Sunday, 31 October 2021
The Case for Vaping Continues To Grow
The number of physicians who understand that “do no harm” actually means “support the reduction of harm where possible” continues to grow as cogent arguments are put forward in favour of vaping. Such arguments are supported when research comes out unequivocally in favour of switching from smoking to using electronic cigarettes.
Researchers at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre [USA, Ed.] have looked at the benefits of switching from using traditional tobacco cigarettes to the electronic alternative, and published the findings in this month’s journal Tobacco Control.
In their press release, the researchers wrote: “Up to 6.6 million cigarette smokers will live substantially longer if cigarette smoking is replaced by vaping over a ten-year period, calculates a research team led by investigators from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre. In all, cigarette smokers who switch to e-cigarettes could live 86.7 million more years with policies that encourage cigarette smokers to switch completely to e-cigarettes.”
Even in the worst possible case, if ecigs were much more dangerous than currently understood, the team still believes that 1.6 million premature deaths could still be avoided and 20.8 million fewer life-years lost. The researchers think that vaping could reduce the rate of cigarette smoking to 5% during the next ten years.
Even in the worst possible case, if ecigs were much more dangerous than currently understood, the team still believes that 1.6 million premature deaths could still be avoided and 20.8 million fewer life-years lost. The researchers think that vaping could reduce the rate of cigarette smoking to 5% during the next ten years.
Lead author, David Levy said: "Hopefully, this paper will lead to more agreement; not that e-cigarettes are the cure-all, but that they can have a role. Many people want to stop smoking, or they have tried many times and have not been successful. The original deeming regulations were really quite harsh. In my view, this would have led to the cigarette industry controlling e-cigarettes, which is exactly what we don't want. The potential gains from e-cigarettes depends on competition in the industry."
“In addition,” he continue, “there would be tremendous health benefits including reduced disease disability to smokers, reduced pain and suffering, and reduced exposure to second hand smoke. Even the gloomiest analysis shows a significant gain in years of life if nicotine is obtained from vaping instead of much more deadly amount of toxicants inhaled with cigarette smoke.”
Dr. Michael Ong, a Californian who was not part of the study, was predictably circumspect: “The study overall is a simulation study that projects potential benefits. Such studies depend on assumptions made. If further studies show differences in the ability to transition successfully from cigarette smoking, or show more harms related to vaping than are used in this study, the findings may differ.”
American Association for Science and Health’s Dr. Lisa Abassi commented: “As a physician, I can unequivocally say that about 70 percent of the illnesses I have encountered has been either directly or indirectly related to cigarette smoking. What we ought to be focusing our collective energies toward is the use of less harmful nicotine delivery products. This would likely be a much more realistic goal for any "endgame" strategy (eventual elimination of all tobacco consumption).”
Saturday, 30 October 2021
Friday, 29 October 2021
Project Cybersyn (Allende/Chile)
Almost 45 years have passed since Salvador Allende’s government was overthrown in an armed coup on 11 September 1973. The late Chilean president and Marxist has long been revered by the left for his democratic credentials – he was elected freely in 1970 – and his tragic martyrdom (he shot himself with an AK-47 after refusing to surrender to Augusto Pinochet’s forces).
Yet until recently, one of his administration’s most remarkable innovations had received little attention. In its efforts to forge a socialist economy, Allende’s government pioneered a technology that anticipated both the internet and the era of “big data”.
Project Cybersyn, as it was known in English (a portmanteau of “cybernetics” and “synergy”), sought to avoid the waste and inefficiency that characterised the Soviet Union and other communist states, by connecting hundreds of firms to the government through an electronic “nervous system”. A national network of 500 telex machines collected real-time data from factories, such as production output, energy use and labour levels, and transmitted it to two mainframe computers in the Santiago-based control room.
Rather than empowering an overmighty state, the aim was to encourage the free exchange of information and worker participation in planning and management.
This largely forgotten model is now being heralded by a new generation of tech-savvy leftists. Next month The World Transformed, the festival held on the Labour conference fringe, will host a session on “cybernetic socialism” featuring Raúl Espejo, the original operations director of Project Cybersyn.
The programme was the creation of Stafford Beer, a British consultant and the founder of “management cybernetics” (which he defined as “the science of effective organisation”). Beer, who argued with acute prescience that “information is a national resource” and coined the term “data highway”, was approached in 1971 by Fernando Flores, Chile’s production development co-ordinator, who later became finance minister. By the end of that year, Allende’s government had nationalised more than 150 companies, including 12 of the 20 largest Chilean firms. Flores recognised that to defy free-market critics – who warned of the fallacy of disregarding price mechanisms – the fledgling administration would need help.
Beer, an imposing, gregarious man (who in his later years cultivated a beard of Tolstoyan length), agreed to assist in exchange for a daily fee of $500 and a regular flow of wine, cigars and chocolate. “He was at the top of his capabilities,” Espejo recalled when we spoke on the phone.
