By the way, the treatment drug that Governor Abbot’s receiving for his SARS-CoV-2 disease:

In July 2020 and January 2021, the federal government bought a supply of REGEN-COV to distribute just like it distributes the vaccines at no cost to patients. The cost to the government was $1,250 per dose.

Just encountered an attorney today who had COVID a few weeks back. Her doctor prescribed ivermectin and I think some steroidals and/or anti-inflammatory medicines. She was fine in 2-3 days, and has the added bonus of acquired immunity now (the gold standard of immunity).
Tales from trenches.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 20 2021 2:15 utc | 103

So, the Covid pandemic is a giant Psy-ops ploy to control us all?
Thanks for the enlightenment….All those who’ve died from it, I guess, are part of the ruse….

Posted by: vetinLA | Aug 20 2021 2:47 utc | 105

Re:Roger @90 on Canada and Roger and vk @various on Japan
As karlof1 and others point out, John Williams (the ShadowStats one, not the NY Fed shill) goes into detail how U.S. economic sadistics are terrible. South Korea’s unemployment sadistics (I hear) as about as horrible. The decline in population in Japan is quite dramatic. U.S. energy consumption was stuck at 100 quads since at least 2000 until the plunged to 93 in 2020. Yes, most autos on U.S. roadways are now about as heavy as those in the early ’70s and as fuel efficient as every and yes we are well on our way to replacing incandescent lamps with LEDs; However, I am not buying we can have a population go from around 282.2 to a guestimated 333,193,717 on 19 August 2021, according to Worldometer and still have around 2.5% or whatever GDP growth being claimed. Perhaps increases in energy efficiency and population more or less balance out and GDP growth is close to zero.
Take population growth (negative growth in the case of Japan) and gimmicking of sadistics into account and GDP growth per capita growth (or negative growth, as the case may be) and the U.S. looks worse as far as change goes at least anyway. Absolutes such as living standards in Japan never really reached 1973 U.S. are another matter. They have almost no flat land, small apartments, probably thin walls, while many U.S. houses are easily 2,000 sq ft or more. Of course, they seem to want China to solve the problem of lack of flat land by having them make the entire island as flat as a parking lot with a nice layer of shocked quartz that glows in the dark.

Posted by: William Haught | Aug 20 2021 3:02 utc | 107

vk @67 etc
Can anyone provide a link to recent data on the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against Delta? I heard a figure of just over 60% from ‘Israel’ but can’t recall the source and the figure of 40ish% has been mentioned here before.

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Aug 20 2021 3:46 utc | 109

by: vk @ 26 & 31
The reason PCR tests don’t work against the delta variant is that the delta variant doesn’t breed in the upper throat (from where muck samples for the PCR are taken). Instead, it goes straight to the lungs.
<= Not sure the delta variant goes straight to the lungs.. The S1 s2 Corona(spike protein) in the so called delta variant might be better recognized by immune system cells in the lung tissues.. the virus itself is composed of things relevant to infect the human cell and hijack the genetic system of the cell. Once hijacked, the code in the virus, causes the human cell to make and distribute more virus. It does this by by a long sequence of events, but basically the each virus is packaged in a spike made of proteins, which are spaced over the surface of the corona.. and the viral genetic code is contained inside of the spike covered corona capsule. The virus (mRNA codes human cells to make spike protein and it codes human cells to make hundreds of copies of itself) .. The spike protein may be causing the respiratory immune system to respond so strongly it produces respiratory arrest. Only a part of the virus is responsible for the immune response conduced by the human cells. < The immune cells in the lungs maybe highly sensitive to the spike corona so the immune response is stronger in the delta variant? But genetically i do not see a delta variant in the amino acid scripts.. thus far studied. so what is the delta variant exactly? Could the 2nd dose of the vaccine be to add more spike covered corona..to the body?.. gottlieb @ 29 Then they[the Indians] discovered the new variant and mapped its genome. <= where is a comparison of that genome to the corona 19 gene set? Max @ 37 Where does the Taliban get their funding? Primary sources of the Taliban funding ($300 million to $1.6 billion annually): drug trafficking ($400m), extortion & ransom ($160m), mineral exploitation ($464m), tax collection, donations . The Afghan administration budget for 2020 was $5.55 billion. Money is extorted from shopkeepers, farmers, drivers,... Taliban’s biggest expenses are salaries, weapons and training. Bullies don’t want to work. <= I say the scrip ideas will address corruption because corruption is a crime against humanity, and the money in scrip form cannot be hidden, its useless in a Swiss account. Extortion is a crime by one against another and it can be remedied by criminal investigation, prosecution iff no one can come in or leave the country, most criminals will be apprehended. May @ 37 asks; How will these challenges be addressed in the analog world? You fell for the bait, these crimes were addressed long before digital came on the scene, mostly by IRS audits. When one extorts scrip, one has no place to hide it in a close society. . Scrip is useless outside of the country. one of its big pluses. corruption profits in scrip cannot be hidden or used. no one in, no one out is a closed system. Scrip is the very best system of currency a country can implement.. It keeps outsiders out; outsiders cannot spend the script they steal. David G. Horsman @ 40 thanks for the link but not sure I agree with the summary after looking at the data.. In summary, though the Covid-19 vaccine triggered an immune response within the body, it did not seem to stop the spread of the virus throughout the body which caused his organs to fail <== I wonder if the delta variant or the vaccination is causing human cells to increase their cellular Receptor densities? The S1 on the virus attaches to the ACE-2 Receptor (on the surface of the human cell) .. more receptors might account for the triggered response reported above. Contrary to some commentators, if death from virus is .5% of those infected and death from vaccination is .004% of the vaccinated. so those who are both vaccinated and infected would have a cumulative expected death rate .5 + .004 = .5004%. But the core point I was making is that copper is good as backing. You didn't seem to "see" or acknowledge the fundamental importance of getting any currency accepted and trusted. <= The USA solved that problem they declared scrip to be legal tender. .. vk @ 60 .. Regeneron is actually the company that makes the the treatment Abbott received called REGEN-COV. It is a mixture of two monoclonal antibodies: casirivimab and imdevimab. It is designed to block the spike protein in COVID-19 from attaching to and entering healthy cells. <= blocking S1 spike attachment with ACE-2 Receptor is what I said was needed day one. If block the infection, do not have a diseased patient to cure.

