New study links virtue signaling to "Dark Triad" traits. Being accused of "virtue signaling" might sound nice to the uninitiated, but spend much time on social media and you know that it's actually an accusation of insincerity. Virtue signalers are, essentially, phonies and showoffs — folks who adopt opinions and postures solely to garner praise and sympathy or whose good deeds are tainted by their need for everyone to see just how good they are. Combined with a culture that says only victimhood confers a right to comment on certain issues, it's a big factor in online pile-ons and one that certainly contributes to social media platforms being such a bummer sometimes.

So: Here's some fun new research looking at "the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper — from University of British Columbia researchers Ekin Ok, Yi Qian, Brendan Strejcek, and Karl Aquino — details multiple studies the authors conducted on the subject.

Their conclusion? Psychopathic, manipulative, and narcissistic people are more frequent signalers of "virtuous victimhood."

The original article was published in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche (World Week) on June 10th. The author, Beda M Stadler is the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern, a biologist and professor emeritus. Stadler is an important medical professional in Switzerland, he also likes to use provoking language, which should not deter you from the extremely important points he makes.

This article is about Switzerland and it does not suggest that the situation is exactly the same globally. I am advocating for local measures according to locale situations. And I advocate for looking at real data rather than abstract models. I also suggest to read to the end, because Stadler makes crucial points about testing for Sars-CoV-2.

Why everyone was wrong

The coronavirus is slowly retreating. What actually happened in the past few weeks? The experts have missed basic connections. The immune response against the virus is much stronger than we thought.

By Beda M Stadler

This is not an accusation, but a ruthless taking stock [of the current situation]. I could slap myself, because I looked at Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic. I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about Covid-19 to virologist and epidemiologist. I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus.

Firstly, it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel. Secondly, It was even more wrong to claim that the population would not already have some immunity against this virus. Thirdly, it was the crowning of stupidity to claim that someone could have Covid-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever.

But let's look at this one by one.

New York's Department of Financial Services said in a statement on Tuesday it had imposed the penalty on Deutsche Bank's New York branch for "significant compliance failures in connection with the Bank's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," the accused child sex trafficker who died in police custody last year. New York's Department of Financial Services said in a statement on Tuesday it had imposed the penalty on Deutsche Bank's New York branch for "significant compliance failures in connection with the Bank's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," the accused child sex trafficker who died in police custody last year.

The penalty also covers anti-money laundering failings linked to Danske Bank Estonia and Cyprus-based bank FBME.

The settlement brings to an end three investigations by the regulator into compliance failings at the German banking giant.

It also marks the first enforcement action by a financial regulator linked to the Epstein case.

To drive home just how superficial and empty recent protests in America are and how little besides further division and destruction will become of them - take the fate of two fictional characters recently put in the spotlight by baying activists - PepsiCo's "Aunt Jemima" breakfast food brand and Mars Incorporated's "Uncle Ben's" rice products.

Both came into the crosshairs of "woke" America. Both fictional characters will now no longer be used.

It might appear like a huge victory for "woke" America.

CNN in their article, "The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired," would claim:

Quaker Oats is retiring the more than 130-year-old Aunt Jemima brand and logo, acknowledging its origins are based on a racial stereotype.

"As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers' expectations," the Pepsi-owned company said in a statement provided to CNN Business.

Despite what American and European commentators may think, there really is a deep desire among people to vote for their own sovereignty. And that impulse was on full display last week with the announcement of the results of Russia's public vote to approve the changes to its constitution.

The final tally put the vote at 78% in favor with a 65% voter turnout for the referendum. These are the most sweeping changes to Russia's constitution since it was ratified back in 1993, which vested the President with immense power.

And while the final package of reforms differed in one important aspect from the original one - allowing for a president to serve more than two 'consecutive' terms - the over-arching theme of the changes was to devolve power out of the presidency putting more power in the hands of the elected representatives in the Duma.

Delays to cancer diagnosis and treatment due to coronavirus could cause thousands of excess deaths in the UK within a year, research suggests.

