JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
The paper Rancourt et al 2023 concludes that, based on an ecological analysis of all-cause mortality in 17 Southern Hemisphere and equatorial countries, COVID-19 vaccine rollouts coincided with increases in excess deaths, particularly during early 2021 and early 2022; the authors interpret this temporal alignment as evidence that vaccination campaigns, including booster doses, caused excess mortality, estimate a vaccine-dose fatality rate of roughly 0.126% (about one death per 800 doses), extrapolate this figure to suggest millions of vaccine-associated deaths globally.
One graph from the study: https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/screenshot-2025-12-30-14.50.42.png
390
I wonder when the medical profession in this country will finally acknowledge that the rush to use a vaccine technology that had not been subject to the accepted length of testing was a mistake.
560
I doubt they will. Modern medical doctors are not trained to think independently, just to do rote learning and follow the Official Narrative.
As we saw during covid in Australia and other woke countries, those few doctors who did dare to think independently were, silenced, punished, censored, sacked/fired, deregistered, etc..
500
My GP – better than most – has just retired from the practice. I remarked to her that doctors don’t ask their patients what they eat and drink, and what regular exercise they get. No response.
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Dearest Vicki,
The Wall Street Journal has wisdom for us about aging well … from Keith Richards. 🙂
The Wisdom of Keith Richards at 82
Solving the mystery of the guitarist’s longevity may be our best hope of aging gracefully
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-wisdom-of-keith-richards-at-82-500208bb
Yes Vicki, it is 2026.
No human has left Earth atmosphere since the early 70s.
NYC has not drowned from anthropogenic SLR.
But Keith Richards lives to regale us with tips on graceful aging.
Indisputable proof we are living in a simulation, being programed by some annoying pranking alien teenager.
110
What was it Jimmy Barnes said?
If you want to grt to where I am don’t take the road I took.
20
In regard to the vaccine roll out, some people have blithely said “well, something had to be done”. Unacceptable risks were justified during the hysteria by this sort of reasoning. The intention was right but the method was wrong.
To use an analogy, covid was like a cooking oil fire and the vaccines employed by medical bureaucrats were like water fire extinguishers. Applying the incorrect extinguisher not only failed to put out the fire- it caused it to spread and there was collateral damage.
if you have an oil fire in a commercial kitchen, you trust that the fireman attending is properly trained, keeps their composure and deals with the emergency appropriately. They can’t use the wrong fire extinguisher and then say “well, I had to do something”.
190
The medical profession is reliant on the Government for their licensing and Medicare pay. Is it worth their livelihood to speak out?
40
As well as a nod to the cost of “malpractice insurance”?
Especially if you wish to follow a path other than is proclaimed by the regulatory agencies.
20
True. Need a better system. User pays?
10
If doctors could only charge what we could afford to pay they would have to learn to code.
10
Afternoon Vicki,
I’ll believe they’ve acknowledged their mistake when they convince the AMA – their union – to enable HCQ and IVM to be sold over the counter by our chemists.
I doubt I’ll see that in what’s left of my lifetime.
130
They don’t all subscribe to the AMA.
If another COVID turned up next week I think they wouldn’t get away with a repeat performance.
But I don’t know who will be Prime Minister next week.
00
Based on our model fit to officially reported COVID-19 deaths, we estimated that 18·1 million (95% credible interval [CrI] 17·4–19·7) deaths due to COVID-19 would have occurred without vaccinations worldwide during the first year of the COVID-19 vaccination programme (Dec 8, 2020, to Dec 8, 2021). Of these, we estimated that vaccination prevented 14·4 million (95% CrI 13·7–15·9) deaths due to COVID-19, representing a global reduction of 79% of deaths (14·4 million of 18·1 million) during the first year of COVID-19 vaccination (table 1). These estimates of vaccine impact do not account for the potential under-ascertainment of deaths related to COVID-19.
110
This is very unusual for you GA. Are ‘We’ taking responsibility for the vaccine deaths…
…on the basis that ‘We’ evaluated there would be many more deaths from Covid 19 having made this from a ‘credible interval’ that excluded the period of infection recorded from earlier in 2020 when all cause mortality was that much lower than the expected mortality rate. So much so that the Australian Bureau of Statistics subsequently removed these results from the calculation for a predicted all cause mortality rate.
And…
or the potential over ascertainment of deaths due to the direction to list Covid 19 as a cause of death on death certificates:
4th march 2020
And:
I understand that catching COVID19 is the third most common side effect of the vaccine, so by your logic ‘We’ believed by granting emergency use for an experimental gene therapy we would save millions of people from dying from an infection the therapy actually made the patient susceptible to.
Where are we going with this ‘mea culpa’?
110
Someone hasn’t turned over a new leaf in 2026. The above comment is cut and pasted from The Lancet, a publication that, much like our CSIRO, has gone from being highly reputable to being a shadow of its former self.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext
In Australia, the mandates dictated citizens had to be vaccinated by the end of November 2021. The vaccines used were based on the original Wuhan strain. The prevalent strain at the time was Omicron, two generations past the original strain and therefore immunologically irrelevant. Thus, Omicron tore through the Australian community once the border restrictions were removed. Click on the graph to see for yourself.
https://immunisationcoalition.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/MAIN-Aust-COVID-19-Stats-worksheet-2025.xlsx-43.pdf
Since that time, the government has slowly turned down the volume on the need for booster shots- there are hardly any radio or TV adverts encouraging them anymore. I can’t find any recent information on covid vaccination uptake. I suspect the government doesn’t want us to know how pitifully low those numbers are.
Estimations and speculation can never trump actual data.
110
Thanks Jon,
A case of ‘We’ ‘We’ ‘We’ all the way home then.
30
Oui, oui, oui
00
GA, I don’t think you actually read any of Richard’s link before you commented.
All the “experts” were advising seasonal covid vaccine shots coinciding with flu shots when all the evidence clearly indicated the disease differed from influenza- it wasn’t more virulent in the colder months. This is evident in the Australian summer of 2021/2022.
10
6 weeks wait for a death certificate in Qld at present.
Vaccinated, border closed, no community spread Qld.
Go figure.
A few years’ back, they reckoned they were scanning people’s vaccine status when they went to the pub, now, dead body – sorry, gonna be 6 weeks til we can certify that.
6 weeks is bodies in storage, families stretching mourning, estates not moving with empty houses not getting to market.
20
How do you say Viet Nam in Spanish?
Venezuela
189
Just waiting for the victory lap by “we got the (Syrian) oil” Trump.
411
?????
90
Trump is “going to get the oil moving”.
In which direction has not yet been stated.
China may already have completed the deferred maintenance caused by steel sanctions against Venezuela
20
Why do you object to having Venezuela’s industry revived?
53
“Why do you object to having Venezuela’s industry revived?”
What makes you think Venezuela will get anything out of this, apart from a foreign occupation?
67
You asking a question in reply doesn’t answer the question.
Here’s some aspects though, in response to your question.
The USA does not need the oil.
More oil on the world market would reduce the price which would benefit consumers in the USA and dent Putin’s funding of his war. Lowering oil prices would be a big sanction against Russia.
The USA doesn’t need more people fleeing Venezuela.
Venezuela is a somewhat easy target to do this to, to send a message to other actors in the world, with some side benefits.
All in all, it’s probably a good thing for the people of Venezuela, and most of the world.
It’s rare the USA wouldn’t do something to further their own interests, but maybe the above is in their interests enough.
202
Strop says “The USA does not need the oil” proving his steadfast ignorance.
The USA has about 2Mbpd of refineries on the Gulf (of America or Mexico, take your pick) coast, tuned to refine Venezuelan Heavy, which currently run on Canadian oil sands blend because China is buying the crude they helped to renew production of (what a Capital idea…).
