BC SOCIETY
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

1/ One year of destroyed economies, social isolation & deep social splits calls for an anniversary ⬇️thread ⬇️ to celebrate the RT-qPCR manuscript by Christian Drosten (@c_drosten) & Victor Corman (@vmcorman), submitted on 21st Jan 2020 to @Eurosurveillanc. #UnbiasedScience

 2/ Before this very publication, virologists were neither treated like superstars, nor were they considered icons or half-gods. In 2009, Drosten almost succeeded in installing the false premise virology could supersede holistic medical sciences as discussed in this thread.
3/ Drosten is a virologist. He neither has any background in epidemiology, nor has he ever worked in the civil service. He also doesn’t have a background in public health. Yet he and his colleagues affect our daily lives to the level of whom to meet up or how to flush the toilet.
4/ Before January 2020, Drosten and Corman were common virologists at Charité Berlin, whenever they were not involved in economic implications (https://t.co/UTDwG8U7Du). Other than that, they looked at coronaviruses in dromedary calves in the Middle East or Africa. 😍 #cute
5/ Finally in Jan 2020, the published paper laid the theoretical grounds for the current pandemic, the RT-qPCR mass testing-religion, for which he was awarded his second German Federal Cross of Merit (he received the first one in 2005 for developing the SARS-CoV PCR test).
6/ The manuscript was rushed through every approving authority at @Eurosurveillanc. Prior to the submission, it was already sent to @WHO with the prospect of being approved in any case. Big-data analyst @waukema visualised this phenomenon at @tableaupublic https://t.co/iddgwmAQOZ
7/ Being part of the editorial board at @Eurosurveillanc has been advantageous for @c_drosten & @c_reusken to reach the one-day-peer-review ‘milestone’, even though they might have been excluded from the process. So far, providing the process protocol is being refused.
8/ I addressed this peer review process issue in a dedicated thread (https://t.co/Fg81ooah0z), which led to controversial discussions & accumulated in an interview by @naomirwolf, in which I further explain the pitfalls for science in this particular case. https://t.co/M9u4bAFwTF
9/ It is also remarkable that Drosten has not been into sophisticated Twitter campaigning since 2016. His first substantial tweet since his rediscovery of Twitter (with 770 followers) was on Jan 23 2020, when he promoted his one-day-wonder publication. Coincidence or PR-campaign?
10/ On 9 Jan 2020 Drosten’s #overconfidence reached a new high by complaining that the correspondence to @NEJM did not cite his freshly published paper. Instead, the authors chose to refer to his protocol-design pre-release on @WHO.int (13th Jan 2020). https://t.co/JY65DxkiI3
11/ Drosten aimed for an RT-qPCR protocol design, which could serve as a “robust diagnostic methodology”. However, the protocol-design and its factual scientific precision somewhat resemble Russian roulette (concerning false positives; see below). https://t.co/7Mlr4m4CZ8
12/ Back in 2009, Drosten already followed a similar approach when he created a PCR test for the swine flu (H1N1). Regarding the question of why it is crucial to do so much testing if the strain is mild, he answered: “Because we remember the 1918 outbreak.”https://t.co/ZuDuK4lNfk
13/ As mentioned in the introduction tweets, PCR testing (in 2009) already caused a pseudo-epidemic that was stopped by @wodarg and 13 other European parliamentarians as reported by the following @nature-article: https://t.co/049KPTd4VA
14/ The @nature-paper also states that “it is disturbing that a rogue politician [...] can create such mischief for the @WHO and drug industry, despite virtually no evidence of wrongdoing. @wodarg was the prime mover behind the fake pandemic outcry.“ https://t.co/pebQKun86r
15/ Despite his track-record and great merit, @wodarg is heavily discredited by German media and fact-checking blogs such as @Volksverpetzer (i.e. the German low-tier version of @snopes). https://t.co/i0dEIi0zNB
16/ In 2014, @c_drosten gave a striking interview for the German business magazine @wiwo. His statements back then are in contradiction with comments he made in 2020. Let’s take a closer look at what he said in this particular interview. https://t.co/QIdnTw4ccE
17/ The statement below addresses the PCR testing method. He explained that the technique is hypersensitive and is not suitable for pathogen testing. He said that if a pathogen “slips along” the nasal mucosa of a nurse, she’d consequently be considered a “(false) case”.
18/ He continued to remark that, by applying this PCR method, people who are actually very healthy or only have mild symptoms became part of the officially reported statistics. In the case of MERS infections in Saudi Arabia, he ironically also blamed the media for fear-mongering.
19/ In the following section, @c_drosten criticised that the Saudi authorities did not solely focus on the “real cases”. He heavily questioned whether hospital staff with “no or only mild symptoms” could potentially carry the virus or even transmit it to other people.
20/ He further clarified that “‘our body is constantly being attacked by viruses and bacteria and that they are usually fending off in the mucous membrane, e.g. nose, throat. The immune defence only creates antibodies against pathogens that really affect our body.”
21/ It is true, as #Drosten points out that someone was/is truly infected if there are antibodies. He states that ‘such an antibody test would facilitate distinguishing between cases of scientific interest and cases of medical relevance.’ Keep this in mind!!
22/ The strange thing about his statements is that he and the @WHO are currently claiming precisely the opposite concerning #COVID-19. Why this sudden change of mind? Maybe we should go back in time to get to the bottom of this matter.
23/ In May 2019, Drosten took part at a conference of the ruling German party @cducsubt on ‘strengthening global health’. The guest list is conspicuous, taking the 2020 events into account.
24/ In my opinion, it is quite remarkable to invite a virologist (with 700 followers on Twitter) who was prevented from causing a “fake pandemic” (sic! @nature) to such an exquisite and influential group.
25/ To be fair, we do not know why he was invited and what actually happened behind closed doors. What we know is that @c_drosten fueled the pandemic several months later by writing that particular paper and doing exactly what he heavily criticised in his 2014 @wiwo-interview.
26/ Summed up:

