May 9, 2021
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BBC, Free Media, and Julian Assange
A video in which Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev is interviewed by Orla Guerin has resurfaced; the interview took place in November 2020. (The BBC version.) Revealing is what is not seen in the BBC version. When Aliyev held up the mirror to Guerin’s “accusation” that there was no free media in Azerbaijan, the BBC responded… Continue reading
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Marx on technology
The longest chapter in Capital is the fifteenth, on “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry.” At almost 150-pages, it’s really a book in itself, a staggeringly dense and expansive discussion that could easily standalone—not only as a brilliant exegesis of capitalist machinery, but also as a sweeping social history of technology. At its broadest reach, the chapter… Continue reading
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Inflation and financial risk
Is inflation coming back in the major capitalist economies? As the US economy (in particular) and other major economies begin to rebound from the COVID slump of 2020, the talk among mainstream economists is whether inflation in the prices for goods and services in those economies is going to accelerate to the point where central… Continue reading
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Sweden stops PCR tests as Covid-19 Diagnosis
The PCR technology used in tests to detect viruses cannot distinguish between viruses capable of infecting cells and viruses that have been neutralized by the immune system and therefore these tests cannot be used to determine whether someone is contagious or not. RNA from viruses can often be detected for weeks (sometimes months) after the illness… Continue reading
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After Hartlepool there is only one question. Is Labour’s decline terminal?
It never ceases to amaze how the repetition of a lie quickly becomes a received truth. Goebbels must be turning in his grave. If only Labour had supported Brexit then all would be well. The statistics demonstrate that regardless of the position Labour took it would have done badly. Continue reading
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Update on ivermectin for covid-19
Back in January I wrote an article about four randomized controlled trials of ivermectin as a treatment for covid-19 that had at that time released their results to the public. Each of those four trials had promising results, but each was also too small individually to show any meaningful impact on the hard outcomes we really care… Continue reading
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Leader of shack-dwellers’ movement arrested by South African police for ‘conspiracy’ to murder
George Mqapheli Bonono, the deputy president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, was arrested on May 4. The movement maintains that it is a politically motivated attempt by the police to discredit the organization at the behest of the ruling ANC Continue reading
The New Dark Age 