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ISIS are back…and they’re faker than ever.

In just the last few days ISIS – Islamic State or ISIL or Da’esh or whatever – have hit the headlines in publications from all over the world. A strong resurgence for a narrative that’s been more than quiet for the last few years.

To do a quick recap, when last we heard from our cartoonish black-flagged head-choppers they were telling their suicide bombers to “steer clear of coronavirus-stricken Europe”.

An announcement that, pre-“pandemic”, would have been among the silliest headlines I’ve ever read…but in a post-Covid world it probably barely scrapes the top twenty.

Either way, that marked a hiatus for ISIS, an exit from the world stage as the “war on terror” made way for the “war on Covid”. In fact, a “reduction in violent terror events” was even sold as a potential plus-side of lockdowns, according to a study done by Yale.

…but now here we are. Three years on, and ISIS is back with a bang, or rather several bangs. Like a balaclava-wearing bear, they’ve emerged from their hibernation feeling grumpy.

The mainstream started laying the ground work for it back in January/February, with the aforementioned Yale study and then US politicians suddenly warning that ISIS was a “simmering powder keg” and underlining that the War on Terror is not over.

Then the US started nailing “senior ISIS leaders”, offing two in two weeks in April and a third in July. Syria got in on the act too, dropping an ISIS leader of their own.

Through the summer, ISIS “affiliates” claimed responsibility for attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uganda. These were followed with more “the war on terror is not over” messaging.

But things have really started to heat up the last few days.

On August 11th CBS reported that ISIS were behind an ambush in Syria, killing 20 Syrian soldiers.

On August 12th the Washington Post reported that ADF, an “ISIS affiliate” in the Congo apparently, was “becoming deadlier”.

On August 13th it was reported ISIS was “deploying cryptocurrency to continue its reign of terror”.

Oh the humanity!

On August 14th the Iranian government officially blamed ISIS for an alleged terror attack on a shrine in Shiraz, and TimesNow reported that an ISIS “expert bomb maker” was planning an attack in India.

And just yesterday, The Mirror warned that ISIS and al-Qaeda were “back in Afghanistan”. Meanwhile Indonesian police raided a terror-suspects home and found an ISIS flag

The cherry on top is the UN releasing a report yesterday morning, warning that ISIS still posed “a serious threat”, with 5000-7000 fighters in Syria and Iraq. And in case anyone was curious, they also attempted an  explanation for  the lack of ISIS activity the last few years too. It wasn’t at all a result of the global elites having other (covid) fish to fry. No sir. It was a “deliberately adopted” strategy

to reduce attacks, in order to facilitate recruiting and reorganization.”

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Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi

Western media has dismissed evidence of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine by citing President Zelensky’s Jewish heritage. But new footage published by Zelensky shows the leader openly collaborating with a fascist ideologue who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen.”

Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky has uploaded a video to his Telegram channel showing him holding court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history: Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.

On August 14, just over an hour after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced another $200 million in military aid to Kiev, Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky published the video depicting what he called an “open conversation” with Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.

“I am grateful to everyone who defends our country and people, who brings our victory closer,” Zelensky wrote, following his encounter with the unit on the outskirts of Bakhmut.

While casual Western observers might not have realized it, the brigade Zelensky was addressing is actually the newest iteration of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. 

“The 3rd separate assault brigade, excellent fighters,” Zelensky wrote days after the consultation, in a Twitter post which also alluded to a separate meeting with the Aidar Battalion, another neo-fascist outfit that has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International. “They have stopped the enemy from advancing towards Kostiantynivka and pushed the occupiers back up to 8 kilometers.”

But the group’s origins are no secret. Describing their most recent rebrand in a YouTube video released in January, the unit explained: “Today we officially announce that the SSO AZOV is expanding to a brigade. From now on, we are the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

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Researchers find deliberate backdoor in police radio encryption algorithm

For more than 25 years, a technology used for critical data and voice radio communications around the world has been shrouded in secrecy to prevent anyone from closely scrutinizing its security properties for vulnerabilities. But now it’s finally getting a public airing thanks to a small group of researchers in the Netherlands who got their hands on its viscera and found serious flaws, including a deliberate backdoor.

The backdoor, known for years by vendors that sold the technology but not necessarily by customers, exists in an encryption algorithm baked into radios sold for commercial use in critical infrastructure. It’s used to transmit encrypted data and commands in pipelines, railways, the electric grid, mass transit, and freight trains. It would allow someone to snoop on communications to learn how a system works, then potentially send commands to the radios that could trigger blackouts, halt gas pipeline flows, or reroute trains.

Researchers found a second vulnerability in a different part of the same radio technology that is used in more specialized systems sold exclusively to police forces, prison personnel, military, intelligence agencies, and emergency services, such as the C2000 communication system used by Dutch police, fire brigades, ambulance services, and Ministry of Defense for mission-critical voice and data communications. The flaw would let someone decrypt encrypted voice and data communications and send fraudulent messages to spread misinformation or redirect personnel and forces during critical times.