@c_drosten in 2014: no asymptomatic testing, people with mild symptoms are most likely no spreaders, PCR tests deceptive, use antibody tests if necessary, do not add PCR-positives to the reported statistics.

@c_drosten in 2020: https://t.co/SYncRdUXII
27/ What happens when antigen tests are used instead of PCR tests can be seen in the case of #Austria, where antigen mass tests are performed since January 11th 2021 (https://t.co/nwVJXaOt2P). It’s definitely time to stop this PCR-madness.
28/ It is also worth mentioning that #COVID was not characterised as a #pandemic until March 11th, almost two months after the Corman-Drosten paper passed peer-review in a record-breaking time.
29/ The person who declared #COVID a pandemic is @DrTedros, the Ethiopian director of the @WHO who is accused of genocidal crimes.
https://t.co/xhrlxBRtNw
30/ The measures above leads to a casedemic as shown in the case of Austria and as explained by @robinmonotti.
https://t.co/zqYDVfheMa
31/ All of us must remain vigilant, to ensure that our fundamental rights continue to be guaranteed. These rights cover #freedom of assembly, #privacy, #data protection, physical #integrity, freedom of self-determination etc.
32/ I also consider scientific integrity in danger. Political pressure and pressure from media prevent objective debates & critiques on the measures. Broadcasting talkshows intentionally omit opinion diversity (i.e. medial pluralism), while shaping opinions and framing positions.
33/ The currently observed conformity between politics and media excludes critics from participation in the discourse, as shown in an article written by @saschalobo from Aug 2020: critics are demonised and marked as anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.
https://t.co/13AthaWw6t
34/ Another recent example is the following article of the Dutch magazine @FTM_nl on PCR testing, where facts were omitted, critics were discredited, and, to cap it all, the article refers to the biased fact-checker and convicted chess cheater @pjvanerp.
https://t.co/yQJDVDBlDb
35/ For those who are interested in how unethical journalistic practices have been applied here, should take their time to read the following thread by @hommel_b. It is in Dutch, but luckily Twitter offers the “Translate Tweet” feature. https://t.co/FhmlGZNYYe
36/ It's the duty of the media to report about the current events objectively. The press codex specifies the need for critical journalistic research. It's crucial for a society that journalists examine a subject from several angles instead of acting like the Ministry of Truth.
37/ And what does our flagship virologist @c_drosten think about the principles of balanced media coverage? Exactly - absolutely nothing! 😶 He even demands a vigorous information campaign to propagate #zerocovid. https://t.co/CO9EKaKYcD

More from Dr. Simon ツ

Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
Substantial analysis of @BenMarten regarding the mortality in Germany. Particularly noticeable is the "excess mortality" in December. Ben states that "lockdown deaths" could play an important role here. I would like to elaborate my thoughts on that. ⬇️Mini-Thread⬇️


Factor 1: Vitamin D deficiency.