Posted by: snake | Aug 20 2021 4:07 utc | 111

Gov Abbott is despised as much as Trump was by the big city Democraps and the liberal press in Texas. How hard would it be to
make sure his fake test had a high enough cycle count to be sure he tested positive? They were very upset by his no mask orders and remember he was completely asymptomatic.

Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Aug 20 2021 4:42 utc | 113

@108 snake – “blocking S1 spike attachment with ACE-2 Receptor”
Precisely what ivermectin does – apparently it has a greater affinity for the receptor than the spike protein, gets there first and denies access to the spike protein. In non-medical terms, Iver says “fuck off, Spike” and spike soon withers away from lack of party to crash.
Also dandelion extract, as we have recently learned.
~~
I also agree with you on scrip, and I really like your insider/outsider thinking – I had never considered that before.
Abraham Lincoln essentially used scrip with Greenbacks – the key was that the quantity in issue was known, and it would be a sinking fund over time. John Kennedy was actually going to do a similar thing. As I’ve said before, the private money power of the world regards this public money as counterfeiting, and always imposes the death penalty on those who try to do this.
I think an armed sovereign nation like Afghanistan can do it perfectly well for domestic use, assuming counterfeiting is prevented, and the domestic transactions will flourish. People will be happy.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 20 2021 4:46 utc | 115

@vk #17
Japan has had 4 decades of stagnation because of the Plaza Accords.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 20 2021 4:54 utc | 117

@wagelaborer #96
Japanese aren’t doing opioids, but the number of homeless there has dramatically increased.
The economic bargain in Japan was always that workers would be loyal to their companies in return for stability much as voters would keep the LDP in power so long as things were ok.
All that is gone. Japan still has a tremendous amount of communal action but economic stability, upward mobility etc are no longer true for the vast majority.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 20 2021 5:01 utc | 119

Grieved @ 101
Some Covid reflections…In my county in California, about 1.5 million souls, deaths in long term health facilities have been zero for the last four months. The not vaccinated death rate is starting to drop. In other words, vaccinated people are starting to die of covid. The numbers are small now but growing.
There has been 44 deaths recorded since May. 14 deaths under the age of 70 in the last two months. Do not know if other conditions like pneumonia were present. ICU bed use is up and so are hospitalizations since July. ICU beds have gone for 13 to 64 with a commensurate rise in hospitalizations.
Cases are up, less people are dying in the last few months. Paranoia has settled out somewhat except for the uber democrat strongholds politicians. In the conservative parts of the state people look at you like you are nuts for walking or going into an establishment with a mask even though they are needed for the smoke from the fires.
It is reported that the smoke from the fires over the last year plus has contributed to covid cases as it weakens the lungs. Many first responders are refusing the shots and are now being forced. Many lawsuits are ongoing.
I will quit if forced and have made that clear with my employer. My wife worked in a hospital and quit over the coming jab. We got covid early and will hang with natural immunity although we are isolating more often until this thing passes.
No regrets, no fear of death. It is as natural as anything else in this world.

Posted by: circumspect | Aug 20 2021 5:10 utc | 121

@115 NemesisCalling
Somewhere in that two-year scenario, there may be a flood of lawsuits populating the landscape also. Big Pharma may be immune from prosecution, but we know how the “rule of lawsuit” goes: follow the chain of culpability until you find someone with money that you think you can beat. If Pharma can’t be sued and the feds won’t be sued, and the states also decline to be sued, then the defendants look like the employers to me.
I truly sympathize with your situation, by the way, even as I thank my stars in my selfishness that I am free of that situation.
You may want to note this story that was linked here recently:
Denmark abolishes all Corona measures
I can’t find any collateral for this story (I haven’t really looked either), but it’s not the story so much as the legal reasoning within it that I find interesting. Let me quote a fairly large portion:

Tyrolean lawyer Dr. Renate Holzeisen, meanwhile strongly recommended that all employers refrain from vaccination pressure or compulsory vaccination, because most of them were “obviously not even aware of the far-reaching legal consequences associated with it”.
The fact that the so-called Covid-19 vaccines, according to the official approval documents of the EMA and the European Commission were not developed and approved for the prevention of infection with the SARS-COV-2 virus, but solely to prevent a more severe course of the disease, were conditionally approved for this reason alone, Holzeisen underscored.
The official approval documents therefore show that these substances cannot interrupt the chain of infection because the people treated with them can become infected and thus be infectious. Practice also proves that people who are completely “vaccinated” become infected with the virus and even have the same viral load as “unvaccinated people” as the CDC, among others, has admitted. It is therefore clear that any Covid-19 “compulsory vaccination” actually lacks any justification.
All pressure, including moral pressure (alleged act of solidarity with one’s neighbor) is therefore illegal in terms of criminal and liability law based on the official approval documents.
“As a lawyer advising on corporate law, I strongly recommend that every employer stay away from Covid-19 vaccination pressure or compulsory vaccination, because most of them are obviously not even aware of the far-reaching legal consequences associated with it,” she said.

