Transhumanism, Psychotherapy and ChatBots
Strange times, indeed, folks. Strange times.
Should we be concerned? I think so. In the end, I am sure it will work out, but there will likely be a lot of time between now and the end. So, we will have to endure some pretty radical changes during that time. And many of these changes will not be very pretty.
So, what do I have my shrew ire up about now? Nothing new, really.
I wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek article a while back called “My Brief Love Affair with a ChatBot.” This current article isn’t so light-hearted. Don’t…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/04/transhumanism-psychotherapy-and-chatbots/
Strange times, indeed, folks. Strange times.
Should we be concerned? I think so. In the end, I am sure it will work out, but there will likely be a lot of time between now and the end. So, we will have to endure some pretty radical changes during that time. And many of these changes will not be very pretty.
So, what do I have my shrew ire up about now? Nothing new, really.
I wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek article a while back called “My Brief Love Affair with a ChatBot.” This current article isn’t so light-hearted. Don’t…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/04/transhumanism-psychotherapy-and-chatbots/
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I miss my cat.
He was in a tree the first time I saw him. It wasn’t a big tree, but he wasn’t a big cat. Barely more than a kitten, really, stubby-tailed and squeaky. The branch was no more than three feet off the ground, but he was pretty sure he was stuck.
In the end he figured it out. He was very brave.
The next time I saw him, I threw him a piece of ham.
He was already my cat by then, I just didn’t know it yet. He was young enough and sleek enough and bright-eyed enough that I…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/05/i-miss-my-cat/
He was in a tree the first time I saw him. It wasn’t a big tree, but he wasn’t a big cat. Barely more than a kitten, really, stubby-tailed and squeaky. The branch was no more than three feet off the ground, but he was pretty sure he was stuck.
In the end he figured it out. He was very brave.
The next time I saw him, I threw him a piece of ham.
He was already my cat by then, I just didn’t know it yet. He was young enough and sleek enough and bright-eyed enough that I…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/05/i-miss-my-cat/
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Battlefield America: Trump’s War on the Enemy Within—the American People
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/06/battlefield-america-trumps-war-on-the-enemy-within-the-american-people/
“The era of the Department of Defense is over… From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting… We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country… You kill people and break things for a living.”
Pete Hegseth
“America is under invasion from within… That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within… We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military… it’s the enemy from within, and we have to…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/06/battlefield-america-trumps-war-on-the-enemy-within-the-american-people/
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The BritCard Digital ID Psyop
Apparently, in order to be able to work in the UK, we will all be forced to adopt digital ID—the mandatory so-called BritCard. There is absolutely no public appetite for this, as the more than 2 million and rising (at the time of writing) signatures to the online petition to stop it demonstrates.
Of course, online petitions don’t make any difference to governments, but at least they illustrate to us that government propaganda, such as the IPSOS poll that alleges 57% of the UK public want digital ID, is garbage. Though given IPSOS enormous…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/07/the-britcard-digital-id-psyop/
Apparently, in order to be able to work in the UK, we will all be forced to adopt digital ID—the mandatory so-called BritCard. There is absolutely no public appetite for this, as the more than 2 million and rising (at the time of writing) signatures to the online petition to stop it demonstrates.
Of course, online petitions don’t make any difference to governments, but at least they illustrate to us that government propaganda, such as the IPSOS poll that alleges 57% of the UK public want digital ID, is garbage. Though given IPSOS enormous…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/07/the-britcard-digital-id-psyop/
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Manufacturing Consent: Big Ag’s Playbook of Propaganda and Power
Antonio Gramsci argued that propaganda is the main fabric through which contemporary power asserts itself. For Gramsci, propaganda is central to cultural hegemony; in other words, the dominance of a particular worldview (often that of the ruling class or elite) that is so deeply internalised by society that it becomes ‘common sense’ and uncritically accepted as natural and inevitable.
There are many reasons why transnational agribusiness has been able to secure its dominance in the global food system, not least its enormous economic and political clout. However, Gramsci’s insights, alongside Bernays’s ‘engineering of consent’ and Chomsky and Herman’s media…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/08/manufacturing-consent-big-ags-playbook-of-propaganda-and-power/
Antonio Gramsci argued that propaganda is the main fabric through which contemporary power asserts itself. For Gramsci, propaganda is central to cultural hegemony; in other words, the dominance of a particular worldview (often that of the ruling class or elite) that is so deeply internalised by society that it becomes ‘common sense’ and uncritically accepted as natural and inevitable.
There are many reasons why transnational agribusiness has been able to secure its dominance in the global food system, not least its enormous economic and political clout. However, Gramsci’s insights, alongside Bernays’s ‘engineering of consent’ and Chomsky and Herman’s media…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/08/manufacturing-consent-big-ags-playbook-of-propaganda-and-power/
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Let’s Talk About…Trump’s Gaza Ceasefire
The Big News yesterday was that both sides of the conflict in Gaza have agreed to the first stages of a ceasefire plan put forward by the White House.