Many people (especially elderly) have been locked in during the summer. Also the majority of holiday trips have been cancelled, leading to a lower 25(OH)D blood serum level as usual. The body can store vitamin D up to several months.


As vitamin D is a hormon that modulates the immune responses, we can assume that the lockdown measures had some adverse effect on our immune system. Especially elderly people in retirement homes must have been severely affected.

Factor 2: Loneliness

"Loneliness, it seems, can lead to long-term "fight-or-flight" stress signaling, which negatively affects immune system functioning. Simply put, people who feel lonely have less immunity and more inflammation than people who

Factor 3: Hyper Hygiene

Constant disinfections and high hygienic standards weaken the immune system. It gets literally "out of
WORLD
Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
1/: Scientific integrity is a valuable commodity. What happens when external funders take influence on both scientific™ findings and media coverage can be seen in the current global crisis. It is time to return to the fundamental principles of science: ⬇️A thread⬇️


2/: In this thread, I will roughly explain why #empiricism and #repeatability are important factors for science and why model approaches should be interpreted with caution (and that is what I am saying as a modeller).

3/: I am aware that the principle of science is far more profound than explained in this thread, but this thread is written for laymen on @twitter and not for the lecture room. Also, within the scientific community, there is no clear consensus about this topic either.

4/: In recent years, I have been working on complex food production systems that increase food production and show high nutrient and water use efficiencies. I have thus been involved in plant growth experiments and holistic system modelling activities (@MATLAB, @AnyLogicCo).


5/: The plant growth experiments included environmental factors, #metagenomics (i.e. microbial genome sequencing), flow regulations etc. and the modelling covered the prediction on non-existing systems based on experimental and literature data.
CATEGORY C19
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Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
1/: The inventor of the corona PCR-Test @c_drosten is one of the #protagonists of the current crisis. He is known for involving himself in contradictions. In 2014, he gave a legendary #interview to @wiwo (https://t.co/jzTRh5Suhc) that I will address in this ⬇️short thread⬇️.


2/: The interview is significant because @c_drosten made totally sane statements back then that follow the principle of common sense. Considering his involvement in the "genesis of the current pandemic", his assertions appear in an entirely different


3/: In 2014, for instance, washing the hands was sufficient against being infected by coronaviruses. Several years he demands measures that destroy national economies and social life worldwide.


4/: Young @c_drosten also severely criticized the fact that Saudi Arabia used the PCR method to detect potential infections. From his point of view, that specific method could lead to many irrelevant cases. Nowadays, his view shifted his opinion towards 'collective punishment'.


5/: Whereas he demands "testing, testing, testing" nowadays and spreads panic and fear via (social) media, he heavily condemned that behaviour of Saudi media in 2014. On top of that, he expressed his concern that medial panic could increase the number of lab tests significantly.
CATEGORY C19
Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
1/: The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation created as a result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. In light of the current events, they are more actual than ever before. ⬇️an important thread⬇️


2/: These so-called ‘Doctors’ Trial’ focused on physicians who conducted #inhumane and #unethical human experiments in German concentration camps, in addition to those who were involved in over 3,500,000 sterilizations of German citizens. (the picture shows doctors/criminals)


3/: Ten points of the code were given in the section of the verdict entitled "Permissible Medical Experiments". They can be found in detail on the following website:

4/: Point #1 means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, or deceit.


5/: Using an insufficiently-tested vaccine on humans is unethical. However, as long as people voluntarily consent to receive the vaccine, being informed about all risks, everything is OK. Doing this with force, however, is against the Nuremberg Code.
CATEGORY C19
Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
1/ Happy to announce that we have submitted our #paper ‘Bayes Lines Tool (BLT) - A SQL-script for analyzing diagnostic test results with an application to SARS-CoV-2-testing’.

