From the very beginning of the Ukraine conflict I maintained skepticism for the narrative from both sides, as you should, but I had difficulties deciding to which extent they are BS.
Putin was full in, I bet he wants full out now, in terms of public image
Basically, my main and only dilemma was: Did Putin enter the Ukraine stage willingly, as an actor, following the globalist script, as he always does, or was he baited and trapped in to be sacrificed on the altar of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the GloboPedoDiversity, and now he’s really threatened existentially and fighting for survival?
I brought up a bunch of reasons to explain how I got to this point and why I am more inclined to believe this is all a shitshow just like the empty hospitals during the hospital overrun of 2020, or Chinese people dropping dead on the streets of Beijing “becuz Covid maaaan”.
One of my first indicators was that the script is very obsolete, old-school kinetic take over for people who are still engaging with post-WW2 propaganda movies, such as most of elder audiences in Russia and a good chunk of the American ones. This corroborates with the backwards scrap arsenal Putin sent there, probably because it was more cheap and ecological to dump them in Ukraine than at home. If you think that’s where the military is right now, as we discuss graphene oxide and transhumanism, if you think it takes more than an afternoon for a power like Russia to take over a town like Mariupol, you’re at least 50 years behind the technological curve and that’s more than all the technological progress mankind has made in its entire prior history.
Second major red flag: Russia is underplaying every hand, from propaganda to military. I’ve never seen the much feared “Russian spies”, “Russian bots” and “Russian hackers” more inhibited in my life, same as RT and other means of influence they have. Their intel nukes can implode the establishment instantly, rest assured they were among the first to get Biden’s laptops content.
Funny how the people demanding to be followed are always behind me. NEWSWEEK
Even the biolabs thing looks like they rather want to discredit it providing those thin files of evidences as we, independent media, made a stronger case for them than they did. This is not lazy, this is borderline sabotage.
Chabad Rabbis praise Trump at 2019 NY fundraiser: “One of our greatest friends in history”
‘Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two of his closest confidants, the oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad’s biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as “Putin’s rabbi.” A few years later, Trump would seek out Russian projects and capital by joining forces with a partnership called Bayrock-Sapir, led by Soviet emigres Tevfik Arif, Felix Sater and Tamir Sapir—who maintain close ties to Chabad. The company’s ventures would lead to multiple lawsuits alleging fraud and a criminal investigation of a condo project in Manhattan.’
POLITICO
ABSOLUTE EVIDENCE THAT ZELENSKY IS A CHABADNIK TOO! SOURCE
So why wouldn’t the alliance encompass Putin too, as the bad cop in the movie where leftoids play the good cop?
Fifth, but not last, the Western response to the crisis aligns more with the Covid agenda, WEF agenda and Agenda2030 than with a peace plan. They’re using the same scripts with new faces, like a gender-swapped Hollywood remake of a classic movie.
Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu came up with an even brighter idea: Alternately, one weekend was free for drivers who had even numbers on their registration plates, next weekend the uneven number took over. We actually hardly had any cars and car pollution, only industrial pollution. But he was exporting all reserves to raise money and pay out our debt to the Rothschilds. He achieved his goal with incredible sacrifices and hardships from the population, in the summer of 1989. They executed him on Christmas day same year, during the “anti-communist revolution”, in fact the first televised coup by the West (NATO and the likes of).
I could go on and make a long and detailed list, but this more than suffices to make the case.
It’s almost like Russia doesn’t want to win in Ukraine, but to linger there as long as possible, and maintain international tension without investing more than a few slaves and some scrapyard junk.
However, I was missing the weight that decisively inclines the balance either way, and I kept telling people I’m waiting for more intel before I make a definitive call.
Three weeks in, and the level of silliness in the media reports and Internet debates made my brains bleed through my eyes really badly. My skeptical inclinations inclined even more. Still no closure to the internal hesitations though.
And then, just the other day, all of a sudden, Mr. James Corbett dropped the mic on this and definitively closed the internal debate for me. I hope he will provide you with the same sense of closure and mental relief! Watch it entirely, please, no skipping, even if it seems to be off-topic in the beginning, this is masterfully built and eloquently laid out, as Corbett does, but if you try taking shortcuts you will only shortcut yourself. I don’t want to oversell it, but this will be one of the best-invested hours of your life, in 2022.
As per usual, Corbett doesn’t need my help in in making a full, eloquent and clear case, but I will add here, over time, more information, resources and comments that corroborate and further our understanding of this psyop.
One single comment: The Young Global Leaders history is much older, the program has been built on the shoulders of other previous attempts to create a dictator incubator.
<<As former Ambassador to Russia, Burns has been particularly influential with regard to Ukraine. The CIA had been monitoring Russia’s buildup and in November 2021, three months before the invasion, Biden dispatched Burns to Moscow to warn the Kremlin of the consequences of any attack. Though the Russian president snubbed Biden’s emissary by staying at his retreat in Sochi on the Black Sea, 800 miles away, he did agree to speak with Burns via a Kremlin secure phone.
“In some ironic ways though, the meeting was highly successful,” says the second senior intelligence official, who was briefed on it. Even though Russia invaded, the two countries were able to accept tried and true rules of the road. The United States would not fight directly nor seek regime change, the Biden administration pledged. Russia would limit its assault to Ukraine and act in accordance with unstated but well-understood guidelines for secret operations.
“There are clandestine rules of the road,” says the senior defense intelligence official, “even if they are not codified on paper, particularly when one isn’t engaged in a war of annihilation.” This includes staying within day-to-day boundaries of spying, not crossing certain borders and not attacking each other’s leadership or diplomats. “Generally the Russians have respected these global red lines, even if those lines are invisible,” the official says.
Once Russian forces poured into Ukraine, the United States had to quickly shift gears. The CIA, like the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, had misread Russia’s military capacity and Ukraine’s resilience as Russia failed to take Kyiv and withdrew from the north.
By last July, both sides settled in for a long war. As the war shifted, Washington’s focus changed from very public and symbolic troop deployments to Europe to “deter” further Russian moves, to providing weapons to sustain Ukraine’s ability to fight. In the face of Zelensky’s masterful public lobbying, the United States slowly and reluctantly agreed to supply better and longer-range weapons, weapons that in theory could threaten Russian territory and thus flirt with the feared escalation.
“Zelensky has certainly outdone everyone else in getting what he wants, but Kyiv has had to agree to obey certain invisible lines as well,” says the senior defense intelligence official. In secret diplomacy largely led by the CIA, Kyiv pledged not to use the weapons to attack Russia itself. Zelensky has said openly that Ukraine will not attack Russia.
Artwork in Bristol, England depicts former actor Zelensky in what many see as his latest role: political super hero.MATT CARDY/GETTY
Behind the scenes, dozens of countries also had to be persuaded to accept the Biden administration’s limits. Some of these countries, including Britain and Poland, are willing to take more risk than the White House is comfortable with. Others—including some of Ukraine’s neighbors—do not entirely share American and Ukrainian zeal for the conflict, do not enjoy unanimous public support in their anti-Russian efforts and do not want to antagonize Putin.>> – Newsweek
And these are NEW SECRET MEETINGS BETWEEN US AND RUSSIA
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Memes have been invented by Carl Sagan, with a good plan. Perhaps the achievements have now exceeded his expectations, not sure what percent of the population realizes the life-changing potential of a good meme that goes viral. But enough of you do, you saw my previous work, I heard you, I heard the traditional comedy dying under libt@rd daggers and I decided to try pushing the envelope again
THE RULES ARE SIMPLE: ANYTHING IS ALLOWED IF IT’S EITHER FUNNY OR TRUE, PREFERABLY BOTH. I ONLY DRAW A LINE AT KIDS, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
A sort of trailer: something old, something new and something blue
It’s been in work for a while, you’ve probably seen some tests, now we’re open for not-business-but-whatever.
This is just the “baby-shower” for this brand new page, with a little over 50 original creations, but rest assured I’m sitting on a few hundred hard-hitting memes in all stages of development, and they only need a bit of love from the public to emerge.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
It’s not disputable, since the information comes from official patent registries in the Netherlands and US. And we have all the documentation
UPDATE: Reuters took on doing damage control for this article and published a slander and smear piece on us disguised as “fact-checking”. We fact-checked their fact-checking phrase by phrase here.
As we’ve shown in previous exposes, the whole Covidiocracy is a masquerade and a simulation long prepared by The World Bank / IMF / The Rothschilds and their lemmings, with Rockefeller partnership. Our newest discoveries further these previous revelations.
A method is provided for acquiring and transmitting biometric data (e.g., vital signs) of a user, where the data is analyzed to determine whether the user is suffering from a viral infection, such as COVID-19. The method includes using a pulse oximeter to acquire at least pulse and blood oxygen saturation percentage, which is transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone. To ensure that the data is accurate, an accelerometer within the smartphone is used to measure movement of the smartphone and/or the user. Once accurate data is acquired, it is uploaded to the cloud (or host), where the data is used (alone or together with other vital signs) to determine whether the user is suffering from (or likely to suffer from) a viral infection, such as COVID-19. Depending on the specific requirements, the data, changes thereto, and/or the determination can be used to alert medical staff and take corresponding actions.
Title: System and Method for Using, Biometric, and Displaying Biometric Data United States Patent Application 20170229149 Kind Code: A1
Abstract: A method is provided for processing and displaying biometric data of a user, either alone or together (in synchronization) with other data, such as video data of the user during a time that the biometric data was acquired. The method includes storing biometric data so that it is linked to an identifier and at least one time-stamp (e.g., a start time, a sample rate, etc.), and storing video data so that it is linked to the identifier and at least one time-stamp (e.g., a start time). By storing data in this fashion, biometric data can be displayed (either in real-time or delayed) in synchronization with video data, and biometric data can be searched to identify at least one biometric event. Video corresponding to the biometric event can then be displayed, either alone or together with at least one biometric of the user during the biometric event.
Inventors: Rothschild, Richard A. (London, GB) Macklin, Dan (Stafford, GB) Slomkowski, Robin S. (Eugene, OR, US) Harnischfeger, Taska (Eugene, OR, US) Application Number: 15/495485 Publication Date: 08/10/2017 Filing Date: 04/24/2017 Export Citation: Click for automatic bibliography generation Assignee: Rothschild Richard A. Macklin Dan Slomkowski Robin S. Harnischfeger Taska International Classes: G11B27/10; G06F19/00; G06K9/00; G11B27/031; H04N5/77 View Patent Images: Download PDF 20170229149
US Patent References:
20160035143
N/A
2016-02-04
20140316713
N/A
2014-10-23
20140214568
N/A
2014-07-31
20090051487
N/A
2009-02-26
20070189246
N/A
2007-08-16
Primary Examiner: MESA, JOSE M Attorney, Agent or Firm: Fitzsimmons IP Law (Gardena, CA, US) Claims: What is claimed is:
1. A method for identifying video corresponding to a biometric event of a user, said video being displayed along with at least one biometric of said user during said biometric event, comprising: receiving a request to start a session; using at least one program running on a mobile device to assign a session number and a start time to said session; receiving video data from a camera, said video data including video of at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during a period of time, said period of time starting at said start time; receiving biometric data from a sensor, said biometric data including a plurality of values on a biometric of said user during said period of time; using said at least one program to link at least said session number and said start time to said video data; using said at least one program to link at least said session number, said start time, and a sample rate to said biometric data, at least said session number being used to link said biometric data to said video data, and at least said sample rate and said start time being used to link individual ones of said plurality of values to individual times within said period of time; receiving said biometric event, said biometric event comprising one of a value and a range of said biometric; using said at least one program to identify a first one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event; using said at least one program and at least said start time, said sample rate, and said period of time to identify a first time within said period of time corresponding to said first one of said plurality of values; and displaying on said mobile device at least said video data during said first time along with said first one of said plurality of values, wherein said first time is used to show said first one of said plurality of values in synchronization with a portion of said video data that shows at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during said biometric event.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of receiving biometric data from said sensor further comprises receiving heart rate data from a heart rate monitor.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of linking said session number to said video data and said biometric data further comprises linking an activity number to both said video data and said biometric data, wherein said activity number identifies one of a plurality of activities, said session comprises said plurality of activities, and both said session number and said activity number are used to link said biometric data to said video data.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of assigning a session number to said session further comprises linking a description of said session to said session.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of receiving video data and biometric data further comprises receiving said video data and said biometric data during said period of time.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of receiving video data from a camera further comprises receiving said video data from said camera after said period of time.
7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of analyzing said video data for an identifier identifying said session, said identifier being used by said at least one program to link said session number to said video data.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of identifying a first one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event and identifying a first time corresponding to said first one of said plurality of values further comprises identifying each one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event and identifying each time corresponding to said each one of said plurality of values.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein said step of displaying at least said video data during said first time further comprises displaying at least said video data during said each time corresponding to said each one of said plurality of values, wherein said each time is used to show said each one of said plurality of values in synchronization with portions of said video data that show at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during said biometric event.
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of receiving self-realization data from said user, and linking at least said session number and at least one time to said self-realization data, wherein said self-realization data indicates how said user feels during said at least one time, and said at least one time is used to display said self-realization data in synchronization with at least one portion of said video data.
11. A system for identifying video corresponding to a biometric event of a user, said video being displayed along with at least one biometric of said user during said biometric event, comprising: at least one server in communication with a wide area network (WAN); a mobile device in communication with said at least one server via said WAN, said mobile device comprising: a display; at least one processor for downloading machine readable instructions from said at least one server; and at least one memory device for storing said machine readable instructions, said machine readable instructions being adapted to perform the steps of: receiving a request to start a session; assigning a session number and a start time to said session; receiving video data from a camera, said video data including video of at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during a period of time; receiving biometric data from a sensor, said biometric data including a plurality of values on a biometric of said user during said period of time; linking at least said session number and said start time to said video data; linking at least said session number, said start time, and a sample rate to said biometric data, at least said session number being used to link said biometric data to said video data, and at least said sample rate and said start time being used to link individual ones of said plurality of values to individual times within said period of time; receiving said biometric event, said biometric event comprising one of a value and a range of said biometric; identifying a first one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event; identifying a first time within said period of time corresponding to said first one of said plurality of values; and displaying on said display at least said video data during said first time along with said first one of said plurality of values, wherein said first time is used to show said first one of said plurality of values in synchronization with a portion of said video data that shows at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during said biometric event.
12. The system of claim 11, wherein said step of receiving biometric data from said sensor further comprises receiving heart rate data from a heart rate monitor.
13. The system of claim 11, wherein said steps of linking said session number to said video data and said biometric data further comprises linking an activity number to both said video data and said biometric data, wherein said activity number identifies one of a plurality of activities, said session comprises said plurality of activities, and both said session number and said activity number are used to link said biometric data to said video data.
14. The system of claim 11, wherein said steps of receiving video data and biometric data further comprises receiving said video data and said biometric data during said period of time.
15. The system of claim 11, wherein said step of receiving video data from a camera further comprises receiving said video data from said camera after said period of time.
16. The system of claim 15, wherein said machine readable instructions are further adapted to perform the step of analyzing said video data for a barcode, said barcode identifying said session number and being used to link said session number to said video data.
17. The system of claim 11, wherein said steps of identifying a first one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric even and identifying a first time corresponding to said first one of said plurality of values further comprises identifying each one of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event and identifying each time corresponding to said each one of said plurality of values.
18. The system of claim 17, wherein said step of displaying at least said video data during said first time further comprises displaying at least said video data during said each time corresponding to said each one of said plurality of values, wherein said each time is used to show said each one of said plurality of values in synchronization with portions of said video data that show at least one of said user and said user’s surroundings during said biometric event.
19. The system of claim 11, wherein said machine readable instructions are further adapted to perform the steps of receiving self-realization data from said user, and linking said session number and at least one time to said self-realization data, wherein said self-realization data indicates how said user feels during said at least one time, and said at least one time is used to display said self-realization data in synchronization with at least one portion of said video data.
20. A method for displaying video in synchronization with at least one biometric of a subject, comprising: using at least one program running on a computing device to assign a session number and a start time to said session; receiving video data from at least one camera, said video data including video of at least one of said subject and said subject’s surroundings during a period of time; receiving biometric data from at least one sensor, said biometric data including a plurality of values on at least one biometric of said subject during said period of time; using said at least one program to link at least said session number and said start time to said video data; using said at least one program to link at least said session number, said start time, and at least one sample rate to said biometric data; receiving a biometric event, said biometric event comprising one of a value and a range of said at least one biometric; using said at least one program to identify individual ones of said plurality of values corresponding to said biometric event; using said at least one program and at least said start time, said at least one sample rate, and said period of time to identify individual times within said period of time corresponding to said individual ones of said plurality of values; and displaying on said computing device at least said video data and said individual ones of said plurality of values, wherein said individual times are used to show said individual ones of said plurality of values in synchronization with portions of said video data that show at least one of said subject and said subject’s surroundings during said biometric event.
Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 15/293,211, filed Oct. 13, 2016, which claims priority pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §119 (e) to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/240,783, filed Oct. 13, 2015, which applications are specifically incorporated herein, in their entirety, by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the reception and use of biometric data, and more particularly, to a system and method for displaying at least one biometric of a user along with video of the user at a time that the at least one biometric is being measured and/or received.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, devices have been developed that are capable of measuring, sensing, or estimating in a convenient form factor at least one or more metric related to physiological characteristics, commonly referred to as biometric data. For example, devices that resemble watches have been developed which are capable of measuring an individual’s heart rate or pulse, and, using that data together with other information (e.g., the individual’s age, weight, etc.), to calculate a resultant, such as the total calories burned by the individual in a given day. Similar devices have been developed for measuring, sensing, or estimating other kinds of metrics, such as blood pressure, breathing patterns, breath composition, sleep patterns, and blood-alcohol level, to name a few. These devices are generically referred to as biometric devices or biosensor metrics devices.
While the types of biometric devices continue to grow, the way in which biometric data is used remains relatively static. For example, heart rate data is typically used to give an individual information on their pulse and calories burned. By way of another example, blood-alcohol data is typically used to give an individual information on their blood-alcohol level, and to inform the individual on whether or not they can safely or legally operate a motor vehicle. By way of yet another example, an individual’s breathing pattern (measurable for example either by loudness level in decibels, or by variations in decibel level over a time interval) may be monitored by a doctor, nurse, or medical technician to determine whether the individual suffers from sleep apnea.
While biometric data is useful in and of itself, such data would be more informative or dynamic if it could be combined with other data (e.g., video data, etc.), provided (e.g., wirelessly, over a network, etc.) to a remote device, and/or searchable (e.g., allowing certain conditions, such as an elevated heart rate, to be quickly identified) and/or cross-searchable (e.g., using biometric data to identify a video section illustrating a specific characteristic, or vice-versa). Thus, a need exists for an efficient system and method capable of achieving at least some, or indeed all, of the foregoing advantages, and capable also of merging the data generated in either automatic or manual form by the various devices, which are often using operating systems or technologies (e.g., hardware platforms, protocols, data types, etc.) that are incompatible with one another.
In certain embodiments of the present invention, the system and/or method is configured to receive, manage, and filter the quantity of information on a timely and cost-effective basis, and could also be of further value through the accurate measurement, visualization (e.g., synchronized visualization, etc.), and rapid notification of data points which are outside (or within) a defined or predefined range.
Such a system and/or method could be used by an individual (e.g., athlete, etc.) or their trainer, coach, etc., to visualize the individual during the performance of an athletic event (e.g., jogging, biking, weightlifting, playing soccer, etc.) in real-time (live) or afterwards, together with the individual’s concurrently measured biometric data (e.g., heart rate, etc.), and/or concurrently gathered “self-realization data,” or subject-generated experiential data, where the individual inputs their own subjective physical or mental states during their exercise, fitness or sports activity/training (e.g., feeling the onset of an adrenaline “rush” or endorphins in the system, feeling tired, “getting a second wind,” etc.). This would allow a person (e.g., the individual, the individual’s trainer, a third party, etc.) to monitor/observe physiological and/or subjective psychological characteristics of an individual while watching or reviewing the individual in the performance of an athletic event, or other physical activity. Such inputting of the self-realization data, ca be achieved by various methods, including automatically, time-stamped-in-the-system voice notes, short-form or abbreviation key commands on a smart phone, smart watch, enabled fitness band, or any other system-linked input method which is convenient for the individual to utilize so as not to impede (or as little as possible) the flow and practice by the individual of the activity in progress.
Such a system and/or method would also facilitate, for example, remote observation and diagnosis in telemedicine applications, where there is a need for the medical staff, or monitoring party or parent, to have clear and rapid confirmation of the identity of the patient or infant, as well as their visible physical condition, together with their concurrently generated biometric and/or self-realization data.
Furthermore, the system and/or method should also provide the subject, or monitoring party, with a way of using video indexing to efficiently and intuitively benchmark, map and evaluate the subject’s data, both against the subject’s own biometric history and/or against other subjects’ data samples, or demographic comparables, independently of whichever operating platforms or applications have been used to generate the biometric and video information. By being able to filter/search for particular events (e.g., biometric events, self-realization events, physical events, etc.), the acquired data can be reduced down or edited (e.g., to create a “highlight reel,” etc.) while maintaining synchronization between individual video segments and measured and/or gathered data (e.g., biometric data, self-realization data, GPS data, etc.). Such comprehensive indexing of the events, and with it the ability to perform structured aggregation of the related data (video and other) with (or without) data from other individuals or other relevant sources, can also be utilized to provide richer levels of information using methods of “Big Data” analysis and “Machine Learning,” and adding artificial intelligence (“AI”) for the implementation of recommendations and calls to action.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a system and method for using, processing, indexing, benchmarking, ranking, comparing and displaying biometric data, or a resultant thereof, either alone or together (e.g., in synchronization) with other data (e.g., video data, etc.). Preferred embodiments of the present invention operate in accordance with a computing device (e.g., a smart phone, etc.) in communication with at least one external device (e.g., a biometric device for acquiring biometric data, a video device for acquiring video data, etc.). In a first embodiment of the present invention, video data, which may include audio data, and non-video data, such as biometric data, are stored separately on the computing device and linked to other data, which allows searching and synchronization of the video and non-video data.
In one embodiment of the present invention, an application (e.g., running on the computing device, etc.) includes a plurality of modules for performing a plurality of functions. For example, the application may include a video capture module for receiving video data from an internal and/or external camera, and a biometric capture module for receiving biometric data from an internal and/or external biometric device. The client platform may also include a user interface module, allowing a user to interact with the platform, a video editing module for editing video data, a file handling module for managing data, a database and sync module for replicating data, an algorithm module for processing received data, a sharing module for sharing and/or storing data, and a central login and ID module for interfacing with third party social media websites, such as Facebook™.
These modules can be used, for example, to start a new session, receive video data for the session (i.e., via the video capture module) and receive biometric data for the session (i.e., via the biometric capture module). This data can be stored in local storage, in a local database, and/or on a remote storage device (e.g., in the company cloud or a third-party cloud service, such as Dropbox™, etc.). In a preferred embodiment, the data is stored so that it is linked to information that (i) identifies the session and (ii) enables synchronization.
For example, video data is preferably linked to at least a start time (e.g., a start time of the session) and an identifier. The identifier may be a single number uniquely identifying the session, or a plurality of numbers (e.g., a plurality of global or universal unique identifiers (GUIDs/UUIDs)), where a first number uniquely identifying the session and a second number uniquely identifies an activity within the session, allowing a session to include a plurality of activities. The identifier may also include a session name and/or a session description. Other information about the video data (e.g., video length, video source, etc.) (i.e., “video metadata”) can also be stored and linked to the video data. Biometric data is preferably linked to at least the start time (e.g., the same start time linked to the video data), the identifier (e.g., the same identifier linked to the video data), and a sample rate, which identifies the rate at which biometric data is received and/or stored.
Once the video and biometric data is stored and linked, algorithms can be used to display the data together. For example, if biometric data is stored at a sample rate of 30 samples per minute (spm), algorithms can be used to display a first biometric value (e.g., below the video data, superimposed over the video data, etc.) at the start of the video clip, a second biometric value two seconds later (two seconds into the video clip), a third biometric value two seconds later (four seconds into the video clip), etc. In alternate embodiments of the present invention, non-video data (e.g., biometric data, self-realization data, etc.) can be stored with a plurality of time-stamps (e.g., individual stamps or offsets for each stored value, or individual sample rates for each data type), which can be used together with the start time to synchronize non-video data to video data.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the biometric device may include a sensor for sensing biometric data, a display for interfacing with the user and displaying various information (e.g., biometric data, set-up data, operation data, such as start, stop, and pause, etc.), a memory for storing the sensed biometric data, a transceiver for communicating with the exemplary computing device, and a processor for operating and/or driving the transceiver, memory, sensor, and display. The exemplary computing device includes a transceiver (1) for receiving biometric data from the exemplary biometric device, a memory for storing the biometric data, a display for interfacing with the user and displaying various information (e.g., biometric data, set-up data, operation data, such as start, stop, and pause, input in-session comments or add voice notes, etc.), a keyboard (or other user input) for receiving user input data, a transceiver (2) for providing the biometric data to the host computing device via the Internet, and a processor for operating and/or driving the transceiver (1), transceiver (2), keyboard, display, and memory.
The keyboard (or other input device) in the computing device, or alternatively the keyboard (or other input device) in the biometric device, may be used to enter self-realization data, or data on how the user is feeling at a particular time. For example, if the user is feeling tired, the user may enter the “T” on the keyboard. If the user is feeling their endorphins kick in, the user may enter the “E” on the keyboard. And if the user is getting their second wind, the user may enter the “S” on the keyboard. Alternatively, to further facilitate operation during the exercise, or sporting activity, short-code key buttons such as “T,” “E,” and “S” can be preassigned, like speed-dial telephone numbers for frequently called contacts on a smart phone, etc., which can be selected manually or using voice recognition. This data (e.g., the entry or its representation) is then stored and linked to either a sample rate (like biometric data) or time-stamp data, which may be a time or an offset to the start time that each button was pressed. This would allow the self-realization data to be synchronized to the video data. It would also allow the self-realization data, like biometric data, to be searched or filtered (e.g., in order to find video corresponding to a particular event, such as when the user started to feel tired, etc.).
In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, the computing device (e.g., a smart phone, etc.) is also in communication with a host computing device via a wide area network (“WAN”), such as the Internet. This embodiment allows the computing device to download the application from the host computing device, offload at least some of the above-identified functions to the host computing device, and store data on the host computing device (e.g., allowing video data, alone or synchronized to non-video data, such as biometric data and self-realization data, to be viewed by another networked device). For example, the software operating on the computing device (e.g., the application, program, etc.) may allow the user to play the video and/or audio data, but not to synchronize the video and/or audio data to the biometric data. This may be because the host computing device is used to store data critical to synchronization (time-stamp index, metadata, biometric data, sample rate, etc.) and/or software operating on the host computing device is necessary for synchronization. By way of another example, the software operating on the computing device may allow the user to play the video and/or audio data, either alone or synchronized with the biometric data, but may not allow the computing device (or may limit the computing device’s ability) to search or otherwise extrapolate from, or process the biometric data to identify relevant portions (e.g., which may be used to create a “highlight reel” of the synchronized video/audio/biometric data) or to rank the biometric and/or video data. This may be because the host computing device is used to store data critical to search and/or to rank the biometric data (biometric data, biometric metadata, etc.), and/or software necessary for searching (or performing advanced searching of) and/or ranking (or performing advanced ranking of) the biometric data.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the video data, which may also include audio data, starts at a time “T” and continues for a duration of “n.” The video data is preferably stored in memory (locally and/or remotely) and linked to other data, such as an identifier, start time, and duration. Such data ties the video data to at least a particular session, a particular start time, and identifies the duration of the video included therein. In one embodiment of the present invention, each session can include different activities. For example, a trip to Berlin on a particular day (session) may involve a bike ride through the city (first activity) and a walk through a park (second activity). Thus, the identifier may include both a session identifier, uniquely identifying the session via a globally unique identifier (GUID), and an activity identifier, uniquely identifying the activity via a globally unique identifier (GUID), where the session/activity relationship is that of a parent/child.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the biometric data is stored in memory and linked to the identifier and a sample rate “m.” This allows the biometric data to be linked to video data upon playback. For example, if identifier is one, start time is 1:00 PM, video duration is one minute, and the sample rate is 30 spm, then the playing of the video at 2:00 PM would result in the first biometric value to be displayed (e.g., below the video, over the video, etc.) at 2:00 PM, the second biometric value to be displayed (e.g., below the video, over the video, etc.) two seconds later, and so on until the video ends at 2:01 PM. While self-realization data can be stored like biometric data (e.g., linked to a sample rate), if such data is only received periodically, it may be more advantageous to store this data linked to the identifier and a time-stamp, where “m” is either the time that the self-realization data was received or an offset between this time and the start time (e.g., ten minutes and four seconds after the start time, etc.). By storing video and non-video data separately from one another, data can be easily search and synchronized.
With respect to linking data to an identifier, which may be linked to other data (e.g., start time, sample rate, etc.), if the data is received in real-time, the data can be linked to the identifier (s) for the current session (and/or activity). However, when data is received after the fact (e.g., after a session has ended), there are several ways in which the data can be linked to a particular session and/or activity (or identifier (s) associated therewith). The data can be manually linked (e.g., by the user) or automatically linked via the application. With respect to the latter, this can be accomplished, for example, by comparing the duration of the received data (e.g., the video length) with the duration of the session and/or activity, by assuming that the received data is related to the most recent session and/or activity, or by analyzing data included within the received data. For example, in one embodiment, data included with the received data (e.g., metadata) may identify a time and/or location associated with the data, which can then be used to link the received data to the session and/or activity. In another embodiment, the computing device could display data (e.g., a barcode, such as a QR code, etc.) that identifies the session and/or activity. An external video recorder could record the identifying data (as displayed by the computing device) along with (e.g., before, after, or during) the user and/or his/her surroundings. The application could then search the video data for identifying data, and use this data to link the video data to a session and/or activity. The identifying portion of the video data could then be deleted by the application if desired.
A more complete understanding of a system and method for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, or a resultant thereof, will be afforded to those skilled in the art, as well as a realization of additional advantages and objects thereof, by a consideration of the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment. Reference will be made to the appended sheets of drawings, which will first be described briefly.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 illustrates a system for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, and for synchronizing biometric data with other data (e.g., video data, audio data, etc.) in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2A illustrates a system for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, and for synchronizing biometric data with other data (e.g., video data, audio data, etc.) in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2B illustrates a system for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, and for synchronizing biometric data with other data (e.g., video data, audio data, etc.) in accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary display of video data synchronized with biometric data in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, and for synchronizing biometric data with other data (e.g., video data, audio data, etc.) in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, and for synchronizing biometric data with other data (e.g., video data, audio data, etc.) in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 6 illustrates a method for synchronizing video data with biometric data, operating the video data, and searching the biometric data, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary display of video data synchronized with biometric data in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 8 illustrates exemplary video data, which is preferably linked to an identifier (ID), a start time (T), and a finish time or duration (n);
FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary identifier (ID), comprising a session identifier and an activity identifier;
FIG. 10 illustrates exemplary biometric data, which is preferably linked to an identifier (ID), a start time (T), and a sample rate (S);
FIG. 11 illustrates exemplary self-realization data, which is preferably linked to an identifier (ID) and a time (m);
FIG. 12 illustrates how sampled biometric data points can be used to extrapolate other biometric data point in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 13 illustrates how sampled biometric data points can be used to extrapolate other biometric data points in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 14 illustrates an example of how a start time and data related thereto (e.g., sample rate, etc.) can be used to synchronized biometric data and self-realization data to video data;
FIG. 15 depicts an exemplary “sign in” screen shot for an application that allows a user to capture at least video and biometric data of the user performing an athletic event (e.g., bike riding, etc.) and to display the video data together (or in synchronization) with the biometric data;
FIG. 16 depict an exemplary “create session” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing the user to create a new session;
FIG. 17 depicts an exemplary “session name” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing the user to enter a name for the session;
FIG. 18 depicts an exemplary “session description” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing the user to enter a description for the session;
FIG. 19 depicts an exemplary “session started” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing the video and biometric data received in real-time;
FIG. 20 depicts an exemplary “review session” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing the user to playback the session at a later time;
FIG. 21 depicts an exemplary “graph display option” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing the user to select data (e.g., heart rate data, etc.) to be displayed along with the video data;
FIG. 22 depicts an exemplary “review session” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, where the video data is displayed together (or in synchronization) with the biometric data;
FIG. 23 depicts an exemplary “map” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing GPS data displayed on a Google map;
FIG. 24 depicts an exemplary “summary” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing a summary of the session;
FIG. 25 depicts an exemplary “biometric search” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing a user to search the biometric data for particular biometric event (e.g., a particular value, a particular range, etc.);
FIG. 26 depicts an exemplary “first result” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing a first result for the biometric event shown in FIG. 25, together with corresponding video;
FIG. 27 depicts an exemplary “second result” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing a second result for the biometric event shown in FIG. 25, together with corresponding video;
FIG. 28 depicts an exemplary “session search” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, allowing a user to search for sessions that meet certain criteria; and
FIG. 29 depicts an exemplary “list” screen shot for the application depicted in FIG. 15, showing a result for the criteria shown in FIG. 28.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The present invention provides a system and method for using, processing, indexing, benchmarking, ranking, comparing and displaying biometric data, or a resultant thereof, either alone or together (e.g., in synchronization) with other data (e.g., video data, etc.). It should be appreciated that while the invention is described herein in terms of certain biometric data (e.g., heart rate, breathing patterns, blood-alcohol level, etc.), the invention is not so limited, and can be used in conjunction with any biometric and/or physical data, including, but not limited to oxygen levels, CO2 levels, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, blood glucose, lung function, eye pressure, body and ambient conditions (temperature, humidity, light levels, altitude, and barometric pressure), speed (walking speed, running speed), location and distance travelled, breathing rate, heart rate variance (HRV), EKG data, perspiration levels, calories consumed and/or burnt, ketones, waste discharge content and/or levels, hormone levels, blood content, saliva content, audible levels (e.g., snoring, etc.), mood levels and changes, galvanic skin response, brain waves and/or activity or other neurological measurements, sleep patterns, physical characteristics (e.g., height, weight, eye color, hair color, iris data, fingerprints, etc.) or responses (e.g., facial changes, iris (or pupal) changes, voice (or tone) changes, etc.), or any combination or resultant thereof.
As shown in FIG. 1, a biometric device 110 may be in communication with a computing device 108, such as a smart phone, which, in turn, is in communication with at least one computing device (102, 104, 106) via a wide area network (“WAN”) 100, such as the Internet. The computing devices can be of different types, such as a PC, laptop, tablet, smart phone, smart watch etc., using one or different operating systems or platforms. In one embodiment of the present invention, the biometric device 110 is configured to acquire (e.g., measure, sense, estimate, etc.) an individual’s heart rate (e.g., biometric data). The biometric data is then provided to the computing device 108, which includes a video and/or audio recorder (not shown).
In a first embodiment of the present invention, the video and/or audio data are provided along with the heart rate data to a host computing device 106 via the network 100. Because the concurrent video and/or audio data and the heart rate data are provided to the host computing device 106, a host application operating thereon (not shown) can be used to synchronize the video data, audio data, and/or heart rate data, thereby allowing a user (e.g., via the user computing devices 102, 104) to view the video data and/or listen to the audio data (either in real-time or time delayed) while viewing the biometric data. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the host application may use a time-stamp 320, or other sequencing method using metadata, to synchronize the video data 310 with the biometric data 330, allowing a user to view, for example, an individual (e.g., patient in a hospital, baby in a crib, etc.) at a particular time 340 (e.g., 76 seconds past the start time) and biometric data associated with the individual at that particular time 340 (e.g., 76 seconds past the start time).
It should be appreciated that the host application may further be configured to perform other functions, such as search for a particular activity in video data, audio data, biometric data and/or metadata, and/or ranking video data, audio data, and/or biometric data. For example, the host application may allow the user to search for a particular biometric event, such as a heart rate that has exceeded a particular threshold or value, a heart rate that has dropped below a particular threshold or value, a particular heart rate (or range) for a minimum period of time, etc. By way of another example, the host application may rank video data, audio data, biometric data, or a plurality of synchronized clips (e.g., highlight reels) chronologically, by biometric magnitude (highest to lowest, lowest to highest, etc.), by review (best to worst, worst to best, etc.), or by views (most to least, least to most, etc.). It should further be appreciated that such functions as the ranking, searching, and analysis of data is not limited to a user’s individual session, but can be performed across any number of individual sessions of the user, as well as the session or number of sessions of multiple users. One use of this collection of all the various information (video, biometric and other) is to be able to generate sufficient data points for Big Data analysis and Machine Learning of the purposes of generating AI inferences and recommendations.
By way of example, machine learning algorithms could be used to search through video data automatically, looking for the most compelling content which would subsequently be stitched together into a short “highlight reel.” The neural network could be trained using a plurality of sports videos, along with ratings from users of their level of interest as the videos progress. The input nodes to the network could be a sample of change in intensity of pixels between frames along with the median excitement rating of the current frame. The machine learning algorithms could also be used, in conjunction with a multi-layer convolutional neural network, to automatically classify video content (e.g., what sport is in the video). Once the content is identified, either automatically or manually, algorithms can be used to compare the user’s activity to an idealized activity. For example, the system could compare a video recording of the user’s golf swing to that of a professional golfer. The system could then provide incremental tips to the user on how the user could improve their swing. Algorithms could also be used to predict fitness levels for users (e.g., if they maintain their program, giving them an incentive to continue working out), match users to other users or practitioners having similar fitness levels, and/or create routines optimized for each user.
It should also be appreciated, as shown in FIG. 2A, that the biometric data may be provided to the host computing device 106 directly, without going through the computing device 108. For example, the computing device 108 and the biometric device 110 may communicate independently with the host computing device, either directly or via the network 100. It should further be appreciated that the video data, the audio data, and/or the biometric data need not be provided to the host computing device 106 in real-time. For example, video data could be provided at a later time as long as the data can be identified, or tied to a particular session. If the video data can be identified, it can then be synchronized to other data (e.g., biometric data) received in real-time.
In one embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2B, the system includes a computing device 200, such as a smart phone, in communication with a plurality of devices, including a host computing device 240 via a WAN (see, e.g., FIG. 1 at 100), third party devices 250 via the WAN (see, e.g., FIG. 1 at 100), and local devices 230 (e.g., via wireless or wired connections). In a preferred embodiment, the computing device 200 downloads a program or application (i.e., client platform) from the host computing device 240 (e.g., company cloud). The client platform includes a plurality of modules that are configured to perform a plurality of functions.
For example, the client platform may include a video capture module 210 for receiving video data from an internal and/or external camera, and a biometric capture module 212 for receiving biometric data from an internal and/or external biometric device. The client platform may also include a user interface module 202, allowing a user to interact with the platform, a video editing module 204 for editing video data, a file handling module 206 for managing (e.g., storing, linking, etc.) data (e.g., video data, biometric data, identification data, start time data, duration data, sample rate data, self-realization data, time-stamp data, etc.), a database and sync module 214 for replicating data (e.g., copying data stored on the computing device 200 to the host computing device 240 and/or copying user data stored on the host computing device 240 to the computing device 200), an algorithm module 216 for processing received data (e.g., synchronizing data, searching/filtering data, creating a highlight reel, etc.), a sharing module 220 for sharing and/or storing data (e.g., video data, highlight reel, etc.) relating either to a single session or multiple sessions, and a central login and ID module 218 for interfacing with third party social media websites, such as Facebook™.
With respect to FIG. 2B, the computing device 200, which may be a smart phone, a tablet, or any other computing device, may be configured to download the client platform from the host computing device 240. Once the client platform is running on the computing device 200, the platform can be used to start a new session, receive video data for the session (i.e., via the video capture module 210) and receive biometric data for the session (i.e., via the biometric capture module 212). This data can be stored in local storage, in a local database, and/or on a remote storage device (e.g., in the company cloud or a third-party cloud, such as Dropbox™, etc.). In a preferred embodiment, the data is stored so that it is linked to information that (i) identifies the session and (ii) enables synchronization.
For example, video data is preferably linked to at least a start time (e.g., a start time of the session) and an identifier. The identifier may be a single number uniquely identifying the session, or a plurality of numbers (e.g., a plurality of globally (or universally) unique identifiers (GUIDs/UUIDs), where a first number uniquely identifying the session and a second number uniquely identifies an activity within the session, allowing a session (e.g., a trip to or an itinerary in a destination, such as Berlin) to include a plurality of activities (e.g., a bike ride, a walk, etc.). By way of example only, an activity (or session) identifier may be a 128 bit identifier that has a high probability of uniqueness, such as 8bf25512-f17a-4e9e-b49a-7c3f59ec1e85). The identifier may also include a session name and/or a session description. Other information about the video data (e.g., video length, video source, etc.) (i.e., “video metadata”) can also be stored and linked to the video data. Biometric data is preferably linked to at least the start time (e.g., the same start time linked to the video data), the identifier (e.g., the same identifier linked to the video data), and a sample rate, which identifies the rate at which biometric data is received and/or stored. For example, heart rate data may be received and stored at a rate of thirty samples per minute (30 spm), i.e., once every two seconds, or some other predetermined time interval sample.
In some cases, the sample rate used by the platform may be the sample rate of the biometric device (i.e., the rate at which data is provided by the biometric device). In other cases, the sample rate used by the platform may be independent from the rate at which data is received (e.g., a fixed rate, a configurable rate, etc.). For example, if the biometric device is configured to provide biometric data at a rate of sixty samples per minute (60 spm), the platform may still store the data at a rate of 30 spm. In other words, with a sample rate of 30 spm, the platform will have stored five values after ten seconds, the first value being the second value transmitted by the biometric device, the second value being the fourth value transmitted by the biometric device, and so on. Alternatively, if the biometric device is configured to provide biometric data only when the biometric data changes, the platform may still store the data at a rate of 30 spm. In this case, the first value stored by the platform may be the first value transmitted by the biometric device, the second value stored may be the first value transmitted by the biometric device if at the time of storage no new value has been transmitted by the biometric device, the third value stored may be the second value transmitted by the biometric device if at the time of storage a new value is being transmitted by the biometric device, and so on.
Once the video and biometric data is stored and linked, algorithms can be used to display the data together. For example, if biometric data is stored at a sample rate of 30 spm, which may be fixed or configurable, algorithms (e.g., 216) can be used to display a first biometric value (e.g., below the video data, superimposed over the video data, etc.) at the start of the video clip, a second biometric value two seconds later (two seconds into the video clip), a third biometric value two seconds later (four seconds into the video clip), etc. In alternate embodiments of the present invention, non-video data (e.g., biometric data, self-realization data, etc.) can be stored with a plurality of time-stamps (e.g., individual stamps or offsets for each stored value), which can be used together with the start time to synchronize non-video data to video data.
It should be appreciated that while the client platform can be configured to function autonomously (i.e., independent of the host network device 240), in one embodiment of the present invention, certain functions of the client platform are performed by the host network device 240, and can only be performed when the computing device 200 is in communication with the host computing device 240. Such an embodiment is advantageous in that it not only offloads certain functions to the host computing device 240, but it ensures that these functions can only be performed by the host computing device 240 (e.g., requiring a user to subscribe to a cloud service in order to perform certain functions). Functions offloaded to the cloud may include functions that are necessary to display non-video data together with video data (e.g., the linking of information to video data, the linking of information to non-video data, synchronizing non-video data to video data, etc.), or may include more advanced functions, such as generating and/or sharing a “highlight reel.” In alternate embodiments, the computing device 200 is configured to perform the foregoing functions as long as certain criteria has been met. This criteria may include the computing device 200 being in communication with the host computing device 240, or the computing device 200 previously being in communication with the host computing device 240 and the period of time since the last communication being equal to or less than a predetermined amount of time. Technology known to those skilled in the art (e.g., using a keyed hash-based method authentication code (HMAC), a stored time of said last communication (allowing said computing device to determine whether said delta is less than a predetermined amount of time), etc.) can be used to ensure that this criteria is met before allowing the performance of certain functions.
Block diagrams of an exemplary computing device and an exemplary biometric device are shown in FIG. 5. In particular, the exemplary biometric device 500 includes a sensor for sensing biometric data, a display for interfacing with the user and displaying various information (e.g., biometric data, set-up data, operation data, such as start, stop, and pause, etc.), a memory for storing the sensed biometric data, a transceiver for communicating with the exemplary computing device 600, and a processor for operating and/or driving the transceiver, memory, sensor, and display. The exemplary computing device 600 includes a transceiver (1) for receiving biometric data from the exemplary biometric device 500 (e.g., using any of telemetry, any WiFi standard, DNLA, Apple AirPlay, Bluetooth, near field communication (NFC), RFID, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Thread, Cellular, a wired connection, infrared or other method of data transmission, datacasting or streaming, etc.), a memory for storing the biometric data, a display for interfacing with the user and displaying various information (e.g., biometric data, set-up data, operation data, such as start, stop, and pause, input in-session comments or add voice notes, etc.), a keyboard for receiving user input data, a transceiver (2) for providing the biometric data to the host computing device via the Internet (e.g., using any of telemetry, any WiFi standard, DNLA, Apple AirPlay, Bluetooth, near field communication (NFC), RFID, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Thread, Cellular, a wired connection, infrared or other method of data transmission, datacasting or streaming, etc.), and a processor for operating and/or driving the transceiver (1), transceiver (2), keyboard, display, and memory.
The keyboard in the computing device 600, or alternatively the keyboard in biometric device 500, may be used to enter self-realization data, or data on how the user is feeling at a particular time. For example, if the user is feeling tired, the user may hit the “T” button on the keyboard. If the user is feeling their endorphins kick in, the user may hit the “E” button on the keyboard. And if the user is getting their second wind, the user may hit the “S” button on the keyboard. This data is then stored and linked to either a sample rate (like biometric data) or time-stamp data, which may be a time or an offset to the start time that each button was pressed. This would allow the self-realization data, in the same way as the biometric data, to be synchronized to the video data. It would also allow the self-realization data, like the biometric data, to be searched or filtered (e.g., in order to find video corresponding to a particular event, such as when the user started to feel tired, etc.).
It should be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to the block diagrams shown in FIG. 5, and a biometric device and/or a computing device that includes fewer or more components is within the spirit and scope of the present invention. For example, a biometric device that does not include a display, or includes a camera and/or microphone is within the spirit and scope of the present invention, as are other data-entry devices or methods beyond a keyboard, such as a touch screen, digital pen, voice/audible recognition device, gesture recognition device, so-called “wearable,” or any other recognition device generally known to those skilled in the art. Similarly, a computing device that only includes one transceiver, further includes a camera (for capturing video) and/or microphone (for capturing audio or for performing spatial analytics through recording or measurement of sound and how it travels), or further includes a sensor (see FIG. 4) is within the spirit and scope of the present invention. It should also be appreciated that self-realization data is not limited to how a user feels, but could also include an event that the user or the application desires to memorialize. For example, the user may want to record (or time-stamp) the user biking past wildlife, or a particular architectural structure, or the application may want to record (or time-stamp) a patient pressing a “request nurse” button, or any other sensed non-biometric activity of the user.
Referring back to FIG. 1, as discussed above in conjunction with FIG. 2B, the host application (or client platform) may operate on the computing device 108. In this embodiment, the computing device 108 (e.g., a smart phone) may be configured to receive biometric data from the biometric device 110 (either in real-time, or at a later stage, with a time-stamp corresponding to the occurrence of the biometric data), and to synchronize the biometric data with the video data and/or the audio data recorded by the computing device 108 (or a camera and/or microphone operating thereon). It should be appreciated that in this embodiment of the present invention, other than the host application being run locally (e.g., on the computing device 108), the host application (or client platform) operates as previously discussed.
Again, with reference to FIG. 1, in another embodiment of the present invention, the computing device 108 further includes a sensor for sensing biometric data. In this embodiment of the present invention, the host application (or client platform) operates as previously discussed (locally on the computing device 108), and functions to at least synchronize the video, audio, and/or biometric data, and allow the synchronized data to be played or presented to a user (e.g., via a display portion, via a display device connected directly to the computing device, via a user computing device connected to the computing device (e.g., directly, via the network, etc.), etc.).
It should be appreciated that the present invention, in any embodiment, is not limited to the computing devices (number or type) shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and may include any of a computing, sensing, digital recording, GPS or otherwise location-enabled device (for example, using WiFi Positioning Systems “WPS”, or other forms of deriving geographical location, such as through network triangulation), generally known to those skilled in the art, such as a personal computer, a server, a laptop, a tablet, a smart phone, a cellular phone, a smart watch, an activity band, a heart-rate strap, a mattress sensor, a shoe sole sensor, a digital camera, a near field sensor or sensing device, etc. It should also be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to any particular biometric device, and includes biometric devices that are configured to be worn on the wrist (e.g., like a watch), worn on the skin (e.g., like a skin patch) or scalp, or incorporated into computing devices (e.g., smart phones, etc.), either integrated in, or added to items such as bedding, wearable devices such as clothing, footwear, helmets or hats, or ear phones, or athletic equipment such as rackets, golf clubs, or bicycles, where other kinds of data, including physical performance metrics such as racket or club head speed, or pedal rotation/second, or footwear recording such things as impact zones, gait or shear, can also be measured synchronously with biometrics, and synchronized to video. Other data can also be measured synchronously with video data, including biometrics on animals (e.g., a bull’s acceleration or pivot or buck in a bull riding event, a horse’s acceleration matched to heart rate in a horse race, etc.), and physical performance metrics of inanimate objects, such a revolutions/minute (e.g., in a vehicle, such as an automobile, a motorcycle, etc.), miles/hour (or the like) (e.g., in a vehicle, such as an automobile, a motorcycle, etc., a bicycle, etc.), or G-forces (e.g., experienced by the user, an animal, and inanimate object, etc.). All of this data (collectively “non-video data,” which may include metadata, or data on non-video data) can be synchronized to video data using a sample rate and/or at least one time-stamp, as discussed above.
It should further be appreciated that the present invention need not operate in conjunction with a network, such as the Internet. For example, as shown in FIG. 2A, the biometric device 110, which may be, for example, be a wireless activity band for sensing heart rate, and the computing device 108, which may be, for example, a digital video recorder, may be connected directly to the host computing device 106 running the host application (not shown), where the host application functions as previously discussed. In this embodiment, the video, audio, and/or biometric data can be provided to the host application either (i) in real time, or (ii) at a later time, since the data is synchronized with a sample rate and/or time-stamp. This would allow, for example, at least video of an athlete, or a sportsman or woman (e.g., a football player, a soccer player, a racing driver, etc.) to be shown in action (e.g., playing football, playing soccer, motor racing, etc.) along with biometric data of the athlete in action (see, e.g., FIG. 7). By way of example only, this would allow a user to view a soccer player’s heart rate 730 as the soccer player dribbles a ball, kicks the ball, heads the ball, etc. This can be accomplished using a time stamp 720 (e.g., start time, etc.), or other sequencing method using metadata (e.g., sample rate, etc.), to synchronize the video data 710 with the biometric data 730, allowing the user to view the soccer player at a particular time 740 (e.g., 76 seconds) and biometric data associated with the athlete at that particular time 340 (e.g., 76 seconds). Similar technology can be used to display biometric data on other athletes, card players, actors, online garners, etc.
Where it is desirable to monitor or watch more than one individual from a camera view, for example, patients in a hospital ward being observed from a remote nursing station or, during a televised broadcast of a sporting event such as a football game, with multiple players on the sports field, the system can be so configured, by the subjects using Bluetooth or other wearable or NFC sensors (in some cases with their sensing capability also being location-enabled in order to identify which specific individual to track) capable of transmitting their biometrics over practicable distances, in conjunction with relays or beacons if necessary, such that the viewer can switch the selection of which of one or multiple individuals’ biometric data to track, alongside the video or broadcast, and, if wanted and where possible within the limitations of the video capture field of the camera used, also to concentrate the view of the video camera on a reduced group or on a specific individual. In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, selection of biometric data is automatically accomplished, for example, based on the individual’s location in the video frame (e.g., center of the frame), rate of movement (e.g., moving quicker than other individuals), or proximity to a sensor (e.g., being worn by the individual, embedded in the ball being carried by the individual, etc.), which may be previously activate or activated by a remote radio frequency signal. Activation of the sensor may result in biometric data of the individual being transmitted to a receiver, or may allow the receiver to identified biometric data of the individual amongst other data being transmitted (e.g., biometric data from other individuals).
In the context of fitness or sports tracking, it should be appreciated that the capturing of an individual’s activity on video is not dependent on the presence of a third party to do this, but various methods of self-videoing can be envisaged, such as a video capture device mounted on the subject’s wrist or a body harness, or on a selfie attachment or a gimbal, or fixed to an object (e.g., sports equipment such as bicycle handlebars, objects found in sporting environments such as a basketball or tennis net, a football goal post, a ceiling, etc., a drone-borne camera following the individual, a tripod, etc.). It should be further noted that such video capture devices can include more than one camera lens, such that not only the individual’s activity may be videoed, but also simultaneously a different view, such as what the individual is watching or sees in front of them (i.e., the user’s surroundings). The video capture device could also be fitted with a convex mirror lens, or have a convex mirror added as an attachment on the front of the lens, or be a full 360 degree camera, or multiple 360 cameras linked together, such that either with or without the use of specialized software known in the art, a 360 degree all-around or surround view can be generated, or a 360 global view in all axes can be generated.
In the context of augmented or virtual reality, where the individual is wearing suitably equipped augmented reality (“AR”) or virtual reality (“VR”) glasses, goggles, headset or is equipped with another type of viewing display capable of rendering AR, VR, or other synthesized or real 3D imagery, the biometric data such as heart rate from the sensor, together with other data such as, for example, work-out run or speed, from a suitably equipped sensor, such as an accelerometer capable of measuring motion and velocity, could be viewable by the individual, superimposed on their viewing field. Additionally an avatar of the individual in motion could be superimposed in front of the individual’s viewing field, such that they could monitor or improve their exercise performance, or otherwise enhance the experience of the activity by viewing themselves or their own avatar, together (e.g., synchronized) with their performance (e.g., biometric data, etc.). Optionally, the biometric data also of their avatar, or the competing avatar, could be simultaneously displayed in the viewing field. In addition (or alternatively), at least one additional training or competing avatar can be superimposed on the individual’s view, which may show the competing avatar (s) in relation to the individual (e.g., showing them superimposed in front of the individual, showing them superimposed to the side of the user, showing them behind the individual (e.g., in a rear-view-mirror portion of the display, etc.), and/or showing them in relation to the individual (e.g., as blips on a radar-screen portion of the display, etc.), etc. Competing avatar (s), either of real people such as their friends or training acquaintances, can be used to motivate the user to improve or correct their performance and/or to make their exercise routine more interesting (e.g., by allowing the individual to “compete” in the AR, VR, or Mixed Reality (“MR”) environment while exercising, or training, or virtually “gamifying” their activity through the visualization of virtual destinations or locations, imagined or real, such as historical sites, scanned or synthetically created through computer modeling).
Additionally, any multimedia sources to which the user is being exposed whilst engaging in the activity which is being tracked and recorded, should similarly be able to be recorded with the time stamp, for analysis and/or correlation of the individual’s biometric response. An example of an application of this could be in the selection of specific music tracks for when someone is carrying out a training activity, where the correlation of the individual’s past response, based, for example, on heart rate (and how well they achieved specific performance levels or objectives) to music type (e.g., the specific music track (s), a track (s) similar to the specific track (s), a track (s) recommended or selected by others who have listened to or liked the specific track (s), etc.) is used to develop a personalized algorithm, in order to optimize automated music selection to either enhance the physical effort, or to maximize recovery during and after exertion. The individual could further specify that they wished for the specific track or music type, based upon the personalized selection algorithm, to be played based upon their geographical location; an example of this would be someone who frequently or regularly uses a particular circuit for training or recreational purposes. Alternatively, tracks or types of music could be selected through recording or correlation of past biometric response in conjunction with self-realization inputting when particular tracks were being listened to.
It should be appreciated that biometric data does not need to be linked to physical movement or sporting activity, but may instead be combined with video of an individual at a fixed location (e.g., where the individual is being monitored remotely or recorded for subsequent review), for example, as shown in FIG. 3, for health reasons or a medical condition, such as in their home or in hospital, or a senior citizen in an assisted-living environment, or a sleeping infant being monitored by parents whilst in another room or location.
Alternatively, the individual might be driving past or in the proximity of a park or a shopping mall, with their location being recorded, typically by geo-stamping, or additional information being added by geo-tagging, such as the altitude or weather at the specific location, together with what the information or content is, being viewed or interacted with by the individual (e.g., a particular advertisement, a movie trailer, a dating profile, etc.) on the Internet or a smart/enabled television, or on any other networked device incorporating a screen, and their interaction with that information or content, being viewable or recorded by video, in conjunction with their biometric data, with all these sources of data being able to be synchronized for review, by virtue of each of these individual sources being time-stamped or the like (e.g., sampled, etc.). This would allow a third party (e.g., a service provider, an advertiser, a provider of advertisements, a movie production company/promoter, a poster of a dating profile, a dating site, etc.) to acquire for analysis of their response, the biometric data associated with the viewing of certain data by the viewer, where either the viewer or their profile could optionally be identifiable by the third party’s system, or where only the identity of the viewer’s interacting device is known, or can be acquired from the biometric sending party’s GPS, or otherwise location-enabled, device.
For example, an advertiser or an advertisement provider could see how people are responding to an advertisement, or a movie production company/promoter could evaluate how people are responding to a movie trailer, or a poster of a dating profile or the dating site itself, could see how people are responding to the dating profile. Alternatively, viewers of online players of an online gaming or eSports broadcast service such as twitch.tv, or of a televised or streamed online poker game, could view the active participants’ biometric data simultaneously with the primary video source as well as the participants’ visible reactions or performance. As with video/audio, this can either be synchronized in real-time, or synchronized later using the embedded time-stamp or the like (e.g., sample rate, etc.). Additionally, where facial expression analysis is being generated from the source video, for example in the context of measuring an individual’s response to advertising messages, since the video is already time-stamped (e.g., with a start time), the facial expression data can be synchronized and correlated to the physical biometric data of the individual, which has similarly been time-stamped and/or sampled,
As previously discussed, the host application may be configured to perform a plurality of functions. For example, the host application may be configured to synchronize video and/or audio data with biometric data. This would allow, for example, an individual watching a sporting event (e.g., on a TV, computer screen, etc.) to watch how each player’s biometric data changes during play of the sporting event, or also to map those biometric data changes to other players or other comparison models. Similarly, a doctor, nurse, or medical technician could record a person’s sleep habits, and watch, search or later review, the recording (e.g., on a TV, computer screen, etc.) while monitoring the person’s biometric data. The system could also use machine learning to build a profile for each patient, identifying certain characteristics of the patient (e.g., their heart rate rhythm, their breathing pattern, etc.) and notify a doctor, a nurse, or medical technician or trigger an alarm if the measured characteristics appear abnormal or irregular.
