Israel in Egypt - Handel - Downtown Voices and Trinity Baroque Orchestra... https://t.co/tKoopO1paE via @YouTube Plagues and Census' Old and New Testaments to #CovidPurpose #Covid19Aphorism Narrative by Aphorism #ArrestHancock

https://t.co/tGxQi7Rb8z
ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST. BORIS AND MATTS’ ECONOMY WITH THE ACTUALITE. NHS SPIN RUNNING ON LEAN #COVIDSTROIKA #WHATHAPPENEDTOFLU WHERE DID ALL THE BEDS GO? #EUROMOMO

https://t.co/kWHHSWdlw2 #GoldStandard #Bitcoin #BTC
#Covidstroika

Thread by @rld_real_CPR: @ClarkeMicah @TracyICQ https://t.co/iTU0x6del8… Peter, Mr Hitchens, Sir. Words cannot express the comfort a voice of sanity in this cacophony of bile is. Your voice is a blessing to...…

OK - now in Honduras narco-case including Prez JOH & brother Tony, now Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez has a proceeding before Judge Castel - Inner City Press will live tweet, thread below

The US Attorney's Office has asked for "Witness-1" to testimony under a pseudonym, and for jurors and "venire" (prospective jurors) be left unnamed, due to threats of retaliation and "inability of Honduran government to protect witness."
Or unwillingness?

Judge Castel: I presided over the Hernandez Alvarado trial, but this one will be different. Defense?
Defendant's counsel: I understand reading between the lines what your Honor is saying [about corruption in Honduras] and the alleged homicide...

Defense counsel: There have been public statements from the government of Honduras that this is all false. We could get that testimony even if the witnesses did not come here, using letters rogatory.

Defense lawyer: Either the jury will believe my client important tons of cocaine or not - whether he gave political campaign contributions in Honduras is a sideshow."
[To him, maybe]
Defense: The evidence should be kept out.

The Next 20 Years

Just look around you in Nigeria, for example. 20 years ago, the ATM machine was a novelty. No bank issued debit cards- maybe just the foreign ones. There were no banking apps. You couldn't transfer funds the way we do now.

It took 7 days for your 'upcountry' cheques to clear- meaning that if someone pays you a cheque in Sokoto and you pay it in in Ibadan, you had to wait for 7 days to receive value. Later, it became 3 days.

I recall as a young banker, I used to go to the CBN Clearing House with a box that was locked by my supervisor and which could only be opened by the CBN Clearing Supervisor. I carried that box like it was my life.

I had cheques of other banks and a very huge calculator we called casting machine inside that 'portmanteau'.

Around this period 20 years ago, there was an influx of new generation banks that changed the landscape. Now, see how the banks have changed in 20 years. In just 20 years, the banking sector in Nigeria is the one of the most sophisticated in Africa. So much progress has been made

Xi Jinping's speech at Davos boiled down to: The world has no choice but to do business with China, and if you want to do business with China, you need to stop criticizing our tyranny and questioning our lies about the

Xi's address to the World Economic Forum will serve as well as any other moment for historians to mark the beginning of the Authoritarian Era. He said nothing new, but he restated the narratives and demands of Chinese fascism from a post-pandemic position of aggressive strength.

For the first time, Xi spoke to a world that is beginning to accept the tenets of authoritarianism, thanks to the incredible political and economic damage from China's coronavirus. China's ideals have become as viral as Covid-19.

Thanks to the pandemic, the political elites of the world now universally see their citizens as dangerous mobs that must be tightly controlled for their own good. Most of them always thought that way, but now they can say it openly and act aggressively on their prejudices.

Xi clearly stated that China will not be contained, censured, or judged for its actions. He denounced Western ideals of human rights as "arrogance" and imperialism. After Covid and Biden's inauguration, he sees no nation with the strength or will to thwart China's ambitions.

💥🇸🇪The Sweden “Problem” SOLVED!🇸🇪💥

Or, how does a biased world rid itself of the best example of a non-lockdown control for its horrible lockdown experiment?

Simple! CHANGE THE DATA.

Of course we all know Sweden has been a battleground regarding its mild voluntary lockdown strategy versus the heavy lockdowns of most of the EU. Inconvenient graphs like this one are quite a thorn in Team Lockdown’s side. Sweden fewer deaths/M, much better quality of life.

When I did some analysis in the Spring and Fall, I looked at Oxford’s stringency index as a proxy for lockdown severity. And sure enough Sweden was significantly lower stringency than all other EU countries.

Here is a plot tracking stringency for the UK, Finland Norway and Sweden. I added Norway and Finland because Team Lockdown loves to reply to Sweden threads with “but Norway but Finland”! When I plotted this in October we see Sweden’s Spring stringency was comparatively low.

But then I just happened to plot this again yesterday. What the heck? Sweden is no longer a mild-response country! It is only slightly less stringent than the UK! And the “but Norway Finland” argument is now moot! Look how much less stringent they’ve been!

Thread on Scotland mortality reality, with lessons for the world.
Just got emailed the data:
"National Records of Scotland have just released all cause death statistics for January 2021: 6,429 deaths. This is somewhat above the average of the preceding 5 years."
1/x

"However, the figure for 2018 stands at 7,552. We tried to point out last year that, though the spike in excess deaths in April was real and alarming, it essentially amounted to a bad flu season landing at the wrong time of year.
2/x