Taking control of Venezuelan crude supply gives a free 2-3Mbpd (because why would the USA pay for what they can simply take?) of supply for those refineries which has the double benefit of (as you sort of get right)of lowering prices for and in the USA *AND* (vitally) propping up the petrodollar so they can kick the debt can of worms a few Trillion dollars further down the road…
30
So they should be left wallowing in a drug-running cess pit. They deserve nothing better.
The thousands in the streets waving the US flag, thanking Trump, prove two things: The grip of the dictator and his henchmen has been broken and that the young want better so should be given a hand.
150
Nigel, I said the US doesn’t need the oil. Which is different to doesn’t want it or can’t get some benefit from it.
KP asked why some think Venezuela will get anything out of this.
The US getting access to the oil does not automatically preclude Venezuela from being paid for it. If it is to be refined in the US then that’s a great deal for the US and can be for Venezuela too.
Or the US can continue getting it from Canada and screw Canada down on price with the alternate source being available.
Whether the US gets the oil or benefits indirectly, doesn’t change that the US doesn’t need it. But they can benefit and so can Venezuela.
In the context of whether there is no benefit to Venezuela, this is not an either the US benefits or Venezuela benefits. Both can.
Time will tell. This rightly or wrongly, I’m not as pessimistic for Venezuela as KP.
101
Strop, your ignorance is driving your naivete.
An oil refinery is “tuned” (i.e. is physically constructed around a particular sequence of chemical reactions, catalysers etc) to a specific crude oil input. For those US refineries built to process Venezuelan crude, running a Canadian oil sands blend is the petrochemical equivalent of running your engine with the choke on. It works, but not well.
As to paying Venezuela, what’s the point? You’re there, with troops, guns, planes and ships, just take it. After all, “The Don” has said US companies that used to operate there are owed billions. The US already hijacked an entire crude oil tanker, taking more, or even all, is a no-brainer.
The MOST important part is free oil propping up the dollar, trading for it just hastens the due date for the US debt implosion
The “drug runner extradited for trial” is just the fig leaf the Emperor chooses to hide behind, if Maduro was truly a problem, just *one” of the multiple bomb strikes they US dropped yesterday, would have been enough to end him, it’s not like the US hasn’t done that before… It would have been far cheaper than putting boots on the ground, unless boots on the ground has its own way of paying off, and you don’t need boots on the ground to make trade, you need them to make trade on *your terms* regardless how the other side feels…
14
Nigel,
The refineries you refer to already had supply access to Venezuela. The issue Trump had was the oil company giving money to Maduro.
Sure, this intervention will increase oil supply. But that’s with further development.
The amount of oil the US gets from Venezuela is small compared to from Canada.
Trump has stated that with the additional development (US companies will put in) they’ll start making money for Venezuela.
Like I said, I’m not so pessimistic about Venezuela’s position here and the US just taking.
We can speculate. Time will tell. So let’s meet back here (save the link to this thread 😉) 5pm Australian eastern daylight saving time 4 Jan 2030 and discuss where our respective predictions sit.
I look forward to being correct. Mainly because that will be a good outcome. Even if I’m hindered by ignorance and naivety.
40
Bunch of Trump supporters on this site.
Sorry but it’s true . .
15
No need to apologise Geoffrey. It’s not an insult.
Probably more importantly. There’s not many Maduro sympathisers here.
90
Nigel, looks like we don’t need to wait until 2030 to see who is on the right track.
Trump has said the Venezuela oil will be sold at market price and funds will benefit the people of Venezuela.
Rubio says the U.S. doesn’t need Venezuelan oil but seeks to deny adversaries control over it. (Experts say similar)
00
You are making up stories again .
Where did I say that?
00
Venezuela won’t be another Vietnam.
1. The voting population in the last election 70-30 AGAINST the guy who was just deposed. He just ignored the election results and stayed in office. The population is cheering his removal in the streets.
2. The guy who they voted 70-30 FOR and the gal he was acting as a proxy for are ready and waiting to come in and take over the government they were rightly elected to lead.
3. There is no giant world power right next door acting as protector to the old regime. Vietnam shared a border with China, and America had more than it’s fill of going toe-to-toe with the Chinese army in the Korean war. The Russians were also there sticking their beak in to help the workers of the world unite under their brand of communism. There are other world powers who have interests in Venezuela, but none of them have the capability of putting boots on the ground like they did in Vietnam.
I assume the ‘occupation plan’ is to remove/kill the Maduro cronies who pose a threat to a new Gonzalez/Machado government, rebuild infrastructure while doing that, then hand it over to Gonzalez/Machado to arrange a new election (which they will win with ease) to legitimize their administration.
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re. point 2- there is a vice-president acting.
International oversight of the next election is all that is required.
Regime change to export democracy has a very poor track record in U.S. hands.
80
He’s going to get a ‘bullet or the ballot’ ultimatum. Either honor the 2024 ballot and step down, or get a 5.56mm forehead piercing.
The entire justification for the Maduro operation is that his government was illegitimate, and that includes his VP and his defense minister and whoever else is jockeying behind the scenes to take over.
121
“I assume the ‘occupation plan’ is to remove/kill the Maduro cronies who pose a threat to a new Gonzalez/Machado government, rebuild infrastructure while doing that, then hand it over to Gonzalez/Machado to arrange a new election (which they will win with ease) to legitimize their administration.”
I live in a Blue city in a Blue state.
The infrastructure is crumbling.
We need new elections here because one party has ‘legitimately’ corrupted the system with the approval of judges placed with money influence from outside the country.
I had to register as a Democrat just to have something to vote for, because Republicans don’t run because it’s waisted effort and money.
The voters don’t choose candidates here, the candidates choose voters.
I’d like to care about Venezuelan government legitimacy, but I’d like some of my own first please.
Not going to happen, so I will spend my few remaining years in amusement, watching the clown car collapse of the Intelligentsia and worrying about rising food costs.
And the theatre of the absurd third and fourth Trump impeachments that will start after the Midterms
Or is it fourth and fifth?
I lost count.
172
As Australians we can’t help you. You are the best, the smartest, the greatest, everyone wants to be a Yank, so you will have to get active to force change from within.
110
An investment in Venezuela’s future will pay HUGE dividends for the USA. It’s economy is performing at about a quarter of it’s potential. IF we can get it back up to it’s full potential, and take a little skim off the top for our troubles, it will cover our costs and provide a hefty little return, plus it will provide security/stability for the hemisphere as it will greatly reduce China’s, Russia’s, and Iran’s influence in the region. Getting rid of Maduro really throws a spanner in a lot of their plans for subverting the western hemisphere.
120
There is ZERO chance, because there’s ZERO benefit to the usual suspects, of US investment into rebuilding Venezuela. This is all about oil, specifically propping up the petrodollar long enough so that the US debt can of worms can be kicked a few Trillion dollars further down the road.
If you lack the insight to see that, I have a bridge (in Brooklyn or Sydney, take your pick, they’re both sensationally valuable assets, worth it) to sell you.
27
‘I had to register as a Democrat just to have something to vote for …’
That is weird, in Australia we have compulsory voting and the system runs remarkably well.
33
We have compulsory attendance, we don’t have compulsory voting it’s a secret ballot. You don’t have to vote for anybody, just get your name scratched off the list to show you turned up!
170
Exactly, free and fair elections and the opportunity not to vote for anyone.
42
After having your name crossed off the role and got your voting slips, have you ever tried walking out of the voting center without putting your voting slips in the boxes?
00
I have, but you don’t have to do that. All you have to do is run “Your Biro”, not pencil, all over the ballot paper and you have not voted for anyone. Remember it’s a supposed secret ballot.
