Behavioural scientist turned his subliminal powers of persuasion on the PM himself after it became apparent he was not leading by example.

Boris Johnson was secretly 'nudged' into wearing a facemask during the pandemic, according to the head of the government's Behavioural Insights Team.

In an interview for the Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute published today by The Telegraph, Professor David Halpern says he turned his subliminal powers of persuasion on the prime minister himself after it became apparent he was not leading by example.

2023 starts with collective NATO in Absolutely Freak Out Mode as Russian Defense Minister Shoigu announces that Russian Navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov is now on tour - complete with a set of Mr. Zircon's hypersonic business cards.

The business tour will encompass the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, and of course include the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire's former Mare Nostrum. Mr. Zircon on the prowl has absolutely nothing to do with the war in Ukraine: it's a sign of what happens next when it comes to frying much bigger fishes than a bunch of Kiev psychos.

The end of 2022 did seal the frying of the Big Ukraine Negotiation Fish. It has now been served on a hot plate - and fully digested. Moscow has made it painfully clear there's no reason whatsoever to trust the "non-agreement capable" declining superpower.

So even taxi drivers in Dacca are now betting on when the much- vaunted "winter offensive" starts, and how far will it go. General Armageddon's path ahead is clear: all-out demilitarization and de-electrification on steroids, complete with grinding up masses of Ukrainians at the lowest possible cost to the Russian Armed Forces in Donbass until Kiev psychos beg for mercy. Or not.

Another big fried fish on a hot plate at the end of 2022 was the 2014 Minsk Agreement. The cook was no other than former chancellor Merkel ("an attempt to buy time for Ukraine"). Implied is the not exactly smokin' gun: the strategy of the Straussian/neo-con and neoliberal-con combo in charge of U.S. foreign policy, from the beginning, was to unleash a Forever War, by proxy, against Russia.

Merkel may have been up to something telling the Russians, in their face, that she lied like crypto-Soprano Mike Pompeo, then she lied again and again, for years. That's not embarrassing for Moscow, but for Berlin: yet another graphic demonstration of total vassalage to the Empire.

The response by the contemporary embodiment of Mercury, Russian Foreign Ministry's Maria Zakharova, was equally intriguing: Merkel's confession could be used as a specific reason - and evidence - for a tribunal judging Western politicians responsible for provoking the Russia-Ukraine proxy war.

No one will obviously confirm it on the record. But all this could be part of an evolving, secret Russia-Germany deal in the making, leading to Germany restoring at least some of its sovereignty.

Friday marks two years since thousands of individuals stormed the U.S. Capitol in an apparent effort to disrupt the certification of President Biden's presidential win.

One of the rioters was fatally shot by Capitol Police during the attack and more than 900 were charged with crimes.

On Jan. 6, 2021, after weeks of then-President Trump claiming the 2020 election was "rigged" in favor of Biden, thousands of his so-called supporters broke off from a rally he held at Freedom Plaza near the White House and marched toward the Capitol complex.

Lawmakers were forced to evacuate the complex and temporarily suspend the certification of the Electoral College results as rioters plowed through police perimeters, breached the building and occupied it for several hours.

The United States might be a democracy in form, but most policies are developed without even a semblance of public participation. For instance, policymakers overwhelmingly believe that the US should go to war with the People's Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan. President Biden has five times declared that he would back Taiwan militarily. Yet Congress has not voted.

Those predicting conflict believe the hour is late, but some imagine that a tough stance would preclude war. America's president merely needs to wave his pinky finger, or state his demands, and Chinese Communist Party officials would run screaming back to the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, never to be heard from again. General Secretary Xi Jinping is, however, made of sterner stuff, buttressed by the People's Liberation Army, which is rapidly expanding to prevent Washington from treating the Asia-Pacific as coastal American waters.

Even so, many Blob members assume that if Beijing were foolish enough to fight, it would (of course) be defeated. Not so. Any war over Taiwan would be won on the seas, and the PRC is much closer and can more easily reinforce its forces. Breaking a naval blockade would be difficult and would invite full-scale conflict. Beijing now possesses a larger (based on numbers, not tonnage) navy than America. And China is able to concentrate its forces in the Asia-Pacific.

