[Graphic via Planet Waves, used also by Al Jazeera in the article below from today]
Biomedical. Regarding the item from the Special Edition, 9/16/24, i had a difference with Michael Bryant which i didn’t write about, because it was i thought it was more a less than perfect construction rather than content. He stated very clearly that he knows of no proof of the existence of SARS-CoV-2. which makes any PCR test is completely invalid, impossible to authenticate. Yet just sentences later, he talked of “false positives.” My colleague Eric Francis Coppolino has said the following, which i like.
"The language I use is that there are no negatives or positives; the device has no validity as a diagnostic tool and everyone admits this. Further, the amplicon or target fragment has never been shown to come from a virus, match a virus, cause disease or be contagious.
I am clear that its use is total fraud, intentionally for the purpose of creating the illusion of contagion and disease. Even in cases where there should be a good amplicon (pertussis, a bacteria) the device throws 100% false positives for the presence of the bacteria.
Gold standard is rather 2019. Mullis was speaking in the hypothetical. The “standard” has never once been met for diagnostic purposes. The thing may work to find mold in wine.” [Or cannabis]
4IR. MAJOR story the last 48 hours. Thousands of people in Lebanon have been wounded via a remote control attack [quite certainly by Israeli entities] on their communications devices and even energy units, 26 dead so far, several hundred critically injured. There was a second wave today.
Second wave of blasts hits Lebanon as Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war. Health Ministry says 14 people killed, 450 wounded in latest device explosions, which Hezbollah blames on Israel. 9/18/24. Videos included.
At least 14 people have been killed and 450 wounded in Lebanon in a new wave of blasts related to communication devices, the Ministry of Public Health says, a day after thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah detonated across the country. The attacks, which were widely believed to be carried out by Israel against Hezbollah, have raised fears that the two sides’ simmering conflict could escalate into all-out war.
Speaking to Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are at the start of a new phase in the war. It requires courage, determination and perseverance.” He made no mention of the explosions of electronic devices on Tuesday and Wednesday but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying, “The results are very impressive.”
Multiple explosions were reported across Lebanon on Wednesday with the state-run National News Agency saying pagers and “devices” exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in eastern and southern Beirut as well as in the eastern region of Bekaa, where three people were wounded. Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV reported explosions in multiple locations, which it said were the result of walkie-talkies detonating.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, witnessed two explosions. “There was a car that exploded just behind us. At the same time, there was an explosion at another place [nearby],” he said. “I’m currently in the middle of the street. There are a lot of ambulances, chaos everywhere.” Several blasts took place simultaneously, Hashem said, similar to the explosions on Tuesday. “But this time, it was mostly walkie-talkies or radios [that exploded],” he said, adding that reports suggested that solar devices and some batteries in cars also detonated. The National News Agency reported that home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut.
In Wednesday’s attacks, several blasts were heard at a funeral in Beirut for three Hezbollah members and a child killed by exploding pagers the day before, according to journalists with The Associated Press news agency at the scene. An AP photographer in the southern coastal city of Sidon saw a car and a mobile phone shop damaged after devices exploded inside of them. A girl was hurt in the south when a solar energy system blew up, the state news agency reported.
In Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said a blast was reported in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital city. The new round of explosions took place a day after pagers exploded nearly simultaneously in locations across Lebanon, killing at least 12 people, including two children, and wounding about 2,800. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for Tuesday’s attacks.
Israel has not directly commented on the blasts. The attacks have shaken the civilian population with a stream of bloodied people overwhelming hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds of Beirut. Health authorities have called on all available medics to report for duty.
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s explosions took place after Israel announced the expansion of its war goals to include northern residents returning to their homes near the border with Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people have left northern Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas-led attacks on October 7 in southern Israel, where more than 1,100 people were killed and about 250 were taken captive.
Israel has waged a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip since then, killing more than 41,000 people and reducing large swaths of the Palestinian territory to rubble. Since October 8, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border in support of Hamas.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah said Israel was “fully responsible for this criminal aggression” and reiterated it would avenge the latest attacks while saying it would continue its fight against Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza. Cross-border exchanges with Israeli forces were “ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre”, Hezbollah said.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” on Wednesday was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint”. “The secretary-general urges all concerned actors to exercise maximum restraint to avert any further escalation,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
And, a report on how the pagers were blown up on Tuesday.