“He had an extraordinary ability to work 20 hours a day and to produce reports for us at a speed that would take me a year. I was absolutely astounded.” (David Bowie would later include Beer’s Brain of the Firm on a list of his favourite books.)
As well as the telex network, Project Cybersyn also featured an economic simulator to model alternative policies. But its enduring face was the hexagonal, Star Trek-like operations room, which featured mounted screens and seven white fibreglass swivel chairs (regarded as optimal for creativity) with inbuilt push-buttons.
The programme was initially viewed with traditionalist scepticism by Allende’s Socialist Party. But Project Cybersyn’s hour arrived in October 1972 during a strike of 40,000 truck drivers led by the hard-right Confederación Nacional del Transporte. As Allende’s opponents sought to wreck the economy by preventing the transport of food and raw materials, Cybersyn was deployed to underwrite the resistance. Through the electronic network, the government was able to co-ordinate deliveries by active trucks and to evade blockades. “We felt that we were in the centre of the universe,” Espejo remarked.
After 24 days, the strike was defeated. Ministers then became “much more interested” in Cybersyn, Espejo told me. Allende even proposed transferring the operations room to La Moneda, the presidential palace.
On 10 September 1973, the government finally prepared to install an upgraded version of the system. But the following day, with the connivance of the CIA, Pinochet’s forces stormed the palace and bombed it from the air. In “Why Allende had to die”, a New Statesman essay published in March 1974, Gabriel García Márquez observed: “The most dramatic contradiction of [Allende’s] life was being at the same time the congenital foe of violence and a passionate revolutionary.”
The ascendance of Pinochet’s new military junta divided Cybersyn allies. Some urged the regime to maintain the system, while others feared the consequences of allowing it to be exploited. Yet the dilemma was swiftly resolved: Pinochet’s ultra-free-market government, inspired by the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, crudely dismantled the project.
Espejo, who was warned by military officials to leave Chile, fled to England two months after the coup, where he later became a professor of systems and cybernetics at the University of Lincoln.
Project Cybersyn was far from an unqualified success. It was hindered by Chile’s technological limitations (worsened by a US boycott) and was prone to delays. But in its ambition, and its noble ideals, it provided a glimpse of a daringly alternative order: one in which humans are the masters, rather than the slaves, of machines.
Wednesday, 27 October 2021
Amir Issaa - Questa è Roma (Suburra S4 soundtrack NF)
i campetti, le bische, i quartieri
I coatti, le guardie, le troie, i mestieri
(Questa è Roma) i rioni, lo stadio, le bombe
Se è Roma che te chiama, te non te nasconde' Vengo da Roma, la città eterna che splende sotto il sole
Fuoco che riscalda esplode se incrocia queste parole
Me li bevo st'infami come bocce de Splugen
Sono io il verdetto che ve incastra non se discute
Nato in mezzo al fango, sputo ed esce fango
Ogni giorno io ne mangio e ancora in piedi rimango
So mafia e spaghetti qui, western italiano sì
La gente se spara e non c'è Lucky Luciano
O Al Pacino dentro un film con i chili de coca
Pischelli che s'ammazzano pe' un pezzo de robba
Da Torpigna a Magliana qui, hasta manana sì
Questa è la realtà più cruda, cresci o riparati
Giro con la gente che ha rispetto e rispetto
Chi ha preso calci in bocca è ancora qui e non ha smesso
E chi è pronto a tutto, vuole affronta' tutto
Chi vuole facce fuori qui, vuole affronta' un lutto
[...]
Tuesday, 26 October 2021
Blaming the Victims of Racism & Exonerating the Perpetrators - The Upside Down World of David Renton
Book review by Tony Greenstein
It is an iron rule which allows few exceptions, that those who leave the SWP drift to the right. Dave Renton is no exception.
Renton joined the SWP in 1991, leaving in 2003 only to rejoin in 2008. In 2013 he left the SWP because of the rape scandal.[i]
The details of this scandal are well known. A woman who alleged that she had been raped appeared before the SWP’s Disputes Committee, which consisted of friends of the alleged rapist, National Secretary Martin Smith. Smith was cleared of all the allegations. Instead, it was the victim who was pilloried and questioned about her sexual history and drinking habits. A second woman who supported her was harassed and suspended. The victim herself wasn’t even allowed to attend the conference called to discuss the matter.
Dave Renton has written movingly of his experiences in the SWP and about what happened in 2012/13.[ii] Together with others, he formed RS21.
Renton’s book makes it clear, though, that he has abandoned any form of Marxist or class politics in favour of a subjective identity politics which divorces the politics of race from class.
