{kustler}The world turns and things change. Everybody knows that. But the turnings and changings throw off sparks, which light fires. The intellectual turnings of the European Renaissance lit fires in the lumbering bureaucracy of Roman Catholicism, burdened as it was with abstruse theology larded with lingering, age-old superstition. Witch hunts, inquisitions, and persecutions ensued, even as the authority of the old order wobbled and frayed. The gross cruelties of the people in charge didn’t bolster their prestige, and a few centuries later you see the result: belief is dead.
Likewise in Western Civ today. Our authorities have disgraced themselves behind a new theology of degenerate "science" that veers back into superstition and necromancy. Proof that they don’t believe their own story shows in their desperate efforts to hide the data, confabulate numbers, ignore true facts, and lash out viciously at anyone who discloses their zealous deceits.
Case in point: the persecution of Meryl Nass, MD, in the state of Maine by its Board of Licensure in Medicine. Dr. Nass is an internal medicine physician and a recognized expert in bioterrorism who famously uncovered the origin of the mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" as a reaction to the US Army’s own anthrax vaccine. She has testified before Congress and in many state legislatures about vaccine safety. After the emergence of Covid-19, Dr. Nass spoke out and blogged about the dangers of the new vaccines, and in favor of early treatment protocols using ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Her outspokenness attracted the ire of Maine Governor Janet Mills, and Mills’s sister, Dora Anne Mills, the "Chief Health Improvement Officer" at Maine Health, a huge network of twelve hospitals, 1,700 doctors, and 22,000 employees, deeply invested in the Covid vaccine program.
In January of this year, Dr. Nass’s license was suspended by the Licensure Board based on complaints by two "activists" that she was "spreading misinformation" and for her use of early treatment protocols with her own patients. The board compelled Dr. Nass to undergo a neuropsychological evaluation to determine if she was a drug abuser or suffered from mental illness. (Flag that, since it implies official defamation of her character.) The board accused her of "fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation" in her practice, "conduct that evidences a lack of ability or fitness," and being "an immediate jeopardy" to public health.
For most of this year, the board refused to entertain any defense by Dr. Nass against her suspension until a hearing held last week, October 11, when she appeared before the Licensure Board with her attorney, Gene Libby. The hearing in its entirety can be watched on video at Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense website. (The first two-thirds the board prosecutes its case; the last hour Dr. Nass presents her defense.) Days before the hearing, the Licensure Board withdrew all the "misinformation" charges against Dr. Nass without explanation and now bases its case on Dr. Nass’s use of early treatment protocols.
The hearing was highly instructive on the tactics and strategies for defeating official persecutions against doctors in America (and broadly across all of Western Civ these days), since the Maine licensure Board acted with obvious ignorance and malice that is easily revealed. Dr. Nass’s attorney Gene Libby deftly got the Board on-record attesting to their own deliberate misconduct. For instance, he repeatedly invoked their charges against "spreading misinformation," forcing the chair, an eye doctor named Maroulla S. Gleaton, to affirm that the charges had been precipitously dropped days before. There was also some lively discussion of the board’s imputations against Dr. Nass’s mental health and insinuations of drug abuse — Dr. Nass testified that she’d never been treated for mental health issues, had never taken pharmaceuticals for them, never took illicit drugs or been accused of it, and, where alcohol was concerned, enjoyed "about five drinks a year."
Watch the video. I think you can see that the Licensure Board members begin to realize in the proceeding that Dr. Nass is fixing to sue the living shit out of them, and that just about everything they’ve said implicates them in a malice-driven campaign to defame her. In fact, it may be appropriate as events move forward for a court to recommend suspending the medical license of board chair Maroulla S. Gleaton, and the several other board members who are doctors (some are not) for official misconduct, as well as paying damages to Dr. Nass.
The archbishops, confessors, and tortureors in the Inquisitions of yore had, in retrospect, at least one excuse for their misdeeds (what we might call today "crimes against humanity"): empirical science was then in its infancy and their ideas about how the world worked were still largely driven by myth, fear, and occultism. Until fairly recently, when Western Civ went off-the-rails, the thinking classes of America would have easily labeled the activities of the old Inquisition as a form of group insanity.
Alas, the thinking classes across Western Civ have now gone insane. Today, they are the ones perpetrating real crimes against humanity. They have given themselves permission — as elites will — to behave cruelly, unjustly, and idiotically against the public interest and against the inherent rights of individuals to fair treatment. They’ve subjected millions to injury and death. They’ve maintained the fraudulent "Emergency Use Authorization" (EUA) for hugely profitable, ineffective, and dangerous drugs by prohibiting treatments with proven effective drugs — the use of which would nullify the EUA and the legal protections it affords the drug-makers. They’ve concealed the statistics that would show all that. And they appear to be acting with arrant malice driven by political actors offstage.
Dr. Nass is demonstrating how they can be effectively opposed. There should be thousands of heroic figures like her among the doctors of Western Civ. Ask them why they are not standing up in places like California, with its new, idiotically-written law against doctors speaking freely with their patients for the sake of informed consent ("spreading misinformation"). These reprobate lawmakers — and the depraved Governor Gavin Newsom who signed the act — need a lesson in what it means to be civilized. The people running the CDC, the NIH, and the FDA deserve severe floggings in the civil and criminal courts. They all know it now, too, and they’re running scared.