How did Hezbollah get the pagers that exploded in Lebanon? Al Jazeera traces a pager supply chain from Taiwan to Hungary to Lebanon — including a three-month port layover during which explosives might have been placed in the devices. Sarah Shamim, 9/18/24. Videos included.
Hundreds of pagers belonging to the armed group Hezbollah exploded on Tuesday in Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding about 2,750. Some pagers belonging to Hezbollah also exploded in Syria, leading to some injuries. Lebanon, Hezbollah and the group’s allies have all blamed Israel. But what really happened? Many analysts believe the answer might lie in how Hezbollah got the pagers in the first place — because that might hold clues to whether the devices were tampered with to facilitate the explosions.
What happened to the Hezbollah pagers in Lebanon?
About 3:30pm (12:30 GMT), hundreds of pagers all over Lebanon started exploding. Hezbollah released a statement on Tuesday saying two of its fighters and a girl were killed as “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded”. The Iran-backed group attributed the pager blasts to Israel, which has been involved in tit-for-tat attacks with Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza. Israel’s military has refused to comment on the explosions. Hezbollah has promised retaliation against Israel.
A Lebanese security source and another source told the Reuters news agency that the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, planted explosives in 5,000 pagers that Hezbollah had ordered months before the explosions. The sources said a code was simultaneously sent to 3,000 of the pagers, triggering the explosions.
While the exact mechanism used for the pager explosions is unclear at the moment, some experts speculate that the radio system that the pagers rely on was hacked, possibly through a doctored code. The batteries of the pagers could have been triggered to overheat, leading to a process called thermal runaway, which in turn caused the pager batteries to explode. [See article which follows from the Washington Post debunking that idea]
Some analysts, including Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, have speculated that the pagers may also have been tampered with along the supply chain and wired to explode on command. But Brussels-based military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera his sources close to the ground in Lebanon had shared details from initial investigations carried out by Hezbollah on pagers that did not explode. Those investigations suggest that Israel placed 1 to 3 grammes (0.04 to 0.11oz) of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a powerful explosive, in each device.
Lebanon faces a range of sanctions from the United States, European Union and their Western partners. In addition, the US, United Kingdom and their allies, such as Japan, list Hezbollah among “terrorist” organisations. That means that companies both registered in these domains or trading with these countries are wary of direct transactions, especially in technology, with Hezbollah — and often with Lebanon at all.
In this case, Magnier said, the pagers procured by Hezbollah were with a third party and they sat at a port for three months, awaiting clearances, before they were finally moved to the Lebanese group. Hezbollah suspects that it was during those three months that Israel managed to plant explosives in the devices, the military analyst said. He added that Hezbollah’s investigation so far shows that metal balls were placed around the pager batteries, allowing the explosive force to propel metal fragments outward, “significantly increasing the lethality of the blast”. He added that this was also done during the three months when the shipment was on hold.
But where were the pagers made — and when?
The trademark of Taiwan pager manufacturer Gold Apollo has been identified on the remains of the exploded pagers, which appear to belong to the company’s AR-924 model. On Wednesday, the company released a statement denying that it had manufactured Hezbollah’s pagers and saying it was only its logo that was on the devices.
Instead, the pagers had been built by a Hungarian company called BAC through a licensing deal, the Taiwan firm said. “The design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement. “We only provide brand trademark authorisation and have no involvement in the design manufacturing of this product.” BAC has not commented so far.
The evidence so far suggests that Hezbollah acquired the pagers around February when the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, ordered members to stop using cellphones because they could be easily intercepted and monitored by Israeli intelligence.
BAC Consulting is based in Hungary’s capital, Budapest. Reuters reported that the stated address for BAC is a peach-coloured building in a residential area. While the company’s name is posted there on an A4 sheet of paper, an anonymous source present at the building told the news agency the company does not have a physical presence at the building despite being registered there.