I offer this in case it gives you anything that may help you in your struggle. I personally feel there are massive class-action lawsuits sitting on the horizon in the US, and they run along these kinds of lines.
It will be crucial to have a clear rendering of the precise legal terms under which the vaccinations are authorized, and the precise terms under which an organization is mandating them for its employees. If any harm can be proved to come from this mandate – and it seems inevitable to me that it must be so – then as a lay person (not a lawyer and not offering legal advice), it seems to me that the price for this harm can be charged to the entity forcing it upon the victim. I suspect a jury or arbitration panel might agree.
You may find a sympathetic lawyer who could help you weave some clauses into your negotiations on the LOA that will constrain the mandates to the exact legal authorizations provided by the federal law, and no more – or something like that. I offer food for thought.
Solidarity!

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 20 2021 5:28 utc | 123

@ Grieved | Aug 20 2021 5:28 utc | 120 with the carefully worded support for NemesisCalling
Thanks for that.
My question to you and other barflies is what if, say a union, took the position, supported by its membership, to counter the forced vaccination with voluntary usage of an Ivermectin centered prophylaxis regimen. This would force the Ivermectin issue out into the open and probably be successfully litigated as an alternative to any vaccine, IMO.
Thoughts?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 20 2021 5:39 utc | 125

@ grieved
Thx. I read the link and will parse it further later. No surprises that the Danes are lightyears ahead of us yanks in the commonsense department. The link may be something I reference and forward to our union prez and the other reps/stewards. I may be a fucking maverick in the eyes of the prez, but I will not let this issue go gently into the night. Will keep the bar abreast.
Much appreciated.
@ psycho
I think in due time, the truth will come out one way or another. In dealing with my brothers and sisters in the union, I can safely say that probably 80-90% are already in the clear for the mandate. To them, ivermectin is just another tinfoil hat thinger from crackpottery barn. To those of us who refuse the m-rna, it is a different story of course.
I know you worked for the public before, psycho. Being a young buck, though, I can tell you that the level of supine protoplasmic invertebrate jelly runs DEEP in the ranks of the public servants now. (It really goes hand-in-hand, imo, with the federal government’s grand overreach.) But even that spinelessness is outdone by the love and assurance of their total control over the little guys what with their deplorable and wicked conscience.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 20 2021 5:58 utc | 127

Just in the last three months, Delta has been seeded by the UEFA and the Olympics committee in countries where there had been no wave of importance previously. Even a mainstream guy like Dr Campbell called the Euro championship a super seeding event.
Why aren’t they sued?

Posted by: Mina | Aug 20 2021 7:32 utc | 129

I took the J&J vax when it first came out only because I wanted to visit my grandchildren in Switzerland one last time. I am pretty sure it was a factor in my having a mild stroke 6 weeks later. Now that I made it to Lake Geneva I fear I may not be able to return home in october without a booster they feel entitled to make you jump thru any hoop to board a plane. Impossible to be anti-vax and fly!

Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Aug 20 2021 9:13 utc | 131

I am totally fed up with America. As a Norwegian, my country is one of the chiefmost puppetts, doing everything they ask about.
It is time for us to take a new look at both the EU and NATO. The enemy picture being painted is nothing worth living under, especially when we know it is sheer BS.
A Nordic defense union along with econmic unity would be a paradise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cztVWjJQR0

Posted by: Harald | Aug 20 2021 10:07 utc | 133

Bed sheets or spreadsheets?
Grieved | Aug 20 2021 2:38 utc | 101

Our First Hand ICU Story – What is ACTUALLY Killing People In The Hospital

The video criticizes the standard treatment protocol. Evidently “Protocol” is the same business model that delivered Afghanistan to the Taliban. Results do not matter. All that counts is the cashflow.
I have always considered the EVMS Critical Care COVID-19 Management Protocol to be the most correct one. I now see that the “Marik Treatment Protocol” has been kicked out of the Eastern Virginia Medical School Covid site. The original link leads to on-campus masking and vaxxing guidelines.
The latest version of the protocol can now be found at the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance site. (This is the group the video refers to.)
The US Civil War has now moved to COVID care. On one side there is the self-defined reality-based community. On the other side there are the “delusional Trumpist anti-vaxxers”.
The “reality-based community” relies on randomized controlled trials. The problem is that only Big Pharma has the resources to do randomized controlled trials. Therefore only patented treatments ever get approved. Freely available or cheap medications, like vitamins or zinc or ivermectin will never get tested in randomized controlled trials.
On the other side are intensive care doctors who actually see their patients. This delusional Trumpist anti-vaxxer movement relies on the “totality of evidence”. This includes among others empirical observations and epidemiological data.
Here is the latest FLCCC video. I mostly agree with these people.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 20 2021 10:35 utc | 135