00
Being pedant, but it cannot be an “occupation” plan – in an invasion/occupation, you have to pay the local population officials on the same salary scales used at home. Same social security for the entire local population. Designated in the invading forces currency (you are considered to have taken over any local currency). Cost more than the oil is worth.
It will yet again be a ‘Special Military Operation’.
10
United States democracy is a joke. They have invaded and taken over a sovereign country in order to obtain that countries resouces !!
Trump is a tyrant and he will go the way of all tyrants !!
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The US should be thrown out of the UN security council, the invasion makes a mockery of the whole system.
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A great opportunity for the US to leave the UN. It is a corrupt blight on the world. Anyone who has anything to do with the UN knows.
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The UN began after WW2 and it was hoped to prevent WW3, it has worked up to date.
01
I think the M.A.D. policy went a long way in preventing the third world war in the early years. If China decides to kick off, what do you believe the U.N. will/could do about it?
30
I would speculate that the UN has done little to deter WW3, but rather the US and nuclear weapons has done a better job.
That and the Europeans lost their appetite.
The UN created Israel which is probably the most likely catalyst for WW3.
20
el + gordo,
If I read that as “The UN should be thrown out of the Security Council”, then I agree.
The United nations had a dismal failure track record.
Tell me of a war it has stopped – its prime reason to exist.
Tell me how President Trump can claim to have stopped 6-7 wars, including his comment than the UN did not even contact him to see if it could help.
I can tell you of personal experiences when the UN was complicit in loss of access to land – including land with emerging mines – to the detriment of the Australian Mining Industry.
The UN is a great example of a waste of public money, often collected at compulsory taxes, demonstrating mission creep with paternalistic arrogance. The dream achievement of the global collective of bed-wetters.
Geoff S
90
‘Trump can claim to have stopped 6-7 wars …’
Trump can say what he likes, he just makes stuff up.
04
Honk, I think your keyboard has gone funny.
https://youtu.be/ONQKSJZS0ZU?si=mxxNaxYDUgAGxzhc
Vietnam analogy?
Someone give the nipper a history book or 1,000.
A surgical military operation that arrested the head of a major drug ring selling into the USA, not a war, not an invasion, not entering an existing war, not arming the natives.
Oil? Just a bonus from modernising their infrastructure for them. 😁
Of course TDS lefties everywhere have another great excuse to have a protest march. Gets them out of their parents basement for a day.
Imagine if Trump did the same for China, arresting Poo Bear for all the street drugs like Fentanyl and Nitazines that China exports to the USA, or “invaded” Mexico for refining and dustribution of drugs.
Imagine if Trump did Oz and arrested Albo. Yes…imagine…mmmm…
171
I’m picturing a meme of Poots slapping his generals: That’s what a special operation looks like.
20
Only if he was dumb enough to think they were trying to achieve the same thing against the same tier of enemy, or anything even slightly like it.
20
All jungle and four times the size. No ground invasion please.
10
Exactly.
And in all that territory I wonder if there are any original inhabitant ‘insurgents’ upset about foreigners.
Perhaps a rebrand?
Venez Cong?
Maybe a new design for jungle MRAPs?
I’m not sure we currently have youngsters physically capable of a year of jungle humping.
10
Maduro is not a regular President, he is an actual drug criminal. I think the US had every right to arrest him. He will be given due process, tried and if found guilty punished just like any other drug criminal.
Of course, the Democrats will be upset that there will be less inner-city destruction due to huge numbers of people having less access to the drugs which are destroying their lives like in Kensington Ave, Philadelphia. https://youtube.com/shorts/5d2lfKhxhxw
And it’s not the first time the US has done something like this. Does anyone remember Manuel “Pineapple Face” Noriega? Same thing by Reagan.
411
Incidentally the unusual pose of those drug addicts featured in the video is known as the “fentanyl fold”. Fentanyl-laced cocaine was one of the drugs Maduro was involved with.
Reference to fentanyl/cocaine: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-doubles-reward-for-arrest-of-venezuelas-president-to-face-u-s-drug-charges
161
Perhaps we should recall the US mil operation to topple Noriega.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
The more things change the more they don’t.
I was lurking in the underbelly of DC at the time.
There was a fustercluck at the airport attempting to blow up Noriega’s plane.
A friend got chewed pretty bad over the planning.
I remember him talking about one of the Navy guy’s leg being shattered by AK rounds and Ross Perot personally arranging for high end specialists to be flown in to save it.
As far as we know, sounds like things went more smoothly this time.
It’s looking to me like despite all the drama around Trump, he’s operating pretty much on historical standard.
Which is a bit disappointing to me.
74
Which calls into question the Trump as ‘foil of the Deep State’ narrative.
I’m a bit confused.
Too ignorant to have been confused in 1989, but maybe the Internet has enlightened us.
A problem for them.
They’re working hard to turn off the light.
32
The CIA’s satanic drug cartel and election interference cartel has just been given a fatal blow by the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima. The consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has destroy the errors of Communism spread from Russia to Western Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall. The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima will end the persecutions of right-wing Christians in the Ukraine and Britain by Starmer and his left-wing woke army of Evil Atheists, Global Leftists, Upper-class Communists, Cultural Marxists, Islamic invaders and Satanic Socialist. Starmer panics and fears that Russia and Donald Trump will bring peace. Trump describing Jesus as God’s only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour, saying “He is risen!” and pray for peace in 2026. Trump also invoked Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, love, humility, and obedience, emphasising that Jesus’s death will bringing redemption, forgiveness, and eternal hope to the World in 2026, as the warmongering Starmer devil is destroyed, and peace and Christianity return to the Ukraine, and eventually Britain under a great Christian revival lead by Tommy Robinson.
151
As long as we didn’t hire the same contactors that temporarily ran Afghanistan to temporarily run Venezuela, I’m ok with it.
Unless the ones running Minnesota are available.
230
Unlike Afghanistan, there is a popular government elected by the people just last year that is ready to step in and take Maduro’s place. I think the ‘occupation’ will be mostly about rooting out the remaining Chavistas and giving them the choice between removing themselves from power or a fatal dose of lead poisoning, so that the new government doesn’t have to worry about a knife in the back. Beyond that, it sounds like an investment/infrastructure project to get the economy up and running like it did back in the 1990s and a humanitarian project to get the power back on and food/water on the shelves.
Caracas was a boom-town for western investment in the 1990s, and could be again if investors don’t have to worry about a communist government nationalizing that investment. Chavez got elected largely due to rural resentment, as all people in the cities were getting rich off all that investment but very little of it was making it beyond the city limits. That will be the biggest challenge for the new government, making sure the economic boom benefits everyone without killing the golden goose by hampering investment.
130
“Unlike Afghanistan, there is a popular government elected by the people just last year that is ready to step in and take Maduro’s place. I think the ‘occupation’ will be mostly about rooting out the remaining Chavistas and giving them the choice between removing themselves from power or a fatal dose of lead poisoning, so that the new government doesn’t have to worry about a knife in the back. Beyond that, it sounds like an investment/infrastructure project to get the economy up and running like it did back in the 1990s and a humanitarian project to get the power back on and food/water on the shelves. ”
You mean business as usual- the Yanks always have a patsy ready to go, usually living in luxury in New York while ‘Govt in exile’. Then they run the Marines in, take over some poor 3rd-world place rich in resources, shoot anyone who looks dodgy to the patsy Govt and let the dogs of capitalism loose. American companies move in, push the farmers off the land and strip-mine the country while the locals stay dirt-poor, like any colony. Any ‘education’ will just be Western propaganda, the country will only support the West politically, and the CIA will have a giant building in central downtown. Of course elections will be held, but if any candidates don’t support the USA, they will lose.
