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Best of the Web: Beijing renews its call for Fort Detrick biolab probe as 4.7 million Chinese petition WHO to search for Covid origins in US


RT
Wed, 21 Jul 2021 19:17 UTC
swab test
© cnsphoto via REUTERS
The Chinese foreign ministry has backed calls for an investigation into the Fort Detrick biolab as an origin of the Covid-19 pandemic after 4.7 million Chinese petitioned the WHO to send experts to the Maryland facility.

Speaking on Wednesday, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the Chinese people had delivered a clear message in signing a petition, created by state-run news agency The Global Times, calling for a World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the Fort Detrick biolab.

"In less than five days, about five million people participated. The rising numbers represent the aspirations of the Chinese people and show their anger at some people in the US for political manipulation through the issue of traceability," he stated.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: The Cult Dynamics of Wokeness

James Lindsay
New Discourses
Wed, 21 Jul 2021 18:43 UTC
cult member woke
© Nafis Abman/Pexals
You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong.

Before I got involved in studying Critical Social Justice like I do now, I mostly studied the psychology of religion. I took particular interest in the more authoritarian and cultish elements that can spring up within otherwise more reasonable faith traditions. Cult indoctrinations, in particular, tend to follow very predictable stages. First, there is initiation; then there is indoctrination; and then there is reprogramming. These three phases are distinct and must be understood on their own terms.

I. Cult Initiation

One thing I learned through all that study is that most fundamentalist religious (in the colloquial, not technical sense) and cult conversions, especially in adults, occur by using doctrine to resolve some core emotional vulnerability. That is, cult doctrine, and I include extreme fundamentalist interpretations of religious doctrines as cultish, exists to resolve a particularly powerful emotional vulnerability in an unhealthy way (this adds another layer of defense for responsible faith, which does so in a healthy way to the degree that it does the same things).
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Boat

Best of the Web: At least 25 dead in Chinese province's heaviest rains in 1,000 years

Ryan Woo and Stella Qiu
Financial Post
Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:13 UTC
A woman has been pulled out of floodwaters in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, which has been battered by heavy rain and flooding.
A woman has been pulled out of floodwaters in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, which has been battered by heavy rain and flooding.
At least 25 people have died in China's flood-stricken central province of Henan, a dozen of them in a subway line in its capital that was drenched by what weather officials called the heaviest rains for 1,000 years.

About 100,000 people have been evacuated in Zhengzhou, the capital, where rail and road transport have been disrupted, while dams and reservoirs have swelled to warning levels while thousands of troops launched a rescue effort in the province.

City authorities said more than 500 people were pulled to safety from the flooded subway, as social media images showed train commuters immersed in chest-deep waters in the dark and one station reduced to a large brown pool.


Comment: See also: Chinese subway passengers trapped by rising floodwaters as torrential rain pounds Henan province - 8 inches of rainfall in an hour

Interested readers in these types of events might also like to see the increasing number of such reports globally in recent times at our dedicated floods section.

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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Shocking leaked files once again expose BBC as insidious UK foreign policy tool

Kit Klarenberg
RT
Tue, 20 Jul 2021 09:00 UTC
BBC sign logo
© ReutersBBC Broadcasting House offices and recording studios seen in London
A newly released raft of government papers has revealed the British Broadcasting Corporation's extensive involvement in spreading pro-London, pro-EU, and pro-NATO messaging across the Balkans.

In February, classified documents revealed that BBC Media Action (BBCMA), the 'charitable arm' of the British state broadcaster, was embroiled in a number of clandestine operations to "weaken the Russian state's influence," funded by the UK Foreign Office.

The exposure raised serious questions about the BBC's international reputation as a 'neutral', 'objective' purveyor of news, and what implications its murky relationship with Whitehall has for its output more widely. A further tranche of leaked files, related to covert UK actions in the Balkans, amply reinforces that the organization serves as a cloak-and-dagger device for achieving London's foreign policy goals.