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 20 2021 10:35 utc | 135

Bed sheets or spreadsheets?
Grieved | Aug 20 2021 2:38 utc | 101

Actually my response was to: pogohere | Aug 20 2021 6:11 utc | 128

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 20 2021 10:43 utc | 137

By reading on, I saw the other link. Of course, everyone is free to stay in echo chambers like SWPRS or the like. Choose what suits you best. 😉

Posted by: Cemi | Aug 20 2021 11:34 utc | 139

This delusional Trumpist anti-vaxxer movement relies on the “totality of evidence”. This includes among others empirical observations and epidemiological data.
_________________________________________________________________
I don’t understand why “anti-vaxxer movement” is being associated with Trump?
Trump has always been in favor of the Covid vaccines. He considers the rapid development of the vaccines as one of his administration’s greatest achievements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM9JvYjPW6o&t=501s

Posted by: jinn | Aug 20 2021 12:08 utc | 141

Just who are all these “Americans” still trapped in Afghanistan?
Contractors?
Mercenaries?
Chump change war profiteers?
Thrill seekers?

Posted by: librul | Aug 20 2021 12:39 utc | 143

“If the Russian Federation wasn’t such a monumental failure, Russian people wouldn’t miss the USSR so much.”
I miss the old UK. The one which had free university education with living allowance awards. I miss there being a viable route to the middle class for working class kids. I imagine the Russians are the same. They would prefer less work, more of a social safety net, free housing and three prestige of being a genuine super power.
All “unaffordable” now. Things are both worse and better. You can get anything you can afford, whereas before you could afford anything but could only get it with the right connections.

Posted by: Harry | Aug 20 2021 13:14 utc | 145

Getting to the Airport ! ! ! the new Khyber pass
FOX news and the rest are carrying on about how the Taliban is blocking Americans from reaching the airport because ‘they control the area outside it’. Okay but I see throngs of people pushed up against the razor wire AT the airport.
What’s stopping them from exiting on those half empty planes?
Do we ever take responsibility for our own incompetence. There are many Americans and interpreters blocked by a ring of desperate people. Fly them all out and sort them out later. BTW Col Lang is a proponent of the Khyber Pass theory. Unlike others, I’d take him seriously, especially on matters in this area. At the very least, I think it’s important not to test the patience of the Taliban and get them out as soon as possible.
We should not blame the Taliban if we are the bottleneck.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Aug 20 2021 13:47 utc | 147

@Harald | Aug 20 2021 10:07 utc | 133

It is time for us to take a new look at both the EU and NATO. The enemy picture being painted is nothing worth living under, especially when we know it is sheer BS.

Welcome to the club, Harald!!
P.S: I voted NO to EU in 1994. This year’s parliamentary election is pointless, all they want is legitimacy for their criminal acts.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 20 2021 14:08 utc | 149

BTW total debt/gdp ratio doesn’t tell you that much, since one mans debet is an other mans asset. A higher numer means that the economy is more volitile, in case in case of a downturn a lot of people might default, and that could trigger some cascading effects. I would say over 800 percent is… not good.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Aug 20 2021 14:15 utc | 151

About the governor of Texas, Abbott, story:
The media is pitching this as “hypocrite gets comeuppance”, since he did not mandate masks and “now he has covid”
He is fully vaccinated, and may have already had the booster.
He seems to be a high-risk individual: he is confined to a wheel-chair, and has extensive pre-existing health problems.

Posted by: Platero | Aug 20 2021 14:41 utc | 153

@149 Tom Pfotzer
Wow! Population doubled in 20 years, over half born under US occupation! What a unique circumstance. I wonder what it means.

Posted by: ptb | Aug 20 2021 14:49 utc | 155

people who say “No’ to the vaccine ought please say “No’ to medical care if they get sick. My family members [four doctors, two nurses] are exhausted, demoralized and I really wish they could stop treating unvaccinated persons eligible for the vaccine.

Posted by: nurse.comic | Aug 20 2021 15:20 utc | 157

Welcome to the club, Harald!!
P.S: I voted NO to EU in 1994. This year’s parliamentary election is pointless, all they want is legitimacy for their criminal acts.
Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 20 2021 14:08 utc | 148
IN all 5 Nordic nations there is AT LEAST a third (at the moment) who would be for such a thing. A pan-Nordic movement should be arranged to delve into these issues. I say it is very possible.
A Nordic trade cooperation would have the 8th largest GDP in the world, 8 largest sea zone and 8th largest land mass. We would be sufficient in many many natural resources. Sweden alone delivers 90% of the iron ore to EU. Together the Nordic nations have 12% of the world’s Thorium reserves, for future safe and effective nuclear fuel.
Let’s do it?? Discuss on Resett my Friend..

Posted by: Harald | Aug 20 2021 15:32 utc | 159

@ Tom Pfotzer (#148), Japan is a suzerainty with a private central bank (BOJ). It hasn’t done well because of its major mistakes.
It was militarily defeated in 1945 and monetarily in 1980s through the Plaza Accord. Since then it has been on a downhill trajectory. Only a few innovations have been introduced in the last three decades, and the companies have been kept afloat by the BOJ. The BOJ is a publicly listed corporation. Who are its owners?
BOJ is top-10 shareholder in 40% of Japan’s listed companies
Why innovate when the central bank will drive the stock price? Japan has good talent but its senior management has become risk-averse. Very low innovation in such an environment. They seem to not do well in the IT arena as China. Samsung (SK) has done well in the consumer electronics and smartphones. Also, a rigged market won’t be blessed! It is more like a big hedge fund now.
It needs to reinvent and reconfigure its socioeconomic system.

