The Gary Null Show Notes - 12.14.21

How vitamin D delivers on cardio health

University of South Australia, December 6, 2021 Free from the sun, vitamin D delivers a natural source for one of the hormones essential to our bodies, especially the bones. But when you’re down on this essential nutrient, it’s not only your bones that could suffer, but also your cardio health, according to new research from the University of South Australia. In the first study of its kind, researchers from the UniSA’s Australian Centre for Precision Health at SAHMRI have identified genetic evidence for a role of vitamin D deficiency in causing cardiovascular disease. The study, which is published in European Heart Journal today, shows that people with vitamin D deficiency are more likely to suffer from heart disease and higher blood pressure, than those with normal levels of vitamin D. For participants with the lowest concentrations the risk of heart disease was more than double that seen for those with sufficient concentrations.

Sleep technique improves creative thinking

A team of researchers working at Sorbonne Université, reports that people may be more creative if awoken just after falling asleep. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes experiments they conducted with sleeping volunteers. Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali were both known to use a certain sleep technique to increase their creativity. It involved thinking about a problem or set of circumstances and then placing an object in their hand as they lay down for a nap. As they drifted off, their hand relaxed and allowed the object to fall to the floor rousing them from their sleep. It was at that point, they both claimed, that inspiration came to them. In this new effort, the researchers tested this idea. Prior research has shown that in addition to REM sleep and deep sleep, most people experience a type of sleep known as N1—the short interval between being fully awake and fully asleep, a sort of twilight zone. It was this interval that the researchers set out to test. They recruited 103 healthy people who promised they had little difficulty falling asleep given the chance.

Link between intestinal inflammation and microbiome

Kiel University, November 30, 2021 Around 500 to 1,000 different types of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms colonize our intestines. All of them together form the intestinal microbiome. As we now know, these microbes play an important role in maintaining health. This is especially evident when the composition of the microbiome becomes unbalanced, as is the case in people with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. PD Dr. Felix Sommer and his team from the Cluster of Excellence Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation (PMI) are trying to better understand the complex interactions between the host and their microbiome. While doing so, they encountered an enzyme called hexokinase 2 (HK2). The HK2 enzyme is produced in greater quantities in the event of inflammation and is regulated by the microbiome. “We were able to show in the animal model that by administering the short-chain fatty acid butyrate, the HK2 levels in intestinal epithelial cells were lowered and inflammation was ameliorated. The protective effect of the fatty acid butyrate produced by bacteria was absent in animals where the HK2 enzyme was removed,” explained Sommer, head of the Functional Host-Microbiome Research working group at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) at Kiel University (CAU) and the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Campus Kiel. The results of the study have been published in the renowned scientific journal Cell Metabolism.

Cognitive aging: Work helps our brain

University of Padua (Italy), December 9, 2021 A recent study shows that work plays an active role in keeping our brains healthy. “We have demonstrated the role of working activity on cognitive performance”. Professor Raffaella Rumiati says. From our analysis it emerges that the type of work activity also contributes to the differences in normal and pathological cognitive aging”. The analysis surprisingly shows that occupation is a good predictor of participants’ performance in addition to age and education, two factors that have been already studied.

Dementia risk reduced by eating grapes, according to UCLA researchers

University of California at Los Angeles,   December 12, 2021 Evidence has emerged that ordinary grapes – one of the most loved (refreshing) snacks – can be a powerful ally against dementia. Researchers found that grapes can have significant effects on preventing cognitive decline in older adults – and may even help prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In a placebo-controlled study published in January in Experimental Gerontology, men and women with mild cognitive decline were given either freeze-dried grape powder or a placebo daily for six months. PET scans were used to evaluate cognitive performance and changes in brain metabolism, both before and after treatment.

A diet rich in plant-based products reduces the risk of cognitive impairment in the elderly

University of Barcelona (Spain), December 9, 2021 A diet rich in plant products reduces the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in the elderly. This European study, part of the Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL), was carried out over 12 years with the participation of 842 people aged over 65 in the Bordeaux and Dijon regions (France). The study analyses the relationship between the metabolism of dietary components, intestinal microbiota, endogenous metabolism and cognitive impairment.