Comment: It's only really nations in the West that wrongly believe the BBC is 'objective', but, increasingly, even British citizens are denouncing it as the propaganda arm of the government.


Comment: See also:

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Cloud Precipitation

Best of the Web: Two dams collapse following torrential rain in China's Inner Mongolia


RT
Mon, 19 Jul 2021 10:36 UTC
mogolia flood
© Getty Images / CostfotoHulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, China, July 18, 2021.
Two dams in Inner Mongolia's Hulunbuir have collapsed following torrential rain, according to an announcement from China's water ministry on Monday, citing concerns about the safety risks of aging infrastructure in the region.

The two dams failed on Sunday afternoon after a torrential downpour saw 87 millimeters of rainfall in the area over the weekend and 223 millimeters at a nearby monitoring station. As one of the dams reached maximum capacity, water came over the top before the entire infrastructure was washed away in minutes, resulting in substantial damage.

A video shared by a Chinese individual online shows the moment that water breached the banks of a dam and began flooding out of the reservoir.

Comment: The dams may be in need of repair but it's likely that, as we're seeing all over the world, the sheer amount of rain was a significant factor behind their collapse: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Syringe

Best of the Web: Gotcha, suckers! On 'Freedom Day', UK govt declares mandatory vaccinations for all adults "anywhere large crowds gather"

Heather Stewart
The Guardian
Mon, 19 Jul 2021 19:58 UTC
boris johnson
Days after the French govt declared mandatory vaccinations for 'anyone in contact with the elderly or frail', the British govt has declared likewise for 'anyone anywhere large crowds gather'...
Vaccine passports will be compulsory to enter packed venues such as nightclubs in an extraordinary U-turn announced by Boris Johnson hours after clubs were allowed to open for the first time in 16 months.


Comment: Extraordinary only to sleeping people.


In a move that provoked an immediate backlash from Conservative backbenchers and the entertainment sector, the prime minister said that from late September, once all adults have had the chance to receive two jabs, Covid vaccine certificates would be made mandatory in England.


"I should serve notice now that by the end of September, when all over-18s will have had their chance to be double jabbed, we are planning to make full vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather," he said.


Comment: Forget the nightclubs part - that's just the crack-in-the-door through which this will be expanded out to all activities.


Unlike at pilot events, where customers have been allowed to show evidence of a negative test, they will have to prove they have been double-jabbed amid concerns in government about vaccine uptake among young people. Some 35% of 18- to 30-year-olds are unvaccinated, he said.

Addressing younger people directly, Johnson said: "Some of life's most important pleasures and opportunities are likely to be increasingly dependent on vaccination."


Comment: The quiet part is: "That's why we're targeting those opportunities first. We'll get you all in the end..."

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No Entry

Best of the Web: The demonization of the unvaxxed

Karen Hunt
OffGuardian
Sat, 17 Jul 2021 06:45 UTC
The Plague
© Eugen Dashine | @ Deviant Art MeethOs
"Children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison."

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
In The Silver Chair, book 6 of CS Lewis's magnificent The Chronicles of Narnia, the first pages describe a "mixed" school, meaning for boys and girls, that was...
not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it. These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others. All sort of things, horrid things, went on...[and] the people who did them were not expelled or punished. The Head said they were interesting psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for hours. And if you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main result was that you became rather a favorite than otherwise."
The school is called Experiment House and it's a drab, dull place where, even though it gives the appearance of "everyone doing what they liked," it's really a place where everyone must fit in and those who don't are singled out and persecuted.

The two heroes of the story, Scrubb and Jill, don't fit in at all, and are being chased by a group of bullies when they come up against the wall at the back of the garden. They are trapped, with nowhere else to turn. In the wall is a door that is always locked. But on this occasion, it opens.
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Black Magic

Best of the Web: Britain to launch covert special forces operations against Russia & China, military chief tells media


RT
Sat, 17 Jul 2021 19:36 UTC
britain army flag
© Reuters / Ints KalninsFILE PHOTO.
The UK Special Forces are about to concentrate on some new covert counter-state tasks with a focus on Russia and China, Royal Marines Brigadier Mark Totten revealed to the Times.

