Double Standards
society
That’s a Wrap!
From: https://afipn.com.au/thats-a-wrap/
Peter Chris February 19, 2022 3 min read
You know you are living in strange times when a British Rapper makes more sense than groups of “experts” such as Ozsage and politicians when it comes to managing and understanding humanity during a pandemic.
Nzube Olisaebuka Udezue, better known by his stage name Zuby, is a British rapper. Born in Luton, Udezue was raised in Saudi Arabia and England and graduated from St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 2007. In 2006, he started his rapping career and pursued it full-time in 2011 and has released numerous albums.
Here is a list of the twenty things he observed about humanity during the Covid Pandemic.
- Most people would rather be in the majority than be right.
- At least 20% of the population has strong authoritarian tendencies, which will emerge under the right conditions.
- Fear of death is only rivalled by the fear of social disapproval. The latter could be stronger.
- Propaganda is just as effective in the modern day as it was 100 years ago. Access to limitless information has not made the average person any wiser.
- Anything and everything can and will be politicised by the media, government, and those who trust them.
- Many politicians and large corporations will gladly sacrifice human lives if it is conducive to their political and financial aspirations.
- Most people believe the government acts in the best interests of the people. Even many who are vocal critics of the government.
- Once they have made up their mind, most people would rather to commit to being wrong than admit they were wrong.
- Humans can be trained and conditioned quickly and relatively easily to significantly alter their behaviours – for better or worse.
- When sufficiently frightened, most people will not only accept authoritarianism, but demand it.
- People who are dismissed as ‘conspiracy theorists’ are often well researched and simply ahead of the mainstream narrative.
- Most people value safety and security more than freedom and liberty, even if said ‘safety’ is merely an illusion.
- Hedonic adaptation occurs in both directions, and once inertia sets in, it is difficult to get people back to ‘normal’.
- A significant percentage of people thoroughly enjoy being subjugated.
- ‘The Science’ has evolved into a secular pseudo-religion for millions of people in the West. This religion has little to do with science itself.
- Most people care more about looking like they are doing the right thing, rather than actually doing the right thing.
- Politics, the media, science, and the healthcare industries are all corrupt, to varying degrees. Scientists and doctors can be bought as easily as politicians.
- If you make people comfortable enough, they will not revolt. You can keep millions docile as you strip their rights by giving them money, food, and entertainment.
- Modern people are overly complacent and lack vigilance when it comes to defending their own freedoms from government overreach.
- It’s easier to fool a person than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Imagine if the politicians had this amount of common sense and courage so they could challenge and say no to some of the ridiculous and outright moronic Covid rules demanded by the experts to keep us all safe instead of shaming people’s concerns and calling them conspiracy theorists which is nothing more than a derogatory title used to dismiss critical thinking.
I, like most of you reading this article long for the day when the final scene of this pandemic horror movie is finished, and we hear the words “that’s a wrap” but for now we have to be content with a Rapper making more sense than so-called experts who have never missed a day off work or a cent of their pay.
Melanie Phillips: Whoops, Whoopi: the Holocaust was all about race
The celebrity’s ignorance reflects the twisted views of an alarming number of people
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Whoopi Goldberg has got herself into a terrible mess. She was suspended from her role as co-host of ABC’s The View talk show after saying that the Holocaust wasn’t about race. It was instead, she said, about “man’s inhumanity to man” involving “white people doing it to white people”.
She insisted: “It’s about how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Jews … everybody eats each other”.
This was clearly idiotic. The signature characteristic of German Nazism was that it set out to exterminate Jews as a race, identifying them as targets for annihilation on the basis of even a tenuous ancestral connection with Judaism.
Attempting to apologise in the ensuing storm, Goldberg made things even worse. Saying she had now learned that “Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race,” she then told Stephen Colbert on his late-night comedy show that the Nazis had lied and actually had issues not with race but with ethnicity — which caused further outrage and prompted another apology.
This furore should not be dismissed as merely an ignorant celebrity making stupid and offensive remarks. For Goldberg didn’t arrive at these views in a vacuum. They reflect twisted attitudes held by an alarming number of people, but which are generally glossed over because these people are black.
Goldberg tied herself up in this unedifying knot because of her assumption that racism isn’t racism unless it is directed by white people against black people.