According to LinkedIn, BAC’s CEO is Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, whose profile says she has worked for various organisations, including UNESCO. Her profile says: “We offer in-depth consulting guiding our client’s journey toward innovation, sustainability, and equity while ensuring connection, and authenticity. Our main services are business development, management consultancy, strategy and partnership planning.”
Al Jazeera reached out to BAC but did not receive a response.
Per CNN, "How it happened: Hezbollah bought the pagers that exploded in recent months, according to a Lebanese security source. Those devices detonated simultaneously after receiving a message. Explosives were planted next to the battery in each pager and a switch embedded for remote detonation, according to the New York Times” See here.
The Washington Post agrees, adding "Some batteries rely on the devices’ own software to regulate their use and temperature, so it is theoretically possible to hack into a pager and trigger its battery to heat to the point that it explodes, Meier said.
At the same time, videos of the attack posted to social media show the pagers exploding instantaneously, rather than catching fire. Overheating lithium batteries sometimes explode, but also catch fire or throw off streams of superheated material in unpredictable ways.” See here.
And, my take, : Opinion as to what’s next varies across a bunch of mainstream media outlets, including Al Jazeera and France 24 is that Hezbollah’s leadership would have a hard time not retaliating in a big way, given how many of its members were targeted and how even their dependents were killed and injured. And given that the Iranian ambassador in Beirut was injured (in fact lost an eye) when his pager went off, the Iranian regime would have a hard time stopping Hezbollah or even not acting itself.
Israeli is on a suicide mission, some people actually believe biblical prophecies and believe they have a key role to play in making it happen. Victims are very dangerous.
And, Eric Francis Coppolino weighs in, interesting astrology of current events (Lebanon as well as the recent second assassination attempt upon Trump) and some poignant insights.
A brief analysis (with astrology) of the pager and radio attack incidents of the 17th and 18th, and some thoughts about the would-be golf course shooter (analysis by Rappoport included). Eric Francis Coppolino, 9/18/24.
[Audio file, 34 minutes]
Sorry in advance for any typos. I am a terrible typist and this is going out before it can be proofread. —efc
Addendum — A very wide diversity of electronic devices were involved, including laptops and phones. The not so subtle subtext here is that any device in the world could be armed with explosives and detonated intentionally, or go off accidentally.
Good Afternoon from New York —
Nothing quite says “full digital conditions” or “world information war” like using communication devices as bombs. And nothing says “this could go out of control” like Mars making an opposition to Pholus, the small cause with the big effect. Somehow, pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives were sabotaged in the manufacturing process, with explosives included that were then detonated remotely. This has caused thousands of injuries and dozens of deaths across Lebanon the past 36 hours or so.
And we thought these things were just fantastic spy devices. And fire hazards.
The exploding beeper incident comes three days after another would-be “Trump assassin” was spotted on a golf course where he had hidden in the 12 hours before Trump decided spontaneously he wanted to play golf with a donor. Coverage of that absurd bullshit is provided below, by my colleague Jon Rappoport….
Thanks to Jon Rappoport for doing a lot of work about who the alleged, would-be Trump golf course shooter was. I’ve included the text of his post below. Rappoport is the same journalist who provided me with four documents from the FDA and others proving that there could not possibly be a “covid test” in March 2020, getting me onto that long, long story.
Jeff Strahl, our resident historian, who was born in Palestine, has contributed reporting. I will include some of what he’s collected in the comments connected to this article on the Planet Waves Substack. Here is his interview from this time last year on the history of Palestine (see stand-alone player). I cannot find my reading of the Oct. 6/7 chart from last year which concludes that both sides in this conflict are controlled by one common higher-up. It’s out there somewhere; if you find it please put it into the comments. I did find the chart — that’s below.
Trump golf course shooter Ryan Routh — who is he? Jon Rappoport | Here is his Substack [Link]
Ryan Routh, the would-be assassin, has an extensive criminal history. He was arrested more than 70 TIMES, from 1996 to 2014. In 2002, he was convicted of possession of a fully automatic machine gun, after a stand-off with police in North Carolina. Time in prison for that 2002 conviction? According to press reports, NO TIME. ZERO. He was placed on probation.