27
Historically, you are not wrong. But to my knowledge Gonzalez/Machado are unique in that they are less than a year removed from winning a democratic election. They aren’t aristocrats or former generals being installed by Uncle Sam with no popular suppoprt. They are the legitimately elected government of the country who were forced to flee and go into hiding when Maduro opted to ignore the election results, and are still hugely popular among the population.
70
For most, dislike is hardly more than skin deep. For you, hatred cuts clear to the bone.
21
Chavez got elected largely due to rural resentment, as all people in the cities were getting rich off all that investment but very little of it was making it beyond the city limits.
Unfortunately in Australia, there is not enough rural/regional population to negate the power of the urban voters.
Am I incorrect in assuming that the benefits of export earnings from the non-urban areas is often forgotten in the cities.
10
BTW, recently learned that about 5000 US personnel were killed over 20 years in Afghanistan..
Half US Military.
Half ‘private’ contractors.
50
Well said, David. The incredible press conference following the military exercise should be viewed – amazing piece of history.
The Trump government was no longer willing to see a foreign government import a deadly drug like fentanyl into the US with the consequent massive loss of young lives. Nor was it willing to see oil tankers hijacked. Maduro was a gangster who overturned elections to gain control of Venezuela.
321
Surely you’re not that naive…
“the US government will run the country at least temporarily and tap Venezuelan’s vast oil reserves to sell to other countries.”
There’s the reason for the invasion and coup, if your country has oil you either kneel before the Yank or they take your country over. More oil than Saudi down there.
920
Vicki this has nothing to do with gangsterism and everything to do with crude oil.
Donnie wants the whole western hemisphere in his pocket before he leaves office.
On a more serious note, Edgar Cayce has predicted that in March 2026 something amazing is going to happen which will effect everyone on the planet.
What could possibly go wrong?
423
Should one perhaps be drawing up plans for an ark, figuratively speaking?
40
Probably not, its seemingly all about the galactic federation on a return visit.
Obviously I cannot confirm or deny anything I see on utube.
12
Or Elon Musk’s plan for migration to Mars is destined to be “too late”?
10
I think we are looking at economic depression and the US invading any country that refuses to accept Washington’s demands.
11
??..seriously ??😂😂🤣
00
Let’s just wait and see whether the flow of drugs into U.S. is in any way diminished.
And if not then we can discount the proffered motivation to “rendition” Maduro.
Things have been quiet in the renditions department for some time now.
Guantanamo may have been criminally under-utilised.
You know , DOGE and all that.
20
Most of the contraband coming out of Venezuela was going to Spain, so a negligible effect on US consumers.
24
So what.
00
So you are calling Trump a lier when he says 11 fast boats have been destroyed reducing the seaborne drugs to the US by 93%.
20
There you go again.
I said nothing about drugs arriving by sea.
00
“Let’s just wait and see whether the flow of drugs into U.S. is in any way diminished.”
It will be a long wait.
Prohibitions have a curious effect of enhancing the evolutionary adaptation to circumvent them.
Perhaps a better chance in Oz due to giant shark infested moat.
Maybe the flow of social media to Australian teenagers will be successfully diminished and they will begin to behave better.
And no adaptive circumventive illicit industry will develop.
Then again, governments like illicit evolutionary enhancement for evololutionary budget enhancement.
00
LOL You are so much an ignorant patsy.
The vast majority of fentanyl flows from Mexico into the US, Canada is the second biggest pipeline, likewise most Cocaine flows from Columbia.
Venezuela contributes, at most, a tiny trickle of both.
On the other hand, the USA possesses over 2Mbpd of refineries tuned to process Venezuelan Heavy, not Mexican, currently running non-optimally on blended Canadian oil sand crude.
Trump has already said Venezuela owes those companies billions.
So which drug running country did the USA choose to invade, to stop the drug supply?
Can you join the dots??
21
“Maduro is not a regular President, he is an actual drug criminal. ”
Jeez DM, that’s perfectly normal for Presidents! An irregular President/Prime Minister would be the unicorn who got there without being corrupt!
I was talking to a retired lawyer yesterday who told me they had an arrest warrant for the Premier when he was lawyering in QLD last century, and then had it cancelled from higher up, seems everyone was involved in moving drugs then.
The Yanks should deal with their sick society that makes drugs so attractive, not take over some other country on that ridiculous allegation just because it has oil.
“The illegitimate dictator Maduro “…said the country run by an illegally-elected senile autopen.
Just how low does your IQ need to be to believe this stuff?
822
As you, me and everyone here knows, KP, anyone with an IQ above room temperature ought to be sceptical regarding utterances by politicians of ANY persuasion on any subject and wary of reporting by any ‘news’ organisation. Trump, who is not a career politician, is at least following his dictum – F.A.F.O.
171
KP? Do you have a reliable source?
Quite possibly the Trump administration was handed a basket case lacking direction and sacrificing their wealth and that of their future generations for drugs. This administration appears to have chosen to not do what did not work previously and upset a lot of those comfortably living off the status quo. Clearly the legal profession are doing nicely in an over regulated society, living ‘high off the hog’. Look at the sponsors on the sails of the yachts in the Sydney to Hobart, we are not looking at the wealth earned off production.
You may have to fall on your sword and admit something about yourself. I would just wait and see what happens in Venezuela before I rushed to concluding someone is stupid.
81
Comedy hour KP?
Since when in history has any country done that?
No unhappy, depressed people any more doing drugs to escape reality? Only happy well-adjusted people.
Wouldn’t that be a utopia. Or would it…
40
Do all countries have similar drug usage rates? ..and have those rates been fairly constant over time?
Are the big noises like gin & absinthe in the 1800s or Britain’s opium push in China, or prohibition in the USA after WW1, useful markers for drug use? Did it all explode in the 1970s in the West because.. we were too rich? didn’t have to struggle? had reached Brave New World status?
I expect there are some people who dislike responsibility enough to use drugs in any society, they just fail to make the grade to adulthood, but I don’t see its the Govt’s place to live their life for them. Certainly the West are the major drug users, Europe lower than USA/Australia/Canada, but less again is Africa/Middle East/Asia, so the more luxurious your life the more you need drugs to live it.
30
The 20% of countries with the highest levels of mortality rates in 2019 from drugs were:
1 United States of America
2 Canada
3 Bolivia
4 Guyana
5 Peru
6 Guatemala and Honduras
(PAHO)
20
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country
Graphic display so I can’t write it down.
Seems every list is different.
20
The U.S. thrives on drugs, world capital of . .
10
>… based on allegations
>…Trump told reporters.
Solid ground there considering the well documented history of CIA involvement with the drug cartels & importation.
It’s only about a year or so ago we were being told the fentanyl was coming from China via the Canadian border.
What is the real reason the US war machine, (banks & the MIC), wants to risk further provocation of Russia by invading resource-rich Venezuela?
Who knows?
On May 15, 2019, the commemoration of the Nakba, Venezuelan President Maduro announced, “We do not recognize the State of Israel.”
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry subsequently issued statements reaffirming this position, characterizing Israel as a “terrorist, genocidal state”.
2020 Maduro is indicted by the US on charges of drug trafficking & a $50 million bounty placed on his head.
Immediately after the US invasion of Venezuela, Maria Machado said, “I would like to thank Benjamin Netanyahu”.
Whenever Bibi & Trump are photographed together, Bibi always has a smug look on his face.
611
I heard someone say that this wasn’t a war, it was an extradition where the military helped law enforcement. Possibly a good defence for Trump in his upcoming impeachment. 🙂
18
Americans will get the drugs from illegal sources all over the world.