Read the rest of the article here
Bill Muehlenberg: DISMANTLING THE COVID SHIBBOLETHS
Bill Muehlenberg writes:
DISMANTLING THE COVID SHIBBOLETHS
Busting the Rona myths:
There have been a number of mantras pushed over the past two years in regards to the Rona which the “experts” have assured us are completely true and fully based on the science. But just this week two of the biggest ones have taken further blows: that we all must be locked down, and that we all must get jabbed. Important new studies continue to appear showing these have been hugely questionable health mandates.
There has been plenty of research showing how wrong the statists have been in locking us all down and demanding that we are to be coerced into having substances injected into our bodies against our compliance. Two of the newest bits of research on these matters simply further confirm what we have known for quite some time now.
Take the issue of harsh, draconian lockdowns – something I and others have been speaking against for nearly two years now. Many have argued that the evidence points to the fact that they actually cause more harm than good. And even if not, they are doing little to stop the spread of Covid deaths.
Consider one new study, a Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of studies. This 60-page report is found here: sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf
Read the rest of the article here
Jo Nova: Huge Spike in US Military Injuries From Covid Vaccinations
From Jo Nova:
Game-changer: US Military Data shows shockingly high vaccination injuries
ABomb: Last week a lawyer for military personnel spoke about the extraordinary rise in medical conditions that occurred after vaccination against Covid. This is one of the largest and best kept medical datasets in the world, the people in it are mostly young and healthy, and the whistleblowers have signed legal declarations.
The military data suggests most national vaccination databases suffer from gross underreporting of adverse events.
In the World-We-Thought-We-Lived-In, this would have been Frontpage news the next day. Calls should be coming in from all around to pause vaccinations immediately until it can be reviewed.
The three whistleblowers noticed strange patterns in the patients they were treating. They trawled through data on medical billing from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED).
Aside from the [300%] spike in miscarriage diagnoses, there was an almost 300% increase in cancer diagnoses (from a five-year average of 38,700 per year to 114,645 in the first 11 months of 2021). There was also a 1,000% increase in neurological issues, which increased from a baseline average of 82,000 to 863,000.
The event was a five hour hearing held by US Senator Ron Johnson. Lawyer Thomas Renz has been representing clients suing over vaccine mandates and he was on fire. As well as the risks above, there were many conditions with rates far above their long term averages:
- myocardial infarction –269% increase
- Bell’s palsy – 291% increase
- congenital malformations (for children of military personnel) – 156% increase
- female infertility – 471% increase
- pulmonary embolisms – 467% increase
“Our soldiers are being experimented on, injured and sometimes killed…”
The increase in medical reports didn’t happen during the first year of Covid, only after the vaccination program was started. In other words, Covid itself didn’t cause this.
Hopefully, for everyone’s sake, the effects will fade with time, especially if people don’t get boosted, or choose a safer vaccine, or an even safer anti-viral.
Read the rest of the article here
Maybe We Aren’t So Crazy
If you think the world is becoming crazier (like a teacher being sacked for failing to respect a student’s desire to be treated like a cat), think again. Apparently we are just acting out like any society that is overly wealthy and faces no external threats.
Take a look at this video. Warning: a couple of F’s get thrown in towards the end.
What Is Fascism Anyway?
Bill Muehlenberg: A Closer Look At Witchcraft
Bill Muehlenberg takes a Closer Look At Witchcraft
Yes we must be wary of witchcraft:
With all things occultish and neopagan being the rage today, it is time to examine more closely various things such as witchcraft and related practices. This can be done in different ways. Yesterday I penned a piece looking at what the Bible has to say about such things. You can see that piece here: billmuehlenberg.com/2022/01/08/the-bible-and-witchcraft/
Today I want to look at the contemporary scene a bit, and tomorrow I will provide an inspiring testimony of a former witch who is now a follower of Jesus. Her personal story will help to move all this beyond mere theory, and show us just what is really going on here.
As to what is happening in the West today, plenty can be said. And plenty of books have been penned on these matters. Many of the books I list in my bibliography on the New Age Movement would have chapters on witchcraft, sorcery, and the like: billmuehlenberg.com/2017/06/14/recommended-reading-new-age-movement/
Here I want to draw upon just one volume (although many good ones could be featured). Back in 2004 Brooks Alexander wrote Witchcraft Goes Mainstream (Harvest House). He had founded the California-based Spiritual Counterfeits Project back in 1973. This organisation is still going strong (although he stepped down from it in 1998): www.scp-inc.org/
He was once heavily involved in the occult before coming to Christ, so he knows full well whereof he speaks. This 280-page work is well documented and well written. Early on he notes four different meanings or categories of witchcraft: biblical; anthropological; historical; and modern religious. This book primarily focuses on the last category. He says this about it:
Almost 250 years after historical witchcraft ceased to exist, modern Witchcraft appeared. It was essentially the creation of one man, in England, in the 1940s [Gerald Gardner]. But as it grew, and especially when it came to the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, modern Witchcraft mushroomed into a populist magical mystery cult that has become one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing movements in America.