Renton, as his Wiki[iii] biography makes clear, was a prolific author of books on anti-fascism, racism and Marxism. He wasn’t a run of the mill member of the SWP whose political consciousness is low and confined to sloganeering activism. Possibly his weak point was an understanding of imperialism but the question I ask myself is how can he have been so comprehensively fooled by the false and confected ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign into believing that anti-Semitism was a genuine problem in the Labour Party?
How can Renton have got into bed with Stephen Pollard, the foul neo-liberal editor of the Jewish Chronicle who was a founder member of the Henry Jackson Society? This society’s membership includes Douglas Murray and others who support White Replacement Theory. It is genuinely and overtly racist, representing the far Right of the British Establishment – people like Islamaphobe Baroness Cox.
Does Renton really believe that someone like Pollard is genuinely interested in fighting anti-Semitism as opposed to tarring anti-racists with that brush? Renton’s Damascene conversion to the Right (because that is what it is) is a mystery. In the absence of a cogent explanation I can only explain it as being a return to his class origins.
By his own admission, Renton’s political sympathies during the anti-Semitism witchhunt were with Jon Lansman, a figure who, more than any other, bears responsibility for the defeat of the Corbyn project.
Not once does Renton entertain the idea that Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis might have been manufactured, confected and weaponised in order to remove Corbyn, despite the evidence. Instead he writes that
'Part of the reason why so few people come out well from Labour’s antisemitism crisis is that we were dealing with the revival a form of racism in relation to which many people had forgotten how to act.'
The whole of the British and US military and political establishment was united in wanting to see an end to Corbyn. For example, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was recorded as saying:
“It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.” [iv]
Israeli involvement in Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations was copiously documented in the Al Jazeera documentary, ‘The Lobby’.[v]
The weaponisation of ‘anti-Semitism’ had first been tried out against the Sandinistas and then against Hugo Chavez.[vi] The advantages of such a tactic are obvious. It gave the racist right-wing of the Labour Party and the political establishment the moral high ground. They weren’t attacking Corbyn for his opposition to NATO or austerity. Good gracious no. They were opposing anti-Semitism!
You had the absurdity of Thatcherite journalist Andrew Neil asking Corbyn whether he would apologise for Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ at the last general election. This was the same Andrew Neil who, as editor of the Sunday Times, employed holocaust denier David Irving to translate the Goebbel’s Diaries as well as employing an overt anti-Semite, ‘Taki’, a supporter of the Greek Golden Dawn neo-nazi party, as a columnist on the Spectator.
One of the ironies of Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis was that even the worst racists could become opponents of ‘anti-Semitism’ simply by declaring their support for Zionism and Israel. Not once did Renton explain how papers like the Daily Mail could oppose ‘anti-Semitism’ while simultaneously employing the neo-Nazi political commentator Katie Hopkins as a columnist.[vii]
If Renton had any claim to being a socialist, let alone a Marxist, then surely he would have considered the fact that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Britain’s second major party, in the United States’ closest European ally must have set off alarm bells both in Langley Virginia (CIA HQ) and Tel Aviv. Was Renton unaware of the US’s political record in Latin America and Asia? Had he not read Phil Agee’s Inside the Company? [viii]
According to Renton, Labour ‘anti-Semitism’ spontaneously broke out just as Corbyn was elected leader. It seems as if Renton believes that anti-Semitism is inherent in anti-capitalism.
Throughout the ‘anti-Semitism’ affair, over two-thirds of Labour members, including Jewish members, rejected the false ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. Their everyday experience in Labour was of a complete absence of anti-Semitism.[ix] Jews had always made up a disproportionate number of its activists. Renton disregards the views of these members with all the contempt an Old Etonian can muster.
The book itself is error-strewn. Renton says that the ‘first sustained attempt’ to accuse Corbyn’s Labour of anti-Semitism occurred in April 2016. He omits the affair of Oxford University Labour Club, when the Chair, Alex Chalmers – a former intern for Israeli lobby group BICOM – accused fellow members of anti-Semitism on the basis that they had supported Israel Apartheid week.
The first sign that ‘anti-Semitism’ was being weaponised was in August 2015, even before Corbyn was elected, when the Mail accused Corbyn of associating with a holocaust denier Paul Eisen.[x] It progressed from there to attacks on, first, Gerald Kaufman MP and then Vicki Kirby. Renton’s book is marred by sloppy research.[xi]
Saturday, 23 October 2021
Friday, 22 October 2021
Monday, 18 October 2021
Back! The unmissable 'The Lost Pirate Kingdom'!!!
“They rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage.”
Black Sam
Friday, 15 October 2021
April 28: U.S. troops land in the Dominican Republic in attempt to forestall a “communist dictatorship”
In an effort to forestall what he claims will be a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends more than 22,000 U.S. troops to the island nation. Johnson’s action provoked protests in Latin America and skepticism among many in the United States.