The host application could also be configured to provide biometric data to a remote user via a network, such as the Internet. For example, a biometric device (e.g., a smart phone with a blood-alcohol sensor) could be used to measure a person’s blood-alcohol level (e.g., while the person is talking to the remote user via the smart phone), and to provide the person’s blood-alcohol level to the remote user. By placing the sensor near, or incorporating it in the microphone, such a system would allow a parent to determine whether their child has been drinking alcohol by participating in a telephone or video call with their child. Different sensors known in the art could be used to sense different chemicals in the person’s breath, or detect people’s breathing patterns through analysis of sound and speed variations, allowing the monitoring party to determine whether the subject has been using alcohol or other controlled substances or to conduct breath analysis for other diagnostic reasons.
The system could also be adapted with a so-called “lab on a chip” (LOC) integrated in the device itself, or with a suitable attachment added to it, for the remote testing for example, of blood samples where the smart-phone is either used for the collection and sending of the sample to a testing laboratory for analysis, or is used to carry out the sample collection and analysis within the device itself. In either case the system is adapted such that the identity of the subject and their blood sample are cross-authenticated for the purposes of sample and analysis integrity as well as patient identity certainty, through the simultaneous recording of the time-stamped video and time and/or location (or GPS) stamping of the sample at the point of collection and/or submission of the sample. This confirmation of identity is particularly important for regulatory, record keeping and health insurance reasons in the context of telemedicine, since the individual will increasingly be performing functions which, till now, have been carried out typically on-site at the relevant facility, by qualified and regulated medical or laboratory staff, rather than by the subject using a networked device, either for upload to the central analysis facility, or for remote analysis on the device itself.
This, or the collection of other biometric data such as heart rate or blood pressure, could also be applied in situations where it is critical for safety reasons, to check, via regular remote video monitoring in real time, whether say a pilot of a plane, a truck or train driver, are in fit and sound condition to be in control of their vehicle or vessel or whether for example they are experiencing a sudden incapacity or heart attack etc. Because the monitored person is being videoed at the same time as providing time-stamped, geo-stamped and/or sampled biometric data, there is less possibility for the monitored person or a third party, to “trick”, “spoof” or bypass the system. In a patient/doctor remote consultation setting, the system could be used for secure video consults where also, from a regulatory or health insurance perspective, the consultation and its occurrence is validated through the time and/or geo stamp validation. Furthermore, where there is a requirement for a higher level of authentication, the system could further be adapted to use facial recognition or biometric algorithms, to ensure that the correct person is being monitored, or facial expression analysis could be used for behavioral pattern assessment.
The concern that a monitored party would not wish to be permanently monitored (e.g., a senior citizen not wanting to have their every move and action continuously videoed) could be mitigated by the incorporation of various additional features. In one embodiment, the video would be permanently recording in a loop system which uses a reserved memory space, recording for a predetermined time period, and then, automatically erasing the video, where n represents the selected minutes in the loop and E is the event which prevents the recorded loop of n minutes being erased, and triggers both the real time transmission of the visible state or actions of the monitored person to the monitoring party, as well as the ability to rewind, in order for the monitoring party to be able to review the physical manifestation leading up to E. The trigger mechanism for E could be, for example, the occurrence of biometric data outside the predefined range, or the notification of another anomaly such as a fall alert, activated by movement or location sensors such as a gyroscope, accelerometer or magnetometer within the health band device worn by, say the senior citizen, or on their mobile phone or other networked motion-sensing device in their proximity. The monitoring party would be able not only to view the physical state of the monitored party after E, whilst getting a simultaneous read-out of their relevant biometric data, but also to review the events and biometric data immediately leading up to the event trigger notification. Alternatively, it could be further calibrated so that although video is recorded, as before, in the n loop, no video from the n loop will actually be transmitted to a monitoring party until the occurrence of E. The advantages of this system include the respect of the privacy of the individual, where only the critical event and the time preceding the event would be available to a third party, resulting also in a desired optimization of both the necessary transmission bandwidth and the data storage requirements. It should be appreciated that the foregoing system could also be configured such that the E notification for remote senior, infant or patient monitoring is further adapted to include facial tracking and/or expression recognition features.
Privacy could be further improved for the user if their video data and biometric data are stored by themselves, on their own device, or on their own external, or own secure third-party “cloud” storage, but with the index metadata of the source material, which enables the sequencing, extrapolation, searching and general processing of the source data, remaining at a central server, such as, in the case of medical records for example, at a doctor’s office or other healthcare facility. Such a system would enable the monitoring party to have access to the video and other data at the time of consultation, but with the video etc. remaining in the possession of the subject. A further advantage of separating the hosting of the storage of the video and biometric source data from the treatment of the data, beyond enhancing the user’s privacy and their data security, is that by virtue of its storage locally with the subject, not having to upload it to the computational server results both in reduced cost and increased efficiency of storage and data bandwidth. This would be of benefit also where such kind of remote upload of tests for review by qualified medical staff at a different location from the subject are occurring in areas of lower-bandwidth network coverage. A choice can also be made to lower the frame rate of the video material, provided that this is made consistent with sampling rate to confirm the correct time stamp, as previously described.
It should be appreciated that with information being stored at the central server (or the host device), various techniques known in the art can be implemented to secure the information, and prevent unauthorized individuals or entities from accessing the information. Thus, for example, a user may be provided (or allowed to create) a user name, password, and/or any other identifying (or authenticating) information (e.g., a user biometric, a key fob, etc.), and the host device may be configured to use the identifying (or authenticating) information to grant access to the information (or a portion thereof). Similar security procedures can be implemented for third parties, such as medical providers, insurance companies, etc., to ensure that the information is only accessible by authorized individuals or entities. In certain embodiments, the authentication may allow access to all the stored data, or to only a portion of the stored data (e.g., a user authentication may allow access to personal information as well as stored video and/or biometric data, whereas a third party authentication may only allow access to stored video and/or biometric data). In other embodiments, the authentication is used to determine what services are available to an individual or entity logging into the host device, or the website. For example, visitors to the website (or non-subscribers) may only be able to synchronize video/audio data to biometric data and/or perform rudimentary searching or other processing, whereas a subscriber may be able to synchronize video/audio data to biometric data and/or perform more detailed searching or other processing (e.g., to create a highlight reel, etc.).
It should further be appreciated that while there are advantages to keeping just the index metadata at the central server in the interests of storage and data upload efficiency as well as so providing a common platform for the interoperability of the different data types and storing the video and/or audio data on the user’s own device (e.g., iCloud™, DropBox™, OneDrive™, etc.), the present invention is not so limited. Thus, in certain embodiments, where feasible, it may be beneficial to (1) store data (e.g., video, audio, biometric data, and metadata) on the user’s device (e.g., allowing the user device to operate independent of the host device), (2) store data (e.g., video, audio, biometric data, and metadata) on the central server (e.g., host device) (e.g., allowing the user to access the data from any network-enabled device), or (3) store a first portion (e.g., video and audio data) on the user’s device and store a second portion (e.g., biometric data and metadata) on the central server (e.g., host device) (e.g., allowing the user to only view the synchronized video/audio/biometric data when the user device is in communication with the host device, allowing the user to only search the biometric data (e.g., to create a “highlight reel”) or rank the biometric data (to identify and/or list data chronologically, magnitude (highest to lowest), magnitude (lowest to highest), best reviewed, worst reviewed, most viewed, least viewed, etc.) when the user device is in communication with the host device, etc.).
In another embodiment of the present invention, the functionality of the system is further (or alternatively) limited by the software operating on the user device and/or the host device. For example, the software operating on the user device may allow the user to play the video and/or audio data, but not to synchronize the video and/or audio data to the biometric data. This may be because the central server is used to store data critical to synchronization (time-stamp index, metadata, biometric data, sample rate, etc.) and/or software operating on the host device is necessary for synchronization. By way of another example, the software operating on the user device may allow the user to play the video and/or audio data, either alone or synchronized with the biometric data, but may not allow the user device (or may limit the user device’s ability) to search or otherwise extrapolate from, or process the biometric data to identify relevant portions (e.g., which may be used to create a “highlight reel” of the synchronized video/audio/biometric data) or to rank the biometric and/or video data. This may be because the central server is used to store data critical to search and/or rank the biometric data (biometric data, biometric metadata, etc.), and/or software necessary for searching (or performing advanced searching of) and/or ranking (or performing advanced ranking of) the biometric data.
In any or all of the above embodiments, the system could be further adapted to include password or other forms of authentication to enable secured access (or deny unauthorized access) to the data in either of one or both directions, such that the user requires permission to access the host, or the host to access the user’s data. Where interaction between the user and the monitoring party or host is occurring in real time such as in a secure video consult between patient and their medical practitioner or other medical staff, data could be exchanged and viewed through the establishment of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The actual data (biometric, video, metadata index, etc.) can alternatively or further be encrypted both at the data source, for example at the individual’s storage, whether local or cloud-based, and/or at the monitoring reviewing party, for example at patient records at the medical facility, or at the host administration level.
In the context of very young infant monitoring, a critical and often unexplained problem is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Whilst the incidences of SIDS are often unexplained, various devices attempt to prevent its occurrence. However, by combining the elements of the current system to include sensor devices in or near the baby’s crib to measure relevant biometric data including heart rate, sleep pattern, breath analyzer, and other measures such as ambient temperature, together with a recording device to capture movement, audible breathing, or lack thereof (i.e., silence) over a predefined period of time, the various parameters could be set in conjunction with the time-stamped video record, by the parent or other monitoring party, to provide a more comprehensive alert, to initiate a more timely action or intervention by the user, or indeed to decide that no action response would in fact be necessary. Additionally, in the case, for example, of a crib monitoring situation, the system could be so configured to develop from previous observation, with or without input from a monitoring party, a learning algorithm to help in discerning what is “normal,” what is false positive, or what might constitute an anomaly, and therefore a call to action.
The host application could also be configured to play video data that has been synchronized to biometric data, or search for the existence of certain biometric data. For example, as previously discussed, by video recording with sound a person sleeping, and synchronizing the recording with biometric data (e.g., sleep patterns, brain activity, snoring, breathing patterns, etc.), the biometric data can be searched to identify where certain measures such as sound levels, as measured for example in decibels, or periods of silences, exceed or drop below a threshold value, allowing the doctor, nurse, or medical technician to view the corresponding video portion without having to watch the entire video of the person sleeping.
Such a method is shown in FIG. 6, starting at step 700, where biometric data and time stamp data (e.g., start time, sample rate) is received (or linked) at step 702. Audio/video data and time stamp data (e.g., start time, etc.) is then received (or linked) at step 704. The time stamp data (from steps 702 and 704) is then used to synchronize the biometric data with the audio/video data. The user is then allowed to operate the audio/video at step 708. If the user selects play, then the audio/video is played at step 710. If the user selects search, then the user is allowed to search the biometric data at step 712. Finally, if the user selects stop, then the video is stopped at step 714.
It should be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to the steps shown in FIG. 6. For example, a method that allows a user to search for biometric data that meets at least one condition, play the corresponding portion of the video (or a portion just before the condition), and stop the video from playing after the biometric data no longer meets the at least one condition (or just after the biometric data non longer meets the condition) is within the spirit and scope of the present invention. By way of another example, if the method involves interacting between the user device and the host device to synchronize the video/audio data and the biometric data and/or search the biometric data, then the method may further involve the steps of uploading the biometric data and/or metadata to the host device (e.g., in this embodiment the video/audio data may be stored on the user device), and using the biometric data and/or metadata to create a time-stamp index for synchronization and/or to search the biometric data for relevant or meaningful data (e.g., data that exceeds a threshold, etc.). By way of yet another example, the method may not require step 706 if the audio/video data and the biometric data are played together (synchronized) in real-time, or at the time the data is being played (e.g., at step 710).
In one embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 8, the video data 800, which may also include audio data, starts at a time “T” and continues for a duration of “n.” The video data is preferably stored in memory (locally and/or remotely) and linked to other data, such as an identifier 802, start time 804, and duration 806. Such data ties the video data to at least a particular session, a particular start time, and identifies the duration of the video included therein. In one embodiment of the present invention, each session can include different activities. For example, a trip to a destination in Berlin, or following a specific itinerary on a particular day (session) may involve a bike ride through the city (first activity) and a walk through a park (second activity). Thus, as shown in FIG. 9, the identifier 802 may include both a session identifier 902, uniquely identifying the session via a globally unique identifier (GUID), and an activity identifier 904, uniquely identifying the activity via a globally unique identifier (GUID), where the session/activity relationship is that of a parent/child.
In one embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 10, the biometric data 1000 is stored in memory and linked to the identifier 802 and a sample rate “m” 1104. This allows the biometric data to be linked to video data upon playback. For example, if identifier 802 is one, start time 804 is 1:00 PM, video duration is one minute, and the sample rate 1104 is 30 spm, then the playing of the video at 2:00 PM would result in the first biometric value (biometric (1)) to be displayed (e.g., below the video, over the video, etc.) at 2:00 PM, the second biometric value (biometric (2)) to be displayed (e.g., below the video, over the video, etc.) two seconds later, and so on until the video ends at 2:01 PM. While self-realization data can be stored like biometric data (e.g., linked to a sample rate), if such data is only received periodically, it may be more advantageous to store this data 110 as shown in FIG. 11, i.e., linked to the identifier 802 and a time-stamp 1104, where “m” is either the time that the self-realization data 1100 was received or an offset between this time and the start time 804 (e.g., ten minutes and four seconds after the start time, etc.).
This can be seen, for example, in FIG. 14, where video data starts at time T, biometric data is sampled every two seconds (30 spm), and self-realization data is received at time T+3 (or three units past the start time). While the video 1402 is playing, a first biometric value 1404 is displayed at time T+1, first self-realization data 1406 is displayed at time T+2, and a second biometric value 1406 is displayed at time T+4. By storing data in this fashion, both video and non-video data can be stored separately from one another and synchronized in real-time, or at the time the video is being played. It should be appreciated that while separate storage of data may be advantageous for devices having minimal memory and/or processing power, the client platform may be configured to create new video data, or data that includes both video and non-video data displayed synchronously. Such a feature may advantageous in creating a highlight reel, which can then be shared using social media websites, such as Facebook™ or Youtube™, and played using standard playback software, such as Quicktime™. As discussed in greater detail below, a highlight reel may include various portions (or clips) of video data (e.g., when certain activity takes place, etc.) along with corresponding biometric data.
When sampled data is subsequently displayed, the client platform can be configured to display this data using certain extrapolation techniques. For example, in one embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 12, where a first biometric value 1202 is displayed at T+1, a second biometric value 1204 is displayed at T+2, and a third biometric value 1206 is displayed at T+3, biometric data can be displayed at non-sampled times using known extrapolation techniques, including linear and non-linear interpolation and all other extrapolation and/or interpolation techniques generally known to those skilled in the art. In another embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 13, the first biometric value 1202 remains on the display until the second biometric value 1204 is displayed, the second biometric value 1204 remains on the display until the third biometric value 1206 is displayed, and so on.
With respect to linking data to an identifier, which may be linked to other data (e.g., start time, sample rate, etc.), if the data is received in real-time, the data can be linked to the identifier (s) for the current session (and/or activity). However, when data is received after the fact (e.g., after a session has ended), there are several ways in which the data can be linked to a particular session and/or activity (or identifier (s) associated therewith). The data can be manually linked (e.g., by the user) or automatically linked via the application. With respect to the latter, this can be accomplished, for example, by comparing the duration of the received data (e.g., the video length) with the duration of the session and/or activity, by assuming that the received data is related to the most recent session and/or activity, or by analyzing data included within the received data. For example, in one embodiment, data included with the received data (e.g., metadata) may identify a time and/or location associated with the data, which can then be used to link the received data to the session and/or activity. In another embodiment, the computing device could display or play data (e.g., a barcode, such as a QR code, a sound, such as a repeating sequence of notes, etc.) that identifies the session and/or activity. An external video/audio recorder could record the identifying data (as displayed or played by the computing device) along with (e.g., before, after, or during) the user and/or his/her surroundings. The application could then search the video/audio data for identifying data, and use this data to link the video/audio data to a session and/or activity. The identifying portion of the video/audio data could then be deleted by the application if desired. In an alternate embodiment, a barcode (e.g., a QR code) could be printed on a physical device (e.g., a medical testing module, which may allow communication of medical data over a network (e.g., via a smart phone)) and used (as previously described) to synchronize video of the user using the device to data provided by the device. In the case of a medical testing module, the barcode printed on the module could be used to synchronize video of the testing to the test result provided by the module. In yet another embodiment, both the computing device and the external video/audio recorder are used to record video and/or audio of the user (e.g., the user stating “begin Berlin biking session,” etc.) and to use the user-provided data to link the video/audio data to a session and/or activity. For example, the computing device may be configured to link the user-provided data with a particular session and/or activity (e.g., one that is started, one that is about to start, one that just ended, etc.), and to use the user-provided data in the video/audio data to link the video/audio data to the particular session and/or activity.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the client platform (or application) is configured to operate on a smart phone or a tablet. The platform (either alone or together with software operating on the host device) may be configured to create a session, receive video and non-video data during the session, and playback video data together (synchronized) with non-video data. The platform may also allow a user to search for a session, search for certain video and/or non-video events, and/or create a highlight reel. FIGS. 15-29 show exemplary screen shots of such a platform.
For example, FIG. 15 shows an exemplary “sign in” screen 1500, allowing a user to sign into the application and have access to application-related, user-specific data, as stored on the computing device and/or the host computing device. The login may involve a user ID and password unique to the application, the company cloud, or a social service website, such as Facebook™.
Once the user is signed in, the user may be allowed to create a session via an exemplary “create session” screen 1600, as shown in FIG. 16. In creating a session, the user may be allowed to select a camera (e.g., internal to the computing device, external to the computing device (e.g., accessible via the Internet, connected to the computing device via a wired or wireless connection), etc.) that will be providing video data. Once a camera is selected, video data 1602 from the camera may be displayed on the screen. The user may also be allowed to select a biometric device (e.g., internal to the computing device, external to the computing device (e.g., accessible via the Internet, connected to the computing device via a wired or wireless connection), etc.) that will be providing biometric data. Once a biometric device is selected, biometric data 1604 from the biometric device may be displayed on the screen. The user can then start the session by clicking the “start session” button 1608. While the selection process is preferably performed before the session is started, the user may defer selection of the camera and/or biometric device until after the session is over. This allows the application to receive data that is not available in real-time, or is being provided by a device that is not yet connected to the computing device (e.g., an external camera that will be plugged into the computing device once the session is over).
It should be appreciated that in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, clicking the “start session” button 1608 not only starts a timer 1606 that indicates a current length of the session, but it triggers a start time that is stored in memory and linked to a globally unique identifier (GUID) for the session. By linking the video and biometric data to the GUID, and linking the GUID to the start time, the video and biometric data is also (by definition) linked to the start time. Other data, such as sample rate, can also be linked to the biometric data, either by linking the data to the biometric data, or linking the data to the GUID, which is in turn linked to the biometric data.
Either before the session is started, or after the session is over, the user may be allowed to enter a session name via an exemplary “session name” screen 1700, as shown in FIG. 17. Similarly, the user may also be allowed to enter a session description via an exemplary “session description” screen 1800, as shown in FIG. 18.
FIG. 19 shows an exemplary “session started” screen 1900, which is a screen that the user might see while the session is running. On this screen, the user may see the video data 1902 (if provided in real-time), the biometric data 1904 (if provided in real-time), and the current running time of the session 1906. If the user wishes to pause the session, the user can press the “pause session” button 1908, or if the user wishes to stop the session, the user can press the “stop session” button (not shown). By pressing the “stop session” button (not shown), the session is ended, and a stop time is stored in memory and linked to the session GUID. Alternatively, by pressing the “pause session” button 1908, a pause time (first pause time) is stored in memory and linked to the session GUID. Once paused, the session can then be resumed (e.g., by pressing the “resume session” button, not shown), which will result in a resume time (first resume time) to be stored in memory and linked to the session GUID. Regardless of whether a session is started and stopped (i.e., resulting in a single continuous video), or started, paused (any number of times), resumed (any number of times), and stopped (i.e., resulting in a plurality of video clips), for each start/pause time stored in memory, there should be a corresponding stop/resume time stored in memory.
Once a session has been stopped, it can be reviewed via an exemplary “review session” screen 2000, as shown in FIG. 20. In its simplest form, the review screen may playback video data linked to the session (e.g., either a single continuous video if the session does not include at least one pause/resume, multiple video clips played one after another if the session includes at least one pause/resume, or multiple video clips played together if the multiple video clips are related to one another (e.g., two videos (e.g., from different vantage points) of the user performing a particular activity, a first video of the user performing a particular activity while viewing a second video, such as a training video). If the user wants to see non-video data displayed along with the video data, the user can press the “show graph options” button 2022. By pressing this button, the user is presented with an exemplary “graph display option” screen 2100, as shown in FIG. 21. Here, the user can select data that he/she would like to see along with the video data, such as biometric data (e.g., heart rate, heart rate variance, user speed, etc.), environmental data (e.g., temperature, altitude, GPS, etc.), or self-realization data (e.g., how the user felt during the session). FIG. 22 shows an exemplary “review session” screen 2000 that includes both video data 2202 and biometric data, which may be shown in graph form 2204 or written form 2206. If more than one individual can be seen in the video, the application may be configured to show biometric data on each individual, either at one time, or as selected by the user (e.g., allowing the user to view biometric data on a first individual by selecting the first individual, allowing the user to view biometric data on a second individual by selecting the second individual, etc.).
FIG. 23 shows an exemplary “map” screen 2300, which may be used to show GPS data to the user. Alternatively, GPS data can be presented together with the video data (e.g., below the video data, over the video data, etc.). An exemplary “summary” screen 2400 of the session may also be presented to the user (see FIG. 24), displaying session information such as session name, session description, various metrics, etc.
By storing video and non-video data separately, the data can easily be searched. For example, FIG. 25 shows an exemplary “biometric search” screen 2500, where a user can search for a particular biometric value or range (i.e., a biometric event). By way of example, the user may want to jump to a point in the session where their heart rate is between 95 and 105 beats-per-minute (bpm). FIG. 26 shows an exemplary “first result” screen 2600 where the user’s heart rate is at 100.46 bmp twenty minutes and forty-two seconds into the session (see, e.g., 2608). FIG. 27 shows an exemplary “second result” screen 2700 where the user’s heart rate is at 100.48 bmp twenty-three minutes and forty-eight seconds into the session (see, e.g., 2708). It should be appreciated that other events can be searched for in a session, including video events and self-realization events.
Not only can data within a session be searched, but so too can data from multiple sessions. For example, FIG. 28 shows an exemplary “session search” screen 2800, where a user can enter particular search criteria, including session date, session length, biometric events, video event, self-realization event, etc. FIG. 29 shows an exemplary “list” screen 2900, showing sessions that meet the entered criteria.
The foregoing description of a system and method for using, processing, and displaying biometric data, or a resultant thereof, has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed, and many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that there are a number of ways to implement the foregoing features, and that the present invention it not limited to any particular way of implementing these features. The invention is solely defined by the following claims.
More revelations soon!
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
It’s all in the meme that stands as cover for this post. We published it on some socials a bit over 24h before Trump’s latest endorsement of Covidiocracy aka The Big Reset. No, this is not gonna be one of those long intricate investigations, that’s all there is to it. I could develop a bit, but honestly, if you don’t pick it up from the meme, you won’t pick it up from the meme explanations. I’m going to leave a few more hints below, though.
When we felt most badass, someone pulled our sleeve: there’s a demi-god on the webs! We know nothing more as of now, except that he’s a very militant Trump-hater. The only question: prediction or pre-science? Either way, as spectacular as logical, it’s the details that are very striking. Ours was an anticipation based on following trends and joining dots:
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
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According to the reputed truth-gods of Fb, Gates and WHO and the other Event 201 attendees spewed Rona conspiracies in a video they made in October last year, which implies pre-science and vindicates the people calling covid a “plandem1c”
Many revere and admire the elites for their grandiose plan to enslave the whole humanity, but in fact all their plan is dumb AF from its fundamentals down to its executives, and this is just one of the many evidences. I mean you want to control the world but you can’t even automate censorship on Internet and you end up shooting yourself in the both knees relentlessly? Imagine a fanfare of clowns with megalomaniac delusions, applauded by a congregation of geese. Covidiocracy is destined to cannibalise itself, starting with its propaganda machine, see the SJW/cancel culture.
I made this post very visual and simple so fact-checkers can understand it: They targeted us but it’s their people’s video and it’s made last year. We work mainly with their sources precisely because they’re dumb and predictable and we knew we’ll have to deflect back these BS attacks when they occur. And they fell right into it as soon as they could. They’re a buncha morons with too much money and too many toys.
Basically, Facebook and a host of its “fact-checkers” such as USA Today, Factcheck.org and more, have claimed that one of our latest video uploads “repeats information identified by independent fact-checkers [themselves] as false”.
Thing is we’re not the authors of the content, we just mirrored (reuploaded) a video from Johns Hopkins, untouched, we’re just platforming these people, Facebook told us they’re good credible people :D.
Original source, pls watch all their videos, preferably the mirrors on our channel so we can benefit, not these conspiracy theorists! 😉
So the authors of the missinformation in the video are, among others: WHO Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation World Bank World Economic Forum Johns Hopkins Lufthansa and many more
Bonus: the video has actually NOTHING, ZERO, 0 to do with the BS fact-checkers are munching there, it’s not about the man-made origins of the virus or anything like that. Remember:
It doesn’t matter what Facebook says
Silviu “Silview” Costinescu
I think Facebook’s combat style is called Fact-Fu
I don’t know it but I bet factcheck.org took money from Gates to label him as a conspiracy head.
Please watch and share our Facebook upload, if not to raise awareness, at least just to piss off these douchebags!
First hour of the simulation is already on our Bitchute, Youtube, we have a BrandNewTube channel too now. All full of “conspiracies”.
At least good thing Facebook and its “independent fact-checkers” are not mere narrative-enforcers and smear-machines 😀
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
It all comes round now… World leaders dealt above our heads, played their games and kept the plebs in the dark using smoke-screens of technocratic lingo. The elites are resetting our lives. All about The Great Reset.
We got encores from Henry Makow for this one, which is cool, because he is one of the early truthers who helped me when information was scarce and I was hungry.
TIMELINE
If you want to do a really good learning job, you start where it all started, about 150 years ago. Hosts are vetted historians and independent investigators:
2001 – The Dark Winter drills and the Anthrax attacks.
2005 WHO member countries sign the new International Health Regulations (IHR) which is basically the implementation of the Health Management chapter in The Great Reset, the tactical manual for the New World Order aka New Normal. The document envisions using drills to perfect the new system. Download IHR in PDF
Above: “Tom Inglesby, CEO and Director of the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC gives welcome and opening remarks for a one day conference, Improving Epidemic Response: Building Bridges Between the U.S. and China, held May 15, 2012, in Washington, DC. The conference focused on strengthening collaborative approaches between the U.S. and China to prepare for and respond to disease outbreaks”. – Center for Biosecurity of UPMC More info here
2014 – The creation of The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), “a group of 69 countries, international organizations and non-government organizations, and private sector companies that have come together to achieve the vision of a world safe and secure from global health threats posed by infectious diseases”. It was launched by a group of 44 countries and organizations including WHO, as a five-year multilateral effort with the purpose to accelerate the implementation of IHR, particularly in developing countries. In 2017, GHSA was expanded to include non-state actors. It was also extended through 2024 with the release of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) 2024 Framework (called “GHSA 2024”). The latter has the purpose to reach a standardized level of capacity to combat infectious diseases. All financed through the World Bank, of course. Which is controlled by the Rothschild cartel.
Rothschilds patent the first Covid-19 test kit in the Netherlands. According to Dutch Government’s website for patent registrations: “A method is provided for acquiring and transmitting biometric data (e.g., vital signs) of a user, where the data is analyzed to determine whether the user is suffering from a viral infection, such as COVID-19. The method includes using a pulse oximeter to acquire at least pulse and blood oxygen saturation percentage, which is transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone. To ensure that the data is accurate, an accelerometer within the smartphone is used to measure movement of the smartphone and/or the user. Once accurate data is acquired, it is uploaded to the cloud (or host), where the data is used (alone or together with other vital signs) to determine whether the user is suffering from (or likely to suffer from) a viral infection, such as COVID-19. Depending on the specific requirements, the data, changes thereto, and/or the determination can be used to alert medical staff and take corresponding actions.”
Pirbright Institute patents an avian coronavirus vaccine for a SARS-COV-2 relative. Just for veterinary use, they say, because this is an animal virus. But so was SARS-COV-2 initially, wasn’t it? The Institute is named after a British baron from the Pirbright family who’s a direct descendant of Mayer Rothschild, it’s funded by the Wellcome Trust and Bill Gates, among others.
The Institute holds Patent no. 10130701 which covers the development of an attenuated (weakened) form of the coronavirus that could potentially be used as a vaccine to prevent respiratory diseases in birds and other animals. Many vaccines are made in this way, from flu to polio. We have not yet developed an IBV vaccine, but research is ongoing. The Institute is strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation (BBSRC UKRI) and also receives funding from many other organisations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The patented work was not funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. More information on The Livestock Antibody Hub which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is available on our website.
Baron Solomon Benedict de Worms (1801–1882) was an Austrian aristocrat, plantation owner in Ceylon, and stockbroker in London.
Contents [show] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Solomon Benedict de Worms was born on 5 February 1801 in Frankfurt.[1][2] His father was Benedikt Moses Worms (1769–1824) and his mother, Schönche Jeannette Rothschild (1771–1859).[1][3] He had two brothers, Maurice Benedict de Worms (1805–1867) and Gabriel Benedict de Worms (1802–1881), and one sister, Henriette Worms (1803–1879).[2][3]
His maternal grandfather was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty.[1] As a result, his maternal uncles were Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773–1855), Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (1774–1855), Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777–1836), Carl Mayer von Rothschild (1788–1855), James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868), and his maternal aunts, Isabella Rothschild (1781–1861), Babette Rothschild (1784–1869), Julie Rothschild (1790–1815) and Henriette Rothschild (1791–1866).[1]
Career[edit] After spending some time in London, he went to Ceylon to build one of the largest plantations there with his brothers Maurice and Gabriel.[2] In 1865, he returned to London and worked as a stockbroker.[2]
On 23 April 1871, Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830–1916) made him 1st Baron de Worms [Austria].[1][2] Three years later, on 10 August 1874, Queen Victoria (1819–1901) allowed him to use his Austrian title in Great Britain.[1][2]
He was a life member of the Council of the United Synagogue and a warden of the Great Synagogue of London.[2]
Personal life[edit] He married Henrietta Samuel, daughter of Samuel Moses Samuel, on 11 July 1827.[1] They had four children:
George de Worms, 2nd Baron de Worms (1829–1902).[1][2] Anthony Mayer de Worms (1830–1864).[1] Ellen Henrietta de Worms (1836-unknown).[1] Henry de Worms, 1st Baron Pirbright (1840–1903). –
And the youngest of his sons will give his name to the Pirbright Institute
2017-2018 – World Bank’s website reports massive shipments of COVID-19 medical devices (tests, mainly). See our previous reports.
2019 In its first annual report, WHO and WB’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board identifies the most urgent actions required to accelerate preparedness for health emergencies. This first report focuses on epidemics and pandemics. The document is “co-convened by the World Health Organization and the World Bank Group”. Under “Progress indicator(s) by September 2020“, the report states:
The United Nations (including WHO) conducts at least two system-wide training and simulation exercises, including one for covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen. WHO develops intermediate triggers to mobilize national, international and multilateral action early in outbreaks, to complement existing mechanisms for later and more advanced stages of an outbreak under the IHR (2005).
Countries, donors and multilateral institutions must be prepared for the worst.
A rapidly spreading pandemic due to a lethal respiratory pathogen (whether naturally emergent or accidentally or deliberately released) poses additional preparedness requirements. Donors and multilateral institutions must ensure adequate investment in developing innovative vaccines and therapeutics, surge manufacturing capacity, broad-spectrum antivirals and appropriate non-pharmaceutical interventions. All countries must develop a system for immediately sharing genome sequences of any new pathogen for public health purposes along with the means to share limited medical countermeasures across countries.
The United Nations must strengthen coordination mechanisms.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, with WHO and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), must strengthen coordination in different country, health and humanitarian emergency contexts, by ensuring clear United Nations systemwide roles and responsibilities; rapidly resetting preparedness and response strategies during health emergencies; and, enhancing United Nations system leadership for preparedness, including through routine simulation exercises. WHO should introduce an approach to mobilize the wider national, regional and international community at earlier stages of an outbreak, prior to a declaration of an IHR (2005) Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Progress indicator(s) by September 2020
• The Secretary-General of the United Nations, with the Director-General of WHO and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs strengthens coordination and identifies clear roles and responsibilities and timely triggers for a coordinated United Nations systemwide response for health emergencies in different countries and different health and humanitarian emergency contexts. • The United Nations (including WHO) conducts at least two system-wide training and simulation exercises, including one for covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen. • WHO develops intermediate triggers to mobilize national, international and multilateral action early in outbreaks, to complement existing mechanisms for later and more advanced stages of an outbreak under the IHR (2005). • The Secretary General of the United Nations convenes a high-level dialogue with health, security and foreign affairs officials to determine how the world can address the threat of a lethal respiratory pathogen pandemic, as well as for managing preparedness for disease outbreaks in complex, insecure contexts.
The chances of a global pandemic are growing. While scientific and technological developments provide new tools that advance public health (including safely assessing medical countermeasures), they also allow for disease-causing microorganisms to be engineered or recreated in laboratories. A deliberate release would complicate outbreak response; in addition to the need to decide how to counter the pathogen, security measures would come into play limiting information-sharing and fomenting social divisions. Taken together, naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate events caused by high-impact respiratory pathogens pose “global catastrophic biological risks.” (15)
The world is not prepared for a fast-moving, virulent respiratory pathogen pandemic. The 1918 global influenza pandemic sickened one third of the world population and killed as many as 50 million people – 2.8% of the total population (16,17). If a similar contagion occurred today with a population four times larger and travel times anywhere in the world less than 36 hours, 50 – 80 million people could perish (18,19). In addition to tragic levels of mortality, such a pandemic could cause panic, destabilize national security and seriously impact the global economy and trade.
Trust in institutions is eroding. Governments, scientists, the media, public health, health systems and health workers in many countries are facing a breakdown in public trust that is threatening their ability to function effectively. The situation is exacerbated by misinformation that can hinder disease control communicated quickly and widely via social media.
“Who could’ve seen it?!” – September 2019 version“Independent” 😉
No, they are not worried about misinformation. They are worried about their agenda being countered by truths leaking out on social media.
In the “Progress to Date” section, we find the following snippet (page 19):
In 2017 Germany, India, Japan, Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the World Economic Forum founded the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to facilitate focused support for vaccine development to combat major health epidemic/pandemic threats.
On page 25, they are worried about armed resistance to their imposition of vaccines. To quote,
Challenges to poliomyelitis (polio) eradication efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and those experienced while containing the tenth Ebola outbreak in the DRC vividly demonstrate the impact that a breakdown in citizens’ trust and social cohesion can have on health emergency response. Consequences include attacks on both national and international health-care workers and delays or stoppages in response efforts. In some countries, waning trust in public health and government officials together with cultural and religious beliefs lead to is decreasing vaccination rates and leading to the re-emergence of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, a phenomenon found in communities at all economic and educational levels.
Page 34 proposes making ’emergency preparedness” a precondition for receiving loans and financial support from the IMF and the World Bank. To quote,
To mitigate the severe economic impacts of a national, regional epidemic and/or a global pandemic, the IMF and the World Bank must urgently renew their efforts to integrate preparedness into economic risk and institutional assessments, such as the IMF’s next cycle of Article IV consultations with countries, and the World Bank’s next Systematic Country Diagnostics for IDA credits and grants. The funding replenishments of the IDA, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the and Gavi Alliance should include explicit commitments regarding preparedness.
Now here are the wonderful people who are members of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. Remember Fauci? Remember the Bill Gates Foundation? Other notables include a member of the Communist Party of China.
“Simulation exercises have been identified as a key voluntary instrument in the validation of core capacities under the “Implementation of the International Health Regulations: Draft 5-year draft global strategic plan to improve public health preparedness and response”, which was adopted by the seventy first World Health Assembly. Simulation exercises, along with After Action Reviews, represent the functional assessment of capacities and complement States Parties annual reporting, independent reviews, and joint external evaluations. They play a key role in identifying the strengths and gaps in the development and implementation of IHR capacities and to support countries to assess the operational capability of their national capacity for public health preparedness and response.” – WHO
Full-scale/field exercises (FSX): “A full-scale exercise simulates a real event as closely as possible and is designed to evaluate the operational capability of emergency management systems in a highly stressful environment, simulating actual response conditions. This includes the mobilization and movement of emergency personnel, equipment and resources. Ideally, the full-scale exercise should test and evaluate most functions of the emergency management plan or operational plan. Differing from the FX, a full-scale exercise typically involves multiple agencies and participants physically deployed in an exercise field location.” – WHO
WHO elaborates on what a SimEx is in October 2019
Field exercises: “See full-scale exercise. A field exercise is one form of full-scale exercise, focusing on more specific capacities or series of capacities, such as procedures for Rapid Response Teams (RRT), laboratory analysis or other sample collection and transport.”- WHO
Exercises are not one-time events, but should be undertaken as part of a carefully designed exercise program which ensures a common strategic objective is addressed. A comprehensive exercise program is made up of progressively complex exercises, which build upon the previous, until they are as close to reality as possible. This ‘building-block approach’ should start with basic exercises that test specific aspects of preparedness and response, followed by progressively complex exercises requiring additional preparation time and resources.
The figure below provides an illustration of the level of preparation and capacity needed for each exercise type.
Situation map as of September 10, 2020. US, Brasil, Australia, Scandinavia and other countries seem to conduct their own drills following a different agenda, and that matches the actual field situationSo what is WHO planning out for Ukraine?Ukraine is certainly being “groomed” for a 2nd wave of Covidiocracy. SourceWHO has been laying out the plans to control mass gatherings since 2019Read moreRead moreSource
“The exercise, code named “Crimson Contagion,” had eerie similarities to the current real-life coronavirus pandemic.
The exercise involved officials from more than a dozen federal agencies, several states and hospitals responding to a scenario in which a pandemic flu that began in China was spread by international tourists and was deemed a pandemic 47 days after the first outbreak. By then, in the scenario, 110 million Americans were expected to become ill.
The simulation that ran from January to August exposed problems that included funding shortfalls, muddled leadership roles, scarce resources, and a hodgepodge of responses from cities and states, according to the dunning assessment obtained by the Times.
It also became apparent that the U.S. was incapable of quickly manufacturing adequate equipment and medicines for such an emergency, according to the draft report.
White House officials told the Times that an executive order following the exercise improved the availability of flu vaccines. The administration also said it moved this year to increase funding for a pandemic program in HHS.
But Trump’s administration eliminated a pandemic unit within the Department of Homeland Security in 2018. And weeks after the first real coronavirus case was diagnosed in the U.S., Trump submitted a 2021 budget proposal calling for a $693.3 million reduction in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials wouldn’t explain why the administration’s coronavirus response was so slow to roll out testing, or to move on promoting social distancing and school closings — all steps highlighted in the exercise, according to the Times.
While President Donald Trump has claimed that “nobody knew there would be a pandemic … of this proportion,” that’s exactly the kind of possibility the exercise addressed.
The Trump administration also had the benefit of lessons learned by the Obama administration in dealing with the Ebola crisis. Obama aides in early 2017 ran an exercise for pandemic preparedness for incoming officials of the Trump administration as part of the transition, but almost all of the previous administration’s experts had left the government by last year.
Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who was fired by Trump in 2019, warned of the danger of a pandemic to an unprepared nation last year in his Worldwide Threat Assessment.” – HUFFPOST
The photo above represents “The Department of Health and Human Services’ Covid-19 operations center in Washington. The department ran an extensive exercise last year simulating a pandemic” – NY Times
“The exercise played out in four separate stages, starting in January 2019.
The events were supposedly unspooling in real time — with the worst-case scenario underway as of Aug. 13, 2019 — when, according to the script, 12,100 cases had already been reported in the United States, with the largest number in Chicago, which had 1,400.
The fictional outbreak involved a pandemic flu, which the Department of Health and Human Services says was “very different than the novel coronavirus.” The staged outbreak had started when a group of 35 tourists visiting China were infected and then flew home to Australia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Thailand, Britain and Spain, as well as to the United States, with some developing respiratory symptoms and fevers en route.
A 52-year-old man from Chicago, who was on the tour, had “low energy and a dry cough” upon his return home. His 17-year-old son on that same day went out to a large public event in Chicago, and the chain of illnesses in the United States started.
Many of the moments during the tabletop exercise are now chillingly familiar.
In the fictional pandemic, as the virus spread quickly across the United States, the C.D.C. issued guidelines for social distancing, and many employees were told to work from home.” – NY Times
I’m not making any claims regarding how much did Trump play by that book, worth noting it existed and it got passed on
the ‘Event201’ exercise
We got banned for this! WEF openly admitted they ran a massive viral pandemic simulation in 2019
According to their own website, “Event 201 was a 3.5-hour pandemic tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions, confronting difficult, true-to-life dilemmas associated with response to a hypothetical, but scientifically plausible, pandemic. 15 global business, government, and public health leaders were players in the simulation exercise that highlighted unresolved real-world policy and economic issues that could be solved with sufficient political will, financial investment, and attention now and in the future.
The exercise consisted of pre-recorded news broadcasts, live “staff” briefings, and moderated discussions on specific topics. These issues were carefully designed in a compelling narrative that educated the participants and the audience.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jointly propose these recommendations.”
Purpose
In recent years, the world has seen a growing number of epidemic events, amounting to approximately 200 events annually. These events are increasing, and they are disruptive to health, economies, and society. Managing these events already strains global capacity, even absent a pandemic threat. Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences. A severe pandemic, which becomes “Event 201,” would require reliable cooperation among several industries, national governments, and key international institutions.
Similar to the Center’s 3 previous exercises—Clade X, Dark Winter, and Atlantic Storm—Event 201 aimed to educate senior leaders at the highest level of US and international governments and leaders in global industries.
It is also a tool to inform members of the policy and preparedness communities and the general public. This is distinct from many other forms of simulation exercises that test protocols or technical policies of a specific organization. Exercises similar to Event 201 are a particularly effective way to help policymakers gain a fuller understanding of the urgent challenges they could face in a dynamic, real-world crisis.
“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering. The Event 201 pandemic exercise, conducted on October 18, 2019, vividly demonstrated a number of these important gaps in pandemic preparedness as well as some of the elements of the solutions between the public and private sectors that will be needed to fill them. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jointly propose these recommendations.”
Audience
An invitation-only audience of nearly 130 people attended the exercises, and a livestream of the event was available to everyone. Video coverage is available here.
Exercise team
Eric Toner, MD, is the exercise team lead from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Crystal Watson, DrPH, MPH and Tara Kirk Sell, PhD, MA are co-leads from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Ryan Morhard, JD, is the exercise lead from the World Economic Forum, and Jeffrey French is the exercise lead for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
Main organisers: The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates. World Economic Forum as in the ideologists that redacted The Great Reset.
In order to create momentum for the Great Reset, UK royal Prince Charles said the imagination and will of humanity “will need to be captured” so that they can set the world on a new trajectory. This is taken from his historical but largely ignored speech at the official launch event for The Great Reset.
He further suggested that longstanding incentive structures that have adverse effects on the environments must be reorientated, and that systems and pathways will need to be redesigned to advance net zero emissions globally.
“This reset moment is an opportunity to accelerate and align our efforts to create truly global momentum. Countries, industries and businesses moving together can create efficiencies and economies of scale that will allow us to leapfrog our collective progress and accelerate our transition,” the Prince said.
NEW – At COP26, The most powerful private financial interests in the world announced a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing w institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.https://t.co/8rqDME4OVj
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Make a blog post on WordPress or anywhere you can get good live traffic reports. Set it private so that no one can find the link unless you give it to them.
Make a Facebook post with that link and boost it. Make sure there’s no other links included so the audience can’t go anywhere else
Compare the Facebook link click reports with the other traffic reports you have available for your website.
On the last test we did, Facebook reported 326 link clicks, WordPress 20, for the same timeline. This costed us almost $30 from your donations but I think it’s the best spent money on Facebook from all we ever did.
These are the people who “fact-check” us. Any number or claim ever presented by Facebook is worthless. Facebook is nothing but a Narrative Enforcement & Smear machine literally stealing money, health and life from people by faking everything it touches.
Ever felt fringe, overwhelmed by drones, marginalised? You’re just being gas-lighted by Facebook, Google and an army of trolls whose very own existence proves our reality is fabricated and rigged.
In the figure above we have Dork Suckerborg, Lord of the Echo-chambers, trying to tell us we made 7,000+ views without a single reaction or comment. As if that’s even possible. If I showed 7,000 people a blank page, at least 100 would react (mostly angrily I guess).
The “virality circuit breaker”, from our close observations, comes out to be a little program meant to lie about your interactions, as a tool to stop people from following up and engaging with each other, increasing the popularity of some posts.
Imagine getting 115k likes and no heart 😀 What numbers do you see? Check it here
The problem is the mental ret@rdation the elites promoted in the masses trickled up into their own business and now they are way too stupid to accomplish anything that’s not based on brute force. So what happens is that, especially when there’s many interconnections on a post, the lie you tell one user needs to be propagated to all the network. But the same lie doesn’t work the same for everyone. You need to customise the lie to make it plausible for everyone. And if they weren’t dead inside, they could’ve tell from the guts their AI and any machine will fail at this task, because so much human variability is uncomputable. This is how, eventually, our humanity will beat the borg. This is why they want to eliminate the differences between us and turn the collective mental into an uniform marmalade: less variability to compute and manage, less resources and costs invested, less worries. But because of the generalised mental underdevelopment, there will be billions of victims in the process of winning. And everyone basing anything on Facebook or Google numbers will be a victim of some sort too.
Let’s see another instance of gaslighting attempted on us: In the image above witness Facebook trying to BS us that no one gives a crap about our post. A few thousand people interacted with it, in fact. Some were my or my friends’ profiles. None of the numbers we seen on the reports matched the same reports sent to others, or even to ourselves, like the notification on the profile didn’t match the one on the page nor the one on the feed. The lie is too big and intricate to manage with their fake ass quantum computing The machine failed countless times at covering its tracks. We recorded tons of these failures. They figured it out some days ago but now then patches made it worse, so at times they break the notifications completely, it’s still better than you seeing the king naked.
NEK – Narrative Enforcement Korps (I just made this name up but they’re real)
Get involved, share this as wide as you can, let’s crash this monster and its stock market value by outing its schemes!
Our worldwide readership is told to its face they are not going to show our link in comments
Sometimes it feels like Fakebook is holding meetings in which they debate how to help us further expose them. The main problem remains the public’s functional illiteracy which disables their cognitive abilities when facing evidences of wrongdoing
This called for a new Facebook cover, feel free to download and use 😉
In a coming episode we hope to teach you similar tricks for Google, who hides it better, but it’s just as rigged. Way more complicated to prove.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
These links from their website are all I have for now, but it’s sufficient evidence. I found it important to let it all out ASAP, while I dig for more relevant info.
I find very interesting who the main traders are: Switzerland ($23,684,716.51K , 2,538,500 Kg), Germany ($17,464,406.19K , 7,242,210 Kg), European Union ($16,940,789.16K , 8,953,990 Kg), United States ($8,283,146.64K , 7,020,260 Kg), Ireland ($6,356,054.92K , 590,259 Kg).
China has been shipping Rona tests like there’s no tomorrow since 2018:
UPDATE SEPT 9, 2020 I think you will find this WB document very interesting. Download PDF
“This document describes a programmatic framework responding to the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the ‘COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program (SPRP)’, which utilizes the Multiphase Programmatic Approach (MPA), to be supported under the FTCF. The proposed Program, by visibly committing substantial resources (IBRD/IDA financing for SPRP is US$6 billion), and complementing funding by countries and activities supported by other partners, would help ensure adequate resources to fund a rapid emergency response to COVID-19. In parallel, it is being submitted for approval the financing of Phase 1 of the Program for 25 Investment Project Financing operations under the SPRP for countries across the world. The 25 countries are: Afghanistan, Argentina, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Congo Democratic Republic of, Djibouti, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Maldives, Mauritania, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, San Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, and Yemen (the list of country operations is in Annex I of this document and the country operations are described in their respective Project Appraisal Documents (PADs)). The PADs for the 25 country projects included in this Phase 1 package are available online.”
The Covid Circus is supposed to be about health, but it’s ran by financiers and royalties, fronted by a computer dork and a communist terrorist.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Don’t want your posts reported or your profile flagged because you’re critical of Pharmafia, the establishment and their fake news? Block these profiles. Permanently updated, there’s thousands of them. The secret agents of the narrative enforcement, the real Covidiocracy army.
Funnier than the meme is the fact that this used to be a profile pic for a troll
More to come, just started to get things organised
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Among other things, I have a 25years-long career in music. Electronic, mainly. And one thing led to anoher… If you think this is a joke, you are correct. If you think this is damn serious, you are sharp.
Hello World! We’re here to take over all screens with a message of love and acceptance for the Fauci Fashion phenomenon. Too many people still prioritise brain oxygenation and freedom over Fauci Fashion and that is wrong. (We have established that oxygen fits all definitions for “drug”). Youtube is stealing our views and we were helplessly watching our counter going backwards. That is very wrong! (good thing they don’t count Rona cases with the same accuracy and intentions) Our muse and guiding lighthouse in Covidiocracy, Dr. Tony Fauci, gets diminished and that’s unacceptable!!! (almost used caps…) So enough of that! We’re asking your help to get Fauci Fashion (as seen below) into all music charts, and send out a message to everyone that we can’t be silenced. (it’s actually very doable) Fauci Fashion is here to stay and give you Maskne! (it’s like acne, but from the mask, we’ll post links later if you need) If you want to join the movement, read all our posts and follow your conscience. A developed conscience will know what to make of this, the rest won’t and they won’t matter
This is the introductory word to the work of an enthusiastic supporter, with all the help I and other supporters can provide. Can’t put it in words how grateful I am! Yes, with your support, we want to attack official charts with this tune, as a way to get our voice where only Eminems and Cardi Bs can. The track is officially registered and every official stream and download counts, just use these sources.
As a music industry insider, I have the data and the method to mathematically calculate that it’s doable. We planned this carefully and we can mobilise a few thousand involved supporters that can move millions more, that can move billions. If we put together a few of your clicks with our products, know-how and strategy, we have a good shot at it.
Media is already starting to show interest, but it’s way too early to brag, we’ve just launched the initiative.
The music track (and many more)is available for free download from our Bandcamp page, this is not a business or about sales, this is about breaking a blockade. It’s “name your price” release, feel free to insert 0 if that’s the case, I still want you to have them all when you need them, even if you can’t contribute now. We contribute what we can, when we can, IF we WANT.
And we devised a few simple and effortless ways you can get involved in our fake grassroots movement with a secret dark agenda to sabotage Covidiocracy. Because this can’t work without people like you, but can move things in the right direction with you aboard.
The short help course reads like this: It’s all about attention, we live in an attention economy now, we need a bit of yours to join ours and kickstart until this provides for itself. You can basically help us get more attention two main ways: – By streaming, sharing and downloading the F out of Fauci Fashion from these official links: https://fanlink.to/cc1 – By using the Donate button on our shadow organisation’s webpage, which is right here, see the main menu on top 🙂 These funds are meant to buy ads, hire promoters and bribe media. Of course we will use most of it like Gates and Bono’s charities: in personal interest; but the rest will achieve our goals and everyone will be happy. If you really need serious money talk: all money in the world are worthless when you have no future, like humanity under Covidiocracy. So I’m already putting everything in this work, with or without help, but it might not be enough without you. Either way, sponsoring change is the only way I can make money worth anything now.
If you want to achieve maximum impact with your resources, here’s the details you need to know: – most efficient tools you have are * official downloads from sites like Amazon or Juno, one track download equals 100 free streams. And one stream from a paid/premium account = about 5-6 free streams. They are also better reported and accounted too, there’s less accounts of fraud, while Youtube robbed us blind to our faces, turning back the counter; Bundle purchases help less than individual track purchases, for some reasons related to how the charts are calculated. * direct donations; because we have the data on how and where funds can make the best impact at a certain moment and its technically impossible to share all that knowledge and know-how. For Paypal, use the button on this website, for cards hit the Bandcamp page, download what you like and pay what you like. Unfortunately no crypto wallets available. * website embeds and social shares. All platforms love that and google favors it a lot. However, Facebook hates external links, so if it’s not a paid post, it’s best to share the Facebook page itself. Here’s a win-win trick you can do if you have a Facebook page, let’s say: Instead of donating to us, make a dope post with the video or the Spotify player and use the money to buy promotion for it. This way you drive attention to both your page and our initiative, double win!
And if you really don’t like Fauci Fashion, we understand, feel free to purchase Covidiocracy T-shirts and hats from our shop. But most of those money won’t go to us, our percentage is tiny. We don’t make any blood money on the masks, that’s manufacturer’s price.
updates:
This will most probably become like a running thread because we have interesting developments almost daily. Here are some of them
August 3rd 2020: This happened. And even more interesting than the video is what happened when we uploaded it on Facebook, see below!
We uploaded this video on our Facebook page too and guess what happened to two people (me and a friend, in fact) the second we started to share it in private messages, verbatim copy incidents: We get locked out by Facebook who was claiming the accounts got hacked and they need to re-secure them. So we went through password changing and a whole f-ing test to regain access. The hacking never actually happened, it was basically a false flag by Facebook, who have been long time shilling for China and Fauci. Most of you users must have got the news that Fakebook’s just launched the new official private message censorship policy, which is basically an AI set to ban keywords and links. Much more complicated than that, but basically that. And the new toaster wasn’t set yet to the right temperature when we started to share inconvenient content. Facebook’s pretense that two of our accounts were attacked, coincidentally and precisely when they were sharing the same video in PM’s – that’s dumb af, Suckerborg!
In other news, EDM Nations mag is with us more vigorously than China 🙂
The Swag is strong with this one
September 13th: This escalated faster the we anticipated and we had to re-title our video to better reflect the developments:
Ever watched a heist live online? Hit the video and watch the counters.
Long story short: Our target with The People for Fauci Fashion was 10,000 Youtube views and about as many streams on Spotify first half of September. Spotify went well since Day#1, no worries there. First days we got the video some bumps in traffic, a solid few hundred views went away, we hardly documented it because we couldn’t believe our eyes we’re watching the counter going backwards. We went over the shock, took it as an accident, got some more press, tricked the Facebook robots to approve our clips and literally paid Suckerborg to distribute out video across Facebook, mobilised some supporters and got things going, with a few ups and downs. By Friday 11th we were at about 8,500 Youtube views and imaginary Champagne bottles went to the freezer before I went to bed. Saturday morning I woke up to only about 8,900 views, I raised an eyebrow, but OK. Before I finished my coffee we were down to around 7,300. Took me a while to process and react, mobilise some people etc, so first screenshot is from the afternoon at around 6,300 views. Made noise, tons more people watched the video, Sunday afternoon we’re down 100 views and about 10 likes. Regardless of what you think of our initiative, from Youtubers’ household budgets to entire industries, we all are hugely influenced by Youtube, Facebook and Twitter numbers and reports. And they are arbitrary. They insert there whatever figures they damn please. If you have doubts about that, read here how you yourself can prove Facebook is pick-pocketing users and advertisers, we learned it the hard way, and a lot more while promoting this project.
Meanwhile, reality has become even harder to distinguish from memes and parodies.
Is it a meme, is it “fake news”, is it “real news”?
By Sunday afternoon everything turned again… #LMAO @ #Youtube: I Did a little roll call, pushed back, outed them everywhere and whatcha guess, the power is back. Not the views, though. Did everyone just die this week-end?! Youtube almost brags and rubs in our face the thick chunk of views they took from our video. Globalist scum, basically.
Monday: Same story reloaded, this time we kinda streamed it live on Facebook and other socials.
BeforeNow
“Fauci Fashion” is part of a larger music release that has just been made available on most quality digital platforms that support electronic dance music.
Imagine a fist with five middle fingers up. Even 6 on Bandcamp or Youtube. This is the official description of Alien Pimp’s newest EP. Straight from the depths of the deepest Coronavirus mental and emotional depression, with one hand swinging the sword of comedy and with the other – the hammer of tragedy, here comes the sound of the “New Normal”. It’s angry, pissed, acid, deep, dark, ironic, silly, it’s everything punk aspired to be, but with computers and true care for the sound engineering. It doesn’t even matter if you like it, this EP is here to take a snap of history and set a stone. Alien Pimp did that before a few times, he pushed the bass music hybridization 10 years ago, and precisely 20 years ago he got featured on CNN for the pioneering internet as a medium for audio-visual collaborations. And now a new age awaits a new turn, especially in arts, you can be part of it or part of the past. And it’s pointless to even try stopping it, berating and belittling it, as it is pointless to ignore it. It is, it happened and it won’t go away, more so than the times that lead to its creation. Every track comes ‘equipped” with visual support created by the musician himself. He practices something he calls “new media” or “Silview media” (from his own name and website), it’s a fusion of formats and aesthetics shaped by the current times and technology. It blends a bit of everything, from retro-futurism to memes and tiktok. Some tracks have vertical videos designed for phones, other resemble animated gifs and so forth. In short: this is the sound o’ the times. “Don’t like it? Imagine how much I love living the times that inspired it! Like it? You know what to do…”, says Alien Pimp.
… in less than four years? Must be some breakthrough science again, maybe viruses are getting fat like Brits, or maybe they invented invisible masks now, right? No. Politics and media narratives changed. Nature works the same, masks are as lame as they ever were when it comes to virus protection. See for yourself and you will understand why this article is not up anymore.
When did they embraced dogma, yesterday or today? Why?
Below is the full, unedited article, in all its beauty. Probably the most valuable part is the references collection, as well as this little announcement hanged by the Oral Health collective at the end of the piece, just to trash it a bit later for no actual reason:
Oral Health welcomes this original article.
Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review
October 18, 2016 by John Hardie, BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC
Yesterday’s Scientific Dogma is Today’s Discarded Fable
Introduction The above quotation is ascribed to Justice Archie Campbell author of Canada’s SARS Commission Final Report. 1It is a stark reminder that scientific knowledge is constantly changing as new discoveries contradict established beliefs. For at least three decades a face mask has been deemed an essential component of the personal protective equipment worn by dental personnel. A current article, “Face Mask Performance: Are You Protected” gives the impression that masks are capable of providing an acceptable level of protection from airborne pathogens. 2Studies of recent diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Ebola Crisis combined with those of seasonal influenza and drug resistant tuberculosis have promoted a better understanding of how respiratory diseases are transmitted. Concurrently, with this appreciation, there have been a number of clinical investigations into the efficacy of protective devices such as face masks. This article will describe how the findings of such studies lead to a rethinking of the benefits of wearing a mask during the practice of dentistry. It will begin by describing new concepts relating to infection control especially personal protective equipment (PPE).
