During the last two weeks, there’s been a lot of talk about nuclear weapons in Ukraine: specifically, that the Russians might use them.
In an interview with NPR, the political scientist Matthew Bunn said “his best estimate” of the chance Russia uses a nuclear weapon is 10 to 20 percent. And in a widely discussed article, the physicist and ‘existential risk expert’ Max Tegmark gave the chance as 30%.
In a speech on October 6th, Biden referred to the “prospect of Armageddon” and claimed Putin is “not joking” when he talks about using nuclear weapons – comments the New York Times described as “highly unusual for any American president”.
And in an article published four days later, the former CIA director Leon Panetta claimed, “Some intelligence analysts now believe that the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today”.
Biden and Panetta’s comments are especially notable given their provenance – the current president and former CIA director, respectively. Why the sudden focus on a possible nuclear strike?
There are several different theories. The first and most obvious is that the chance of Russia using nukes actually has increased. Putin suffered humiliating defeats in Kharkiv and Kherson, so the theory goes. And once the Ukrainians retake more territory, he might use nuclear weapons to turn the tide of battle, or to force his enemies to the negotiating table.
Yet as Ian Rons argued in the Daily Sceptic, there are good reasons to believe Putin wouldn’t use nuclear weapons even if his army was on the back foot.
A second theory is that claims about a possible Russian nuclear strike are just Western propaganda – another attempt to portray Putin as a deranged warmonger who must be stopped at all costs.
This seems implausible for the simple reason that exaggerating the risk of a nuclear strike could have the opposite effect – of making Westerners more amenable to de-escalation through diplomacy. Indeed, many pundits have cited the estimates above as a reason to sue for peace.
A third theory is that the U.S. is setting the stage for a false flag attack where it detonates a nuclear bomb and then blames it on Russia – creating a pretext for further escalation. This theory is discussed in a lengthy Substack article by an anonymous pro-Russian commentator.
But it seems difficult to believe the U.S. would carry out such a risky operation – which really could spark World War 3. After all, America has already achieved its main strategic objectives: degrading Russia’s armed forces, and driving a wedge between Europe and Russia.
A fourth theory is that the U.S. is preparing the Western public for a climbdown whereby support for Ukraine is withdrawn or some kind of deal is brokered with Russia – perhaps because Western munition stocks are running low.
The fact that Biden referred to “Putin’s off ramp” in his October 6th speech lends some credence to this theory. On the other hand, U.S. officials have repeatedly said they’ll support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”. And according to a recent Washington Post article, they’ve “ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table”.
I can’t say which, if any, of these theories is right. But it’s certainly alarming to hear presidents and former CIA directors speaking so openly about a potential nuclear strike.
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Yawn
psychopath
Fuck off and die you piece of human excrement!
Exactly my sentiments.
Good summary. Captures all the essential points.
Took the words right out of my mouth (along with the taste of soap thanks to my mother that accompanied such language 😇🤣🤣).
If you stop looking for it it will go away you fucking moron
Indeed – and instead of the unhealthy mask wearing and antisocial distancing – what is wrong with THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO DO SO taking a prophylactic like vitamin D or ivermectin and then making their own decision about HOW they want to live their own lives.
Or just loosing weight!
Does tarring and feathering count as violence these days?
Asking for a friend.
I believe it is a quaint traditional practice, like Morris Dancing.
I’m all for reviving quaint traditional practices (I fight with longswords and military sabres, after all…).
Nailing upside down to the church door should also make a comeback
The blood eagle needs to make a comeback.
There are some viking reenactors around here somewhere…
Only if you dip a foot-long knife in the tar, cover it in the feathers and shove it up this wanker’s arse. Which I hotly recommend.
Who gives a toss about variants if hardly anyone is dying or getting seriously ill and nearly everyone has immunity?
who cares anyway? its only the terminally ill dying ‘with’ it.
Bit harsh but not totally untrue.
highest deaths per million
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
1 – Peru (worlds hardest lockdown)
2 – Hungary (quickest vaccination program in EU)
3 – Bosnia (dunno)
4 – Czechia (where?)