"You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible."
— Anton Chekhov

The doctors of this country — of all Western Civ, really — owe their citizens an apology and an explanation, and even then, they might not be able to save modern medicine. The doctors have dishonored and disgraced their profession. They promulgated a Covid- 19 vaccination program that is now clearly killing a lot of people early in life and unnaturally. To this day, no established professional group of doctors, or formal association, or major journal, has called for an end to the vaxx program.

The hazard signal has been clear for the better part of a year. The mRNA products made by Pfizer and Moderna did not stop transmission of Covid-19 and were causing widespread harm, especially in the working-age population between 25 and 64 who were forced to take the shots to keep their jobs. For the whole population, all-causes deaths and disabilities were still rising at the end of 2022.

Credit Suisse contributor Zoltan Pozsar has continued his ongoing series about Bretton Woods III where commodities will dictate the new world order. For his last dispatch of the year, he described how the world is now shifting to a multipolar order "being built not by G7 heads of state but by the 'G7 of the East' (the BRICS heads of state)."

BRICS stands for the group of five nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. But Pozsar said that with the poised expansion via rumored applications for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Egypt, he took the liberty to round up the current "G5."

The author focused on Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the recent summit in the Arab states, which for Pozsar is very telling on how Beijing plans to outmaneuver the West in global economy.

The Philippines has a vital trade relationship with Beijing, but Washington sees it as a staging ground for potential Taiwan hostilities

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, opened 2023 by making a visit to China. There, 14 bilateral agreements were signed between Manila and Beijing.

Between the two, this sort of diplomacy is not unusual. They are close economic partners, with China being the Philippines' largest export market and a critical source of inbound investment, especially as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The two countries have some disputes, of course, especially when it comes to the South China Sea, but they have elected not to allow that to spoil the bigger picture of bilateral relations, at least for now.

But there is one elephant in the room which haunts Manilla's ties with Beijing, and that is the country that perceives itself as the true and rightful master of the Philippines - the United States. Even as Marcos Jr. develops his cooperation with China, the newly elected president is facing considerable pressure from Washington to allow it to increase its military presence in the country, and potentially get roped into a potential Taiwan contingency, owing to the Philippines' critical geostrategic position. This has led the foreign policy of the archipelago country to become a tightrope balancing act, which could easily plunge it into disaster if something goes wrong.

The White House pressed Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for saying "vaccines" "don't work," according to a document released by Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry of Louisiana.

"Since we've been on the phone - the top post about vaccines today is [T]ucker Carlson saying they don't work. Yesterday it was Tomi Lehren [sic] saying she won't take one," White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty reportedly said in an April 14, 2021 email to an unidentified Facebook employee, which was posted on Twitter by Landry.

A mystery object described by one local news outlet as a "UFO" has been shot down in the southern Russian region of Rostov.


Vasily Golubev, the governor of Rostov oblast, wrote on Telegram that a "small-size object in the shape of a ball" had been discovered flying "in the wind" at an altitude of around one and a half miles on January 3. With the object spotted above the village of Sultan Sala in the region's Myasnikovsky district, Golubev said "the decision was taken to liquidate it."

Last year, Western media and high-ranking politicians actively discussed the possibility of Russian troops using atomic weapons in Ukraine. There has even been speculation on the likelihood of a nuclear war breaking out. However, it could be said that the risk is probably a lot higher on the other side of the barricades.

Ukraine's Atomic History

Ukraine was a nuclear state after the collapse of the USSR, when 1,700 active atomic warheads remained in the country. Its politicians of that time had the prudence to abandon this status. The weapons were taken to Russia under international control, and their means of delivery were destroyed. Ukraine's missile silos, with the exception of one which is now a museum near Kiev, were blown up, while its strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons were either transferred to Russia or destroyed.

Despite this, there were still many nuclear specialists in Ukraine, as research into nuclear fission has been conducted in Kharkov since the 1930s. In addition, five nuclear power plants were built in Ukraine during the Soviet years: Zaporozhye, Rovno, Khmelnitsky, and South-Ukrainian, as well as the infamous Chernobyl, where an accident involving a power unit led to an explosion that spewed radioactive fallout throughout Europe.