Three Dutch security analysts discovered the vulnerabilities—five in total—in a European radio standard called TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio), which is used in radios made by Motorola, Damm, Hytera, and others. The standard has been used in radios since the ’90s, but the flaws remained unknown because encryption algorithms used in TETRA were kept secret until now.

The technology is not widely used in the US, where other radio standards are more commonly deployed. But Caleb Mathis, a consultant with Ampere Industrial Security, conducted open source research for WIRED and uncovered contracts, press releases, and other documentation showing TETRA-based radios are used in at least two dozen critical infrastructures in the US. Because TETRA is embedded in radios supplied through resellers and system integrators like PowerTrunk, it’s difficult to identify who might be using them and for what. But Mathis helped WIRED identify several electric utilities, a state border control agency, an oil refinery, chemical plants, a major mass transit system on the East Coast, three international airports that use them for communications among security and ground crew personnel, and a US Army training base.

Carlo Meijer, Wouter Bokslag, and Jos Wetzels of Midnight Blue in the Netherlands discovered the TETRA vulnerabilities—which they’re calling TETRA:Burst—in 2021 but agreed not to disclose them publicly until radio manufacturers could create patches and mitigations. Not all of the issues can be fixed with a patch, however, and it’s not clear which manufacturers have prepared them for customers. Motorola—one of the largest radio vendors—didn’t respond to repeated inquiries from WIRED.

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Maui wildfires spark conspiracy theories about space lasers, Oprah land grabs and suspicious trees

The Maui wildfires have drawn bizarre conspiracy theories that elites — such as President Biden and Oprah — may have used lasers to intentionally set the deadly blaze for their own nefarious ends.

Photos claiming to show space lasers raining destruction down on the Hawaiian city have gained millions of views across social media, while images of trees still standing amid the inferno’s aftermath have been cited as evidence that the fires were not natural.

“Everything is burnt but the trees, but don’t point that out or ur a conspiracy theorist,” wrote one user on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, alongside footage of people driving through the cindered remains of a neighborhood.

But the unlikely internet sleuths’ hypotheses were easily debunked.

That post, along with others like it, was flagged by readers who linked to a Britannica article concisely explaining why the trees were still standing.

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German Govt Okays Plan To Legalise Recreational Cannabis

The German government approved a draft law Wednesday legalising the purchase and possession of small amounts of cannabis for recreational use, despite criticism from opposition politicians and judges.

The bill, which still needs to go through parliament, would allow adults to possess up to 25 grams (0.9 ounces) of cannabis and grow up to three plants for personal use.

People will also be allowed to join non-profit “cannabis clubs” of up to 500 members where the drug can be legally cultivated and purchased.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach called the draft law “a turning point” in Germany’s attitude towards cannabis.

The more relaxed approach would crack down on the black market and drug-related crime, ease the burden on law enforcement and allow for safer consumption of marijuana, he said in a statement.

Minors will still be prohibited from using the drug, and the government will launch a campaign warning of the health risks for young people especially, he added.

“Nobody should misunderstand the law. Cannabis use will be legalised. But it’s still dangerous,” Lauterbach said.

The proposed legislation is a flagship project of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition and would leave Germany with one of the most liberal cannabis policies in Europe.

But the draft law is less ambitious than what was originally envisioned.

Plans to allow the widespread sale of cannabis in licensed stores were dropped in April after the European Commission raised concerns.

With its current plan, Germany’s coalition government has taken “a significant step towards a progressive, realistic drug policy”, said Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir.

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Denver Cop Kills Man Holding a Marker

From Denver, another tragic story about cops shooting and killing someone holding a “weapon” that turned out to actually be a harmless object. In this case, an officer with the Denver Police Department (DPD) shot and killed a man armed with a marker. The officer (whose name has not been released) said she believed that 36-year-old Brandon Cole had been holding a knife when she shot him on the evening of August 5.

Now, the DPD has admitted that Cole was not holding a weapon after all.

“Through the investigation, it was determined that the object Mr. Cole had in his hand during the interaction with the officers was a black marker,” Denver Police Commander Matt Clark said at a Monday press conference.

According to Clark, police were responding to a 911 caller who said they thought they saw a man push his wife out of a wheelchair. When two police officers—one male and one female—arrived on the residential street where this had allegedly taken place, they found a woman sitting on the street nearby an empty wheelchair and observed a man “reaching into the driver’s area of a vehicle.”

The female officer then noticed Cole holding “an object that she believed to be a knife,” said Clark. Cole began moving toward her, prompting the male officer to use his Taser on him. But it “did not have an effect,” said Clark, and Cole continued moving toward the female officer, making it within “several feet” of her.

She fired twice, hitting Cole. Cole was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Body cam footage shows a small child standing just behind Cole on the sidewalk when the officer shoots.