5 – Gibraltar (all deaths within 1 week of vaccination campaign )
UK at 19
Sweden at 35
India at 107 (280 deaths per million population, way below the world average of 500 deaths per million). So much for the deadly, hugely contagious Delta variant!
Delta variant looks like a safer version of the vaccine. Probably gives broader immunity too
Ivermectin
Czechia (Czech republic) had the earliest mask mandate in Europe and was held up as a poster boy for lockdown effectiveness.
there’s my answer! thanks!
The Cz govt has less fascist tendencies than the UK and lifted all mask mandates in the summer of 2020 (which made perfect sense), critics however point to this as the reason for the big rise in autumn/winter cases. Most likely due seasonality and geography (H and PL very similar patterns), but ditching the masks altogether is now politically more difficult as this will be blamed for any seasonal rise in the autumn.
Thanks for info.
CZ also authorised ivermectin, from March 2021, as did Slovakia although distribution was reportedly patchy in SK and there was negative propaganda in the press there.
… and India (home of the MOST DEADLY variant) at 109)
I think Czechia is in Austria-Hungary.
Of course people like him want this to continue, he’s no doubt extremely well paid for spouting this pseudo science.
I don’t think the role of significance seeking for mediocre people handed a stage should be underestimated. They would never gain this sort of profile on merit, and want to keep on keeping on.
There are times when only the words ‘F*ck off you C×××’ will do.
Yep, it tells it like it is. Sometimes its only thing that gets through to some people’s thick craniums.
“That issue of variants is what we are watching all over the world.”
The variant’s a scariant
This video needs spreading far and wide. Shows that the delta variant was not a threat at all.
just an excuse for keeping the screws nice and tight
Vaccine escape variants are only now a problem because they encouraged the virus to evolve vaccine escape by vaccinating far too many in the population.
Fuck off. And when you’ve fucked off – fuck off some more. Wanker.
Is that Malcolm Tucker? “F*ckity Bye” and “Off you F*ck” as he would say.
The reporting of this site is useful but it’s probably time to move from reporting to action – I always just end up knowledgeable but depressed.
Horses for courses. This has always been an information and opinion exchange site rather than activist. A talking shop, and there’s a place for those.
For activism, you need to go elsewhere. There are lots of groups, from KBF to Standup, all with their own agendas. Need to find one that suits you.
Yes, but just be cautious of who funds any of the movements you latch on to. Take Big Brother Watch for example; they’re funded by George Soros and therefore have to be treated with extreme suspicion.
Rent a quote charlatan.
Masks and social distancing rules should stay in place until Communism has been fully implemented.
After which it will be a muzzle and the gulag.
We’ve got that already. It’s called Wales.
Sadly I think we’re there already. Coercing people to do things ‘for the common good’ and relegating your personal wants, needs, etc. to the level of selfishness and even evil is straight up communism to me.
It is weird that this guy is talking about face masks, from his photo he looks like an extra from the Zombie film the return of the Living Dead. And indeed these health tyrants are doing precisely that, for out own, so called good they want to condemn us all to a life of living death. I would rather die happy breathing fresh air than cower behind a mask.
It’s true that those making these pronouncements look…very unhealthy! One person that struck me as looking vibrant and full of health was one of the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration. Ashamed to say his name currently escapes me, but I think first name was Martin.
Kulldorff.
Along with Sunetra Gupta and Jay Bhattacharya. Eminent scientists who have been silenced and vilified by the best funded advertising campaign the world has ever witnessed.
Also Sucharit Bhakdi (biological age 74) is youthful.
If I had as ugly a fizzog as this miserable specimen, I daresay I’d want to wear a mask all the time. An Iron Mask connected to the mains electricity is probably the best answer for this hideous excuse for a human (?) being.
“They will be able to break through the vaccine-related protection in a few people and that will cause problems.”
but of course won’t break through naturally acquired immunity or for 99.75% of people just their normal immune system – whether its seen something similar before or not
Yes, they mention alleged benefits, but not the immense costs, which has been the problem all along and is the mark of a public policy scam.
No, No, No!