‘Out of Control’: Brazilian Amazon Deforestation Hits Highest Level in a Decade 

COMMON DREAMS. August 20, 2021 Encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged to its highest annual level in a decade over the past year, with researchers warning that the accelerated destruction of the critical carbon sink is imperiling the ability to keep planetary heating below the Paris climate agreement’s 1.5ºC target. Imazon, a Brazilian research institute whose mission is to promote conservation and sustainable development, reported Thursday that from August 2020 to July 2021, 10,476 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest were destroyed, a 57% increase over the previous 12-month period. “In July alone, 2,095 km² were deforested, 80% more than in the same month in 2020,” said Imazon. “This area is larger than the city of São Paulo.” The new Imazon data was released two days after the publication of a study in the journal Global Change Biology showing that the impact of Amazon deforestation on rainfall amounts can be up to four times greater than estimated by scientists. The researchers concluded that vegetation loss could result in a 55% to 70% reduction in annual precipitation.

Sailing away: superyacht industry booms during Covid pandemic

THE GUARDIAN  12 Dec 2021 In an era of environmental awareness and conspicuous displays of sustainability, you might not expect a rise in the number of people with the means and appetite for a £50m floating fortress of solitude. But, in part because of the coronavirus crisis, the superyacht industry is booming – and the number of vessels under construction or on order worldwide has hit a new record. According to figures revealed in the latest edition of Boat International’s Global Order Book, more than 1,200 superyachts are slated to be built – a rise of 25% on last year.

The Judicial Kidnapping of Julian Assange

ohn Pilger, December 10, 2021 “Let us look at ourselves, if we have the courage, to see what is happening to us” – Jean-Paul Sartre Sartre’s words should echo in all our minds following the grotesque decision of Britain’s High Court to extradite Julian Assange to the United States where he faces “a living death”. This is his punishment for the crime of authentic, accurate, courageous, vital journalism. Miscarriage of justice is an inadequate term in these circumstances. It took the bewigged courtiers of Britain’s ancien regime just nine minutes last Friday to uphold an American appeal against a District Court judge’s acceptance in January of a cataract of evidence that hell on earth awaited Assange across the Atlantic: a hell in which, it was expertly predicted, he would find a way to take his own life. Volumes of witness by people of distinction, who examined and studied Julian and diagnosed his autism and his Asperger’s Syndrome and revealed that he had already come within an ace of killing himself at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s very own hell, were ignored. The recent confession of a crucial FBI informant and prosecution stooge, a fraudster and serial liar, that he had fabricated his evidence against Julian was ignored. The revelation that the Spanish-run security firm at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where Julian had been granted political refuge, was a CIA front that spied on Julian’s lawyers and doctors and confidants (myself included) – that, too. was ignored. The recent journalistic disclosure, repeated graphically by defence counsel before the High Court in October, that the CIA had planned to murder Julian in London – even that was ignored. Each of these “matters”, as lawyers like to say, was enough on its own for a judge upholding the law to throw out the disgraceful case mounted against Assange by a corrupt US Department of Justice and their hired guns in Britain. Julian’s state of mind, bellowed James Lewis, QC, America’s man at the Old Bailey last year, was no more than “malingering” – an archaic Victorian term used to deny the very existence of mental illness. To Lewis, almost every defence witness, including those who described from the depth of their experience and knowledge, the barbaric American prison system, was to be interrupted, abused, discredited.  