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Rose

Best of the Web: 'Extremely rare blooming phenomenon' reported among centuries-old cacti in Arizona desert

Saguaros
© Sonoran Desert Network & Desert Research Learning Center photoA rare phenomenon is unfolding in Arizona: Saguaros cacti, which live centuries, have erupted in blooms that are spreading across their bodies like a rash.
A hint of crazy things to come may be playing out in the Arizona desert — and it involves a giant species of cactus.

Saguaros, which can live for centuries and grow to nearly 80 feet, have erupted in spring blooms that are spreading far beyond the norm. It's almost as if the plants are breaking out in a rash of blooms.

This is happening in the Sonoran Desert and experts suspect it may be an example of how the warming environment is impacting even the oldest of plants.

Comment: Erratic seasons, extreme weather events and overall global cooling are signs that something much greater is afoot on our planet: And check out SOTT Radio's:


Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Vaccine passports backfire - the case of Israel shows that

COVID-19 vaccine - Israel
© AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov
Israelis had every reason to be optimistic - we were the first country in the world to achieve mass vaccination against Covid-19 and, thus, "normality" seemed within reach. Alas, a digital vaccination ID called the "Green Pass" was introduced as a prerequisite for returning to normal life. The Israeli Ministry of Health used two reasons to justify the need for this Green Pass: first, to enable and expedite the reopening of businesses by creating safe "green spaces" only for vaccinated individuals and, second, to pressure those hesitating to get the jab.

Theatres, pools, sports events, bars and restaurants were instructed to deny entrance to those not carrying a Green Pass. In some places, there are designated areas for the unvaccinated, and "vaccinated only" signs have appeared even on public seats at the Tel-Aviv beach. Israel now has two classes of citizens, the upper vaccinated and the lower unvaccinated.


Comment: Israel knows a thing or two about apartheid: Israel and the crime of apartheid, what's new?


Comment: See also: The Inanity of RNA Vaccines For COVID-19

And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #34: Covid By Numbers




2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: One father's stand against critical race theory: We're indoctrinating our children

students school desk
© istock
A month ago, I mailed a letter to all the parents of my daughter's New York City private school, Brearley, asking them to speak up against the school administration's illiberal and indoctrinating antiracism initiatives and divisive obsession with race. That letter went viral and has helped bring about much needed attention to the explosive adoption of critical race theory throughout our country. Having been unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight, I feel an obligation to dispel several common misconceptions pertaining to this movement.

There appears to be widespread belief that opposition to critical race theory is a view held solely by the political right. This perception is wrong. It is certainly true that the conservative media has almost exclusively embraced viewpoints unfavorable to critical race theory while the liberal-oriented media has been overwhelmingly approving. But our polarized media does not seem to accurately reflect the view of most Americans.

Since my letter became public, I have received several thousand supportive emails and messages from people across this country, including many from self-described Democrats and liberals. The tone of most of the messages sent to me is not at all political in nature; instead, the tenor is one of desperation and powerlessness.

I have received emails from parents expressing devastation that their kids, as young as five years old, are coming home from school after being taught to feel guilty solely because of the color of their skin. I have received messages from grandparents feeling hopeless that their grandchildren are being brainwashed and turned against their own families. And I have received notes from teachers brought to tears because they are being required, day after day, to teach fundamentally divisive, racist doctrines and being forced to demonize their own students.

Perhaps the most powerful - and most frightening - of the notes I have received are the several dozen from those who identify themselves as having immigrated to America from the former Soviet Union or from countries in formerly communist Eastern Europe. These emails are never political in nature and are nearly identical in message: These first-generation Americans all write that they have "seen this movie before." They are familiar with the propaganda, the tactics of indoctrination and the pervasive fear of speaking up that plague today's United States. Simply put, they cannot believe this is happening here.

Whistle

Best of the Web: Engdahl: Alarming casualty rates for mRNA vaccines warrant urgent action

Εμβόλια mRNA
As official government data is emerging in Europe and the USA on the alarming numbers of deaths and permanent paralysis as well as other severe side effects from the experimental mRNA vaccines, it is becoming clear that we are being asked to be human guinea pigs in an experiment that could alter the human gene structure and far worse. While mainstream media ignores alarming data including death of countless healthy young victims, the politics of the corona vaccine is being advanced by Washington and Brussels along with WHO and the Vaccine Cartel with all the compassion of a mafia "offer you can't refuse."

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


Biohazard

Best of the Web: China asks US for explanation of 2019 respiratory disease outbreak after Biden's new Covid probe: 'Fort Detrick base is full of suspicions'

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao
© Twitter @MFA_ChinaChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao
Beijing has called on the US to provide an explanation for a respiratory disease in northern Virginia and a large-scale outbreak of e-cigarette disease in Wisconsin after Washington launched a new probe into Covid-19's origins.