Troubles in the Dominican Republic began in 1961, when long-time dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated. Trujillo had been a brutal leader, but his strong anticommunist stance helped him retain the support of the United States. His death led to the rise of a reformist government headed by Juan Bosch, who was elected president in 1962. The Dominican military, however, despised Bosch and his liberal policies. Bosch was overthrown in 1963. Political chaos gripped the Dominican Republic as various groups, including the increasingly splintered military, struggled for power. By 1965, forces demanding the reinstatement of Bosch began attacks against the military-controlled government.
In the United States government, fear spread that “another Cuba” was in the making in the Dominican Republic; in fact, many officials strongly suspected that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was behind the violence. On April 28, more than 22,000 U.S. troops, supported by forces provided by some of the member states of the Organization of American States (a United Nations-like institution for the Western Hemisphere, dominated by the United States) landed in the Dominican Republic. Over the next few weeks they brought an end to the fighting and helped install a conservative, non-military government.
President Johnson declared that he had taken action to forestall the establishment of a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic. As evidence, he provided American reporters with lists of suspected communists in that nation. Even cursory reviews of the list revealed that the evidence was extremely flimsy–some of the people on the list were dead and others could not be considered communists by any stretch of the imagination.
Many Latin American governments and private individuals and organizations condemned the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic as a return to the “gunboat diplomacy” of the early-20th century, when U.S. Marines invaded and occupied a number of Latin American nations on the slightest pretexts. In the United States, politicians and citizens who were already skeptical of Johnson’s policy in Vietnam heaped scorn on Johnson’s statements about the “communist danger” in the Dominican Republic. Such criticism would become more and more familiar to the Johnson administration as the U.S. became more deeply involved in the war in Vietnam.
Thursday, 14 October 2021
Yo! Kick'em in the Bananas!
The true story about a Swedish filmmaker and a banana corporation. Dirty tricks, lawsuits, manipulation, and the price of free speech.
What is a big corporation capable of in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten's experienced this recently. His previous film BANANAS!* (2009) recounts the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company.
The film was selected for competition by the Los Angeles Film Festival. Nothing wrong so far, right? But then Gertten gets a strange message: the festival removes BANANAS!* from competition. Then a scathing article appears in the Los Angeles Business Journal about the film, and Gertten subsequently receives a letter from Dole's attorney threatening him with legal action. What follows is an unparalleled thriller that has Gertten capturing the entire process - from DOLE attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, bullying scaretactics, to media-control and PR-spin. This personal film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way - freedom of speech is at stake. As Dole's PR company puts it, "It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation". (from the IDFA catalogue)
On Netflix, as well as the original documentary.
Monday, 11 October 2021
If it looks to good to be true: Quantum AI scam
Quantum AI Review, Fake Quantum AI SCAM By Elon Musk Exposed!
Quantum AI review by Elon Musk. Quantum AI (not to be confused with Open AI, Google AI Quantum, or Quantum Artificial Intelligence) is advertised as a smart investing system which “makes you €1,320 in 5 Hours and cures poverty”. Are you asking yourself right about now, is Quantum AI SCAM or legit trading software? Well, if something doesn’t feel right about Quantum AI, and you you feel that you are being mislead or deceived then your suspicions are well-founded. We checked, and this time the greedy scammers have raised the bar. It seems these cheaters used real footage where viewers can actually see Elon Musk talk about his companies, and planted a different audio file where someone else lies about the fake Quantum AI investment platform and automated trading app. The crooks responsible for orchestrating this scam are affiliate networks who specialize in social media advertising on venues such as Facebook and Twitter. These networks are operating in tandem with rogue offshore brokers who are paying referral money for investing clients (that’s you). When we signed up our broker was Crypto Kartal which is owned and operated by Elmond Enterprise Ltd. This company has a registered business address in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as in Estonia where it is named Fukazawa Partnership OU. The Quantum AI scam is particularly sleazy because it uses a combination of 2 highly effective baiting methods. The first is the fake Elon Musk presentation which is highly deceptive, and the second is fake news which is being disseminated via social media channels. All of this will be discussed in detail in our Quantum AI review and scam investigation, along with the massive amount of complaints we received. So if you are keen on signing up or believe that the Quantum AI trading software is a legit system, then we highly recommend you keep reading our Quantum AI review because we exposed this latest get-rich-quick scheme so stay alert and on your toes.
Official Website, Login Page, and Members Area: Spoofed Website (Keeps Changing). Our staff also found a few versions of the Quantum AI website, and they all claim to be “official”. We have added a separate section in our review about why this is happening.
Scam Evidence:
Below is the Quantum AI main registration and membership area. You can very easily see that they are saying you can make €1,320 in 5 Hours. Oh yes, you will also help cure poverty (nice touch).