It is a excuse of course, do you honestly believe that the US wants to help Venezualans? It is oil mate, its the oil and other resources that they want for themselves and they are taking it illegally. Shameless act of piracey . .
32
Crims will always break laws so it’s pointless having laws.
00
“Crims will always break laws so it’s pointless having laws.”
What will you do with the tens of thousands of politicians, snivel servants and lawyers? Oh wait, which are the crims?
00
I guess we can do away with extradition treaties then. Just march in and snatch anyone we like because we reckon that’s justified. Keeps thing simple I guess.
10
There’s a job there for some of you guys right in the white house !!
00
Will a gasoline engine run on kerosene?
https://youtu.be/MTlNjRDOJ5E
21
JetA1 ?
00
If it has a hotbox, carburettor and the spark can be ret@rded [can’t be too careful]. I drove a kero tractor at ag college.
10
Just so long as engines don’t run on water as the inventors would hear a phut, phut sound.
I assume everyone gets the subtlety. 😁
10
Way back when a young fella, me and a mate run a two-stroke motor bike on kerosene. The motor wouldn’t start when cold but heated up on petrol then switched over to kero it would run but had to keep throttle opened up and the volume of white smoke was enough to screen a battleship. Ah the joyous past times of the ICE that the distracted youths of today are to “connected” to care about.
10
And of course the question….. Why?
Petrol has always been cheap. It’s not like we are the military have to mobilise two fuels types instead of one.
00
I drove a kero tractor at ag college. Low tech engines will run on any fuel with some tweaking.
10
Early model Massey TEA-20s?
00
The Massey 35 and 65 were “the latest” at the time and the grey fergy was ubiquitous. I remember a Lanz Bulldog, single cyl horizontal two stroke that you cranked with the steering column. It could run on anything oil based.
00
FWIW
“The story behind Trump’s order halting Virginia offshore wind”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/01/03/the-story-behind-trumps-order-halting-virginia-offshore-wind/
70
Video.
Life with the late Kim Jong-Il in the glorious socialist paradise of North Korea.
Something for Albo to aspire to!
https://youtu.be/hlbIDcR7zvw
50
FWIW – for the covid file
“The Scientist Who Saw It Coming
Former CDC Director Robert Redfield exposes the mistakes of COVID-19 and prepares us for the future.”
“I am alive because I listened to Dr. Redfield then, which is why I’m writing today. If our nation reads and heeds his new book (Redfield’s Warning: What I Learned [But Couldn’t Tell You] Might Save Your Life), millions of lives may be saved in the next pandemic. ”
More at
https://spectator.org/the-scientist-who-saw-it-coming/
Via https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/01/03/the-scientist-who-saw-it-coming-n3810407
41
In retrospect, Sweden had the best response. They should prepare the guide book for future pandemics.
The UN has been captured by social fadcists who favour China. Stopping gain of function research would have been a good idea. Limiting air travel from China in the early days would have helped contain the virus.
I certainly undervalued freedom of movement and individual control. I have a friend who lost almost three years of his precious active life. He did get out and about but could not socialise and enjoy his usual recreation because the rest of us followed the rules.
There is so much stuff that governments are now doing for our safety while near complete failure in limitting criminal activity. They are trapped in a social justice quagmire where law-abiding people are increasingly shut down and criminals given space.
Look at the tolerance for the anti-semitic marches in Melbourne compared with complete intolerance of anti-lockdown marches. Victorian Labor happy to support terrorists but intolerant of freedom loving individuals. Completey screwed values – a social justice quagmire.
Vote One Nation to get out of this utter mess.
220
Godzone had a Pandemic Act and plan that was fit for purpose already in place.
What happened?
Two emergency declarations suspending business as usual – one for Climate TM , and another for PandemicTM.
80
Peeling that apart (no great disagreements)
Sweden had the best response. Definitely, until they too vexxed up.
Gain of function research ban. Was in place, which is why the USA took it to China (also the Ukraine, plus some really funky stuff at the ZNPP, not apropos a Covid thread). The Chinese response to the Wuhan lab strongly suggests the government was unaware of the actual research taking place, probably thought they were taking American money for jam, so to speak.
Limiting Chinese air travel. That boat sailed mid 2019, way before Covid blew up. Genetic backtracking showed it ran through Australia in 2019, which is why we had relatively few genuine cases until the “snot test” (recent German paper showed a 90% *False Positive* rate!!!) built up the fake pandemic.
Freedom of movement and absolute freedom of speech are paramount to consider any society truly “free” or even “democratic”
Double plus good on voting One Nation.
40
Which genetic tests were they in mid 2019?
Testing in Australia was only 1 in 3000 positive. We didn’t have a false positive problem here. 2999 tests were negative for every positive at one stages in 2020.
Freedom of movement of Bioweapons with HIV markers, aging and fertility effects, and lifelong infection is “not ideal”. Freedom of international holidays is played against freedom to live without chinese bioweapons. Pick one.
The ideal choice is if we ensure Chinese bioweapons stay in China. Then we get nearly all freedoms. The UN could have stopped all flights from China. Tedros enabled the spread.
110
Shorthand, my bad.
By “genetic backtracking” I meant looking at herd immuno-response. Australia was found (later, hence the backtracking) to already have an immunity/immune response to Covid by the beginning of 2020, unsurprising, since it left Wuhan after the military games of May 2019. Yet another reason to get rid of Queensland’s pesky samples.
As for the 1 in 3000, what makes that an actual positive (go to William Briggs site for the statistical excoriation), rather than proof that Governments were willing to spend large amounts on performative panic induction? After all, who paid attention to the negatives? In the real world, that’s proof of a nothing burger, not a pandemic.
You really have a pain point/blind spot with China, I accept that it’s a factor in your discourse. We are not at the One World Government stage yet, so perhaps you can accept that freedom of movement is within borders (of truly free) countries not without?
Don’t get me started on the WHO… I’m with Pauline, kick it to the curb.
Oh, and Hi Jo! Thanks for the blog, I hope laws allow this to continue in a viable format and a Happy New Year results…
31
I was hoping you’d have a link, or a source? There is some cross reactivity between Covid and some past influenza strains. It is like a partial, small immunity. That is not evidence of past covid infections. It just means a few people carry flu antibodies that happen to stick to a small part of the covid virus.
“As for the 1 in 3000, what makes that an actual positive”
Not only was it positive, they have the code for the 29,000 base pairs or some part of, in many of those infections. See Nextstrain. Wander through it. Mouseover the dots. It’s like a billion observations. Look it’s hard for anyone outside the path industry to appreciate just how much hard data there is.
There is a point with speculative conspiracies where it is harder to fake it than to do the tests for real. To fake those live results they would need 24/7 control of every path lab in the world. no exceptions. Someone in Davos would have to be phoning every lab in the world so they all faked it correctly hour by hour. We can follow day by day each mutation and how it spread to people around, and through airports around the world. So, most likely, they did the tests. That doesn’t mean tests weren’t abused in some situations, but not in Australia until perhaps later in Omicron days when they picked up “positives” which were real, but were not the ultimate cause of death — just a minor infection.
If there was a huge conspiracy about the PCR tests, we’d expect at least a few whistleblowers saying they took the phone calls to fake the RNA code. Plus no one has analyzed Nextstrain and found an impossible contradiction. The biggest mystery is the leap from SARS 2 to Omicron remains a large gap in Africa. It’s possible Omicron was also a lab “variant” dropped in Botswana.
There are big conspiracies at work here — absolutely, but probably not that particular one.
You really have a pain point/blind spot with China”
Maybe. So post your evidence that my accusations against China are not justified. Be my guest.