What???
In fact, for the 70 charges and the convictions for bad checks, receiving stolen goods, drugs, weapons, vehicular violations…Routh apparently received either a total of NO TIME in prison or a very minor amount of time. I can’t find out which. Either way, it makes no sense. And THAT’S a major red flag. What the hell was going on with this guy and his relationship with law enforcement all those years?
And oh, by the way, the charge of possessing an automatic machine gun is called “possessing a weapon of mass destruction.” That’s how serious courts and judges consider it. Plus Routh resisted arrest at the time. And yet, NO prison sentence. Only probation. OK, so this guy is a “special person.” Very special. Was he specially connected to big-time people? To some federal agency that had plans for him? [SNIP]…..
And, Electronic Intifada is back on You Tube, here’s today’s edition of the weekly news report
Breaking news and analysis on day 348 of Gaza's Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast, 9/18/24, two hours and 31 minutes.
My comments. The first segment, news report, runs till 17:00. The second, an interview with two activists in a group which has committed damage to facilities in the UK producing what’s basically weaponry for the Zionist state, runs till around, 56:00. Several times, juries in the UK have refused to convict people charged with these acts. Jon Elmer’s resistance report runs till 1:46:00 or so, The rest is a discussion of the events in Lebanon. Evidence is shown that many of those injured were civilians with these devices, including lots of emergency responders, even people in hospitals. This is TERRORISM, pure and simple.
And, economic crisis signals ramp up. I don’t have a good source for a Marx-informed analysis which happens frequently, though What’s Left? does deal with the subject here and there (doing great, given it’s a weekly show) and Fabio Vighi posts an article a couple of times a year. So, this stuff is limited by its within-system perspective, yet provides some interesting data.
You Won't Believe What Europes Central Bank Just Did. Eurodollar University, 9/12/24. 20 minutes.
"The ECB cut rates for the second time, as expected, though amidst a strong bond/bund market rally that has now completely un-inverted that yield curve. This comes at a time when major businesses like Volkswagen are thinking about closing down factories due to how much idle capacity they have. What links all of these together, what explains all the facts, is that there was never a global recovery, only a transitory price illusion.”
Bank Balance Sheet Reveals MASSIVE Systemic Stress, Eurodollar University, 9/11/24. 19 minutes.
"It was all banks all day yesterday. Basel rules foul-up. Warren Buffett continuing to dump BofA. Citi dumping on credit. Deutsche unloading CRE, or trying to. JP Morgan downgrading...itself. Most of all Ally Financial admitting unemployment is fast becoming a big problem and right on its balance sheet.”
See more stuff from Eurodollar University, which posts a video of 18-20 minutes once a day.
And again, this analysis is totally limited by a capitalist perspective, blind to both the value dynamics which are the focus of Marx’s crisis theory, as well as global material factors. But again, useful info.
The Debt Crisis Also Presents Great Opportunity For Investors | Gordon Long, Allen Taggert of Thoughtful Money, 9/12/24, An hour and 26 minutes.
"Total US federal debt now stands at $35.34 Trillion, now exceeding US annual GDP by $10 trillion. It has been growing at a faster rate than GDP for many decades. That dynamic shows no signs of reversing or even moderating. And on top of the federal debt lies the borrowing of households, businesses, financial institutions and state & local governments. When you add all that up, the total US debt exceeds $100 trillion. [And global debt is over $350 trillion, up 21% since the start of “COVID.”]
So what does that mean for the future? Are we hurdling towards a sovereign debt crisis, as a number of analysts warn? Or is there reason to hope the economy can handle this debt trajectory? For guidance, we're fortunate to welcome back to the program market analyst Gordon Long of MATASII: Macro Analytics & Technical Analysis Strategic Investment Insight”
The real fireworks start at around 14:00 or so. The explosion in debt has greatly accelerated in the last 5 years. Takes now $1.5 of deficit growth to get $1 growth in GDP!
Ending this segment and this edition, long time left writer Robert Jensen talks about taking stances which have been deemed by former friends of his to be politically incorrect.