Posted by: Max | Aug 20 2021 15:35 utc | 161

Some guys are having fun
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1428701729185574916

Posted by: Mina | Aug 20 2021 15:38 utc | 163

Thank you, migueljose @ 142
I am only partway through the link discussion, but it is well worth watching even if long. As you say, there is much revealed that the bare facts don’t sufficiently unravel. I am pausing at the description of the death of Massoud, which is being appropriately discussed, two days before 9/11 happened in the US.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 20 2021 16:05 utc | 165

Billb @154:
You are right. As an economy develops people borrow to buy things like homes, cars, and durable goods. If you use things over several years, it makes sense to pay for them over time. The smaller proportion of people live hand-to-mouth (which many did in China 30-40 years ago), the bigger the number of the indebted will be. This is no problem whatsoever, as long as rates are reasonable, and debts are amortized in pace with wear and tear of the product bought.
On the other hand, the US situation – where indebtedness grows when people take loans to pay for short term consumption, because of 40 years of stagnant or falling wages – is dire. That won’t end well.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Aug 20 2021 16:12 utc | 167

How interesting that at least X folks live in Nanimo, BC; others in fascist Canada too.
The spooks knew this immediately. Do they spin wild scenarios and conspiracies from it? How much wasted tax dollars are involved?
When I surveyed specialized knowledge in The Zeitgeist Movement I found it to be extensive. This would apply in all fields.
I used elder labour and expertise effectively in the trades. This is what can solve the aging population delema for example.
This site is a great example. A very mixed demographic that is leans heavily towards the retired. Kind of like voting no?

Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 20 2021 16:24 utc | 169

@vk #158
Your comment is purely idiotic.
The Plaza Accords were forced on Japan by the US. They were the heavy-handed means by which the US redressed its economic uncompetitiveness vs. Japanese production.
Japan acquiesced to this and the result was 4 decades of economic stagnation.
The Plaza Accords are also influential in the rise of China – it is virtually certain that the US oligarchy believed they could rein in China the same way regardless of how well China’s economic competition played out.
I wouldn’t say that the Plaza Accords are the only reason for the entire 4 decades; the first 20 were mostly the Plaza Accords while the last few decades are China rising.
I know people who went to Japan in the late 1970s to help them ramp up clothing manufacturing – yes, Japan was the cheap crap origination point in that era.
They then went to China in the 1990s to do the same thing.
The difference between Japan and China is that China didn’t allow itself to be reined in by Plaza Accord-like restrictions; they kept control over their own RMB vs. USD exchange rate and have accepted no voluntary limits on exports to the US or anywhere else. Japan can and does compete very well with the best in the world: Japanese cars compete very well with the prime German automakers worldwide, but they have limited themselves in volume of exports to the US. One of the reasons why Lexus, Infiniti etc were created was precisely to move Toyota, Nissan etc further up the value/price chain in order to reap higher revenue from fixed volumes of exports to the US.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 20 2021 16:31 utc | 171

This is kind of a big deal:
Basis paper for IPCC attribution of human influence on global warming is falsified
Summary: The seminal paper used to attribute human influence on climate change is fundamentally flawed and wrong via a peer-reviewed public paper. The original authors were repeatedly asked to review and provide feedback – and have not objected to any of the criticisms noted. The original paper is in accord with normal half-assed “climate scientist” fumbling and outright fraud with advanced statistical analysis as is routinely crushed by such as Steve McIntyre at climateaudit.org