Religious Witchcraft was originally conceived as a goddess-centered nature religion (and given the name of “Wicca”), but in the decades since it came to America, the movement has not only increased in numbers and influence, it has also diversified far beyond its original concept.
As to what Witchcraft really consists of, it is quite difficult to pin down:
Witchcraft is individualistic to the point of being anarchic, with no centralized authority or even any agreed-upon definition of what a “Witch” is. In effect, a Witch is whoever says they are a Witch, and Witch beliefs and practices amount to whatever individual Witches actually believe and do. The problem with this approach is that the people who say they are Witches actually believe and do so many different things that no single description fits them all. In fact, the Witches themselves have been stymied in several attempts to come up with a definition.
He notes how the media explosion about witchcraft in the 1990s really gave the movement a massive boost:
In short order, Witchcraft was transformed into a pop-culture phenomenon, and “Wicca” became a teenage fad that didn’t fade, but turned into an enduring trend. Those developments swelled the ranks of Neopaganism far beyond its own “structure” (such as it was), which was based on the various self-proclaimed Witchcraft groups and other organizations making up the active core of the movement. Suddenly, all of that was overshadowed by happenings in the popular media. Suddenly, there were tens of thousands of (mostly young) people running around calling themselves “witches,” and taking their ideas about what that means, not from a tradition, or a teacher of tradition, but from the internet, or a movie, or a TV show. The movement had become a mass movement almost overnight, and it was quickly growing beyond anyone’s ability to control, or direct, or even to measure.
Read the full article here
American Vision: Christ or Chaos
This article from American Vision is about the U.S. but applies equally to Australia
The battle today is over lordship. The issue of politics today is the issue of sovereignty. Who is the Lord of all of life to whom man must give his total allegiance, Christ or Caesar? The answer to this question is the difference between liberty and slavery, justice and tyranny.
The critical issue of our day is the relationship of Jesus Christ and His Word to our political and legal system in the United States. Who has jurisdiction over every aspect of American society, Jesus Christ or the State? Is this to be a nation founded on the precepts of the Bible or one founded on the shifting sands of humanism? The only faithful answer that a Bible believing Christian can give is this: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12). “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us” (Isaiah 33:22). Benjamin Franklin, addressing the Constitutional Convention, quoted Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain who build it.”
The Christian’s study of God’s Word must bring with it the desire and the ability to make application where Scripture makes application. If Scripture speaks to civil government then civil government must be called upon to acknowledge the Lord of Scripture and be reconstructed according to His demands. A. A. Hodge’s words are to the point and just as applicable today as they were a century ago:
If Christ is really king, exercising original and immediate jurisdiction over the State as really as he does over the church, it follows necessarily that the general denial or neglect of his rightful lordship, any prevalent refusal to obey that Bible which is the open law-book of his kingdom, must be followed by political and social as well as moral and religious ruin. If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the church. The kingdom of Christ is one, and cannot be divided in life or in death. If the Church languishes, the State cannot be in health; and if the State rebels against its Lord and King, the Church cannot enjoy his favour. If the Holy Ghost is withdrawn from the Church, he is not present in the State; and if he, the only “Lord, the Giver of life” be absent, then all order is impossible, and the elements of society lapse backward to primeval night and chaos . . . I charge you, citizens of the United States, afloat on your wide sea of politics, there is another king, one Jesus: the safety of the State can be secured only in the way of humble and whole-souled loyalty his person and obedience to His Law.” [1]
The political choice before us is Christ or chaos. Is Jesus “the King of kings and Lord of lords”? That is the question before American Christians. The issue is anything but peripheral.
Jo Nova: Microbes Are Dealing With The Plastic “Crisis”
Jo Nova writes:
Plastics are not forever: Bugs already evolved 30,000 new plastic eating enzymes
Plastics are a free dinner for life on Earth so it was just a matter of time before microbes evolved to eat it.
A PET bottle normally takes 16 – 48 years to break down, but if it were lunch for microflora it would take weeks instead. Hydrocarbons are ultimately just different forms of C-H-O waiting to be liberated as carbon dioxide and water. The only question was “how long” it would take bacteria and fungi to break those unusual bonds.