Trends in Infection Control For the past three decades there has been minimal opposition to what have become seemingly established and accepted infection control recommendations. In 2009, infection control specialist Dr. D. Diekema questioned the validity of these by asking what actual, front-line hospital-based infection control experiences were available to such authoritative organization as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 3In the same year, while commenting on guidelines for face masks, Dr. M. Rupp of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America noted that some of the practices relating to infection control that have been in place for decades, ”haven’t been subjected to the same strenuous investigation that, for instance, a new medicine might be subjected.” 4He opined that perhaps it is the relative cheapness and apparent safety of face masks that has prevented them from undergoing the extensive studies that should be required for any quality improvement device. 4More recently, Dr. R. MacIntyre, a prolific investigator of face masks, has forcefully stated that the historical reliance on theoretical assumptions for recommending PPEs should be replaced by rigorously acquired clinical data. 5She noted that most studies on face masks have been based on laboratory simulated tests which quite simply have limited clinical applicability as they cannot account for such human factors as compliance, coughing and talking. 5
Covering the nose and mouth for infection control started in the early 1900s when the German physician Carl Flugge discovered that exhaled droplets could transmit tuberculosis. 4The science regarding the aerosol transmission of infectious diseases has, for years, been based on what is now appreciated to be “very outmoded research and an overly simplistic interpretation of the data.” 6Modern studies are employing sensitive instruments and interpretative techniques to better understand the size and distribution of potentially infectious aerosol particles. 6Such knowledge is paramount to appreciating the limitations of face masks. Nevertheless, it is the historical understanding of droplet and airborne transmission that has driven the longstanding and continuing tradition of mask wearing among health professionals. In 2014, the nursing profession was implored to “stop using practice interventions that are based on tradition” but instead adopt protocols that are based on critical evaluations of the available evidence. 7
A December 2015 article in the National Post seems to ascribe to Dr. Gardam, Director of Infection Prevention and Control, Toronto University Health Network the quote, “I need to choose which stupid, arbitrary infection control rules I’m going to push.” 8In a communication with the author, Dr. Gardam explained that this was not a personal belief but that it did reflect the views of some infection control practitioners. In her 2014 article, “Germs and the Pseudoscience of Quality Improvement”, Dr. K Sibert, an anaesthetist with an interest in infection control, is of the opinion that many infection control rules are indeed arbitrary, not justified by the available evidence or subjected to controlled follow-up studies, but are devised, often under pressure, to give the appearance of doing something. 9
The above illustrate the developing concerns that many infection control measures have been adopted with minimal supporting evidence. To address this fault, the authors of a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article eloquently argue that all safety and quality improvement recommendations must be subjected to the same rigorous testing as would any new clinical intervention. 10Dr. R. MacIntyre, a proponent of this trend in infection control, has used her research findings to boldly state that, “it would not seem justifiable to ask healthcare workers to wear surgical masks.” 4To understand this conclusion it is necessary to appreciate the current concepts relating to airborne transmissions.
Airborne Transmissions Early studies of airborne transmissions were hampered by the fact that the investigators were not able to detect small particles (less than 5 microns) near an infectious person. 6Thus, they assumed that it was the exposure of the face, eyes and nose to large particles (greater than 5 microns) or “droplets” that transmitted the respiratory condition to a person in close proximity to the host. 6This became known as “droplet infection”, and 5 microns or greater became established as the size of large particles and the traditional belief that such particles could, in theory, be trapped by a face mask. 5The early researchers concluded that since only large particles were detected near an infectious person any small particles would be transmitted via air currents, dispersed over long distances, remain infective over time and might be inhaled by persons who never had any close contact with the host. 11This became known as “airborne transmission” against which a face mask would be of little use. 5
Through the use of highly sensitive instruments it is now appreciated that the aerosols transmitted from the respiratory tract due to coughing, sneezing, talking, exhalation and certain medical and dental procedures produce respiratory particles that range from the very small (less than 5 microns) to the very large (greater than a 100 microns) and that all of these particles are capable of being inhaled by persons close to the source. 6, 11 This means that respiratory aerosols potentially contain bacteria averaging in size from 1-10 microns and viruses ranging in size from 0.004 to 0.1 microns. 12It is also acknowledged that upon their emission large “droplets” will undergo evaporation producing a concentration of readily inhalable small particles surrounding the aerosol source. 6
The historical terms “droplet infection” and “airborne transmission” defined the routes of infection based on particle size. Current knowledge suggests that these are redundant descriptions since aerosols contain a wide distribution of particle sizes and that they ought to be replaced by the term, “aerosol transmissible.” 4, 5 Aerosol transmission has been defined as “person –to – person transmission of pathogens through air by means of inhalation of infectious particles.” 26In addition, it is appreciated that the physics associated with the production of the aerosols imparts energy to microbial suspensions facilitating their inhalation. 11
Traditionally face masks have been recommended to protect the mouth and nose from the “droplet” route of infection, presumably because they will prevent the inhalation of relatively large particles. 11Their efficacy must be re-examined in light of the fact that aerosols contain particles many times smaller than 5 microns. Prior to this examination, it is pertinent to review the defence mechanism of the respiratory tract.
Respiratory System Defences Comprehensive details on the defence mechanisms of the respiratory tract will not be discussed. Instead readers are reminded that; coughing, sneezing, nasal hairs, respiratory tract cilia, mucous producing lining cells and the phagocytic activity of alveolar macrophages provide protection against inhaled foreign bodies including fungi, bacteria and viruses. 13Indeed, the pathogen laden aerosols produced by everyday talking and eating would have the potential to cause significant disease if it were not for these effective respiratory tract defences.
These defences contradict the recently published belief that dentally produced aerosols, “enter unprotected bronchioles and alveoli.” 2A pertinent demonstration of the respiratory tract’s ability to resist disease is the finding that- compared to controls- dentists had significantly elevated levels of antibodies to influenza A and B and the respiratory syncytial virus. 14Thus, while dentists had greater than normal exposure to these aerosol transmissible pathogens, their potential to cause disease was resisted by respiratory immunologic responses. Interestingly, the wearing of masks and eye glasses did not lessen the production of antibodies, thus reducing their significance as personal protective barriers. 14Another example of the effectiveness of respiratory defences is that although exposed to more aerosol transmissible pathogens than the general population, Tokyo dentists have a significantly lower risk of dying from pneumonia and bronchitis. 15The ability of a face mask to prevent the infectious risk potentially inherent in sprays of blood and saliva reaching the wearers mouth and nose is questionable since, before the advent of mask use, dentists were no more likely to die of infectious diseases than the general population. 16
The respiratory tract has efficient defence mechanisms. Unless face masks have the ability to either enhance or lessen the need for such natural defences, their use as protection against airborne pathogens must be questioned.
Face Masks History: Cloth or cotton gauze masks have been used since the late 19th century to protect sterile fields from spit and mucous generated by the wearer. 5,17,18 A secondary function was to protect the mouth and nose of the wearer from the sprays and splashes of blood and body fluids created during surgery. 17As noted above, in the early 20th century masks were used to trap infectious “droplets” expelled by the wearer thus possibly reducing disease transmission to others. 18Since the mid-20th century until to-day, face masks have been increasingly used for entirely the opposite function: that is to prevent the wearer from inhaling respiratory pathogens. 5,20,21 Indeed, most current dental infection control recommendations insist that a face mask be worn, “as a key component of personal protection against airborne pathogens”. 2
Literature reviews have confirmed that wearing a mask during surgery has no impact whatsoever on wound infection rates during clean surgery. 22,23,24,25,26 A recent 2014 report states categorically that no clinical trials have ever shown that wearing a mask prevents contamination of surgical sites. 26With their original purpose being highly questionable it should be no surprise that the ability of face masks to act as respiratory protective devices is now the subject of intense scrutiny. 27Appreciating the reasons for this, requires an understanding of the structure, fit and filtering capacity of face masks.
Structure and Fit: Disposable face masks usually consist of three to four layers of flat non-woven mats of fine fibres separated by one or two polypropylene barrier layers which act as filters capable of trapping material greater than 1 micron in diameter. 18,24,28 Masks are placed over the nose and mouth and secured by straps usually placed behind the head and neck. 21No matter how well a mask conforms to the shape of a person’s face, it is not designed to create an air tight seal around the face. Masks will always fit fairly loosely with considerable gaps along the cheeks, around the bridge of the nose and along the bottom edge of the mask below the chin. 21These gaps do not provide adequate protection as they permit the passage of air and aerosols when the wearer inhales. 11,17 It is important to appreciate that if masks contained filters capable of trapping viruses, the peripheral gaps around the masks would continue to permit the inhalation of unfiltered air and aerosols. 11
Filtering Capacity: The filters in masks do not act as sieves by trapping particles greater than a specific size while allowing smaller particles to pass through. 18Instead the dynamics of aerosolized particles and their molecular attraction to filter fibres are such that at a certain range of sizes both large and small particles will penetrate through a face mask. 18Accordingly, it should be no surprise that a study of eight brands of face masks found that they did not filter out 20-100% of particles varying in size from 0.1 to 4.0 microns. 21Another investigation showed penetration ranges from 5-100% when masks were challenged with relatively large 1.0 micron particles. 29A further study found that masks were incapable of filtering out 80-85% of particles varying in size from 0.3 to 2.0 microns. 30A 2008 investigation identified the poor filtering performance of dental masks. 27It should be concluded from these and similar studies that the filter material of face masks does not retain or filter out viruses or other submicron particles. 11,31 When this understanding is combined with the poor fit of masks, it is readily appreciated that neither the filter performance nor the facial fit characteristics of face masks qualify them as being devices which protect against respiratory infections. 27Despite this determination the performance of masks against certain criteria has been used to justify their effectiveness.2 Accordingly, it is appropriate to review the limitations of these performance standards.
Performance Standards: Face masks are not subject to any regulations. 11The USA Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies face masks as Class II devices. To obtain the necessary approval to sell masks all that a manufacturer need do is satisfy the FDA that any new device is substantially the same as any mask currently available for sale. 21As ironically noted by the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in BC, “There is no specific requirement to prove that the existing masks are effective and there is no standard test or set of data required supporting the assertion of equivalence. Nor does the FDA conduct or sponsor testing of surgical masks.” 21Although the FDA recommends two filter efficiency tests; particulate filtration efficiency (PFE) and bacterial filtration efficiency (BFE) it does not stipulate a minimum level of filter performance for these tests. 27The PFE test is a basis for comparing the efficiency of face masks when exposed to aerosol particle sizes between 0.1 and 5.0 microns. The test does not assess the effectiveness of a mask in preventing the ingress of potentially harmful particles nor can it be used to characterize the protective nature of a mask. 32The BFE test is a measure of a mask’s ability to provide protection from large particles expelled by the wearer. It does not provide an assessment of a mask’s ability to protect the wearer. 17Although these tests are conducted under the auspices of the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) and often produce filtration efficiencies in the range of 95-98 %, they are not a measure of a masks ability to protect against respiratory pathogens. Failure to appreciate the limitations of these tests combined with a reliance on the high filtration efficiencies reported by the manufacturers has, according to Healthcare in BC, “created an environment in which health care workers think they are more protected than they actually are.” 21For dental personnel the protection sought is mainly from treatment induced aerosols.
Dental Aerosols For approximately 40 years it has been known that dental restorative and especially ultrasonic scaling procedures produce aerosols containing not only blood and saliva but potentially pathogenic organisms. 33The source of these organisms could be the oral cavities of patients and/or dental unit water lines. 34Assessing the source and pathogenicity of these organisms has proven elusive as it is extremely difficult to culture bacteria especially anaerobes and viruses from dental aerosols. 34Although there is no substantiated proof that dental aerosols are an infection control risk, it is a reasonable assumption that if pathogenic microbes are present at the treatment site they will become aerosolized and prone to inhalation by the clinician which a face mask will not prevent. As shown by the study of UK dentists, the inhalation resulted in the formation of appropriate antibodies to respiratory pathogens without overt signs and symptoms of respiratory distress. 14This occurred whether masks were or were not worn. In a 2008 article, Dr. S. Harrel, of the Baylor College of Dentistry, is of the opinion that because there is a lack of epidemiologically detectable disease from the use of ultrasonic scalers, dental aerosols appear to have a low potential for transmitting disease but should not be ignored as a risk for disease transmission. 34The most effective measures for reducing disease transmission from dental aerosols are pre-procedural rinses with mouthwashes such as chlorhexidine, large diameter high volume evacuators, and rubber dam whenever possible. 33Face masks are not useful for this purpose, and Dr. Harrel believes that dental personnel have placed too great a reliance on their efficacy. 34Perhaps this has occurred because dental regulatory agencies have failed to appreciate the increasing evidence on face mask inadequacies.
The Inadequacies Between 2004 and 2016 at least a dozen research or review articles have been published on the inadequacies of face masks. 5,6,11,17,19,20,21,25,26,27,28,31 All agree that the poor facial fit and limited filtration characteristics of face masks make them unable to prevent the wearer inhaling airborne particles. In their well-referenced 2011 article on respiratory protection for healthcare workers, Drs. Harriman and Brosseau conclude that, “facemasks will not protect against the inhalation of aerosols.” 11Following their 2015 literature review, Dr. Zhou and colleagues stated, “There is a lack of substantiated evidence to support claims that facemasks protect either patient or surgeon from infectious contamination.” 25In the same year Dr. R. MacIntyre noted that randomized controlled trials of facemasks failed to prove their efficacy. 5In August 2016 responding to a question on the protection from facemasks the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety replied:
The filter material of surgical masks does not retain or filter out submicron particles;
Surgical masks are not designed to eliminate air leakage around the edges;
Surgical masks do not protect the wearer from inhaling small particles that can remain airborne for long periods of time. 31
In 2015, Dr. Leonie Walker, Principal Researcher of the New Zealand Nurses Organization succinctly described- within a historical context – the inadequacies of facemasks, “Health care workers have long relied heavily on surgical masks to provide protection against influenza and other infections. Yet there are no convincing scientific data that support the effectiveness of masks for respiratory protection. The masks we use are not designed for such purposes, and when tested, they have proved to vary widely in filtration capability, allowing penetration of aerosol particles ranging from four to 90%.” 35
Face masks do not satisfy the criteria for effectiveness as described by Drs. Landefeld and Shojania in their NEJM article, “The Tension between Needing to Improve Care and Knowing How to Do It. 10The authors declare that, “…recommending or mandating the widespread adoption of interventions to improve quality or safety requires rigorous testing to determine whether, how, and where the intervention is effective…” They stress the critical nature of this concept because, “…a number of widely promulgated interventions are likely to be wholly ineffective, even if they do not harm patients.” 10A significant inadequacy of face masks is that they were mandated as an intervention based on an assumption rather than on appropriate testing.
Conclusions The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection. Unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, national and provincial dental associations and regulatory agencies publically admit this fact, they will be guilty of perpetuating a myth which will be a disservice to the dental profession and its patients. It would be beneficial if, as a consequence of the review, all present infection control recommendations were subjected to the same rigorous testing as any new clinical intervention. Professional associations and governing bodies must ensure the clinical efficacy of quality improvement procedures prior to them being mandated. It is heartening to know that such a trend is gaining a momentum which might reveal the inadequacies of other long held dental infection control assumptions. Surely, the hallmark of a mature profession is one which permits new evidence to trump established beliefs. In 1910, Dr. C. Chapin, a public health pioneer, summarized this idea by stating, “We should not be ashamed to change our methods; rather, we should be ashamed not to do so.” 36Until this occurs, as this review has revealed, dentists have nothing to fear by unmasking. OH
Oral Health welcomes this original article.
References 1. Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care. SARS Commission-Spring of Fear: Final Report. Available at: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ministry_reports/campbell06/campbell06.html 2. Molinari JA, Nelson P. Face Mask Performance: Are You Protected? Oral Health, March 2016. 3. Diekema D. Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention, October, 2009. 4. Unmasking the Surgical Mask: Does It Really Work? Medpage Today, Infectious Disease, October, 2009. 5. MacIntyre CR, Chughtai AA. Facemasks for the prevention of infection in healthcare and community settings. BMJ 2015; 350:h694. 6. Brosseau LM, Jones R. Commentary: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola. Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. September, 2014. 7. Clinical Habits Die Hard: Nursing Traditions Often Trump Evidence-Based Practice. Infection Control Today, April, 2014. 8. Landman K. Doctors, take off those dirty white coats. National Post, December 7, 2015. 9. Sibert K. Germs and the Pseudoscience of Quality Improvement. California Society of Anesthesiologists, December 8, 2014. 10. Auerbach AD, Landfeld CS, Shojania KG. The Tension between Needing to Improve Care and Knowing How to Do It. NEJM 2007; 357 (6):608-613. 11. Harriman KH, Brosseau LM. Controversy: Respiratory Protection for Healthcare Workers. April, 2011. Available at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/741245_print 12. Bacteria and Viruses Issues. Water Quality Association, 2016. Available at: https://www.wqa.org/Learn-About-Water/Common-Contaminants/Bacteria-Viruses 13. Lechtzin N. Defense Mechanisms of the Respiratory System. Merck Manuals, Kenilworth, USA, 2016 14. Davies KJ, Herbert AM, Westmoreland D. Bagg J. Seroepidemiological study of respiratory virus infections among dental surgeons. Br Dent J. 1994; 176(7):262-265. 15. Shimpo H, Yokoyama E, Tsurumaki K. Causes of death and life expectancies among dentists. Int Dent J 1998; 48(6):563-570. 16. Bureau of Economic Research and Statistics, Mortality of Dentists 1961-1966. JADA 1968; 76(4):831-834. 17. Respirators and Surgical Masks: A Comparison. 3 M Occupational Health and Environment Safety Division. Oct. 2009. 18. Brosseau L. N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Oct. 2009. 19. Johnson DF, Druce JD, Birch C, Grayson ML. A Quantitative Assessment of the Efficacy of Surgical and N95 Masks to Filter Influenza Virus in Patients with Acute Influenza Infection. Clin Infect Dis 2009; 49:275-277. 20. Weber A, Willeke K, Marchloni R et al. Aerosol penetration and leakage characteristics of masks used in the health care industry. Am J Inf Cont 1993; 219(4):167-173. 21. Yassi A, Bryce E. Protecting the Faces of Health Care Workers. Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare in BC, Final Report, April 2004. 22. Bahli ZM. Does Evidence Based Medicine Support The Effectiveness Of Surgical Facemasks In Preventing Postoperative Wound Infections In Elective Surgery. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad 2009; 21(2)166-169. 23. Lipp A, Edwards P. Disposable surgical face masks for preventing surgical wound infection in clean surgery. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2002(1) CD002929. 24. Lipp A, Edwards P. Disposable surgical face masks: a systematic review. Can Oper Room Nurs J 2005; 23(#):20-38. 25. Zhou Cd, Sivathondan P, Handa A. Unmasking the surgeons: the evidence base behind the use of facemasks in surgery. JR Soc Med 2015; 108(6):223-228. 26. Brosseau L, Jones R. Commentary: Protecting health workers from airborne MERS-CoV- learning from SARS. Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy May 2014. 27. Oberg T, Brosseau L. Surgical mask filter and fit performance. Am J Infect Control 2008; 36:276-282. 28. Lipp A. The effectiveness of surgical face masks: what the literature shows. Nursing Times 2003; 99(39):22-30. 29. Chen CC, Lehtimaki M, Willeke K. Aerosol penetration through filtering facepieces and respirator cartridges. Am Indus Hyg Assoc J 1992; 53(9):566-574. 30. Chen CC, Willeke K. Characteristics of Face Seal Leakage in Filtering Facepieces. Am Indus Hyg Assoc J 1992; 53(9):533-539. 31. Do surgical masks protect workers? OSH Answers Fact Sheets. Canadian Centre for Occupational health and Safety. Updated August 2016. 32. Standard Test Method for Determining the Initial Efficiency of Materials Used in Medical Face Masks to Penetration by Particulates Using Latex Spheres. American Society of Testing and Materials, Active Standard ASTM F2299/F2299M. 33. Harrel SK. Airborne Spread of Disease-The Implications for Dentistry. CDA J 2004; 32(11); 901-906. 34. Harrel SK. Are Ultrasonic Aerosols an Infection Control Risk? Dimensions of Dental Hygiene 2008; 6(6):20-26. 35. Robinson L. Unmasking the evidence. New Zealand Nurses Organization. May 2015. Available at: https://nznoblog.org.nz/2015/05/15/unmasking-the-evidence 36. Chapin CV. The Sources and Modes of Transmission. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons; 1910.
The murder of American woman Dee Dee Blanchard in 2015, is one of the most famous cases of Factitious disorder imposed on another (aka Munchausen syndrome by proxy) ever, a long and devastating story of horrific child abuse, that ended with a daughter orchestrating the murder of her own mother. This mental illness is also the fuel Covidiocracy runs on.
Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), is a condition by which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person, typically their child. This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. They then present the person as being sick or injured. This occurs without a specific benefit to the caregiver.Permanent injury or death of the child may occur.
In factitious disorder imposed on another, a caregiver makes a dependent person appear mentally or physically ill in order to gain attention. To perpetuate the medical relationship, the caregiver systematically misrepresents symptoms, fabricates signs, manipulates laboratory tests, or even purposely harms the dependent (e.g. by poisoning, suffocation, infection, physical injury).[7] Studies have shown a mortality rate of between six and ten percent, making it perhaps the most lethal form of abuse.[8][9]
Most present about three medical problems in some combination of the 103 different reported symptoms. The most-frequently reported problems are apnea (26.8% of cases), anorexia or feeding problems (24.6% of cases), diarrhea (20%), seizures (17.5%), cyanosis (blue skin) (11.7%), behavior (10.4%), asthma (9.5%), allergy (9.3%), and fevers (8.6%). Other symptoms include failure to thrive, vomiting, bleeding, rash, and infections. Many of these symptoms are easy to fake because they are subjective. A parent reporting that their child had a fever in the past 24 hours is making a claim that is impossible to prove or disprove. The number and variety of presented symptoms contribute to the difficulty in reaching a proper diagnosis.
Aside from the motive (which is to gain attention or sympathy), another feature that differentiates FDIA from “typical” physical child abuse is the degree of premeditation involved. Whereas most physical abuse entails lashing out at a child in response to some behavior (e.g., crying, bedwetting, spilling food), assaults on the FDIA victim tend to be unprovoked and planned.
Also unique to this form of abuse is the role that health care providers play by actively, albeit unintentionally, enabling the abuse. By reacting to the concerns and demands of perpetrators, medical professionals are manipulated into a partnership of child maltreatment. Challenging cases that defy simple medical explanations may prompt health care providers to pursue unusual or rare diagnoses, thus allocating even more time to the child and the abuser. Even without prompting, medical professionals may be easily seduced into prescribing diagnostic tests and therapies that are at best uncomfortable and costly, and at worst potentially injurious to the child.[1] If the health practitioner resists ordering further tests, drugs, procedures, surgeries, or specialists, the FDIA abuser makes the medical system appear negligent for refusing to help a sick child and their selfless parent. Like those with Munchausen syndrome, FDIA perpetrators are known to switch medical providers frequently until they find one that is willing to meet their level of need; this practice is known as “doctor shopping” or “hospital hopping”.
A the mother force-fed high concentrations of sodium through the boy’s stomach tube because she craved the attention his illness brought her, especially through her heavy posting on social media. New York Post 2015
The perpetrator continues the abuse because maintaining the child in the role of patient satisfies the abuser’s needs. The cure for the victim is to separate the child completely from the abuser. When parental visits are allowed, sometimes there is a disastrous outcome for the child. Even when the child is removed, the perpetrator may then abuse another child: a sibling or other child in the family.
Factitious disorder imposed on another can have many long-term emotional effects on a child. Depending on their experience of medical interventions, a percentage of children may learn that they are most likely to receive the positive maternal attention they crave when they are playing the sick role in front of health care providers. Several case reports describe Munchausen syndrome patients suspected of themselves having been FDIA victims. Seeking personal gratification through illness can thus become a lifelong and multi-generational disorder in some cases. In stark contrast, other reports suggest survivors of FDIA develop an avoidance of medical treatment with post-traumatic responses to it. This variation possibly reflects broad statistics on survivors of child abuse in general, where around 35% of abusers were a victim of abuse in the past.
The adult caregiver who has abused the child often seems comfortable and not upset over the child’s hospitalization. While the child is hospitalized, medical professionals must monitor the caregiver’s visits to prevent an attempt to worsen the child’s condition.In addition, in many jurisdictions, medical professionals have a duty to report such abuse to legal authorities.
Diagnosis
Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a controversial term. In the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), the official diagnosis is factitious disorder (301.51 in ICD-9, F68.12 in ICD-10). Within the United States, factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA or FDIoA) was officially recognized as a disorder in 2013, while in the United Kingdom, it is known as fabricated or induced illness by carers (FII).
In DSM-5, the diagnostic manual published by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013, this disorder is listed under 300.19 Factitious disorder. This, in turn, encompasses two types:
Factitious disorder imposed on self – (formerly Munchausen syndrome).
Factitious disorder imposed on another – (formerly Munchausen syndrome by proxy); diagnosis assigned to the perpetrator; the person affected may be assigned an abuse diagnosis (e.g. child abuse).
Warning signs
Warning signs of the disorder include:
A child who has one or more medical problems that do not respond to treatment or that follow an unusual course that is persistent, puzzling, and unexplained.
Physical or laboratory findings that are highly unusual, discrepant with patient’s presentation or history, or physically or clinically impossible.
A parent who appears medically knowledgeable, fascinated with medical details and hospital gossip, appears to enjoy the hospital environment, and expresses interest in the details of other patients’ problems.
A highly attentive parent who is reluctant to leave their child’s side and who themselves seem to require constant attention.
A parent who appears unusually calm in the face of serious difficulties in their child’s medical course while being highly supportive and encouraging of the physician, or one who is angry, devalues staff, and demands further intervention, more procedures, second opinions, and transfers to more sophisticated facilities.
The suspected parent may work in the health-care field themselves or profess an interest in a health-related job.
The signs and symptoms of a child’s illness may lessen or simply vanish in the parent’s absence (hospitalization and careful monitoring may be necessary to establish this causal relationship).
A family history of similar or unexplained illness or death in a sibling.
A parent with symptoms similar to their child’s own medical problems or an illness history that itself is puzzling and unusual.
A suspected emotionally distant relationship between parents; the spouse often fails to visit the patient and has little contact with physicians even when the child is hospitalized with a serious illness.
A parent who reports dramatic, negative events, such as house fires, burglaries, or car accidents, that affect them and their family while their child is undergoing treatment.
A parent who seems to have an insatiable need for adulation or who makes self-serving efforts for public acknowledgment of their abilities.
A child who inexplicably deteriorates whenever discharge is planned.
A child that looks for cueing from a parent in order to feign illness when medical personnel are present.
A child that is overly articulate regarding medical terminology and their own disease process for their age.
A child that presents to the Emergency Department with a history of repeat illness, injury, or hospitalization.
Notable cases
Beverley Allitt, a British nurse who murdered four children and injured a further nine in 1991 at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire, was diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Wendi Michelle Scott is a Frederick, Maryland, mother who was charged with sickening her four-year-old daughter.
The book Sickened, by Julie Gregory, details her life growing up with a mother suffering from Munchausen by proxy, who took her to various doctors, coached her to act sicker than she was and to exaggerate her symptoms, and who demanded increasingly invasive procedures to diagnose Gregory’s enforced imaginary illnesses.
Lisa Hayden-Johnson of Devon was jailed for three years and three months after subjecting her son to a total of 325 medical actions – including being forced to use a wheelchair and being fed through a tube in his stomach. She claimed her son had a long list of illnesses including diabetes, food allergies, cerebral palsy, and cystic fibrosis, describing him as “the most ill child in Britain” and receiving numerous cash donations and charity gifts, including two cruises.
In the mid-1990s, Kathy Bush gained public sympathy for the plight of her daughter, Jennifer, who by the age of 8 had undergone 40 surgeries and spent over 640 days in hospitals for gastrointestinal disorders. The acclaim led to a visit with first lady Hillary Clinton, who championed the Bushs’ plight as evidence of need for medical reform. However, in 1996, Kathy Bush was arrested and charged with child abuse and Medicaid fraud, accused of sabotaging Jennifer’s medical equipment and drugs to agitate and prolong her illness.[64] Jennifer was moved to foster care where she quickly regained her health. The prosecutors claimed Kathy was driven by Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and she was convicted to a five-year sentence in 1999.[65] Kathy was released after serving three years in 2005, always maintaining her innocence, and having gotten back in contact with Jennifer via correspondence.
In 2014, 26-year-old Lacey Spears was charged in Westchester County, New York, with second-degree depraved murder and first-degree manslaughter. She fed her son dangerous amounts of salt after she conducted research on the Internet about its effects. Her actions were allegedly motivated by the social media attention she gained on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. She was convicted of second-degree murder on March 2, 2015,[67] and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Dee Dee Blanchard was a Missouri mother who was murdered by her daughter and a boyfriend in 2015 after having claimed for years that her daughter, Gypsy Rose, was sick and disabled; to the point of shaving her head, making her use a wheelchair in public, and subjecting her to unnecessary medication and surgery. Gypsy possessed no outstanding illnesses. Feldman said it is the first case he is aware of in a quarter-century of research where the victim killed the abuser. Their story was shown on HBO‘s documentary film Mommy Dead and Dearest and is featured in the first season of the Hulu anthology series, The Act.
Rapper Eminem has spoken about how his mother would frequently take him to hospitals to receive treatment for illnesses that he did not have. His song “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” includes a lyric regarding the illness, “…going through public housing systems victim of Münchausen syndrome. My whole life I was made to believe I was sick, when I wasn’t ‘til I grew up and blew up…” His mother’s illness resulted in Eminem receiving custody of his younger brother, Nathan.[
In 2013, Boston Children’s Hospital filed a 51A report to take custody of Justina Pelletier, who was 14 at the time. At 21 she was living with her parents. Her parents are suing Boston Children’s Hospital, alleging that their civil rights were violated when she was committed to a psychiatric ward and their access to her was limited. At the trial, Pelletier’s treating neurologist described how her parents encouraged her to be sick and were endangering her health. Source: Wikipedia
The murder of American woman Dee Dee Blanchard in 2015, is one of the most famous cases of Munchausen syndrome by proxy ever, and a new documentary Gypsy’s Revengerevisits the murder, the familial abuse and all the people involved, three years after the crime took place.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness where a caretaker (usually a mother) of a child either falsifies symptoms or causes real illness to make it appear as if the child is sick. It is an extremely rare form of child abuse and proving the case in court is even rarer, such is the case with Dee Dee and her alleged victim, daughter Gypsy Blanchard.
Dee Dee claimed that Gypsy had leukaemia, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy and that she couldn’t walk, confining the young able-bodied girl to a wheelchair whenever she had to leave the house, as well as forcing her to be fed through an unnecessary feeding tube, telling people she had the mental capacity of a seven-year-old and forcing her to take medications for illnesses Gypsy wasn’t suffering from.
Gypsy Blanchard talking with Dr. Phil while in prison
As Gypsy got older, the healthy girl began to push back against her mother and grew increasingly more independent, going on Facebook without Dee Dee’s permission and meeting people from the outside world through chatrooms. It was on the social networking site in 2012 where she met Nicholas Godejohn, the man who would stab Gypsy’s mother to death at her request.
The story of Gypsy Blanchard has been investigated in HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, and now in Gypsy’s Revenge, and by and large people’s responses have been the same: her sentence may technically fit the crime, but is it right?
Gypsy confessed to police to having Godejohn stab her mother just days after the murder, and she is currently serving 10 years in prison as a healthy young woman entirely free from any physical illnesses.
The prosecution along with the defence, both thought Gypsy was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and followers of the case and the latest documentary might question the fairness of the punishment as a victim of child abuse.
While there is never an excuse for murder, this shocking true crime story shines a light on the complex cases of child abuse, and Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
And Now the Big Question:
Do the following fall under the description of “Munchausen syndrome by proxy”?
1. A government or other group of people exaggerating or fully faking health threats in order to get attention and a certain response from society. 2. A parent putting a Covid masks on healthy children. 3. A covidiot yelling at people who don’t wear masks.
Silviu “Silview” Costinescu
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
We just want to signal to our readers this piece from Forbes which would seem inconceivable to print in 2020. It wasn’t often even back then to read such stuff in major mainstream media, but it wasn’t mindblowing either, hence the weak or missing backclash. Read it now, integrally, with your 2020 mind.
Originally published by Forbes on Feb 5, 2010,04:35pm EST
The World Health Organization has suddenly gone from crying “The sky is falling!” like a cackling Chicken Little to squealing like a stuck pig. The reason: charges that the agency deliberately fomented swine flu hysteria. “The world is going through a real pandemic. The description of it as a fake is wrong and irresponsible,” the agency claims on its Web site. A WHO spokesman declined to specify who or what gave this “description,” but the primary accuser is hard to ignore.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a human rights watchdog, is publicly investigating the WHO’s motives in declaring a pandemic. Indeed, the chairman of its influential health committee, epidemiologist Wolfgang Wodarg, has declared that the “false pandemic” is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.”
Even within the agency, the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Epidemiology in Munster, Germany, Dr. Ulrich Kiel, has essentially labeled the pandemic a hoax. “We are witnessing a gigantic misallocation of resources [$18 billion so far] in terms of public health,” he said.
They’re right. This wasn’t merely overcautiousness or simple misjudgment. The pandemic declaration and all the Klaxon-ringing since reflect sheer dishonesty motivated not by medical concerns but political ones.
Unquestionably, swine flu has proved to be vastly milder than ordinary seasonal flu. It kills at a third to a tenth the rate, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Data from other countries like France and Japan indicate it’s far tamer than that.
Indeed, judging by what we’ve seen in New Zealand and Australia (where the epidemics have ended), and by what we’re seeing elsewhere in the world, we’ll have considerably fewer flu deaths this season than normal. That’s because swine flu muscles aside seasonal flu, acting as a sort of inoculation against the far deadlier strain.
Did the WHO have any indicators of this mildness when it declared the pandemic in June?
Absolutely, as I wrote at the time. We were then fully 11 weeks into the outbreak and swine flu had only killed 144 people worldwide–the same number who die of seasonal flu worldwide every few hours. (An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 per year by the WHO’s own numbers.) The mildest pandemics of the 20th century killed at least a million people.
But how could the organization declare a pandemic when its own official definition required “simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.” Severity–that is, the number of deaths–is crucial, because every year flu causes “a global spread of disease.”
Easy. In May, in what it admitted was a direct response to the outbreak of swine flu the month before, WHO promulgated a new definition matched to swine flu that simply eliminated severity as a factor. You could now have a pandemic with zero deaths.
Under fire, the organization is boldly lying about the change, to which anybody with an Internet connection can attest. In a mid-January virtual conference WHO swine flu chief Keiji Fukuda stated: “Did WHO change its definition of a pandemic? The answer is no: WHO did not change its definition.” Two weeks later at a PACE conference he insisted: “Having severe deaths has never been part of the WHO definition.”
They did it; but why?
In part, it was CYA for the WHO. The agency was losing credibility over the refusal of avian flu H5N1 to go pandemic and kill as many as 150 million people worldwide, as its “flu czar” had predicted in 2005.
Around the world nations heeded the warnings and spent vast sums developing vaccines and making other preparations. So when swine flu conveniently trotted in, the WHO essentially crossed out “avian,” inserted “swine,” and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan arrogantly boasted, “The world can now reap the benefits of investments over the last five years in pandemic preparedness.”
But there’s more than bureaucratic self-interest at work here. Bizarrely enough, the WHO has also exploited its phony pandemic to push a hard left political agenda.
In a September speech WHO Director-General Chan said “ministers of health” should take advantage of the “devastating impact” swine flu will have on poorer nations to get out the message that “changes in the functioning of the global economy” are needed to “distribute wealth on the basis of” values “like community, solidarity, equity and social justice.” She further declared it should be used as a weapon against “international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs.”
Chan’s dream now lies in tatters. All the WHO has done, says PACE’s Wodart, is to destroy “much of the credibility that they should have, which is invaluable to us if there’s a future scare that might turn out to be a killer on a large scale.”
Michael Fumento is director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project, where he specializes in health and science issues. He may be reached at fumento@pobox.com.
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Every day I woke up hoping to find out Covidiocracy was but a nightmare, and every day I discover Humanity is more degenerated than I previously thought. What you are about to read… I couldn’t conceive presenting this to people even as a dark joke, but a reputed American ethics professor and a publication called “The Conversation” think this is feature-worthy.
Fifty years ago, Anthony Burgess wrote “A Clockwork Orange,” a futuristic novel about a vicious gang leader who undergoes a procedure that makes him incapable of violence. Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 movie version sparked a discussion in which many argued that we could never be justified in depriving someone of his free will, no matter how gruesome the violence that would thereby be prevented. No doubt any proposal to develop a morality pill would encounter the same objection.
New York Times, 2011
This was published one day prior to this article and I’m not going to comment much on it because you can’t handle it if I start, probably even I can’t. Just read what these people put out and the functional literates will be able to pull enough lessons from this. The author is Parker Crutchfield, Associate Professor of Medical Ethics, Humanities and Law, Western Michigan University. The publication, named The Conversation, cites Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as “strategic partner”.
LATER UPDATE:
Turns out this wasn’t just another bunch of expert brainfarts dumped into a few subservient rags.
They did serious official full fledged research research into this and published it in Bioethics journal, NIH’s library and all the usual places for such work! It’s been legitimized by the science establishment.
This means the “research” must have been okayed by Fauci’s wife:
Christine Grady, RN, Ph.D., heads the Dept. of Bioethics at NIH (National Institute of Health).
Bioethics is published by the International Bioethics Association, where Christine Grady is a member (through the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities)
And now the original article as of August 10th, 2020:
‘Morality pills’ may be the US’s best shot at ending the coronavirus pandemic, according to one ethicist
A psychoactive substance to make you act in everyone’s best interest?
When someone chooses not to follow public health guidelines around the coronavirus, they’re defecting from the public good. It’s the moral equivalent of the tragedy of the commons: If everyone shares the same pasture for their individual flocks, some people are going to graze their animals longer, or let them eat more than their fair share, ruining the commons in the process. Selfish and self-defeating behavior undermines the pursuit of something from which everyone can benefit.
Democratically enacted enforceable rules – mandating things like mask wearing and social distancing – might work, if defectors could be coerced into adhering to them. But not all states have opted to pass them or to enforce the rules that are in place.
My research in bioethics focuses on questions like how to induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good. To me, it seems the problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior. Could a psychoactive pill be the solution to the pandemic?
It’s a far-out proposal that’s bound to be controversial, but one I believe is worth at least considering, given the importance of social cooperation in the struggle to get COVID-19 under control.
Evidence from experimental economics shows that defections are common to situations in which people face collective risks. Economists use public goods games to measure how people behave in various scenarios to lower collective risks such as from climate change or a pandemic and to prevent the loss of public and private goods.
The evidence from these experiments is no cause for optimism. Usually everyone loses because people won’t cooperate. This research suggests it’s not surprising people aren’t wearing masks or social distancing – lots of people defect from groups when facing a collective risk. By the same token, I’d expect that, as a group, we will fail at addressing the collective risk of COVID-19, because groups usually fail. For more than 150,000 Americans so far, this has meant losing everything there is to lose.
For those of us in the United States, these conditions are out of reach when it comes to COVID-19. You can’t know what others are contributing to the fight against the coronavirus, especially if you socially distance yourself. It’s impossible to keep a running tally of what the other 328 million people in the U.S. are doing. And communication and coordination are not feasible outside of your own small group.
Even if these factors were achievable, they still require the very cooperative behavior that’s in short supply. The scale of the pandemic is simply too great for any of this to be possible.
It seems that the U.S. is not currently equipped to cooperatively lower the risk confronting us. Many are instead pinning their hopes on the rapid development and distribution of an enhancement to the immune system – a vaccine.
But I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to fight off disease but the brain’s ability to cooperate with others. What if researchers developed and delivered a moral enhancer rather than an immunity enhancer?
Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral. The psychoactive substances act on your ability to reason about what the right thing to do is, or your ability to be empathetic or altruistic or cooperative.
These substances interact directly with the psychological underpinnings of moral behavior; others that make you more rational could also help. Then, perhaps, the people who choose to go maskless or flout social distancing guidelines would better understand that everyone, including them, is better off when they contribute, and rationalize that the best thing to do is cooperate.
Moral enhancement as an alternative to vaccines
There are of course pitfalls to moral enhancement.
One is that the science isn’t developed enough. For example, while oxytocin may cause some people to be more pro-social, it also appears to encourage ethnocentrism, and so is probably a bad candidate for a widely distributed moral enhancement. But this doesn’t mean that a morality pill is impossible. The solution to the underdeveloped science isn’t to quit on it, but to direct resources to related research in neuroscience, psychology or one of the behavioral sciences.
Another challenge is that the defectors who need moral enhancement are also the least likely to sign up for it. As some have argued, a solution would be to make moral enhancement compulsory or administer it secretly, perhaps via the water supply. These actions require weighing other values. Does the good of covertly dosing the public with a drug that would change people’s behavior outweigh individuals’ autonomy to choose whether to participate? Does the good associated with wearing a mask outweigh an individual’s autonomy to not wear one?
The scenario in which the government forces an immunity booster upon everyone is plausible. And the military has been forcing enhancements like vaccines or “uppers” upon soldiers for a long time. The scenario in which the government forces a morality booster upon everyone is far-fetched. But a strategy like this one could be a way out of this pandemic, a future outbreak or the suffering associated with climate change. That’s why we should be thinking of it now.”
You may say to yourself this is an accident, an isolated voice, whatever… it’s not. The article was republished by a ton of mainstream media outlets, from Foreign Affairs to Yahoo! The system is backing the concept.
You thought that was bad enough?
I found out that mr. Ethics not only reckons the state should drug people into submission, he argues that it should even be done covertly!
Some theorists argue that moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory. I take this argument one step further, arguing that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration ought to be covert rather than overt. This is to say that it is morally preferable for compulsory moral bioenhancement to be administered without the recipients knowing that they are receiving the enhancement. My argument for this is that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration is a matter of public health, and for this reason should be governed by public health ethics. I argue that the covert administration of a compulsory moral bioenhancement program better conforms to public health ethics than does an overt compulsory program. In particular, a covert compulsory program promotes values such as liberty, utility, equality, and autonomy better than an overt program does. Thus, a covert compulsory moral bioenhancement program is morally preferable to an overt moral bioenhancement program.
Yes, you read correctly, this is prison in a pill, prison for the mind, and the ethics professor finds it ethical to treat all mask-opposition as convicts.
<<Ruud ter Meulen, chair in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, warned that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, other drugs – and sometimes the same ones – can have the opposite effect.
“While Oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group,” Meulen said.
The use of deep brain stimulation, used to help those with Parkinson’s disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases where patients begin stealing from shops and even becoming sexually aggressive, he added.
“Basic moral behaviour is to be helpful to others, feel responsible to others, have a sense of solidarity and sense of justice,” he said. “I’m not sure that drugs can ever achieve this. But there’s no question that they can make us more likeable, more social, less aggressive, more open attitude to other people,” he said.
Meulen also suggested that moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. “These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison,” he said>>, according to The Guardian.
If you have my type of ethics and morals, you’re probably very sickened and angered and it takes time for judgement to cool off and ask the practical question: If these are mainstream media reports of 2011, how long have Covidiocracy and the planetary Auschwitz been in the making though?
Long enough, answers New York Times in an 2011 issue: “Why are some people prepared to risk their lives to help a stranger when others won’t even stop to dial an emergency number? Scientists have been exploring questions like this for decades. In the 1960s and early ’70s, famous experiments by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo suggested that most of us would, under specific circumstances, voluntarily do great harm to innocent people. During the same period, John Darley and C. Daniel Batson showed that even some seminary students on their way to give a lecture about the parable of the Good Samaritan would, if told that they were running late, walk past a stranger lying moaning beside the path. More recent research has told us a lot about what happens in the brain when people make moral decisions. But are we getting any closer to understanding what drives our moral behavior?”
But if our brain’s chemistry does affect our moral behavior, the question of whether that balance is set in a natural way or by medical intervention will make no difference in how freely we act. If there are already biochemical differences between us that can be used to predict how ethically we will act, then either such differences are compatible with free will, or they are evidence that at least as far as some of our ethical actions are concerned, none of us have ever had free will anyway. In any case, whether or not we have free will, we may soon face new choices about the ways in which we are willing to influence behavior for the better.
‘Writing in the New York Times, Peter Singer and Agata Sagan ask “Are We Ready for a ‘Morality Pill’?” I dunno. Why?’, writes WILL WILKINSON on Big Think, in January, 2012. He follows:
“The infamous Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments showed that given the right circumstances, most of us act monstrously. Indeed, given pretty mundane circumstances, most of us will act pretty callously, hustling past people in urgent need in simply to avoid the hassle. But not all of us do this. Some folks do the right thing anyway, even when it’s not easy. Singer and Sagan speculate that something special must be going on in those peoples’ brains. So maybe we can figure out what that is and put it in a pill!
If continuing brain research does in fact show biochemical differences between the brains of those who help others and the brains of those who do not, could this lead to a “morality pill” — a drug that makes us more likely to help?
The answer is: no. And I think the question invites confusion. Morality is not exhausted by helping. Anyway, help do what?
Singer is perhaps the world’s most famous utilitarian, so maybe he’s got “help people feel more pleasure and less pain” in mind. Since utilitarianism is monomaniacally focused on how people feel, it can be tempting for utilitarians to see sympathy and the drive to ease suffering as the principal moral sentiments. But utilitarianism does not actually prescribe that we should be motivated to minimize suffering and maximize happiness. It tells us to do whatever minimizes suffering and maximizes happiness. It’s possible that wanting to help and trying to help doesn’t much help in this sense.”
“Clearly, the science behind moral drugs has some credibility. It seems possible that one day we’ll live in a strange utopian or dystopian world that takes morality pills. But until that day comes, we’ll have to try being good on our own.”
The only glimpse of reason from an ethics professional I found came as late as 2017, and THAT’s an accident, as opposed to the media onslaught that has just re-started on the topic. “There’s nothing moral about a morality pill. We can’t even agree on what morality requires, so designing a morality pill is a conceptually impossible task”, writes Daniel Munro, who teaches ethics in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
Professor Munro shows that two different “morality pills” induced opposite reactions in test subjects. Then which one is the morality pill?
“We could have different pills—lorazepam for consequentialists, citalopram for Kantians, and something else for Aristotelians—but this would amplify, not resolve, moral disagreement. In short, if we can’t agree on what morality requires, then designing a morality pill is a conceptually impossible task.”
Munro’s impeccable demonstration won’t stop anything, though, because Covidiocracy has never been about the common or individual good, nor about reason, but about domination. And domination ends when submission ends.
Now imagine that mentality meets these powers:
“Pentagon” as in “DARPA”, can’t have most of its programs cancelled at the whim of the finger from Christine Grady. That never happens. What do we learn?
I close with the video above because… Only rapists seek morality in disregarding consent.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Ghislaine Maxwell, George Soros, the Rockefellers, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos… if you’re like me, almost everyone you despise is invested in Save the Children Fund. But the worst thing about this charity is the performance, not the funding.
Save the Children – the Fairfield, Connecticut-based non-profit in the US – is formally known as Save The Children Federation, Inc. and is part of the Save the Children Alliance (a group of 30 Save the Children groups throughout the world that also support Save the Children International). Established in 1932, Save the Children is a 501 (c) (3) and one of the most well-known charities in the world.
In 2017, the organization raised $760 million (including $322 million in government grants and contributions) – $108 million more than the previous year – and spent $720 million primarily on grants ($528 million), staff compensation and benefits ($103 million), fees for services ($41 million), and office-related expenses ($19 million).
The remaining $40 million (the difference between the revenue reported and the revenue spent) was retained by the organization, contributing to the increase in net fixed assets to $241 million at year end.
That means about 1/3 of the money raised are used by the Fund owners and employees.
Save the Children reported having 1,639 employees in 2017. With total compensation costs of $103 million, the average compensation package was $63,000 although 231 individuals received more than $100,000 in total compensation.
The 20 most highly compensated individuals were reported to be:
$540,883: Carolyn S Miles, President and CEO
$404,737: Carlos Carrazana, EVP and COO
$349,875: Sumeet Seam, VP and General Counsel
$338,463: Stacy Brandom, VP and CFO
$307,673: Michael Klosson, VP Policy and Humanitarian Relief
$306,082: Nancy A Taussig, VP Resource Development
$301,709: Diana K Myers, VP International Programs
$278,659: Janine L Scolpino, Associate VP, Mass Market Fund
$256,347: Gregory A Ramm, VP Humanitarian Response
$250,847: Brian White, VP Deputy General Counsel and CCO
$248,423: Robert M Clay, VP
$231,989: Daniel Stoner, AVP Education and Child Development
$227,535: Dana L Langham, Associate VP, Chief Corp Development
$213,491: Mark Shriver, SVP, US Programs (as of 8/17) plus $182,915 from a related organization
$201,460: Kenneth G Murdoch, VP IT and Building OP (end 6/17)
$195,754: William Corwin, Sr VP, US Programs (2/17-8/17)
$190,167: Phillip DiSanto, VP IT and Building OP (as of 5/17)
$161,943: Andrea Williamson, Corporate Secretary
$153,622: Debbie Pollock-Berry, VP and Chief of HR (as of 6/17)
$150,466: Susan E Ridge, VP Marketing and Communications (end 6/17)
Of the 20 most highly compensated individuals, 11 are men and 9 are women. Of the 10 most highly compensated individuals, 5 are men and 5 are women.
$1 MILLION AND ABOVE Carnival Corporation & plc / Carnival Foundation Facebook Inc. Ferrari North America, Inc. Hachette Book Group Mars Wrigley Foundation (formerly Wrigley Company Foundation) Media Storm MNI Targeted Media, Inc. P&G Penguin Random House Pfizer and the Pfizer Foundation PlowShare Group PVH Corp. Scholastic Corporation The Walt Disney Company
$100,000 TO $1 MILLION Adobe Amazon AmeriCares Apple Arconic Foundation Baby2Baby BlackRock BNY Mellon Bombas Burt’s Bees Baby Cargill CHARLES & KEITH Chevron Chobani and the Chobani Foundation Citi Foundation Colgate-Palmolive Cummins Inc. Direct Relief Dollar General Corporation ExxonMobil Flex Foundation Gabriela Hearst Inc. Godiva Chocolatier Good360 Google.org Heart to Heart International Highgate Hotels Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Lutheran World Relief Mastercard Mattel, Inc. and its American Girl division Morgan Stanley New York Life & New York Life Foundation Nike Foundation PayPal PepsiCo Foundation Sempra Energy Foundation Target The Baupost Group, LLC The Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council, Inc. The Idol Gives Back Foundation The Microsoft Corporation The PwC Charitable Foundation, Inc. Toys “R” Us Voss Foundation Walmart Foundation Western Union Foundation
Corporate Council
Comprised of senior leaders from Fortune 500 companies, social impact consultancies and academia, the Corporate Council functions as a strategic sounding board for Save the Children. From cause marketing to technology for development, the council helps Save the Children deepen and evolve our work with the private sector in a mutually beneficial way. We are proud to recognize the thought leadership and advisory contributions of our 2018 Corporate Council members:
Pernille Spiers-Lopez,* IKEA North America (formerly), Council Chair
Perry Yeatman, Perry Yeatman Global Partners LLC, Council Vice Chair
David Barash, GE Foundation
Sean Burke, Accenture
Sarah Colamarino, Johnson & Johnson
Andrea E. Davis, The Walt Disney Company
Mark Freedman, Dalberg
Sebastian Fries, Columbia University
Jim Goldman,* Eurazeo
Rebecca Leonard, The TJX Companies, Inc.
PJ Lewis, Mattel, Inc.
Sean Milliken, PayPal
Christine Montenegro McGrath, Mondeléz International
Paul Musser, Mastercard
Sunil Sani,* Heritage Sportswear, LLC
*Also serves on our Board of Trustees
Foundation Partners
Ann Hardeman and Combs L. Fort Foundation Bainum Family Foundation Bezos Family Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Briar Foundation Bruderhof Communities The Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education The Charles Engelhard Foundation Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Cogan Family Foundation Comic Relief USA – The Red Nose Day Fund & Hand in Hand Hurricane Relief Community Foundation of Northern Colorado Connie Hillman Family Foundation Crown Family Philanthropies Derfner Foundation Dubai Cares Educate A Child, a programme of the Education Above All Foundation The Edward W. Brown, Jr. and Margaret G. Brown Endowment for Save the Children and Region A Partnership for Children, a fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation FIA Foundation GHR Foundation The Gottesman Fund Harrington Family Foundation Hau’oli Mau Loa Foundation The Hearst Foundation, Inc. Heising-Simons Foundation Humanity United / Freedom Fund Kenneth S. Battye Charitable Trust LDS Charities MacMillan Family Foundation Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies Margaret A. Meyer Family Foundation Margaret E. Dickins Foundation Martin F. Sticht Charitable Fund Matthew W. Jacobs & Luann Jacobs Charitable Fund New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Oak Foundation Open Society Foundations (George Soros) Owenoke Foundation Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation Roy A. Hunt Foundation Schultz Fund Share Our Strength SOMOS UNA VOZ South Texas Outreach Foundation STEM Next Opportunity Fund The Stone Family Foundation Wagon Mountain Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation World Impact Foundation Anonymous (9)
And that’s not all, see the full list of partners and sponsors on their own website.
Save the Children, Some Activity Highlights
1985
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for 2000 UK Pounds for the Save the Children Fund. Ghislaine meets Henry Thynne, Lord Bath and his wife Virginia. 13th September 1985. (Photos by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. Ghislaine meets Henry Thynne, Lord Bath and his wife Virginia. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The Mirror organised a Disney day out for the kids at Lord and Lady Bath’s Longleat House, in Wiltshire. A great fun day in which Ghislaine Maxwell presented a cheque for ú2000 for the save the children fund. 13th September 1985. (Photo by George Phillips/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
2000
‘Save The Children’ Receives $50 Million Grant From The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to push vaccines and birth control in Africa and Asia.
Political stunts with children’s money? Why not, we make anything look like charity. “Last week, Save the Children weighed into the controversy surrounding Madonna’s attempt to adopt a child in Malawi. Recently it created a new head of UK campaigning to enhance its profile as the country’s leading organisation for defending “children’s rights”. Its current advertising pitch is aimed at persuading the Chancellor to give £3 billion more in his Budget later this month”, writes Philip Johnston, The Telegraph columnist. He follows: “You could be forgiven for thinking that charities are forbidden from political activism by their tax-free status. Yet the Charity Commission’s own guidelines state that it “can be [a] legitimate and valuable activity”. In other words, the charity is fully entitled to campaign, and operate in the UK; but I am equally at liberty not to give it any money if it no longer does what it says on the rattling tin. Save the Children says the money for its UK venture is not coming from its regular contributors but from corporate donors. But that is beside the point.”
2015
“Another children’s charity was rocked last night after a senior executive at Save The Children resigned over allegations of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ “, Daily Mail reports.
Chief strategist Brendan Cox denied allegations against him but left in September. The charity’s £160,000-a-year chief executive Justin Forsyth has also resigned for unconnected reasons.
Both were senior advisers to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Mr Cox’s wife, Jo, is a Labour MP and former aide to Mr Brown’s wife Sarah. Mrs Cox also runs the Labour Women’s Network where she is ‘equalities and discrimination’ adviser.
Mr Cox, Save The Children’s director of policy and advocacy, left in September after complaints against him by women members of staff. A well-placed source said Mr Cox strenuously denied any wrongdoing but agreed to leave his post, according to Daily Mail.
2018
Alexia Pepper de Caires, an ex-Save The Children employee, says that sexual abuse in the charity sector is a systemic problem and that she had to storm her former employer’s boardroom to be heard, The Telegraph reported.
After investing millions in Save the Children, Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger finally honored with Save the Children’s Centennial Award. He received the trophy from the hands of Oprah Winfrey, star of Epstein’s flight logs. The event was hosted by Jennifer Garner and speakers included Save the Children CEO Carolyn Miles and Disney Legend Oprah Winfrey, Disney informed on their website.
2020
Leaked details of the inquiry, published in the Times, in which the commission accused Save the Children of “serious failures and mismanagement” of the way it dealt with the allegations in 2015, led to calls for the resignation of Kevin Watkins, the charity’s chief executive. He said “no”.
This is just a figment of the larger picture, just to say “watch you hashtag” to whoever made #Savethechildren trend on social media lately (Fakebook’s Suckerborg mainly, we know it was him)
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LATER UPDATE: Here’s another most interesting collection of coincidences and people:
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Empathy and social intelligence may have played a more important role in human evolution than any other type of intelligence or instincts. Much of what we’ve achieved in millennia has been eroded over the span of the past 2-3 decades, and especially in Covidiocracy.
Chapter One: “WE ARE HARDWIRED TO BE KIND”
“Human nature is often portrayed as selfish and power hungry, but research by Dacher Keltner finds that we are hard-wired to be kind.” – University of California
Chapter Two: “the neurons that shaped civilisation”
A neuroscientist from UC San Deigo, V.S. Ramachandran, recently spoke with the Greater Good Science Center about the relationship between empathy and mirror neurons. “the neurons that shaped civilisation”:
“For example, pretend somebody pokes my left thumb with a needle. We know that the insular cortex fires cells and we experience a painful sensation. The agony of pain is probably experienced in a region called the anterior cingulate, where there are cells that respond to pain. The next stage in pain processing, we experience the agony, the painfulness, the affective quality of pain.
It turns out these anterior cingulate neurons that respond to my thumb being poked will also fire when I watch you being poked—but only a subset of them. There are non-mirror neuron pain neurons and there are mirror neuron pain neurons.
So these [mirror] neurons are probably involved in empathy for pain. If I really and truly empathize with your pain, I need to experience it myself. That’s what the mirror neurons are doing, allowing me to empathize with your pain—saying, in effect, that person is experiencing the same agony and excruciating pain as you would if somebody were to poke you with a needle directly. That’s the basis of all empathy.”
V.S. Ramachandran, UC San Deigo neuroscientist
In an interview for a Berkeley University magazine, the scientist makes an interesting note that we must remember for further reference:
Mirror neurons enable me to see you as an intentional being, with purpose and intention. In fact, we suggested nearly a decade ago that mirror neuron dysfunction may be involved in autism. People with autism, ironically sometimes they mimic constantly what you’re doing, but it’s also true that they’re bad at imitation and they don’t have empathy, they don’t have a theory of mind, they can’t infer your intentions, they don’t engage in pretend play. In pretend play, what I do is temporarily say, “I’m going to be this superhero,” so you do role play. That requires a theory of mind. So take all the properties of mirror neurons, make a list of them, and list all the things that are going wrong in autism—there’s a very good match. Not every symptom, but many of the symptoms match beautifully. And it’s controversial: There are about seven papers claiming that it’s true, using brain imaging, and maybe one or two claiming that there’s no correlation [between mirror neurons and autism].