Whatever…blah, blah, blah. Same old rubbish. You’d think we would have progressed in 15 months+ beyond all this. You know, beyond Middle Age thinking.
It never ceases to amaze me that pretty much all of these experts continue to ignore the gigantic elephant in the room: The vast majority of people who fall prey to CV19 are the unhealthy.
Why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help them get healthier, and ban the ones who don’t from seeking hospital care (instead of the unvaccinated)? That was a bit of a joke.
The other problem is, planet Earth is in pretty bad shape overall, thanks to us, so why not ban glyphosate and all the other garbage we pump into nature? That would go a long way to improving our health.
But alas, this doesn’t seem to really be about public health. Sigh.
Don’t be unfair to medieval thinking, they were far more life affirming and inventive than these tossers.
So in other words indefinitely.
Piss off!
I spend time formulating reasoned, evidence-based responses. So here goes:
FUCK OFF, YOU DRIED UP LITTLE SHIT!
World “Picture of Health” Organization expert, by the looks of it. No doubt he also offers expert advice on keeping fit, enjoying life and not looking like Dracula in dire need of a drink.
Sorry for the ad hominem, or rather ad cadaver attacks, but I can’t be bothered any more. Any society that listens to this caste of ghouls deserves all it gets.
sadly, a lot of people will swallow this BS and even worse abide by it
I went to leave this planet now please
For those who haven’t seen it – Mike Yeadon talking about masks and ( non existent ) asymptomatic transmission. Around 1hr 50mins in https://thehighwire.com/videos/episode-219-in-harms-way/
please push him off a bridge while the rest of look the other way
No, I want to watch.
So do I. I want to see with my own eyes that the bugger doesn’t come back up.
Zoe covid tracker has first drop today since the postwinter flatlining
I should add ‘in new daily symptomatic infections’
I’m not a hayfever sufferer, but is that season ending?
Naah – I’ve had a blocked schnozzle for 2 days. Too much walking through cut grass in the park, too many trees, squirrel variants etc.
Usual remedies: Oxygen tank, ventilators or some honey n’ lemon.
Careful someone doesn’t see you with those symptoms, cart you off to nearest hospital, where you will no doubt test positive [for something or other] and be placed on a ventilator with no visitors
They tend to steer clear when they see I’ve got a nose, a mouth and some tissues on display.
Saw someone on the tube trying to pick his nose through a face mask on the other day. Disgusting yet fascinating.
That’s tremendous. My favourite personal experience was the Bangkok taxi driver who had his mask on, then took it off to cough and sneeze into his hand, then carefully put the mask back on.
I think the responses here show that people like this have now lost the room.
More importantly I think they are losing the room below the line at The Guardian.
ooh – lovely – got a link?
Not really but I’ve noticed that there are increasing numbers of “OK that’s enough lockdown!” comments BTL there. They don’t make the top of the “most liked” list but they are growing in popularity.
we may well be a biased sample 🙂
True but an increasingly less biased sample each day I suspect. Friends have now all just had enough.
my experiences of the totally brainwashed indicate to me that there are plenty of people who are sufficiently terrified that they think all this locking down and these restrictions are still necessary – and what is worse they don’t want to know that they are being lied to.
True- we went out to get pizza last night and the number of people of all ages still walking around outside and driving cars with masks on is truly depressing. Try to tell them that the idea that a piece of material across their face can protect them or anyone from an airborne virus is utter nonsense and they actually get upset, as though you’re just being nasty and spiteful. Absolute waste of time.
This is my reaction to all this utter fucking stupidity…. all of it…. fucking all of it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0
UTTER BRILLIANCE!
Ha ha. That’s pretty much the extent of it.
Ha ha! Brilliant!
Mask-Wearing and Social Distancing Rules Should Stay in Place Due to Covid Variants, Says WHO Official*
*ᵀᵉʳᵐˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶜᵒⁿᵈᶦᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ ᵃᵖᵖˡʸ. ᴺᵒᵗ ᵃᵖᵖˡᶦᶜᵃᵇˡᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴳ⁷ ˡᵉᵃᵈᵉʳˢ, ᴿᵒʸᵃˡ ᴬˢᶜᵒᵗ ᵃᵗᵗᵉⁿᵈᵉᵉˢ, ᵒʳ ᵁᴱᶠᴬ ᵒᶠᶠᶦᶜᶦᵃˡˢ.
