Some Of The Most Absurd Things That Have Happened In Recent Weeks

• The Ontario Divisional Court has deemed the provincial government’s standardized math test for teachers (the MPT test) as racist. The court declared the test racist and made the decision to intervene after it was found that in 2018, the first year it was given officially, some groups of test-takers — notably candidates self-described as being of African, Caribbean and Indigenous descent — didn’t score as well as the white candidates. They are now planning to rewrite the test to make it somehow less “racist”.
• While the American Academy of Paediatrics and US government statistics had previously reported that “0-0.03% of all child COVID19 cases resulted in death” the data says otherwise. A new study titled “Hospitalizations and Clinical Severity of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Among Infants Under 1-year-old” (Alshech et al.) found that the case fatality rate in children 0-18 years old with COVID-19 was only 0.000076%. And, of the 5 fatalities (out of 65,675 children included in the study), 2 had cancer and the other 3 had complex genetic disorders, implying that all children who died likely died with COVID instead of COVID.
• A study published in the European Journal of Heart Failure titled, “Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 booster vaccination” (Buergin et al.) concludes that a shocking 1 out of 35 people who took the vaccine experienced at least some degree of myocardial injury.

• Solar panels release 5 times more carbon dioxide than previously thought. Data published by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti that took into account the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry’s manufacturing process (which includes methane emissions, albedo, grid upgrades, storage and transport) finds that the estimate drastically increases from the previously thought 48 gCO2/kWh (which is already twice that of hydroelectricity) to 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh (which is 62.5% as much carbon dioxide emissions as natural gas electricity generation.)
• Study published in the Open Forum Infectious Diseases (Shrestha et al) using CDC all-cause mortality data, revealed that each year, every vaccinated person becomes more and more likely to die at a rate of 7% per dose, per year. The results of the study also revealed that the more doses of the original vaccine a person took, the more likely they were to be diagnosed with COVID-19. ( doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofad209)
• In a step towards the future of retail transactions, Amazon confirmed that by year’s end, it will integrate its Amazon One palm recognition system across its entire network of over 500 Whole Foods stores. Already present in 200 stores, a simple hand scan will conclude the transaction, marking an end to the requirement for traditional forms of payment.
• The CDC has announced that the biblical disease Leprosy is making a comeback in the US. “Coincidentally” in August of this year, a study titled, “COVID-19 vaccination and leprosy-A UK Hospital based retrospective cohort study” (Barros et al.) linked cases of leprosy to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. The study theorized that the vaccine makes people significantly more vulnerable to the disease due to its effects on the immune system (particularly T-cell immunological complications and the vaccine’s effect on Toll-Like receptor 1 genes.) A similar article also published in August to the Journal of Infectious Diseases titled, “Herpes Zoster reactivation after mRNA and adenovirus-vectored coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination: Analysis of National Health Insurance Database” (Yoon et al.) speculated a similar theory when they found a connection between shingles and mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
• Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced their new “freedom of speech not reach” policy on harmful speech, where they stated that “if you are going to post something that is lawful but is awful, you get labeled, you get de-amplified – which means it cannot be shared, and it is certainly de-monetized.” Yaccarino admitted that the labels help encourage “self-censoring” (whereby even if people happened across a shadow-banned post, they are much less likely to share if it has been labeled as harmful). Yaccarino claims that this change in policy was done for “brand safety” – to protect the big corporations using the platform from being damaged by appearing next to harmful content.
• In a press conference, the NYPD announced their plans to trial a dystopian robotic surveillance platform in the Times Square subway station. The robot, dubbed the Knightscope K5, monitors mobile devices and records video that can be reviewed in case of an emergency or a crime.
• Documents recently obtained through a FOIA request by The Functional Government Initiative suggest public health officials used inaccurate information and misrepresented medical research to advance their policy objective that masks prevent COVID-19 despite strong opposing scientific evidence received from top experts.
• A new study titled “Possible toxicity of chronic carbon dioxide exposure associated with face mask use, particularly in pregnant women, children and adolescents – A scoping review” (Kisielinski et al.) exposes the harms of chronic mask use. As the study put it, “Fresh air has around 0.04% CO2, while wearing masks more than 5 min bears a possible chronic exposure to carbon dioxide of 1.41% to 3.2% of the inhaled air. US Navy toxicity experts set the exposure limits for submarines carrying a female crew to 0.8% CO2 based on animal studies which indicated an increased risk for stillbirths. Additionally, mammals who were chronically exposed to 0.3% CO2 the experimental data demonstrate a teratogenicity with irreversible neuron damage in the offspring, reduced spatial learning caused by brainstem neuron apoptosis and reduced circulating levels of the insulin-like growth factor-1… Circumstantial evidence exists that extended mask use may be related to current observations of stillbirths and to reduced verbal motor and overall cognitive performance in children born during the pandemic. A need exists to reconsider mask mandates.” This is not the first study to find masks to be harmful. Last year, a study found plastics in masks were present in users’ lungs (Jenner et al.) Another study from earlier this year titled, “Measuring the quantity of harmful volatile organic compounds inhaled through masks” (Ryu et al.) found alarming concentrations of harmful chemicals being released from facemasks.
• In a move that benefits the giants, Amazon now accepts food stamps and Uber Eats will begin accepting food stamps early next year.
• The draconian Online Safety Bill passed the UK parliament in late September. Under the guise of “safety,” the Bill is one of the most far-reaching attempts to date to regulate how tech companies deal with users’ content on their platforms. Put simply, the Bill requires regulated services (like Facebook and Whatsapp) to perform risk assessments and to adopt mitigation measures (i.e censorship), in user feeds and private messages.