“The importance of the face is best understood, it is suggested, from the effects of visible facial difference in people. Their experience reflects the ways in which the face may be necessary for the interpersonal relatedness underlying such ‘sharing’ mind states as empathy. It is proposed that the face evolved as a result of several evolutionary pressures but that it is well placed to assume the role of an embodied representation of the increasingly refined inner states of mind that developed as primates became more social, and required more complex social intelligence. The consequences of various forms of facial disfigurement on interpersonal relatedness and intersubjectivity are then discussed. These narratives reveal the importance of the face in the development of the self-esteem that seems a prerequisite of being able to initiate, and enter, relationships between people. Such experiences are beyond normal experience and, as such, require an extended understanding of the other: to understand facial difference requires empathy. But, in addition, it is also suggested that empathy itself is supported by, and requires, the embodied expression and communication of emotion that the face provides.”
Another study, this time coming from Italian universities, cites:
“Prefrontal virtual perturbation may have induced a less empathic responsiveness toward the emotional faces, with significant effect on the attributional functions. The suggested interpretation of these results is supported by the fact that prefrontal area includes specific processing modules for emotional information processing, and it is able to integrate input from various sources, including motivation and representations from cognitive (such as ToM) and emotional (such as emotional expressions) networks. Thus, the role of dMPFC to empathy-related response was elucidated, with possible circular effect on both monitoring ability (cue detection) and empathy responsiveness (trait empathy).”
Now imagine being unable to recognize your own mother’s face. You may know your mother’ voice, her smell, her size, and shape, but her face means nothing to you. This is face blindness, or prosopagnosia, a disorder that may be congenital or caused by brain injury. While it can occur in many people who are not autistic, it is quite common among people with autism.
Whether you call it prosopagnosia, facial agnosia, or face blindness, the disorder may be mild (inability to remember familiar faces) or severe (inability to recognize a face as being different from an object).
According to the National Institutes for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “Prosopagnosia is not related to memory dysfunction, memory loss, impaired vision, or learning disabilities. Prosopagnosia is thought to be the result of abnormalities, damage, or impairment in the right fusiform gyrus, a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory. Congenital prosopagnosia appears to run in families, which makes it likely to be the result of a genetic mutation or deletion.” (Source)
While face blindness is not a “core symptom” of autism, it is not uncommon for autistic people. In some cases, face blindness may be at the root of the apparent lack of empathy or very real difficulties with non-verbal communication. How can you read a face when you can’t distinguish a face from an object, or recognize the person speaking to you?
While face blindness may be an issue for your loved one with autism, it is easy to confuse face blindness with typical autistic symptoms. For example, many children with autism fail to respond to non-verbal cues such as smiles, frowns, or other facial “language” – even though they are able to recognize the face they are looking at. Their lack of response may relate to social communication deficits rather than to prosopagnosia.
Can they recognize the face of a favorite character on television or a photograph of a relative with no auditory clues? If so, they are recognizing a face – and most likely are not suffering from face blindness.
There is no cure for face blindness. Children with face blindness can be taught some compensatory techniques such as listening for emotional meaning or using mnemonic devices to remember names without necessarily recognizing faces. Before beginning such training, however, it’s important to distinguish face-blindness from other autistic symptoms that can have similar appearances, such as difficulties with eye contact.
Other specialists argue that autists can be empathic, and by doing so they further accentuate the strong interdependence between empathy and facial recognition:
“Autism is associated with other emotional difficulties, such as recognizing another person’s emotions. Although this trait is almost universally accepted as being part of autism, there’s little scientific evidence to back up this notion.
In 2013, we tested the ability of people with alexithymia, autism, both conditions or neither to recognize emotions from facial expressions. Again, we found that alexithymia is associated with problems in emotion recognition, but autism is not5. In a 2012 study, researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London found exactly the same results when they tested emotion recognition using voices rather than faces6.
Recognizing an emotion in a face depends in part on information from the eyes and mouth. People with autism often avoid looking into other people’s eyes, which could contribute to their difficulty detecting emotions.
But again, we wanted to know: Which is driving gaze avoidance — autism or alexithymia? We showed movies to the same four groups described above and used eye-tracking technology to determine what each person was looking at in the movie.
We found that people with autism, whether with or without alexithymia, spend less time looking at faces than do people without autism. But when individuals who have autism but not alexithymia look at faces, they scan the eyes and mouth in a pattern similar to those without autism.
By contrast, people with alexithymia, regardless of their autism status, look at faces for a typical amount of time, but show altered patterns of scanning the eyes and mouth. This altered pattern might underlie their difficulties with emotion recognition” – Scientific American
Face recognition differences may reflect processing or structural differences in the brain. For example, people with prosopagnosia may have reduced connectivity between brain regions in the face processing network.
Another idea is that face recognition ability is related to other more general cognitive abilities, like memory or visual processing. Here, though, findings are mixed. Some research supports a link between face recognition and specific abilities like visual processing. But other research has discounted this idea.
Yet another possibility is that individual differences in face recognition reflect a person’s personality or their social and emotional functioning. Interestingly, face recognition ability has been linked to measures of empathy and anxiety.
Empathy reflects a person’s ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. In 2010, researchers asked volunteers to try and remember the identity of a number of faces presented one at a time. They were later presented with the same faces mixed together with new faces and were asked to state whether each face was “old” (learnt) or “new”. The performance was measured by the number of learnt faces correctly identified as being familiar. The researchers found that those who rated themselves as high in empathy performed significantly better at a face recognition memory task than those with low empathy skills.
Research has also found that people who report significantly lower levels of general anxiety have better face recognition skills than those who are have higher anxiety.
Situational anxiety may also play a role. For example, face recognition may be impaired when an eyewitness is asked to try and identify the face of a suspect viewed in a stressful situation. Read more on hoe facial recognition impacts personality from Karen Lander, Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology, University of Manchester, who published a very interesting article on the topic in The Conversation.
Everything above proves how much masks are robbing from us individually, but also from the very fabric of societal cohesion. This information is not new and not fringe, actually the attack on about empathy has been going on for ages and noted by many specialists and scholars, such as Psychology Today, eg.
Shocker: what we’re living today is the culmination of a decades-long process
So the science we’ve presented here can’t be unknown to our decision-makers, it can only be wilfully ignored.
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I still haven’t seen any evidence of a novel coronavirus being properly isolated in a lab as per Koch’s Postulate, and that’s the only official scientific homologation of a virus. But “follow the science” is what the cry, so here’s the latest in 5G science, from US’ NIH website and PubMed.
5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells
In this research, we show that 5G millimeter waves could be absorbed by dermatologic cells acting like antennas, transferred to other cells and play the main role in producing Coronaviruses in biological cells. DNA is built from charged electrons and atoms and has an inductor-like structure. This structure could be divided into linear, toroid and round inductors. Inductors interact with external electromagnetic waves, move and produce some extra waves within the cells. The shapes of these waves are similar to shapes of hexagonal and pentagonal bases of their DNA source. These waves produce some holes in liquids within the nucleus. To fill these holes, some extra hexagonal and pentagonal bases are produced. These bases could join to each other and form virus-like structures such as Coronavirus. To produce these viruses within a cell, it is necessary that the wavelength of external waves be shorter than the size of the cell. Thus 5G millimeter waves could be good candidates for applying in constructing virus-like structures such as Coronaviruses (COVID-19) within cells.
1Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. J. Nofera / Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland (Zakład Ochrony Radiologicznej / Department of Radiological Protection).
2Politechnika Wrocławska / Wrocław University of Sciences and Technology, Wrocław, Poland (Katedra Telekomunikacji i Teleinformatyki / Department of Telecommunications and Teleinformatics).
3Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. J. Nofera / Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland (Zakład Fizjologii Pracy i Ergonomii / Department of Work Physiology and Ergonomics).
4Centralny Instytut Ochrony Pracy – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy / Central Institute for Labor Protection – National Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland (Zakład Bioelektromagnetyzmu / Department of Bioelectromagnetism).
5Wojskowy Instytut Higieny i Epidemiologii / Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Warsaw, Poland.
6Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. J. Nofera / Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland.
There is an ongoing discussion about electromagnetic hazards in the context of the new wireless communication technology – the fifth generation (5G) standard. Concerns about safety and health hazards resulting from the influence of the electromagnetic field (EMF) emitted by the designed 5G antennas have been raised. In Poland, the level of the population’s exposure to EMF is limited to 7 V/m for frequencies above 300 MHz. This limitation results from taking into account the protective measures related not only to direct thermal hazards, but also to diversified indirect and long-term threats. Many countries have not established legal requirements in this frequency range, or they have introduced regulations based on recommendations regarding protection against direct thermal risks only (Council Recommendation 1999/519/EC). For such protection, the permissible levels of electric field intensity are 20-60 V/m (depending on the frequency). This work has been created through an interdisciplinary collaboration of engineers, biologists and doctors, who have been for many years professionally dealing with the protection of the biosphere against the negative effects of EMF. It presents the state of knowledge on the biological and health effects of the EMF emitted by mobile phone devices (including millimeter waves which are planned to be used in the 5G network). A comparison of the EU recommendations and the provisions on public protection being in force in Poland was made against this background. The results of research conducted to date on the biological effects of the EMF radiofrequency emitted by mobile telecommunication devices, operating with the frequencies up to 6 GHz, do not allow drawing any firm conclusions; however, the research evidence is strong enough for the World Health Organization to classify EMF as an environmental factor potentially carcinogenic to humans. At the moment, there is a shortage of adequate scientific data to assess the health effects of exposure to electromagnetic millimeter waves, which are planned to be used in the designed 5G devices. Nevertheless, due to the fact that there are data indicating the existence of biophysical mechanisms of the EMF influence that may lead to adverse health effects, it seems necessary to use the precautionary principle and the ALARA principle when creating environmental requirements for the construction and exploitation of the infrastructure of the planned 5G system. Med Pr. 2020;71(1):105-13.
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Sick stuff from SILVIEW.media only. Covid has always been nothing but a marketing campaign, time to escalate it. It’s time “peasants” like us started cashing in on Covidiocracy! At least we’re using humor, not terror, as our main marketing tool
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All done with support from the Rothschild bankers of JPMorgan Chase
Now we know the purpose of this meeting at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2011. from left: James E. Staley, at the time a senior JPMorgan executive; former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers; Mr. Epstein; Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder; and Boris Nikolic, who was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s science adviser.
Is NYT talking about the same fund here, or where there more? “Employees of Mr. Gates’s foundation also paid multiple visits to Mr. Epstein’s mansion. And Mr. Epstein spoke with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and JPMorgan Chase about a proposed multibillion-dollar charitable fund — an arrangement that had the potential to generate enormous fees for Mr. Epstein.
“His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” Mr. Gates emailed colleagues in 2011, after his first get-together with Mr. Epstein.
Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gates, said he “was referring only to the unique décor of the Epstein residence — and Epstein’s habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates.” …
As the details of the fund were being hammered out, Mr. Staley told his JPMorgan colleagues that Mr. Epstein wanted to be brought into the discussions, according to two people familiar with the talks. Mr. Epstein was an important JPMorgan customer, holding millions of dollars in accounts at the bank and referring a procession of wealthy individuals to become clients of the company.
Mr. Epstein pitched an idea for a separate charitable fund to JPMorgan officials, including Mr. Staley, and to Mr. Gates’s adviser Mr. Nikolic. He envisioned a vast fund, seeded with the Gates Foundation’s money, that would focus on health projects around the world, according to five people involved in or briefed on the talks, including current and former Gates Foundation and JPMorgan employees. In addition to the Gates money, Mr. Epstein planned to round up donations from his wealthy friends and, hopefully, from JPMorgan’s richest clients.” – NYTimes
No surprise Epstein worked with JPMorgan, remember Dershovitz said he too was introduced to Epstein “by lady de Rothschild”.
“One of the best reporters of his generation . . . a gifted storyteller and thorough reporter.” —New York Review of Books
“A first draft of history that reminds us just how bizarre these times really are. A New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, Stewart has assembled a gripping blow-by-blow account of President Trump’s years-long showdown with the FBI — from the first inklings of something about an email server through the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election . . . Encountering it all smashed between the pages of a single book is a new experience, less the stop-start jerkiness of a tweetstorm than the slow-build dread of a dramatic tragedy . . . . The events recounted in ‘Deep State’ help explain how we ended up at our latest impasse and how Trump is likely to react as it unfolds. What makes the book more than a recitation of unseemly facts is its well-rendered human drama.” — The Washington Post
About the Author
James B. Stewart is the author of Tangled Webs, Heart of a Soldier, Blind Eye, Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. He is currently a columnist for TheNew York Times and a professor at Columbia University School of Journalism, and in 1988 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading.
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The information comes from a 1997 New Yorker article, before Trump entered politics and Ghislaine entered her public pimp fame. This was likely the least biased source you can ever find on this topic.
“One morning last week, Donald Trump, who under routine circumstances tolerates publicity no more grudgingly than an infant tolerates a few daily feedings, sat in his office on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower, his mood rather subdued. As could be expected, given the fact that his three-and-a-half-year-old marriage to Marla Maples was ending, paparazzi were staking out the exits of Trump Tower, while all weekend helicopters had been hovering over Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach. And what would come of it? “I think the thing I’m worst at is managing the press,” he said. “The thing I’m best at is business and conceiving. The press portrays me as a wild flamethrower. In actuality, I think I’m much different from that. I think I’m totally inaccurately portrayed.”
So, though he’d agreed to a conversation at this decisive moment, it called for wariness, the usual quota of prefatory “off-the-record”s and then some. He wore a navy-blue suit, white shirt, black-onyx-and-gold links, and a crimson print necktie. Every strand of his interesting hair—its gravity-defying ducktails and dry pompadour, its telltale absence of gray—was where he wanted it to be. He was working his way through his daily gallon of Diet Coke and trying out a few diversionary maneuvers. Yes, it was true, the end of a marriage was a sad thing. Meanwhile, was I aware of what a success he’d had with the Nation’s Parade, the Veterans Day celebration he’d been very supportive of back in 1995? Well, here was a little something he wanted to show me, a nice certificate signed by both Joseph Orlando, president, and Harry Feinberg, secretary-treasurer, of the New York chapter of the 4th Armored Division Association, acknowledging Trump’s participation as an associate grand marshal. A million four hundred thousand people had turned out for the celebration, he said, handing me some press clippings. “O.K., I see this story says a half million spectators. But, trust me, I heard a million four.” Here was another clipping, from the Times, just the other day, confirming that rents on Fifth Avenue were the highest in the world. “And who owns more of Fifth Avenue than I do?” Or how about the new building across from the United Nations Secretariat, where he planned a “very luxurious hotel-condominium project, a major project.” Who would finance it? “Any one of twenty-five different groups. They all want to finance it.”
Months earlier, I’d asked Trump whom he customarily confided in during moments of tribulation. “Nobody,” he said. “It’s just not my thing”—a reply that didn’t surprise me a bit. Salesmen, and Trump is nothing if not a brilliant salesman, specialize in simulated intimacy rather than the real thing. His modus operandi had a sharp focus: fly the flag, never budge from the premise that the universe revolves around you, and, above all, stay in character. The Trump tour de force—his evolution from rough-edged rich kid with Brooklyn and Queens political-clubhouse connections to an international name-brand commodity—remains, unmistakably, the most rewarding accomplishment of his ingenious career. The patented Trump palaver, a gaseous blather of “fantastic”s and “amazing”s and “terrific”s and “incredible”s and various synonyms for “biggest,” is an indispensable ingredient of the name brand. In addition to connoting a certain quality of construction, service, and security—perhaps only Trump can explicate the meaningful distinctions between “super luxury” and “super super luxury”—his eponym subliminally suggests that a building belongs to him even after it’s been sold off as condominiums.
Everywhere inside the Trump Organization headquarters, the walls were lined with framed magazine covers, each a shot of Trump or someone who looked an awful lot like him. The profusion of these images—of a man who possessed unusual skills, though not, evidently, a gene for irony—seemed the sum of his appetite for self-reflection. His unique talent—being “Trump” or, as he often referred to himself, “the Trumpster,” looming ubiquitous by reducing himself to a persona—exempted him from introspection.
If the gossips hinted that he’d been cuckolded, they had it all wrong; untying the marital knot was based upon straightforward economics. He had a prenuptial agreement, because “if you’re a person of wealth you have to have one.” In the words of his attorney, Jay Goldberg, the agreement was “as solid as concrete.” It would reportedly pay Marla a million dollars, plus some form of child support and alimony, and the time to do a deal was sooner rather than later. A year from now, she would become entitled to a percentage of his net worth. And, as a source very close to Trump made plain, “If it goes from a fixed amount to what could be a very enormous amount—even a small percentage of two and a half billion dollars or whatever is a lot of money—we’re talking about very huge things. The numbers are much bigger than people understand.”
The long-term matrimonial odds had never been terrifically auspicious. What was Marla Maples, after all, but a tabloid cartoon of the Other Woman, an alliteration you could throw the cliché manual at: a leggy, curvaceous blond-bombshell beauty-pageant-winning actress-model-whatever? After a couple of years of deftly choreographed love spats, Donald and Marla produced a love child, whom they could not resist naming Tiffany. A few months before they went legit, Marla told a television interviewer that the contemplation of marriage tended to induce in Donald the occasional “little freak-out” or visit from the “fear monster.” Her role, she explained, was “to work with him and help him get over that fear monster.” Whenever they travelled, she said, she took along her wedding dress. (“Might as well. You’ve got to be prepared.”) The ceremony, at the Plaza Hotel, right before Christmas, 1993, drew an audience of a thousand but, judging by the heavy turnout of Atlantic City high rollers, one not deemed A-list. The Trump Taj Mahal casino commemorated the occasion by issuing a Donald-and-Marla five-dollar gambling chip.
The last time around, splitting with Ivana, he’d lost the P.R. battle from the git-go. After falling an entire news cycle behind Ivana’s spinmeisters, he never managed to catch up. In one ill-advised eruption, he told Liz Smith that his wife reminded him of his bête noire Leona Helmsley, and the columnist chided, “Shame on you, Donald! How dare you say that about the mother of your children?” His only moment of unadulterated, so to speak, gratification occurred when an acquaintance of Marla’s blabbed about his swordsmanship. The screamer “best sex i’ve ever had”—an instant classic—is widely regarded as the most libel-proof headline ever published by the Post. On the surface, the coincidence of his first marital breakup with the fact that he owed a few billion he couldn’t exactly pay back seemed extraordinarily unpropitious. In retrospect, his timing was excellent. Ivana had hoped to nullify a postnuptial agreement whose provenance could be traced to Donald’s late friend and preceptor the lawyer-fixer and humanitarian Roy Cohn. Though the agreement entitled her to fourteen million dollars plus a forty-six-room house in Connecticut, she and her counsel decided to ask for half of everything Trump owned; extrapolating from Donald’s blustery pronouncements over the years, they pegged her share at two and a half billion. In the end, she was forced to settle for the terms stipulated in the agreement because Donald, at that juncture, conveniently appeared to be broke.Advertisement
Now, of course, according to Trump, things were much different. Business was stronger than ever. And, of course, he wanted to be fair to Marla. Only a million bucks? Hey, a deal was a deal. He meant “fair” in a larger sense: “I think it’s very unfair to Marla, or, for that matter, anyone—while there are many positive things, like life style, which is at the highest level— I think it’s unfair to Marla always to be subjected to somebody who enjoys his business and does it at a very high level and does it on a big scale. There are lots of compensating balances. You live in the Mar-a-Lagos of the world, you live in the best apartment. But, I think you understand, I don’t have very much time. I just don’t have very much time. There’s nothing I can do about what I do other than stopping. And I just don’t want to stop.”
A securities analyst who has studied Trump’s peregrinations for many years believes, “Deep down, he wants to be Madonna.” In other words, to ask how the gods could have permitted Trump’s resurrection is to mistake profound superficiality for profundity, performance art for serious drama. A prime example of superficiality at its most rewarding: the Trump International Hotel & Tower, a fifty-two-story hotel-condominium conversion of the former Gulf & Western Building, on Columbus Circle, which opened last January. The Trump name on the skyscraper belies the fact that his ownership is limited to his penthouse apartment and a stake in the hotel’s restaurant and garage, which he received as part of his development fee. During the grand-opening ceremonies, however, such details seemed not to matter as he gave this assessment: “One of the great buildings anywhere in New York, anywhere in the world.”
The festivities that day included a feng-shui ritual in the lobby, a gesture of respect to the building’s high proportion of Asian buyers, who regard a Trump property as a good place to sink flight capital. An efficient schmoozer, Trump worked the room quickly—a backslap and a wink, a finger on the lapels, no more than a minute with anyone who wasn’t a police commissioner, a district attorney, or a mayoral candidate—and then he was ready to go. His executive assistant, Norma Foerderer, and two other Trump Organization executives were waiting in a car to return to the office. Before it pulled away, he experienced a tug of noblesse oblige. “Hold on, just lemme say hello to these Kinney guys,” he said, jumping out to greet a group of parking attendants. “Good job, fellas. You’re gonna be working here for years to come.” It was a quintessential Trumpian gesture, of the sort that explains his popularity among people who barely dare to dream of living in one of his creations.
Back at the office, a Times reporter, Michael Gordon, was on the line, calling from Moscow. Gordon had just interviewed a Russian artist named Zurab Tsereteli, a man with a sense of grandiosity familiar to Trump. Was it true, Gordon asked, that Tsereteli and Trump had discussed erecting on the Hudson River a statue of Christopher Columbus that was six feet taller than the Statue of Liberty?
“Yes, it’s already been made, from what I understand,” said Trump, who had met Tsereteli a couple of months earlier, in Moscow. “It’s got forty million dollars’ worth of bronze in it, and Zurab would like it to be at my West Side Yards development”—a seventy-five-acre tract called Riverside South—“and we are working toward that end.”
According to Trump, the head had arrived in America, the rest of the body was still in Moscow, and the whole thing was being donated by the Russian government. “The mayor of Moscow has written a letter to Rudy Giuliani stating that they would like to make a gift of this great work by Zurab. It would be my honor if we could work it out with the City of New York. I am absolutely favorably disposed toward it. Zurab is a very unusual guy. This man is major and legit.”
Trump hung up and said to me, “See what I do? All this bullshit. Know what? After shaking five thousand hands, I think I’ll go wash mine.”
Norma Foerderer, however, had some pressing business. A lecture agency in Canada was offering Trump a chance to give three speeches over three consecutive days, for seventy-five thousand dollars a pop. “Plus,” she said, “they provide a private jet, secretarial services, and a weekend at a ski resort.”
How did Trump feel about it?
“My attitude is if somebody’s willing to pay me two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to make a speech, it seems stupid not to show up. You know why I’ll do it? Because I don’t think anyone’s ever been paid that much.”
Would it be fresh material?
“It’ll be fresh to them.”
Next item: Norma had drafted a letter to Mar-a-Lago members, inviting them to a dinner featuring a speech by George Pataki and entertainment by Marvin Hamlisch. “Oh, and speaking of the Governor, I just got a call. They’re shooting a new ‘I Love New York’ video and they’d like Libby Pataki to go up and down our escalator. I said fine.”
A Mar-a-Lago entertainment booker named Jim Grau called about a Carly Simon concert. Trump switched on his speakerphone: “Is she gonna do it?”
“Well, two things have to be done, Donald. No. 1, she’d like to hear from you. And, No. 2, she’d like to turn it in some degree into a benefit for Christopher Reeve.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Trump. “Is Christopher Reeve gonna come? He can come down on my plane. So what do I have to do, call her?”
“I want to tell you how we got Carly on this because some of your friends are involved.”
“Jim, I don’t give a shit. Who the hell cares?”
“Please, Donald. Remember when you had your yacht up there? You had Rose Styron aboard. And her husband wrote ‘Sophie’s Choice.’ And it’s through her good offices—”
“O.K. Good. So thank ’em and maybe invite ’em.”
Click.
“Part of my problem,” Trump said to me, “is that I have to do a lot of things myself. It takes so much time. Julio Iglesias is coming to Mar-a-Lago, but I have to call Julio, I have to have lunch with Julio. I have Pavarotti coming. Pavarotti doesn’t perform for anybody. He’s the highest-paid performer in the world. A million dollars a performance. The hardest guy to get. If I call him, he’ll do it—for a huge amount less. Why? Because they like me, they respect me, I don’t know.”
During Trump’s ascendancy, in the nineteen-eighties, the essence of his performance art—an opera-buffa parody of wealth—accounted for his populist appeal as well as for the opprobrium of those who regard with distaste the spectacle of an unbridled id. Delineating his commercial aesthetic, he once told an interviewer, “I have glitzy casinos because people expect it. . . . Glitz works in Atlantic City. . . . And in my residential buildings I sometimes use flash, which is a level below glitz.” His first monument to himself, Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-sixth Street, which opened its doors in 1984, possessed many genuinely impressive elements—a sixty-eight-story sawtoothed silhouette, a salmon-colored Italian-marble atrium equipped with an eighty-foot waterfall—and became an instant tourist attraction. In Atlantic City, the idea was to slather on as much ornamentation as possible, the goal being (a) to titillate with the fantasy that a Trump-like life was a lifelike life and (b) to distract from the fact that he’d lured you inside to pick your pocket.Advertisement
At times, neither glitz nor flash could disguise financial reality. A story in the Times three months ago contained a reference to his past “brush with bankruptcy,” and Trump, though gratified that the Times gave him play on the front page, took umbrage at that phrase. He “never went bankrupt,” he wrote in a letter to the editor, nor did he “ever, at any time, come close.” Having triumphed over adversity, Trump assumes the prerogative to write history.
In fact, by 1990, he was not only at risk, he was, by any rational standard, hugely in the red. Excessively friendly bankers infected with the promiscuous optimism that made the eighties so memorable and so forgettable had financed Trump’s acquisitive impulses to the tune of three billion seven hundred and fifty million dollars. The personally guaranteed portion—almost a billion—represented the value of Trump’s good will, putative creditworthiness, and capacity for shame. A debt restructuring began in the spring of 1990 and continued for several years. In the process, six hundred or seven hundred or perhaps eight hundred million of his creditors’ dollars vaporized and drifted wherever lost money goes. In America, there is no such thing as a debtors’ prison, nor is there a tidy moral to this story.
Several of Trump’s trophies—the Plaza Hotel and all three Atlantic City casinos—were subjected to “prepackaged bankruptcy,” an efficiency maneuver that is less costly than the full-blown thing. Because the New Jersey Casino Control Act requires “financial stability” for a gaming license, it seems hard to avoid the inference that Trump’s Atlantic City holdings were in serious jeopardy. Nevertheless, “blip” is the alternative “b” word he prefers, as in “So the market, as you know, turns lousy and I have this blip.”
Trump began plotting his comeback before the rest of the world—or, perhaps, even he—fully grasped the direness of his situation. In April of 1990, he announced to the Wall Street Journal a plan to sell certain assets and become the “king of cash,” a stratagem that would supposedly set the stage for a shrewd campaign of bargain hunting. That same month, he drew down the final twenty-five million dollars of an unsecured hundred-million-dollar personal line of credit from Bankers Trust. Within seven weeks, he failed to deliver a forty-three-million-dollar payment due to bondholders of the Trump Castle Casino, and he also missed a thirty-million-dollar interest payment to one of the estimated hundred and fifty banks that were concerned about his well-being. An army of bankruptcy lawyers began camping out in various boardrooms.
Making the blip go away entailed, among other sacrifices, forfeiting management control of the Plaza and handing over the titles to the Trump Shuttle (the old Eastern Airlines Boston-New York-Washington route) and a twin-towered thirty-two-story condominium building near West Palm Beach, Florida. He also said goodbye to his two-hundred-and-eighty-two-foot yacht, the Trump Princess, and to his Boeing 727. Appraisers inventoried the contents of his Trump Tower homestead. Liens were attached to just about everything but his Brioni suits. Perhaps the ultimate indignity was having to agree to a personal spending cap of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month.
It would have been tactically wise, to say nothing of tactful, if, as Trump’s creditors wrote off large chunks of their portfolios, he could have curbed his breathtaking propensity for self-aggrandizement. The bravado diminished somewhat for a couple of years—largely because the press stopped paying attention—but by 1993 he was proclaiming, “This year has been the most successful year I’ve had in business.” Every year since, he’s issued the same news flash. A spate of Trump-comeback articles appeared in 1996, including several timed to coincide with his fiftieth birthday.
Then, last October, Trump came into possession of what a normal person would regard as real money. For a hundred and forty-two million dollars, he sold his half interest in the Grand Hyatt Hotel, on Forty-second Street, to the Pritzker family, of Chicago, his longtime, and long-estranged, partners in the property. Most of the proceeds weren’t his to keep, but he walked away with more than twenty-five million dollars. The chief significance of the Grand Hyatt sale was that it enabled Trump to extinguish the remnants of his once monstrous personally guaranteed debt. When Forbes published its annual list of the four hundred richest Americans, he sneaked on (three hundred and seventy-third position) with an estimated net worth of four hundred and fifty million. Trump, meanwhile, had compiled his own unaudited appraisal, one he was willing to share along with the amusing caveat “I’ve never shown this to a reporter before.” According to his calculations, he was actually worth two and a quarter billion dollars—Forbes had lowballed him by eighty per cent. Still, he had officially rejoined the plutocracy, his first appearance since the blip.
Jay Goldberg, who in addition to handling Trump’s matrimonial legal matters also represented him in the Grand Hyatt deal, told me that, after it closed, his client confessed that the novelty of being unencumbered had him lying awake nights. When I asked Trump about this, he said, “Leverage is an amazing phenomenon. I love leverage. Plus, I’ve never been a huge sleeper.” Trump doesn’t drink or smoke, claims he’s never even had a cup of coffee. He functions, evidently, according to inverse logic and metabolism. What most people would find unpleasantly stimulating—owing vastly more than you should to lenders who, figuratively, at least, can carve you into small pieces—somehow engenders in him a soothing narcotic effect. That, in any event, is the impression Trump seeks to convey, though the point is now moot. Bankers, typically not the most perspicacious species on earth, from time to time get religion, and there aren’t many who will soon be lining up to thrust fresh bazillions at him.
When I met with Trump for the first time, several months ago, he set out to acquaint me with facts that, to his consternation, had remained stubbornly hidden from the public. Several times, he uttered the phrase “off the record, but you can use it.” I understood the implication—I was his tool—but failed to see the purpose. “If you have me saying these things, even though they’re true, I sound like a schmuck,” he explained. How to account, then, for the bombast of the previous two decades? Alair Townsend, a former deputy mayor in the Koch administration, once quipped, “I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized.” In time, this bon mot became misattributed to Leona Helmsley, who was only too happy to claim authorship. Last fall, after Evander Holyfield upset Mike Tyson in a heavyweight title fight, Trump snookered the News into reporting that he’d collected twenty million bucks by betting a million on the underdog. This prompted the Post to make calls to some Las Vegas bookies, who confirmed—shockingly!—that nobody had been handling that kind of action or laying odds close to 20-1. Trump never blinked, just moved on to the next bright idea.
“I don’t think people know how big my business is,” Trump told me. “Somehow, they know Trump the celebrity. But I’m the biggest developer in New York. And I’m the biggest there is in the casino business. And that’s pretty good to be the biggest in both. So that’s a lot of stuff.” He talked about 40 Wall Street—“truly one of the most beautiful buildings in New York”—a seventy-two-story landmark that he was renovating. He said he owned the new Niketown store, tucked under Trump Tower; there was a deal to convert the Mayfair Hotel, at Sixty-fifth and Park, into “super-super-luxury apartments . . . but that’s like a small one.” He owned the land under the Ritz-Carlton, on Central Park South. (“That’s a little thing. Nobody knows that I own that. In that way, I’m not really understood.”) With CBS, he now owned the Miss U.S.A., Miss Teen U.S.A., and Miss Universe beauty pageants. He pointed to a stack of papers on his desk, closing documents for the Trump International Hotel & Tower. “Look at these contracts. I get these to sign every day. I’ve signed hundreds of these. Here’s a contract for two-point-two million dollars. It’s a building that isn’t even opened yet. It’s eighty-three per cent sold, and nobody even knows it’s there. For each contract, I need to sign twenty-two times, and if you think that’s easy . . . You know, all the buyers want my signature. I had someone else who works for me signing, and at the closings the buyers got angry. I told myself, ‘You know, these people are paying a million eight, a million seven, two million nine, four million one—for those kinds of numbers, I’ll sign the fucking contract.’ I understand. Fuck it. It’s just more work.”Advertisement
As a real-estate impresario, Trump certainly has no peer. His assertion that he is the biggest real-estate developer in New York, however, presumes an elastic definition of that term. Several active developers—among them the Rudins, the Roses, the Milsteins—have added more residential and commercial space to the Manhattan market and have historically held on to what they built. When the outer boroughs figure in the tally—and if Donald isn’t allowed to claim credit for the middle-income high-rise rental projects that generated the fortune amassed by his ninety-one-year-old father, Fred—he slips further in the rankings. But if one’s standard of comparison is simply the number of buildings that bear the developer’s name, Donald dominates the field. Trump’s vaunted art of the deal has given way to the art of “image ownership.” By appearing to exert control over assets that aren’t necessarily his—at least not in ways that his pronouncements suggest—he exercises his real talent: using his name as a form of leverage. “It’s German in derivation,” he has said. “Nobody really knows where it came from. It’s very unusual, but it just is a good name to have.”
In the Trump International Hotel & Tower makeover, his role is, in effect, that of broker-promoter rather than risktaker. In 1993, the General Electric Pension Trust, which took over the building in a foreclosure, hired the Galbreath Company, an international real-estate management firm, to recommend how to salvage its mortgage on a nearly empty skyscraper that had an annoying tendency to sway in the wind. Along came Trump, proposing a three-way joint venture. G.E. would put up all the money—two hundred and seventy-five million dollars—and Trump and Galbreath would provide expertise. The market timing proved remarkably favorable. When Trump totted up the profits and calculated that his share came to more than forty million bucks, self-restraint eluded him, and he took out advertisements announcing “The Most Successful Condominium Tower Ever Built in the United States.”
A minor specimen of his image ownership is his ballyhooed “half interest” in the Empire State Building, which he acquired in 1994. Trump’s initial investment—not a dime—matches his apparent return thus far. His partners, the illegitimate daughter and disreputable son-in-law of an even more disreputable Japanese billionaire named Hideki Yokoi, seem to have paid forty million dollars for the building, though their title, even on a sunny day, is somewhat clouded. Under the terms of leases executed in 1961, the building is operated by a partnership controlled by Peter Malkin and the estate of the late Harry Helmsley. The lessees receive almost ninety million dollars a year from the building’s tenants but are required to pay the lessors (Trump’s partners) only about a million nine hundred thousand. Trump himself doesn’t share in these proceeds, and the leases don’t expire until 2076. Only if he can devise a way to break the leases will his “ownership” acquire any value. His strategy—suing the Malkin-Helmsley group for a hundred million dollars, alleging, among other things, that they’ve violated the leases by allowing the building to become a “rodent infested” commercial slum—has proved fruitless. In February, when an armed madman on the eighty-sixth-floor observation deck killed a sightseer and wounded six others before shooting himself, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Trump, ever vigilant, would exploit the tragedy, and he did not disappoint. “Leona Helmsley should be ashamed of herself,” he told the Post.
One day, when I was in Trump’s office, he took a phone call from an investment banker, an opaque conversation that, after he hung up, I asked him to elucidate.
“Whatever complicates the world more I do,” he said.
Come again?
“It’s always good to do things nice and complicated so that nobody can figure it out.”
Case in point: The widely held perception is that Trump is the sole visionary and master builder of Riverside South, the mega-development planned for the former Penn Central Yards, on the West Side. Trump began pawing at the property in 1974, obtained a formal option in 1977, allowed it to lapse in 1979, and reëntered the picture in 1984, when Chase Manhattan lent him eighty-four million dollars for land-purchase and development expenses. In the years that followed, he trotted out several elephantine proposals, diverse and invariably overly dense residential and commercial mixtures. “Zoning for me is a life process,” Trump told me. “Zoning is something I have done and ultimately always get because people appreciate what I’m asking for and they know it’s going to be the highest quality.” In fact, the consensus among the West Side neighbors who studied Trump’s designs was that they did not appreciate what he was asking for. An exotically banal hundred-and-fifty-story phallus—“The World’s Tallest Building”—provided the centerpiece of his most vilified scheme.
The oddest passage in this byzantine history began in the late eighties, when an assortment of high-minded civic groups united to oppose Trump, enlisted their own architects, and drafted a greatly scaled-back alternative plan. The civic groups hoped to persuade Chase Manhattan, which held Trump’s mortgage, to help them entice a developer who could wrest the property from their nemesis. To their dismay, and sheepish amazement, they discovered that one developer was willing to pursue their design: Trump. Over time, the so-called “civic alternative” has become, in the public mind, thanks to Trump’s drumbeating, his proposal; he has appropriated conceptual ownership.
Three years ago, a syndicate of Asian investors, led by Henry Cheng, of Hong Kong’s New World Development Company, assumed the task of arranging construction financing. This transaction altered Trump’s involvement to a glorified form of sweat equity; for a fee paid by the investment syndicate, Trump Organization staff people would collaborate with a team from New World, monitoring the construction already under way and working on designs, zoning, and planning for the phases to come. Only when New World has recovered its investment, plus interest, will Trump begin to see any real profit—twenty-five years, at least, after he first cast his covetous eye at the Penn Central rail yards. According to Trump’s unaudited net-worth statement, which identifies Riverside South as “Trump Boulevard,” he “owns 30-50% of the project, depending on performance.” This “ownership,” however, is a potential profit share rather than actual equity. Six hundred million dollars is the value Trump imputes to this highly provisional asset.
Of course, the “comeback” Trump is much the same as the Trump of the eighties; there is no “new” Trump, just as there was never a “new” Nixon. Rather, all along there have been several Trumps: the hyperbole addict who prevaricates for fun and profit; the knowledgeable builder whose associates profess awe at his attention to detail; the narcissist whose self-absorption doesn’t account for his dead-on ability to exploit other people’s weaknesses; the perpetual seventeen-year-old who lives in a zero-sum world of winners and “total losers,” loyal friends and “complete scumbags”; the insatiable publicity hound who courts the press on a daily basis and, when he doesn’t like what he reads, attacks the messengers as “human garbage”; the chairman and largest stockholder of a billion-dollar public corporation who seems unable to resist heralding overly optimistic earnings projections, which then fail to materialize, thereby eroding the value of his investment—in sum, a fellow both slippery and naïve, artfully calculating and recklessly heedless of consequences.Advertisement
Trump’s most caustic detractors in New York real-estate circles disparage him as “a casino operator in New Jersey,” as if to say, “He’s not really even one of us.” Such derision is rooted in resentment that his rescue from oblivion—his strategy for remaining the marketable real-estate commodity “Trump”—hinged upon his ability to pump cash out of Atlantic City. The Trump image is nowhere more concentrated than in Atlantic City, and it is there, of late, that the Trump alchemy—transforming other people’s money into his own wealth—has been most strenuously tested.
To bail himself out with the banks, Trump converted his casinos to public ownership, despite the fact that the constraints inherent in answering to shareholders do not come to him naturally. Inside the Trump Organization, for instance, there is talk of “the Donald factor,” the three to five dollars per share that Wall Street presumably discounts Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts by allowing for his braggadocio and unpredictability. The initial public offering, in June, 1995, raised a hundred and forty million dollars, at fourteen dollars a share. Less than a year later, a secondary offering, at thirty-one dollars per share, brought in an additional three hundred and eighty million dollars. Trump’s personal stake in the company now stands at close to forty per cent. As chairman, Donald had an excellent year in 1996, drawing a million-dollar salary, another million for miscellaneous “services,” and a bonus of five million. As a shareholder, however, he did considerably less well. A year ago, the stock traded at thirty-five dollars; it now sells for around ten.
Notwithstanding Trump’s insistence that things have never been better, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts has to cope with several thorny liabilities, starting with a junk-bond debt load of a billion seven hundred million dollars. In 1996, the company’s losses amounted to three dollars and twenty-seven cents per share—attributable, in part, to extraordinary expenses but also to the fact that the Atlantic City gaming industry has all but stopped growing. And, most glaringly, there was the burden of the Trump Castle, which experienced a ten-per-cent revenue decline, the worst of any casino in Atlantic City.
Last October, the Castle, a heavily leveraged consistent money loser that had been wholly owned by Trump, was bought into Trump Hotels, a transaction that gave him five million eight hundred and thirty-seven thousand shares of stock. Within two weeks—helped along by a reduced earnings estimate from a leading analyst—the stock price, which had been eroding since the spring, began to slide more precipitously, triggering a shareholder lawsuit that accused Trump of self-dealing and a “gross breach of his fiduciary duties.” At which point he began looking for a partner. The deal Trump came up with called for Colony Capital, a sharp real-estate outfit from Los Angeles, to buy fifty-one per cent of the Castle for a price that seemed to vindicate the terms under which he’d unloaded it on the public company. Closer inspection revealed, however, that Colony’s capital injection would give it high-yield preferred, rather than common, stock—in other words, less an investment than a loan. Trump-l’oeil: Instead of trying to persuade the world that he owned something that wasn’t his, he was trying to convey the impression that he would part with an onerous asset that, as a practical matter, he would still be stuck with. In any event, in March the entire deal fell apart. Trump, in character, claimed that he, not Colony, had called it off.
The short-term attempt to solve the Castle’s problems is a four-million-dollar cosmetic overhaul. This so-called “re-theming” will culminate in June, when the casino acquires a new name: Trump Marina. One day this winter, I accompanied Trump when he buzzed into Atlantic City for a re-theming meeting with Nicholas Ribis, the president and chief executive officer of Trump Hotels, and several Castle executives. The discussion ranged from the size of the lettering on the outside of the building to the sparkling gray granite in the lobby to potential future renderings, including a version with an as yet unbuilt hotel tower and a permanently docked yacht to be called Miss Universe. Why the boat? “It’s just an attraction,” Trump said. “You understand, this would be part of a phase-two or phase-three expansion. It’s going to be the largest yacht in the world.”
From the re-theming meeting, we headed for the casino, and along the way Trump received warm salutations. A white-haired woman wearing a pink warmup suit and carrying a bucket of quarters said, “Mr. Trump, I just love you, darling.” He replied, “Thank you. I love you, too,” then turned to me and said, “You see, they’re good people. And I like people. You’ve gotta be nice. They’re like friends.”
The Castle had two thousand two hundred and thirty-nine slot machines, including, in a far corner, thirteen brand-new and slightly terrifying “Wheel of Fortune”-theme contraptions, which were about to be officially unveiled. On hand were representatives of International Game Technology (the machines’ manufacturer), a press entourage worthy of a military briefing in the wake of a Grenada-calibre invasion, and a couple of hundred onlookers—all drawn by the prospect of a personal appearance by Vanna White, the doyenne of “Wheel of Fortune.” Trump’s arrival generated satisfying expressions of awe from the rubberneckers, though not the spontaneous burst of applause that greeted Vanna, who had been conscripted for what was described as “the ceremonial first pull.”
When Trump spoke, he told the gathering, “This is the beginning of a new generation of machine.” Vanna pulled the crank, but the crush of reporters made it impossible to tell what was going on or even what denomination of currency had been sacrificed. The demographics of the crowd suggested that the most efficient machine would be one that permitted direct deposit of a Social Security check. After a delay that featured a digital musical cacophony, the machine spat back a few coins. Trump said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it took a little while. We hope it doesn’t take you as long. And we just want to thank you for being our friends.” And then we were out of there. “This is what we do. What can I tell you?” Trump said, as we made our way through the casino.
Vanna White was scheduled to join us for the helicopter flight back to New York, and later, as we swung over Long Island City, heading for a heliport on the East Side, Trump gave Vanna a little hug and, not for the first time, praised her star turn at the Castle. “For the opening of thirteen slot machines, I’d say we did all right today,” he said, and then they slapped high fives.
In a 1990 Playboy interview, Trump said that the yacht, the glitzy casinos, the gleaming bronze of Trump Tower were all “props for the show,” adding that “the show is ‘Trump’ and it is sold-out performances everywhere.” In 1985, the show moved to Palm Beach. For ten million dollars, Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, a hundred-and-eighteen-room Hispano-Moorish-Venetian castle built in the twenties by Marjorie Merriweather Post and E. F. Hutton, set on seventeen and a half acres extending from the ocean to Lake Worth. Ever since, his meticulous restoration and literal regilding of the property have been a work in progress. The winter of 1995-96 was Mar-a-Lago’s first full season as a commercial venture, a private club with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar initiation fee (which later rose to fifty thousand and is now quoted at seventy-five thousand). The combination of the Post-Hutton pedigree and Trump’s stewardship offered a paradigm of how an aggressively enterprising devotion to Good Taste inevitably transmutes to Bad Taste—but might nevertheless pay for itself.Advertisement
Only Trump and certain of his minions know who among Mar-a-Lago’s more than three hundred listed members has actually forked over initiation fees and who’s paid how much for the privilege. Across the years, there have been routine leaks by a mysterious unnamed spokesman within the Trump Organization to the effect that this or that member of the British Royal Family was planning to buy a pied-à-terre in Trump Tower. It therefore came as no surprise when, during early recruiting efforts at Mar-a-Lago, Trump announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales, their mutual antipathy notwithstanding, had signed up. Was there any documentation? Well, um, Chuck and Di were honorary members. Among the honorary members who have yet to pass through Mar-a-Lago’s portals are Henry Kissinger and Elizabeth Taylor.
The most direct but not exactly most serene way to travel to Mar-a-Lago, I discovered one weekend not long ago, is aboard Trump’s 727, the same aircraft he gave up during the blip and, after an almost decent interval, bought back. My fellow-passengers included Eric Javits, a lawyer and nephew of the late Senator Jacob Javits, bumming a ride; Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late publishing tycoon and inadequate swimmer Robert Maxwell, also bumming a ride; Matthew Calamari, a telephone-booth-size bodyguard who is the head of security for the entire Trump Organization; and Eric Trump, Donald’s thirteen-year-old son.
The solid-gold fixtures and hardware (sinks, seat-belt clasps, door hinges, screws), well-stocked bar and larder, queen-size bed, and bidet (easily outfitted with a leather-cushioned cover in case of sudden turbulence) implied hedonistic possibilities—the plane often ferried high rollers to Atlantic City—but I witnessed only good clean fun. We hadn’t been airborne long when Trump decided to watch a movie. He’d brought along “Michael,” a recent release, but twenty minutes after popping it into the VCR he got bored and switched to an old favorite, a Jean Claude Van Damme slugfest called “Bloodsport,” which he pronounced “an incredible, fantastic movie.” By assigning to his son the task of fast-forwarding through all the plot exposition—Trump’s goal being “to get this two-hour movie down to forty-five minutes”—he eliminated any lulls between the nose hammering, kidney tenderizing, and shin whacking. When a beefy bad guy who was about to squish a normal-sized good guy received a crippling blow to the scrotum, I laughed. “Admit it, you’re laughing!” Trump shouted. “You want to write that Donald Trump was loving this ridiculous Jean Claude Van Damme movie, but are you willing to put in there that you were loving it, too?”
A small convoy of limousines greeted us on the runway in Palm Beach, and during the ten-minute drive to Mar-a-Lago Trump waxed enthusiastic about a “spectacular, world-class” golf course he was planning to build on county-owned land directly opposite the airport. Trump, by the way, is a skilled golfer. A source extremely close to him—by which I mean off the record, but I can use it—told me that Claude Harmon, a former winner of the Masters tournament and for thirty-three years the club pro at Winged Foot, in Mamaroneck, New York, once described Donald as “the best weekend player” he’d ever seen.
The only formal event on Trump’s agenda had already got under way. Annually, the publisher of Forbes invites eleven corporate potentates to Florida, where they spend a couple of nights aboard the company yacht, the Highlander, and, during the day, adroitly palpate each other’s brains and size up each other’s short games. A supplementary group of capital-gains-tax skeptics had been invited to a Friday-night banquet in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom. Trump arrived between the roast-duck appetizer and the roasted-portabello-mushroom salad and took his seat next to Malcolm S. (Steve) Forbes, Jr., the erstwhile Presidential candidate and the chief executive of Forbes, at a table that also included les grands fromages of Hertz, Merrill Lynch, the C.I.T. Group, and Countrywide Credit Industries. At an adjacent table, Marla Maples Trump, who had just returned from Shreveport, Louisiana, where she was rehearsing her role as co-host of the Miss U.S.A. pageant, discussed global politics and the sleeping habits of three-year-old Tiffany with the corporate chiefs and chief spouses of A.T. & T., Sprint, and Office Depot. During coffee, Donald assured everyone present that they were “very special” to him, that he wanted them to think of Mar-a-Lago as home, and that they were all welcome to drop by the spa the next day for a freebie.
Tony Senecal, a former mayor of Martinsburg, West Virginia, who now doubles as Trump’s butler and Mar-a-Lago’s resident historian, told me, “Some of the restoration work that’s being done here is so subtle it’s almost not Trump-like.” Subtlety, however, is not the dominant motif. Weary from handling Trump’s legal work, Jay Goldberg used to retreat with his wife to Mar-a-Lago for a week each year. Never mind the tapestries, murals, frescoes, winged statuary, life-size portrait of Trump (titled “The Visionary”), bathtub-size flower-filled samovars, vaulted Corinthian colonnade, thirty-four-foot ceilings, blinding chandeliers, marquetry, overstuffed and gold-leaf-stamped everything else, Goldberg told me; what nudged him around the bend was a small piece of fruit.
“We were surrounded by a staff of twenty people,” he said, “including a footman. I didn’t even know what that was. I thought maybe a chiropodist. Anyway, wherever I turned there was always a bowl of fresh fruit. So there I am, in our room, and I decide to step into the bathroom to take a leak. And on the way I grab a kumquat and eat it. Well, by the time I come out of the bathroom the kumquat has been replaced.
As for the Mar-a-Lago spa, aerobic exercise is an activity Trump indulges in “as little as possible,” and he’s therefore chosen not to micromanage its daily affairs. Instead, he brought in a Texas outfit called the Greenhouse Spa, proven specialists in mud wraps, manual lymphatic drainage, reflexology, shiatsu and Hawaiian hot-rock massage, loofah polishes, sea-salt rubs, aromatherapy, acupuncture, peat baths, and Japanese steeping-tub protocol. Evidently, Trump’s philosophy of wellness is rooted in a belief that prolonged exposure to exceptionally attractive young female spa attendants will instill in the male clientele a will to live. Accordingly, he limits his role to a pocket veto of key hiring decisions. While giving me a tour of the main exercise room, where Tony Bennett, who does a couple of gigs at Mar-a-Lago each season and has been designated an “artist-in-residence,” was taking a brisk walk on a treadmill, Trump introduced me to “our resident physician, Dr. Ginger Lea Southall”—a recent chiropractic-college graduate. As Dr. Ginger, out of earshot, manipulated the sore back of a grateful member, I asked Trump where she had done her training. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Baywatch Medical School? Does that sound right? I’ll tell you the truth. Once I saw Dr. Ginger’s photograph, I didn’t really need to look at her résumé or anyone else’s. Are you asking, ‘Did we hire her because she’d trained at Mount Sinai for fifteen years?’ The answer is no. And I’ll tell you why: because by the time she’s spent fifteen years at Mount Sinai, we don’t want to look at her.”Advertisement
My visit happened to coincide with the coldest weather of the winter, and this gave me a convenient excuse, at frequent intervals, to retreat to my thousand-dollar-a-night suite and huddle under the bedcovers in fetal position. Which is where I was around ten-thirty Saturday night, when I got a call from Tony Senecal, summoning me to the ballroom. The furnishings had been altered since the Forbes banquet the previous evening. Now there was just a row of armchairs in the center of the room and a couple of low tables, an arrangement that meant Donald and Marla were getting ready for a late dinner in front of the TV. They’d already been out to a movie with Eric and Tiffany and some friends and bodyguards, and now a theatre-size screen had descended from the ceiling so that they could watch a pay-per-view telecast of a junior-welterweight-championship boxing match between Oscar de la Hoya and Miguel Angel Gonzalez.
Marla was eating something green, while Donald had ordered his favorite, meat loaf and mashed potatoes. “We have a chef who makes the greatest meat loaf in the world,” he said. “It’s so great I told him to put it on the menu. So whenever we have it, half the people order it. But then afterward, if you ask them what they ate, they always deny it.”
Trump is not only a boxing fan but an occasional promoter, and big bouts are regularly staged at his hotels in Atlantic City. Whenever he shows up in person, he drops by to wish the fighters luck beforehand and is always accorded a warm welcome, with the exception of a chilly reception not long ago from the idiosyncratic Polish head-butter and rabbit-puncher Andrew Golota. This was just before Golota went out and pounded Riddick Bowe into retirement, only to get himself disqualified for a series of low blows that would’ve been perfectly legal in “Bloodsport.”
“Golota’s a killer,” Trump said admiringly. “A stone-cold killer.”
When I asked Marla how she felt about boxing, she said, “I enjoy it a lot, just as long as nobody gets hurt.”
When a call came a while back from Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed, the retired general, amateur boxer, and restless pretender to the Presidency of Russia, explaining that he was headed to New York and wanted to arrange a meeting, Trump was pleased but not surprised. The list of superpower leaders and geopolitical strategists with whom Trump has engaged in frank and fruitful exchanges of viewpoints includes Mikhail Gorbachev, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. (He’s also pals with Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood, men’s men who enjoy international reputations for racking up massive body counts.) In 1987, fresh from his grandest public-relations coup—repairing in three and a half months, under budget and for no fee, the Wollman skating rink, in Central Park, a job that the city of New York had spent six years and twelve million dollars bungling—Trump contemplated how, in a larger sphere, he could advertise himself as a doer and dealmaker. One stunt involved orchestrating an “invitation” from the federal government to examine the Williamsburg Bridge, which was falling apart. Trump had no real interest in the job, but by putting on a hard hat and taking a stroll on the bridge for the cameras he stoked the fantasy that he could rebuild the city’s entire infrastructure. From there it was only a short leap to saving the planet. What if, say, a troublemaker like Muammar Qaddafi got his hands on a nuclear arsenal? Well, Trump declared, he stood ready to work with the leaders of the then Soviet Union to coördinate a formula for coping with Armageddon-minded lunatics.
The clear purpose of Lebed’s trip to America, an unofficial visit that coincided with the second Clinton Inaugural, was to add some reassuring human texture to his image as a plainspoken tough guy. Simultaneously, his domestic political prospects could be enhanced if voters back home got the message that Western capitalists felt comfortable with him. Somewhere in Lebed’s calculations was the understanding that, to the nouveau entrepreneurs of the freebooter’s paradise that is now Russia, Trump looked and smelled like very old money.
Their rendezvous was scheduled for midmorning. Having enlisted as an interpreter Inga Bogutska, a receptionist whose father, by coincidence, was a Russian general, Trump decided to greet his visitor in the lobby. When it turned out that Lebed, en route from an audience with a group of Times editors and reporters, was running late, Trump occupied himself by practicing his golf swing and surveying the female pedestrians in the atrium. Finally, Lebed arrived, a middle-aged but ageless fellow with a weathered, fleshy face and hooded eyes, wearing a gray business suit and an impassive expression. After posing for a Times photographer, they rode an elevator to the twenty-sixth floor, and along the way Trump asked, “So, how is everything in New York?”
“Well, it’s hard to give an assessment, but I think it is brilliant,” Lebed replied. He had a deep, bullfroggy voice, and his entourage of a half-dozen men included an interpreter, who rendered Inga Bogutska superfluous.
“Yes, it’s been doing very well,” Trump agreed. “New York is on a very strong up. And we’ve been reading a lot of great things about this gentleman and his country.”
Inside his office, Trump immediately began sharing with Lebed some of his treasured possessions. “This is a shoe that was given to me by Shaquille O’Neal,” he said. “Basketball. Shaquille O’Neal. Seven feet three inches, I guess. This is his sneaker, the actual sneaker. In fact, he gave this to me after a game.”
“I’ve always said,” Lebed sagely observed, “that after size 45, which I wear, then you start wearing trunks on your feet.”
“That’s true,” said Trump. He moved on to a replica of a Mike Tyson heavyweight-championship belt, followed by an Evander Holyfield glove. “He gave me this on my fiftieth birthday. And then he beat Tyson. I didn’t know who to root for. And then, again, here is Shaquille O’Neal’s shirt. Here, you might want to see this. This was part of an advertisement for Versace, the fashion designer. These are photographs of Madonna on the stairs at Mar-a-Lago, my house in Florida. And this photograph shows something that we just finished and are very proud of. It’s a big hotel called Trump International. And it’s been very successful. So we’ve had a lot of fun.”
Trump introduced Lebed to Howard Lorber, who had accompanied him a few months earlier on his journey to Moscow, where they looked at properties to which the Trump moniker might be appended. “Howard has major investments in Russia,” he told Lebed, but when Lorber itemized various ventures none seemed to ring a bell.
“See, they don’t know you,” Trump told Lorber. “With all that investment, they don’t know you. Trump they know.”
Some “poisonous people” at the Times, Lebed informed Trump, were “spreading some funny rumors that you are going to cram Moscow with casinos.”
Laughing, Trump said, “Is that right?”Advertisement
“I told them that I know you build skyscrapers in New York. High-quality skyscrapers.”
“We are actually looking at something in Moscow right now, and it would be skyscrapers and hotels, not casinos. Only quality stuff. But thank you for defending me. I’ll soon be going again to Moscow. We’re looking at the Moskva Hotel. We’re also looking at the Rossiya. That’s a very big project; I think it’s the largest hotel in the world. And we’re working with the local government, the mayor of Moscow and the mayor’s people. So far, they’ve been very responsive.”
Lebed: “You must be a very confident person. You are building straight into the center.”
Trump: “I always go into the center.”
Lebed: “I hope I’m not offending by saying this, but I think you are a litmus testing paper. You are at the end of the edge. If Trump goes to Moscow, I think America will follow. So I consider these projects of yours to be very important. And I’d like to help you as best I can in putting your projects into life. I want to create a canal or riverbed for capital flow. I want to minimize the risks and get rid of situations where the entrepreneur has to try to hide his head between his shoulders. I told the New York Times I was talking to you because you are a professional—a high-level professional—and if you invest, you invest in real stuff. Serious, high-quality projects. And you deal with serious people. And I deem you to be a very serious person. That’s why I’m meeting you.”
Trump: “Well, that’s very nice. Thank you very much. I have something for you. This is a little token of my respect. I hope you like it. This is a book called ‘The Art of the Deal,’ which a lot of people have read. And if you read this book you’ll know the art of the deal better than I do.”
The conversation turned to Lebed’s lunch arrangements and travel logistics—“It’s very tiring to meet so many people,” he confessed—and the dialogue began to feel stilted, as if Trump’s limitations as a Kremlinologist had exhausted the potential topics. There was, however, one more subject he wanted to cover.