In this ⬇️thread⬇️, I will explain why our tool is that powerful for decision makers. #UnbiasedScience


2/ In the meantime, the submitted paper is available on the preprint platform @zenodo_org. Factual criticism is highly desired and encouraged. The publication itself presents a seminal Bayesian calculator, the Bayes Lines Tool (BLT). (Petje af, @waukema!)

3/ The Bayes Line Tool (available on https://t.co/jIomSIxOd9) is able to back-solve disease #prevalence, test #sensitivity, test #specificity, and therefore, true positive, false positive, true negative and false negative numbers from official governmental test outcome reports.

4/ This is done by creating confusion matrices with four variables. Namely: TP, FP, TN, FN. In order to calculate the matrices, we need prevalence, specificity, and sensitivity as well as the number of people that got tested (within a given period) and the number of positives.


5/ The number of positives and the number of tests are given by the government. Prevalence, specificity, and sensitivity are unknown. So we assume any combination of them ranging from 0-99%. These three combinations can amount up to #millions of #combinations.
TECH

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UN Watch
UN Watch
@UNWatch
Wow! Rare moment of truth at the UN as Miss Iraq Sarah Idan calls out Hamas terrorism, antisemitism taught in Muslim countries, and biased media.

THREAD: "Two years ago, I represented Iraq at Miss Universe. I posted a photo with Miss Israel on social media..."


"I was told to remove it and forced to denounce Israeli policies. I received death threats. Since then I can no longer return to my homeland.

Why did the Iraqi government fail to condemn the threats, or allow my freedom of speech?"

"The issue between Arabs and Israelis goes beyond policy disagreements. It’s deeply rooted in the belief systems taught in Muslim countries, which are anti-Semitic."

"Sadly, hatred & intolerance are reinforced by biased media. When I watched the news last month, why did they never report that the Hamas terrorist organization fired nearly 700 rockets at Israeli civilians in one weekend or that Hamas used Palestinians in Gaza as human shields?"

"Why do they never condemn Hamas for initiating the attacks? Instead, they only show those killed by the response, in self-defense, and blame Israel."
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Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/People I know on the Right tend to be obsessed with the idea of "crimethink", taboos, and the (supposedly) oppressive, omnipresent enforcement of liberal cultural norms.

Why?

My new theory: A lot of it is guilt.

2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

3/The stereotype is that people on the Right tend to be more threat-sensitive. That would help explain the perception that liberal norm-enforcers are lurking everywhere, ready to pounce and anathematize anyone who makes a misstep.

But I don't think that's all of it either.

4/And of course, it's always fun - whether you're on the Right or the Left, or playing a video game, or whatever - to style yourself as the brave iconoclastic rebel fighting against the oppressive forces of blah blah blah.

But I don't think this is all of it, either.

5/The reason I think it's more than these things is that even *in private*, people on the Right express their "crimethink" ideas very gingerly and hesitantly.

I get the sense that they're not just afraid of external censure, but have also internalized liberal norms.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Our pretensions to civilization have become very thin. Political violence was legitimized last year and is spreading wildly now. "Might makes right" is clearly the only "principle" behind freedom of speech. That's why Chinese Communists will never be censored by Big Tech.

When every "principle" becomes nothing but a ruthless exercise of power, it's not surprising that a growing number of people conclude they must demonstrate some sort of power in order to be taken seriously. Violence is the crudest exercise of power.

A well-run civilization makes it clear *universally* that violence is absolutely unacceptable. Giving free passes for irresponsible rhetoric and destruction to groups favored by the dominant political ideology of the State undermines that message.

We must also people peaceable means of expressing themselves and controlling their own lives, to relieve the pressures that can lead to violent outbursts and other forms of lawlessness. The less healthy discourse and freedom of action you have, the more pressure builds up.

