I took time out from reading the news on the war on Syria to read the latest piece of fiction in the New York Times, this one woven together by Max Fisher, who provocatively titled it "Russia's Brutal Bombing of Aleppo May Be Calculated, and It May Be Working".

Max was just getting warmed up with the title, launching into a full-frontal assault on Russia, accusing it of deliberately murdering civilians in Aleppo in order to discredit the so-called opposition, scuttle the last remaining hopes of diplomacy, and, if not win the war, then at least prolong it endlessly.

Fisher then takes us on his magic carpet ride of delusion, telling us that so-called "moderate" rebels have had to turn to extremists or starve and that the US has genuinely tried to convince these moderates to separate from the extremists:

The northern Syrian city is one of the few remaining strongholds for non-jihadist rebel groups. But months of siege forced them into a terrible choice: turn to extremists for help, or starve. It was no choice at all, and groups such as the jihadist-linked Ahrar al-Sham helped briefly break the siege in August...

The United States has tried to counteract this by persuading rebels to reject jihadists, in part by promising support for the opposition and by targeting jihadist militants.

Fisher is well advised not to elaborate on who the rebel groups are who control east Aleppo, as it will reveal it is the Jihadist hardliners who run the show there.

For those who have been paying attention to things on the mandatory vaccinations front, to say things are heating up would be an understatement. In just the last month, the Powers That Be have been making moves to continually erode health freedoms in favour of a 'total vaccine state', certainly in the US. These moves include:

• Mandatory vaccinations for school children
• Persecution of non-compliant doctors
• The erosion of the last bastion of vaccine avoidance: medical exemptions
• Attacks on freedom of speech, including the silencing of a documentary that exposes the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for the cesspool of corruption that it is

Oddly, much of this is centered around the state of California.

The stereotype of 'the golden state', where New Age hippy yoga gurus meet plastic-surgery-obsessed, too-fast-for-life Hollywood types, surfers, bikers and every other 'born-free', 'take-life-as-it-comers'. Not exactly a place you'd expect to be ground zero for the encroaching medical fascist state.

‌On September 30th, 2015, the Russian air force, at the invitation of the Syrian government, began airstrikes against terrorist targets in Syria. It was a stunning intervention that sent terrorists scurrying, left Washington blind-sided, and immediately changed the balance-of-power in the Middle East and beyond.

This week we're looking back on a year of extraordinary events in Syria, across the Middle East and around the world, and the tense stand-off that has developed between the US and Russia as it appears to reach its peak. Is a nuclear war on the cards?

This week, the Dutch-led 'Joint Investigative Team' produced its 'final' report on the shooting down of MH17 over East Ukraine in July 2014. To the world's complete lack of amazement, the conclusion reached was that "Putin did it". We'll be discussing this latest farcical report and not only the complete lack of evidence it provides, but the fact that it actually disproves its own conclusion.

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Since the collapse (thanks to the US government and military) of the Russian-American ceasefire in Syria, the US has been doing what little it can with the options it has left, using the international media as its personal lapdog in service to more war and carnage, and threatening to arm terrorists with MANPADS and other heavy weaponry. Meanwhile, its narcissistic inability to 'play nice with others' is causing it to spiral out of control, losing allies around the globe and pushing it into open conflict with massively armed opponents Russia and China.

US losing the Syrian War

In his most recent gaffe as US State Department spokesman, John Kirby effectively channeled his inner Osama Bin Laden to justify, and seemingly incite, terrorist attacks against Russia:

Extremist groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which could include attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities. Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and will continue to lose resources, perhaps even aircraft.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out the obvious: this is a very poorly veiled and amateurish threat. The fact that Kirby quickly backed down from his comments goes to show that he was perhaps not in a position to make such a threat, but was merely letting his own warped mind take over at the podium in order to get a few quick lashes in.

Killary and Drumpf had their first debate earlier this week. We covered it here: First Clinton-Trump debate: Worth a laugh, but not much else. In a nutshell, Hillary lied, Trump lied a bit less. Hillary wore her fake smile, Trump squinted and got a bit angry. Hillary was polished and prepared, Trump less so. Holt grilled Trump and lobbed softballs to Hillary. By the framed parameters of the debate - i.e., who can lie the best and come up with the most voter-friendly answers (actually implementing the policies when they gain office doesn't cross candidates' minds) - Hillary probably came out on top. But when it comes to actual impact on voters, the situation isn't so simple.

As Joaquin Flores wrote in an extensive analysis for Katehon (see: Trump's victory was moral and strategic), Trump played to his fans. Hillary's support is composed mostly of people who don't like her, but who dislike Trump even more. And despite her polished performance and fake smile (actually, it's probably because of those things), the average American probably liked Trump more. He comes across as a real person - albeit a small-minded, not very intelligent person, and since when did that combination of qualities ever rankle the average American?

Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, ADHD, major depression, anxiety disorders -- there is a rising epidemic of 'madness' in America. Nearly 78 million Americans take psychiatric drugs and there are over 6 million people rendered permanently disabled by a psychiatric disorder. What was once viewed as a temporary emotional and psychological crisis has now become a lifelong illness that is only treatable with psychiatric medications. One has to wonder, when it comes to psychotropic drugs, is the cure worse than the illness? A review of the scientific literature shows quite clearly that it is our drug-based paradigm of care that is fueling a modern-day plague that comprises of debilitating and worsening psychological symptoms, an inability to work, disastrous medication side effects, altered mental functioning and brain shrinkage.