Speaking on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian asked the US to reflect on its own role in the pandemic and not "dump" responsibility on China alone. Citing the 33 million Covid-19 cases in the US and 600,000 deaths, Zhao asked "How safe is your conscience?"

Comment: The New York Post reports on the Biden Administration's about-face :
The Senate has unanimously approved a measure requiring the federal government to declassify intelligence on the origins of COVID-19.

The bill, offered by Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), was passed late Wednesday evening by unanimous consent, a method which expedites proceedings if no present member of the Senate objects.

The rare moment of bipartisan agreement came one day after President Biden ordered US spy agencies to do a 90-day investigation into whether COVID-19 was released by a Chinese lab.

The White House said Wednesday it isn't ruling out any possibilities, including the deliberate release of the virus.

Should the measure also pass the House and be signed by Biden into law, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would be given 90 days to declassify "any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the coronavirus disease."

The White House did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment on the measure's passage in the Senate.

Biden made the abrupt pivot on Tuesday, following weeks of the administration on defense about deferring to the World Health Organization for answers on how the pandemic started.

In a statement, Biden revealed that two theories predominate current US official thinking. Those theories are that the virus emerged naturally from animals or escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

"Here is their current position: 'while two elements in the [intelligence community] leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter - each with low or moderate confidence - the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other.'"

Speaking to reporters at a briefing Wednesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that no explanation was being ruled out by the president.

"We haven't ruled out anything yet," Jean-Pierre said when asked if the Biden administration had ruled out a "deliberate" release of the virus.

Sen. Hawley said on the Senate floor that, "the American people deserve to know about the origins of COVID-19."AP

The president said in his statement that he had given the intelligence community 90 days to get back to him with more information "that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion."

"As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China."

The lab leak theory gained traction more recently, hitting the mainstream media this week after The Wall Street Journal reported that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell so ill that they were hospitalized in November 2019.

The article cited "a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report."
And from The Duran:
Joe Biden says he wants the origins of COVID-19 to be thoroughly investigated.

Just not by the Trump-appointed team. No, he says, let the World Health Organization conduct it.

He means that World Health Organization... the one that played duck-and-cover for China when the virus first started its rampage in Wuhan, giving enough shade to that country to allow the virus to rapidly escape from China and to become a global pandemic, though thankfully, a far more feeble one than originally feared.


One has to listen carefully to see the strategy. The Trump appointed investigation might actually find the truth. The WHO lied before, and now that it has US support again, it can certainly lie again.

Who benefits?

Joe Biden, of course.

All this is cover for Biden's own very corrupt relationship with China, carried out sometimes through his degenerate crackhead son Hunter.

In the amazingly clumsy political theatre that is the Hologram Administration, it is stunning how even on Fox, most of this news just gets reported without a hiccup. To anyone who half-listens to the news (which is the bet), the notion would at best sound like "Biden is stopping the Trump Administration ordered investigation to bring in real experts."

However, this is exactly the opposite of the real story. The bet is that most Americans will never make the connection.

As with the upcoming summit with President Vladimir Putin in June, it would appear that this man is getting hung out to dry by the short hairs, so to speak, because Joe Biden is so corrupt that all anyone would have to do to control him is to threaten to leak, or openly speak about, how corrupt he is.

This may be the reason why news about the virus' Wuhan lab origins and Dr. Anthony Fauci's connection in supporting and funding the gain-of-function research (that likely resulted in COVID-19's accidental release) is gaining ground rapidly in the American news cycle. Information that the rest of the world suspected - that the US was behind the creation of SARS-CoV-2, not China, is right on the edge of being publicly stated. Tucker Carlson has done all but say it, but the details of this issue are laid out so clearly that it only remains for the reporters to ask the question:

"Why is the United States funding gain-of-function research on weaponized viruses in China??"

The answer to that question could well shake the US government to its foundations, and it would seem that Joe Biden or his handlers are aware of this and are feebly trying to fight it.

A complicit news media is the only means for this effort to succeed, and that complicity seems to be fading as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do new and different strange things every day.



Red Pill

Best of the Web: UK academic silenced by MSM reveals how Western news outlets 'amplify and rationalize state-sanctioned war and violence'

silenced
© Getty Images / FL-photography
RT speaks to propaganda scholar Matt Alford, who in April 2019 had a major study of how the mainstream media systematically distorts, misrepresents, and whitewashes Western foreign policy, canned just prior to publication.

As the article was literally about to go to press, the Conversation - which claims to offer "informed commentary and debate on the issues affecting our world" - put his groundbreaking work on hold, at the express request of the outlet's executive editor.

After some toing and froing, the Conversation finally backed out completely from publishing it at all, telling Matt to take it elsewhere. It was finally published by Grayzone in May.