“There just wasn’t an opportunity to transition to a Taser,” said Police Chief Ron Thomas. “When she finally deploys her duty weapon, the person is so close to her that her view of that young child and [another person behind Cole] are not even clear to her.”

The officer who shot Cole seems to face little repercussion for killing a man for holding a marker and endangering a small child. She will now “complete the department’s reintegration program before returning to a patrol assignment,” said Clark on Monday.

Cole leaves behind three children, according to NBC News.

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The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle

This month, lawyers for the Food and Drug Administration admitted in a U.S. court that doctors “do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID”, an admission that stands at stark odds with a multiple year campaign to misinform, misalign and tarnish the reputation of one of the world’s most successful drugs, which could have been used to save hundreds of thousands of lives during the pandemic.

“FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID. So they are not interfering with the authority of doctors to prescribe drugs or to practice medicine,” Ashley Cheung Honold, lawyer representing the FDA said this month.

I know this likely isn’t the case for my regular readers, but if you’re new to the blog and you happen to be one of those people who still doesn’t quite understand that you are routinely lied to by the media and the billionaires that run our country, I can think of no better indoctrination than the travesty of a fraud that was just perpetrated on the American people regarding ivermectin.

For those who haven’t followed the story, during the course of the Covid pandemic, it was revealed that ivermectin – a drug that has been administered billions of times to humans and is on the World Health Organization’s list of Essential Medicines – was found in numerous clinical trials to have efficacy in early treatment of Covid-19. If you’re looking for a primer on this, here is a website that aggregates all of the clinical trials and here is a discussion with Bret Weinstein and Dr. Pierre Kory that serves as a great introduction to the topic.

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Western press fetishizes Ukrainian amputees as limb loss epidemic grows

With Ukrainian forces reportedly suffering a level of amputations reminiscent of WWI, a New York Times proxy war propagandist is spinning amputees as sex symbols and painting their gruesome injuries as “magical.”

After 18 months of devastating proxy warfare, the scale of the depletion of the Ukrainian military is so extensive that even mainstream sources have been forced to concede the cruel reality. On August 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that “between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians” have “lost one or more limbs since the start of the war.” What’s more, the outlet notes, “the actual figure could be higher” because “it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure.”

By comparison, around 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons underwent amputations during the entire four-year span of the First World War. The publication quotes the head of a group of former military surgeons who train Ukrainian military medics who maintained that “Western military surgeons haven’t seen injuries on this scale since World War II.”

While the implications of the Journal’s report have largely been studiously ignored by Western media, at least one mainstream journalist has displayed a keen interest in Kiev’s amputees. The New York Times’ columnist and ardent liberal interventionist Nicholas Kristof practically fetishized the mass disfigurement of Ukrainian combat veterans in the name of Washington’s war du jour. 

In a July 8 op-ed titled “They’re Ready to Fight Again, on Artificial Legs,” Kristof insisted that rather than resenting being used as cannon fodder, Ukraine’s newly-disabled veterans “carry their stumps with pride.”

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Scientists create first genetically modified animal that can have offspring asexually

Developmental biologist Alexis Sperling became obsessed with something she saw in the lab when she was studying for her PhD. A praying mantis had young spontaneously, without having sex with a male. A virgin had had children.

This ability has never been observed in mammals, including of course humans, but in the rest of the animal world there are certain species capable of doing it. Many of the cases have been observed in zoos where the females had spent years alone without the possibility of mating.

In 2015, a team discovered one of the first cases of sexless reproduction in the wild: the smalltooth saw fish, which was on the brink of extinction. And just two years ago, at the San Diego Zoo, two females of the endangered California condor gave birth asexually, despite the fact that in this case there were breeding males available.

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Hawaii governor says state is looking to ‘acquire land’ that was destroyed in fires

On Monday, Hawaiian governor Josh Green announced that his administration was considering acquiring properties in the seaside resort town of Lahaina that had been destroyed by the recent wildfires.

He vowed to prevent foreign buyers from swooping in to exploit the tragedy, suggesting the state was better suited to take control of the land.

“I’m already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to the people who were lost,” Green said while standing amongst the rubble.

“We want this to be something we remember after the pain passes as a magic place. Lahaina will rebuild. The tragedy right now is the loss of life. The buildings can be rebuilt over time, even the banyan tree may survive, but we don’t want this to become a clear space where then people from overseas just come and decide they’re gonna take it. The state will take it and preserve it first.”

In a separate press conference, Green reiterated his committment to ensure the land was protected for residents, and revealed that he had spoken with the Hawaiian attorney general regarding “options to do a moratorium on any sales of properties that have been damaged or destroyed.”

“It’s going to be a very long time before any growth or housing can be built, so you will be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here,” he said, adding, “I will try to allow no one from outside our state to buy any land until we get through this crisis and decide what Lahaina should be in the future.”

According to the Honolulu Civil Beat, over 2,000 structures were destroyed in the fire, three quarters of which were residential. Nearly 100 people have been found dead, though that number is expected to rise as crews continue searching the area.

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