a critique of “Checking for model consistency in optimal fingerprinting” by Myles Allen and Simon Tett, which was published in Climate Dynamics in 1999 and to which I refer as AT99. Their attribution methodology was instantly embraced and promoted by the IPCC in the 2001 Third Assessment Report (coincident with their embrace and promotion of the Mann hockey stick). The IPCC promotion continues today: see AR6 Section 3.2.1. It has been used in dozens and possibly hundreds of studies over the years. Wherever you begin in the Optimal Fingerprinting literature (example), all paths lead back to AT99, often via Allen and Stott (2003). So its errors and deficiencies matter acutely.
…
AT99 made a number of contributions. They took note of previous proposals for estimating the greenhouse “signal” in observed climate data and showed that they were equivalent to a statistical technique called Generalized Least Squares (GLS). They then argued that, by construction, their GLS model satisfies the Gauss-Markov (GM) conditions, which according to an important theorem in statistics means it yields unbiased and efficient parameter estimates. (“Unbiased” means the expected value of an estimator equals the true value. “Efficient” means all the available sample information is used, so the estimator has the minimum variance possible.) If an estimator satisfies the GM conditions, it is said to be “BLUE”—the Best (minimum variance) Linear Unbiased Estimator; or the best option out of the entire class of estimators that can be expressed as a linear function of the dependent variable. AT99 claimed that their estimator satisfies the GM conditions and therefore is BLUE, a claim repeated and relied upon subsequently by other authors in the field. They also introduced a “Residual Consistency” (RC) test which they said could be used to assess the validity of the fingerprinting regression model.
Unfortunately these claims are untrue. Their method is not a conventional GLS model. It does not, and cannot, satisfy the GM conditions and in particular it violates an important condition for unbiasedness. And rejection or non-rejection of the RC test tells us nothing about whether the results of an optimal fingerprinting regression are valid.
…
The Gauss-Markov (GM) Theorem
As with regression methods generally, everything in this discussion centres on the GM Theorem. There are two GM conditions that a regression model needs to satisfy to be BLUE. The first, called homoskedasticity, is that the error variances must be constant across the sample. The second, called conditional independence, is that the expected values of the error terms must be independent of the explanatory variables. If homoskedasticity fails, least squares coefficients will still be unbiased but their variance estimates will be biased. If conditional independence fails, least squares coefficients and their variances will be biased and inconsistent, and the regression model output is unreliable. (“Inconsistent” means the coefficient distribution does not converge on the right answer even as the sample size goes to infinite.)
…
AT99 asserted that the signal detection regression model applying the P matrix weights is homoscedastic by construction, therefore it satisfies the GM conditions, therefore its estimates are unbiased and efficient (BLUE). Even if their model yields homoscedastic errors (which is not guaranteed) their statement is obviously incorrect: they left out the conditional independence assumption. Neither AT99 nor—as far as I have seen—anyone in the climate detection field has ever mentioned the conditional independence assumption nor discussed how to test it nor the consequences should it fail.
…
And fail it does—routinely in regression modeling; and when it fails the results can be spectacularly wrong, including wrong signs and meaningless magnitudes. But you won’t know that unless you test for specific violations. In the first version of my paper (written in summer 2019) I criticized the AT99 derivation and then ran a suite of AT99-style optimal fingerprinting regressions using 9 different climate models and showed they routinely fail standard conditional independence tests. And when I implemented some standard remedies, the greenhouse gas signal was no longer detectable. I sent that draft to Allen and Tett in late summer 2019 and asked for their comments, which they undertook to provide. But hearing none after several months I submitted it to the Journal of Climate, requesting Allen and Tett be asked to review it. Tett provided a constructive (signed) review, as did two other anonymous reviewers, one of whom was clearly an econometrician (another might have been Allen but it was anonymous so I don’t know).
…
In my paper I list five assumptions which are necessary for the AT99 model to yield BLUE coefficients, not all of which AT99 stated. All 5 fail by construction. I also list 6 conditions that need to be proven for the AT99 method to be valid. In the absence of such proofs there is no basis for claiming the results of the AT99 method are unbiased or consistent, and the results of the AT99 method (including use of the RC test) should not be considered reliable as regards the effect of GHG’s on the climate.
…
AT99 claimed that a test statistic formed using the signal detection regression residuals and the C matrix from an independent climate model follows a centered chi-squared distribution, and if such a test score is small relative to the 95% chi-squared critical value, the model is validated. More specifically, the null hypothesis is not rejected.
But what is the null hypothesis? Astonishingly it was never written out mathematically in the paper. All AT99 provided was a vague group of statements about noise patterns, ending with a far-reaching claim that if the test doesn’t reject, “then we have no explicit reason to distrust uncertainty estimates based on our analysis.” As a result, researchers have treated the RC test as encompassing every possible specification error, including ones that have no rational connection to it, erroneously treating non-rejection as comprehensive validation of the signal detection regression model specification.
This is incomprehensible to me. If in 1999 someone had submitted a paper to even a low-rank economics journal proposing a specification test in the way that AT99 did, it would have been annihilated at review. They didn’t state the null hypothesis mathematically or list the assumptions necessary to prove its distribution (even asymptotically, let alone exactly), they provided no analysis of its power against alternatives nor did they state any alternative hypotheses in any form so readers have no idea what rejection or non-rejection implies. Specifically, they established no link between the RC test and the GM conditions. I provide in the paper a simple description of a case in which the AT99 model might be biased and inconsistent by construction, yet the RC test would never reject. And supposing that the RC test does reject, which GM condition therefore fails? Nothing in their paper explains that. It’s the only specification test used in the fingerprinting literature and it is utterly meaningless.
…
When I submitted my paper to CD I asked that Allen and Tett be given a chance to provide a reply which would be reviewed along with it. As far as I know this did not happen, instead my paper was reviewed in isolation. When I was notified of its acceptance in late July I sent them a copy with an offer to delay publication until they had a chance to prepare a response, if they wished to do so. I did not hear back from either of them so I proceeded to edit and approve the proofs. I then wrote them again, offering to delay further if they wanted to produce a reply. This time Tett wrote back with some supportive comments about my earlier paper and he encouraged me just to go ahead and publish my comment. I hope they will provide a response at some point, but in the meantime my critique has passed peer review and is unchallenged.
Guessing at Potential Objections
1. Yes but look at all the papers over the years that have successfully applied the AT99 method and detected a role for GHGs. Answer: the fact that a flawed methodology is used hundreds of times does not make the methodology reliable, it just means a lot of flawed results have been published. And the failure to spot the problems means that the people working in the signal detection/Optimal Fingerprinting literature aren’t well-trained in GLS methods. People have assumed, falsely, that the AT99 method yields “BLUE” – i.e. unbiased and efficient – estimates. Maybe some of the past results were correct. The problem is that the basis on which people said so is invalid, so no one knows.
2. Yes but people have used other methods that also detect a causal role for greenhouse gases. Answer: I know. But in past IPCC reports they have acknowledged those methods are weaker as regards proving causality, and they rely even more explicitly on the assumption that climate models are perfect. And the methods based on time series analysis have not adequately grappled with the problem of mismatched integration orders between forcings and observed temperatures. I have some new coauthored work on this in process.
3. Yes but this is just theoretical nitpicking, and I haven’t proven the previously-published results are false. Answer: What I have proven is that the basis for confidence in them is non-existent. AT99 correctly highlighted the importance of the GM theorem but messed up its application. In other work (which will appear in due course) I have found that common signal detection results, even in recent data sets, don’t survive remedying the failures of the GM conditions. If anyone thinks my arguments are mere nitpicking and believes the AT99 method is fundamentally sound, I have listed the six conditions needing to be proven to support such a claim. Good luck.
I am aware that AT99 was followed by Allen and Stott (2003) which proposed TLS for handling errors-in-variables. This doesn’t alleviate any of the problems I have raised herein. And in a separate paper I argue that TLS over-corrects, imparting an upward bias as well as causing severe inefficiency. I am presenting a paper at this year’s climate econometrics conference discussing these results.
Implications
The AR6 Summary paragraph A.1 upgrades IPCC confidence in attribution to “Unequivocal” and the press release boasts of “major advances in the science of attribution.” In reality, for the past 20 years, the climatology profession has been oblivious to the errors in AT99, and untroubled by the complete absence of specification testing in the subsequent fingerprinting literature. These problems mean there is no basis for treating past attribution results based on the AT99 method as robust or valid. The conclusions might by chance have been correct, or totally inaccurate; but without correcting the methodology and applying standard tests for failures of the GM conditions it is mere conjecture to say more than that.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 20 2021 16:46 utc | 173