91
William Briggs site is here.
https://www.wmbriggs.com/
I don’t see anything recent about immune response in Australia, nor can I find anything relevant with a search engine. However Briggs has turned up in many places discussing these matters, might be on YouTube or somewhere.
As for the China discussion … there’s very good evidence that Peter Daszak (EcoHealth Alliance) was doing work that fit the following criteria:
* Working in China during 2019 and some prior years.
* Working with Corona viruses.
* Working with Corona viruses originally sourced from bats.
* These Corona viruses caused respiratory disease in mice.
* The mice were genetically modified to have human-equivalent ACE2 receptors.
* Daszak’s corona virus was capable of infecting the ACE2 receptor.
* Daszak himself claimed that vaccines would be of no defence against this virus.
Now … that may not be the “smoking gun” proof but it’s pretty darn good evidence that something was going on.
I got sick in late 2019 with something respiratory involving a very heavy lung and significant tiredness, which started with a dry cough. I’ve always figured must have been an early COVID, it felt quite different to flu. That said, I have no actual test results to prove what it was … and no one bothered to do any tests back then.
I did ring around a bunch of acquaintances later (all East coast) and found many people had similar symptoms about the same time (late 2019) and of course, various young Chinese students were coming and going from Australia around that time.
Now, that’s not based on PCR tests … merely on old medicine (looking for symptoms) but if I had to bet I would say some strain of COVID was already in Australia late 2019.
It would also be very interesting if there’s a solid link to someone who can prove this.
20
The earliest suspicious reports I know of were the Wuhan lab destroying records around Sept 12th or so 2019. Then some Athletes at the world military games getting sick in October.
Bear in mind influenza can make people feel pretty wrecked, and the symptoms of Covid were very distinctive — with the cyclical nature of the illness. PEople started to feel better by day 5 or 6 then went down badly on day 7 or 8. That was when the ICU admissions rose. Other reported that early wave of Covid had more waves sometimes up to several weeks later before recovery. Read the harrowing story of Connor Reed (26), the first British man in Wuhan who caught it in November 2019. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8922933/Mystery-death-Briton-revealed-Covid-cover-up.html
Sadly he died mysteriously and suddenly months later. There are questions whether he was suicided.
I’m just saying the early Wuhan flu was probably awful. It didn’t spread that easily, being a big droplet that fell quickly to the floor. It’s likely the virus (bioweapon) knocked on the door in America, Europe and Australia a few times before it really took off. One person could carry the infection in, be bedridden and not infect many people and the infection dies out. Especially if the Ro was <1. Also that would be more likely in Australia that summer with lots of sun and vitamin D. After infecting lots of people, by Feb/March 2020 it evolved into a smaller droplet which was less deadly, but more infectious. This is very standard for a respiratory virus. People who caught the most brutal early version of SARS2 (or SARS 1, or MERS) seem to get immunity for life. A life threatening infection creates that kind of immunity.
If Covid had been circulating in 2019 there would have been many genetic strains by Jan 2020, but (see Nextstrain) that isn't the case. There is a branching tree coming from a source. That genetic data is incredibly strong.
50
But yes, Tel, you are correct — there was definitely something bad going on at the WIV in Wuhan.
The fact the team proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a virus, and then Covid turned out to have that exact modification is a radioactive smoking gun.
Matt Ridley: Out of 1535 known sarbecoviruses only 1 has a furin cleavage site and it showed up the year after scientists first proposed putting a fcs into a sarbecovirus for the first time and in one of the two labs that were party to that proposal.
More here: https://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/the-case-for-the-lab-leak-theory-grows-stronger-by-the-day/
10
How do Russians see their future?
It’s almost certain that Steve Rosenberg would have a minder. I bet that was him (his minder) on the mobile phone to the right of the guy he was interviewing at 5:20, with Steve panning to the right to catch him. I hope the guy interviewed is OK.
22
40 years ago that would certainly have been true, but Putin’s Russia is not the USSR. I’ve been there a couple of times (once under Yeltsin, once under Putin) and it was no different than being a regular tourist anywhere else. There were no minders like they have in North Korea or like they had in the USSR back in the day. Like the western intelligence services, the FSB has only a fraction of the manpower they had during the Cold War, and relies more on technology to collect information than on old-fashioned boots on the ground spycraft.
70
But, but we had an utterly convincing non selective sample of two that spoke for all Russians
40
And no mention of those other videos of shopping in Russia.
Or even of “Speedbox’s” reporting over at New Catallaxy
40
Yep. I toured Russia during the Glasnost/Perestroika era when there was almost literally nothing in the shops. It was dire. The Russians I spoke to were tremendously depressed and cynical. But that is not Russia today. I am amazed to see (eg from US tourist videos)shopping malls the size of ours with many many shoppers and full carparks. And “another Ian” is correct re New Catallaxy’s Sppedbox reports of his regular trips to Russia. The relaxation of so many impositions of the Cold War era, and the improvement of the Russian economy from Siberian oil etc etc has generated a quite different society and lifestyle to yesterday.
In saying this, I don’t for one moment dispute that it is still a society dominated by Party surveillance and the usual evils of Marxism.
30
Rowjay, #8,
____Sure that vox pop wasn’t the one from Washington?
10
Never sure these days, but the vox pop seemed to have BBC plastered all over it and he is a BBC journo.
20
In other words,
Journalist scours city, finds 2 people that disagree with the government of the day, film at 11 on the BBC.
Other than North Korea or Turkmenistan, is there country you *can’t* do this in???
40
I believe the bigger problem posed by Venezuala’s Maduro regime, rather than drugs, is the increasing involvement of China in the region. There was the possibility that Maduro was going to allow China to build missile bases and/or station military assets there, right on America’s doorstep.
Obviously, that would be a huge provocation to America and a very real military threat too. There’s absolutely no way Trump could allow that.
If true, thank God Biden or Harris didn’t win the last election, because they would have meekly allowed China to move in.
Check. Your move, CCP.
191
‘There was the possibility that Zelensky was going to allow America to build missile bases and/or station military assets there, right on Russia’s doorstep. Obviously, that would be a huge provocation to Russia and a very real military threat too. There’s absolutely no way Putin could allow that…
What goes around comes around..
88
So Moscow actually (not possibly) positioning nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles in Belarus, on Europe’s doorstep, is OK?
61
Sure its OK, its a direct consequence of the west withdrawing from the intermediate range missile treaty.
50
>… a possibility that Maduro was going to allow China to build missile bases and/or station military assets there, right on America’s doorstep.
Obviously, that would be a huge provocation to America and a very real military threat too. There’s absolutely no way Trump could allow that.
So now we understand why Russia objected to the US having installed missiles and bioweapons on Russia’s western border after having staged a coup and installed a puppet government in Ukraine.
152
Australia almost always adopts the woke failed ideas as others. This blog recently spoke of the failure of an insects for human consumption project in Europistan.
It’s no wonder then that woke taxpayer-funded Government propaganda units like SBS are also promoting insect consumption for non-Elites.
Also, as I commented in the “insect” thread, they lie about the supposed low resources required for insect production. I posted a reference to that.
If Leftist Elites want to eat insects that’s fine. I don’t care. But we know they won’t. They would prefer the finest A5 Kobe Beef Steak as they fly on their (or taxpayer-funded) private jets to the latest Klimate Krisis Konferences.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-has-approved-three-insects-for-eating-but-are-they-really-the-food-of-the-future/n4spzgpmr
100
This is from GBNews on the Maduro capture. Trump does an introduction and passes over for military chief to discuss details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ0U6wD1ZG0
It sound like they used an Arnie movie script as their planning document.
40
Arnie can see the future.
That’s another possibility to consider.
And he’ll be back.
On a side note, I’m wondering who I have to write to in the white house to discuss Albo.
