Best of the Web:


Sherlock

Best of the Web: TWITTER FILES: Twitter Assisted Pentagon's Covert Online Propaganda Campaign

Lee Fang
The Intercept
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:16 UTC
pentagon
© The Intercept
Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.

Behind the scenes, however, the social networking giant provided direct approval and internal protection to the U.S. military's network of social media accounts and online personas, whitelisting a batch of accounts at the request of the government. The Pentagon has used this network, which includes U.S. government-generated news portals and memes, in an effort to shape opinion in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and beyond.

The accounts in question started out openly affiliated with the U.S. government. But then the Pentagon appeared to shift tactics and began concealing its affiliation with some of these accounts — a move toward the type of intentional platform manipulation that Twitter has publicly opposed. Though Twitter executives maintained awareness of the accounts, they did not shut them down, but let them remain active for years. Some remain active.
Read More...
NPC

Best of the Web: EU approves CO2 tax on heating and transport, softened by new social climate fund

Nikolaus J. Kurmayer
Euractiv
Sun, 18 Dec 2022 21:59 UTC
chimneys
EU legislators agreed early on Sunday (18 December) to introduce a carbon price on buildings and road transport fuels, with a new €87-billion social climate fund established in parallel to cushion the impact on households and help them invest in green solutions.

The new carbon price will apply to petrol, diesel and heating fuels such as natural gas whose climate warming emissions have continued to rise over the years despite attempts to decarbonise.

This was arguably the most controversial issue in the negotiation to reform the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the biggest carbon market in the world and the bloc's flagship climate policy instrument.

"The biggest challenge was ETS2," said Peter Liese, a German lawmaker who represented the European Parliament in the two-day negotiation which started on Friday and concluded on Sunday morning (18 December).
Read More...
V

Best of the Web: Why Tucker Carlson remains a giant that the establishment media can't pull down

Robert Bridge
RT
Mon, 19 Dec 2022 21:53 UTC
Tucker Carlson
© Janos Kummer / Getty ImagesTucker Carlson
The jungle of the US media kingdom appears to be divided between two powerful entities - the pro-establishment behemoth often referred to as the mainstream media, and Tucker Carlson. And against all odds, Carlson appears to be winning.

It would be difficult to name a single person, aside from the rabble-rouser Donald J. Trump, who is more disgusting and/or terrifying (depending on who you ask) for the establishment media than Fox News host Tucker Carlson. This one man is considered such a threat that the New York Times in May spent a boatload of ink to assassinate his character in a 20,000-word hit piece. Ironically, the article backfired as it laid bare the reasons Americans no longer trust the 'legacy media'.

Straight from the Grey Lady's mouth: "'Tucker Carlson Tonight' has presented a dominant narrative, recasting American racism to present white Americans as an oppressed caste. The ruling class uses fentanyl and other opioids to addict and kill legacy Americans, anti-white racism to cast them as bigots, feminism to degrade their self-esteem, immigration to erode their political power. Republican elites, however improbably, help to import the voters Democrats require at the ballot box. The United States, Mr. Carlson tells his viewers, is 'ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.'"

Those sentiments, which the piece dismisses out of hand as some wild conspiracy theories, are shared by tens of millions of average Americans whose trust in journalists and politicians is now at an all-time low.
Read More...
Snowflake

Best of the Web: Niigata, southern Tohoku in Japan hit by record snowfalls - 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) deep


NHK WORLD-JAPAN
Mon, 19 Dec 2022 12:25 UTC
People walk through wind and snow on Monday morning in Shibetsu, Hokkaido.
© The Yomiuri ShimbunPeople walk through wind and snow on Monday morning in Shibetsu, Hokkaido.
A strong cold snap has brought record snowfalls to Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan and the southern Tohoku region. Japan's Meteorological Agency warns that more snow is coming and advises people to be on high alert for traffic disruptions and other problems.

Weather officials said that as of 5 p.m. on Monday, the snow was about 2.2 meters deep in Ohkura Village, Yamagata Prefecture, and more than 1.8 meters deep in Niigata's Uonuma City.

Tadami Town in Fukushima Prefecture had a record 1.1 meters of snow during the 24 hours through Monday morning. The town's snow accumulation reached nearly 1.6 meters as of 5 p.m. on the day.

Read More...
Black Magic

Best of the Web: Excess deaths DOUBLED in 2021, NOT from Covid, lockdown partly to blame, WHO research reveals

Carissa Wong
New Scientist
Wed, 14 Dec 2022 12:00 UTC
lockdown london 2020
© David Cliff/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: An empty street in London during lockdown in March 2020. World Health Organization research suggests that during just the first two years of the pandemic, 14.83 million more deaths occurred worldwide than would otherwise have been expected .
Nearly 15 million excess deaths from any cause may have occurred during 2020 and 2021, nearly three times the 5.42 million covid-19 fatalities that were reported over the same two-year period.


Comment: And even those labeled Covid may be deaths 'with' Covid, when actually the person died due to multiple comorbidities or old age.


William Msemburi at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and his colleagues estimated the number of deaths that would have occurred globally from January 2020 to December 2021 if the pandemic hadn't taken place.

For some countries, the team used mortality data from 2015 to 2019 to calculate the number of expected deaths per year, which they compared with the number of reported deaths from any cause over two years of the pandemic.

Comment: Deaths from the experimental Covid jabs will account for possibly a quarter - 2.5 million - of those excess deaths, if not significantly more. And counting.