Sooner or later all plastic will be biodegradable.
Polyethylene-terephthalate (PET)
The first bacteria known to chew through PET bottles was discovered at a Japanese rubbish dump in 2016. But we had no idea then just how advanced the microbial world of plastic processing was.
A new study shows. Instead of hunting for single bacteria Zrimec et al mined through collected metagenomes of soil and ocean and found not just 5 or 10 new enzymes but 30,000. It appears that they could metabolize at least ten different types of plastic.
And in places where there was more plastic pollution, there were more enzymes. All over the world a whole new ecosystem is rising out of the puddles and bubbles and grains of sand.
Enzymes that degrade plastics are found all over the world
FIG 2 Plastic-degrading enzymes across the global microbiome. Depicted are 11,906 enzyme hits in the ocean and 18,119 in the soil data sets, obtained by constructing HMMs of known plastic-degrading enzymes and querying them across metagenomic sequencing data sets. The potential to degrade up to 10 and 9 different plastic types was observed in the respective ocean and soil fractions (Fig. S3A).
Mother Nature has a big toolshed of genes to play with:
With a library like this, is it any wonder life on Earth could find and amplify the right tools to process plastics?
For example, global ocean sampling revealed over 40 million mostly novel nonredundant genes from 35,000 species (35), whereas over 99% of the ∼160 million genes identified in global topsoil cannot be found in any previous microbial gene catalogue (34)
So there are 200 million genes to work with.
Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds
Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 15 Dec 2021
The explosion of plastic production in the past 70 years, from 2m tonnes to 380m tonnes a year, had given microbes time to evolve to deal with plastic, the researchers said. The study, published in the journal Microbial Ecology, started by compiling a dataset of 95 microbial enzymes already known to degrade plastic, often found in bacteria in rubbish dumps and similar places rife with plastic.
About 12,000 of the new enzymes were found in ocean samples, taken at 67 locations and at three different depths. The results showed consistently higher levels of degrading enzymes at deeper levels, matching the higher levels of plastic pollution known to exist at lower depths.
The soil samples were taken from 169 locations in 38 countries and 11 different habitats and contained 18,000 plastic-degrading enzymes. Soils are known to contain more plastics with phthalate additives than the oceans and the researchers found more enzymes that attack these chemicals in the land samples.
Nearly 60% of the new enzymes did not fit into any known enzyme classes, the scientists said, suggesting these molecules degrade plastics in ways that were previously unknown.
The not so apocalyptic plastic crisis
The new 250 page “Consensus” Study (their words) by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, is as out of date and useless as it sounds. While it is scoring headlines, scaring us about accumulating plastics, it largely writes off the idea that microbes will evolve to degrade plastic, saying “measurable biodegradation (complete carbon utilization by microbes) in the environment has not been observed.” Which is one of those true but useless statements.
Some 40 year old theory says it won’t happen:
Plastics with hydrolysable chemical backbones (e.g., PET and polyurethanes) may be more susceptible to enzymatic degradation and eventual biodegradation than those with carbon-carbon backbones (Amaral- Zettler, Zettler, and Mincer 2020), as illustrated by the discovery of PET-degrading bacteria isolated from a bottle recycling plant (Yoshida et al. 2016). However, Oberbeckmann and Labrenz (2020) argue, based upon Alexander’s (1975) paradigm on microbial metabolism of a substrate, that the very low bioavailability and relatively low concentration of plastics in the ocean together with their chemical stability render these molecules very unlikely candidates for biodegradation by marine microbes, despite their potential as an energy and carbon source.
But if plastics are so tiny and low in concentration, it’s a big “so what” — they are unlikely to be a problem. If they were concentrated in one place or collected in an organism, they could be bad, but then, of course, they also become fodder for microbes.
The bottom line: We don’t want to drown dolphins and trap turtles, but we shouldn’t demonize plastics either.
Don’t throw rubbish in the ocean or toss hype in national news. It’s all litter.
Hat tip to Kip Hansen at Watts Up.
REFERENCES
Zrimec et al (2021) Plastic-Degrading Potential across the Global Microbiome Correlates with Recent Pollution Trends, ASM Journals mBio Vol. 12, No. 5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02155-21
Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste, (2021) ISBN 978-0-309-45885-6 | DOI 10.17226/26132 https://www.nap.edu/download/26132
New Life Narrabri 