Development of the Ukrainian BTR-4 started in the early 2000s after the full completion of BTR-94 fielding in 1999. The first prototype was displayed in 2006, and accepted for military service by Ukraines Ministry of Defense in 2008. One such factory that produced vehicles for the Soviet Union during WW2 but now creates unique Ukrainian tanks is the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau in service since 1927 and Kiev Armored Plant that has been around since 1935.
Fellow history nerds will immediately recognize the KMDB as the company that designed the T-34 which was the backbone of the Soviet tank force in WWII. Is it ironic or coincidence that they are now creating weapons to fight against the Russian army? The Kharkiv Morozov manufactures the BTR4 but from what I could gather on open source intelligence about modern Ukraine's armored vehicle production it seems like maybe only the Malyshev Factory in Kharkiv is still operating.
Russia's reliance on Iran for armed drones and missiles is a resounding fall from grace for the one-time defense manufacturing rival to the United States. And a telling indicator of not only just how far the Russians have fallen, but how few reliable friends Moscow has left. It is also a stunning reversal in leverage for Putin, who for decades has used his ability to lean on Tehran (especially when it comes to US-Iranian spats) as a tool against Washington, DC.
Beyond the geopolitical intrigue, the shoddiness of Iranian tech underscores the determination of Russian leadership to inflict as much pain and damage to Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure as possible. Iranian drones are unreliable, loud, and easily shot down. Russia has to overcompensate by sending small swarms all at once to take out their intended targets--many of which are residential areas, train stations, and power infrastructure. Really hard to accidentally target any of these over a half-dozen times...
#1
"Iranian drones are unreliable, loud, and easily shot down."
All the whitepapers I've read on 'drone swarms' -- most countries are not going to swarm a target with 20 $100M drones. You swarm with cheap drones with an understanding that you'll lose many, but the whole point is to overwhelm defenses to hit and take out the target.
Which RUS has done successfully enough as 1/3 of UKR infrastructure --power/water-- is offline. And these drones are super cheap to replace at $20K a pop.
Meanwhile - RUS hypersonic weapons, nuclear tsunami and ground based to space lasers are fairly advanced.
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/20/2022 13:15 Comments ||
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#3
Ask a RC plane hobbyist how far $1K goes. Not far enough to deliver 250 lb. bombs or air to surface missiles.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2022 13:20 Comments ||
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#4
The cost-benefit ratio is on the order of 100:1 in favor of the Russians.
It costs the Ukrainians up to $100k for each drone they shoot down. This is because, by their own admission, they’re expending incredibly expensive sledgehammers to bat away mosquitoes:
“Ukraine has deployed a host of weaponry to bring down the drones, including MiG-29 jets, C-300 cruise missiles, Nasams ground defence systems and small-arms fire.
“The estimated cost to Ukraine [over just four days] stands at more than $28.14m (£25m), according to the analysis, which is based on open sources. The data includes drones launched between 13 September and 17 October.”
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/20/2022 13:33 Comments ||
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#5
It costs the Ukrainians US taxpayer up to $100k for each drone they the Ukrainians shoot down.
FIFY
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2022 14:19 Comments ||
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#6
Ha - quite right, M. Nice one 👍🏻
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/20/2022 14:27 Comments ||
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#7
these drones are super cheap to replace at $20K a pop.
David P Goldman’s reliable sources report that the actual cost is just $1,000 a pop.
Don't think they are that cheap, but they are dirt cheap compared to western drones. Even if they cost $20k a pop, how much is it to replace an electric substation? 800K? Some big ones cost over $10 million. Even with 10 drones lost to take it out Russia comes out ahead. But also at the same time blowing through $500k in missiles is worth it to protect something that expensive.
#8
I would expect that directed energy beam defenses will become the standard anti-Drone disrupting weapons. Once purchased, you only pay for the crews and juice
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/20/2022 16:31 Comments ||
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#9
I would expect that directed energy beam defenses will become the standard anti-Drone disrupting weapons.
Why do you think all the newer US ships have such a huge energy budget that is only 50% used currently? The laser anti-missile LaWS (which can be used on drones, small ships, etc.) will be on those and deployed on those through next year. It is already being deployed on other ships and had a great test run in the Persian Gulf in 2014.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Development of the Ukrainian BTR-4 started in the early 2000s after the full completion of BTR-94 fielding in 1999. The first prototype was displayed in 2006, and accepted for military service by Ukraines Ministry of Defense in 2008. One such factory that produced vehicles for the Soviet Union during WW2 but now creates unique Ukrainian tanks is the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau in service since 1927 and Kiev Armored Plant that has been around since 1935. 
Russia's reliance on Iran for armed drones and missiles is a resounding fall from grace for the one-time defense manufacturing rival to the United States. And a telling indicator of not only just how far the Russians have fallen, but how few reliable friends Moscow has left. It is also a stunning reversal in leverage for Putin, who for decades has used his ability to lean on Tehran (especially when it comes to US-Iranian spats) as a tool against Washington, DC.