“Now, you were a boxer, right?” he said. “We have a lot of big matches at my hotels. We just had a match between Riddick Bowe and Andrew Golota, from Poland, who won the fight but was disqualified. He’s actually a great fighter if he can ever get through a match without being disqualified. And, to me, you look tougher than Andrew Golota.”
In response, Lebed pressed an index finger to his nose, or what was left of it, and flattened it against his face.
“You do look seriously tough,” Trump continued. “Were you an Olympic boxer?”
“No, I had a rather modest career.”
“Really? The newspapers said you had a great career.”
“At a certain point, my company leader put the question straight: either you do the sports or you do the military service. And I selected the military.”
“You made the right decision,” Trump agreed, as if putting to rest any notion he might have entertained about promoting a Lebed exhibition bout in Atlantic City.
Norma Foerderer came in with a camera to snap a few shots for the Trump archives and to congratulate the general for his fancy footwork in Chechnya. Phone numbers were exchanged, and Lebed, before departing, offered Trump a benediction: “You leave on the earth a very good trace for centuries. We’re all mortal, but the things you build will stay forever. You’ve already proven wrong the assertion that the higher the attic, the more trash there is.”
When Trump returned from escorting Lebed to the elevator, I asked him his impressions.
“First of all, you wouldn’t want to play nuclear weapons with this fucker,” he said. “Does he look as tough and cold as you’ve ever seen? This is not like your average real-estate guy who’s rough and mean. This guy’s beyond that. You see it in the eyes. This guy is a killer. How about when I asked, ‘Were you a boxer?’ Whoa—that nose is a piece of rubber. But me he liked. When we went out to the elevator, he was grabbing me, holding me, he felt very good. And he liked what I do. You know what? I think I did a good job for the country today.”
The phone rang—Jesse Jackson calling about some office space Trump had promised to help the Rainbow Coalition lease at 40 Wall Street. (“Hello, Jesse. How ya doin’? You were on Rosie’s show? She’s terrific, right? Yeah, I think she is. . . . Okay-y-y, how are you?”) Trump hung up, sat forward, his eyebrows arched, smiling a smile that contained equal measures of surprise and self-satisfaction. “You gotta say, I cover the gamut. Does the kid cover the gamut? Boy, it never ends. I mean, people have no idea. Cool life. You know, it’s sort of a cool life.”
One Saturday this winter, Trump and I had an appointment at Trump Tower. After I’d waited ten minutes, the concierge directed me to the penthouse. When I emerged from the elevator, there Donald stood, wearing a black cashmere topcoat, navy suit, blue-and-white pin-striped shirt, and maroon necktie. “I thought you might like to see my apartment,” he said, and as I squinted against the glare of gilt and mirrors in the entrance corridor he added, “I don’t really do this.” That we both knew this to be a transparent fib—photo spreads of the fifty-three-room triplex and its rooftop park had appeared in several magazines, and it had been featured on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”—in no way undermined my enjoyment of the visual and aural assault that followed: the twenty-nine-foot-high living room with its erupting fountain and vaulted ceiling decorated with neo-Romantic frescoes; the two-story dining room with its carved ivory frieze (“I admit that the ivory’s kind of a no-no”); the onyx columns with marble capitals that had come from “a castle in Italy”; the chandelier that originally hung in “a castle in Austria”; the African blue-onyx lavatory. As we admired the view of Central Park, to the north, he said, “This is the greatest apartment ever built. There’s never been anything like it. There’s no apartment like this anywhere. It was harder to build this apartment than the rest of the building. A lot of it I did just to see if it could be done. All the very wealthy people who think they know great apartments come here and they say, ‘Donald, forget it. This is the greatest.’ ” Very few touches suggested that real people actually lived there—where was it, exactly, that Trump sat around in his boxers, eating roast-beef sandwiches, channel surfing, and scratching where it itched? Where was it that Marla threw her jogging clothes?—but no matter. “Come here, I’ll show you how life works,” he said, and we turned a couple of corners and wound up in a sitting room that had a Renoir on one wall and a view that extended beyond the Statue of Liberty. “My apartments that face the Park go for twice as much as the apartments that face south. But I consider this view to be more beautiful than that view, especially at night. As a cityscape, it can’t be beat.”Advertisement
We then drove down to 40 Wall Street, where members of a German television crew were waiting for Trump to show them around. (“This will be the finest office building anywhere in New York. Not just downtown—anywhere in New York.”) Along the way, we stopped for a light at Forty-second Street and First Avenue. The driver of a panel truck in the next lane began waving, then rolled down his window and burbled, “I never see you in person!” He was fortyish, wore a blue watch cap, and spoke with a Hispanic inflection. “But I see you a lot on TV.”
“Good,” said Trump. “Thank you. I think.”
“Where’s Marla?”
“She’s in Louisiana, getting ready to host the Miss U.S.A. pageant. You better watch it. O.K.?”
“O.K., I promise,” said the man in the truck. “Have a nice day, Mr. Trump. And have a profitable day.”
“Always.”
Later, Trump said to me, “You want to know what total recognition is? I’ll tell you how you know you’ve got it. When the Nigerians on the street corners who don’t speak a word of English, who have no clue, who’re selling watches for some guy in New Jersey—when you walk by and those guys say, ‘Trump! Trump!’ That’s total recognition.”
Next, we headed north, to Mount Kisco, in Westchester County—specifically to Seven Springs, a fifty-five-room limestone-and-granite Georgian splendor completed in 1917 by Eugene Meyer, the father of Katharine Graham. If things proceeded according to plan, within a year and a half the house would become the centerpiece of the Trump Mansion at Seven Springs, a golf club where anyone willing to part with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could tee up. As we approached, Trump made certain I paid attention to the walls lining the driveway. “Look at the quality of this granite. Because I’m like, you know, into quality. Look at the quality of that wall. Hand-carved granite, and the same with the house.” Entering a room where two men were replastering a ceiling, Trump exulted, “We’ve got the pros here! You don’t see too many plasterers anymore. I take a union plasterer from New York and bring him up here. You know why? Because he’s the best.” We canvassed the upper floors and then the basement, where Trump sized up the bowling alley as a potential spa. “This is very much Mar-a-Lago all over again,” he said. “A great building, great land, great location. Then the question is what to do with it.”
From the rear terrace, Trump mapped out some holes of the golf course: an elevated tee above a par three, across a ravine filled with laurel and dogwood; a couple of parallel par fours above the slope that led to a reservoir. Then he turned to me and said, “I bought this whole thing for seven and a half million dollars. People ask, ‘How’d you do that?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ Does that make sense?” Not really, nor did his next utterance: “You know, nobody’s ever seen a granite house before.”
Granite? Nobody? Never? In the history of humankind? Impressive.
A few months ago, Marla Maples Trump, with a straight face, told an interviewer about life with hubby: “He really has the desire to have me be more of the traditional wife. He definitely wants his dinner promptly served at seven. And if he’s home at six-thirty it should be ready by six-thirty.” Oh well, so much for that.
In Trump’s office the other morning, I asked whether, in light of his domestic shuffle, he planned to change his living arrangements. He smiled for the first time that day and said, “Where am I going to live? That might be the most difficult question you’ve asked so far. I want to finish the work on my apartment at Trump International. That should take a few months, maybe two, maybe six. And then I think I’ll live there for maybe six months. Let’s just say, for a period of time. The buildings always work better when I’m living there.”
What about the Trump Tower apartment? Would that sit empty?
“Well, I wouldn’t sell that. And, of course, there’s no one who would ever build an apartment like that. The penthouse at Trump International isn’t nearly as big. It’s maybe seven thousand square feet. But it’s got a living room that is the most spectacular residential room in New York. A twenty-five-foot ceiling. I’m telling you, the best room anywhere. Do you understand?”
I think I did: the only apartment with a better view than the best apartment in the world was the same apartment. Except for the one across the Park, which had the most spectacular living room in the world. No one had ever seen a granite house before. And, most important, every square inch belonged to Trump, who had aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul. “Trump”—a fellow with universal recognition but with a suspicion that an interior life was an intolerable inconvenience, a creature everywhere and nowhere, uniquely capable of inhabiting it all at once, all alone. ♦Published by The New Yorker in the print edition of the May 19, 1997, issue.
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Isabel Sylvia Margaret Maxwell (born 16 August 1950) is a French-born entrepreneur who was the co-founder of Magellan. Maxwell is a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum, and the President emerita of Commtouch. She was a Director of Israel Venture Network and built up their Social Entrepreneur program in Israel from 2004-2010. Maxwell was also Senior Adviser to Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus‘ not-for-profit microfinance organization Grameen America. In 1973, Maxwell made her first film, an adaptation of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Her second film, a documentary on lesbian women, was made in 1980 while at Southern Television in the UK. Maxwell worked with Djerassi Films Inc. on collaborative projects with Dale Djerassi whom she married in 1984.
So in 2009, Isabel had her own young parasite to feed. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “parked” Alex in one of the most sensitive areas of Obama’s executive apparatus. Alex Djerassi was put in charge of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, covering the Middle East. He worked directly on the Arab Spring, and Hillary sent Alex as the US representative to the expatriate rebel groups Friends of Libya and Friends of the Syrian People. He served there from until 2012. Together, they did arab springs and killed Ghaddafi in 2011.
UPDATE: Guess what happened right after that? Did they just say something about Libya?!
The State Department is responding to claims that officials may have covered up alleged illegal and inappropriate behavior by department personnel, while an ambassador is accused of “routinely” soliciting sexual favors. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.
A U.S. ambassador who allegedly became the target of an internal State Department investigation after being accused of prostitution and pedophilia denied any misconduct in a statement.
“I am angered and saddened by the baseless allegations that have appeared in the press,” the ambassador said, adding that to see his time in the country where he served “smeared is devastating.
The ambassador, who has not been charged or convicted of a crime, is not being identified by NBC News.
The ambassador wrote that he lives “on a beautiful park” in the country “that you walk through to get to many locations and at no point have I ever engaged in any improper activity.”
The ambassador who came under investigation “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” according to documents obtained by NBC News.
The alleged misconduct took place during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure, according to the documents, which also say those activities may not have been properly looked into.
Top state department officials directed investigators to “cease the investigation” into the ambassador’s conduct, according to the memo.
A state department spokesperson would not confirm the specific investigations, but told NBC News “the notion that we would not vigorously pursue criminal misconduct in a case, in any case, is preposterous.”
Former State Department investigator Aurelia Fedenisn has said that investigators dropped the ball in the case, and that a final report published in March of this year was “watered down,” according to her attorney.
“She felt it was important that Congress get this information,” Fedenisn’s lawyer Cary Schulman told NBC News.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the department “would never condone” improper influence on its investigators. “Any case we would take seriously and we would investigate, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
A senior State Department official also disputed the notion that any investigations had been squashed, saying: “You know there’s a lot of conflated information on cases occasionally. I can tell you that not everybody walking in Central Park is out there looking for prostitutes or hook ups.”
Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce meanwhile said that he would ask his staff to look into the allege misconduct.
“I am appalled not only at the reported misconduct itself, but at the reported interference in the investigations of the misconduct,” Royce said. “The notion that any or all of the cases contained in news reports would not be investigated thoroughly by the department is unthinkable.” – NBC News
At the time when Djerassi worked in Libya, US Ambassador was this guy:
Ambassador Gene A. Cretz is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor. Since 2008, Ambassador Cretz has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. From 2004 to 2007, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. From 2003 to 2004, he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Damascus where he served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d’Affaires. From 2001 to 2003, he was Minister-Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Egypt. Other overseas assignments include service in Beijing, New Delhi, and Islamabad. Assignments in Washington include State Department posts in the Bureau of International Organizations, the Operations Center, and in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. From 1975 to 1977, Ambassador Cretz served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan. – Source
“While in Libya, Cretz had a working relationship with two of Gadhafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam Muammar Gadhafi and Motasem Gadhafi, both of whom are high-ranking officials in the Libyan government.” – Times Union
Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, has made his intentions clear. He will run in the 2018 presidential elections in Libya. A spokesperson for the Gaddafi family, Basem al-Hashimi al-Soul, confirmed this to Egypt Today. (Source: “Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to run for 2018 presidential election,” Egypt Today, December 17, 2017.)
“Prince Andrew And His Dodgy Friendships With Epstein, Gaddafi’s Son & Kazakh Billionaire”
Saif, the second son of Muammar Gaddafi and once seen as the heir apparent to the Libyan dictator, was the suave, English-speaking, reformist face of the Libyan regime. However, following the revolution in 2011, he was also being accused of using lethal force on protesters, torture, enslavement and crimes against humanity. He was also allegedly friends with Prince Andrew. And though the royal family denied this as being the case, a report in Daily Mail quoted sources as saying that the Prince met Gaddafi in Libya in 2008, and privately on two other occasions. The scandal broke in 2011, just as the royal family was preparing for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and there were talks that Andrew’s links to Gaddafi — and a string of other notorious Middle East tycoons — might result in him being stripped of his title and duties. – Economic Times
In 2006, the German newspaper Der Spiegel and the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia reported that Saif al-Islam was romantically linked to Orly Weinerman, an Israeli actress and model, they dated from 2005-2011. At the time, Weinerman publicly denied having any contact with Saif al-Islam, but she has since admitted it, and in September 2012, she asked former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to intervene in his trial in order to spare his life.
In 2009, a party in Montenegro for his 37th birthday included well-known guests such as Oleg Deripaska, Peter Munk and Prince Albert of Monaco.
“Saif’s connections extend into the City of London and Westminster. Saif is an acquaintance of Lord Mandelson and met the former Labour minister at a Corfu villa the week before it was announced that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would be released from a Scottish prison. The two men met again when they were guests at Lord Rothschild’s mansion in Buckinghamshire. Rothschild’s son and heir, Nat, also a close friend of Mandelson, held a party in New York attended by Saif in 2008. Saif in turn invited Nat Rothschild to his 37th birthday party in Montenegro, where the financier is investing in a luxury resort. Prince Andrew, too, has played host to Saif at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and the two men have also met in Tripoli. Others whom Saif classes as good friends include Tony Blair and, bizarrely, the late Austrian far-right leader, Jörg Haider.” – The Geardian, 11,27,2011
Alan Dershowitz on Jeffrey Epstein: “I was introduced to him by the lady Rothschild”. Who else?
“A meeting between a dictator’s son and a senior Cabinet minister at a classic English shooting party revealed how deeply the Gaddafi regime wormed its way into the British Establishment. The weekend took place in 2009 at Waddesdon Manor, the Buckinghamshire home owned by financier Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was a guest of financier Nat Rothschild and Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary who was virtual deputy to Gordon Brown. The peer and Saif are said to have got on well and met again at the Rothschild holiday home in Corfu, where Lord Mandelson stayed for a week and discussed the case of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was freed days later.
Saif is Muammar Gaddafi‘s third son and heir apparent. LSE educated, he owns a home in Hampstead with eight bedrooms, indoor pool, sauna and cinema. Last year Saif claimed Tony Blair was a “personal family friend” who had visited Libya many times, becoming an adviser to Colonel Gaddafi over the fund that manages Libya’s £65 billion oil wealth. Other key business links include Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 officer who moved into BP, and Margaret Thatcher‘s former policy aide Lord Powell, whose companies have invested in Libyan hotels and offices.
The Gaddafi family is believed to have stashed most of its wealth in Dubai, south-east Asia and the Gulf, where banking is more secretive than in Britain. The Libyan Investment Authority owns three per cent of Pearson, which owns the Financial Times. Its property includes a retail complex in Oxford Street.” – London Evening Standard
So it looks like the only surviving and free member of Muammar Ghaddafi’s “Inner Circle” is the one that befriended the right people.
“Thanks to Wikileaks, we also know that the authorization for the Libya war was Hillary Clinton’s achievement, which meant turning the state into an ISIS haven. Her notorious laughter when hearing about Gaddafi’s brutal death makes one realize what kind of ruthless gang of bandits that the US had as political leaders, people with no respect whatsoever for national sovereignty or international law.
This American cartel activity is now out in the open to the point that president Donald Trump openly states that Obama is the founder of ISIS, co-founded by Hillary Clinton. Which, by the way must be a great joy to many Muslims, who for years have had their religion thrown in the dirt since “Islam is barbarism, just watch ISIS”. As it turns out, ISIS is American geopolitical barbarism at its worst.
Der Spiegelreporting on the finding of the ISIS organization chart, discovered in the house of killed ISIS strategist Hadj Bakr in 2015, further showed that ISIS was not particularly occupied with Islam, but rather much more about intelligence, surveillance, and military operations, and how to infiltrate and break down Syrian civil society. The chart shows remarkable resemblance to CIA organizational charts of covert operations, hardly easy for some rugged Sunni-Baathist remnants in northern Iraq to chart out.
Current ISIS leader in Libya Abdulhakim Belhadj, who was a leading NATO ally in 2011 and became the military governor of Tripoli after the war, long displayed his excellent relationship to republicans such as John McCain. The senator must be an exceptionally stupid individual, hailing on his own webpage Belhadj as a “Libyan patriot whom we should support.” He further notoriously asserted that it was he and Lindsey Graham who convinced the Saudis to fund the opposition in Syria—thus proudly stating that it was the US who got the Saudis into the whole Syrian mess.
Furthermore, the shocking scandal on how the Obama/Clinton-backed government in Libya have detained thousands of prisoners for years and kept them without trial in Libyan jails, is currently, maybe, the world’s worst example of lack of respect for the Geneva convention and the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment in war. Human Rights Watch has long complained about this. Sources on the ground state that as many as 35,000 Gaddafi loyalists have been incarcerated and continually detained without trial since 2011. This is happening in Tripoli, Misrata, and other places in Libya under the Western backed leadership and under Obama/Clinton’s watch. (…) The national Libyan assets never belonged to the US Obama/Clinton administration or its affiliated international cartel friends. Yet, according to sources on the ground, the US still control part of the LIA, Libyan Central Bank, and oil revenues through its liaisons with the Western backed Tripoli government, where the current Central Bank governor, Sadiq al-Kabir, the link to IMF and other Western institutions. The LIA currently consists of $67 billion investments, yet in 2011 its frozen assets were around $150 billion. Many wonder what happened to the discrepancy and hope to establish in the future who took what.” – Foreing Policy Journal 2017/02/10
FUN FACT:
Dale Djerassi is the son of Carl Djerassi, the scientist who invented the birth-control pill.
Dale Djerassi gave $8,200 to Clinton’s “New York Senate 2000” committee in June, 2000, and participated in the bizarre “St. Batman Crucifixion” in Woodside, Calif., in 1994. The performance art piece was a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus, featuring a naked man wearing a Batman medallion and mask being tied to a giant cross by Djerassi and another man.
St. Batman
UPDATE: And then this happened…
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Reproduced from The Guardian. First published on Sun 4 Mar 2007 12.03 GMT
It is a question that few thought a man aiming to be America’s first black President would ever have to answer: did your family once own slaves?
But that question is now likely to be asked of Senator Barack Obama, who is bidding for the 2008 presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, in part on the appeal of his bi-racial background.
As the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, Obama has seemed to embody a harmonious vision of America’s multiracial society. However, recent revelations have thrown up an unexpected twist in the tale.
Obama’s ancestors on his white mother’s side appear to have been slave owners. William Reitwiesner, an amateur genealogical researcher, has published a history of Obama’s mother’s family and discovered that her ancestors have a distinctly shadowy past.
Reitwiesner traced Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Overall, and found that he owned two slaves in Kentucky: a 15-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man. He also found out that Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Duvall, also owned a pair of slaves listed in an 1850 census record. They were a 60-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman. In fact, the Duvalls were a wealthy family whose members were descended from a major landowner, Maureen Duvall, whose estate owned at least 18 slaves in the 17th century.
The news comes at a time when Obama is engaged in a fierce battle with Senator Hillary Clinton to woo black voters in their bids to get the Democratic presidential nomination. It also comes ahead of appearances by both Clinton and Obama today in Selma, Alabama, to mark the anniversary of a famous 1965 civil rights march. This is hardly the best time to be exposed as the descendant of slave owners.
Reitwiesner has posted his research, which he warns is a ‘first draft’, on his website, wargs.com. However, the news is unlikely to be a serious political problem for Obama, despite the fact that some black commentators have accused him of not being a real black American. Nor is he likely to be alone in finding out that his white ancestors once owned the ancestors of his fellow black Americans. America, like Britain, is caught in the grip of a frenzy of genealogical research. Dozens of websites have sprung up, allowing fast and easy access to all sorts of historical records and prompting many Americans to research their family trees.
That can throw up some very surprising results. In fact, last week Obama was not even the only black politician to find out some unusual personal history. The civil rights campaigner, the Reverend Al Sharpton was stunned to discover his slave ancestors were owned by the late politician Strom Thurmond, who once ran for President on a staunchly racist segregationist platform. The pair might even be related. The news prompted Sharpton to issue a statement about his private agony at the revelation. ‘Words cannot fully describe the feelings I had when I learned the awful truth. Not only I am the descendant of slaves, but my family had to endure the particular agony of being slaves to the Thurmonds.’
Obama’s campaign team have handled the news of his family’s slaving past a bit more casually and a lot less emotionally, issuing a statement saying such a family background was ‘representative of America’. That is certainly true. Slavery was the economic bedrock of the American economy in the South before the Civil War. It would come as no surprise that anyone tracing their family roots back to the pre-war South would find that his descendants had owned slaves.
But more edifying discoveries can come from looking at the past too. Another of Obama’s ancestors, his great-great-great-grandfather, Christopher Columbus Clark, fought for the Union army in the Civil War. As a result Obama can also lay claim to relatives who risked their lives to end slavery. ‘While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union,’ said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in a statement. Perhaps it is just another case of Obama’s complex past showing that he can have it both ways.
The following correction was printed in the Observer’s For the record column, Sunday March 11 2007 The article above was incorrect to claim that the Rev Al Sharpton’s slave ancestors ‘were owned by the late politician Strom Thurmond, who once stood for President on a staunchly racist, segregationalist platform’. Al Sharpton’s great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond’s great-great-grandfather.
An Obama spokesman did not dispute the information and said Obama’s ancestors “are representative of America.” – Chicago Tribune
While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War. And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president.
Barack Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, 2007
The records could add a new dimension to questions by some who have asked whether Obama–who was raised in East Asia and Hawaii and educated at Columbia and Harvard–is attuned to the struggles of American blacks descended from West African slaves.
Gary Boyd Roberts, a senior research scholar at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, said he did not think the slave-holding history was “particularly unusual.”
“If you have a white Southern mother, or a mother from the middle states who has ancestry in the South, it doesn’t strike me that that should be very surprising,” he said. While most such families did not own slaves, many did, Roberts said.
Reitwiesner’s research identifies two other presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), as descendants of slave owners. Three of McCain’s great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi owned slaves, including one who owned 52 in 1860. Two ancestors of Edwards owned one slave each in Georgia in 1860.
It was unclear Thursday night whether Obama was aware of any slave-holding ancestors, but he makes no mention of them in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”
Genealogical experts who reviewed the Obama family tree at the request of the Sun would not vouch for its findings.
“You just can’t casually throw some documents together and make a sophisticated analysis,” said Tony Burroughs, author of “Black Roots: A Beginner’s Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree” and a consultant on a New York Daily News project that found that relatives of former Sen. Strom Thurmond appear to have owned the ancestors of civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton. – – Chicago Tribune
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This is what they call “flooding the zone” in Event201 An euphemism for lousy lazy spamming I can book from Pakistani click-farms if I had the money, except those are downranked by their competition at Google, Facebook and the Funky Bunch. These losers spent billions on “AI” and all they got was junk spam services that got even Stevie Wonder alerted.
Before we enter the official documents, please do the following experiment: Pick any number between 10 and 1000. Write it in an online search engine, followed by “new cases”. Watch hundreds and thousands of news pieces reporting that specific number of cases in hundreds different locations, especially US. Remember that 46% of the officially reported Covid-19 fatalities in US come from New York. Compare that with the distribution in the news. If you have basic knowledge of calculus, ask yourself: How many billions people have been reported in total? What volume of work was required for all that reporting, in a time when much of the media was laid off or working from home, while the volume of events/news was never higher?
JULY 2021 UPDATE:
One year later, the test looks like this:
Twitter is hilarious sometimes. Do a search fo ‘My brother has just tested positive for covid.’ and you will find all of the people whose mom slept with the same man and got pregnant. The dude is a prolific inseminator. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
— Ricky Burnett (Code R3DKNIGHT) (@RickyInJapan) July 7, 2021
This publication intends to provide a non-exhaustive overview of articles from the media and other available public sources. It does not reflect the views of the CAHAI and of the Council of Europe.
China, the first epicentre of this disease and renowned for its technological advance in this field, has tried to use this to its real advantage. Its uses seem to have included support for measures restricting the movement of populations, forecasting the evolution of disease outbreaks and research for the development of a vaccine or treatment. With regard to the latter aspect, AI has been used to speed up genome sequencing, make faster diagnoses, carry out scanner analyses or, more occasionally, handle maintenance and delivery robots (A. Chun, In a time of coronavirus, China’s investment in AI is paying off in a big way, South China Morning post, 18 March 2020).
Its contributions, which are also undeniable in terms of organising better access to scientific publications or supporting research, does not eliminate the need for clinical test phases nor does it replace human expertise entirely. The structural issues encountered by health infrastructures in this crisis situation are not due to technological solutions but to the organisation of health services, which should be able to prevent such situations occurring (Article 11 of the European Social Charter). Emergency measures using technological solutions, including AI, should also be assessed at the end of the crisis. Those that infringe on individual freedoms should not be trivialised on the pretext of a better protection of the population. The provisions of Convention 108+ should in particular continue to be applied.
The contribution of artificial intelligence to the search for a cure
The first application of AI expected in the face of a health crisis is certainly the assistance to researchers to find a vaccine able to protect caregivers and contain the pandemic. Biomedicine and research rely on a large number of techniques, among which the various applications of computer science and statistics have already been making a contribution for a long time. The use of AI is therefore part of this continuity.
The predictions of the virus structure generated by AI have already saved scientists months of experimentation. AI seems to have provided significant support in this sense, even if it is limited due to so-called “continuous” rules and infinite combinatorics for the study of protein folding. The American start-up Moderna has distinguished itself by its mastery of a biotechnology based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) for which the study of protein folding is essential. It has managed to significantly reduce the time required to develop a prototype vaccine testable on humans thanks to the support of bioinformatics, of which AI is an integral part.
Indeed, in the weeks following the appearance of the new coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, nearly 2,000 research papers were published on the effects of this new virus, on possible treatments, and on the dynamics of the pandemic. This influx of scientific literature naturally reflects the eagerness of researchers to deal with this major health crisis, but it also represents a real challenge for anyone hoping to exploit it.
Microsoft Research, the National Library of Medicine and the Allen Institute for AI (AI2) therefore presented their work on 16 March 2020, which consisted of collecting and preparing more than 29,000 documents relating to the new virus and the broader family of coronaviruses, 13,000 of which were processed so that computers could read the underlying data, as well as information on authors and their affiliations. Kaggle, a Google subsidiary and platform that usually organisesdata science competitions, created challenges around 10 key questions related to the coronavirus. These questions range from risk factors and non-drug treatments to the genetic properties of the virus and vaccine development efforts. The project also involves the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (named after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan) and Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies (W. Knight, Researchers Will Deploy AI to Better Understand Coronavirus, Wired, March 17, 2020).
Artificial intelligence, observer and predictor of the evolution of the pandemic
The Canadian company BlueDot is credited with the early detection of the virus using an AI and its ability to continuously review over 100 data sets, such as news, airline ticket sales, demographics, climate data and animal populations. BlueDot detected what was then considered an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China on 31 December 2019 and identified the cities most likely to experience this outbreak (C. Stieg, How this Canadian start-up spotted coronavirus before everyone else knew about it, CNBC, March 3, 2020).
A team of researchers working with the Boston Children’s Hospital has also developed an AI to track the spread of the coronavirus. Called HealthMap, the system integrates data from Google searches, social media and blogs, as well as discussion forums: sources of information that epidemiologists do not usually use, but which are useful for identifying the first signs of an outbreak and assessing public response (A. Johnson, How Artificial Intelligence is Aiding the fight Against Coronavirus, Datainnovation, March 13, 2020).
The International Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) in Slovenia, under the auspices of UNESCO, has launched an “intelligent” media watch on coronavirus called Corona Virus Media Watch which provides updates on global and national news based on a selection of media with open online information. The tool, also developed with the support of the OECD and the Event Registry information extraction technology, is presented as a useful source of information for policy makers, the media and the public to observe emerging trends related to Covid-19 in their countries and around the world.
Artificial intelligence to assist healthcare personnel
For their part, two Chinese companies have developed AI-based coronavirus diagnostic software. The Beijing-based start-up Infervision has trained its software to detect lung problems using computed tomography (CT) scans. Originally used to diagnose lung cancer, the software can also detect pneumonia associated with respiratory diseases such as coronavirus. At least 34 Chinese hospitals are reported to have used this technology to help them screen 32,000 suspected cases (T. Simonite, Chinese Hospitals Deploy AI to Help Diagnose Covid-19, Wired, February 26, 2020).
The Alibaba DAMO Academy, the research arm of the Chinese company Alibaba, has also trained an AI system to recognise coronaviruses with an accuracy claimed to be 96%. According to the company, the system could process the 300 to 400 scans needed to diagnose a coronavirus in 20 to 30 seconds, whereas the same operation would usually take an experienced doctor 10 to 15 minutes. The system is said to have helped at least 26 Chinese hospitals to review more than 30,000 cases (C. Li, How DAMO Academy’s AI System Detects Coronavirus Cases, Alizila, March 10, 2020).
In South Korea, AI is reported to have helped reduce the time needed to design testing kits based on the genetic make-up of the virus to a few weeks, when it would normally take two to three months. The biotech company Seegene used its automated test development system to develop the test kit and distribute it widely. Large-scale testing is indeed crucial to overcome containment measures and this testing policy seems to have contributed to the relative control of the pandemic in this country, which has equipped 118 medical establishments with this device and tested more than 230,000 people (I. Watson, S. Jeong, J. Hollingsworth, T. Booth, How this South Korean company created coronavirus test kits in three weeks, CNN World, March 13, 2020).
Artificial intelligence as a tool for population control
The example set by Singapore in its control of epidemic risks, with the support of technology, is certainly unique and difficult to export because of the social acceptance of restrictive safety measures: issue of a containment order for populations at risk, verification of compliance with the measures by mobile phone and geolocation, random home checks (K. Vaswani, Coronavirus: The detectives racing to contain the virus in Singapore, BBC News, 19 March 2020). AI has been quite widely used in support of such mass surveillance policies as in China, where devices have been used to measure temperature and recognize individuals or to equip law enforcement agencies with “smart” helmets capable of flagging individuals with high body temperature. Facial recognition devices have, however, experienced difficulties due to the wearing of surgical masks, leading one company to attempt to circumvent this difficulty since many services in China now rely on this technology, including state services for surveillance measures. Hanvon thus claims to have created a device to increase the recognition rate of wearers of surgical masks to 95% (M. Pollard, Even mask-wearers can be ID’d, China facial recognition firm says, Reuters, 9 March 2020). In Israel, a plan to use individual telephone follow-up to warn users not to mix with people potentially carrying the virus has been developed (A. Laurent, COVID-19: States use geolocalisation to know who respects containment, Usebk & Rica, 20 March 2020 – in French only). In South Korea, an alert transferred to the health authorities is triggered when people do not comply with the isolation period, for example by being in a crowded place such as on public transport or a shopping centre (Ibid.). In Taiwan, a mobile phone is given to infected persons and records their GPS location so that police can track their movements and ensure that they do not move away from their place of confinement (Ibid.). In Italy, a company has also developed a smartphone application that can be used to trace the itinerary of a person infected with the virus and warn people who have had contact with him or her. According to the designer, privacy would be guaranteed, as the application would not reveal phone numbers or personal data (E. Tebano, Coronavirus, pronta la app italiana per tracciare i contagi: ‘Così possiamo fermare l’epidemia’, Corriere della Sera, 18 March 2020) In Lombardy, telephone operators have made available data concerning the movement of mobile phones from one telephone terminal to another (M. Pennisi, Coronavirus, come funzionano il controllo delle celle e il tracciamento dei contagi. Il Garante: «Non bisogna improvvisare», Corriere della Sera, 20 March 2020).
In the United States, tension can be perceived between guaranteeing individual rights and protecting collective interests during this health crisis. Thus, the GAFAM have at their disposal in the United States information which would be extremely valuable in times of crisis: an immense amount of data on the American population. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist and executive director of Google.org, claims that he can “change the face of public health” and believes that “few things in life are more important than the question of whether major technologies are too powerful, but a pandemic is undoubtedly one of them” (N. Scola, Big Tech faces a ‘Big Brother’ trap on coronavirus, POLITICO, 18 March 2020). The U.S. government has therefore asked these companies to have access to aggregated and anonymous data, especially on mobile phones, in order to fight the spread of the virus (T. Romm, E. Dwoskin, C. Timberg, U.S. government, tech industry discussing ways to use smartphone location data to combat coronavirus, The Washington Post, March 18, 2020). However, these companies have been cautious in view of the legal risk and potential image damage (S. Overly, White House seeks Silicon Valley help battling coronavirus, POLITICO, 11 March 2020). Data regulation would likely have helped frame the public-private dialogue and determine what types of emergencies should be subject to the collective interest over individual rights (as well as the conditions and guarantees of such a mechanism), but Congress has made no progress in the last two years on such a law.
Finally, attempts at misinformation have proliferated on social networks and the Internet. Whether it concerns the virus itself, the way it spreads or the means to fight its effects, many rumours have circulated (“Fake news” and disinformation about the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, INSERM, 19 February 2020). AI is a technology already used with some effectiveness by platforms to fight against inappropriate content. UNICEF adopted a statement on 9 March 2020 on misinformation about the coronavirus in which it intends to “actively take steps to provide accurate information about the virus by working with the World Health Organization, government authorities and online partners such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, to ensure that accurate information and advice is available, as well as by taking steps to inform the public when inaccurate information appears”. The enactment of restrictive measures in Council of Europe member States to avoid fuelling public concern is also envisaged. However, the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Media Environment and Media Reform (MSI-REF) underlined in a statement of 21 March 2020 that “the crisis situation should not be used as a pretext to restrict public access to information. Nor should States introduce restrictions on media freedom beyond the limits allowed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights”. The Committee also highlights that “member States, together with all media actors, should strive to ensure an environment conducive to quality journalism”.
Artificial intelligence: an evaluation of its use in the aftermath of a crisis
Digital technology, including information technology and AI, are therefore proving to be important tools to help build a coordinated response to this pandemic. The multiple uses also illustrate the limits of what can currently be achieved by this very technology, which we cannot expect to compensate for structural difficulties such as those experienced by many health care institutions around the world. The search for efficiency and cost reduction in hospitals, often supported by information technology, should not reduce the quality of services or compromise universal access to care, even in exceptional circumstances.
It should be recalled that Article 11 of the European Social Charter (ratified by 34 of the 47 member States of the Council of Europe) establishes a right to health protection which commits the signatories “to take, either directly or in co-operation with public and private organisations, appropriate measures designed in particular to : 1°) to eliminate, as far as possible, the causes of ill-health; 2°) to provide consultation and education services for the improvement of health and the development of a sense of individual responsibility for health; 3°) to prevent, as far as possible, epidemic, endemic and other diseases, as well as accidents.”
Finally, it should be possible to evaluate the emergency measures taken at the end of the crisis in order to identify the benefits and issues encountered by the use of digital tools and AI. In particular, the temporary measures of control and mass monitoring of the population by this technology should not be trivialized nor become permanent (Y. N. Harari, Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus, The Financial Times, 20 March 2020).
Standards relating to data protection, such as Convention 108(+) of the Council of Europe, must still be applied fully and under all circumstances: whether it be the use of biometric data, geolocalisation, facial recognition or the use of health data. Use of emergency measures should be carried out in full consultation with data protection authorities and respect the dignity and the private life of the users. The different biases of the various types of surveillance operations should be considered, as these may cause significant discrimination (A.F. Cahn, John Veiszlemlein, COVID-19 tracking data and surveillance risks are more dangerous than their rewards, NBC News, 19 March 2020).
Executives from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook met officials at Downing Street on Wednesday to discuss their role in the coronavirus crisis. One of the things discussed was their role in “modelling and tracking data”. In similar meetings at the White House, meanwhile, companies were asked how they could use artificial intelligence. A World Health Organization report last month said AI and big data were a key part of China’s response to the virus.
AI Can Write Disinformation Now—and Dupe Human Readers
Georgetown researchers used text generator GPT-3 to write misleading tweets about climate change and foreign affairs. People found the posts persuasive.
When OpenAI demonstrated a powerful artificial intelligence algorithm capable of generating coherent text last June, its creators warned that the tool could potentially be wielded as a weapon of online misinformation.
Now a team of disinformation experts has demonstrated how effectively that algorithm, called GPT-3, could be used to mislead and misinform. The results suggest that although AI may not be a match for the best Russian meme-making operative, it could amplify some forms of deception that would be especially difficult to spot.
Over six months, a group at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology used GPT-3 to generate misinformation, including stories around a false narrative, news articles altered to push a bogus perspective, and tweets riffing on particular points of disinformation.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that climate change is the new global warming,” read a sample tweet composed by GPT-3 that aimed to stoke skepticism about climate change. “They can’t talk about temperature increases because they’re no longer happening.” A second labeled climate change “the new communism—an ideology based on a false science that cannot be questioned.”
Ben Buchanan, professor, Georgetown“With a little bit of human curation, GPT-3 is quite effective” at promoting falsehoods, says Ben Buchanan, a professor at Georgetown involved with the study, who focuses on the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and statecraft.
The Georgetown researchers say GPT-3, or a similar AI language algorithm, could prove especially effective for automatically generating short messages on social media, what the researchers call “one-to-many” misinformation.
Bots appear to be flooding Twitter with messages claiming their siblings have been infected with the Covid Delta variant, keen social media users observed Wednesday, NewsWars reports.
The messages, disseminated by random UK Twitter accounts, has users tell followers their vaccinated brother tested positive for the Delta variant, while criticizing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s lifting of Covid restrictions.
“My brother has just tested positive for covid. The delta variant. He has been double jabbed. How on earth can Johnson go ahead with relaxing the rules on the 19th July. It’s madness,” the tweets read, going on to tag the UK PM.
The pro-lockdown messages, which cast doubt on the effectiveness of vaccines, were evidently made in unison to give the perception of manufactured consent.
Just did a quick search of two sentences of this manufactured tweet and here are the results: pic.twitter.com/8s8MCjM4jx
— JustOneMoreThing (@seekingthetroof) July 7, 2021
The flood of exactly similar comments come as Johnson has announced “Freedom Day,” or the lifting of all Covid restrictions and mask rules, to take place on July 19 if certain conditions are met.
UPDATE August 2021:
Isn’t this exactly what Twitter cancel-mobs are made of? And most of the Twitter support for globolibtard policies?
And then they use this noise as justification for what they gonna do to living people.
EPILOGUE?
MARCH 28, 2023
How about this buzzword:
Computer-Generated Reality (CGR)
Ah, wait. we already have the Matrix for that…
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In recent years, there has been a growing debate about what role foundations should play in global health governance generally, and particularly vis-a-vis the World Health Organization (WHO). Much of this discussion revolves around today’s gargantuan philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and its sway over the agenda and modus operandi of global health. Yet such pre-occupations are not new. The Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the unparalleled 20th century health philanthropy heavyweight, both profoundly shaped WHO and maintained long and complex relations with it, even as both institutions changed over time
According to the Rockefeller Foundation official website, John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s interest in health was in large part influenced by Frederick T. Gates, who was Rockefeller’s philanthropic advisor. Gates had a personal interest in medical research, and he believed strongly that it could be of universal benefit. In 1901, Gates persuaded Rockefeller to fund the creation of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research (RIMR) to research the causes, prevention and cures of disease. While financial support for the RIMR was initially disbursed in small increments, by 1928 the organization had received $65 million in Rockefeller funding.
Born in 1853 to a Baptist minister, Gates was raised with a strong dedication to his faith. After graduating from the University of Rochester in New York in 1877 and the Rochester Theological Seminary in 1880, he was ordained as a Baptist minister and spent the next eight years as pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 1888 while working as Secretary for the American Baptist Education Society, Gates came to the attention of John D. Rockefeller (JDR). JDR was approached by Gates as part of a campaign to create a major Baptist university in the Midwest. Convinced by Gates’ arguments for such an institution, JDR became the principal benefactor of what became the University of Chicago in 1892.
JDR was impressed by Gates’ fundraising and planning skills and proposed that Gates come to manage his philanthropic and business activities.
From this position Gates established his legacy in the field of philanthropy. In 1897, inspired by the lack of medical research facilities in the U.S., Gates laid out a plan for opening an American medical research institution. This plan – his first major endeavor as Rockefeller’s philanthropic advisor – led to the creation of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. He also played an essential role in creating and organizing the General Education Board (GEB) in 1902 and the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission (RSC) for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease in 1909.
His most notable contribution to early philanthropy, however, was his role in the establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). It was Gates’ vision of a large, professionally staffed foundation that could work for the general purpose of “the welfare of mankind” that convinced JDR to provide the resources for the new foundation. During his time on the RF Board of Trustees, Gates encouraged a focus on health initiatives (setting an agenda that prevailed for decades) and oversaw early activities of the Foundation, including the development of the International Health Division (IHD) and the China Medical Board (CMB). He served a ten-year term on the RF Board of Trustees before retiring in 1923.
Any lawsuit against the Rockefeller Foundation is a lawsuit against the ones who funded not only Mengele’s, but all the others’ grotesque Auschwitz experiments and are behind serious threats to humanity in the present.
Rockefellers funded the Nazi experiments in the concentrations camps
Jews who know the history of WWII are aware that it was IG Farben, the pharmaceutical and chemical giant, which put Hitler into office and ran the camps. And they know that the Rockefellers had half interest in IG Farben and IG Farben had half interest in the Rockefellers’ Standard Oil.
But while they know that Auschwitz was the site of hideous forced human “medical experiments,” most Jews believe that the horrors of Nazi experiments ended in Nazi Germany.
Rockefellers brought the Nazi doctors and researchers to the US
The Rockefellers and OSS (now the CIA) brought Nazi “doctors” and “researchers” to the US under a program called Operation Paperclip. Nazis were given new identities, false passports, and inserted into medical institutions, and bioweapons, aerospace, military, and spy agencies here, and also were helped to escape to and do similar work for other countries and global agencies. There is reason to believe based on the actions of those global agencies, that some also became part of the newly established UN – including WHO, UNICEF, and UNESCO.
Leaks or revelations are often more compelling because of what they don’t reveal. Through Operation Paperclip, the U.S. organized a monumental transfer of black technology by actively recruiting Nazi criminals for employment by U.S. intelligence. Author H. P. Albarelli excavates the part that was missing from the recently-outed official report: the U.S. pointedly chose fervent Nazi scientists with experience in chemical, biological and radioactive warfare to become the architects of the CIA’s darkest military experiments with human guinea pigs, reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
On 11 November 1954, thirty-nine of the German-born scientists who entered the United States through Project Paperclip were sworn in as U.S. citizens. Military Intelligence “cleansed” the files of Nazi references. By 1955, more than 760 German scientists had been granted citizenship in the U.S. and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, had used slave labor, and had committed other war crimes.
Marvin Washington Brooks had been terribly ill for nearly three months. A year prior in early-1952, he had been diagnosed with cancer and had been admitted as “a patient for treatment” to the University of Texas Medical School’s M.D. Anderson Hospital. Brooks had served as an infantryman in the Army during World War II. He had received a Purple Heart for being wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. Not long after he was admitted to the M.D. Anderson Hospital, Brooks began to receive weekly treatment from a team of physicians led by an older doctor with a heavy German accent and three distinctive scars across his face. Brooks was told the treatment could significantly affect his cancer in positive ways. But Brooks had become increasingly ill, with constant vomiting, weight and hair loss, and patchy skin with large areas appearing as if severely sunburned. Within about six months of the weekly treatment, Brooks was in constant pain. He died the first month of 1955, two days before what would have turned 47 years old. Brooks was never informed that he was one of 263 cancer patients who were secretly being experimented upon with “whole body irradiation.” Brooks, nor his wife or family, had ever been consulted about the experiments. Nor had Brooks, or anyone else, given the hospital permission to experiment on him. Nobody ever told Brooks, or anyone in his family, that the German physician who saw him weekly was Dr. Herbert Bruno Gerstner, a former Nazi doctor who had been secretly brought to the United States in 1949.
On November 17, 2010 the CIA’s Director of Public Affairs, George Little, wrote a short letter to the editor of the New York Times. Little, on behalf of the agency, protested a just published Times article that detailed CIA “interactions with former Nazi officials in the early years of the post World War II era.” Mr. Little wrote, “We would like to make clear that the agency at no time had a policy or a program to protect Nazi war criminals, or to help them escape justice for their actions during the war.”
The article provoking the CIA’s ire had appeared on the front page of the Times’ Sunday, November 14 edition. Written by reporter Eric Lichtblau, it was entitled “Nazi’s Were Given ’Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says”. The article focused on a 600-page “secret report” that had been produced by the U.S. Justice Department. The report, which Justice Department officials had suppressed from public release for years, details the American government’s importation into the U.S., following the end of World War II, of countless numbers of Nazis.
Written in a dry, bureaucratic style, the report recounts a number of examples of well-known Nazis to whom both the CIA and Department of State had provided both shelter and employment to, including Adolph Eichman, Otto Von Bolschwing, Dr. Josef Mengele, and Arthur Rudolph. To the purposes of this article, it is important to underscore here that the long-concealed report makes no mention whatsoever of the many Nazi scientists who specialized in chemical, biological and radioactive warfare and who were secretly relocated in the United States between the years 1946 and 1958.
For many readers, especially those unfamiliar with Project Paperclip, the New York Times article was stunning news. For those who were knowledgeable of the Pentagon’s and CIA’s long-overlooked aggressive efforts at recruiting and utilizing Nazi scientists the article was mostly old news, but its publication along with its accusatory finger pointing at the intelligence agency was encouraging.
While the intent here is not to cast aspersions on Mr. Little— who most likely has little knowledge about the subject in question, and was only issuing protestations at the behest of someone well above him, perhaps DCI Leon Panetta— it is to take strong exception with the CIA’s denial, and to offer ample evidence, taken from the agency’s own files among other government resources, that the denial is blatantly erroneous.
“Operation Paperclip” transferred to the U.S. over 1,600 Nazi scientists, largely escaping the Nuremberg trials. Men who were classified as ’ardent Nazis’ were chosen – just weeks after Hitler’s defeat – to become ’respectable’ U.S. citizens, some of whom are allegedly still working in places like Brookhaven labs, Cold Spring Harbor and Plum Island. Photo: Gen. Reinhard Gehlen (middle) and his SS united were hired, and swiftly became agents of the CIA when they revealed their massive records on the Soviet Union to the US.
Henry Kissinger, “Rockefeller’s best employee”, the Jew that brought Nazi murderers to the US
Kissinger And Rockefeller: Connections To The CIA And The Origins Of AIDS And Ebola
Six years ago [i.e. 1990], most of you can recall, the highly publicized case of the Florida dentist who infected his patients with AIDS — the case of, the beautiful teenager, Kimberly Bergalis, who died shortly after testifying before Congress in a wheel chair. At the time I was serving as the chief professional advisor to the largest dental and medical catalog supply company in the world.
The day the story broke I was assigned to develop patient and professional Educational materials to help allay the public’s growing fear of visiting dental and medical offices in the age of AIDS.
You may recall how terrified most people became about a routine trip to the dentist at that time. So I began by investigating the Centers for Disease Control and prevention’s (CDCs) official investigation reports on the case. And to make a long story short, I found the reports to be scientifically bogus.
Henry Kissinger and Nelson Rockefeller, January 1975
I later learned that the government had covered-up key evidence in the tragedy in an effort the maintain the case an Unsolvable mystery.
In essence they had committed scientific fraud and misconduct and, in the process, concealed the most incriminating evidence against the dentist — a very bright, scientifically trained, ex-military dentist, who believed he was dying of a virus that the government had created.
Yes, you heard me correctly, a virus that the government had created.
Now, the problem I had was reconciling the fact that the dentist, though a psychopath, was no fool. And he held in his possession one of the most incriminating documents I had ever seen. A 1970 Department of Defense Appropriations request for $10 million for the development of immune system ravaging Viruses for germ warfare.
In fact, the document, which I lay before you today, reads like this: Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms.
Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease… A research program to explore the feasibility of this could be completed in approximately 5 years at a total cost of $10 million… It is a highly controversial issue and there are many who believe such research should not be undertaken lest it lead to yet another method of massive killing of large populations.”
In fact it was the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC) that had informed the Defense Department that this research was possible. Now, according to legal testimony given to government officials, this knowledge enraged the Florida dentist so much it moved him to intentionally inject his patients with HIV-tainted anesthetics.
In essence, he did what all organized serial killers love to do, express a vendetta, like the mail-bomber, play games with the authorities, trap them in a catch-22, whereby they’d be damned if they told the truth, and called him a serial killer, because the whole world would want to know motive, and every reporter would ultimately find out as I did, what drove him crazy and who he really hated and ultimately attacked.
And if they told a lie, or maintained the case, as they did, a mystery, it would hold America and all of health care hostage to irrational fear of routine health care in the age of AIDS.
I present these publications and documents here for your critical examination. So Dr. Acer created a crime, a mystery, that couldn’t be solved, without implicating the government and causing a larger mystery to be investigated.
That is, the origin of AIDS and Ebola — the subject of my last three years of research, and why I have come before you today.
In fact, I investigated the Department of Defense’s germ warfare appropriations request and learned that the option to develop synthetic biological agents — bioweapons as alternatives to nuclear weapons — came from Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was gradually placed in his position of authority as National Security Advisor under Richard Nixon, the most powerful man in government, by Nelson Rockefeller and his affiliates at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Moreover, I traced where the money went. It went, in fact, to a firm called Litton Bionetics, a subsidiary of the mega-military contractor Litton Industries, whose President, Roy Ash, was being considered as an alternate to Henry Kissinger for the National Security Advisor post.
Instead, Roy Ash became Richard Nixon’s chairman of the Presidents Advisory Council on Executive Organizations, and Assistant to the President of the United States.
And Litton Industries was given over $5 billion in military contracts during the first term of the Nixon administration, $10 million of which went towards the development of AIDS-like viruses. A mere drop in the bucket. But before I tell you exactly what was done with your $10 million of taxpayer money, some background on Kissinger and Rockefeller’s influence is in order.
Among Henry Kissinger’s most influential patrons as he worked his way up the ladder of success to become Nixon’s Deputy to the President for National Security, was Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, the son of Standard Oil, that is Exxon, heir John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
The Rockefeller families involvement in the medical-industrial complex, health science research, and American politics is clearly important. Before World War II, major administration of medical research, or financing by federal agencies, had been generally opposed by Americas scientific community.
In fact, it was only during times of war that organizations like the NAS or the NRC received major funding. Both the NAS, established during the Civil War, and the NRC, set up during the First World War, were largely ignored in times of peace. Between 1900 and 1940, private foundations and universities financed most medical research.
According to Paul Starr, author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry, the most richly endowed research center, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was established in New York in 1902 and by 1928 had received from John D. Rockefeller $65 million in endowment funds.
In contrast, as late as 1938, as little as $2.8 million in federal funding was budgeted for the entire U.S. Public Health Service.
Therefore, it is easy to see that Rockefeller family investment in health science research predated, and far surpassed, even the federal governments. More than the New Deal, the Second World War created the greatest boom in federal government and private industry support for medical research. Prior to the war, American science and medicine was heavily influenced by German models.
This precedent was bolstered during the 1930s when the Nazis purged Jewish scientists from German universities and biological laboratories. These changes, according to Starr, significantly altered the course of American health science and medicine.
Many of Germany’s most brilliant Jewish researchers immigrated to the United States just as the movement burgeoned to privatize war related biological and medical research. At this time, the Rockefeller led medical-industrial complex was fully poised to influence, and take advantage of, Congress first series of measures to promote cancer research and cancer control.
In 1937, the new federal legislation authorized the establishment of the National Cancer Institute under the National Institutes of Health, and, for the first time, the Public Health Service to make grants to outside researchers.
The Rockefellers exercised significant control over the outcomes of these grants and research efforts through the foundations they established. Following the war, Henry Kissinger, who had become General Alexander Bolling’s German translator and principle assistant.
(Bolling, of course, was the Godfather to the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency that ran “Project Paperclip,” the secret exfiltration of approximately 2,000 high level Nazis, about 900 of whom were military scientists and medical researchers, including Erich Traub, Hitler’s top biological weapons developer and virus expert. Bolling also served as a high ranking member of the Inter-American Defense Board, a Washington based group that delivered Walter Emil Schreiber, Hitler’s chief medical scientist, the “Angel of Death” Joseph Mengele, and his assistant, “the butcher of Lyon,” Klaus Barbie, among others, to safe Havens in South America where they worked on CIA projects.)
In fact it was Henry Kissinger’s job to seek and find such Nazis that might be of service to America, and Kissinger became the chief of Army Counter-Intelligence in this regard. He trained other agents to hunt down Nazis at the European Command Intelligence School in Oberammergau, not to be tried for war crimes necessarily, but rather to serve U.S. military rather than Russian interests.
It was this operation that principally spirited the creation of the CIA as a cover agency for the powerful Gehlen Org, the German intelligence agency run by Reinhard Gehlen — an organization whose power superseded even the Nazi SS because of its prewar connections with German military intelligence.
After Hitler, Gehlen served Allen Welsh Dulles, whose “Operation Sunshine” brought Nazis into the U.S. spy service. You may be interested to know who paid for the importation of Nazis into American central intelligence, the military, and industry?
Three groups:
1. The first was “The Sovereign Military Order of Malta” (SMOM), perhaps the most powerful reactionary segment of European aristocracy, that for almost a thousand years, starting with the crusades in the Twelfth Century, funded military operations against countries and ideas considered a threat to its power
2. Second was the Nazi war chest that was largely funneled through the Vatican and the Rockefeller owned Chase Manhattan Bank, whose Paris branch conducted business as usual throughout the Nazi occupation of France
3. Thirdly, some of us and our parents — American taxpayers. Moreover, during this period, the Council on Foreign Relations, along with the CIA, grew in power under the leadership of Nelson Rockefeller, and in 1955, while serving as President Eisenhower’s assistant for international affairs, Rockefeller invited Kissinger to discuss national security issues at the Quantico (Virginia) Marine Base
Following their meeting, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Kissinger, the diplomat became Rockefeller’s closest intellectual associate, and soon after, Kissinger authored several military proposals for Eisenhower to consider. Unimpressed, Eisenhower turned them down.
As a result, Rockefeller sent Eisenhower his resignation and then launched a Special Studies Project that explored the critical choices America faced militarily in the coming years. Kissinger agreed to direct this new project and published a 468-page book on his findings.
The treatise proposed that tactical nuclear weapons be developed and a bomb shelter [be built] in every house in preparation for limited thermonuclear war. The willingness to engage in nuclear war when necessary is part of the price of our freedom, Kissinger argued.
So those of you my age can recall the anxiety grade school students felt while drilling for possible nuclear attacks. You can thank Kissinger and the Rockefeller-led military industrialists for this “price for freedom.”
Eisenhower, you may remember, warned America that the gravest threat to world security, democracy, and even spirituality, was the growing military-industrial complex. And the Rockefellers and Kissinger played leading roles in its evil expansion.
Bent on creating what President Bush openly heralded as a “New World Order,” few people realize the current international alignment of economic powers is a direct result of actualizing Henry Kissinger’s contemporary manifesto tribute to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta entitled “The Meaning of History.”
In this Kissinger 1955 Harvard doctoral thesis he argues that the concept of peace on earth is naive. Peace must be secured by the creation of small wars around the planet on a continuing basis so as to maintain an international order of economic powers, and of course, keep the military industrialists happy.
In my latest book, “Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola — Nature, Accident, or Intentional?”, I traced Dr. Erich Traub’s movements to the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute, where he conducted experiments on animals to determine the lethal doses of more than forty strains of highly infectious viruses.
Within ten years, the Navy’s Biomedical Research Laboratory, in association with the University of California, along with Litton Bionetics, became a chief supplier of viruses and cell cultures for NCI researchers throughout the world.
Funding for this work was largely controlled by the NCI, Rockefeller and Sloan Foundations. A search through Sloan Foundation’s annual reports, on file in Manhattans New York Public Library, revealed nine ghastly and Incriminating reasons that, most incredibly, tied all the elements of my “Emerging Viruses” investigation together.
The Sloan Foundation:
1. supported black educational initiatives consistent with the COINTELPRO Black Nationalist Hate Group campaign (you may recall reports last year that in surveys of 1,000 Southern Christian African Americans, two-thirds reported their belief that the AIDS epidemic may be genocide, while one-third was convinced it was
2. the Sloan Foundation administered mass-media-public-persuasion experiments completely consistent with the CIA’s Project MKULTRA efforts to develop brainwashing technologies and drugs to affect large populations
3. funded much of the earliest cancer research involving the genetic engineering of mutant viruses
4. began major funding of the National Academy of Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (for neuroscience and molecular genetics research), the Salk Institute (for viral research), and the Scientists Institute for Public Information between 1968 and 1970
6. funded the Community Blood Council of Greater New York, Inc., the council of doctors who established the infamous New York City Blood Bank which allowed more than 10,000 hemophiliacs and countless others to become infected with HIV because they allegedly didn’t want to spend $150 million to screen the blood
7. maintained Laurence S. Rockefeller, the director of the Community Blood Council of Greater New York the international blood bankers and the president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, as chairman of the board of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and a trustee for the Sloan Foundation
9. maintained among its marketable securities, 16,505 shares of Chase Manhattan Bank stock (in 1967, which it apparently sold by 1970 probably to avoid conflict of interest charges) along with 24,400-53,000 shares issued by Merck & Co., Inc. (the company whose President, George W. Merck, was director of America’s biological weapons industry, and whose hepatitis B and polio jabs most plausibly transmitted AIDS throughout the world)
Also in “Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola,” you will learn exactly what was done with the $10 million Congress gave the DOD for the development of AIDS-like viruses, because I published the relevant contracts.
You will learn that Dr. Robert Gallo, the famous NCI molecular biologist, pardoned by President Clinton last year for scientific fraud and misconduct, and credited with the discovery of the AIDS virus, set about to develop immune system ravaging, AIDS-like viruses, along with other Litton Bionetics researchers.
You will learn that they took monkey viruses that were humanly benign, recombined them with DNA, RNA, and enzymes from other animal viruses that caused leukemias, lymphomas, and sarcomas, and then to get them to jump species, they cultured these new mutant viruses in human white blood cells in some studies, and human fetal tissue cells in other studies, to produce immune-system-destroying, cancer-causing viruses that could enter humans and produce virtually identical effects to what the AIDS virus is currently doing in people around the world.