The hypocrisy is off the scale. Do these sinecured idiots think that the whole world has been brainwashed? Many have, but hopefully the others will wake them up eventually.
Yeah, like, read the small print.
Pity sheeples can’t read at all.
Doesn’t apply to the royal family for their PR photoshoots either. Only today Daily Mail reported a love-up of Kate Middleton attending some school party (or something), getting all close and cheery with the children for photos. No masks and no covid bollocks.
Get lost! Masks don’t work and have negative health consequences. Defund the nutters at WHO.
Exacrtly what Donald Trump attempted to do, by withdrawing the USA from the WHO organisation. Of course, Drippy Joe soon reversed that on instructions of Bill.
I wouldn’t trust this guy to collect my bins
I’d put him in my bin.
One of the big, red, lockable Biffa varieties.
.
In other news: Control freak says he should be in control.
You, and all the rest of the walking terrified, wear your mask, social distance, and take your vaccines forever – your right, and your choice, whilst the rest of us get back on with rebuilding our lives that have been shattered by government policy and lobbying. This “variant” story is getting very old now and we’re all tired of this unfounded B/S.
So once again, the donkey is shown the carrot, then it’s snatched away.
Treating a real donkey like that would be reckoned abominable cruelty.
‘People’ such as David Nabarro should be beaten to a pulp, and then hanged, drawn and quartered.
It’s easy to dismiss and swear at him, but keep in mind that alnost every country, first and foremost the ‘voting for Brexit because of sovereignty’ UK will sign away its sovereignty in this matter, and as such in all matters then, to him and his colleagues in November.
Shame because David Navarro was talking some sense at the beginning of all this, ie locking down countries and mask were not a good idea, like a lot of them he seems to have changed-shame.
Well that cunt can fuck off. Hopefully the punch in the face variant will dispose of fucktards like him.
How about the honey badger in his underpants variant?
Covid lunatics like him just don’t want this to end. Ever. And sadly, these are the people who have the ear of governments around the world, with growing number of more rational and sensible voices being handwaved away as cranks, or simply ignored. It doesn’t bode well.
This Doctator should be exiled to Michael Moore’s underpants.
He’s 70. Time to retire. And he’s made a career from helping the poor. Could we have a total of the pay and pension he’s received for helping the penniless.
He looks 90.
Time to end this farce. And, please, ATL stop affording these deceivers and freeloaders with the dignity of their bogus titles. Call them what they are – “Liar-in-Chief for the CCP-controlled WHO” for instance.
And why the continuing naivety. Whatever might have been briefed to the MSM do you really think there is any chance of the mask mandate being dropped in the UK? Of course not.
Dear Dr David Nabarro,
go fuck yourself.
Signed,
The Sane.
Letter of The Week Award awarded weekly on a week-by-week basis.
Why does he not do the right thing and hide under his mattress until the bogeyman gets him and leave the rest of us alone. My liberty does not end where his fear begins.
What no one seems remotely interested in with these talking heads is that they are not even pretending to follow democracy or the principles of liberty and freedom. Just do what an “expert” tells you….fuck sake.
And may I point out that an airborne virus does not care about your 2m / 1m+ bollocks. Because it’s airborne. God it’s so illiterate. A virus that’s airborne can enter the eyes, but as long as you have a face mask that’s alright then.
FUck off and died you cunt
You nutters can wear paper nappies until they stick you in the dirt.
Ill be wearing nothing on my face.
Masks, social distancing and staying within your own gene pool bubble were supposed to prevent health services from being overloaded.
Now they are being sold because the variants will break through the vaccines. But it’s the masks, social distancing and the staying within your gene pool that are giving the virus the time to mutate. If the virus were to go into a crowded metro station or a rock concert it would spread and burn out because of the massive genetic diversity.