120
We all know one of the biggest problems facing COPxx climate conferences is the difficulty of parking one’s private jet.
I wonder how Turkey will cope for COP31?
And how many reported Pauline Hanson’s concerns when COP31 was going to be in Adelaide?
Come to think of it, was the lack of private jet parking at Adelaide THE reason Australia didn’t win it? It certainly wouldn’t be Government concerns about the $2 billion cost of COP31. That means nothing to the Albanese regime.
Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t spend another billion or so (over-priced rorted Government contract) on providing 600 or so more private jet parking places at Adelaide Airport.
160
Apparently Bowen baulked at providing free SAF jet fuel for the jet setters. In fact I am not even sure if SAF is available yet as Adelaide airport.
Could you imagine flying into the “renewables” capital of the world only to fuel up with filthy fossil fuel and then having to pay for it!
100
There would be plenty of parking at Alice, just up the road, now that the mothballed passenger planes have been returned to service.
00
FWIW
Re “Australia will need to rapidly expand parking space to accommodate the hundreds of fuel-guzzling luxury private jets that would descend on the country should Labor be ‘successful’ in its bid to host the virtue-signalling talkfest called COP31.”
Probably need to increase the national reserves of jet fuel for them to leave too
80
I could never work out where the 30,000 extra hotel rooms were coming from in 12 months.
60
Olympic dam on-site accommodation. And of course, bus the delegates to and from each day.
I’d pay to watch that.
60
More 5 star and less Atco would be the expectation though 🙂
10
Atco, you had Atco.
Sheer luxury.
When I was a lad.
00
Voting to change the political system in Australia is a farce. When is Trump coming to Australia to arrest traitors Albanese, Wong and Burke? They’re destroying Australia. They need to be replaced with competent leaders who will rebuild Australia and make it great again.
170
STJOHNOFGRAFTON, #13
____Benzion Mileikowsky perhaps?
00
Waste of energy. Australia is compliant, supplies what it is supposed to, hosts what it is supposed to, buys back products with the value added that we seem incapable of doing anymore.
10
So, how do you influence Australians to get them to do something political?? Take over the Press of course.. Nah, that’s been done for years, along with TV.
Then maybe hit the religious where they’re weak..
“Melbourne’s Catholic archbishop, Peter Comensoli, says a national inquiry into antisemitism is needed.
Senior Catholics urge government probe, say antisemitism has ‘exploded’”
..and use ‘business interests’ to show that it’s all intelligent and serious..
“Australia’s biggest industry groups demand an antisemitism royal commission”
..but if you really need to move Aussies you just use sports heroes!! No-one can withstand that!
“Prominent sports stars add to push for Bondi royal commission. More than 60 Australian sports stars have put their names to an open letter calling for a royal commission into antisemitism,”
Now why do I think there is some serious money pushing this agenda?? All in the SMH.
45
KP, I’m thinking Uzzie didn’t put his name on this one as a “prominent sports star” ????
50
You’re missing the important one. The Russian Dude will explain..
20
How is that in any way different from what we in the West experience?
10
FWIW – Kunstler looks at 2026
“Forecast 2026: In the Vortex of the Whirl
“Whirl is King” — Wm Shakespeare ”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/forecast-2026-in-the-vortex-of-the
20
Wow. Even for Kunstler that’s a wide-ranging article.
I’ll have to dig out my crystal ball but my New Year’s resolution, such as it was, centered around a kind of a reverse bucket list, that is to cast aside things which I no longer need to plan toward. I’ve made a start so my crystal ball may in fact already have gone off to the tip.
And if 2025 comes calling asking what’s to become of it, for some reason the final words of Gone with the Wind come to mind. Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.
Happy New Year to all who want to make the world a better place, even if it is just their little corner.
70
It took a lot of words to say this-
“What was not so many decades ago a high trust society based on a coherent common culture and broadly agreed-upon values seems to be devolving into babel and anarchy leading eventually to a generalized social collapse…Humans organized in societies need the truth. They need trustworthy authorities. Authority without truth is just cruel, faithless power. ”
..and one thing to look forward to in the financial collapse-
“It will have to include novel moves besides just the same old federal reserve money-printing a shuck-and-jive. Prediction: expect real novelties, like abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether and reassigning money-issuance to the US Treasury, using a partially gold-backed dollar. ”
A long article, as you say, but a good one!
40
If only half of those predictions come true , it will be like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
And it is not a train coming at you.
10
Tucker Carlson does a 3 hr interview with Ian Carroll, not on the Kirk fantasy, but on America’s biggest gun massacre. In case you have forgotten, it was only 8 years ago, 69 dead, nearly 500 wounded. Remember that one? No? Vegas Oct 2017. A country music festival. It was news for 3 days, then gone! It has taken this long for people looking at it, to make it make any sense. The official story, single gunman, he’s dead, open and shut. No surveillance footage, in the most surveilled place in the world, has ever been released, all casino staff were forced to sign non disclosure agreements, as outbreaks of gun violence erupted all along the strip. People who claimed to see helicopters shooting into the crowd,(on film) unfortunately die. Coroner’s report bullet holes in the top of people’s heads, and many head shots, and horizontal trajectories, (from the 31st floor of a building!) Anyway lots of ridicules facts, many, many, many.
32
Finally people are starting to come up with a semi plausible story – Saudi Arabian succession!! A few months before, the Saudi King changed his successor, from a hard liner, to a moderate, and the shtf. If you know any Middle Eastern history, about harems and court highjinks, where one, out of many sons, is left standing, (usually one is left alive, standing is just a nice way of saying it) this is an age old story. Saudi has thousands of relatives, and the Wahabi strain was very strong. In August 2017 the Saudi airforce arrived in Vegas, to train up on a new zippy helicopter, purchased in their latest arms deal with the US. It looks awfully like this was a terrorist attack, to derail US backing for the new Saudi regime. Hard liners have no problem dealing harshly with infidels. This was a massacre at a country concert. (Trump voters) How could the US react, except reflexively? They didn’t. They shut it down, and the new Saudi regime cleaned house, confiscating billions from different family members, and with some very public reprisals. The Saudi journalist executed, a year to the hour after Vegas, was from a hard line family. The Kushner’s got lots of Saudi investment. Wheels within wheels within wheels. Dubai’s present game, playing with two hands, being modern, and quietly backing hard liners, is all part of a Great Game. After Oct 9 I was immediately taken back to covid times ; “safe and effective safe and effective safe and effective”. Except it was “the children the children the children”. It was obviously psyops, but who was pushing it?
30
The Democrats went schtum after this one, no gun control ravings. An excellent example of ‘Realpolitik’- and having to swallow something for a greater good. Who knows?
20
To determine the overall trajectory from a wound you would have to know the orientation of the person’s body at the moment of impact. The conflicting logic that a horizontal wound wouldn’t happen from level 31, but top of the head wounds are from a helicopter is quite a leap also.
All this convoluted story weaving would have Occam (or your preferred spelling) spinning in his grave.
11
So it’s a lone gunman is it? Please. 69 people dead, nearly 500 wounded, and it just never happened! They have heaps of bodies to examine. Awaiting the explanation from Occam. There are helicopters spitting fire on film, with the sound of belt fed machine guns.
10
Hi Jo,
Meanwhile, what’s happening at Jabiru?
https://www.powerwater.com.au/about/news-and-media/media-releases/2025/power-supply-issues-at-jabiru
Seems to me that there might be a repeat there of the type of blackout in October 2024 at Broken Hill affecting a large part of Far West NSW. There, diesel generators failed and all the renewables and batteries available there were of no use once the diesel generators dropped out.