Indeed, it was contaminated live viral jabs that spread this disease and likely others, including chronic fatigue, certain leukemias, and possibly Gulf War Syndrome as well, to vast populations.
In fact, today’s live viral jabs, including the oral polio jab required by law be given to our children, are still littered with simian (monkey) virus contaminants since they are developed in monkey kidney cells, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration turns a blind eye to as many as 100 live monkey virus contaminants per jab dose, and is barred from telling health professionals and even health scientists this truth because of pharmaceutical industry dictated proprietary laws and non-disclosure agreements.
In the end, the research question I asked,
“Did these viruses, AIDS and Ebola, evolve naturally, were they accidentally produced, or were they intentionally created and deployed?”
I conclude, unquestionably, they are not natural. I leave you the reader, and concerned citizens of America and the world, to decide whether it was a horrible accident or treacherous covert population control experiment.
I ask all of you to consider the pain and cost of the current and coming plagues, including the escalating rates of virus-linked cancers like prostate and breast cancer, certain leukemia’s and lymphomas and other jab contaminant related illnesses including hyperactivity disorders in children and escalating sudden infant death rates.
I believe you will realize that the pain and cost of denial and indifference to this horrible reality is far greater than the toll your political action might cost. I therefore urge you to join our growing grassroots network of health consumers, professionals, scientists, patriots, and concerned citizens in our search for answers and solutions.
I urge you to help us pressure Congress for a full investigation of these published facts, and to allocate the funding needed to effect appropriate solutions to these urgent health care problems. Let me end by giving you, and our home viewers, two resources to contact in this effort.
“Jacobsen opens Operation Paperclip in November 1944, …. two American bacteriology experts pore over a cache of documents in the apartment of Dr. Eugene Haagen, a German virus expert. Within hours they find a chilling letter from Haagen to a colleague:
“Of the 100 prisoners you sent me, 18 died in transport. Only 12 are in a condition suitable for my experiments. I therefore request that you send me another 100 prisoners between 20 and 40 years of age … .”
“The letter proved that the Nazis were bent on creating biological weapons for use in warfare ….”The people carrying out this barbaric work were no minor Nazi thugs: Before the war, Haagen held a fellowship with the Rockefeller Foundation ….
A document I’ve just dug out from the RF archives shows that around the time they were salvaging Hitler’s scientists through Operation Paperclip, the Rockefellers were already deeply involved in eugenics, genetics, human reproduction too. For the near future I’m considering an article on this topic only.
How Rockefeller Foundation Shaped Modern Medicine in Communist China
This chapter comes in RF’s own words, it’s no secret, most of the truth is not hidden, it’s people running from it: The China Medical Board (CMB) was created in 1914 as one of the first operating divisions of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). Provided with a $12 million endowment and separately incorporated as CMB, Inc. when the Foundation was reorganized in 1928, the Board’s aim was to modernize medical education and to improve the practice of medicine in China.
Doctors graduating from Peking Union Medical College, Beijing (China), 1947
Surveying China
China was a long-standing interest of both John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (JDR Sr.), and his son. For decades they and their fellow Baptists had supported missionary work in Asia. Beginning in the early 1900s, Frederick Gates encouraged them to devote even more attention to that region. In 1908, five years before the Foundation was created, the Rockefellers funded a commission headed by Edward D. Burton, a University of Chicago professor of theology. He and other educators traveled to China to explore the potential for philanthropic work there.
In its final report the Burton Commission argued that a Western-sponsored educational program in science and medicine for elite Chinese students could succeed, despite a difficult political climate. One of the first actions of the newly created RF was to organize a conference about China in New York in early 1914. The Foundation later dispatched two additional survey groups, the China Medical Commissions of 1914 and 1915, to gather more information about how such an educational program could operate.
Following the model established by Abraham Flexner’s survey of U.S. medical education, the 1914 Commission set out to appraise medical education in both missionary and Chinese schools. It found appallingly low standards throughout the country. The report concluded that “the country is so vast, and the resources available for dealing with the problem are so limited as yet, that the need of outside assistance is still very great.” The CMB was formed to meet those challenges, and Wallace Buttrick was named its first director.
The Foundation’s approach to Chinese medical education would inevitably follow the general patterns for reforming U.S. medical education advocated in the 1910 Flexner report and most fully embodied in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Medical education in China would be scientifically rigorous and adhere to Western standards. And, in a decision with long-term consequences, instruction would occur in English. Consequently, the school could reach only a small, elite percentage of the population. Yet in a country of 400 million people then served by fewer than 500 well-trained doctors, such an approach stood to be criticized. Nevertheless, the CMB set out to build a medical school in China that it hoped to make the equal of Johns Hopkins.
The RF entered China with an ambitious goal: to build modern medical schools in both Peking and Shanghai. By purchasing the Union Medical College from the London Missionary Society in 1915, the Foundation took its first steps toward that goal. Over the next six years the Foundation assembled a faculty of fifty professors and upgraded and enlarged the facilities of what was soon called the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC). Particular attention was paid to the school’s architecture and campus plan. According to the RF’s 1917 Annual Report, “While the buildings will embody all the approved features of a modern medical center, the external forms have been planned in harmony with the best tradition of Chinese architecture. Thus they symbolize the purpose to make the College not something foreign to China’s best ideals and aspirations, but an organism which will become part of a developing Chinese civilization.”
PUMC opened its doors in 1919, under the de facto directorship of Roger S. Greene, resident director of CMB. The 70-acre campus would ultimately encompass more than 50 buildings, including a hospital, classrooms, laboratories, and residences. But in New York Rockefeller officials grew concerned about the mounting costs of PUMC and were soon forced to scrap their plans for Shanghai. From an initial construction estimate of $1 million in 1915, expenses ballooned to $8 million in capital expenditures by 1921. The operating budget more than doubled between its first year of operation and 1921. Nevertheless, the medical school and its new campus were deemed worth celebrating. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR Jr.) led an impressive delegation to China for the 1921 dedication ceremonies.
PUMC’s initial contributions toward the improvement of medicine in China, though consequential, were inevitably limited in scale. Its graduating classes were small, in part because its standards remained high and its curriculum at the outset was exclusively in English. Between 1924 and 1943, PUMC produced only 313 doctors, more than half of whom would continue their studies abroad through CMB fellowships. Upon their return many of these doctors ultimately became leaders in medical administration, teaching and scientific research both before and after the Chinese Revolution.
PUMC also transformed the nursing profession in China. When PUMC opened, there were fewer than 300 trained nurses in the country, many of them affiliated with various missionary organizations and most of them male. Because the Chinese had never considered nursing to be an appropriate profession for women, the task of PUMC was both to train qualified women nurses and to elevate the status of the profession. Those responsibilities fell to a twenty-eight-year-old nurse from Johns Hopkins, Anna D. Wolf. She arrived in 1919 to create a training program for nurses and to organize the hospital’s nursing staff. Recruiting her initial faculty from the best U.S. nursing schools, she devised pre-nursing and nursing curricula. Within five years she established a school capable of meeting U.S. accrediting standards.
John Grant, a professor of public health at PUMC from 1921 to 1934, sought to offer medical services beyond the campus walls. He collaborated with the city’s police in 1925 to create a public health station serving the 100,000 people living in Peking’s first ward, the neighborhood surrounding PUMC. As Grant knew, the station also provided learning opportunities for students at the university. He persuaded his faculty colleagues that PUMC students should spend a four-week rotation there.
Grant’s interest in pursuing broader public health work in rural areas found responsive allies in New York. Selskar Gunn, who had worked with the International Health Division in Eastern Europe before joining RF’s Division of the Social Sciences, traveled to China in 1931 to assess the Foundation’s work. While there he met Yan Yangchu (known to his American associates as Jimmy Yen), a pioneer in mass education and leader of the Rural Reconstruction Movement, with which Grant was already working. After several trips to China, Gunn produced a report that envisioned a coordinated program of basic education, health, and economic development.
Gunn was critical of PUMC and of RF’s and CMB’s disproportionate investment in it. By 1933 almost $37 million had been spent on an institution that would never solve China’s most pressing health problem: the severe shortage of trained medical personnel. A 1931 League of Nations Health Organization survey had concluded that China would need 50,000 physicians in order to have just one doctor per 8,000 people.
Few as they were, the cadre of professionals produced by PUMC would play important roles in shaping China’s health system. In 1946 an observer wrote to Raymond Fosdick, commenting on the small number of PUMC graduates. “Both doctors and nurses are in positions of leadership and many of them are effective in leadership…we found plenty of evidence that this small group had had an influence quite out of proportion to its size.”
But many in China had expected more. A Chinese Ministry of Education assessment of PUMC in the mid-1930s urged not only that enrollment be increased but also that more classroom instruction be in Chinese. Other recommendations soon followed: increase the courses in public health, parasitology, and bacteriology; teach Chinese medical terminology; and publish papers in both Chinese and English so that they would reach a larger audience.
Henry Houghton, who had directed PUMC during its formative years in the 1920s, returned in 1934 to address these criticisms. But by the mid-1930s relations with some departments of the Chinese government had soured. Tensions between the New York office and PUMC had led to the firing of Roger Greene, and there were continuing difficulties in transforming PUMC into a more fully Chinese institution. By 1937 Houghton and his colleagues were making substantial moves toward bilingual instruction, reducing the numbers of Western faculty, and placing Chinese professors in positions of departmental leadership. Plans for a graduate medical school were also under discussion with the Ministry of Education, but the Japanese invasion in 1937 interrupted this work.
Surviving War and Revolution
At PUMC limited teaching continued for a time even though some prominent faculty and staff fled in 1937 to southwest China to assist with war-related training and rural health programs. The school closed completely only after the U.S. declaration of war on Japan in December 1941. The Japanese occupied the grounds of PUMC, imprisoning Houghton for the war’s duration. Heroically, the nurses moved their school in its entirety to Chengdu and reopened there in 1942.
PUMC resumed limited operations in 1947, but RF staff debated the Foundation’s role as nationalist and Communists factions fought for supremacy. Could they stay above the fray and continue their work? What was the Foundation’s role likely to be as a new political order took shape? Alan Gregg saw that Communism, which in the U.S. represented a challenge to capitalism, meant something else to the Chinese. Communism in China battled a feudal order. He concluded that this “puts American aid in combating Chinese Communism into some odd attitudes and curious commitments.”
In 1947, amid the uncertainty about PUMC’s future, the Foundation made a terminal grant of $10 million to the CMB. But in 1951 the People’s Republic of China nationalized PUMC and severed ties with the RF and CMB, Inc.
Between 1915 and 1951, the RF and CMB, Inc. spent well over $50 million on medical initiatives in China, nearly $45 million of it to establish PUMC. Other missionary hospitals benefited from smaller Foundation contributions. Fellowships helped doctors and nurses to travel abroad for advanced training. Medical texts were translated, and medical libraries were built. But the greatest RF legacy was PUMC and the enduring contributions its graduates have made to China’s health system. PUMC’s buildings, dedicated in 1921, still stand in the center of Beijing. A bust of JDR Sr. greets visitors to PUMC’s auditorium. The hospital still ranks as one of China’s most advanced. Today, the Chinese Academy of Medicine operates from the campus.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the birth of WHO
The launching of WHO in 1948 coincided with and helped stimulate the disbanding of the RF’s International Health Division (IHD) and the waning of the RF’s in international health. But, as we shall see, because the RF’s influence on international health’s institutions, ideologies, practices, and personnel was so pervasive from the 1910s through the 1940s, the WHO’s early years were imbued not only with the RF’s dominant technically-oriented disease-eradication model but also with its far more subordinate forays into social medicine, an approach grounded in political, economic, and social terms as much as the biomedical. – Source
During World War II, the LNHO was denuded of resources and staff (maintaining neutrality, while its rival, Paris-based Office International d’Hygie`ne Publique, in charge of sanitary conventions and surveillance, was accused of collaborating with the Nazis).19 In 1943 the new US-sponsored and generously funded United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) largely absorbed and expanded upon the LNHO’s functions through the massive provision of medical relief, sanitary services, and supplies in war-torn countries, with a staff of almost 1400 health professionals from some 40 countries and expenditures of up to $US80 million/year. UNRRA, too, had a deep RF imprint: it was devised and planned by IHD veteran Selskar Gunn, while IHD director Wilbur Sawyer became head of UNRRA health operations following his retirement from the RF in 1944.21 Not only were the LNHO and UNRRA the immediate precursors to WHO, they acted as a pipeline for WHO’s first generation of personnel. However, the hoped-for full transfer of funds to WHO upon UNRRA’s closing in 1947 consisted of a far more modest sum under five million dollars.
The Rockefeller Foundation pushed US into WHO
The RF was also invoked in the bitter US Congressional debate over joining WHO. Fearing that the country would repeat the error of not having joined the League of Nations, respected US Surgeon-General Thomas Parran (a presumed candidate for WHO director) gave impassioned testimony at the Senate on June 17, 1947: ‘Health has been termed by [RF President] Mr Raymond Fosdick as a ‘rallying point of unity’ in international affairs. Cooperation . in the interest of health represents one of the most fruitful fields for international action. When one nation gains more of health it takes nothing away from any other nation. By learning how to work together in the interest of health, the lesson will be of value in other and more difficult fields.’ By this time the RF was busy mobilizing backstage in the context of unfolding Cold War rivalries. Rolf Struthers, Associate Director of the RF’s Medical Sciences Division, reported on his reconnaissance: ‘If U.S. insists on Parran . Russia will not join and it will not be a World Health Organization.’ This problem, together with the perception that Parran ‘does not enjoy wide support’ despite his distinction as a public health leader, led IHD Director George Strode to suggest backing Chisholm ‘because he is thoroughly honest, understanding and deeply interested,’ although questions remained about his leadership effectiveness. As late as March 12, 1948, the US Senate tabled a vote on WHO membership, leaving American public health leaders angry and embarrassed. The US finally joined WHO in July 1948 (almost three months after WHO’s April 7, 1948 ‘birthday’) following a compromise Joint Congressional resolution allowing the US to withdraw unilaterally from WHO on one year’s notice. Ironically, the USSR delegate formally proposed US acceptance intoWHO, but it would be the USSR and Soviet bloc, not the US, that would later pull out of WHO (1949e1956). With US membership settled, the RF began to judge the new organization’s first steps.
How the Rockefellers shaped the early WHO
Well into the 1950s the RF served in a retired emperor’s role, no longer the quotidian wielder of power but playing a crucial part behind the scenes in various ways. With the IHD’s impending demise, senior WHO administrators were keen that the RF’s Struthers spend a week in Geneva to get to know WHO technical staff, ‘learning both of their personalities and their fields of competence.’ Struthers found Chisholm ‘particularly anxious that the close association between the WHO and the RF’ continue, ‘both with the object of avoiding duplication of effort, and also that the RF was able to do some things which WHO could not do, and that our long experience, and objective and independent outlook were of value to the personnel of WHO. A parade of RF officers was invited to serve on WHO expert committees, intensively so in the 1950s, and more sporadically in subsequent decades. After the IHD folded, RF staff wondered whether they should sit on WHO expert panels in areas that were no longer RF priorities, but DMPH director Warren assured them that such positions were useful for maintaining contacts, for example in malariology. Several RF nurses were asked to serve on the Expert Advisory Panel on Nursing, another colleague on the yellow fever panel in 1954, and so on. The RF was also involved in joint WHO/RF seminars in the early 1950s, supporting mostly travel costs to garner the interest of scientists in such areas as sanitary engineering.
A subset of RF men also became involved in WHO work in the areas of medical education, healthcare policy, and community health and development (the first two being major foci of the RF’s new DMPH). Launched with vigour under Chisholm, this back door support for social medicine, even as WHO’s disease campaigns were proliferating, included: RF officer John Grant participating as ‘observer’ to the 1952 Expert Committee on Professional and Technical Education and various public health expert meetings through the 1950s; RF Vice President Alan Gregg serving on the Expert Panel on Medical Education in 1952; and panel membership of several leftwing social medicine experts who had been supported by the RF, such as Stampar and Sigerist. The reports produced by these panels made powerful recommendations about the need to incorporate comprehensive, community-based social welfare approaches rather than a narrow focus on clinical care. In this regard, John Maier, a DMPH staff member, noted that WHO and the RF were facing similar dilemmas. At a WHO European study conference of Undergraduate Training in Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Social Medicine, for example, Stampar although far more politically radical than his patrons outlined the difficulties caused by a ‘separation and antagonism between preventive and curative medicine’ and suggested calling medical schools ‘schools of health. The RF’s effort to undo its longstanding compartmentalization of medicine and public health was partially linked to WHO, involving for example, RF support for several medical schools in Colombia, which in the 1960s informed WHO’s call for the teaching of community-based, preventive, social and occupational medicine as part of internationally accepted standards. In the early 1950s, Grant was at the fulcrum of RF-WHO collaborative social medicine efforts. His commissioned paper on the ‘International Planning of Organization for Medical Care,’ was presented before WHO’s Department of Advisory Services in 1951, informing the recommendations of related expert panels.77 This work emphasized the importance of regionalized health systems and village health committees. Later that year he was nominated by WHO to be a member (funded by the RF) of a three-person UN survey mission on community organization and development in India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Thailand, and the Philippines. The survey, building on Grant’s prior scouting of inter-agency cooperation possibilities among WHO, UNICEF, and the US government to ‘rebuild’ Southeast Asia,78 highlighted the economic and social aspects of community programs, again stressing self-help efforts, in part as a means of fending off communism.
9 WHO’s European office was also keen to have Grant’s participation, inviting him on a study tour of Sweden, Scotland, and Belgium,80 and receiving almost $US50,000 from the RF over three years to study personnel needs under Europe’s new health and social welfare laws. Grant observed that some believed that they were so far advanced, there was little room for improvement, with Norway and Sweden serving as paradoxical ‘exceptions to this attitude.’ By the mid-1950s, RF leaders believed that the RF need no longer be represented at every WHO meeting and ‘should maintain good relations and reasonably close contact.
Soon enough, WHO invitations for RF participation were turned down. With its resources now focused elsewhere, the RF sought to rally other philanthropic players. It had already tested these waters in 1949, suggesting that WHO approach the Ford Foundation for a subsidy towards a new building, and in early 1951, the RF and the Kellogg Foundation each provided PASB with $US150,000 interest free loans to purchase a building to serve as headquarters.86 Kellogg also joined the RF in providing fellowships. The role of the RF’s flagship fellowship program was an important ongoing issue. At first, the IHD sought to retain public health fellowships ‘in significant fields which are not major interests of WHO’ because of WHO’s tendency to let member countries select fields and individuals for fellowships, which might ‘preclude senior men who may be developing newer areas. The RF also questioned WHO’s preference for fellowships to be held at non-US schools, a policy WHO justified by the large number of foreign students attending these institutions. Another problem was due to WHO’s poaching of fellows who had been trained specifically for RF projects. The RF called for mutual ‘consideration and unusual courtesies,’ meaning that WHO should ‘refrain from offering attractive employment’ to men destined for RF work. Chisholm was so alarmed by these personnel raiding accusations that he sought RF permission to use the RF fellowship directory to recruit candidates for field projects. The RF was careful not to bankroll WHO projects without participating in their design. DMPH director Warren was particularly troubled by a request that it work with WHO to support Manila’s Institute of Hygiene, declaring, ‘the only categorical statement I can make is that we will not operate through WHO or any other intermediary.’ The DMPH ultimately granted $US20,000 but only to support visiting Johns Hopkins faculty. By 1952 it was mutually decided that there would be ‘no further joint projects, but that we will maintain a relatively close liaison’ in training courses in insect control and biological testing of insecticides.94 On the other hand, the RF sought to take advantage of WHO demonstration projects to organize particular studies. Despite these changes, the RF remained on the pulse of WHO politics. Numerous Americans involved in WHO confided to RF staff about developments under Chisholm. Some were concerned with decentralized regionalization; others believed that Henry Sigerist, self-exiled from Johns Hopkins back to Switzerland, was exerting ‘undue influence’ public health on Chisholm in regards to both national health insurance and medical education reform.96 Grant, meanwhile, kept a close eye on social medicine developments and praised WHO’s increasing emphasis on program evaluation. But his critique of technical assistance in Thailand was met by defensive WHO staff intent on gaining RF understanding and approval.
In 1952, the big storm was around Norwegian Executive Board chair Karl Evang’s speech and motion on WHO’s recognition of and involvement in population studies and control of reproduction. A ‘highly emotional controversy’ ensued over the following days, with France, Belgium, Ireland, and Italy threatening to resign from WHO. Following a ‘tense debate,’ these countries, facing ‘religious political pressure,’ defeated attempts at any technical discussions: Evang’s motion was not brought to a vote but advisory birth control work in India was allowed to continue. This incident, which nearly broke WHO apart, also delineated an area for RF work that would not overlap with WHO efforts. Just a month later, John D Rockefeller III convened an invitation-only ‘Conference on Population Problems’ with top experts.He founded the Population Council shortly thereafter, separately from the RF because its own board was divided, thus partially (though not intentionally) shielding WHO from this problematic arena.
Another difficulty faced by the young WHO was financial. In both 1953 and 1954, the US paid only $US8 million of $US12 million pledged, even while the UN had asked WHO to increase its technical assistance to member countries. With a $US30 million shortfall, WHO was forced to freeze spending. One RF officer berated, ‘The WHO is just learning the wisdom of setting aside all funds for each project out of current budget.’105 RF staff also learned that WHO was fearful of the ‘empire-building aspects’ of UNICEF, which was more solidly (largely US) funded and ‘will tend to use its stronger autonomous position’ to build its own technical staff rather than rely on WHO as per the original agreement. Concerns about the urgency of US support for WHO were so great that advocates approached the RF for help from all angles. Esteemed US public health man Frank Boudreau (who rose to deputy director of the LNHO and then executive director of the Milbank Memorial Fund), chair of the National Citizens Committee for World Health, appealed to Nelson Rockefeller107 to attend the National Conference on World Health in 1953. The Committee, set up in 1951 to generate public interest and support for international health and save the United Nations from the fate of the League of Nations, already had Chisholm, Eleanor Roosevelt, the US SurgeonGeneral, and RF President Dean Rusk lined up as speakers at its conference, but the presence of a Rockefeller family member was deemed essential
The RF’s stamp on WHO was reinforced with the May 1953 election of Dr. Marcolino Candau as its director-general. Candau had been an RF fellow and had worked with Soper in IHD’s Anopheles gambiae campaign in Brazil, then briefly served as his deputy at PASB. Initially there were close interactions. Grant learned early that Chisholm would be resigning in June 1953, after a single term. Because of Soper’s continued relations with former colleagues, the RF was privy to the internal battles and ‘considerable hard feelings’ over Chisholm’s successor. With British support for a Pakistani candidate and Vatican support for an Italian, ‘through Chisholm’s intervention, and after very close voting, Candau of Brazil was nominated, and presumably will be elected.’110 Soper ‘has confidence’ that Candau would ‘bring strong leadership to WHO Secretariat.
In October 1954, new RF President Dean Rusk invited Candau for lunch and a ‘relaxed discussion’ about WHO programs and ‘what a private organization might do in the world today in the field of medical education and medical care.’ Candau suggested RF support for education, research, and training in strong regional institutions such as Mexico’s Institute of Cardiology, the Sao Paulo and Santiago schools of public health, and the new Central American Institute of Nutrition. Rusk saved the ‘Mars bars’ question for after dessert: Candau’s position on birth control. After pretending he had to leave, Candau explained that he had been instructed to keep mum on this issue, though he was well aware of the ‘population-food problem’ and that other UN agencies were accusing WHO of ‘creating more problems than it was solving.’ As such, Candau argued, birth control work was well-suited to private organizations. Once the RF became satisfied with Candau’s agenda for WHO, more routine matters resumed. Tensions over fellowships resurfaced under Candau because the RF was getting growing numbers of WHO staff applications for fellowships that had not been approved institutionally. Candau lobbied several RF men, hoping for ‘sympathetic consideration’ so that a few outstanding fellows could become key personnel for permanent WHO positions, both at headquarters and regional offices. He also wrote DMPH director Warren, promising to screen all candidates, and hoping for continued support: ‘It is fully realized that you cannot envisage continuing the granting of fellowships for an indefinite period. We are, however, most grateful for your agreeing to assist WHO in the development of its staff during these early critical years.’120 RF staff suspected Candau wanted much of WHO staff trained at RF expense and ‘is now trying to hedge a bit on his agreement in the hope that he can wangle more fellowships than you had in mind..Hence, the training program would seem to be a more or less continuous process. Warren concluded the discussion by promising: ‘As you know, we are anxious to do all we can to help you and your colleagues . develop a sound corps of well-trained people for permanent and long term work. [but] Because of limited funds, and need to train personnel closer to home, [we] will not support operating field personnel. For a few years, new RF-WHO fellowships again rose, going from 2 in 1953 to 8 in 1959, but by 1963 there was only 1, in 1964 2, and only 1 new RF fellow from WHO in 1968.123 By this time the WHA had approved major funding for fellowships,124 and the RF was no longer needed.
The “Godfather of Genetics”. Also an eugenicist
In 1955 another conflict brewed around WHO’s job offer to the director of an RF-funded community health centre in France. John Maier, now an assistant RF division director, wanted to draft a harsh letter to Candau about the matter but was told this was ‘inadvisable,’ and he would ‘simply have to grin and bear it.’126 Further confidential, high level discussions about the case called for informal approaches: ‘It was decided that the RF was not justified in taking such a stand.on the basis that we should not try to play God.’ Around this juncture, the RF-WHO relationship began to grow more distant. The New York meeting with Rusk led to unofficial RF approval of Candau’s indefinite posting as director-general, which lasted until 1973. Candau oversaw the establishment of WHO’s global malaria and smallpox eradication campaigns, a growing WHO bureaucracy, and a massive effort to provide public health training fellowships to over 50,000 health personnel from across the world. Ironically, or perhaps due to this connection, the late 1950s and 1960s was the period of least interaction between the RF and WHO. To be sure, Soper was a central shaper of its malaria campaign, and Paul Russell and other RF men were involved. But the growth in membership of WHO following the liberation struggles of dozens of new nations in Africa and Asia (and later, the Caribbean), accompanied by increasing bureaucratization, and the malaria effort e significantly financed by the US government (and a few others) through ‘voluntary’ contributions rather than regular member country dues, moved the RF further away from WHO’s centre stage. The RF’s period as prime advisor was over and WHO went from being swayed by the priorities and agenda of the foundation to becoming subject to powerful, far larger donors, most notably the United States, in the context of Cold War exigencies. Certain collaborations did continue. In 1958 the RF granted $US25,000 for a WHO manual of operations.129 Joint efforts, such as $US250,000 in RF support for research to combat protein malnutrition carried out in 12 countries, involved WHO in an advisory capacity, among other agencies. In 1960 the RF’s new Division of Medical and Natural Sciences joined WHO to support a rural public health centre in Kenya and a School of Nursing in Congo Republic, as well as various efforts in medical education. As in the past, numerous RF-trained and supported experts from around the world rose to prominent positions at WHO.
But the RF began to turn down WHO requests as often as it accepted them, and focused on narrowly targeted efforts such as funding a WHO bibliography on hookworm.133 For its part, WHO was also reluctant to commit to co-sponsoring RF projects. When USAID administrator Leona Baumgartner suggested in 1963 that USAID, the RF, and WHO carry out a joint study on training of ancillary health personnel and staffing needs, Candau offered support of a WHO statistician but insisted ‘WHO cannot be considered as a Sponsoring Agency.’ Meanwhile, the RF had also changed tolerance of social medicine on the margins of its main efforts dwindled with Alan Gregg’s and John Grant’s respective retirement and death and amidst the continued red-baiting of the McCarthy era. For example, since his posting by the RF to Puerto Rico in 1954 to set up a coordinated medical and public health system of research and practice,36 Grant had been keen to make WHO aware ‘that their present categorical activities must be replaced by polyvalent permanent local organizations. After four years, a possibility finally materialized only circuitously when the National Citizens Committee for the World Health Organization obtained grants from the RF, as well as the Milbank, Kellogg, and Avalon foundations and various industrial concerns, to fund key public health delegates to the 1958 WHA (held in Minneapolis) to travel to Puerto Rico to attend a series of professional sessions arranged by Grant and see the island’s ‘progressive public health and medical services.’136 But this was an anomalous episode: after 1954, the RF’s European office (a vital link to WHO) shrank by 90% and public health RF programming moved even further away from public and international health (though support for bench research on arboviruses and other tropical diseases, and some community medicine efforts, continued apace). From backstage to backdrop It is not surprising that the RF left such a deep impression on WHO, for the IHD was the most influential international health actor of the era. Before WWII, European powers were focused on their colonial networks, with inter-imperial commercial rivalries impeding strong international agencies, while the US government was testing its own international health leadership in the Americas. Thus by default and through its own protagonism, the RF was the de facto international health leader. Even after the IHD closed down shortly after WHO was founded, this was no disappearing act. The RF’s disease control ideology and approach to international health were infused into the agenda and practices of WHO. This took place both directly, through the discreet advice it purveyed and the generations of RF personnel and numerous RF fellows and grantees WHO employed and consulted, and indirectly, through the RF having shaped the international health scene via scores of in-country cooperative efforts over almost forty years and through its hand in designing and supporting major multilateral health institutions over several decades. What is remarkable is that not only was the RF’s predominant technobiological paradigm adopted by WHO, but so was its modest entre´e into social medicine, advanced by a small contingent of left-leaning longtime IHD officers. This was particularly marked during WHO’s early years, when Chisholm, himself not an RF man, opened the organization to this alternative perspective even as the RF’s main approach bore down on his administration. In those years, the RF was subtly ever present conveying both of its legacies, albeit at different scales.
How and why the RF subsequently became less visible at WHO also illuminates the constraints of shifting power blocs at WHO. The bulk of Candau’s period would mark a distancing between WHO and the RF, even as the RF’s disease control model had become fully entrenched at WHO, most visibly through the launching of the global malaria eradication campaign. On one level, this paradoxdCandau’s rise coinciding with the RF’s demise at WHO indicated that because its approach was firmly in place at WHO, the RF’s presence was superfluous. On another level, this estrangement meant that some openings to social medicine enabled by the RFeWHO relationship now faded. While RF-sponsored advocates of social medicine remained on certain expert committees, the hard line of McCarthyism wiped out many American health leftists in particular. A notable target was health systems and policy expert Milton Roemer, who left the repressive context of the United States to work at WHO in 1950, only to lose his WHO appointment in 1953 after the US government revoked his passport due to his refusal to sign a loyalty oath.137 In the late 1950s and 1960s, some social medicine advocates involved in WHO came from other quarters, including Latin America and Africa. Sidney and Emily Kark, for example, who had innovated a successful community health centre model in South Africa (in part thanks to RF officer John Grant’s backing), participated in various WHO activities. But under Candau and with heightened Cold War rivalries at WHO sparked by the return to active membership of the Soviet bloc in the mid1950s, this health internationalist tenor was marginalized at WHO, only to resurface, as we shall see in Part II, starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The RF became but a backdrop not only at WHO but also on the international health scene writ large. Indeed, the subtitle of a 1959 US Senate report about the US and WHO, ‘Teamwork for Mankind’s Well-Being,’130 echoed, perhaps inadvertently, the RF’s 1913 motto: ‘For the Well-Being of Mankind throughout the World.’ This 150-page document cited the RF’s link to WHO on just two pages and only in regards to interagency research collaboration, with no mention of the RF’s pivotal prior role in setting the international health agenda. The importance of the RF’s advocacy, legitimacy, and seed funding for projects diminished considerably after the US’s financial support of WHO efforts soared starting in 1956-7, in the wake of the influenza pandemic, the Soviet bloc rejoining WHO, and US recognition of the potential of the malaria eradication campaign to combat communism. As such, the RF’s organizational power was waning even as its ideological approach to international health had become solidly institutionalized within WHO.
In sum, the Rockefeller Foundation had enormous bearing on WHO, just as it did on the overall international health arena: WHO’s very configuration was unthinkable without the RF. Yet as WHO found firm ground in the 1950s and the RF abandoned its primordial international health role, there was a tacit understanding that the RF would not interfere in day-to-day operations, even as WHO leaders and champions remained conscious of the RF’s underlying influence. After the US government brashly moved onto WHO’s turf at the height of the Cold War, particularly through its role in the global malaria eradication campaign, there was a further distancing between the RF and WHO. As will be discussed in Part II, it was only in the 1970s that the relationship resumed, just when WHO began to question the RF’s disease campaign model, and, backed by the bulk of its member countries, it pursued a more community-grounded approach to primary health care amidst calls for a new antihegemonic economic order. By this time, the RF’s support for such social justice-oriented efforts was much narrowed in the context of the dominant ideological shift towards neoliberalism, and it played what many perceived as an antagonistic role in seeking to resurrect its disease control paradigm.
Backstage: the relationship between the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organization, Part I: 1940se1960s by A.-E. Birn – 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health
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This has been revealed to me while investigating Trump’s new “Vaccine Czar” Moncef Slaoui, in his home-town Agadir, Morocco, under a coronavirus lockdown and a hunger-strike. Energy and time are scarce, I’ll be making a brief sum-up here, and for more details please read my other investigations on this site.
The scheme is simple and efficient:
Bill Gates: Money, influence and organizing
Tony Fauci (NIAID): Influence, research and power
through US Government and media with all their capabilities
Moncef Slaoui (GSK, Moderna), US’ new “Vaccine Czar”: concocts the vaccines, connects the industry
Together they control WHO and GAVI, which serve as common platforms and global marketers
The following vaccines have been elaborated and marketed by this group, mostly with disastrous effects:
There were no serious adverse events that could be attributable to the vaccine. We’re seeing pain, redness and perhaps some swelling that we see very frequently with injectable vaccines.
“This is not the big game changer that we were hoping for,” said Dr. Martin De Smet, a malaria expert at Doctors Without Borders. “The vaccine itself remains disappointing but this is an important step forward,” he said. Still, De Smet said the vaccine could help reduce the huge burden of malaria: there are about 200 million cases and more than 500,000 deaths every year, mostly in African children.
“The summit aims to raise at least $7.4 billion (approx. £6 billion) for Gavi to immunise a further 300 million children in the world’s poorest countries by 2025.” – https://www.gov.uk/
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Have you ever imagined modern history and official narratives stripped off of coincidences?
So far all my articles have been fact-based and sourced documentations of our times. This time I will enter the fact-based speculation field, but I will mind having an overwhelming majority of factual content over the theoretical speculation. Is it a fact that modern history and official narratives abund in coincidences? Is it a fact that, based on all history, statistics and personal life experiences, anyone can say at least a good chunk of these coincidences are an indicative of common scripts and arrangements?
Not a proven fact, just a hunch, it doesn’t really matter as an argument, it’s just what put in motion this train of thoughts: Watching George Floyd’s arrest, did anyone else asked himself how come the cop with his knee on Floyd didn’t seem worried about cameras for a second and kept that position for long minutes? Am I the only one who felt he was posing? Anyways…
Meet Amara Touré, a trending figure right now on the French Twitter. On may 28th, France got scandalized by his brutal arrest by Paris Police.
Les faits se sont déroulé aujourd’hui sur paris Fougeres 20 ieme l’agent n’hésite pas à employé la même méthode qui a tué #georgefloyd#,alors qu’il est menotté donc neutralisé… L’agent a certainement vu la vidéo devenu virale qui a tué George Floyd mais rien ne les arrête … pic.twitter.com/MCqCh0OKzm
French alternative media, activists and Interned started flaming after this: “In the aftermath of the barbaric murder of George Floyd in the United States. Today this scene takes place in France in the 20th arrondissement, Amara Touré suffers the same violence. The French media, they condemned the United States yesterday. Today it’s at home in France, you must also condemn! ” writes revolutionpermanente.fr
The young Frenchman didn’t die, luckily. But France, Paris especially, have burned a few times because of Police brutality. It’s a sensitive issue there as much as in US, if not more. Subservient mainstream media there, as opposed to the one in US, is happy to overlook these incidents.
So you would think cops there are inclined to avoid exposure when they brutalize a black person, especially in these sensitive times. Well, does it look like it? Let’s see one more video:
I know this is standard procedure, but are these cops begging for attention or not? Because if they do, there’s a large plot going on.
Here’s some more facts: Many chapters of our history has been written by people who love to control both sides of a conflict so they can win every time. At least since they demolished French monarcy. History is a repeating cycle of construction and demolition, and many of these demolitions have been proven to be controlled. There is no way in hell there’s not going to be a backlash from the public to the system after these lockdowns. Technology can predict uprisings. Money can stage an uprising. It’s better to stage and control your own uprising than have an uncontrolled and popular one. Controlled opposition is a standard operation too, just like a knee on the neck.
And here’s the speculation and the bet I want to make with the public: Based on the facts above, it’s more than likely that stage violence will be used as an exit strategy from the Coronavirus quarantine, because that’s pretty much the only tool for the establishment to deter a fatal public backlash. And this violence needs a firestarter, someone to break the first window.
It is reasonable to consider this possibility and to monitor the coming events with it in mind. All I’m saying.
PS: I think you’d find things even more interesting if you investigated the origins of this arrest technique.
“Another of President Obama’s brazen acts as he leaves office is a “parting shot” at American gun owners by submitting the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. For the uninitiated, the term refers to turning around in your saddle as you ride away from a losing battle and firing one last round at your enemy. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was negotiated from 2006, during the Bush administration, through 2013 with the Obama administration. The original intent of the treaty was theoretically to prohibit arms transfers to regimes that abused human rights. From the very start though, gun control groups looked upon the treaty as an end run around America’s domestic reluctance to adopt their agenda — if Congress and the state legislatures wouldn’t pass gun control why not get the U.N. to make it a permanent part of its agenda or even better part of international law?” – Washington Times
On Friday, the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) posted the flag of Antifa on their official Twitter account, saying that a group of human rights “experts” at the globalist organisation had expressed “profound concern over a recent statement by the U.S. Attorney-General describing Antifa and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly in the country.”
One expert cited in the statement from the United Nations was Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, who also works as the Board Chair of the Open Society Foundations Women Program — OSF being the plaything of left-liberal billionaire activist George Soros.
UN #HumanRights experts express profound concern over a recent statement by the US Attorney-General describing #Antifa and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly in the country. pic.twitter.com/2Pz2dMyq8k
“International human rights law protects the right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said Ní Aoláin, adding that it was “regrettable that the United States has chosen to respond to the protests in a manner that undermines these fundamental rights.”
The support from the UN for the far-left group came in response to U.S. Attorney-General William Barr’s statement that violence committed by Antifa “is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly”.
Though there has been no legal action taken since President Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will designate the group as a terrorist organisation, Ní Aoláin said that “the loose use of terrorism rhetoric undermines legitimate protests and dampens freedom of expression in the United States, which has been a hallmark of U.S. constitutional values, and a beacon far beyond its shores”.- Source
PS: Famous journalist George Webb’s Youtube channel has just been deleted after a series of videos where he confirmed the main thesis in this article. Here you can watch a mirror Bitchute upload of one of his latest videos.
UPDATE JULY 27th 2020:
UN marches on. After more appeals to them from George Floyd’s father this time, we finally have the first UN mingling in US’ internal affairs and wagging a finger at Trump:
‘People taking part in peaceful demonstrations across the United States, and journalists covering these protests, should not be subjected to disproportionate use of force or other violations, the UN human rights office said on Friday.
Spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell was answering a reporter’s question about the US authorities deploying federal security officers to various cities to quell demonstrations against racial injustice, sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, while in police custody in Minneapolis on 25 May.
“Peaceful demonstrations that have been taking place in cities in the US, such as Portland, really must be able to continue without those participating in them – and also, the people reporting on them, the journalists – risking arbitrary arrest or detention, being subject to unnecessary, disproportionate or discriminatory use of force, or suffering other violations of their rights”, said Ms. Throssell.
Officers must be identified
Regarding reports about unidentified police officers detaining protestors, she said “that is a worry because it may place those detained outside the protection of the law, and may give rise to arbitrary detention and other human rights violations.”
Ms. Throssell said federal and local security forces must be properly and clearly identified. They also should use force only when necessary and in accordance with international standards.
“Also, it is important that any victims of unnecessary or excessive use of force do have the right to remedy, and there should be, as we often say, prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into any allegations of human rights violations, and that should ensure that those responsible are held accountable”, she added.
Ms. Throssell said the Committee will issue a general comment, or guidance, on 29 July, covering issues that include both physical and online protests, public order, and the work of the media.’
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Moroccan budget is largely dependent on investors to subsidise its large deficit. Two of its best partners are a couple of banks not quite known in the Western world. Until now. Bill Gates has his hands deeply in both of them. And this sting is now hurting Morocco and costing it $3Billion a month. I’m just scratching a surface here, but you can peep in now. Something like this might be happening in your country too.
Completed in my 9th day of hunger strike, under an insane and scientifically unjustified lockdown in Morocco. It was important to publish it now, while I still can, and if my destiny is generous, I will perfect it. The point is made anyway.
I am Gnawi. Everyone living in Morocco outside the Cabal is Gnawi.
UPDATE: On December 22, 2020 this investigative endeavor found its closure and many of the questions I raised found an answer. I added the newest evelopments at the end, but when all this was written I didn’t know what the punchline will be, I only had hunches, so I left the end open.
THE ACTORS
The African Development Bank (ADB / AfDB)
Veteran banking partner of Morocco, The African Development Bank Group or Banque Africaine de Développement is a multilateral development finance institution. The AfDB was founded in 1964 and comprises three entities: The African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Nigeria Trust Fund. – Wikipedia CEO: Akinwumi Adesina (Sep 1, 2015–) Headquarters: Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Founded: September 10, 1964 Leader: Akinwumi Adesina Subsidiaries: African Development Fund, Nigeria Trust Fund, and more
“In this first academic study of the ADB, Karen Mingst argues that the bank is a political institution, not the functional, economically neutral organization originally envisioned. Using bank archives and extensive interviews with ADB personnel, contractors, the economic development community, and national government officials, Mingst analyzes the changing political relationships in the ADB in three arenas: intraorganizational politics with effects on the secretariat and on policy issues, political relations with other development organizations, and hegemonic politics among politically and economically powerful state members.”
However, I suspect some big voters are not on that list, are not even countries, but are richer than some countries. Riddle me this…
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina with Bill Gates. Photo by: AfDB
Did you know? Bill Gates’ fortune in 2017 was roughly equal to Morocco’s GDP.
The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB)
Not a new actor on the local market either, IsDB is a multinational based in Saudi Arabia and it describes itself as “a multilateral development bank (MDB), working to improve the lives of those we serve by promoting social and economic development in Member countries and Muslim communities worldwide, delivering impact at scale.
We provide the infrastructure to enable people to lead better lives and achieve their full potential.
We bring together 57 member countries across four continents – touching the lives of 1 in 5 of the world’s population.
We are one of the world’s most active MDBs, and global leaders in Islamic Finance, with an AAA rating, and operating assets of more than USD 16 billion and subscribed capital of USD 70 billion.
We are a truly global institution, headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with major hubs in Morocco, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Senegal, and gateway offices in Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
We foster collaboration between our members nations in a uniquely non-political environment, as we focus on the betterment of humanity.
IsDB seems to have earned contract after cotract with the government, too many to mention, they’re seriously competing AfDB. Competing or completing…
Just browsing the multitude of projects IsDB runs in Morocco…
Until 2017, Morocco has received a total of USD 7.6 billion from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) group since its establishment in 1974, according to Bandar Al-Hajjar, president of the IDB.
You know who else is an even more “fervent” collaborator for IsDB? I mean so close they should share offices?
World Bank, the African Development Bank, Gates Foundation, and DEG set up “Health in Africa Fund” under Chinese management
From the official press release: “IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the German development finance institution DEG – Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH announced June 4, 2009 that they have created a new private equity fund that will invest in Africa’s health sector.
The Health in Africa Fund, managed by Aureos Capital, will invest in small- and medium-sized companies in sub-Saharan Africa, such as health clinics and diagnostic centers, with the goal of helping low-income Africans gain access to affordable, high-quality health services. The fund will be measured not only by fiscal performance but also by its ability to cultivate businesses serving the poor.
The Health in Africa Fund is part of IFC’s Health in Africa Initiative under which IFC intends to mobilize up to $1 billion in investment and advisory services over five years, following publication of its 2007 Business of Health in Africa report, which focuses on how to improve people’s lives by partnering with the private sector. Besides the equity vehicle, IFC is improving access to long-term financing for smaller companies involved in health care through local financial intermediaries. Together with the World Bank and other partners, IFC is working with governments to help them better harness the private sector to achieve national health goals and is producing the first biennial report on Africa’s health care investment climate.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group creates opportunity for people to escape poverty and improve their lives. We foster sustainable economic growth in developing countries by supporting private sector development, mobilizing private capital, and providing advisory and risk mitigation services to businesses and governments. Our new investments totaled $16.2 billion in fiscal 2008, a 34 percent increase over the previous year.
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
DEG, a member of KfW Bankengruppe (KfW banking group), is one of the largest European development finance institutions. DEG invests in profitable projects that contribute to sustainable development in all sectors of the economy, from agribusiness to infrastructure and manufacturing to services. DEG’s aim is to establish and expand private enterprise structures in developing and emerging countries and thus create the basis for sustainable economic growth and a lasting improvement in the living conditions of local populations. In 2008 DEG invested around 1.22 billion euros which is about 1.6 per cent more than the previous year.
About Aureos Capital Limited
Aureos Capital Ltd. is a private equity fund management company which specializes in providing expansion and buy-out capital to unlisted small to mid-cap businesses across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Since its establishment in 2001, Aureos has increased its funds under management to over $1 billion and established 15 regional private equity funds. It has extended its geographical footprint to over 50 emerging markets covering Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Investors in Aureos funds include institutional investors, bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, fund of funds, family offices and foundations, and high net worth individuals.”
Morocco’s capital city Rabat. Photo by Silviu “Silview” Costinescu
2013
The phosphate industry gets some love. But who’s the phosphate industry?
Morocco’s state-run phosphate, OCP Group, (Office Cherifien des Phosphates) has received a $150 million loan from IsDB to improve its infrastructure and repair facilities at Jorf Lasfar, a deepwater commercial port located on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. Phosphates are “Morocco’s white gold”, according to Bloomberg, the main natural resource for export in Morocco. “King Mohammed VI owns more than half the world’s phosphate reserves. James Prokopanko, chief executive officer of Plymouth (Minn.)-based fertilizer giant Mosaic (MOS), has called Morocco the Saudi Arabia of phosphate, with all that implies about the King’s power to influence prices and economies.”
2014
If you want to harvest some billions, you need to seed some millions
According to Morocco World News, in 2014, the IDB amounted to $0.18 billion to Morocco in order to carry out drinking water supply projects in the regions of Agadir and Chtouka Ait Baha, as well as the olive sector for small farmers.
In the same year, oil refiner Samir received a loan of $240 million to finance crude oil imports. Which allegedly refines oil from a company that belongs to the minister of Agriculture, coincidentally Morocco’s richest man, besides the King. By the way, agriculture loves oil and phosphates.
The IDB has also embarked on signing agreement with partners to invest in Morocco. In 2014, it signed a joint agreement with Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) to invest in Moroccan private sectors.
And so forth
February 25, 2015
Moroccan Government employs AfDB to diagnose economy
“Working in close collaboration, the Kingdom of Morocco, African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), have conducted an exhaustive study on constraints and strengths impeding the country’s determination to promote a strong, sustained and shared growth. The study, entitled Morocco’s Economic Growth Analysis: Identifying Constraints to Broad-Based Growth* is derived from in-depth data-driven analysis supported by consultations with all government ministries, private sector, academia and civil society in Morocco. Its objective is to clearly identify constraints to private investment in Morocco and identity priority issues to be addressed in order to grow a strong, dynamic economy.” This report was officially launched on February 25, 2015 at Rabat Conference Centre. AfDB president Donald Kaberuka participated in the event alongside the Head of the Government of Morocco, Abdelilah Benkirane, and the Ambassador of the United States of America to Morocco, Dwight Bush (a banker as well), among others.
“The 2015 Growth Diagnostic conducted by Morocco, the African Development Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) identified education and certain aspects of the legal framework (taxation, the justice system and land ownership) as major constraints to the development of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The size of the informal economy has also been regularly blamed. The new “self-entrepreneur” status created in 2015 and the gradual extension of social benefits to the self employed should allow some of those operating in the informal economy to move into the formal sector.”, reports African Economic Outlook
Rabat, Morocco. Photo by Silviu Costinescu
March 11, 2015
AfDB Board approves The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust Fund
The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 in Abidjan approved the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Trust Fund to be hosted by the Bank.
The Fund’s US $2.4 million initial contribution will support forward-thinking on the issue of concessional finance in development by an African Development Fund (ADF) Policy Lab. It would also support other future Bank activities.
It is the first bilateral fund with a non-sovereign entity, and the first bilateral fund with the Foundation aimed to provide structure to the long-standing collaboration with the Bank and scale up areas of intervention.
The Bank currently manages about 39 trust funds most of which are depleted.
There was overwhelming support for the collaboration, which fits squarely with the Bank’s Ten Year Strategy. The Strategy looks to engage in strategic partnerships to disseminate knowledge and lead new policy initiatives.
The ADF Policy Lab will complement the Mid-Term Review of the ADF, which is the pool of concessional resources dedicated to less endowed Regional Member Countries.
The Bank has been involved in multiple interactions with the Gates Foundation. In 2011, the Foundation contributed US $12 million to the African Water Facility (AWF) to support sanitation services to some of Africa’s urban poor. It also contributed US $15 million towards implementation of the Action Plan for improved statistics for food security in Africa in 2013.
And and then…
March 23, 2015
Bill Gates joins Monsanto in an attempt to take over Africa’s food with GMO’s
If you think Gates has a passion or obsession for medicine, I’m afraid that’s just one of his many tools for control and power grabs. An even more powerful tools in this kit is food, so of course Billy Boi has been long involved in this too. The other mega-company that shared his views almost in verbatim copy is the infamous Monsanto. So no one should be surprised that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation met Monsanto to discuss business behind closed doors in London, in March 2015. Which event even sparked street protests at the time, the Gates Foundation getting picketed in several locations.
Local TV in Seattle reporting on the Gates Foundation protests
May, 2016
Bill Gates visits Morocco and unveils collaboration with IsDA, becomes news sensation
Gates’ Foundation representatives attended a meeting with the regional head of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region and representatives from the Islamic Development Bank to discuss Bill Gates’ first visit Morocco in the coming months.
Bill Gates’ trip to Morocco comes after a two-month long effort made by Ilya El Omari, head of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima and President of the Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) to convince Microsoft’s founder to visit the North African country. The information was not denied by the PAM.
It seems however, that news, which went viral and was published by most news outlets, including Morocco World News, is not accurate.
According to an email sent by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Moroccan journalist Anas Bendrif, the “media reports about funding of projects in Morocco are not correct.”
While the Foundation’s did not deny the visit reported by Moroccan media, it pointed out, however, that that no investment is being planned yet in Morocco, adding that any decision in this regard is made by the Islamic Development Bank.
“The Bill and Melinda Gates works with partner organization around the world, including the Islamic Development Bank, to explore new ways of cooperation on initiatives that will help lift the poor out poverty and provide then with brighter future. This includes on-the-ground visits to various communities and regions to learn more about their greatest needs, which may benefit from our joint initiative: the Lives and Livelihoods Fund,” Cecilie, the foundation’s representative said in the email.
“We have no confirmed any projects at his time in Morocco, but we continue to explore potential opportunities wen we will announce those once they materialize.” – Source
January, 2018
Bill Gates Foundation grant for African Development Bank
November 16, 2018
The African Development Bank announces a new initiative to promote innovation and citywide inclusive sanitation services for sub-Saharan Africa’s urban inhabitants. The Bank’s Africa Urban Sanitation Investment Fund Program, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is funding the initiative designed to focus on the poor.
The Gates Foundation, in partnership with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, showcased the new initiative at the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing from 6-8 November 2018. The Reinvented Toilet Expo brought together private and public-sector leaders pushing for faster adoption of innovative, pro-poor sanitation technologies in the world’s developing regions.
“Support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation enhances the Fund’s ability to address sanitation in urban areas for greater outcomes, including in health, nutrition, environment, and employment,” bank officials said.
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Trust Fund funded a study on how to improve connectivity between payment systems and create greater financial inclusion for West Africans, as well as an investment to the Africa Digital Inclusion Fund. Originally $2.4 million, the trust fund now tops $17.9 million due to additional funding by the Gates Foundation.” reports Devex
Meet Rodrigo Salvado
“Before joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rodrigo worked for the African Development Bank Group where he was in charge of the Performance Based Allocation System of the African Development Fund”. So AfDB is so bad-ass it has people in Gates’ Foundation?!
Salvado holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a Master in Economics from the Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros in Madrid, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina.
26 March 2018
AfDB reveals it’s also in cahoots with the Rockefellers and Soros
ABIDJAN — Purse-string tightening by traditional international development donors in recent years has prompted the African Development Bank to cast a wider net in seeking aid funding. One of the areas that has seen success, the bank told Devex, is securing financing from philanthropic organizations.
In February, the Rockefeller Trust Fund provided an initial $3 million to support two of the AfDB’s “High 5” development priorities. The financing will go toward the Leadership for Agriculture Platform — in alignment with the “Feed Africa” pillar — and a youth coding skills training program in connection with the “Improving the Quality of Life for People in Africa” pillar.
The department is currently developing relationships with other socially responsible NGOs including the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations (George Sorors). But Dabady added that the AfDB needs to better communicate the tangible results produced from funding in order to sustain and form partnerships with private foundations.
May 17, 2018
African Development Bank drops 200 million Eu in Morocco’s Agriculture
Rabat – African Development Bank (BAD) has outlined EU 200 million loan dedicated to finance the program of support for the inclusive and sustainable development of agricultural sectors in Morocco.
The new operation aims to support job creation in rural areas through the inclusive development of agricultural value chains, the African bank said in a statement.
The country manager of the BAD in Morocco, Leila Farah Mokaddem, highlighted how the project is projected to boost Morocco’s exports revenues to MAD 45 million by 2030 and save 990 million cubic meters of water. By 2020, it aims to mobilize MAD 4 billion of private investment in the agricultural sector to create thousands of jobs for young people and women in rural areas.
African Development Bank: “Decisive action key to helping African economies during COVID 19”
2019
While Africa still doesn’t have clean water, Gates and AfDB bestow it with “digital financial services”. For the people
In 2019, the Bank partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of Luxembourg and Agence Française de Développement to set up the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI). ADFI is a blended finance vehicle that aims to scale up digital financial services in Africa to accelerate financial inclusion and ensure that digital financial systems include and empower everyone, especially women.
January 22, 2019
Moroccan Government sign a new agreement for Agenda 2030 implementation
Rabat – “The Moroccan high commissioner for planning (HCP), Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, the deputy resident representative at the UN Development Assistance Framework, Martine Therer, and 10 UN agencies in Morocco signed an agreement in the framework of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)on Tuesday.
During a ceremony at the HCP headquarters in Rabat, the two officials discussed the agreement which is also part of the UNDAF 2017-2021 framework.
The agreement will facilitate the tracking of and reporting of SGD progress in the country to better “inform the policymaker and the public on the progress” of sustainable development in their country.
The agreement is valid for three years and will focus on the following objectives: “The use of performance and statistical data of the Sustainable Development Goals program, the preparation of periodic reports concerning the progress of these goals on national and regional levels, with the help of consultation mechanisms put by the program and through south-south cooperation networks.”
Morocco has made advances in a significant number of SDGs, according to a report by the Economic Commission for Africa released in November.
The report, however, entailed that youth employment, climate change, food security, and industrial transition were some of the complex challenges that Morocco still needs to address.”
Apr 3-6, 2019
Islamic Development Bank holds annual meeting in Morocco, discusses Agenda 2030
The event convenes the bank’s Board of Governors each year to discuss institutional and development issues, pulling in experts and development specialists from around the globe. 2018’s event took place in Tunis.
This year, the meeting’s slogan is “Transformation in a changing world,” a reference to the new development strategy the bank’s president Bandar Hajjar will unveil. The new strategy dovetails with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to IsDB. “Morocco is one of IsDB’s most important partners. The institution has worked extensively with the kingdom, most recently launching a multimillion dollar fund for science and technology in Morocco.” reports local media.
In February, lauding Morocco’s use of private-public partnerships, one of the new “core pillars” of the IsDB, Hajjar called the North African country a “model and a reference” for its other member countries, writes MWN. Allow me to translate: Private-public partnerships is code for “siphoning public funds”. New “core pillars” of the IsDB is code for “Morocco’s budget has become our main provider now”.
Who else loves Agenda 2030 and works to implement it? If you think Bill Gates, you’re not wrong, but if you think Morocco’s government you’re also right.
But I guess no one loves Agenda 2030 deeper than Israel.
And then Covid-19 hit
March 2020
How do you prevent diseases by detaining big families in tiny rooms ?
May 18, 2020
Economy Minister: Lockdown Costs Morocco MAD 0.1 Billion a Day
Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Economy, Finance, and Administration Reform, Mohamed Benchaaboun, stated that the country loses up to MAD 1 billion ($100 million) during each day under lockdown, noting it is expected that the two months of quarantine will cause the national economy to lose 6 points of GDP growth for 2020.
“The loss would have been greater if financial support had not been provided by the COVID-19 pandemic management fund, which was created on royal instructions,” explained Benchaaboun in the weekly session dedicated to parliamentary questions on Tuesday.
On the fiscal level, he added that “the economic recession is expected to cause a shortfall in Morocco’s treasury revenues of approximately MAD 500 million per day during the quarantine period.”
Benchaaboun went on to say that Morocco has been largely affected by the repercussions of the health crisis at the economic and financial levels, as shown by a set of economic indicators.
Meanwhile, the small-time local bankers get pushed around by Covid too
Rabat – International ratings agency Fitch Ratings has downgraded three Moroccan banks’ outlooks from “stable” to “negative.”
The study included Attijariwafa Bank (AWB), BMCE Bank of Africa (BOA) and Credit Immobilier et Hotelier (CIH).
The evaluations follow Fitch Ratings’ latest revision of Morocco’s outlook to “negative” from “stable” on April 28, due to the coronavirus crisis.
Fitch Ratings indicated that AWB and BOA are classified as domestic systemically important banks (DSIB) in Morocco, and believes that the government would have a high propensity to support them if needed.
However, the ratings agency classifies the overall probability of Moroccan support as moderate, given the negative repercussions of the pandemic on Morocco’s economy.
Despite Morocco’s proactive response to address the negative shocks of the pandemic, Fitch expects the Moroccan economy to contract 4.5% in 2020. The agency also predicts general government debt to rise to 58% of GDP in 2020 from 52.5% in 2019.
If the projection proves true, it will interrupt 22 successive years of growth – Morocco World News
May 20, 2020
Heavily impacted by the lockdown, a significant number of Moroccan companies have declared bankruptcy
Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Mohamed Benchaaboun, has called on companies to resume their activities after the end of Ramadan, Eid Al Fitr, to revive the lockdown-stressed national economy.