Bullseye

Best of the Web: As anger toward Belarus mounts, remember the US forced landing of Bolivia's plane in an attempt to capture Snowden in 2013

evo moralis plane forced down snowden
© Patrick Domingo/AFP via Getty ImagesBolivian President Evo Morales holds a press conference at the Vienna International Airport on July 3, 2013, angrily denying any wrongdoing on Wednesday after his plane was diverted to Vienna over suspicion fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was on board.
What Belarus did, while illegal, is not unprecedented. The dangerous tactic was pioneered by the same U.S. and E.U. officials now righteously condemning it.

U.S. and E.U. governments are expressing outrage today over the forced landing by Belarus of a passenger jet flying over its airspace on its way to Lithuania. The Ryanair commercial jet, which took off from Athens and was carrying 171 passengers, was just a few miles from the Lithuanian border when a Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet ordered the plane to make a U-turn and land in Minsk, the nation's capital.

On board that Ryanair flight was a leading Belarusian opposition figure, 26-year-old Roman Protasevich, who, fearing arrest, had fled his country in 2019 to live in exile in neighboring Lithuania. The opposition figure had traveled to Athens to attend a conference on economics with Belarus' primary opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and was attempting to return home to Lithuania when the plane was forcibly diverted.

Comment: Political analyst Moon of Alabama writes:
LUKASHENKO'S REVENGE (Best served cold)

Last summer Ukraine's security service SBU tried to play dirty trick on Lukashenko. Russian volunteers, who had fought on the Novorossiyan side in the Ukrainian civil war were made a fake job offer, "security" work on Syrian oil fields. The Wagnerites (as private military contractors are called in Russia) were to gather in Minsk. A Turkish airways flight would then take them to Syria.

SBU's secret plan was to intercept the Turkish plane while in Ukrainian airspace, force it to land and arrest the "terrorists". Something went wrong. Plan B was to claim the mercenaries had been sent by Russia and Putin to stage a coup against Lukashenko. The Belarusians in fact believed this lie for a week.

Moon of Alabama reported on the events here:
The 'Russian Coup' Plot In Belarus Was Faked By Ukraine

Also remember, that the plane of Bolivian president Evo Morales was forced to land in Austria in July 2013, after France, Spain, Portugal and Italy had closed their airspace on American orders.

Now read this:
'Hijacked': President uses fighter jet to force Ryanair flight to land in Belarus - Sidney Morning Herald

Moscow: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday personally ordered a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair flight carrying a young opposition blogger, forcing it to redirect and land in Belarus.

The Boeing aircraft, flying from the Greek capital Athens to Vilnius, had almost reached Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted to the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

On arrival, police detained activist Roman Protasevich, 26, who had been on a wanted list after last year's mass street protests in the wake of an election in which Lukashenko claimed a landslide but disputed victory.
While the incident unfolded yesterday I amused myself with reading the know-nothing responses from several European prime minister and officials.

The President of Lithuania:


The President of the Nordic Council of Ministers:


The Prime Minister of Greece:


The incident is totally NOT unprecedented.

In 1954 Israel forced a Syrian passenger plane to land to gain hostages which it hoped to exchange for captured Israeli soldiers.

France behaved similarly.


In 2010 the U.S. wanted to arrest a man who was on a flight from France to Mexico. On U.S. instigation the plane was diverted to Canada where the man was arrested and later transferred to the U.S.

In 2012 Turkey forced down a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow to Damascus to search it for weapons. None were found.

In 2013 U.S. allies shut down their airspace for a flight carrying the Bolivian President Evo Morales from Moscow. The plane had to divert to Austria where the authorities insisted on searching the plane for the "fugitive" Edward Snowden before letting it fly again. Snowden was not on board.

In 2016 the Ukraine sent military jets to force a plane flying from Kiev to Minsk to return to Kiev. The authorities were looking for a certain passenger on board who was later found to have be the wrong man.

As Petri Krohn notes above the Ukraine in 2020 had planned to abduct Russian mercenaries on a flight from Minsk to Turkey by forcing the plane to land in Kiev. The plot failed.

Barfingcat 'investigator' Christo Grozev also marveled the similarity:


Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times notes that the 'west' can hardly complain about yesterday's incident when I behaves in even more egregious ways:
That thought raises the unfortunate precedent set by the US through its policies of drone strikes and "extraordinary renditions", during its "war on terror". The Americans can point out that this kind of treatment was reserved for those who used or planned actual violence against the US or its allies. But, to invert the old saying, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Belarus had placed Protasevich on a terrorist watchlist.

Nobody reasonable should accept the Belarusian (or Chinese or Russian) equation of peaceful dissent with terrorism. But America has encouraged the idea that powerful countries can reach out beyond their borders and grab people.
Belarus did not even reach beyond its borders but acted fully within its rights under international law.