Added to this the gene based vaccine only provides a narrow genetic model of a single virus protein that is most prone to mutation and you have the ideal conditions to create the variants.
So using their own assumptions and criteria they are creating the problem and the social conditions to make the problem worse, then they are giving you the vaccine solution that doesn’t work and makes the problem worse.
Go away, Mounsey, you have a brain, you have reasoning powers, you have common sense, you shouldn’t be allowed loose.
BAH, TOO MUCH REASON, OFF YOU TROT TO THE GULAG, MR MOUNSEY.
Do they have actual robust evidence that mask wearing and social distancing works? They keep on saying that they have this, but whenever I look at the chosen supporting paper the ‘evidence’ turns out to be rather weak.
It is strange how low quality the evidence can be for things that they want, and how impossibly high the requirement is when it is for things that they don’t want.
Actually no, the WHO itself says the evidence for masks is weak, in the very document in which they tell you to wear masks https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/coronavirus-covid-19/publications-and-technical-guidance/2020/mask-use-in-the-context-of-covid-19-interim-guidance,-1-december-2020
The WHO was leaned on to change it’s advice by governments that had already introduced mask mandates. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Nabarro said “We will go from Delta to Lambda and then on to the other Greek letters, that’s inevitable, and some of these variants will be troublesome,”.
I understand that many people find Greek letters troublesome, but the Greeks cope just fine, as do US frat-house idiots, and I learnt most of them in my maths degree (which also taught me to spot dodgy data and fake stats), so I’m not worried at all 😁
I am alpha and omega, saith the Covid devil.
So are we going to wade through the whole Greek alphabet?
Has he let something slip there?
These fuckers want to keep this going forever. It’s not going to end until we the people end it. I agree with the sentiments of many people on here, we should keep telling them to Fuck Off! and we should just keep ignoring their shite! (Sorry for the language but Fucks Sake! I’m sick of these arseholes!!).
Oh for Gods sake someone give this man his fishing rod and hat back and put him back with his matesin the Garden
No home for his sort of gnome in any decent garden.
Even in Zurich.
Fascistic totalitarian b*llocks. 😎
Isn’t this the same guy who said Lockdowns don’t work and the world should not be using them against COVID? No government took any notice of him as it didn’t fit their agenda. Will be interesting to see what happens, as our government will do anything to keep the sheeple muzzled.
OK, so all the “experts” who are STILL calling for this bullshit to continue are the truly stupid. All the intelligent “experts” started hiding already.
Another publicity seeking grandiose sociopath with a completely unhinged view of risk. The politicians need to rein these people in but of course most of them are
grandiose sociopaths with an unhinged view of risk.😩
Now that more data, albeit undereported, are becoming available, I think it’s about time that Ferguson, the Warwick necromancers and anyone else in that field should set to work to model the vaccine casualty lists, with especial reference to building in future effects of the experiment.
Bog off.
Deeply disturbed by these bastards and their love of masks.
Total cult.
Nabarro should stuff his mask down his lying, cheating gob!
Pig’s ass we’re going to stay muzzled or, in my case, become muzzled.
People like this need to be assassinated.
So… the variants will get around vaccine protection but be stopped by a face rag? Who worked that one out?
To be blunt he can Eff Off
I almost feel sorry for the guy. In the beginning he, and the WHO, talked sense, advising against lockdowns and especially against masks. What kind of punishment has been applied to turn him into a puppet?
I watched this interview. Why did it not occur to Sky news to ask David Nabarro about WHO’s u turn on the usefulness of mask wearing? Is any research undertaken by the channel in advance of an interview or is it that any glaring inconsistencies in the lockdown narrative simply get automatically suppressed?
Why give these apparatchiks air time? He works for an incompetent organisation which he now considers controls global behaviour.
Why would anyone continue to do things that have been proven to be utterly useless?
Only 3 weeks to the EUFA variant of concern…….
I guess this ‘top Communist advisor’ hasn’t yet realised that ~50% of those who died in the Spanish flu did so *because* of face coverings, i.e. bacterial pneumonia.
these creatures ought to be in jail now
Guidelines or law?