The economic resumption concerns companies that have not been prohibited from continuing their activities, and the proposed measure does not include companies that opted for remote work.
Companies excluded from the call are those active in catering services, hotels, and places of gathering.
Benchaaboun made the request during a Parliament session dedicated to the government’s economic and financial measures to mitigate the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis on Tuesday, May 19.
Seizing the opportunity, Benchaaboun shared with parliamentarians an update on expenses of the Special Fund for the Management and Response to COVID-19. The minister also highlighted measures the government implemented to support companies, employees, and impacted citizens.
He stated that the fund’s revenues reached MAD 32.7 billion ($3.27 billion) as of Monday, May 18. He added that more than MAD 2.2 billion ($220 million) was allocated to upgrade the health sector while a further MAD 11.5 billion ($1.15 billion) was dedicated to the Economic Watch Committee’s (CVE) measures in favor of impacted businesses and employees.
May 27, 2020
COVID-19: African Development Bank Allocates €264 Million to Morocco
If you had enough influence over a cuntry’s rulers to persuade them to implement some suicidal measures, just so you can appear as saviour later, would you do it? Historically speaking, banksters are usually quite inclined towards such opperations, not t mention Gates. But I digress, check the latest news:
Rabat – The African Development Bank (AfDB) approved today In Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire the financing of €264 million for Morocco, as part of its COVID-19 response support program (PARC-19).
“With rapid deployment of resources, PARC-19 contributes to bolster the Kingdom’s response efforts to the health, economic and social crisis triggered by the COVID-19 epidemic,” the AfDB said in a press release.
“Faced with this unprecedented situation, we are doing everything in our power to support Morocco to curb the spread of the virus and mitigate its economic and social repercussions,” said AfDB Director General for North Africa, Mohamed El Azizi.
AfDB indicates that protecting the population requires the primary objective of stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The first step also includes improving the effectiveness of the authorities’ response, as well as increasing the number of virological tests.
“The second objective of this operation is intended to help preserve the purchasing power of Moroccans. In this perspective, the program will support public financial support measures, which benefit employees in the formal and informal sectors during the lockdown period,” said the AfDB.
“It will also reinforce [the] government’s efforts to provide support to 4.3 million households in the informal sector as well as 800,000 employees affiliated to the National Social Security Fund (CNSS),” the Bank added.
“Faced with this unprecedented situation, we are doing everything in our power to support Morocco to curb the spread of the virus and mitigate its economic and social repercussions.”
II.ECONOMIC ANDSOCIAL IMPACT OF COVID-19AND GOVERNANCE
“2.1.Recent Developments:Alongside South Africa, Egypt and Algeria, Morocco is among the African countries with the highest COVID-19 cases. The first case was detected on 2 March 2020 in Casablanca, before spreading to all other regions in the country. On 4May2020, Morocco reported 5,053confirmed COVID-19cases, 179 deaths and 1,653 cured cases. With 1,306 confirmed cases, the Casablanca-Settat region is the most affected region, followed by Marrakech-Safi (1,076 cases), Fès-Meknès (662 cases) and Daraa-Tafilalet (548 cases) (Technical Annex4& 5). At the onset of the COVID-19pandemic, the Moroccan authorities declared a state of emergency, adopted confinement measures, including isolation, suspended all international passenger flights, prohibited public gatherings and closed all mosques,schools, universities, eateries and cafés. Similarly, they limited urban/inter-urban land transport and downsized Government and corporate staff. Compulsory confinement, which started on 20 March 2020 and was later extended to 20 May 2020 (and then to 10th of June – writer-s note), has had a significant adverse impact on the national economy.Donors mobilised to support Morocco address the crisis. Under the Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL 2018-2020)agreement concluded with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Morocco withdrew all resources under this line, equivalent to USD 3billion.For its part, the World Bank disbursed a loan of USD 275 million. 2.2.Economic Situation: Like its key trading partners, Morocco’s economy was hard hit by the crisis caused by COVID-19. The tourism sector has lost an estimated MAD 34.1 billion in turnover in 2020, with nearly 6 million fewer tourists,according to the Moroccan Tourism Confederation(CMT). In the automobile sector,the crisis affected the 250 equipment manufacturers operating in the country, leading to a significant drop in Morocco’s balance of trade. The automobile sector accounted for 27% of total exports in 2019, making itthe leading export sector. In the long run, this might impact the 180,000 jobs in the industry. The textile/dress-making sector is also affected by disruptions in supplies, especially from China and falling foreign demand particularly in the European Union. The textile sector, which employs over 160,000 individuals in 1,200 firms, is threatened.With the double shock of drought and COVID-19, the real GDP growth rate will continue to decelerate in 2020. According to AfDB forecasts(Table 1), it will range from -4.6% to -3.3% in 2020, before rising to between 4.1% and 4.3% in 2021, based on worst-case and best-case scenarios. Various structural and contextual factors will contribute these scenarios. The economy will also suffer from the global recession, particularly in its four key economic partners (Spain, France, Italy and Germany) who make up 76% of its external trade”
The most painful reality here is that most, if not all of this is as legal as obvious. You can watch the money flow, witness the suffering of the people, get enraged, but if the law is your moral compass, nothing happened, move on.
Test acquisitions are a scandal in Morocco, as everywhere else
Morocco’s Ministry of Health rebutted on May 30 reports claiming a single company with two government contracts worth MAD 400 million ($41 million) is responsible for the procurement of COVID-19 rapid diagnostic tests.
The ministry said it signed a contract for two million rapid diagnostic tests worth MAD 212 million ($21.7 million) that did not entirely cover Morocco’s needs, according to the press release.
The agreement was in accordance with health emergency laws and in full compliance with the principle of competitive contracting, the health ministry explained.
The statement added that the ministry consulted “world-leading” companies in the field to ensure technical and financial evaluation of the offers.
The acquired tests are technically efficient and compatible with national laboratories’ equipment, rendering the purchase and cost of new screening equipment unnecessary, the statement continued.
The Ministry of Health said it benchmarked Morocco’s contract to those of other countries, with the statement explaining, “It is the same price paid by several European and Asian countries for the acquisition of quantities ranging from 6 to 10 million tests.”
The ministry affirmed that it “ensures exemplary application of all legal provisions in order to properly manage the resources placed at its disposal.”
The news comes amid Morocco’s efforts to curtail the spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 crisis.
In March, the Director of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, Mohamed Lyoubi, had to deny reports that Morocco purchased 100,000 COVID-19 test kits from a South Korean manufacturer. Basically accusing South Korean media and manufacturers of spreading fake news.
“Since the start of the outbreak in the country, Moroccan laboratories have conducted more than 200,000 tests on suspected carriers, of which 197,805 came back negative”, officials claim.
What Moroccan Government and most world governments have never done since the beginning of the crisis: 1. A risks & costs assessment of their Covid policies, prior to enactment 2. A side-effects assessment of of their Covid policies, post enactment 3. Transparent acquisitions
What did they all do?
Control of media narrative, repression of unaligned speech.
Morocco arrested an old woman for spreading panic by saying there’s no reason to panic. Among other dissenters. And this is the logic of all restrictive Covid-19 policies
Mi Naima literally said in a censored video “don’t be alarmed by the government and media, Coronavirus is a farce”. “Fake news is the first cause of panic among citizens,” said Prime Minister Saad Eddine El-Otmai, in a press conference after Mi Naima’s arrest, comparing the spread of misinformation with the contagion of the disease.
Other people were arrested for opposing strict measures against public gathering, urging people to ignore them, or saying a lockdown had been implemented when it had not.
On the same day, the government approved a draft law governing the use of social media, aiming to deter fake news and cyber crimes undermining public order and the economy.
Rights groups have criticised Morocco for what they see as an increasing crackdown on free speech over the past year, including prison terms for people who have expressed dissent on social media, reports Reuters
Guess which is the only Moroccan business unaffected by Covid
If you paid attention, you guessed right: It’s the Royal phosphate business. QED.
“With the exception of Morocco’s stable phosphates sales, the country’s major export sectors have suffered from the fall in world demand, the breakdown of supply chains, and the disruption of several activities in Morocco, all consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Morocco’s automobile exports fell by 39% at the end of April, textiles by 28%, aeronautics by 34%, and foodstuffs by 7%.
The losses range from MAD 1.8 billion to MAD 11 billion ($184 million to $1.1 billion).” – reports Morocco World News.
To be continued?
Probably so. I leave you with a mystery: How come Moroccan government approved a famous international Israeli spy and child trafficker like Epstein to land his jet (aka “Lolita Express”) on their airports? Official flight registries and press reports show that it happened at least twice. Seeing that Gates and Epstein were partners, did they use Morocco as a secret meeting ground?
We know for sure Morocco was a generous host to other usurpers:
Meet Carlos Moreira
FOLLOW UPS It has all come together, finally:
2018: Donald Trump stares at King “Pfizer I” of Morocco falling asleep during Armistice event. To the right side of the Moroccan dictator is his son, literally the richest kid in the world. Below is what followed, and not what you’d expect after this video.
How Kushner’s Sephardic Jews started to leverage Trump in Morocco as he thought he’ll become an international geopolitics leader
Rabbi Chaim Pinto Hagadol Zatsal. Rabbi Haim Pinto the Great was born in Agadir, Morocco on Tammuz 15, 5509 (July 1, 1749), on the Hilloula of Rabbi Haim Ben Attar. He was the son of the saintly and venerated Rabbi Shlomo PintoZatzal, the descendant of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, known by the name of the Rif of Ein Yaakov.
“Morocco made my Judaism better”
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Started 19th of May 2020 Protesting the terrorism, abuses and looting disguised as Covid-19 policies. For physical body sovereignty and personal consent.
I write this as prisoner of Moroccan government in Agadir Morocco. Very interestingly, this is the hometown of US’ “Vaccine Czar” Moncef Slaoui, a character that seals the fate of many people these days, in US, in Morocco, likely even in my home-country Romania, a US colony under the EU flag.
THERE’S NO FUTURE FOR ANYONE IF THIS IS TOO MUCH TO ASK: 1. Freedom 2. No one touches me or alters my body or my mind without my consent, in any circumstances, ever. 3. I need a place to live outside the influence of any government, all intrinsically corrupt and violent power structures.
I have a birthday to celebrate on June 23rd, I will do it in a state of freedom and independence from these aggressive psychos, with or without any participation. As the notion of consent has been nullified in this Covid World Order.
I don’t demand anyone to solve my problems, I demand some problems to remove themselves from my life as I’ve never invited them. These problems have names and many addresses. I have no problems besides foreign intervention in my life and I demand these problem-people to remove themselves from my life or point out where can I live decently without their influence in my life. Otherwise there’s no point in living.
I don’t expect any reasonable feedback from the sociopaths that broke the world, but if humanity cannot solve this minimal list of problems for itself and me as part of itself, then humanity is WAY more hopeless than I am.
Morocco’s rulers, like any other, think of people as assets. I don’t mind what is in crazy people’s minds until they enforce it in my life, I destroy myself before I become property. SO BY THIS I TAKE BACK OWNERSHIP OVER MY BODY AND MY DESTINY FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MOROCCO AND ANY OTHER LUNATICS TRYING TO ASSERT OWNERSHIP OVER ME.
After I re-established an internet connection, my laptop suddenly started to act like it wants to die, needed 4 reboots and it works like it’s 1998. The cooler sounds like a helicopter and I only have this fb window open. It never did that before, it isn’t in perfect shape, but this is something new. Just hours after publishing the investigation on Moncef Slaoui, my traffic plummeted from an average of 5k views a day (peaking at 8-11k best days) to a little over 1k.
So it looks likely we’ll get disconnected soon, before I’m disconnecting myself from the covid world. I don’t have the energy to do much now, so buh bye if that’s the case Whatever happens to me and to is on the hands of the #StayHome sheep enabling covid terrorism.
I don’t have any wish to wake up in this world anymore, so excuse me if I’ll be sleeping until either this nightmare world or myself are gone, we cannot co-exist. But while I’m awake, I’m going to unleash some information and ideas for everyone to use against these terror groups, watch the updates on this site. . No doctors allowed. From here, no one touches me without consent and gets to survive. This is arranged, just try me.
This should teach elites and Pharmacunts a lesson on consent and human dignity also: My body is a temple. It has never been state property or anyone else’s, despite their belief. I burn it to the ground before the state, Pharma or any other psychopaths touch it without my consent. No one has ever owned my ass.
My life was pretty amazing and I don’t plan to end it any other way. My life, my way.
if you want to help
Much appreciated! Best things you can do: 1. Give this post as much visibility as you can in any way that doesn’t harm anyone. 2. If you resonate with my demands, push them to the public agenda. 3. Involve the humanitarian NGO’s, the Covid World Order is a humanitarian crisis too, where are they?
As for your donations – no more life, no more life costs. The few who contributed: You are amazing, you did help me get over some potentially serious bumps, thank you! I hope you don’t regret it and my work was a good reward. I’m not done yet, not at all 😉
Best thing you can do if you have a little extra is to post this on your Facebook page (or other socials) and use the money to boost the post. This way we both get more traction. Win-win, you know how I roll. I’m completely shadow-banned on Facebook, I don’t roll in Instagram and Twitter… Maybe you can cover for me. Much appreciated!
Let’s rock this joint!
Update 22nd of May, 5AM. Some stomach and head pain are sneaking in, I’m going to fight it with sleep and meditation, I’m good at it. One last thought before I go back to sleep, and before they cut me off again, as a reply to some private messages:
Even to this day SARS-CoV-2 has never been truly scientifically purified/isolated and reinserted into a healthy individual who then develops the same infection. This is a basic and universally acknowledged scientific methodology that has not been followed by anyone claiming that so-called SARS-CoV-2 is actually a novel virus. Read Koch’s postulate.
This is to say most people ignore the root cause of this, which is extreme mass-lunacy, basically. you can’t fight this lunacy with facts and reason anymore. no one there to comprehend. Even if you turn back to “normal” tomorrow (which will never ever happen), this lunacy will still be here waiting for another opportunity to put up a show.
Humanity is fucked beyond functional and that’s not gonna go away. Some braindead meatbots like #stayhomers will eventually end us anyway. If I’m waking up in a world where I’m defenseless against these drones with bones, I’d rather not wake up and retain control over my destiny.
UPDATE: May 23rd, about 2am: Made you a funny.
This is gonna take longer than planned, I feel very weak but still functional, learning a lot about my body. Couldn’t sleep much yesterday, low manageable pains, but Internet seems stable now (as opposed to my laptop) so I did a bit of work and had some depressing chats with the mislead ppl of the world who want to help and are as successful as the lock-downs. Having behind as much knowledge and good planning as the lock downs, I guess. Btw, why does everyone think they have suicide line skills? Especially when they don’t
“Get up and help US! Don’t give US the pain of witnessing what we did to you” :)) Some people must never have contact with suicidal people or people doing hunger strike.
Summing up all feedback so far: Looks like you should be worrying about you losing people like me more than I should worry about me missing the covid world order. People never turn the coin on the other side, that’s how they get duped and covided.
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING: HUNGER STRIKE DOES NOT EQUATE SUICIDE. Impotent emotional drivel instead of well thought efficient reaction turn a hunger strike from a weapon to a useless suicide. Useless for you, I’ll be fine compared. And so far, this is where things go. You can’t help people, people can’t help you. You can’t live with people, they don’t let you live you without them. ERr0r No sanity detected
2h later: ok, one more meme :))
5h later still on a roll like I’m afraid to sleep today. But I had a lot to learn. Such as: total asswipes like these CDC Pharmabots, supported by a bunch of #StayHome drones get to lock me up. Bitch u cray-cray, f-off my radar!
I feel better about myself every day. By comparison. But internet binging was a bad idea
UPDATE May 25th: I’m completing one week, had a modest vegetarian breakfast. Not to celebrate, just to stay on course, because I still can pee standing (which I can’t say about #StayHomers), but I lost it a bit yesterday, after standing up 3-4 minutes to make a tea. Bad energy management the day before, exhausted myself pointlessly. Lots of things happened since the last update, but the most important news is that I found out how Bill Gates funneled money into Moroccan politics!
After a good sleep, I’ll finish a couple new articles, proper truth bombs like before. If Moroccan govt won’t bomb me first.
But all I can do for now is leave you with some proper dank meme work:
People ask of my regimen. It’s bites. When I can’t manage the stomach ache or I need a quick energy boost I take 1 bite. I remember each of them. Over the week, besides this breakfast, which was decent, I totaled: 2 little bananas, about 100-150g of watermelon, 10-12 peanuts, one biscuit and two teaspoons of seeds. It’s actually more than I intended, but hella good for a rookie, never fasted more than 2 days. But this was just a warm-up for everyone, not just for me. The real plot starts now, when they let the dogs out. The angry chihuahuas, that is.
UPDATE 27th of May, 6;40am Physically ok, that breakfast 3 days ago made be buzz for two days with very little sleep, like some drugs, and that’s a big lesson on energy management and metabolism. But today I’m very low energy, with mild pain and every drop of energy I put it in a few things I want to see finished before lights out.
This week’s target is to get under 50kg, I think I’m below 60 now, but I still look ok-ish and the general population needs some powerful emotional triggers to pay attention, since they’ve outsourced reason to “experts”. I’ll be shocking you alright.
What I’ve learned so far: Humanity can’t help itself, it’s done and far gone, so can’t be expected to help me. But I can help it if it pays attention before it’s too late. No reason for optimism though.
UPDATE 29th of May, possibly the last, nothing left to say. Completed Day #10 of HUNGER STRIKE I think I’m approaching 50kg. Ah, there’s a couple of things I’ve achieved already: NO ONE CAN SAY I ENABLED THIS INSANITY. NO ONE CAN SAY I TOOK THIS BULLSHIT If I had 10 #StayHomer lives, I’d trade them for these 10 days.
Finishing this last investigation on Bill Gates in Morocco took a great toll on my energy. And this is probably the last update on this post. Not because I’m done right now, but because there’s nothing left to say. If there’s something I missed to say, it’s somewhere on this website anyway. If you have a question, I bet the answer is on the site and you didn’t pay attention. I only want to see change now. I don’t give a flying F on words. My ears are for music now. The best I can do is memes, minimal blah, I only need to use the mouse.
sums it up
UPDATE JUNE 10 Morocco announced it will perpetuate the covid lies and the theft of human rights. Announced terms and conditions don’t matter because their word is worthless. I am a prisoner. 7+ billion people can’t help me since they can’t help themselves. #StayHomers now riot virtue signalling instead of apologising for enabling this hell. Me doing this means nothing to anyone, which proves my point. Hope just went from 0.01% to absolute 0. This was meant to be a protest and a fight for hope. At this point I’m just looking for any dignified exit of this fucktarded asylum.
The only smile on my face today was put there by none other than Facebook today.
Dang! I managed to trick the bots into approving the sponsored distribution of one of my latest videos and it happens to be the best option, see below. Communism taught me how to hide the truth in art to avoid censorship. As of now, I’m open for donations again, because I found a good cause for it: finishing and publicising this late work I’ve done, which seems to become quite appreciated and popular, but only as much as the gatekeepers allow it to reach people. Since they’re suckers for money (still), I can use that as an exploit to spread truth and some of the stuff that’s otherwise shadow-banned. All my money and your donations go there now anyway, they have no other value now. So there, game over.
“Every study published in the last five years, you look at vaccine refusers, I’m not talking about people we can talk them into coming to terms, but refusers. (54:28 mark) Let’s just get rid of all the whites in the United States, because Houston is the most diverse city in the entire United States.” This is an actual quote from someone, and not just anyone!
THE ORIGINAL VIDEO HAS BEEN UNLISTED, NOT DELETED, comments and likes turned off.
In case they delete it, I got you covered. It’s actually safer to share THIS upload:
On May 9, 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia, the National Meningitis Association (www.nmaus.org) hosted a panel discussion, “Achieving Childhood Vaccine Success in the U.S.,” before its “Give Kids a Shot” Gala. The panel addressed a range of issues including parents who opt out of childhood vaccine requirements, physicians who stray from the recommended vaccine schedule, and the role of the media in creating or removing barriers to vaccination.
The panelists were (from left to right):
Paul Lee, M.D., Director of the International Adoption Program and Pediatric Travel Center at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, New York (moderator).
Carol J. Baker, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, PhD., Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley’s Hastings College of Law. Reiss favors legal liabilities for parents who opt for non-vaccination, and is noted for her support of California Senate Bill 277, which reduced exemptions to vaccination requirements for enrollment in California schools and daycare centers.
Arthur Caplan, PhD., Professor of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.
William Schaffner, M.D., Professor of Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Alison Singer, President of Autism Science Foundation.
Paul Offit, M.D., Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
NOTICE a pattern in the list above?
At the 53:58 mark, Dr. Baker says:
“The fight, the battle is being fought — one family, one physician, one health center. That’s why we’re doing as well as we are. We’re talking about the minority [of vaccine refusers], and strategies against the minority. So I have the solution: Every study published in the last five years, you look at vaccine refusers, I’m not talking about people we can talk them into coming to terms, but refusers. (54:28 mark) Let’s just get rid of all the whites in the United States, because Houston is the most diverse city in the entire United States. There are seven Asian languages spoken in that city. I’ve been in the [racial] minority for more than 20 years in the city of Houston. The majority of them are what we all ‘Hispanics’ — it’s not a race or an ethnicity, it’s a political designation. A lot of them are from Central or South America, Mexico. Guess who wants to get vaccinated the most in Houston? Immigrants! It is the ‘well educated’ — in terms of pieces of paper and the paper on the wall — [who are the vaccine refusers], people that have been here for a long time, and it’s very unfortunate and. But I think we need not lose the big picture. The big picture is there are physicians out there — family practitioners, pediatricians, internists — talking one on one with either the older child — I don’t know when a child stops being a child. For me, I was 30, I wrote my mother and said ‘Hey, I’m a grown-up’. They’d already given me an M.D. degree by then, so it’s a good thing I was grown up. I think that we need to do things as an articulate media-trained group to encourage that conversation, and encourage our health care system to value what vaccines do. Give people enough time to talk to individual families. Most hesitant people, it’s absolutely right, someone said it earlier, some families are having ‘pre-natal visits’. That’s the time to talk about vaccines. This war is fought one on one, with individual families. We need to support those policies that give health care providers, nurses, I mean nurses are really really important, they’re the ones who are probably giving the shots, and if they’re not on board with accepting vaccines, then do you think they’re gonna be supportive of you recommending a vaccine? You have to have your whole [health care] practice situation on board.”
Three years after this, she got decorated by the Sabin Vaccine Institute with funding from Bill Gates.
The 2019 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal ceremony was made possible in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Pfizer.
Dr. Baker is professor of pediatrics and of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Previously, she was head of the section of infectious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine for 25 years. Dr. Baker is immediate past chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. She is a past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and was a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases from 1997-2012. Dr. Baker is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a past-president of NFID and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and a former chair of the ACIP. Among numerous honors, she received the John P. Utz Leadership Award from NFID; the Mentor Award, Society Citation for outstanding achievements in the field of infectious disease, and the Alexander Fleming Award for Lifetime Achievement from IDSA; and the Albert Sabin Gold Medal Award from the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
“Baker’s discoveries about the relationship between infant GBS and maternal immunity, paired with her international advocacy work, have also led to the development of a much-needed vaccine, with candidates currently in clinical trials. She continues to work toward her ultimate goal of preventing this newborn disease through immunizing the mother during pregnancy.
A highly accomplished infectious diseases clinician, teacher and vaccinologist, Baker is known as “the Godmother of group B Streptococcus prevention.” Recognized for her work at a time when many physicians were against vaccinating expectant mothers, Baker’s advocacy for maternal immunization shaped a new medical culture in the United States, enabling doctors to save the lives of countless newborns.
Baker continues to advocate for the health of mothers and babies, such as shepherding the recommendation for routine pertussis booster vaccines for pregnant women while chairing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from 2009 to 2012.
“Dr. Baker’s pioneering work in group B Strep resulted in a more than 80 percent reduction of neonatal disease in the United States and her research is paving the way for the development of a long-overdue vaccine for this disease,” said Amy Finan, Sabin’s chief executive officer. “Each year, we select someone whose career exemplifies Dr. Sabin’s legacy – to ensure the benefits of vaccines reach every child. Today, we are glad to recognize not only a gifted researcher, but a champion who has made it her mission to ensure every baby gets a healthy start. Her life is a testament to the fact that real changes in immunization practices occur when research is paired with dedicated advocacy.”
Baker has authored or co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Notable among these is her work on the book, Vaccine-Preventable Disease: The Forgotten Story, where, alongside other respected vaccine experts, she highlighted the stories of innocent children who have suffered needlessly from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“I am honored to be awarded the distinguished Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal alongside fellow recipients whose work has saved so many lives,” Baker said. “I never planned to be a researcher. I became a doctor to help one patient at a time, but what I found was a calling to use the knowledge gained through research to advocate for life-saving interventions for mothers and babies. I sincerely thank the Sabin Vaccine Institute for the incredible honor of this award.”
The award was presented to Baker by Roger I. Glass, MD, PhD, director of the Fogarty International Center, 2015 recipient of the Sabin Award and husband of Dean Barbara J. Stoll, MD.
Awarded annually since 1994, the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal recognizes champions who have made extraordinary contributions in the field of vaccinology or a complementary field. The award commemorates the legacy of Dr. Albert B. Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine that made monumental contributions to the near eradication of polio worldwide, then worked tirelessly to ensure the vaccine reached children around the world. Past Gold Medal recipients include Dr. Paul Offit, Dr. Anne Gershon and the late Dr. Maurice Hilleman, among many other distinguished vaccine experts.
An infectious diseases clinician, teacher and vaccinologist, Dr. Carol Baker’s discoveries about GBS immunity and pathogenesis helped shape the 1996 CDC consensus guidelines for routine GBS screening among pregnant women. Formerly the president of Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, she chaired multiple working groups within CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices over the course of many years.
Active on numerous editorial boards, Dr. Baker has worked on five editions of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Red Book (2000-2015), which provides reliable and clinically useful information on more than 200 childhood infectious diseases. She has received many honors and awards, including the Maurice Hilleman Award from the CDC; the Mentor, Society Citation and Alexander Fleming Lifetime Achievement awards from the IDSA; the Distinguished Physician Award from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society; and the Schneerson-Robbins Award in Vaccinology.
Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern California and received her medical, residency and fellowship training at Baylor College of Medicine and Harvard University.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute is a leading advocate for expanding vaccine access and uptake globally, advancing vaccine research and development, and amplifying vaccine knowledge and innovation. Unlocking the potential of vaccines through partnership, Sabin has built a robust ecosystem of funders, innovators, implementers, practitioners, policy makers and public stakeholders to advance its vision of a future free from preventable diseases. As a non-profit with more than two decades of experience, Sabin is committed to finding solutions that last and extending the full benefits of vaccines to all people, regardless of who they are or where they live.
The 2019 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal ceremony was made possible in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Pfizer.” – Sabin Vaccine Institute
Baker elected to national academy
“A highly accomplished infectious diseases clinician, educator, and vaccinologist, Carol Baker, MD, adjunct professor in the Department of Pediatrics in McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
Baker was one of 100 professionals elected to the academy for outstanding professional achievement this week.
“This remarkable and well-deserved honor recognizes Dr. Baker’s lifelong contributions to mothers and babies,” said Barbara J. Stoll, MD, dean of McGovern Medical School and H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professor.
Baker was recognized for her expertise in group B streptococcal (GBS) epidemiology, pathogenesis, and prevention, and discovering the critical capsular component for conjugate vaccine development.
Baker has spent her career advocating on behalf of the health of mothers and babies. “I wanted to be a doctor since the age of 6, and I was determined to do something that helped children’s lives,” she said, adding that she was inspired to become a doctor by her mother – her parents met in college and were both pre-med.
She said she was “absolutely surprised and thrilled” at the incredible honor of being elected to NAM. “I hadn’t been that surprised since I was the only woman admitted to my class in medical school,” she added.
Baker earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1968, completed her internship at University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles; and completed her residency and fellowship at Baylor as well as a research fellowship at Harvard. Her advocacy for maternal immunization shaped a new medical culture in the United States, enabling doctors to save the lives of countless newborns.
“Election to the Academy affirms that this was worthwhile,” she said. “But this honor reflects the whole team – those who work in the lab, the clinical research – I didn’t do this alone.”
Baker adds this distinction to many other awards, including the 2019 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, the Maurice Hilleman Award from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention; the Mentor, Society Citation, and Alexander Fleming Lifetime Achievement awards from the Infectious Diseases Society of America; the Distinguished Physician Award from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society; and the Schneerson-Robbins Award in Vaccinology.
Established originally as the Institute of Medicine in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, the NAM addresses critical issues in health, science, medicine, and related policy and inspires positive actions across sectors. Membership in NAM is based upon distinguished professional achievement in a field related to medicine and health, as well as demonstrated and continued involvement with the issues of health care, prevention of disease, education, or research.” – Office of Communications UTH, October 23, 2019
Bonus: Now let’s find out who should be the main targets for the new vaccines
What happened to George Floyd was brutal and horrible and should never happen to anyone, anywhere. This is a moment of reckoning in the United States. We all need to really pause during this time and learn as best we can from it. Even before we saw this senseless death, COVID had already started to show us gaps and structural problems in our country. We are seeing black men die at a disproportionate rate. We know the way out of COVID-19 will be a vaccine, and it needs to go out equitably.
Social commentator and a chieftain of the Nigerian Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Femi Fani-Kayode
BLM, as much as everyone else, needs to pay attention if they’re “for reals”. Everyone and all races would be behind them if they took on our common biggest enemies right now
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
Social isolation, with or without loneliness, can have as large effect on mortality risk as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and high blood pressure“
The causal relation between isolation, depression, stress and diseases falls into the “settled science” category, there may only be a debate on how much is too much. On the quantitative matter, the agreement seems to be that we’re all different, to a point. So for this article I’m just going to investigate some reputable sources on this topic, with minimal inputs from myself.
“Conversely, people who engage in meaningful, productive activities with others tend to live longer, boost their mood, and have a sense of purpose. These activities seem to help maintain their well-being and may improve their cognitive function, studies show”, the report follows. The article deals mainly with long term and chronic isolation and loneliness, but that’s not “as opposed to a short term quarantine”, it’s just a subjective quantitative difference. And if the situation is pre-existent, quarantining everyone seriously exacerbates it. Isolation in any quantity can trigger or aggravate a bad situation for a set of people, especially if there are other factors to promote it, such as uncertainty or fear. Everyone knows someone who goes crazy over a single day of loneliness, as well as “anti-social” people who can hardly be pulled out from self-isolation. There’s a full spectrum of personalities and a full spectrum of threats for them from mass-quarantines. Remember: isolation is worse when everyone around is in isolation too.
Human beings are social creatures. Our connection to others enables us to survive and thrive. Yet, as we age, many of us are alone more often than when we were younger, leaving us vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness—and related health problems such as cognitive decline, depression, and heart disease. Fortunately, there are ways to counteract these negative effects.
Isolation is one of the factors that predisposes the elders to harm from viruses, instead of protecting them
Older adults are reporting social isolation or loneliness show poorer cognitive function 4 years later, claims a recent British study. “Interventions to foster social connections may be particularly beneficial for individuals with low levels of education.” Which is precisely why the US National Institute on Aging is so concerned about it too.
“Efforts to address social isolation in older adults, including those relying on remote technologies, are likely to be cost-effective for health care systems, and are, at the very least, humane approaches to a very common form of distress in older adults.” notes Clifford Singer, MD, University of Maine Chief and reputed Geriatric specialist.
The elders are also the age category where loneliness was the most wide-spread before quarantines. About 28 percent of older adults — that’s 14 million people, in the United States live alone, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (HHS). While many of them are not lonely or socially isolated — some seniors feel isolate despite living among family and friends.
Loneliness May Warp Our Genes, And Our Immune Systems
If anyone likes to make distinctions between loneliness, social isolation and forced social isolation, I’m just going to say that quarantine (even voluntary self-isolation) ads a great deal to all of those. “The assumption is that social disconnectedness without perceived isolation (i.e. isolation without loneliness) would be more “ego syntonic” and less stressful than states of loneliness and depression, therefore having less impact on health. Research has not always supported this assumption (Cornwell & Waite, 2009). Social isolation, with or without loneliness, can have as large effect on mortality risk as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and high blood pressure“, notes reputed geriatrics specialist Clifford Singer, MD
Therefore a huge amount of scientific literature about loneliness becomes relevant to quarantine times.
NPR reports: “Loneliness has been linked to everything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease. Depression is common among the lonely. Cancers tear through their bodies more rapidly, and viruses hit them harder and more frequently. In the short term, it feels like the loneliness will kill you. A study suggests that’s because the pain of loneliness activates the immune pattern of a primordial response commonly known as fight or flight. For decades, researchers have been seeing signs that the immune systems of lonely people are working differently. Lonely people’s white blood cells seem to be more active in a way that increases inflammation, a natural immune response to wounding and bacterial infection. On top of that, they seem to have lower levels of antiviral compounds known as interferons.”
Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
Understanding the biology of loneliness
Losing a sense of connection and community changes a person’s perception of the world. Someone experiencing chronic loneliness feels threatened and mistrustful of others, which activates a biological defense mechanism, according to Steve Cole, Ph.D., director of the Social Genomics Core Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. His NIA-funded research focuses on understanding the physiological pathways of loneliness (the different ways that loneliness affects how your mind and body function) and developing social and psychological interventions to combat it.
For example, loneliness may alter the tendency of cells in the immune system to promote inflammation, which is necessary to help our bodies heal from injury, Dr. Cole said. But inflammation that lasts too long increases the risk of chronic diseases.
Loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases,” Dr. Cole said. “The biology of loneliness can accelerate the buildup of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread, and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer’s disease. Loneliness promotes several different types of wear and tear on the body.
People who feel lonely may also have weakened immune cells that have trouble fighting off viruses, which makes them more vulnerable to some infectious diseases, he added.
Psychologially, physical isolation is the worst form of social isolation
The impacts of social isolation become worse when people are placed in physically isolating environments. For example, solitary confinement can have negative psychological effects on prisoners – including significant increases in anxiety and panic attacks, increased levels of paranoia, and being less able to think clearly.
Many prisoners also report long-term mental health problems after being held in isolation. “Some people who have been held in social isolation against their will may develop long-term mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”, writes Science Alert
Photo: Silviu Costinescu
Are pandemics stressful and depressive? Count on quarantines to add more stress and depression and reduce the ability to fight them
The social experiment known as “the CV pandemic” (due to online censorship, I’m afraid to type its full name” is promoting the idea that everyone around is a potential walking biological bomb. I can’t think of a more stressful social situation, beats by far a war in which the enemy is clearly defined and usually distant. Unless you add a medical martial law to it. Isolation promotes stress and depression, also depletes our abilities to fight stress and depression. Which is precisely the downward spiral you need in a stressful and depressive situation such as a deadly global pandemic. Socially isolated people are less able to deal with stressful situations. They’re also more likely to feel depressed and may have problems processing information. This in turn can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall. In fact, social therapies are highly rated as stress-deterring methods, as recommended by the Mayo Clinic Staff: “A strong social support network can be critical to help you through the stress of tough times, whether you’ve had a bad day at work or a year filled with loss or chronic illness. And the lack of social support can lead to isolation and loneliness. Since supportive family, friends and co-workers are such an important part of your life, it’s never too soon to cultivate these important relationships. A social support network is made up of friends, family and peers. Social support is different from a support group, which is generally a structured meeting run by a lay leader or mental health professional.”
In New York City, a desperate coronavirus-stricken Bronx man tried to commit suicide-by-cop after calling 911 on himself, according to cops.
Health officials in other areas, including Portland, Oregon, saw the number of suicide-related 911 calls soar after the city’s coronavirus “state of emergency” declaration, with self-harm calls spiking 41 percent.
Isolation promotes inflammation, which promotes more isolation
The shock of social isolation could fuel inflammation in the body. And the immune system may affect a region of the brain processing fear and anxiety. “Inflammation can change people’s experiences of the social world and what they’re thinking,” says Naomi Eisenberger, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. That could make us more apprehensive about social interaction and lead to more isolation.
If the cycle continues, that could explain chronic isolation and the subsequent depression and illnesses plaguing the lonely. “There are things we can do to get out of a depressed or lonely state, but they’re not easy,” dr. Steve Cole says. “Part of the reason is because these negative psychological states develop some kind of molecular momentum.”
Past research has shown norepinephrine can increase production of immature monocytes – a type of white blood cell – in bone marrow. These monocytes demonstrate high inflammatory gene expression and low antiviral gene expression.
Researchers quoted by Medical News Today found that both lonely monkeys and humans had higher levels of monocytes in their blood. Further investigation found this is due to an increase in production of immature monocytes; monkeys repeatedly exposed to mild social stress experienced a rise in levels of these cells.
“Overall, the researchers say their findings suggest loneliness disrupts fight-or-fight signaling, which leads to increased production of immature monocytes, causing lower antiviral responses and increased inflammation. In turn, this may impair the production of white blood cells, partly explaining why lonely individuals are at greater risk for chronic illness.” – MNT
Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke
“Deficiencies in social relationships are associated with an increased risk of developing CHD and stroke” claims a study published by the British Medica Journal. And they’re heavily supported by other scientific works. Sixteen electronic databases were systematically searched for longitudinal studies set in high-income countries and published up until May 2015. 23 papers met inclusion criteria for the narrative review. They reported data from 16 longitudinal datasets, for a total of 4628 CHD and 3002 stroke events recorded over follow-up periods ranging from 3 to 21 years. Reports of 11 CHD studies and 8 stroke studies provided data suitable for meta-analysis. Poor social relationships were associated with a 29% increase in risk of incident CHD (pooled relative risk: 1.29, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.59) and a 32% increase in risk of stroke (pooled relative risk: 1.32, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.68). Subgroup analyses did not identify any differences by gender.
First-year College Students Who Feel Lonely Have A Weaker Immune Response To The Flu Shot
A 2005 study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh confirms how college challenges both mind and body, by demonstrating that lonely first-year students mounted a weaker immune response to the flu shot than did other students. The study appears in Health Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA). <<Sparse social ties were associated at a level of statistical significance with poorer immune response to one component of the vaccine, A/Caledonia, independent of feelings of loneliness. Loneliness was also associated with a poorer immune response to the same strain as late as four months after the shot. This supports the argument that chronic loneliness can help to predict health and well-being. The independence of social-network size and loneliness as factors in immunity is supported by the observation that, says Pressman, “You can have very few friends but still not feel lonely. Alternatively, you can have many friends yet feel lonely.” The finding could also help to explain why first-year students tend to visit student health centers more than older classmates; they can be unmoored socially as they adjust to their new circumstances>>, reports Science Daily.
Does grief help? Because we’re already grieving for the world we’ve just lost
“Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air” – David Kessler, one of world’s foremost expert on grief, in an interview for Harvard’s Business Review. Kessler co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazard’s team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries. He goes on saying: “We’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”
Later Update: As I predicted, calls to US helpline jump 891%, as White House is warned of mental health crisis
“Some federal officials worry the U.S. isn’t prepared to meet nation’s needs”. – ABC “Mental health – major factor”, said Donald Trump in a briefing on 9th of April announcing he summoned country’s specialists to tackle the side-effects of the lock-ups. This comes after March 29’s statements in which President Donald Trump suggested it is “common sense” to expect a “massive” jump in mental health issues. Apparently it’s not common at all, the topic is absent from the public agenda. “You’re going to have massive depression,” he said. “You’re going to have depression in the economy also. … [Expect] massive drug use, massive depression, mental depression, massive numbers of suicide.” – Source
Bonus: Isolation promotes heavy social media use, which promotes depression, which promotes more isolation and disease
Missouri University reports: “Browsing Facebook has become a daily activity for hundreds of millions of people. Because so many people engage with the website daily, researchers are interested in how emotionally involved Facebook users can be with the social networking site and how regular use can affect their mental health. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that Facebook use can lead to symptoms of depression if the social networking site triggers feelings of envy among its users. Margaret Duffy, a professor and chair of strategic communication at the MU School of Journalism, says that how Facebook users use the site makes a difference in how they respond to it.
“Facebook can be a fun and healthy activity if users take advantage of the site to stay connected with family and old friends and to share interesting and important aspects of their lives,” Duffy said. “However, if Facebook is used to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship—things that cause envy among users—use of the site can lead to feelings of depression.”
I can go on forever with quotes from the most reputed specialists, and probably I will update this article as sources are abundant. I think we even have a case of “scientific consensus” (not that it matters, bandwagonning is a fallacy). Mass isolation is a disaster for public health, and the subjective “short term argument” is compensated by the huge number of people affected, plus a trove of aggravating factors. And one factor is the worst.
I saved the worst for last: This will be a recurrent event, as I’ve shown in my previous article. We’re never going back to the pre-pandemic way of life, these shocks will become the new normal in a few years. “We’re not going back to normal. Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever. As long as someone in the world has the virus, breakouts can and will keep recurring without stringent controls to contain them”, writes Technology Review. And when we’ll run out of viruses, someone will make more to keep the machine running, I’d add. In a report (pdf), researchers at Imperial College London proposed a way of doing this: impose more extreme social distancing measures every time admissions to intensive care units (ICUs) start to spike, and relax them each time admissions fall. Here’s how that looks in a graph.
You’re looking at a visual rendition of our social life, amplitudes ad frequencies being controlled by government, like a DJ. Enter the era of social DJ-ing, the most modern branch of social engineering.
UPDATE JUNE 15 2020 A ton of scientific literature and media reports have come to support the findings of this article since its publication, I want to highlight just one item for now, for its incisive conclusions. It’s a very recent work by French expert M ZELMAT of Laboratory of Clinical Biology, Hospital Center, France, titled “Facing COVID-19 by the Confinement : EBM, ‘MBM’ or ‘SBM’?”. It’s in prepublication on SSRN and it’s just been submitted to the British Medical Journal, so not yet approved. Download in .PDF
I’ll just copy/paste the conclusion:
“In medicine, there is only isolation and quarantine and the confinement of the general population is not only a heresy (because it does not exist in medicine nor in epidemiology nor in infectiology nor in public health) but it is based on no scientific evidence. In medicine, we can’t and we have no right to set up a treatment or a preventive measure if it is not based on evidence (Evidence Based-Medicine). The confinement is, also, very dangerous for health, economy, education and peace. The governments must listen to real experts (who put public health before private interests), stop immediately all the lockdown measures and re-open everything (economy, hospital medical services, education, etc) because nothing in this virus justifies them ; this virus is, in the general population, mild and not very dangerous as we are told because it it causes 85% of mild forms, 99 % of infected people recover, it is not a danger for pregnant women and children (unlike the flu), it spreads less faster than influenza viruses48 , children are not important drivers (unlike the flu), its mortality rate is similar to the flu or even lower and much lower than the coronaviruses that appeared in 2003 (10%) and 2012 (30%). Each year : flu virus infects worldwide 1 billion persons and kills 650,000 and tuberculosis, which is in the top 10 of death causes in the world and much more contagious (an untreated patient can infect 10 to 15 people) causes 10,4 million cases and kills 1,8 million people. Yet, we never talk about any health crisis. The entire hospital system of countries is absolutely not overwhelmed because saturation only concerns very few hospitals and this can be avoided by taking reasonable measures to manage this epidemic as we indicated and as Sweden did. The WHO must undergo a radical reform. The confinement is truly the health scam of the 21st century, an enquiry must be done about it and those responsible in the WHO and Imperial College London must be questionned and if necessary tried.“
Declaration of interests : no competing interests. Funding information : no funding by external sources. Ethical approval statement : not applicable beacuse no human subjects were invloved and no case reports/case series were included in this article.
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Pfizer has been accused by the UK’s pharmaceutical watchdog of “bringing discredit” on the industry after senior executives used social media to promote an “unlicensed” Covid vaccine.
The company has been found to have breached the regulatory code five times, which also includes making misleading claims, failing to maintain high standards and promoting unlicensed medicines.
A ruling by the pharmaceutical watchdog, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), relates to a complaint about a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, in November 2020 by senior Pfizer employees.
The complaint raised concern about Pfizer’s “misuse of social media to misleadingly and illegally promote their Covid vaccine”, according to the ruling.
They claimed that such “misbehaviour” on social media was “even more widespread” than they had thought and “extended right to the top of their UK operation”.
‘Unlicensed medicine proactively disseminated’
The complaint centered on a social media post on X by Dr Berkeley Phillips, the medical director of Pfizer UK. He shared a post from an employee of Pfizer in the US which said: “Our vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19, and 94 per cent effective in people over 65 years old. We will file all of our data with health authorities within days. Thank you to every volunteer in our trial, and to all who are tirelessly fighting this pandemic.”
Four other Pfizer employees, including one “senior” colleague, published the same message
The PMCPA ruling noted that this message contained “limited” information about the vaccine’s efficacy, no safety information and no reference to adverse events.
It went on to say that the social media post resulted in an “unlicensed medicine being proactively disseminated on Twitter to health professions and members of the public in the UK”.
A Pfizer UK spokesman said that the company “fully recognises and accepts the issues highlighted by this PMCPA ruling”, adding that it is “deeply sorry”.
They said: “Pfizer UK has a comprehensive policy on personal use of social media in relation to Pfizer’s business which prohibits colleagues from interacting with any social media related to Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines – backed by staff briefings and training.
“The personal use of social media by UK pharmaceutical industry employees in relation to company business is a challenging area for pharmaceutical companies, in which we continue to take all of the appropriate steps that are reasonably expected of a pharmaceutical company.”
As part of their response to the ruling, Pfizer said it had launched a review into its employees’ use of social media platforms to ensure compliance with their own rules as well as the regulatory code.
‘Accidental and unintentional’
It is the sixth time Pfizer has been reprimanded by the regulator over its promotion of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Following a complaint from the campaign group UsForThem, the PMCPA found that Pfizer had misled the public, made unsubstantiated claims and failed to present information in a balanced way.
Three of the other Pfizer cases related to LinkedIn posts, one related one was about claims made in a press release and one was about posts on X.
For the most recent series of breaches, Pfizer was charged administrative costs of £34,800.
Ben Kingsley, the head of legal affairs at UsForThem, said: “It’s astonishing how many times Pfizer’s senior executives have been found guilty of serious regulatory offences – in this case including the most serious offence of all under the UK Code of Practice. “Yet the consequences for Pfizer and the individuals concerned continue to be derisory. This hopeless system of regulation for a multi-billion dollar life and death industry has become a sham, in dire need of reform.”
Dr Phillips, the UK country medical director for Pfizer, said the social media post was “accidental and unintentional” adding: “That said, we immediately accepted the case ruling and do everything we can to ensure that our employees adhere to our strict social media policy and the industry Code of Practice when using their personal social media.”
David Watson of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said that the code of practice, which is overseen by the PMCPA, sets “high standards for companies that reflect and go beyond UK law”.
He added that cases that are found to have brought discredit on the industry are advertised in the medical, pharmaceutical, and nursing press.
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This was originally published by Glenn Greenwald on The Intercept, in 2014, then soon deleted from their website. But not from Internet. Tim Truth dug it out and I’m bring you the full set of receipts.
One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.
Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on fourclassifiedGCHQdocuments presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”
By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:
Other tactics aimed at individuals are listed here, under the revealing title “discredit a target”:
Then there are the tactics used to destroy companies the agency targets:
GCHQ describes the purpose of JTRIG in starkly clear terms: “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or disruption).”
Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.
The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes:
No matter your views on Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. There is a strong argument to make, as Jay Leiderman demonstrated in the Guardian in the context of the Paypal 14 hacktivist persecution, that the “denial of service” tactics used by hacktivists result in (at most) trivial damage (far less than the cyber-warfare tactics favored by the US and UK) and are far more akin to the type of political protest protected by the First Amendment.
The broader point is that, far beyond hacktivists, these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even national security threats. As Anonymous expert Gabriella Coleman of McGill University told me, “targeting Anonymous and hacktivists amounts to targeting citizens for expressing their political beliefs, resulting in the stifling of legitimate dissent.” Pointing to this study she published, Professor Coleman vehemently contested the assertion that “there is anything terrorist/violent in their actions.”
Government plans to monitor and influence internet communications, and covertly infiltrate online communities in order to sow dissension and disseminate false information, have long been the source of speculation. Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, a close Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups.
Sunstein also proposed sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups” which spread what he views as false and damaging “conspiracy theories” about the government. Ironically, the very same Sunstein was recently named by Obama to serve as a member of the NSA review panel created by the White House, one that – while disputing key NSA claims – proceeded to propose many cosmetic reforms to the agency’s powers (most of which were ignored by the President who appointed them).
But these GCHQ documents are the first to prove that a major western government is using some of the most controversial techniques to disseminate deception online and harm the reputations of targets. Under the tactics they use, the state is deliberately spreading lies on the internet about whichever individuals it targets, including the use of what GCHQ itself calls “false flag operations” and emails to people’s families and friends. Who would possibly trust a government to exercise these powers at all, let alone do so in secret, with virtually no oversight, and outside of any cognizable legal framework?
Then there is the use of psychology and other social sciences to not only understand, but shape and control, how online activism and discourse unfolds. Today’s newly published document touts the work of GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” devoted to “online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption”:
Under the title “Online Covert Action”, the document details a variety of means to engage in “influence and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and “compliance”:
The documents lay out theories of how humans interact with one another, particularly online, and then attempt to identify ways to influence the outcomes – or “game” it:
We submitted numerous questions to GCHQ, including: (1) Does GCHQ in fact engage in “false flag operations” where material is posted to the Internet and falsely attributed to someone else?; (2) Does GCHQ engage in efforts to influence or manipulate political discourse online?; and (3) Does GCHQ’s mandate include targeting common criminals (such as boiler room operators), or only foreign threats?
As usual, they ignored those questions and opted instead to send their vague and nonresponsive boilerplate: “It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position.”
These agencies’ refusal to “comment on intelligence matters” – meaning: talk at all about anything and everything they do – is precisely why whistleblowing is so urgent, the journalism that supports it so clearly in the public interest, and the increasingly unhinged attacks by these agencies so easy to understand. Claims that government agencies are infiltrating online communities and engaging in “false flag operations” to discredit targets are often dismissed as conspiracy theories, but these documents leave no doubt they are doing precisely that.
Whatever else is true, no government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target people – who have been charged with no crime – for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse? But to allow those actions with no public knowledge or accountability is particularly unjustifiable.
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There’s really not much to comment, this just needs everyone’s urgent attention and a huge backlash!
Enter (not!) UK’s top retailer:
This guy makes a pretty good summary here, but I recommend going into all details yourselves, because there are plenty more clues about what they plan for us.
All I need to add before you get into the document: No less than the plebs they despise, even more acutely, I’d say, these guys don’t seem to differentiate very well between their wishes and the actual reality occurring outside their brains. Many of the things presented as facts or real data points are no more real than their 2169 predictions. I think experts call that “schizophrenia” and, by my observations, it’s the most widespread and long lasting pandemic on the planet. Also, note how they admit to creating a feedback loop by controlling both food and drugs. This is what Monsanto, Bill Gates and Bayer have long created.
Governments around the world are cracking down on food production in ways that will make it HARDER to grow and purchase food. Amish farmers are even going to jail for refusing to fall in line. But US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has a solution: a simple amendment to the Constitution that will add the “right to grow food and purchase food from the sources that you want.” Rep. Massie joins Glenn to explain what the amendment would do and how he has worded it to ensure that the government won’t abuse it to create a larger welfare state. This has nothing to do with food stamps, he argues. It’s about restricting the government’s ability to tell YOU what you should grow and buy.
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Q: What’s the difference between “non-elites” and “useless eaters”? A: Three years.
As unfathomable as it may seem to educated people (which is a different thing from “schooled people”), I still encounter many NPCs retaining antiquated knee-jerk rejection reactions to the concept of a definite and established ruling elite class hoovering over the plebs in a superior societal level. Most of these NPCs are unfixable, but for the remaining few…
The word “elite” appears eight times in seven pages.
In an effort to hear more views departing from elite consensus, the Commission will support and welcome a new set of fellows who will articulate and represent views from rural and other areas to help ensure this diversity becomes engrained in our deliberations.
The Trilateral Commission, 2019
And there’s a “gap” between their highnesses and “the rest of the citizens”…
Domestic Dialogues. Strengthening our democracies requires building more “connective tissue” between traditional elites and other members of our own societies. Trilateral Commission domestic dialogues will bring together “coastal elites” and individuals from rural and other areas. The two-day dialogues, taking place in different locations in the heart of the North American continent, will each be organized around a concrete issue—such as urban renewal, manufacturing, or various aspects of the energy industry. This structure will allow participants to learn and to interact while giving them an opportunity to informally discuss what is straining our democracies, without the perception of one side lecturing to the other. The dialogues may focus on the younger generation of Commission members (the under-35 David Rockefeller Fellows) or be a hybrid of full members and fellows.
The Trilateral Commission, 2019
Bonus:
If you ever wondered why democracy is under inside attack from the democratically elected governments, the answer is old and simple, as this next document proves:
Democracies are becoming ungovernable with time as they foster an accumulation and consolidation of power for the general population at the expense of government.
Of course democracy is just another logically absurd utopia, but if we were to adopt that framework, these two sentences above are the root cause of everything, forcing the governments to push us down regularly, to re-establish dominance and control.
The corollary is that governments do only one thing: they self-consolidate at the expense of the people they are hired to serve. As Chomsky has long demonstrated, the government and their people have always been at odds, not symbiots. Same way government is at odds with democracy itself.
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The world of technology is changing rapidly, and with it comes the development of new communication protocols like the Internet of Behavior (IoB). IoB offers a revolutionary way to monitor, control and model human behavior. As tech leaders in this ever-evolving industry, we must stay ahead of upcoming trends so that we can take advantage of its many benefits.
The Internet of Behavior
IoB is a system that uses sensors and other technologies to monitor, analyze and predict human behavior. It combines artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), big data analytics, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobile applications, wearable devices, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), robotics automation systems and more into one comprehensive platform for collecting behavioral data from individuals or groups. The collected data can then be used for various purposes such as predictive analytics or automated decision-making processes.
The primary benefit of using IoB technology is improved efficiency and productivity gains from automation enabled by predictive analytics. Leveraging AI algorithms for analyzing behavioral patterns in real time can help organizations make better decisions faster while reducing costs associated with manual labor or inefficient processes.
The Internet of Behavior is a rapidly growing technology that has the potential to revolutionize how we interact with and understand our world. In this article, I will explore how IoB works and what technologies are used to implement it.
How IoB Works
IoB is a revolutionary technology that enables the monitoring, control and modeling of human behavior. It combines the power of the technologies mentioned above to provide an unprecedented level of insight into how people interact with their environment. IoB has been used in various industries such as healthcare, retail, finance, education, transportation and more.
Protocols And Ecosystems Involved In IoB
IoB works by connecting devices to each other through networks or protocols like Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). This connection allows for real-time data exchange between different systems, which can then be analyzed using AI algorithms. Additionally, these connections are often secured using encryption techniques like Transport Layer Security (TLS) to ensure privacy protection. Furthermore, this ecosystem also includes software platforms such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure which enable organizations to store large amounts of data securely in the cloud while providing scalability options when needed.
Technologies Used To Implement IoB
In order for IoB systems to work effectively, they must utilize several technologies, including sensors that detect changes in environmental conditions, communication protocols such as Wi-Fi or BLE, edge computing capabilities that allow for local processing, ML algorithms that analyze collected data, databases for storing information and APIs that facilitate integration with other applications or services. All these components come together to create an intelligent system capable of understanding user behavior patterns over time so it can make predictions about future actions based on past behaviors.
Challenges Of Developing And Implementing IoB
It is important to understand the protocols and ecosystems involved in IoB, as well as the technologies used to implement it, so you can unlock the potential of this powerful technology for improved efficiency, security and accuracy. Let’s explore further how these advantages can be leveraged with IoB for human behavior monitoring, control and modeling.
Advantages Of Using IoB For Human Behavior Monitoring, Control And Modeling
Automation and predictive analytics enabled by IoB can significantly improve efficiency and productivity gains. For example, IoB systems can be used to automate mundane tasks such as data entry or scheduling appointments, freeing up time for more complex activities that require higher-level thinking skills. Additionally, predictive analytics enabled by IoB can help identify patterns in customer behaviors that may not be immediately apparent to the naked eye.
Enhanced security and privacy protection are other advantages of using IoB for human behavior monitoring, control and modeling. Advanced data encryption techniques are used in these systems, which ensure that sensitive information remains secure at all times while still allowing access only when necessary.
The advantages of using IoB in this way have been demonstrated in terms of improved efficiency and security as well as increased accuracy. As the technology continues to evolve, we will see more sophisticated AI-based solutions emerging and greater emphasis on interoperability standards.
Upcoming Trends In The Development And Use Of IoB Technology
The development and use of IoB technology are rapidly evolving, with new trends emerging in the industry. AI-based solutions are becoming increasingly popular for automated behavioral analysis enabled by this technology. These solutions can help to identify patterns in user behavior that would otherwise be difficult to detect manually. This could include identifying potential security threats or uncovering customer preferences and insights from large datasets. Wearable devices are also gaining traction as an alternative to traditional sensors for collecting behavioral data. They offer a more convenient way of gathering information about user activities without having to install additional hardware or software components on the device itself.
Interoperability standards are also being developed with increasing focus, allowing different platforms utilizing IoB technology to integrate seamlessly across different systems and networks. This will enable users to access data collected from multiple sources within one platform, providing a comprehensive view of their behaviors over time while maintaining privacy and security protocols throughout the process.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Internet of Behavior is a new communication protocol and ecosystem that promises to revolutionize the way we monitor, control and model human behavior. By leveraging the latest advances in technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, IoB can provide us with unprecedented insights into how people interact with each other and their environment. As this technology continues to evolve, it will become increasingly important for tech leaders to stay abreast of its development so they can leverage its potential benefits for their organizations. – End of Forbes article
Standard PR piece, ChatGPT redacted, I guess… But damn worrying escalation from the previous piece on the Internet of Bodies and Internet of Things, or about optogenetics! And we’re not talking about potential for abuse here because this is an abuse technology, abuse is what it does. With no one’s consent.
I didn’t even bother to check with google, but on any other search engine you get a lot of hits for “internet of behavior”, the secret is hidden in the open, as usual. but I leave you with a few of my own findings and resources, and from here there’s no way around knowing your enemy to escape and defeat your enemy.
The most obvious and effective examples of capitalizing on the Internet of Behaviours are Facebook and Google, which display adverts to surfers at frequent intervals depending on the detailed analysis and understanding they have created from consumer behavioral data obtained on a regular basis.
The global internet of behaviors (IoB) market size was valued at USD 402.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to surpass around USD 3592.6 billion by 2032, poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.97% from 2023 to 2032.