The British Royal Marines are to take over some of the "traditional" roles of the nation's special forces units - the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) - as they are preparing for some new "higher risk" counter-state tasks, Totten said.

The brigadier himself is in command of a 4,000-strong "future commando force" that is about to share the burden of the special forces such as in maritime counterterrorist missions or some "partnered operations" that involve some "higher risks."


Comment: Firstly, if they're telling us, it's likely they've been at it for a while now. Regardless, if Britain's recent incursion into the Black Sea is anything to go by these operations will probably be unimaginative and executed shockingly poorly.


Comment: A month or so after the Biden administration made the strange announcement that it would launch a series of cyberattacks against Russia, a number of high profile hacks against American businesses occurred. Notably, despite US media claiming that Russia was to blame, the source of attack likely came from within the CIA. And so, bearing that in mind, and the fact that Russia and China are already well aware of what the Brits have likely been up to for a while now, who is this warning really intended for?

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: Biden's Vaccine "Strike Force" Plan Stinks Of Desperation

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Thu, 15 Jul 2021 00:00 UTC
Hazmat suited stormtroopers
If there is one rule liberty minded people need to remember, it is that the establishment does not like losing control of the narrative. And when they do, noticeably weird things start to happen. For example, it is becoming painfully obvious that the narrative on the experimental mRNA "vaccines" has slipped right through the fingers of the Biden Administration, and as a consequence they are now in a scramble to get millions of vaccines injected into as many skeptical arms as possible before the public organizes for a full push-back against the agenda. It seems to me that they are in a bit of a panic.

The issue became more evident since January when various government entities and the media began to openly complain about the number of vaccine doses that were being thrown in the garbage because of expiration. Why were the vaccines expiring before use? The media spin suggests that it was due to "government mismanagement", while officials at the state level have admitted that it has been due to a significant drop in demand.

In the meantime, Biden has shipped over 500 million covid vaccine doses overseas in June while at the same time claiming that the US was on track to meet his 70% vaccination goal by July 4th. Needless to say this never happened. The Biden admin now claims that the US population is now 67% vaccinated, and if this was actually true then it would be very close to meeting Anthony Fauci's original guidelines for herd immunity. So why all the frantic hype about unvaccinated people?
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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Congressional corruption: Nancy and Paul Pelosi are making millions trading stocks in companies she actively regulates

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Sat, 17 Jul 2021 16:24 UTC
nancy pelosi husband paul
© Nicholas Hunt/Getty ImagesU.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (L) and businessman Paul Pelosi
The Speaker, already one of the richest members in Congress, has become far richer through investment maneuvers in Big Tech, as she privately chats with their CEOs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the sixth-richest member of Congress, according to the most recent financial disclosure statements filed in 2019. As the California Democrat has risen through party ranks and obtained more and more political power, her personal wealth has risen right along with it. Pelosi "has seen her wealth increase to nearly $115 million from $41 million in 2004," reports the transparency non-profit group Open Secrets. Even by the standards of wealth that define that legislative body — "more than half of those in Congress are millionaires" — the wealth and lifestyle of the long-time liberal politician and most powerful lawmaker in Washington are lavish.

And ever since ascending to the top spot in the House, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, keep getting richer and richer. Much of their added wealth is due to extremely lucrative and "lucky" decisions about when to buy and sell stocks and options in the very industries and companies over which Pelosi, as House Speaker, exercises enormous and direct influence.

Comment: Pelosi exhibits many signs of sociopathy. Her callous treatment those she considers inferior, plus the attitude that 'rules don't apply to me' argue for it.

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