Sitting behind him, passing him notes, was his American conductor: young, short-haired, clearly an Ivy League man on the rise. In their nine minutes of dismissal of the fate of journalist Assange, two of the most senior judges in Britain, including the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett (a lifelong buddy of Sir Alan Duncan, Boris Johnson’s former foreign minister who arranged the brutal police kidnapping of Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy) referred to not one of a litany of truths aired at previous hearings in the District Court – truths that had struggled to be heard in a lower court presided over by a weirdly hostile judge, Vanessa Baraitser. Her insulting behaviour towards a clearly stricken Assange, struggling through a fog of prison-dispensed medication to remember his name, is unforgettable. What was truly shocking last Friday was that the High Court  judges – Lord Burnett and Lord Justice Timothy Holyrode, who read out their words – showed no hesitation in sending Julian to his death, living or otherwise. They offered no mitigation, no suggestion that they had agonised over legalities or even basic morality. Their ruling in favour, if not on behalf of the United States, is based squarely on transparently fraudulent “assurances” scrabbled together by the Biden administration when it looked in January like justice might prevail. These “assurances” are that once in American custody, Assange will not be subject to the Orwellian SAMS – Special Administrative Measures — which would make him an un-person; that he will not be imprisoned at ADX Florence, a prison in Colorado long condemned by jurists and human rights groups as illegal: “a pit of punishment and disappearance”; that he can be transferred to an Australian prison to finish his sentence there. The absurdity lies in what the judges omitted to say. In offering its “assurances”, the US reserves the right not to guarantee anything should Assange do something that displeases his jailers. In other words, as Amnesty has pointed out, it reserves the right to break any promise. There are abundant examples of the US doing just that. As investigative journalist Richard Medhurst revealed last month, David Mendoza Herrarte was extradited from Spain to the US on the “promise” that he would serve his sentence in Spain. The Spanish courts regarded this as a binding condition. “Classified documents reveal the diplomatic assurances given by the US Embassy in Madrid and how the US violated the conditions of the extradition “, wrote Medhurst, “Mendoza spent six years in the US trying to return to Spain. Court documents show the United States denied his transfer application multiple times.” The High Court judges – who were aware of the Mendoza case and of Washington’s habitual duplicity — describe the “assurances” not to be beastly to Julian Assange as a “solemn undertaking offered by one government to another”. This article would stretch into infinity if I listed the times the rapacious United States has broken “solemn undertakings” to governments, such as treaties that are summarily torn up and civil wars that are fuelled. It is the way Washington has ruled the world, and before it Britain: the way of imperial power, as history teaches us. It is this institutional lying and duplicity that Julian Assange brought into the open and in so doing performed perhaps the greatest public service of any journalist in modern times. Julian himself has been a prisoner of lying governments for more than a decade now. During these long years, I have sat in many courts as the United States has sought to manipulate the law to silence him and WikiLeaks. This reached a bizarre moment when, in the tiny Ecuadorean embassy, he and I were forced to flatten ourselves against a wall, each with a notepad in which we conversed, taking care to shield what we had written to each other from the ubiquitous spy cameras – installed, as we now know, by a proxy of the CIA, the world’s most enduring criminal organisation. This brings me to the quotation at the top of this article: “Let us look at ourselves, if we have the courage, to see what is happening.” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote this in his preface to Franz Fannon’s The Wretched of the Earth, the classic study of how colonised and seduced and coerced and, yes, craven peoples do the bidding of the powerful. Who among us is prepared to stand up rather than remain mere bystanders to an epic travesty such as the judicial kidnapping of Julian Assange? What is at stake is both a courageous man’s life and, if we remain silent, the conquest of our intellects and sense of right and wrong: indeed our very humanity

