story, Coinbase set up a phone support line to help customers, but even that has been fraught with problems.

Asked what he could have done differently, Apgar said it’s simple: not answer the phone.

from: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/crypto-fraudsters-use-robocalls-to-drain-accounts.html

Neuralink Testing & Results

Posted on February 17, 2022 by marcia

15 of 23 Monkeys with Elon Musk’s Neuralink Brain Chips Died after Extreme Suffering

February 13, 2022

Screen Shot 2022-02-13 at 9.34.12 PM — Unsplash

Out of 23 monkeys that had Elon Musk’s Neuralink microchips implanted in their brains at the University of California Davis between 2017 and 2020, 15 of them died, and all suffered debilitating health effects, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Neuralink was founded in 2016 with a goal of helping people recover from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, curing depression, and connecting humans to the internet.

Out of a total of 23 monkeys implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips at the University of California Davis between 2017 and 2020, at least 15 reportedly died.

Via Business Insider and the New York Post, the news comes from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal-rights group that viewed over 700 pages of documents, veterinary records, and necropsy reports through a public records request at the university.

Neuralink was founded in 2016 with a goal of helping people recover from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, curing depression and other mental health disorders, and connecting humans to the internet for everything from music streaming to near-telepathic communication. The company has often touted its successes, such as a demonstration on a pig in 2020, and a 2021 video of a macaque playing Pong with its mind.

The project has attracted a great deal of interest from celebrities like Grimes and Lil Uzi Vert, and people suffering from paralysis often petition Musk on social media to be a part of human trials. Musk previously said that he hoped to begin human trials in 2021, but that goal has been pushed back to 2022. Based on the PCRM’s findings, the brain chips may be nowhere near ready.

“Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from pretty debilitating health effects,” said the PCRM’s research advocacy director Jeremy Beckham. “They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals.”

Neuralink chips were implanted by drilling holes into the monkeys’ skulls. One primate developed a bloody skin infection and had to be euthanized. Another was discovered missing fingers and toes, “possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma,” and had to be put down. A third began uncontrollably vomiting shortly after surgery, and days later “appeared to collapse from exhaustion/fatigue.” An autopsy revealed the animal suffered from a brain hemorrhage.

The PCRM filed a complaint with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday, accusing UC Davis and Neuralink of nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act. “Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a ‘brain-machine interface,’” the group wrote in the complaint.

Read full article here…

from: https://needtoknow.news/2022/02/%ef%bf%bc15-of-23-monkeys-with-elon-musks-neuralink-brain-chips-died-after-extreme-suffering/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=%25ef%25bf%25bc15-of-23-monkeys-with-elon-musks-neuralink-brain-chips-died-after-extreme-suffering