Read More...
Yoda

Best of the Web: James Kunstler: Truth And Consequences

James Howard Kunstler
kunstler.com
Fri, 16 Dec 2022 16:20 UTC
BidenBird
© The Hard Times/Twitter/KJNUS President Joe Biden
"I would advise the more-sciencey-than-thou to not pivot from Covid directly into climate change bullying just yet. 2023 is going to be replete with excess death, and you are gonna have a lot of 'splainin' to do. Lots of apologetic to push, in support of the Narrative."
— The Ethical Skeptic on Substack
Even if NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The WashPo, and the rest of the Big News Media mafia ignore the Twitter Files story, the revolution at Twitter is going to shake their windows and rattle their walls. There will be free debate in 2023 on this social media platform. News and ideas will be set loose across the landscape, and, for the first time in years, reality will have a chance to compete with the bad faith narratives of a regime at war against its own people.

We'll have to see how long this window remains open before the Intel Community tries to shut Twitter down, ramp up a campaign to defame it, or blow it up as a viable business. Or make a move to, shall we say, neutralize the person behind the revolution there. The more that free speech is actually permitted on Twitter, the more every other platform will look like a lame organ of propaganda, especially when it comes to issues that really matter such as the deadly consequences of the mRNA "vaccines," the shady doings around recent US elections, the actual condition of the US economy, the perilous folly of "Joe Biden's" war in Ukraine (and the family grifting operation that prompted it), and the evil machinations of the Intel Community itself.
Read More...
Eye 1

Best of the Web: Twitter Files show Twitter acted as 'subsidiary' of FBI

Joshua Young
The Post Millennial
Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:01 UTC
chris wray yoel roth
On Friday, Matt Taibbi, released the sixth installment of the Twitter Files, covering the collusion between the social media giant and the FBI, with Taibbi saying the government agency acted as a "subsidiary" for the company before Elon Musk's takeover.

"1. THREAD: The Twitter Files, Part Six TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY." Christopher Wray has been the director of the FBI since 2017.

"2. The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content."

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Tornado2

Best of the Web: Three killed in Louisiana as dozens of tornadoes tear across southern US

Louise Boyle
The Independent (UK)
Fri, 16 Dec 2022 11:38 UTC
Debris is piled up following severe weather
© Jake Bleiberg/APDebris is piled up following severe weather Wednesday in Keithville, Louisiana.
Three people are dead in Louisiana after tornadoes tore across the American South, destroying families' homes in the midst of holiday preparations.

The storm system which had spawned dozens of reported tornadoes from east Texas to the Florida Panhandle was expected to peter out on Thursday. But not before it exacted devastation on a number of communities where some homes were blown to pieces and residents hospitalized.

Nikolus Little, aged eight, was found dead in Keithville, Louisiana, on Tuesday after a tornado touched down, the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office reported.

The child's body was discovered in a wooded area of the Pecan Farms subdivision where his home had been destroyed. His mother, Yoshiko A. Smith, 30, was initially missing but her body was later found by sheriff's deputies under debris and one street over from her demolished home.

Read More...
Fire

Best of the Web: Huge blast hits major oil refinery in latest hit to Russian infrastructure, fuels suspicions of sabotage

Will Stewart
Daily Mail
Thu, 15 Dec 2022 08:04 UTC
russia oil explosion
Flames are pictured rising from the Angarsk facility, which produces jet fuel and diesel which can be used by Russia's military vehicles
A huge explosion has badly damaged a key oil refinery in far eastern Russia in just the latest mystery blast to hit the country's infrastructure.

The blast struck Angarsk Oil Refinery, near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, around 5.50am local time Thursday - lighting up the early morning sky with a fireball.

Two people were killed and five injured in the explosion, which officials say was caused by 'gas contamination' of the plant's equipment though it is unclear whether this was an accident or whether it was sabotaged.

It comes against the backdrop of multiple blasts and fires at locations with links to Russia's military or oligarchs that many suspect are being orchestrated by Ukraine.


Comment: This is not exactly true, because two of the most recent fires were at shopping malls.


Comment: Hmmm... is the re-entry of a long-range rocket visible as a 'bright flash in the sky' moments before impact?

Not to our knowledge.

It could be that eyewitnesses simply saw the explosion first, then heard it as the soundwave reached them afterwards.

But if there really was something streaking through the sky towards the refinery, then what on Earth was it?

The US-EU-Ukraine aren't firing missiles at Siberia, surely?

Below are just some of the most recent suspect fires and explosions in Russia. We suspect that most of them are due to sabotage and/or remotely-activated cyberattacks.

Read More...
Fireball

Best of the Web: Meteoroid hit suspected after major leak reported on Soyuz space capsule

Samantha Lock
The Guardian
Thu, 15 Dec 2022 17:39 UTC
soyuz leak
Screenshot: Russia aborts International Space Station spacewalk mission after Nasa footage shows particles spraying from MS-22 capsule.
A major leak from a Russian capsule docked on the International Space Station was most likely caused when a small meteoroid smashed into a radiator, leading to coolant being sprayed into space, a Roscosmos official has said.

Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who is now director of crewed space flight programs at Russia's space corporation, said Thursday's leak from the Soyuz MS-22 could affect the capsule's overall coolant system but that there was "no threat for the crew" of the space station.

The leak had prompted a pair of cosmonauts to abort a planned spacewalk earlier in the day. It also raises concerns as to whether the capsule will be able to safely return to Earth next spring as planned with two cosmonauts and a Nasa astronaut, or if an emergency replacement vehicle will have to be sent up.

Comment: Note that, if this is indeed what they suspect, this follows an incident in June whereby a micrometeoroid hit the recently launched James Webb Telescope: First micrometeoroid impact hits James Webb Space Telescope just months into flight

All the signs point to the activity in our skies increasing: 'Unprecedented': Shockwave & 'huge roar' reported in Gran Canaria following meteor fireball event

See also: Classified: Roscosmos knows "exactly what happened" to Soyuz spacecraft

Read More...