@172 vk:
What were those clear signs of exhaustion? My recollection of Japan in the 70’s was Sony, Toyota, Nissan, NEC running gangbusters. Every newsrag was telling us how they were going to take over the world.
Kieretsu, baby! This is how you organize manufacturing! Strategic market, core technologies, fusion of bank and manufacturers into one tight-knit, sake-drinking, profit-sharing, risk-syndicating juggernaut.
I also remember that as the time Deming got disgusted with the U.S. indifference to his ideas, and left for Japan, where the reception was a bit warmer.
It was a commerce, technology, manufacturing and cultural volcano. I think that was what put the American elites over the edge, and caused Plaza.
My reading of Plaza is that it didn’t do that much to rein in the Japan trade imbalance with the U.S. I maintain that Japan’s main problem was that their mojo got copied by Korea, the rest of the Asian tigers, and then China squashed all of them.
Remember also, that late 80s and early 90s was when the parade of U.S. manufacturers and leveraged buyouts happened (KKR and Milken spinning up) to move U.S. manufacturing into China.
Nixon had “opened up” China in 72, and by the end of the decade, the foreign investment from U.S. to China was ramping up. This had, and still has, massive trade-flow and company-profitability impacts.
Just like in the U.S., where companies are loathe to make new capacity investments (“because we already have over-capacity on the plant and equip we have”), Japan’s got the same problem. Where has been the market for the past 3 decades for new Japanese industrial capacity?

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Aug 20 2021 16:59 utc | 175

@ Tom Pfotzer (#166), Japan and the U$A suffer from groupthink. They can’t solve their challenges as long as they’re suzerainties, and not sovereign. Their rulers and lackeys are slaves of riches and happy. Gandhalf’s team will fix the situation. “In God We Trust”
All Imperialists must be held accountable and pay damages! The balance sheet will be balanced!

Posted by: Max | Aug 20 2021 17:06 utc | 177

Promising news:
China likely to achieve herd immunity by year-end with 80% population vaccinated: top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan
Also good information:

“The efficacy of Chinese vaccines is around 70 percent. Only if more than 80 percent of the country’s entire population are vaccinated, can it establish herd immunity effectively. China’s vaccination rate [of the population] could probably reach more than 80 percent by the end of this year,” Zhong said at a conference under the 5th China-Arab States Expo held in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on Friday.

That means either that doctor Zhong is confident China will be able to keep the Delta variant at bay and/or that the average Chinese vaccine has kept its efficacy against the Delta variant. Any combination of those hypotheses is very good news.
–//–
@ Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Aug 20 2021 16:59 utc | 175
Japan’s GDP had already slowed down drastically by the time of the oil crisis of 1974-1975. The creation of the Asian Tigers are from this era, and is a symptom of Japanese profitability falling to emergency levels, as Marx’s theory predicted.
Japan will never rise again.

Posted by: vk | Aug 20 2021 17:12 utc | 179

@Tom Pfotzer #175
Your recollection is wrong.
Japan ate the Asian tiger’s lunch: Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. The heyday of the Four Asian Tigers was the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Japan’s heyday was mid 1980s to mid 1990s.
The Plaza Accords weren’t just an exchange rate mechanism – there were also things like requiring build of factories in US, “voluntary” import restrictions on Japan cars etc etc.
China didn’t get started until the mid 1990s although work had begun in the mid 1980s. The Plaza Accords definitely played a huge role since it both handicapped Japan vs. China and handicapped Japan exporting to the US – a double whammy.
I know this not only from an accurate review of history – I was living in Japan in 1999 and people there were already complaining about how terrible things were compared to just a few years before. A restaurant owner near where I lived in Tokyo told me that just 4 years before, the streets would be paved in vomit from salarymen over-drinking and hurling. Now (1999), the entertainment economic activity was still there but down easily 75%.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 20 2021 17:17 utc | 181