Paul Miskelly
90
I imagine that the locals could see the disconnection crews working around town. I wonder what security they used to ensure compliance. If someone was going to turn your power off on a hot night, what would your response be. And if you could stop it, would you?
20
FWIW
“Anti-Aging Injection Regrows Knee Cartilage and Prevents Arthritis”
https://scitechdaily.com/anti-aging-injection-regrows-knee-cartilage-and-prevents-arthritis/
As the Istapudit lead in says –
“FASTER, PLEASE: Anti-Aging Injection Regrows Knee Cartilage and Prevents Arthritis.”
https://instapundit.com/766610/#disqus_thread
20
Old codger wisdom
1. Time moves faster than you think. One day you’ll wish you hadn’t rushed through the moments that mattered.
2. Friends disappear when life gets real. The people you can call at 2 AM are worth more than 2,000 followers.
3. Health is wealth. When your body breaks, every goal, plan, and dream becomes secondary.
4. Pride destroys more relationships than betrayal. The apology you avoid today becomes the regret you carry forever.
5. Money comes back. Time and trust don’t. Protect those two like your life depends on it.
6. You don’t need many things to be happy. The older you get, the more you realise how little truly matters.
7. One day you’ll wish you had listened more than you spoke. Wisdom enters when ego exits.
And I’m sure all we old codgers understand the above all too well.
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NZ’s largest patient information portal HACKED
A cyber security breach at ManageMyHealth has been “contained”, according to the company – but GPs and patients are still waiting to hear if their health records have been compromised.
The government is also seeking assurances, with duty minister Karen Chhour saying the breach was “incredibly concerning” for patients.
Cyber security expert Daniel Ayers said ManageMyHealth was using an outdated encryption protocol, and it was a large data breach even by worldwide standards and catastrophic on the New Zealand scale.
“ManageMyHealth say that over their entire period, they’ve supported 1.8 million Kiwis. The data breach claim says 428,000 files. So it’s hard to know. But at 108 gigabytes, that’s a pretty large data breach, and it looks like it’s going to be much larger than the Waikato DHB data breach, which affected just over 4000 people.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/582996/gps-worried-by-lack-of-information-on-managemyhealth-data-breach
My.gov is just a gigantic honeypot.
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Trump’s military strike on Venezuela is not only about the world drug trade networks, people trafficking and money laundering operations, but also about the biggest corruption scandal of the century which is the real pandemic of stolen elections in over 72 countries across the world. Since 2005 the Communist Idiots Agency (CIA), a large break away segment of the CIA, run by John Brennan, ran operations for money and globalist/communist ideology, with help from communist China and the UN, to train Venezuelan prison gangs to infiltrate the United States with fentanyl distribution rings and networks. This Bush/Obama deep state profiteering cabal was also deeply connected to running stolen elections world wide through Venezuela with SMARTMATIC voting machines connected to Dominion machines and operations through Cuba and Serbia, via a base in Colorado. Trump is taking down the world globalist deep state cabal operations and exposing the real pandemic of stolen elections and the full corruption of the syndicate cabal controlled blackmail operations, touching every country across the globe.
U.S. special operations units have captured Nicolás Maduro, indicted since 2020 on narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking charges tied to the ‘Cartel de los Soles,’ and was flown to USS Iwo Jima, for transport to the United States Court of Military Commissions, at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, in the US occupied zone of Cuba.
US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says “Maduro is NOT the President of Venezuela and his regime is NOT the legitimate government. Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization which has taken possession of a country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States”: https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1949424526401692094?lang=en
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I heard Venezuela had WMDs.
https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/2001382678663508276
Parody. Hilarious, but language warning.
10
FWIW – in praise of books
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/febe.jpg
And
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/rdc.jpg
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FWIW
“Think tank IREF: ‘Against All Rationality, the EU Persists in its Net-Zero Delusion’ ”
“A recent report by the French think tank IREF (Institut de Recherches Économiques et Fiscales) delivers a sobering reality check. Simple arithmetic already raises red flags. EU emissions fell by 37% over the 33 years from 1990 to today. Achieving an additional 68% reduction in just 17 years would require nearly tripling the pace of decarbonization. If this acceleration fails, the economic consequences of such a quick drop in emissions would be severe.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/01/03/think-tank-iref-against-all-rationality-the-eu-persists-in-its-net-zero-delusion/
And I guess “ElBowen” will tell us all about it?
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2026 starts with a bang, or two:-
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/californias-open-carry-ban-shot-down-federal-appeals-court
10
The president of peace
23
You mean that?
20
Leaf is amusing.
‘As recently as his inauguration for a second term last January, Trump told supporters: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, by the wars we never get into.”
‘Since then, Trump has bombed targets in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia, blown up dozens of alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and made veiled threats to invade Greenland and Panama.’ (RNZ)
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Might be that a decisive victor results in more peace than an inconclusive series of pussy footings –
e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War
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Mmmmmm just like all the others
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“The president of peace”
The president of pieces…
00
Venezuelans are cheering.
00
Aha, how long before these turn up in Ukraine?
“Venezuela has an estimated $20 billion worth of Soviet/Russian arms, including Sukhoi fighter jets and S-300 surface-to-air missiles”
…because Venezuela won’t need a military, they can just pay for the Yanks to look after them!
“The US has decided to take out its weaker adversaries across the world who refuse to submit to it.” Zerohedge.
12
Have you ever thought of writing novels where this fertile brain of yours can be put to good use?
00
‘How lithium-ion batteries have ignited an insurance crisis.
‘Insurance Australia Group says lithium battery fires now cost $247,000 on average compared to $87,000 for regular house fires, and that will drive up premiums for all customers.’ (Oz)
50
So, I asked AI a relatively simple question and it lied to me.
I was wondering how many retractable roof stadiums we had in Australia. I thought others may have been built other than the two in VIC. It advised me that Accor Stadium in Sydney had a roof. I said no it doesn’t. It says you are correct blah,blah. I ask if you know I am correct why did you say it in the first place? “Conversation” ensues about “good enough answers”
This going to be productivity aid apparently.
40
And firmly based on Wikipedia and other “net-swamping not rights” it seems
20
RAC Arena in Perth has a retractable roof. There are 15000 seats.
10
Global warming caused by selfish humans is going to bring a chill to Europe.
https://notrickszone.com/2026/01/02/expect-soon-another-pik-paper-that-claims-warming-leads-to-cold-snaps-over-europe/
10
FWIW
“THEY ARE BOTH ECONOMICALLY AND NUTRITIONALLY UN-VIABLE: 2025: The Year the Market for Fake Meat and Insect Products Began to Collapse.”
“2025: The Year the Market for Fake Meat and Insect Products Began to Collapse
In 2026, grocery aisles will reflect “back-to-basics” eating and a “return to real” when it comes to meat and dairy.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/01/2025-the-year-the-market-for-fake-meat-and-insect-products-began-to-collapse/
“Like everything the socialists try to cram down our throats.”
Via https://instapundit.com/766846/#disqus_thread
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FWIW – for the covid file
“If Those Who Pushed the Covid Vaccines Go to Trial, This Book Should be Exhibit A for the Prosecution”
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/if-those-who-pushed-the-covid-vaccines-go-to-trial-this-book-should-be-exhibit-a-for-the-prosecution/
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/01/04/sunday-on-turtle-island-181/
10
Simplicious suggests Trump and Putin made a deal, America gives up Ukraine and Russia gives up Venezuela..
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trumps-golden-hour-historically-flawless
Trump had the CIA get Hollywood to write the script while they were flat-out printing money to bribe enough people in the Maduro Govt so it all went down bloodlessly and made great television.
They must have had lots of practice in hostage rescue/kidnapping since crashing helicopters into C130s in 1979..
20
I know it’s true, I read it on the web.
20