The War over Life, Liberty and Privacy Rights: From Abortion to COVID-19 and Beyond

John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead Rutherford Institute, November 2, 2021 “Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the ‘right’ of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the ‘property rights’ of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State. Unlike Nazi Germany, which forcibly sent millions to the gas chambers (as well as forcing abortion and sterilization upon many more), the new regime has enlisted the assistance of millions of people to act as its agents in carrying out a program of mass murder.”—Ron Paul Who gets to decide when it comes to bodily autonomy? Where does one draw the line over whose rights are worthy of protecting? And how do present-day legal debates over bodily autonomy, privacy, vaccine mandates, the death penalty and abortion play into future discussions about singularity, artificial intelligence, cloning, and the privacy rights of the individual in the face of increasingly invasive, intrusive and unavoidable government technologies? Caught up in the heated debate over the legality of abortion, we’ve failed to think about what’s coming next. Get ready, because it could get scary, ugly and overwhelming really fast. Thus far, abortion politics have largely revolved around who has the right to decide—the government or the individual—when it comes to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy in one’s body, sexual freedom, and the rights of the unborn. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause provides for a “right to privacy” that assures a woman’s right to abort her pregnancy within the first two trimesters. Since that landmark ruling, abortion has been so politicized, polarized and propagandized as to render it a major frontline in the culture wars. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court reaffirmed its earlier ruling in Roe  when it prohibited states from imposing an “undue burden” or “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.” Thirty years later, in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court is poised to revisit whether the Constitution—namely, the Fourteenth Amendment—truly provides for the right to an abortion. At a time when abortion is globally accessible (approximately 73 million abortions are carried out every year), legally expedient form of birth control (it is used to end more than 60% of unplanned pregnancies), and considered a societal norm (according to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans continue to believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases), it’s debatable whether it will ever be truly possible to criminalize abortion altogether. No matter how the Supreme Court rules in Dobbs, it will not resolve the problem of a culture that values life based on a sliding scale. Nor will it help us navigate the moral, ethical and scientific minefields that await us as technology and humanity move ever closer to a point of singularity. Here’s what I know. Life is an inalienable right. By allowing the government to decide who or what is deserving of rights, it shifts the entire discussion from one in which we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” (that of life, liberty property and the pursuit of happiness) to one in which only those favored by the government get to enjoy such rights. The abortion debate—a tug-of-war over when an unborn child is considered a human being with rights—lays the groundwork for discussions about who else may or may not be deserving of rights: the disabled, the aged, the infirm, the immoral, the criminal, etc. The death penalty is just one aspect of this debate. As theologian Francis Schaeffer warned early on: “The acceptance of death of human life in babies born or unborn opens the door to the arbitrary taking of any human life. From then on, it’s purely arbitrary.” If all people are created equal, then all lives should be equally worthy of protection. There’s an idea embraced by both the Right and the Left according to their biases that there is a hierarchy to life, with some lives worthier of protection than others. Out of that mindset is born the seeds of eugenics, genocide, slavery and war. There is no hierarchy of freedoms. All freedoms hang together. Freedom cannot be a piece-meal venture.My good friend Nat Hentoff (1925-2017), a longtime champion of civil liberties and a staunch pro-lifer, often cited Cardinal Bernardin, who believed that a “consistent ethic of life” viewed all threats to life as immoral: “[N]uclear war threatens life on a previously unimaginable scale. Abortion takes life daily on a horrendous scale. Public executions are fast becoming weekly events in the most advanced technological society in history, and euthanasia is now openly discussed and even advocated. Each of these assaults on life has its own meaning and morality. They cannot be collapsed into one problem, but they must be confronted as pieces of a larger pattern.” Beware slippery slopes. To suggest that the end justifies the means (for example, that abortion is justified in order to ensure a better quality of life for women and children) is to encourage a slippery slope mindset that could just as reasonably justify ending a life in order for the great good of preventing war, thwarting disease, defeating poverty, preserving national security, etc. Such arguments have been used in the past to justify such dubious propositions as subjecting segments of the population to secret scientific experiments, unleashing nuclear weapons on innocent civilians, and enslaving fellow humans. Beware double standards. As the furor surrounding COVID-19 vaccine mandates make clear, the debate over bodily autonomy and privacy goes beyond the singular right to abortion. Indeed, as vaccine mandates have been rolled out, long-held positions have been reversed: many of those who historically opposed the government usurping a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and privacy have no qualms about supporting vaccine mandates that trample upon those very same rights. Similarly, those who historically looked to the government to police what a woman does with her body believe the government should have no authority to dictate whether or not one opts to get vaccinated. What’s next? Up until now, we have largely focused the privacy debate in the physical realm as it relates to abortion rights, physical searches of our persons and property, and our communications. Yet humanity is being propelled at warp speed into a whole new frontier when it comes to privacy, bodily autonomy, and what it means to be a human being. We haven’t even begun to understand how to talk about these new realms, let alone establish safeguards to protect against abuses. Humanity itself hangs in the balance. Remaining singularly human and retaining your individuality and dominion over yourself—mind, body and soul—in the face of corporate and government technologies that aim to invade, intrude, monitor, manipulate and control us may be one of the greatest challenges before us. These battles over COVID-19 vaccine mandates are merely the tipping point. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race. If you were unnerved by the rapid deterioration of privacy under the Surveillance State, prepare to be terrified by the surveillance matrix that will be ushered in within the next few decades. Everything we do is increasingly dependent on and, ultimately, controlled by technological devices. For example, in 2007, there were an estimated 10 million sensor devices connecting human utilized electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. By 2013, it had increased to 3.5 billion. By 2030, there will be an estimated 100 trillion sensor devices connecting us to the internet by way of a neural network that approximates a massive global brain. The end goal? Population control and the creation of a new “human” species, so to speak, through singularity, a marriage of sorts between machine and human beings in which artificial intelligence and the human brain will merge to form a superhuman mind. The plan is to

Media Blackout: Renowned German Pathologist’s Vaccine Autopsy Data is Shocking… and Being Censored