A guest post, by Robert Jensen. Julie Bindel, 8/18/24.
Bob Jensen
In the middle of an economic crisis, Dale Carnegie wrote a book explaining How to Win Friends and Influence People, which has sold tens of millions of copies since its 1936 publication. In the middle of multiple cascading crises—economic and ecological, cultural and political—my books are a model for how to lose friends and influence very few people. As for sales, well, my books sell in the tens of tens.
I’m not complaining, either about the lost friends or the lack of influence. As I explain in It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics, I feel fortunate for the opportunities that came my way during a career in journalism and university teaching. No one need worry about me, but I am one of many people who worry about the state of the intellectual culture. My story is a cautionary tale because, while it’s important to point out the failures of political opponents, it’s just as important—and much harder—to promote critical self-reflection among comrades, who for me are on the left side of the political fence.
First, the loss of friends came primarily after my writing that critiques the ideology of the transgender movement. Unquestioned support for that movement is a given for most leftists and liberals. Because trans activists have been effective at demonizing feminist critics of the ideology, even people with left/liberal politics who are confused or troubled by trans ideology find it easiest to keep quiet.
Numerous friends and colleagues have confided to me, in private, that they don’t dare speak up even though they agree with my critique—that the trans movement’s rhetoric and policy proposals are intellectually incoherent, anti-feminist, and inconsistent with an ecological worldview. Others who challenge my writing almost never respond to specific arguments I make but rather assert that they simply want to be allies to marginalized people, as if that settles all questions. On occasion, liberal/left folks dismiss me as having strayed into conservatism, pretending that the feminist argument is indistinguishable from right-wing patriarchal arguments.
Many types of political disagreements can end a friendship, of course, especially after a sharp exchange. But what’s unique about the trans debate is how many friends and colleagues have shunned me without discussing the issue, in some cases even refusing to speak to me at all. Since those folks no longer respond to my calls and messages, I can’t know for sure what motivates them to ghost me, but I can think of three potential reasons: concerns about any public connection to me (fear of “guilt” by association, though I’m not sure what I’m guilty of); anger at the position I have taken (perhaps based on the assumption that no rational person could disagree with their views) or unease that I have expressed a viewpoint they agree with but are afraid to articulate (and so admitting that to me, even in private, would be too embarrassing).
Second, about the low level of influence. Again, I’m not complaining. Every obscure author would love to sell more books, and I’m no different. But when a writer’s message is blunt, such as an analysis of the ecological crises that many find to be too harsh and lacking in “solutions,” one has to be realistic. The bumper-sticker version of that analysis is “fewer and less”—I believe that our goals, if we want to continue the human experiment, should be a dramatically lower population consuming dramatically less energy and material resources. Except for the world’s poorest people, that means everyone—including a majority of people in the United States—would live with less.
That message doesn’t go over well on the left, right, or center. Whether folks believe in democratic socialism or the magic of the market, they rarely acknowledge the relevance of population (which we should, for starters, aim to cut at least in half) or the need to reduce the material standard of living in affluent sectors of the world (again, a good start would be cut at least in half). Instead, most everyone has their favorite technological fix (endless renewable energy, “clean coal,” carbon capture) that they believe will allow 8 billion people to consume at the current aggregate level. Even with a more just and equitable distribution of wealth, which my left comrades and I agree is crucial, we should plan for a down-powering.
Though I exist on the political margins, I don’t regret my choices in activism and writing. I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak and write without constraint, no matter what the reactions of friends or the general public. I have no illusions that my political positions will become mainstream anytime soon, but I intend to keep at it, in part because it’s important for everyone to speak honestly about our beliefs, out of self-respect.
But more important is that some people—even if it’s not the majority, even if not a significant minority right now—appreciate reading arguments they agree with but so rarely see expressed in public. One of the most rewarding moments for me is when someone tells me, “I think like you do, and it’s nice to know that I’m not alone.”
Just one of those comments takes the sting out of never making the best-seller list.
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Robert Jensen, an Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics from Olive Branch Press. His previous book, co-written with Wes Jackson, was An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. To subscribe to his mailing list, go to[ [Link]