It's dangerous when large numbers of people begin drawing the conclusion that might makes right, that laws and principles bend easily for those who have the political strength to bend them. Might makes right is the code of anarchy and barbarism, the antithesis of civilization.
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Nachiketa Guha | \u092d\u093e\u0930\u0924 \u092e\u093e\u0924\u093e \u0915\u0940 \u091c\u092f
Nachiketa Guha | भारत ...
@BrandNachiketa
@Suman68082748 @thetwinkwolff @x_karran_x @Sunil9130 Lets stop the criticism guys. The lad is good. Losses happen. Losses to unranked players happen too. As do wins vs top 10ers. Let's accept both. Remember Sumit and the likes of him are the best we have. See the bigger picture please.

@thetwinkwolff @x_karran_x @Sunil9130 When the Europeans or South Americans were getting quality practice and tourneys week in week out at reasonable costs, our kids were playing on dung courts or learning outdated serve and volley on grass. Appreciate the fact that the last 10 years have been a hell lot better than

@thetwinkwolff @x_karran_x @Sunil9130 the 10 before that. Real change can't come in a day or even in 10 years. So let's grit our teeth and bide our time till we have an organic self sustaining system in place.

@siyer30 @SportaSmile @Cric_Writer @RomilShukla @amanthejourno

@thetwinkwolff @x_karran_x @Sunil9130 @siyer30 @SportaSmile @Cric_Writer @RomilShukla @amanthejourno Tennis is my favourite sport in the universe. Has always been. Will always be. I was in love with Steffi and Pete a lot before I fell for Sachin. And while I would love every toddler in my family to play sports professionally, I won't encourage them to pursue my favourite sport.

@thetwinkwolff @x_karran_x @Sunil9130 @siyer30 @SportaSmile @Cric_Writer @RomilShukla @amanthejourno It will be career suicide. In other sports, I can actually plan for my ward to be the next Lin Dan or the next Tiger Woods or the next Schumacher even from a base in India. With tennis, in 2020 I can't do that realistically. Just doesn't adds up. Even for total freaks of nature.
SOCIETY
Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald
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@kurteichenwald
For those of us suffering & dying in Texas, the sociopathy of @GOP that leads to an astonishing lack of concern about our lives by evil folk like @GregAbbott_TX @GovernorPerry @TuckerCarlson @DanCrenshawTX et al who blatantly lie about what’s happening...1

...just to score political points - and protect the profits of energy companies - is almost incomprehensible. These are people who would claim Social Security caused 9/11 if it was convenient. What caused this catastrophe is vast vast majority from gas, then coal/nuclear...2

...then wind. The ONLY source of power that is delivering more than expected in budgeting is wind. But that’s not convenient to say for the oil/gas/coal industry, so the @GregAbbott_TX @GovernorPerry @DanCrenshawTX stand atop our dead bodies lying to protect the companies...2

...shockingly, the ONLY people in a position of state/national strength are the executives with the company that manages electricity in the state, @ERCOT_ISO. But they can’t tell the whole truth, because that would entail revealing how much stupidity was done here for profit...3

...of industry by Texas @GOP. If gas/nuke/nuclear/wind had been winterized - as they are everywhere else in the country - this would have largely been prevented. But it would have cost companies money, and that would cut into profits. If the gas lines has been buried deeper...3
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Hinduism is a minority religion in Punjab.

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Durgiana Mandir is one of the oldest temples of Amritsar. According to the regional Hindu tradition, the temple was built on the spot where Lava and Kusha bound Hanuman. The temple annually attracts millions of Hindus from all over the country.


Amristsar has a very ancient Hindu history.

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Durgiana Mandir was rebuilt in 1921.

It was used to house the Murtis of Vishnu and Durga which were thrown out from the Parikrama of Harmandir Sahib in 1905.

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(MAJOR NOTE) The reason Manafort took over Trump's campaign in just 3 weeks despite being hired as a mere delegate counter is that ROGER STONE initiated a whisper campaign against Corey Lewandowski. That campaign started...days after Manafort returned from meeting with WikiLeaks.

2/ Stone and Manafort are longtime business partners; we'd expect Manafort to tell Stone what Assange told him, and for him to expect Stone to then pressure the campaign not only to hire him but quickly elevate him.

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5/ Why did Donald Trump suddenly convene a NatSec meeting 3 days after he finally hired Manafort? Why did he issue a pro-Kremlin directive at that meeting that Manafort's camp would later take credit for? What did Manafort tell Trump in the days leading up to that NatSec meeting?
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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

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