NOQ REPORT. August 4, 2021 Dr. Peter Schirmacher is not just an average pathologist. The German doctor is world-renowned in his field, honored by The Pathologist as one of the 100 most influential in the world. He is the acting chairman of the German Society of Pathology, director of the Institute of Pathology at Heidelberg University Hospital, and president of the German Association for the Study of the Liver. Bottom line, this professor and doctor understands pathology like very few on the planet. This is why it’s so perplexing that a bombshell report he released this week has been absolutely censored. Mainstream media won’t report on it and Big Tech has eliminated accounts who attempt to share it. Considering the incessant push towards universal vaccinations by government, academia, media, and Big Tech, it really shouldn’t be perplexing at all that his work is being quashed because it details mind-blowing data about the dangers of the so-called Covid “vaccines.” In short, Dr. Schirmacher performed autopsies on 40 people who had died within two weeks of receiving a Covid jab. Of those, 30%-40% could be directly attributed to the “vaccines.” He is calling for more autopsies of those who die shortly after getting injected to see if his numbers pan out. But Germany has thus far been reluctant to act. Meanwhile, the report of this highly respected pathologist and pro-vaccine doctor is being suppressed. Through all of our searches, we found one respected German publication, Welt.de, that posted it. On a tip from our friends at Press California, we had the page translated. Here’s what it says; apologies for the poor translation at times. More than 40 people have already been autopsied who died within two weeks of being vaccinated. Schirmacher assumes that 30 to 40 percent of them died from the vaccination. In his opinion, the frequency of fatal consequences of vaccinations is underestimated – a politically explosive statement in times when the vaccination campaign is losing momentum, the delta variant is spreading rapidly and restrictions on non-vaccinated people are being discussed. Schirmacher received a clear contradiction from other scientists. The statements that there is currently too little knowledge about side effects and the dangers of vaccination are underestimated are incomprehensible, said the Paul Ehrlich Institute. In particular for serious reactions, which also include when a person dies after a vaccination, there is a reporting obligation under the Infection Protection Act. “I do not know of any data that would allow a reasonable statement to be made here and I am not starting from an unreported number,” said the head of the Standing Vaccination Commission, Thomas Mertens.

60% Of Those Older Than 50 Who Die From COVID Are Double Vaxxed

Technolocracy News, AUGUST 30, 2021 § §  As of August 15, 2021, 68% of COVID patients admitted to hospital in the U.K. who were over the age of 50 had received one or two doses of COVID injections. §  By mid-August, 59% of serious cases in Israel were also among those who had received two COVID injections, mirroring U.K. data § §  Only in the 50 and younger category were a majority, 74%, of British COVID patients unvaccinated. § §  Those claiming we’re in a pandemic of the unvaccinated fail to differentiate between age groups § §  The same applies to COVID deaths in the U.K. Unvaccinated make up the majority of deaths only in the under-50 age group. § §  In the over-50 group, the clear majority, 70%, are either partially or fully “vaccinated” § §  We cannot rely on U.S. data to get a clear idea of how the COVID shots are working, as the CDC has chosen to only track breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization and/or death § §  Reanalysis of Pfizer’s, Moderna’s and Janssen’s COVID trial data using the proper endpoint show the shots are hurting the health of the population, and if mass vaccination continues we face “a looming vaccine-induced public health catastrophe” § A new study shows that vaccinated individuals are up to 13 times more likely to get infected with the new Delta variant than unvaccinated individuals who have had a natural COVID infection

Why we petitioned the FDA to refrain from fully approving any covid-19 vaccine this year

British Medical Journal, June 8, 2021 · · We are part of a group of clinicians, scientists, and patient advocates who have lodged a formal “Citizen Petition” with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), asking the agency to delay any consideration of a “full approval” of a covid-19 vaccine. The message of our petition is “slow down and get the science right—there is no legitimate reason to hurry to grant a license to a coronavirus vaccine.” We believe the existing evidence base—both pre- and post-authorization—is simply not mature enough at this point to adequately judge whether clinical benefits outweigh the risks in all populations. Our petition doesn’t argue that risks outweigh benefits—or that benefits outweigh risks. Rather, we focus on methods and processes, outlining the many remaining unknowns about safety and effectiveness—and suggest the kinds of studies needed to address the open questions. If the FDA listens to us, they won’t give serious consideration to approving a covid-19 vaccine until 2022. Our first request is that the FDA require manufacturers to submit data from completed Phase III trials—not interim results. Trials by vaccine manufacturers were designed to follow participants for two years, and should be completed before they are evaluated for full approval, even if they are now unblinded and lack placebo groups. These Phase III trials are not simply efficacy studies; they also are necessary and important safety studies (as thestudy titles say), and all collected data remain invaluable.
Military Contractor CACI Says Afghanistan Withdrawal Is Hurting Its Profits. It’s Funding a Pro-War Think Tank.

SARAH LAZARE     IN THESE TIMESAUGUST 25, 2021

On August 12, the military contractor CACI International Inc. told its investors that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is hurting its profits. The same contractor is also funding a think tank that is concurrently arguing against the withdrawal. This case is worth examining both because it is routine, and because it highlights the venality of our “expert”-military contractor feedback loop, in which private companies use think tanks to rally support for wars they’ll profit from. The contractor is notorious to those who have followed the scandal of U.S.-led torture in Iraq. CACI International was sued by three Iraqis formerly detained in Abu Ghraib prison who charge that the company’s employees are responsible for directing their torture, including sexual assault and electric shocks. (The suit was brought in 2008 and the case is still ongoing.) In 2019, CACI International was awarded a nearly $907 million, five-year contract to provide “intelligence operations and analytic support” for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.