Roman Protasevich is, like his partner the Atlantic Council fellow Franak Viačorka, a U.S. trained and financed regime operator who tried to violently overthrow the government of Belarus to then install a neoliberal U.S. client regime:


When the color revolution in Belarus failed we wrote about the Viačorka/Protasevich run Telegram channel Nexta which directed the protests in Minsk:
Nexta is led by anti-Lukashenko pro-Western 'activists' in Poland. The editor in chief is one Roman Protasevich. He was perviously a journalist for the Polish-Lithuanian-funded Euroradio, as well as for the CIA's Radio Liberty. Nexta was founded by Stepan Putila who earlier worked for the Polish-Belarusian channel Belsat which is based in Warsaw and is funded by the Polish Foreign Ministry. Both currently live in Warsaw.

As these media produce fresh videos 24 by 7 and do many online post there must be a sizeable staff behind Nexta, in Poland as well as on the ground in Belarus. This is certainly not a cheep operation and it certainly has nation state backing. Obama's deputy national security advisor left little doubt about who is behind this game.
(There is more about Nexta in this open thread.)

Protasevich is by the way no heart bleeding liberal. Ivan Katchanowski of the University of Ottawa notes that his political leanings are quite dubious:

Google searches show no references in Western media to past service in neo-Nazi-led Azov battalion in Ukraine of Belarusian opposition blogger, who was arrested by Belarus KGB after it diverted Irish Ryanair passenger plane that was flying over Belarus

Ukrainian media reports that Protasevich served in the press-service of the neo-Nazi-led Azov battalion in Ukraine during the war in Donbas: "... украинскую страницу в биографии Протасевича: белорус одно время работал в пресс-службе «Азова»."
Promoting fascists in the Ukraine, working for U.S. government regime change media, collaborating with various secret services in east Europe and directing a color revolution attempt in Belarus from abroad should be enough reason for Belarus to put the man into jail. Protasevich clearly worked against the interest of his country.

The 'west' is of course furious that one of its regime change operators has been taken down in a way it similar uses. It will try to think up some sanctions or other measures it can impose on Belarus. But the only effect such pressure has is to push Belarus further into the Union State with Russia. It was the Union State that saved Belarus and will do so again.

Measures like the one below are counterproductive to their real aim and only hurt people who are not involved in the game:





Attention

Best of the Web: 12 mass shootings over weekend as USA enters chaotic summer

mass shootings
There's a lot of noise from the Biden administration, who claim to be addressing gun violence as an epidemic, but their efforts have only been for optics, as very little action has been taken so far. This past weekend, a dozen mass shootings were recorded across the country, according to CNN.


Comment: Not to worry - we're sure that the Biden administration will continue to roll out draconian gun legislation soon enough!


Nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive (GVA) reported that at least 12 mass shootings were observed in eight states, including Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and Minnesota.


Snowflake

Best of the Web: Scotland shivering through coldest May in 40 years as snow falls in some areas

Nick and Patrick Matheson, from Northumbria, went skiing at Cairngorm mountain, where fresh snow fell yesterday.
© Northpix.Nick and Patrick Matheson, from Northumbria, went skiing at Cairngorm mountain, where fresh snow fell yesterday.
Don't look out the shorts and sun cream just yet...

With just days left until the start of June, Scotland was hit by snow.

And while we all wait for summer to finally arrive, forecasters have warned we're on course for the coldest May in more than 40 years.

Srdjan Lulic found himself a bit exposed at the Cairngorm National Park, near Aviemore, Inverness-shire, as he headed out for a stroll with girlfriend Catherine Stewart, of Edinburgh.

Another driver had to clear a mound of snow from his windscreen, which had built up overnight.

Catherine said: "We'd planned on going for a walk to the summit of Ben Macdui but I think we will be limited to the lower slopes as there looks like there is a lot of snow on the higher ground.


Eye 1

Best of the Web: Hateful hypocrisy: In hate crime-obsessed Britain, vilifying Covid vaccine 'refuseniks' comes with establishment approval

no vaccine
© Getty Images / StockPlanets
We hear so much in woke Britain about 'hate crime' and how terrible it is. But right now, we're in the midst of an extremely nasty campaign against those who don't wish to take a Covid vaccine and somehow that's deemed acceptable.

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp." From George Orwell's '1984.'

"Selfish idiots." "Refuseniks." "Anti-vaxxer loonies." "Holding the country to ransom." "A menace to their own health and ours." "They're like drink drivers." Just a few of the insults that have been hurled at Brits who, despite the biggest drug promotion campaign in our history, have decided they don't wish to take one of the new-on-the-market Covid vaccines.

Freedom of choice? Bodily autonomy? They seem to have gone out of the window, along with all the other basic rights we have lost in Britain these past 15 months. The date is 2021, but we're actually living in Orwell's '1984,' with its daily 'Two Minutes Hate.'