On this episode of the Health and Wellness show we take a closer look at the ill-advised biological notion of mental illness, 'magic bullet' drugs and their ill effects and how the course of a so-called mental illness is different depending on where you live. Join us as we explore how psychiatry and Big Pharma pushed the chemical imbalance myth that took hold of the public mind and set the world on the road to crazy town.

Do pets, like humans, get depressed or it is just emotional maladjustment to living in a sick environment? Stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health segment to find out more.

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A thought occurred to me a few days ago about a potential chain of events that might transpire in the near future. It felt like a eureka moment; some things just kinda clicked and suddenly made sense when considered together. First, a quick background. There is a lot of talk that developments in artificial intelligence and automation will automate many jobs and create huge numbers of people whose skills are no longer useful because machines will be able to do those jobs. And worst of all, they won't be able to re-train and/or get different jobs because those jobs too will be automated - there are no replacement jobs coming. This video covers this really well:

Today the Joint Investigation Team released their findings on the shoot-down of MH17. This follows the October 2015 Dutch Safety Board report, which concluded that the plane was shot down with a Buk missile armed with a 9N314M warhead, and stressed that Ukraine had failed to close the airspace over the war zone. However, the Russian company that produces the Buk system conducted their own tests, allegedly ruling out the separatist-held village of Snezhnoye as the launch site, pointing to Kiev-held Zaroshchenskoye as the only possible site, and questioning the type of warhead identified by the DSB based on the physical damage to the wreckage. (See: Closing the BUK on MH17? Dutch final report is clearly biased.)

Initially, on July 21, 2014, Russia released data showing that a Ukrainian jet was in the vicinity of MH17 before it was shot down. This matched up with eyewitness accounts and analysis of the damage suggesting the possibility of fighter jet machine-gun fire. However, just two days ago, Russia released some "newly discovered" civilian radar data alleging to show the situation in the air at the time of the shoot-down and crash. The data showed three civilian aircraft in the vicinity, but "no foreign objects near the Malaysian plane which could have caused its destruction". So this latest release contradicts their earlier statements: the radar shows no indication of a fighter jet in the air.

According to the Russian experts, due to the capacities of the radar station involved, the data suggests that a Buk was not fired from rebel-held territory, but the same could not be said for the territory held by Kiev, because the radar station wouldn't have been able to detect a missile fired from Zaroshchenskoye. (The author of the What Happened to Flight MH17 blog argues the opposite - that the radar would have detected a missile fired from Zaroshchenskoye more easily, but without a detailed expert analysis, it's hard to say either way.) According to the Russians, Ukraine has yet to release their radar data, and the investigation is proceeding based on false premises, namely the misidentification of the type of missile used.

This is the first debate I've watched since the first Obama debate back in 2008. I tuned in to be entertained more than informed. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed in Trump - he tossed out a couple of minor zingers but seemed to be really holding back. Perhaps he is following the "American TV model" where the first episode or two in a season are usually really suspenseful and draw you in, the middle of the season is often tangential standalones that are rather boring, and the finale brings it all to a climactic clash. Perhaps he's luring Clinton into a false sense of security and he's really going to make a media splash at the "season finale" of the presidential campaign that will stick with everyone, and which will be harder for her to redirect. Outside of that or someone strong-arming him to shut up, it really seemed like he wasn't all there.

Overall this debate seemed like a draw, with both Trump and Hillary mainly doing "fan service" without getting into a real debate outside of their respective boxes. We had a sort of watered-down Trump trying to keep his angry unemployed people roused up without whipping them into a fervor, and Clinton recycling the same old yuppified pseudo-intellectual social equality/great society stuff that the so-called intelligentsia of the nation loves to slurp down. If you weren't already in one of these two camps, I don't see where there was anything of substance said that would sway your opinion, which is nothing new with these so-called "debates."

For the second week in a row, developments abroad in Syria have been closely followed by chaos and violence at home in the United States. Yesterday, in a pathetic copy-cat maneuver of the (justified) emergency UN Security Council meeting called by Russia last week following NATO's egregious act of war against Syria, the U.S., UK, and France yesterday called an emergency UNSC meeting over the Syrian Arab Army's "shocking" and "barbaric" offensive on eastern Aleppo. The collective Western idiocracy called for an immediate end to the offensive, with pseudo-humanitarian troll Samantha Power laying all the blame on Russia and Assad, as usual:

What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism, it is barbarism. Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war. Instead of helping get life-saving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive.

No, Samantha is the barbarian for supporting terrorists. She is the barbarian for bombing humanitarian convoys and hospitals. She is the barbarian for representing the most odious, murderous, genocidal regime in recent history. She represents terrorists, defends them, and deserves to be held accountable for her lies and her glib denial of American-supported war crimes. Maria Zakharova had an appropriately cutting response:

Historically speaking... a barbarian is someone not belonging to an empire, and we have only one of those today ... As for the imagery... the world has seen nothing more barbaric in modern history than Iraq and Libya done the Washington way.

Power also accused Russia of abusing its "historic privilege" of sitting on the UNSC, and Britain's UN lapdog, Matthew Rycroft, played fetch with the suggestion, saying Russia would be excluded from the Syrian peace process due to the recent escalation in fighting, adding:

"The regime and Russia have instead plunged to new depths and unleashed a new hell on Aleppo. Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes."

The pusillanimous French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault joined in, calling for Russia and Iran to rein in Syria, lest they too be complicit in war crimes. It looks like Power really does corrupt...