Scientists suggest there could be at least 7,000 additional deaths - but in a worst case scenario that number could be as high as 35,000.

There are concerns routine screenings, urgent referrals and treatments have been delayed or cancelled.

NHS England said it was working hard to restore services.

Scientists examined data from eight hospital trusts and shared their findings exclusively with BBC Panorama.

• Global working hours are expected to have fallen by 14% in the second quarter of 2020, according to ILO estimates.
• This is the equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs.
• It marks a "sharp increase" on the 10.7% fall in working hours it previously estimated for the quarter.

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to have resulted in a 14% drop in global working hours in the second quarter of 2020, the International Labour Organization has said.

The United Nations' labor agency said this updated fall in working hours was the equivalent of 400 million full-time job losses globally in the second quarter, based on a standard 48-hour working week.

This July 4^th, a larger-than-usual shadow is cast upon America which has come face-to-face with some serious historic reckonings. While the existence of an oligarchy and international "deep state" should not be ignored as a political force of history - arranging wars, assassinations and promoting economic enslavement of people and nations throughout the centuries - the guilt cannot entirely be placed on this apparatus. As Shakespeare's Cassius once said to Brutus, "our fate... is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

The mob which Shakespeare mocked as a mindless instrument of tyrants in his play Julius Caesar has again been deployed in America where George Soros' funding has turned this social-justice beast against the very republic itself (ironically under the banner of "Freedom from Tyranny" of course).

Instead of hearing calls to save America, break up the Wall Street banks or return America back to its anti-colonial heritage, today we hear only calls for tearing down monuments, and to undo the Constitution as a fraud wrapped in a lie built upon hypocrisy and white privilege, with no redeeming value anywhere to be found.

I've lost all trust in medical research - the financial muscle of Big Pharma has been busy distorting science during the pandemic

Evidence that a cheap, over-the-counter anti-malarial drug costing £7 combats COVID-19 gets trashed. Why? Because the pharmaceutical giants want to sell you a treatment costing nearly £2,000. It's criminal.

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Doctoring Data. This was an attempt to help people understand the background to the tidal wave of medical information that crashes over us each and every day. Information that is often completely contradictory 'Coffee is good for you... no, wait it's bad for you... no, wait, it's good for you again,' repeat ad nauseam.

I also pointed out some of the tricks, games and manipulations that are used to make medications seem far more effective than they truly are, or vice-versa. This, I have to say, can be a very dispiriting world to enter. When I give talks on this subject, I often start with a few quotes.

For example, here is Dr Marcia Angell, who edited the New England Journal of Medicine for over twenty years, writing in 2009:

"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor of the New England Journal of Medicine."

Have things got better? No, I believe that they have got worse - if that were, indeed, possible. I was sent the following e-mail recently, about a closed door, no recording discussion, under no-disclosure Chatham House rules, in May of this year:

"A secretly recorded meeting between the editors-in-chief of The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine reveal both men bemoaning the 'criminal' influence big pharma has on scientific research.

"According to Philippe Douste-Blazy, France's former Health Minister and 2017 candidate for WHO Director, the leaked 2020 Chatham House closed-door discussion between the [editor-in-chiefs] - whose publications both retracted papers favorable to big pharma over fraudulent data.

"Now we are not going to be able to, basically, if this continues, publish any more clinical research data because the pharmaceutical companies are so financially powerful today, and are able to use such methodologies, as to have us accept papers which are apparently methodologically perfect, but which, in reality, manage to conclude what they want them to conclude," said Lancet [editor-in-chief] Richard Horton."

A YouTube video where this issue is discussed can be found here. It is in French, but there are English subtitles.

President Donald Trump has tweeted that the high number of Covid-19 cases in the US is actually a good thing as it is due to expanded testing, but the "fake news media" refuses to cover the shrinking mortality rate.

"Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn't test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News," the president tweeted on Saturday.

He continued, "In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don't hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators???"