Grieved @ 104
“A lot of nurses seem to have quit the profession, but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case. The boilerplate says that they’re “burned out” from the stress of the pandemic, but I wonder how many have simply quit their hospital to become a “Traveling Nurse” to go elsewhere and give vaccinations – for very large amounts of money?”
In (Western) Canada and the UK long term austerity has made the nursing profession intolerable. In my limited understanding this appears true of the entire G7. Yes? No?
All of my medical and case sources must be anonymous. But I assert that they can’t wait get out of profession in many cases, if they haven’t already. The working conditions and now politicization of care has made things intollerable. I can’t really get into the details, but I have seen this on the receiving end of medical care, which I can discuss here.
For example, much of Western Canada has been, due to austerity, in a healthcare crisis for at least ten years. The care is cheap (not free), but only if you can find it.
I have been in Nanaimo for a year but observing it for 5 years. There have been zero, repeat, zero doctors available in here in this time. That was nearly the case for the last 5 years.
Rural BC has a long history of rotating door service from GP’s. They come to small towns but are usually gone two years later. On to greener pastures and just putting their time in.
The only care currently available comes from two sources. You can attend the gov’t walk in clinic downtown. It takes about 4 hours or so. Your alternative is use a large corporation on line. Telus healthcare. Per requirements I have booked a “zoom call” with a GP.
Actually for the last year I have been maintaining my very serious condition using professionals in Alberta. However months ago my GP terminated my service due to not having a license to perform medicine in BC.
In some places you have attend a “board review” before the doctor accepts you. Which they often don’t. You might be either problematic or simply unprofitable. Nice.
Alberta has the highest level of care and management in Western Canada. Canadian politics is not my area (ironically) so I am not to sure whats going on with latest outrage coming from their right leaning gov’t.
Quite the story eh? You can confirm much of this with other commentators on this site.
I should share a story of progressive condition involves should their be interruption in care but that would be narcissistic. “It ain’t pretty leopold. You like me when I’m angry”. Lol.
My point is that when the US right wing complains about our system it is actually well grounded in fact. It doesn’t change the fact that the US are animals to each other, but it is a fact.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 20 2021 17:56 utc | 183

Re: Norwegian | Aug 20 2021 14:29 utc | 152 (and probably others)
Me: The Crash Test Dummy is speaking as I write this. Here I was starting to wonder if someone like Kevin McCarthy, Tom Rotten, I mean Cotton, or someone else of their ilk was the new Gennady Yanayev exactly 30 years later. Perhaps I am speaking too soon, though.

Posted by: William Haught | Aug 20 2021 17:59 utc | 185

Posted by: Paco | Aug 20 2021 17:57 utc | 184
Thanks, I was tring to find how the meeting with Merkel went. Old enemies, not old friends. Sometimes they get almost as comfortable with each other.

Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 20 2021 18:07 utc | 187

Further to my comment @ 176 – over chocolate cake with China Trump announces the drop of the Mother of All Bombs. Wait, that was that other bombing, never mind.
Found b’s comments: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/04/big-bangs-can-not-end-the-war-on-afghanistan-admitting-defeat-will.html
And a link to a link to a link later… here’s something curious. MOAB also is an acronym for Monoclonal Antibody.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Aug 20 2021 18:16 utc | 189

Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 20 2021 18:07 utc | 187
I was frankly disappointed with Merkel, it is her last visit to Moscow even though Vladimir in a very protocolary manner -like the whole event- told her twice that she is welcome as a civilian, but I mean if I’ve been working with someone for sixteen years, I speak the language of that someone and my language is spoken by that someone, well I mean there has to be some kind of human touch to it, remembering sharing a beer or a joke or teaching the other guy a new unknown word or culture detail, but no, freezing in August. She started by announcing a visit to the Unknown Soldier’s grave so as to assume a bit of guilt, but after that symbolic move it was back to the old list of unfounded and unproven accusations. Besides the Germans, who the hell remembers Navalny?

Posted by: Paco | Aug 20 2021 18:19 utc | 191

I was also thinking of starting a club.
The Association of Assassinated Canadian Scientists.
We could award points bases on who killed you. The Mossad, CIA, MI6 and so on. Of course our current president is that Ćanadian guy that was going to put stuff in space using cannon. That’s the spirit… spirit!
So the question is not “Can you do it”, but can you stay alive long enough to get the job done. Which you can’t. Well you might be able to were you rich and enjoyed moving to exotic lands. Short of that I don’t see a way.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 20 2021 18:24 utc | 193

nurse.comic | Aug 20 2021 15:20 utc | 157
Why don’t you blame your government instead of us?

Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 20 2021 18:39 utc | 195

“LOL. Thanks for expressing the satire in your ‘handle’ so we know how to take your comment.” gottlieb @ 160
OMG. One of the problems with being neural atypical is that I “take things” extremely literally. LOL. I did that “triggered liberal” thing and “lost my sh*t”. AND I do comedy myself. LOL.
She got me. 🙂

Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 20 2021 18:55 utc | 197

Posted by: Paco | Aug 20 2021 18:19 utc | 191
Well she has always been disappointing, Merkel. with that little smirk she has.
But still. they have done a lot of business, she is leaving, he is not. Why get upset?
She joins the long list of “Assad must go!” people who are gone while he is not.
I was particularly annoyed with her going along with the Ukraine debacle, so NOT in Germany’s interests, but Putin ate their lunch there, so again, why get upset? I do wonder who will take her place.
Putin likes to maintain appearances, too. Not a bad habit.

Posted by: Bemildred | Aug 20 2021 19:05 utc | 199