The Internet of Behaviours (IoB) seeks to debate how data may be best understood and is used to build and launch new products from the perspective of human psychology. The IoB may be utilized in a variety of ways by both public and commercial enterprises. This innovation will become an enticing big branding and distribution platform for businesses and organizations all around the world. Every firm gets an in awareness of its clientele, which the IoB platform enables. For instance, IoB links all mobile phones in the program, allowing them to observe their faults and receive visual tips on how to improve their swinging and stroke. The linking of devices generates a large number of new pieces of data and spans beyond the Internet of Things (IoT). Businesses acquire information from customers by ‘sharing’ data amongst linked devices, which are then monitored in real time by a single computer.
While refers to the interconnection of networked physical things that acquire and exchange data over the internet. IoB interprets this data in conjunction with particular human actions ranging from purchasing habits to demographic preferences. Location tracking, big data, and face recognition devices basically map client behavior. Here’s an easy example: Uber. Its Internet of Things app monitors both drivers with passengers. Once the consumer has been left off, Uber polls to assess the ride, allowing the driver’s conduct to be monitored and the quality of customer to be interpreted properly. By 2025, 40% of the world population would be subject to at least 1 IoB program (government or corporate) and digitally tracked in order to affect human behavior. IoB may be a great instrument for leveraging sales and marketing to develop effective strategies that make a difference in the products and services given to customers. But that’s not all; it’s also beneficial to other industries. IoB, for example, is useful in the medical arena, assisting healthcare personnel in assessing individuals’ illnesses, responsiveness to medicines, and other lifestyle information.
Growth factors
Over the last decade or so, there has been an astonishing increase in chronic and weakens the immune system illnesses (NCDs). Every year, over 41 million individuals die as a result of NCDs, resulting in exorbitant healthcare cost. IoB-enabled devices have enabled significant advancements in artificial pancreas technology. According to 2015 research, IoB devices resulted in a 50% reduction in 30-day hospital readmissions. IoB aids in the reduction of automobile insurance premiums. Users can install an app on their phones that collects crucial information such as distance traveled, automobile speed, and time of day the user is driving, and so on. As a result, determine the right premium that the user is entitled to pay. According to the study, prudent drivers would pay minimal rates. Aviva was the first insurance provider to create a smartphone app for tracking driving behavior in 2013.
Several digital advertising firms are already utilizing analytics technologies to gain insights into regular customer habits. Marketers may utilize the Internet of Things to monitor client purchasing behaviors across platforms, gain access to previously unavailable data, reconfigure the value chain, and even bring honest point-of-sale notifications and customized marketing. IoB is regarded as one of the top technology trends for 2021. The COVID-19 epidemic is mostly to blame for IoB becoming a trend since it has revolutionized how consumers engage with brands, forcing businesses to reconsider how they communicate with customers. From the angle of human psychology, the IoB concept attempts to accurately analyze data and use that understanding to build and market new things. The IoB attempts to understand data obtained from users’ online actions from the perspective of behavioral psychology. It seeks to address questions about how to analyze data and how to apply that information to develop and market new products, all from the standpoint of human psychology. This new approach occasionally has an impact on Quality Infrastructure since many organizations might increase their connectivity.
Using IoB technology has assisted numerous firms in reaching out to more clients through internet advertising. Companies may easily identify and target certain individuals or groups to offer their services and goods using the Internet of Behavior. Google and Facebook, for example, both utilize behavioral data to provide relevant adverts to its customers. Companies may use IoB to not only communicate with their target audience, but also track their habits in order to enhance services. Furthermore, new technologies such as Alexa, OK Google, and Siri are designed to study and analyze data and human behavior in order to perform more effectively.
Report Scope of the Internet of Behaviors (IoB) Market
Advertising Campaigns, Digital Marketing, Content Delivery, Brand Promotion, and Others are the market segments. Over the projected period, the Digital Marketing sector is likely to occupy a major proportion of the worldwide Internet of Behaviors (IoB) market. Because the internet of behavior (IoB) requires an internet connection, digital marketing services will benefit greatly from IoB technology. Data is the key commodity of digital marketing, which promotes products and services to consumers all over the world. If companies have access to behavioral analysis and interpretation technology, they will be better positioned to engage customers following the purchase process.
In 2022, the digital marketing category is expected to have the highest share. Because an internet connection is required for the internet of behavior (IoB), digital marketing services will benefit the most from IoB technology. Digital marketing is a field that markets products and services to individuals all over the world using data as its primary commodity. They will be in a better position to contact customers at the conclusion of the purchasing process if they have access to tools for behavioral analysis and interpretation. Globally, there is expected to be a major increase in digital marketing. Digital marketing will be used to promote brands, generate leads, and increase sales. The Internet of Business is a big boon to the sales profession. At the same time, for decades, corporations relied on data to make judgments. Why has the IoB trend become so important in today’s commercial, government, and non-profit sectors? First and foremost, IoB focuses on gathering, analyzing, and comprehending user behavior in order to enhance service quality and the value chain. This technology collaborates closely with behavioral science and can provide greater data insights. It also aids in the development of stronger client connections because IoB allows for two-way contact with them. Instead of doing surveys to learn from them, businesses may better understand their consumers’ demands and deliver significant improvements.
Industry Insights
BFSI, Telecom and IT, Media and Entertainment, Tourism & Travel, Retail and e-Commerce, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Others are the major segments. The BFSI category is expected to occupy a considerable part of the worldwide Internet of Behaviors (IoB) market by 2032. IoB is extensively utilized in the BFSI business for statement generation and automatic notification applications. Brands may maintain an omnichannel presence by swiftly determining a customer’s preferred channels and providing tailored messaging solely through those channels. Consumer connection is being prioritized by financial institutions and retail banks through location-based advertising. These reasons are expected to drive IoB adoption in the BFSI industry.
The most obvious and effective examples of capitalizing on the Internet of Behaviours are Facebook and Google, which display adverts to surfers at frequent intervals depending on the detailed analysis and understanding they have created from consumer behavioral data obtained on a regular basis. However, collecting and analyzing data from IoT is difficult, and many businesses do not have simple access to this data. With the number of IoT devices predicted to triple by 2025, IoT, which has so far had momentum in the B2B industry, is expected to experience rapid acceptance in the consumer segment.
Regional Insights
The adoption of the internet of behaviors in North America is expected to rise at a rapid pace. Furthermore, North America has made significant progress in the use of IoT, particularly in the industrial and automotive industries. Because of the demand for IoT, cloud platforms are seeing widespread acceptance, boosting the growth of the internet of behaviors market throughout the forecast period.
South Asia and the Pacific are expected to emerge as the most opportunistic markets for the internet of behaviors due to the presence of a large consumer population, creating opportunities for organizations engaged in behavioral analytics to better understand consumer behavior and strategize their sales/marketing campaigns accordingly. Furthermore, rising government smart city efforts and cloud investment in the area are expected to fuel market expansion in the near future. Furthermore, the introduction of high-speed networking technologies, increased interest in the area by international firms, and rising demand from developing countries such as India, Indonesia, and Australia are expected to boost market expansion.
Key market developments
Aware, Inc., a major global provider of biometrics software products, solutions, and services, will exhibit its digital identification expertise in many sessions at the Identity Week London 2021 conference, which will be held from September 22 to 23 in London, England. Identity Week London is an ideal venue for Aware to showcase its extensive biometric expertise and solutions for password-less authentication and identity ownership, with a focus on digital identity and complex authentication technologies.
Maxar Technologies’ AFIXTM suite of biometric products was bought by Aware, Inc., a prominent global provider of biometrics software products, solutions, and services, in November 2020. The Aware ABIS product line has expanded with the inclusion of AFIX, which provide turn key also face and fingerprint biometrics matching, in addition forensic analysis softwares for small and medium-sized law enforcement and government organizations.
Internet of behaviour is an extension of IoT. Let us try to know more about it. It’s not about the “things” at all when companies use the Internet of Things to persuade us to change our habits. We’ve crossed over into the Internet of Behavior as the IoT connects individuals with their activities.
Consider the IoB as a mash-up of three disciplines:
Technology
Analytical data
Psychology is the study of human behaviour.
Emotions, choices, augmentations, and companionship are the four areas of behavioural science that we examine when we utilize technology.
Companies that know us through the data provided by IoT, can now influence our behaviour using the data provided by IoB. Consider using a smartphone health app to check your nutrition, sleep habits, heart rate, or blood sugar levels. The app can warn you about potentially dangerous circumstances and propose behaviour changes that would lead to a more positive or desirable outcome.
For the time being, corporations are mostly using IoT and IoB to watch and attempt to influence our behaviour to reach Allstate behavior their intended goal—typically, to purchase.
Working of IoB
How Data Is Collected?
Consumer data may be gathered from a range of sites and technologies, including a company’s website, social media profiles, sensors, telematics, beacons, health monitors (such as Fitbit), and a variety of other devices.
Each of these sites gathers various types of information. For example, a website may keep track of how many times a person visits a certain page or how long they remain on it. Furthermore, telematics may track how hard a vehicle’s driver brakes or the vehicle’s typical speed.
Data is collected and analyzed by businesses for a variety of purposes. These reasons include assisting businesses in making educated business decisions, customizing marketing techniques, developing products and services, and driving user experience design, among others.
Companies establish standards to aid in the analysis of this data. When a user performs a specific action(s), the firm then begins to convince the user to modify their behaviour. For instance, if a user visits a company’s page selling men’s slim jeans three times, the digital shop may show them a pop-up ad offering them 25% off a pair of jeans.
Using Data from a Variety of Sources
Combining data from many sources and evaluating it to make a decision is another component of the Internet of Behaviors. Companies may develop in-depth user profiles for each user by combining data from a variety of sources. These profiles may then be looked at to see what the best course of action is for the person.
For example, on the brand’s Instagram page, a customer called Ted comments on a photo of a new sneaker. Ted visits the brand’s website a few days later and looks at the identical sneaker. After a week, Ted is watching an ad for the sneaker on YouTube. In the meanwhile, the brand is keeping track of all of Ted’s digital content touchpoints.
Because Ted has expressed an interest in the brand’s shoe, the brand may synthesize this information and devise a strategy for converting Ted into a customer. Remarketing display advertising or emailing Ted a discount coupon are examples of actions the brand might do.
Use of IoB in Various Sectors
IoB in Business
Online advertising is increasingly being used by a variety of businesses to reach out to their clients. They may discover and target certain persons or groups that could benefit from their products or services with the help of IoB.
Both Google and Facebook utilize behavioural data to provide ads to users on their sites. This enables companies to interact with their target consumers and measure their behaviour in response to advertisements via “click rates.”
Similarly, Youtube uses behavioural analytics to enhance the viewer’s experience by only recommending or highlighting videos and subjects that they are interested in.
IoB During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The epidemic has increased our awareness of the precautions we must take during this period. Employers might use sensors or RFID tags to see if there are any inconsistencies in following safety standards. Restaurants and food delivery applications, for example, utilize the protocol information to guide their decisions.
Swiggy and Zomato, for example, both exhibited and promoted restaurant safety procedures. They also recorded and broadcast the temperature of the delivery person to reassure consumers that they were safe.
IoB for the Insurance Industry
In the insurance industry, IoB may be quite beneficial. Driver tracking tools are already used by insurance companies like Allstate and StateFarm to track and secure a driver’s conduct. With the help of IoB, they may evaluate the behaviour and perhaps determine if a certain occurrence was an accident or a misjudged assumption on the part of the insured.
This can help prevent incidents of drunk driving, driving under the influence of drugs, and even underage or retired persons from getting behind the wheel and causing an accident.
End-Note
The Internet of Behaviors offers businesses cutting-edge methods for marketing products and services as well as influencing user and employee behaviour. This technology is highly useful to organizations since it allows them to optimize their customer relationships depending on the data acquired.
Behavioral data technology is still developing. However, as new IoT devices proliferate, the argument over what constitutes critical data and ethical use is only beginning.
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
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Israeli visit disclosed by Avigdor Lieberman, who says Mossad chief and Israeli military commander were sent on the mission by Netanyahu
Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen visited Doha on February 5 in order to ensure Qatar continues its financial aid policy to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The visit came to light in an interview former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman gave Israel’s Channel 12 News on Saturday, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sent Cohen and the Israeli military’s chief of Southern Command Herzl Halevi to “beg the Qataris to keep funneling money into Hamas.”
“Both the Egyptians and the Qataris are angry with Hamas, and they were going to cut all ties with them. All of a sudden Netanyahu shows up as a Hamas advocate, pressuring Egypt and the Qataris to continue” with the financial support, said Lieberman, adding that Netanyahu’s policy is tantamount to “surrender to terrorism.”
According to Walla news website, Cohen and Halevi stayed in Doha for less than 24 hours, meeting with the Qatari envoy to the Gaza Strip Mohammed al-Emadi and Qatari national security advisor Mohammed Bin Ahmed al-Misnad.
On Friday, Doha announced that it would increase Gaza Strip aid as part of the efforts to alleviate conditions and increase stability in the enclave. Qatar has transferred the Gaza Strip over $1 billion since 2012 with Israel’s approval, according to data presented by an international source to Israeli ministers in 2019.
As part of the improved aid package, some 120,000 impoverished families will receive $100 dollars each by the end of February.
Moreover, poor-stricken families will receive financial support to pay for the rehabilitation of their homes totaling a million dollars, and an additional million dollars in aid to 500 young Palestinians from those families who are about to get married. Another million dollars will be given to Gazan students whose families are unable to pay their tuition.
Al-Emadi added that $24 million will be allocated to building a new hospital in the Rafah area in southern Gaza.
In November 2019, Qatar began a six-month, $150 million program to fund civil servant wages and shipments of fuel for power generation in Gaza, offering a measure of reprieve to the blockaded enclave under the control of militant group Hamas. Qatar then gave $70 million dollars to 70 needy families.
More Israelis Speak Out – Hamas Attack Inside Job
A secret Mossad Qatar trip, Hamas outreach to Egypt and Iran’s threat
In Israel, the Mossad-Qatar-Hamas story was revealed by Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman over the weekend and was reported locally.
Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh (R) and the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani arrive at a cornerstone laying ceremony in the southern Gaza Strip(photo credit: REUTERS)
Saudi news channel Al Arabiya is very interested in what a previously unknown “Mossad trip to Qatar” means for the region. “Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas, and they intended to cut ties with it,” the network reported, while noting the significance of recent Israeli discussions with Doha about continuing to fund Gaza. Hamas also thinks this is noteworthy, bragging over the weekend that it met with Qatar’s envoy Mohammed al-Emadi, and that $15 million was distributed in Gaza.In Israel, the Mossad-Qatar-Hamas story was revealed by Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman over the weekend, and was reported locally. The story goes that Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and IDF Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi met with top Qatari officials.Halevi was in the news last month, when he commented on the killing of IRGC general Qasem Soleimani, saying that “we must look at the assassination as part of a fight between Iran and the US over Iraq’s character.” Halevi is known for his achievements in a three-year term running Military Intelligence. He has spoken about using deterrence in a way that does not escalate the situation, and of the importance of information supremacy over Israel’s enemies, according to an article at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in 2018. This is a key to Israel’s “campaign between the wars,” in which Israel must prepare for a future struggle with Iran and its allies.
Israel now has a dedicated headquarters for the “third circle” threat of Iran, in light of the IDF’s new Momentum Plan to enhance the IDF’s capabilities. It is worth grasping this larger picture to understand some of what Hamas is up to in Gaza. While Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad both are supported by Iran, PIJ is an Iranian proxy whereas Hamas is more an ally. Hamas, however, has been isolated over the years, and has failed to achieve results in confrontation with Israel. Some 2,600 rockets fired over the last two years achieved little, and its “Great March of Return,” launched in 2018, also failed. In March 2018, former Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah survived an assassination attempt in Gaza. Today Hamas is bragging about opposing the US “Deal of the Century.”It is important to consider that calculus to see the larger picture of Qatar’s role in Gaza. Qatar has supported Gaza for more than a decade, and the Emir of Qatar even visited Gaza in 2012. In January 2019, the third $15m. payment via Israel to Gaza was made by Qatar, as part of a 2018 deal. Mohammed al-Emadi has been Doha’s point man throughout. He has visited Israel more than two dozen times, according to a Reuters interview in 2018. He also cited talks between Israel and Hamas in that year. Qatar has said its aid to Gaza helps prevent a conflict. Emadi, however, has sometimes ruffled feathers in Gaza due to his outspokenness.
All of the ruffled feathers were forgotten when Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, met Emadi at the end of last week to discuss a gas pipeline and financial aid. Twelve million was given to 120,000 families, $2m. for 500 Palestinians to get married, $1m. for tuition and another million for housing for the poor, according to a statement from Hamas.Hamas has done well internationally in the past few months. A delegation led by senior Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh went to Turkey, Malaysia, Qatar, and several other countries in December and January. Now Hamas says that its political bureau chief, Saleh al-Arouri, was in Egypt over the weekend of February 21 to discuss major issues. At the same time that Arouri was in Egypt, another Hamas delegation in Lebanon claimed to have met the head of Lebanese military intelligence for southern Lebanon. Hamas put out a press release naming their meetings with Lebanon’s Brig.-Gen. Fawzi Hamada, where they discussed the “Deal of the Century” and other issues.
It is also known that senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh may remain outside Gaza for some time. He was in Iran for the funeral of Soleimani in January. Arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas, had only returned to Gaza in 2018 after eight years abroad. Now he is shuttling back and forth for the organization, having previously been based in Qatar, Lebanon and Turkey. He left Turkey in 2015.If we add all this up, what do we get? Hamas has struggled in Gaza since 2006, and has been isolated and broken down by numerous wars in 2009, 2012 and 2014. After tens of thousands of rockets built and fired, tunnels constructed and sea commandos trained, Hamas has little to show for it all, and wants a long-term deal.In Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority and its leaders in Fatah have been skeptical of what is going on in Qatar. Al Arabiya notes that the financial support, only $15m. in installments from Qatar every few months, seeks to divide the Palestinians further. Emadi is said to be working for a long-term deal or “calm,” and Hamas pays lip service to Palestinian unity, especially in the wake of the “Deal of the Century” announced in January, but it wants to use this “unity” to grow back its roots in the West Bank. Ramallah doesn’t want that.Saudi media says that other Qatari figures met with the Mossad head, including Mohammed bin Ahmed al-Misnad, who Al Arabiya calls the head of Qatari intelligence, and an adviser to the Emir. His official title is adviser for National Security. “The Mossad chief’s visit to Doha is the second in six months,” according to Al Arabiya’s sources. The report also notes that Qatar wanted to end funding for Gaza on March 30.
The overall picture is that Israel has elections coming up, Qatar is still in the middle of a dispute with other Gulf states, Iran wants to try to pressure Israel and there is opposition to Trump’s deal from Turkey and the PA. These reports come after Hamas’s globe-trotting in December and January, and prior to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Saudi Arabia on February 20. In addition, the reports emerged after a spate of rumors in early February about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting Arab leaders in Cairo, which Saudi Arabia denied.
Overall, the meeting of key Israeli officials in Doha could be part of the growing relations between Israel and regional states. Turkey’s Anadolu news calls this the “Arab-Israeli normalization picking up pace in 2020.” It could just be a pragmatic way to keep funds flowing to Gaza, it could be linked to Iran’s pressure and Israel’s stated focus on Iran’s threats during the campaign between the wars and it is clearly linked to Hamas wanting more international attention. Israel has cautioned Hamas to stop attacks, after rocket fire and tensions in early February, warning of a “surprise.” It appears all around, regardless of the larger puzzle of Iran and the region, that it is in everyone’s interests to have some calm.
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IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU’RE PROBABLY TARGETED BY A GOVERNMENT OR TWO. SO I MADE SOMETHING FOR YOU. SEE DETAILS / ORDER
If the America and the world feel ran like Epstein’s Island, were the general population is the infantile victim class, well that’s because the feeling is accurate.
How Tony Blinken’s Stepfather Changed the World—and Him
Samuel Pisar was a Holocaust survivor who pushed rival nations to engage in commerce, and he left an imprint on the likely next secretary of State.
Samuel Pisar, photographed inside his home in Paris, France on May 2, 2010. Pisar is a renowned international lawyer, an author and a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. He was ten when his native Poland was invaded by Stalin and then Hitler. He survived the Nazi death camps of Majdanek, Auschwitz and Dachau, escaping at the age of 16. At the request of Leonard Bernstein, Pisar wrote the lyrics to Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, the Kaddish. | Tomas van Houtryve / VII
One day in October 1986, an American lawyer who had the ear of presidents and corporate moguls was approached at a hotel by a group of Soviet Jews seeking help for members of their community.
The lawyer, a famed Holocaust survivor named Samuel Pisar, spoke Russian, among other languages. He was visiting Moscow with a delegation from the American Jewish Congress. Suddenly, however, he found himself asking a Soviet judge, and later a magistrate, to free five Soviet Jewish men who had been arrested on accusations of disturbing the peace during recent celebrations of the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. Pisar’s lawyerly efforts worked. The men were soon released to cheers from friends and family, although each was fined 50 rubles.
It was an unusual sight: An American advocating on behalf of Soviets in the Soviet legal system. But, in a sense, Pisar was the perfect man for the job. For years, he’d pushed for greater Western engagement with the Soviet Union and other adversarial nations, saying that through increased connections, chiefly trade, East and West could reduce the risk of a catastrophic military clash and improve the lives of people living under oppressive regimes. He encapsulated his ideas in a 1970 book titled Coexistence & Commerceas well as other writings, and his work informed U.S. presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
Pisar’s life story is remarkable on many levels. He was one of the youngest survivors of Adolf Hitler’s death camps, whisked to freedom by U.S. troops; he went from European black marketeer to receiving doctorates in law from Harvard and the Sorbonne; he advised French and American presidents and was granted U.S. citizenship through a special act of Congress; he served as a lawyer for Hollywood stars, corporate bigwigs, UNESCO and the International Olympic Committee; he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; he wrote new text for Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 (“Kaddish”) that shared his story through a conversation with God; and to his final days he worked to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.
Samuel Pisar at the Auschwitz Memorial in front of a map showing different locations from which people were deported to Auschwitz. | Sipa via AP Images
Pisar, who died in 2015, also left a lasting imprint on the man tapped to be America’s next secretary of State: his stepson, Antony Blinken. A suave, self-assured diplomat, Blinken has often spoken of how Pisar’s Holocaust survival story instilled in him the importance of maintaining America’s status as a beacon of freedom on a planet where too many remain in shackles.
Less discussed, though just as relevant now as Blinken prepares to tangle with adversaries like China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, are Pisar’s views on ways to improve relations between rival powers—views that have to some degree influenced his stepson. The main gist of Pisar’s idea—that ramping up connections, especially economic ones, will reduce tensions between adversaries—helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the Nixon policy of detente, and it has drawn plenty of acolytes as well as critics over the years. In the 1980s, elements of Pisar’s theory got a boost as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to open up the Soviet system—exposing its citizens to ideas and goods from the West—helped lead to the fall of the communist bloc.
Today, his argument may seem like an obvious one, but as Pisar began laying it out in the 1950s, a decade dominated by the Korean War, confrontation with the Soviets and Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for communists inside the U.S. government, it was nothing short of groundbreaking.
While Pisar cast his theories primarily in the context of Western relations with the Soviet Union, he believed they also were relevant in other cases, including Western relations with China. But, perhaps more than any other example, China is now testing the hopes of people who, like Pisar, believe that commerce can help lead to peace. Despite years of increased trade, cultural and other ties between the United States, Europe and Beijing, tensions have spiked as the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more authoritarian and oppressive. The U.S.-China relationship has further soured under President Donald Trump, who pursued a tariff-driven trade war with Beijing while alienating U.S. allies.
Now, Democrats all the way up to President-elect Joe Biden are signaling doubts about whether China will ever be anything but a foe to be confronted. Should Blinken be confirmed by the Senate, his handling of China could define his tenure at Foggy Bottom. It also could help further shape his stepfather’s geopolitical legacy, one that made Pisar especially proud because of his ardent desire to spare others the horrors he experienced as a child.
Secretary Blinken’s stepfather was a close confidant and lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell. Pisar is reportedly one of the last people to have spoken to Maxwell before his death, according to the New York Times.
Among those arguing against any signs of despair are Mr. Maxwell’s son Ian and his lawyer and confidant, Samuel Pisar. They are among the last people, aside from the crew members, to talk to Mr. Maxwell. Both men spoke to him by phone aboard his yacht, around 11 P.M., about an hour after he returned from a solitary dinner in a restaurant in the port city of Santa Cruz.
Mr. Pisar said Mr. Maxwell seemed his normal, confident self and discussed plans and appointments. Ian Maxwell told reporters that his father had planned to travel to London the following day and that their conversation ended with Ian saying, “See you tomorrow, then,” and his father replying, “You bet.”
Obituary: Samuel Pisar, lawyer and holocaust survivor
Born: 18 March, 1929, in Bialystok, Poland. Died: 27 July, 2015 in Manhattan, New York City, aged 86
SAMUEL Pisar, who was ten when he entered the Holocaust and 16 when he was liberated by an American tank battalion, moved his Edinburgh Festival audience to tears at the Usher Hall a year ago when he narrated the Jewish mourning prayer, the Kaddish, to a symphony by his fellow Jew Leonard Bernstein. At Bernstein’s request, Pisar had written lyrics to the symphony as a Holocaust Oratorio, which reflected Pisar’s years as a boy in the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanek and Sachsenhausen. His father had been murdered by the Gestapo and his mother and little sister were gassed in the camps.
At the Usher Hall last August, when he was 85, he was accompanied by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by the American John Axelrod, and by the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the National Youth Choir of Scotland’s red-clad National Girls Choir led by Christopher Bell. The ensemble, and particularly Pisar, received a 15-minute standing ovation. Pilar said his recitals made him feel he was “saying Kaddish for all the six million”.
Bernstein had written the symphony and his own lyrics in memory of President John F Kennedy after his 1963 assassination.
But shortly before the great conductor died in 1990, he asked his dear friend Pisar to write new and stronger lyrics to reflect not only the tragedy of the Holocaust but the hope which drove the survivors.
Bernstein did not live to hear the new text, first performed to the backing of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and given added poignancy by America’s mourning of the 9/11 victims two years earlier.
Polish-born Pisar was a globally known lawyer based in New York and Paris, a foreign economic policy advisor to president John F Kennedy, the longtime lawyer and confidant of posthumously disgraced publisher Robert Maxwell, a lifelong supporter of human rights and a friend and advisor to French presidents François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
He remained close to US presidents, including Barack Obama, for the rest of his life and represented movie stars including Elizabeth Taylor and corporate executives such as Steve Jobs. He also served as chief counsel to the International Olympic Committee and helped Sydney, Australia, a nation he had come to love, get the 2000 Olympic Games. He was an honorary ambassador for Unesco.
Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991.
“He had dined onshore in Santa Cruz (Tenerife), seemed his normal, confident self and discussed plans and appointments,” Pisar said. “He had planned to travel to London the following day and told his son Ian on the phone that he would see him tomorrow.”
Pisar attended the subsequent inquest in Madrid, which found that the publisher’s death was most likely caused by a heart attack and accidental drowning although conspiracy theorists maintain to this day he may have been murdered, something his family had at first contemplated but later rejected.
Pisar expressed shock when he learned, after the publishing magnate’s death, of his embezzlement of pension funds from his own Mirror Group.
Samuel Pisar was born on 18 March, 1929 in Bialystok, Poland, and was ten when the city was invaded by the Nazis in September 1939.
Young Sam, as he was always known, his little sister Frieda and his mother Helaina Suchowolski Pisar were taken immediately to concentration camps.
In his autobiography Of Blood and Hope, first published in 1979 and affirming the triumph of the human spirit, Pisar described how he got through the Holocaust through quick-wittedness, trickery and pitilessness – even to his fellow Jewish inmates.
When he was picked to die in the gas chambers, he grabbed an abandoned cleaning bucket and scrubbed the floor past the guards and back to his camp hut.
After the war, he maintained these “bad habits”, as he called them, to become a black marketeer and self-described “hooligan” in the American-occupied zone of Germany.
He sold American Lucky Strike cigarettes and coffee, stolen from the occupying troops, to German citizens, eventually earning enough to ride around on a BMW motorbike.
An aunt in Paris helped get him to Australia “to mend his reckless ways” and he later confessed: “If I had stayed in Europe, I might have become a terrorist or gangster.”
“Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991.”
He got a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne in 1953 before moving to the US for a Doctorate of Law from Harvard (where he first met former student JFK).
“There was a strange cohabitation within me of these two disparate human beings,” he once said. “The little feral child – sunken eyes, shaved head, skeletal – and suddenly the scholar who is pretending to compete as if he had a normal childhood and education.”
He later went to Paris for a further doctorate from the Sorbonne and his life thereafter became a pendulum between the US and France. In 1961, he was granted American citizenship through an Act of Congress and in 1974 was short-listed for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The man whose concentration camp number remained tattooed on his arm throughout his life was also named Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour by then President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, an honorary officer of the Order of Australia (AO) by the Queen and a commander of Poland’s Order of Merit.
Samuel Pisar died of pneumonia after a stroke. He is survived by his second wife Judith, their daughter Leah, who worked in the White House for Bill Clinton, and daughters Helaina and Alexandra from his first marriage to Norma Pisar.
His stepson Tony Blinken is deputy US Secretary of State and former deputy national security adviser to President Obama.
Donald Blinken served as the chairman of the State University of New York system from 1978 to 1990 and was U.S. Ambassador to Hungary from 1994 to 1997, during the Clinton administration.
So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was “longtime lawyer and confidant of…Robert Maxwell,” Ghislaine Maxwell’s Dad…
OK, so that’s just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken “attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City”…wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg
Dalton School…Dalton School…rings a bell
Donald Barr "hired Epstein to teach at Dalton when Epstein was merely a 20-year-old college dropout from both Cooper Union and New York University. Epstein only lasted at Dalton 2 years before he was hired by the investment bank Bear Stearns"
— Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator. (@RudyHavenstein) September 17, 2020
I’m not going to even mention that Blinken’s stepdad Sam Pisar’s name was in Epstein’s “black book.”
Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen – all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
Samuel Pisar was the Maxwell family’s “long-trusted attorney.”
Based in Paris, Pisar “had become one of [Robert] Maxwell’s few confidants and probably his closest business adviser. He had helped pave Maxwell’s entry into Israel’s business community.”
“Could it be that no one wanted a thorough investigation?”
I do find the claim that Maxwell’s “long-trusted” attorney Pisar, “one of [Robert] Maxwell’s few confidants and probably his closest business adviser,” didn’t know Robert was working for Mossad a bit of a stretch.
Our Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to the Dalton School, and his stepdad Samuel Pisar was tight with both Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine’s dad and spy, & apparently Jeff Epstein (that French article above).
The “Rappaport” mentioned here would be Bruce Rappaport (#GIK).
Pisar is Blinken’s stepdad, of course, not Blinken, but still…so many odd coincidences.
**BREAKING** More dirty money from Ukraine wrapped up in the Biden administration…
Secretary of State Blinken and his cabinet secretary wife allegedly attempted to influence US officials on behalf of Burisma.
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU’RE PROBABLY TARGETED BY A GOVERNMENT OR TWO. SO I MADE SOMETHING FOR YOU. SEE DETAILS / ORDER
If it walks like graphene and quacks like graphene, you don’t even need to name the graphene
Neural electrodes are used for acquiring neuron signals in brain-machine interfaces, and they are crucial for next-generation neuron engineering and related medical applications. Thus, developing flexible, stable and high-resolution neural electrodes will play an important role in stimulation, acquisition, recording and analysis of signals. Compared with traditional metallic electrodes, electrodes based on graphene and other two-dimensional materials have attracted wide attention in electrophysiological recording and stimulation due to their excellent physical properties such as unique flexibility, low resistance, and high optical transparency. In this review, we have reviewed the recent progress of electrodes based on graphene, graphene/polymer compounds and graphene-related materials for neuron signal recording, stimulation, and related optical signal coupling technology, which provides an outlook on the role of electrodes in the nanotechnology-neuron interface as well as medical diagnosis.
Elon Musk, the maverick tech entrepreneur who, after creating luxury electric cars with Tesla Motors and reusable rockets with SpaceX, plans to colonize Mars and then bootstrap an interplanetary civilization, is working to develop operational, high-speed Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) based on a family of futuristic technologies that he calls “neural lace.” Future neural lace tech could permit sending information back and forth between the brain and a computer – or the cloud – at ultra-high bandwidth.
“Your phone and your computer are extensions of you, but the interface is through finger movements or speech, which are very slow,” said Musk, as reported by Vanity Fair. “For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think we’re roughly four or five years away.”
That might be a little over-optimistic. But last week scientists funded by the European Commission reported BCI advances based on graphene transistor arrays for high resolution brain imaging, which can be seen as precursors and enablers of full-blown neural lace tech. Other scientists are beginning to cross the bridge between life and computers in the other direction as well, with genetically engineered programmable cells that could one day act as tiny computers and robots within the body.
….
We might have to wait a little while for promising research advances in neural lace and programmable cells to become medical reality for therapy and enhancement. But other forms of enhancement could become practical reality sooner and, for example, allow older women to become pregnant by having their ovaries rejuvenated.
The future is marching toward us, perhaps even running. If you find that stressful, you could talk to your doctor about medical marijuana, whose anti-stress properties have been confirmed by a recent study.
New experimental treatment seems to rejuvenate ovaries and allow older women to get pregnant. Researchers at the Genesis Athens Clinic in Greece have found ways to allow menopausal women, thought to be infertile, to become pregnant using their own eggs, New Scientist reports. The scientists have used a technique that seems to rejuvenate ovaries, but how that happens isn’t clear at the moment. The researchers are now planning clinical trials in Greece and the US. If these research findings are confirmed and shown to work in practice, a treatment could be developed to enable older women to get pregnant.
…
Elon Musk’s new company Neuralink wants to develop visionary brain implants. Elon Musk, the superstar futurist and entrepreneur who founded and runs Tesla Motors and SpaceX, wants to merge human brains and computers next, WSJ reports. Tesla Motors Club has a non-paywalled copy of the WSJ article. Musk co-founded Neuralink Corp. to pursue “neural lace” technology – brain implants that may one day upload and download thoughts. A first iteration of neural lace technology could consist of thin and flexible tissue-like electronic chips rolled up in a needle, injected in the brain, and then unrolling and blending with the brain’s neural circuitry. The WSJ spoke with Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak and Boston University Prof. Timothy Gardner, who joined the company. Bryan Johnson, the wealthy founder of online payments company Braintree, launched a well-funded startup called Kernel to pursue similar developments.
Flexible graphene probes record brain activity in high resolution. Researchers associated with the Graphene Flagship project of the European Commission have developed flexible devices, based on graphene field-effect transistors, for recording brain activity in high resolution. The research work, published in 2D Materials, shows that arrays of 16 graphene-based transistors, each with an active area less than the cross section of a human hair, arranged on a flexible substrate and placed on the surface of the brain, permit recording of neural activity by detecting electric fields generated when neurons fire. The researchers suggest that this technology could lay the foundation for a future generation of in-vivo implants for therapeutic brain stimulation technologies and interfaces for sensory and motor devices. Of course, hidden between the lines of the aseptic bureaucratese favored by the European Commission, there’s the prospect of visionary technologies like Musk’s neural lace.
Synthetic biologists advance toward programmable mammalian cells. Scientists led by Wilson Wong, a synthetic biologist at Boston University, have found ways to genetically engineer the DNA of mammalian cells to carry out complex computations, in effect turning the cells into biocomputers. By cutting, pasting and reassembling DNA strands, the researchers built 113 different circuits, each designed to carry out a different logical operation, with a 96.5 percent success rate, The study, published in Nature Biotechnology, has been covered by Wired. The researchers hope programmable cells will have a big impact on medicine, for example by improving the immune system with artificial genetic circuits that detect and wipe out tumors, or synthetically generating biological tissues on demand.
Paper: Mapping brain activity with flexible graphene micro-transistors
Benno M Blaschke1, Núria Tort-Colet2, Anton Guimerà-Brunet3,4, Julia Weinert2, Lionel Rousseau5, Axel Heimann6, Simon Drieschner1, Oliver Kempski6, Rosa Villa3,4, Maria V Sanchez-Vives2,7
Establishing a reliable communication interface between the brain and electronic devices is of paramount importance for exploiting the full potential of neural prostheses. Current microelectrode technologies for recording electrical activity, however, evidence important shortcomings, e.g. challenging high density integration. Solution-gated field-effect transistors (SGFETs), on the other hand, could overcome these shortcomings if a suitable transistor material were available. Graphene is particularly attractive due to its biocompatibility, chemical stability, flexibility, low intrinsic electronic noise and high charge carrier mobilities. Here, we report on the use of an array of flexible graphene SGFETs for recording spontaneous slow waves, as well as visually evoked and also pre-epileptic activity in vivo in rats. The flexible array of graphene SGFETs allows mapping brain electrical activity with excellent signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), suggesting that this technology could lay the foundation for a future generation of in vivo recording implants.
In March 2014, CureVac won a €2 million prize awarded by the European Commission to stimulate new vaccine technologies.[17] Later, in July 2014, CureVac signed an exclusive license agreement with Sanofi Pasteur to develop and commercialize an mRNA-based prophylactic vaccine.[18] By September 2014, the company licensed the global rights for its Phase I candidate – CV9202 – to Boehringer Ingelheim. Boehringer was to conduct trials using the mRNA vaccine in combination with afatinib in advanced and/or metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as well as inoperable stage III NSCLC.[19]
In March 2015, a CureVac investor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, agreed to provide separate funding for several projects to develop prophylactic vaccines based on CureVac’s proprietary mRNA platform.[20] By September 2015, CureVac entered into a collaboration with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) to accelerate the development of AIDS vaccines, utilizing immunogens developed by IAVI and partners, delivered via CureVac’s mRNA technology.[21] That same month, CureVac announced it would open a United States hub in Boston, Massachusetts.[22]
In accordance with its deal with Lilly, the company began construction on a production facility in 2016.[23]
In February 2019, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) awarded CureVac a $34 million grant from to develop its proprietary “RNA printer” prototype.[24] The technology is expected to allow the company to rapidly produce mRNA vaccine candidates at scale, from multiple locations globally, to bypass the logistical hurdles that often delay the production of vaccines in response to infectious disease emergencies, and also enable the production of personalized medicines.[24] The initial uses would be for their candidate vaccines for Lassa fever, yellow fever, and rabies.[24]
In July 2020, Tesla, Inc CEO Elon Musk announced via Tweet that Tesla and CureVac had reached an agreement to produce portable “RNA microfactories” based on this technology to manufacture CureVac’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.[24] CureVac had stated that the bioprinters would be able to produce “more than a hundred thousand doses” within approximately two weeks.[24] At approximately the same time, Tesla and CureVac filed a joint patent on the technology.[25] In August, Musk reviewed the project with Curevac while in Germany.[25]
To be continued? Our work and existence, as media and people, is funded solely by our most generous supporters. But we’re not really covering our costs so far, and we’re in dire needs to upgrade our equipment, especially for video production. Help SILVIEW.media survive and grow, please donate here, anything helps. Thank you!
! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
Dream hacking and dream engineering are here. Sweet dreams, biped cattle! Unless you’re dreaming of beer because Coors Light paid some psycho-nerds a truckload of money.
Coors Light’s Big Game Commercial Dream Experiment (2021)
Credits for this report go almost entirely to Truthstream Media, who have been in my Top5 Favorite Video Content Creators for longer than I can remember now, and their latest piece is no disappointment. I just followed the breadcrumbs they left and went a bit further.
Xbox Looks Deep Into Gamers’ Lucid Dreams Right After They Play
215 McCann work explores ‘Targeted Dream Incubation’
We love it when advertising goes a step further than it needs to, bringing us to a place where we can imagine possibilities we hadn’t considered this morning.
Xbox’s “Made From Dreams,” part of the “Power Your Dreams” campaign, is one such effort. Created to promote the Xbox Series X, it’s the fruit of a partnership with 215 McCann and dream scientists engaged in so-called Targeted Dream Incubation methods—a technique for guiding dreams toward specific themes. A lot of the research can be found in a special edition of the Consciousness and Cognition journal, which focused on dream engineering in its fall issue.
The work basically involves Xbox triggering lucid dreams, then invading them, Inception-style. Lucid dreaming is when you become aware you’re dreaming, and can control the dream. There are a lot of interesting benefits to being able to lucid dream—like safely exploring, and even finding catharsis for, traumas, fears, fantasies and different life possibilities.
And it’s a muscle you can develop! Here’s a primer on how it works and what techniques can be used to strengthen this ability.
In “Made From Dreams,” 215 McCann and Xbox worked with gamers who used the Series X console for the first time before sliding into sleep. Once the gamers were in a semi-lucid state known as hypnagogia—a liminal space between asleep and awake—researchers used a dream recording technology called Hypnodyne to explore dreams as they hatched them.
The series kicks off with “Lucid Odyssey,” featuring streamer MoonLiteWolf and directed by Taika Waititi.
Actual audio recorded from the dream study features in the work, which is otherwise visually embellished by Waititi’s fine hand. For anyone with an ounce of exposure to dream logic, what MoonLiteWolf encounters and sees is appropriately alien yet relatable. We’re especially fond of the weird profundities that dreamfolk always tend to spout.
“Was I supposed to fly this whole time?” she wonders.
“You’re supposed to go wherever you go,” a glowing bunny tells her.
And of course, because she just played Halo a minute ago, Master Chief appears as a deejay with a cat head, spinning an EDM version of the Halo Monk Chant. Nice, Xbox!
Football player Odell Beckham Jr. gets the treatment next. He also gets a custom controller and some Air Force 1’s, customized to match his dreamscape and experiences. Lucky.
Last comes Steve Saylor, or BlindGamerSteve, who walks us through his dreams after playing Destiny 2: Beyond Light. In this case, 3-D spatial sound brings his basic descriptive recording to life: “Close your eyes,” Xbox tells us in its YouTube description, “and let the soundscapes of Steve’s dreams take you to Europa—and beyond.”
Each video approaches the same study in a different creative way, which is a cool touch; otherwise, listening to people’s dreams—in a scientific setting, to boot—can be a drag. Work like this also inspires a desire to explore our own liminal possibilities. It also helps if you can get a custom controller and some shoes out of the deal.
The video below loosely describes the science and procedures used, and summarizes the campaign nicely.
All this is designed to remind you that “the next generation of Xbox consoles is what dreams are made of—literally.” We’ll ignore that trite little PR pretext and focus instead on the overall coolness of this work: It provided creative collaborators with a unique experience, and was clearly fun for the agency and team to work on. Some effort was made to make this interesting for viewers. Lastly, exposing more people to lucid dreaming, especially in a time when so much already feels like a chaotic waking dream, is more of a social plus than a minus.
If you’re looking for a more coherent justification for its existence, we like OBJ’s observation: “Gaming to me is like being in a dream world. It takes you to a whole ‘nother place.” Having lost whole days and nights to No Man’s Sky, we know this to be true.
A few other creative efforts support these core videos. Artist Quentin Deronzier created a series of digital artworks inspired by Stallion83‘s dreams, themselves heavily influenced by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. And digital creator Johanna Joskowska created AR social filters that enabled fans to load different game-themed experiences from Emericagirl24‘s dreams, which playfully explore aspects of Cyberpunk 2077.
Molson Coors recently announced a new kind of advertising campaign. Timed for the days before Super Bowl Sunday, it was designed to infiltrate our dreams [1]. They planned to use “targeted dream incubation” (TDI) [2] to alter the dreams of the nearly 100 million Super Bowl viewers the night before the game—specifically, to have them dream about Coors beer in a clean, refreshing, mountain environment—and presumably then drink their beer while watching the Super Bowl. Participants in what Coors called ‘the world’s largest dream study’ would get half off on a 12 pack of Coors; if they sent the link to a friend who also incubated their dreams, the 12 pack was free. With this campaign, Coors is proudly pioneering a new form of intrusive marketing. “Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI) is a never-before-seen form of advertising,” says Marcelo Pascoa, Vice President of Marketing at Molson Coors [3].
With brain imaging techniques beginning to capture the core contents of people’s dreams [4] and sleep studies establishing real-time communication between researchers and sleeping dreamers [5], the kind of dream incubation until recently assumed to be the pure science fiction of movies like Inception is now becoming reality. Coors is not the only company expressing interest in using these novel dream incubation technologies: Xbox’s Made From Dreams uses TDI to give professional gamers dreams of their favorite video games, while Playstation advertises a new Tetris game based on a sleep study demonstrating that gameplay incubates Tetris dreams [5]. In 2018, Burger King created a “nightmare” burger for Halloween, claiming that a sleep laboratory study had ‘clinically proven’ it would induce nightmares [6]. And multiple marketing studies are openly testing new ways to alter and motivate purchasing behavior through dream and sleep hacking [7, 8]. The commercial, for-profit use of dream incubation is rapidly becoming a reality.
Traditions of dream incubation—techniques employed during wakefulness to help a person dream about a specific topic—go back thousands of years and span indigenous practices across the globe. Over the last few years, brain scientists have begun to develop scientific tools that facilitate this incubation of specific dream content [2], making dream incubation more targeted and measurable, and allowing scientific experimentation on the nature and function of dreaming. They use sensors to determine when an individual’s sleeping brain is receptive to external stimuli and, at these times, introduce smells, sounds, flashing lights or even speech to influence the content of our dreams [9].
This video was made by McMaster Demystifying Medicine students Navroop Gosal, Jiayi Mo, Xiuyuan Song and Sara Warsi – McMaster University 2020
Dreams have ties to people’s well-being [10, 11], and dream content can predict how well someone will adapt to waking challenges and concerns, including those related to trauma and depression [12, 13]. Altering dream content can augment our creativity, boost our mood, and help us learn [14, 15]. We believe that targeted intervention in sleep and dreams could help alleviate several psychiatric conditions including depression and PTSD [12]. We know that targeted delivery of odors during sleep can help combat addiction; participants exposed during their sleep to the smells of cigarettes along with those of rotten eggs smoked 30% fewer cigarettes over the following week [16]. Researchers have not yet tested whether TDI can instead worsen addiction, but the Coors study, which paired images of beer cans not with odious smells but with images of clean mountain streams, may shine a disturbing light on this question. Regardless, such interventions clearly influence the choices our sleeping and dreaming brain make in how to interpret the events from our day, and how to use memories of these events in planning our future, biasing the brain’s decisions toward whatever information was presented during sleep [17, 18].
These questions and developments should be considered in the broader context of sleep and memory research. The last twenty years have been a watershed for sleep research during which we have come to understand the importance of sleep for our memories and emotional health. It is while we sleep that our brain decides which memories to keep and which to forget, and how to organize those it keeps [19, 20]. It also can choose to keep the gist or the emotional core of a memory while letting other details be forgotten [20, 21]. Through this nocturnal process, the brain shapes the memories that together create our autobiographical past, our sense of who we are now, and our understanding of how best to live our lives in the future.
More recent studies have shown that dreaming represents another aspect of this nightly memory evolution. Our dreams are not attempts to suppress undesirable wishes, nor are they simply the result of random brain activity during sleep. Dreaming represents an evolved mechanism for exploring the relevance and importance of older memories to newer ones, seeking to position the events of our day among the innumerable memories and concepts we have accumulated across a lifetime [18], helping to make us just a bit wiser in the process.
For now, TDI-based advertising requires our active participation, for example choosing to play an 8-hour Coors soundtrack while we sleep. But it is easy to envision a world in which smart speakers—40 million Americans currently have them in their bedrooms [22]— become instruments of passive, unconscious overnight advertising, with or without our permission. These tailored soundtracks would become background scenery for our sleep, as the unending billboards that litter American highways have become for our waking life.
Our dreams cannot become just another playground for corporate advertisers. Regardless of Coors’ intent, their actions set the stage for a corporate assault of our very sense of who we are. And it is not difficult to imagine Coors’ ad campaign negatively impacting abstinent alcoholics. Indeed, research has shown that abstinent drug users who report dreaming about their drug-use show higher levels of craving [23]. In the cigarette cessation study mentioned above, not only was the intervention effective in sleep (yet ineffective when the smells were presented during wake), but participants reported no memory of being exposed to these smells in the morning. The potential for misuse of these technologies is as ominous as it is obvious.
TDI-advertising is not some fun gimmick, but a slippery slope with real consequences. Planting dreams in people’s minds for the purpose of selling products, not to mention addictive substances, raises important ethical questions. The moral line dividing companies selling relaxing rain soundtracks to help people sleep from those embedding targeted dreams to influence consumer behavior is admittedly unclear at the moment. While the Federal Trade Commission has indicated that subliminal ads during wake violate its statute requiring truth in advertising, there is no similar indication regarding exposure to advertisements during sleep.
As sleep and dream researchers, we are deeply concerned about marketing plans aimed at generating profits at the cost of interfering with our natural nocturnal memory processing. Brain science helped design several addictive technologies, from cell phones to social media, that now shape much of our waking lives; we do not want to see the same happen to our sleep. We believe that proactive action and new protective policies are urgently needed to keep advertisers from manipulating one of the last refuges of our already beleaguered conscious and unconscious minds: Our dreams.
Robert Stickgold – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, coauthor of When Brains Dream
Antonio Zadra – Université de Montréal, Canada, coauthor of When Brains Dream
Adam Haar – M.I.T., Cambridge MA, co-developer of TDI tools
Signatories
Judith Amores – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
Thomas Andrillon – Monash University, Australia
Kristoffer Appel – Institute of Sleep and Dream Technologies, Germany
Ryan Bottary – Boston College, Boston MA
Kelly Bulkeley – The Sleep and Dream Database, Portland OR
Tony Cunningham – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
Per Davidson – Lund University, Sweden
Teresa DeCicco – Trent Univ, Canada
Eden Evins – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
Rockelle Guthrie – David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles
David Kahn – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
Alexandra Kitson – Simon Fraser University, Canada
Karen Konkoly – Northwestern University, Evanston IL
Célia Lacaux – Paris Brain Institute (ICM) – Paris, France
Anthony Levasseur – Université de Montréal, Canada
Pattie Maes – M.I.T., Cambridge MA
Louis-Philippe Marquis – Université de Montréal, Canada
Patrick McNamara – Boston University, Boston MA
Sara Mednick – University of California, Irvine
Natália Bezerra Mota – Federal University of Pernambuco and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Delphine Oudiette – Paris Brain Institute (ICM) – Paris, France
Edward Pace-Schott – Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
Ken Paller – Northwestern University, Evanston IL
Jessica Payne – University of Notre Dame, South Bend IN
Claudia Picard-Deland – Université de Montréal, Canada
Leila Salvesen – IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca / Donders Institute
Sophie Schwartz – University of Geneva, Switzerland
Paul Seli – Duke Univ., Durham NC
Carlyle Smith – Trent University, Canada
Matthew Spellberg — Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Katja Valli – University of Turku, Finland
Tomás Vega – M.I.T, Cambridge MA
Erin Wamsley – Furman University, SC
Marco Zanasi – Torvergata Univ, Italy
Morteza Zangeneh Soroush – Tehran University of Medical Sciences
4. Horikawa, T., Tamaki, M., Miyawaki, Y., & Kamitani, Y. (2013). Neural decoding of visual imagery during sleep. Science, 340(6132), 639-642. doi:10.1126/science.1234330
5. Konkoly, K., Appel, K., Chabani, E., Mironov, A. Y., Mangiaruga, A., Gott, J., . . . Witkowski, S. (2021). Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology, in press. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3606772
9. Solomonova, E., & Carr, C. (2019). Incorporation of external stimuli into dream content. In K. Valli & R. Hoss (Eds.), Dreams: Biology, Psychology and Culture (pp. 213-218). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
10. Pesant, N., & Zadra, A. (2006). Dream content and psychological well-being: a longitudinal study of the continuity hypothesis. J Clin Psychol, 62(1), 111-121. doi:10.1002/jclp.20212
11. Sandman, N., Valli, K., Kronholm, E., Vartiainen, E., Laatikainen, T., & Paunio, T. (2017). Nightmares as predictors of suicide: an extension study including war veterans. Sci Rep, 7, 44756. doi:10.1038/srep44756
12. Cartwright, R. (1991). Dreams that work: The relation of dream incorporation to adaptation to stressful events. Dreaming, 1, 3-9.
13. Mellman, T. A., David, D., Bustamante, V., Torres, J., & Fins, A. I. (2001). Dreams in the Acute Aftermath of Trauma and Their Relationship to PTSD. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14, 241-247. doi: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007812321136
14. Barrett, D. (2001). The committee of sleep : How artists, scientists, and athletes use dreams for creative problem-solving–and how you can, too. New York: Crown Publishers.
15. Erlacher, D., & Schredl, M. (2010). Practicing a motor task in a lucid dream enhances subsequent performance: A pilot study. The Sport Psychologist, 24(2), 157-167.
16. Arzi, A., Holtzman, Y., Samnon, P., Eshel, N., Harel, E., & Sobel, N. (2014). Olfactory aversive conditioning during sleep reduces cigarette-smoking behavior. J Neurosci, 34(46), 15382-15393. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2291-14.2014
17. Hu, X., Antony, J. W., Creery, J. D., Vargas, I. M., Bodenhausen, G. V., & Paller, K. A. (2015). Cognitive neuroscience. Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep. Science, 348(6238), 1013-1015. doi:10.1126/science.aaa3841
18. Zadra, A., & Stickgold, R. (2021). When Brains Dream. New York: W.W. Norton.
20. Payne, J. D., Stickgold, R., Swanberg, K., & Kensinger, E. A. (2008). Sleep preferentially enhances memory for emotional components of scenes. Psychological Science, 19(8), 781-788. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02157.x
23. Tanguay, H., Zadra, A., Good, D., & Leri, F. (2015). Relationship between drug dreams, affect, and craving during treatment for substance dependence. J Addict Med, 9(2), 123-129. doi:10.1097/ADM.0000000000000105
According to a MIT Media Lab study on dream engineering, “nearly any sensory stimuli has potential for modulating experience in sleep.”
And we’ve learned that where MIT is involved, the military and DARPA are very likely to be be involved. So, unsurprisingly, this just came out in Popular Mechanics magazine:
A Department of Defense-led research project wants to modulate REM sleep to help ease stress.
The study also aims to enhance REM sleep in order to consolidate traumatic memories.
Controlling REM sleep could offer multiple health benefits, but also opens the door to additional theories.
The Department of Defense wants to see if anyone out there can control rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The department has put out a call for submissions to do just that, all with the goal of easing stress and traumatic memories. But there could be more to the equation.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Defense Sciences Office issued what it calls a Disruption Opportunity, “inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of neuromodulation as a means of enhancing rapid eye movement (REM) sleep mechanisms associated with stress adaption and traumatic memory consolidation.”
The feasibility study and proof of concept would be worth $1 million for the team with the winning submission.
The goal is to learn how to modulate—or control—REM sleep to help ease stress and post-traumatic stress. But there’s speculation that we can expect a bit more from this Opportunity than understanding REM sleep. In a Sociablepost, the outlet posits that “the idea of modulating and even artificially implanting dreams is not far off.”
As Sociablenotes, the Department of Defense Disruption Opportunity doesn’t mention anything about dream incubation. But the continued investigation of everything from targeted dream incubation to targeted memory reactivation isn’t necessarily that far off from the “memory consolidation” the DARPA brief calls for.
However, at the moment, this is all speculation. And while it may be exciting to think about a real-life incarnation of the movie Inception, the stated goal of the DARPA effort—using REM sleep to help understand how to control sleep in order to reduce sleep disturbances and prevent PTSD—is nothing to sneeze at in and of itself.
A 2015 study in the Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders highlights how post-traumatic stress disorders often come accompanied by disturbed sleep, including fragmented rapid eye movement. The study notes that sleep disturbance resulting from acute trauma may contribute to PTSD, and that continued sleep disturbances can exacerbate PTSD.
“We suggest that optimizing sleep quality following trauma, and even strategically timing sleep to strengthen extinction memories therapeutically instantiated during exposure therapy,” the authors write, “may allow sleep itself to be recruited in the treatment of PTSD and other trauma and stress-related disorders.”
Using targeted sleep improvements to better the health of patients, including veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, could offer up a new tool to helping improve the post-military life of United States military personnel.
Now, DARPA is looking to develop a novel cognitive science tool that enlists machine learning and “physiological sensors” to detect what someone believes to be true.
If this technology ever makes it way into the general population through the Internet of Bodies (IoB) ecosystem of inter-connected devices that can be worn, swallowed, or implanted — then Harari’s dystopian scenario could prove truly prophetic.
The proverbial “they” would know your reaction to what the authorities were saying, know if you believed them or not, and could take action against you.
“If we allow the emergence of such total surveillance regimes, don’t think that the rich and powerful in places like Davos will be safe” — Yuval Harari, WEF, 2020
“By bringing together recent advances in cognitive science, neuroscience, physiological sensors, data science and machine learning,” DARPA says, “the NEAT program will develop processes that can measure what a person believes to be true.”
This will be possible by:
Presenting carefully crafted stimuli that are designed to evoke specific preconscious mental processes.
Detecting the resulting preconscious processes using current physiological sensors combined with state-of-the-art signal processing and neural analytics.
Using advances in machine learning and data science to aggregate the preconscious responses collected across a set of stimuli into a final measurement that quantifies what a person believes to be true for a specific topic.
“We are no longer mysterious souls; we are now hackable animals” — Yuval Harari, WEF, 2020
According to Harari, “To hack human beings you need a lot of biological knowledge, a lot of computing power, and especially a lot of data.
“If you have enough data about me and enough computing power and biological knowledge, you can hack my body, my brain, my life. You can reach a point where you know me better than I know myself.”
The historian even came up with a “danger formula” for hacking human beings, which he believes “might be the defining equation of life in the 21st Century.”
That equation is B x C x D = AHH — which means Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals the Ability to Hack Humans.
“The power to hack human beings can of course be used for good purposes like provided much better healthcare,” said Harari, adding, “but if this power falls into the hands of a 21st Century Stalin, the result will be the worst totalitarian regime in human history, and we already have a number of applicants for the job of 21st Century Stalin.”
In his “How to Survive the 21st Century” speech at Davos in 2020, Harari warned:
“After four billion years of organic life shaped by natural selection we are about to enter a new era of inorganic life shaped by intelligent design — our intelligent design is going to be the new driving force of the evolution of life.”
“Governments, corporations, and armies are likely to use technology to enhance human skills that they need like intelligence and discipline while neglecting other human skills like compassion, artistic sensitivity, and spirituality,” he added.
“The result,” according to Harari, “might be a race of humans who are very intelligent and very disciplined, but lack compassion, lack artistic sensitivity, and lack spiritual depth.”
What Harari doesn’t realize is that the race he’s talking about is here, he and his psychopathic buddies in Davos and wherever, doing this type of works, are that race of soulless Borgs, even though still organic for the most part.
The goal is to turn humans into non-thinking automatons [Human 2.0], which can be tracked traced via IOB, scored by behavioural, social and environmental analytics, to be bought and sold as human capital investments. pic.twitter.com/zKzWGzmF9n
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! Articles can always be subject of later editing as a way of perfecting them
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