Breaking news says the remaining hostages, having somehow escaped being blown up in the indiscriminate bombardment of a tiny city enclave, will be released on Monday as part of a prisoner exchange.
Israel is expecting to begin pulling their forces out of Gaza within hours, with a resumption of aid deliveries.
What are we to make of this?
It depends how the narrative unfolds. My prediction is that this ceasefire…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/09/lets-talk-about-trumps-gaza-ceasefire/
The Big News yesterday was that both sides of the conflict in Gaza have agreed to the first stages of a ceasefire plan put forward by the White House.
Breaking news says the remaining hostages, having somehow escaped being blown up in the indiscriminate bombardment of a tiny city enclave, will be released on Monday as part of a prisoner exchange.
Israel is expecting to begin pulling their forces out of Gaza within hours, with a resumption of aid deliveries.
What are we to make of this?
It depends how the narrative unfolds. My prediction is that this ceasefire…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/09/lets-talk-about-trumps-gaza-ceasefire/
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WATCH: The Lost Art of “Yes, And…” – #SolutionsWatch
Let me give you some advice that could change your life forever. It’s called “yes, and” and it will transform your arguments into productive conversations. Let me show you how.
Sources, shownotes and links – as well as audio versions and download options – can be found here. Previous episodes of #SolutionsWatch can be found here andhere.
Follow us on Telegram for regular updates & commentary...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/10/watch-the-lost-art-of-yes-and-solutionswatch/
Let me give you some advice that could change your life forever. It’s called “yes, and” and it will transform your arguments into productive conversations. Let me show you how.
Sources, shownotes and links – as well as audio versions and download options – can be found here. Previous episodes of #SolutionsWatch can be found here andhere.
Follow us on Telegram for regular updates & commentary...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/10/watch-the-lost-art-of-yes-and-solutionswatch/
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The Very Straight and the Very Narrow
I see a lot of young people in my practice. You know, the kids just out of university and setting out to make their mark in the world. They seem to have a very narrow focus. Get through school and training as effortlessly as possible, find a career that pays really well with little hard work required, and walk as narrow a line as possible by avoiding anything that isn’t part of the mainstream.
I remember when I was a young person (a million years ago), it was simply not like that. Sure, people have wanted money for a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/the-very-straight-and-the-very-narrow/
I see a lot of young people in my practice. You know, the kids just out of university and setting out to make their mark in the world. They seem to have a very narrow focus. Get through school and training as effortlessly as possible, find a career that pays really well with little hard work required, and walk as narrow a line as possible by avoiding anything that isn’t part of the mainstream.
I remember when I was a young person (a million years ago), it was simply not like that. Sure, people have wanted money for a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/the-very-straight-and-the-very-narrow/
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UK Digital ID: The BritCard Bait and Switch
In my previous article I suggested that the UK’s proposed “mandatory” digital ID, called the BritCard, was a bait and switch psyop. I posited that the arguments presented by Keir Starmer’s purported Labour government, to supposedly justify the BritCard rollout, coupled with the timing of the announcement, the apparent inability to understand public opinion, and the lack of necessity for the BritCard, indicated that there was something amiss with the so-called government’s BritCard proposition.
It seems to me that the purpose of the BritCard gambit is to frame the Overton Window for the…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/
In my previous article I suggested that the UK’s proposed “mandatory” digital ID, called the BritCard, was a bait and switch psyop. I posited that the arguments presented by Keir Starmer’s purported Labour government, to supposedly justify the BritCard rollout, coupled with the timing of the announcement, the apparent inability to understand public opinion, and the lack of necessity for the BritCard, indicated that there was something amiss with the so-called government’s BritCard proposition.
It seems to me that the purpose of the BritCard gambit is to frame the Overton Window for the…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/11/uk-digital-id-the-britcard-bait-and-switch/
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This Week in the New Normal #106
Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. Return of the “planetary health diet”
The Lancet has published its review and recommendations for the UN’s “Planetary Health Diet”.
Spoiler alert: They’re in favour of it.
The EAT-Lancet report calls for a global food system that is “healthy, sustainable, and just”, echoing previous calls for a two-thirds reduction in meat production and consumption, with a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/12/this-week-in-the-new-normal-106/
Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. Return of the “planetary health diet”
The Lancet has published its review and recommendations for the UN’s “Planetary Health Diet”.
Spoiler alert: They’re in favour of it.
The EAT-Lancet report calls for a global food system that is “healthy, sustainable, and just”, echoing previous calls for a two-thirds reduction in meat production and consumption, with a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/12/this-week-in-the-new-normal-106/
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Trump’s Everywhere War: An Insurrection Against the Constitution
When the government can label anyone or anything an enemy in order to wage war,…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/13/trumps-everywhere-war-an-insurrection-against-the-constitution/
“When they came in the middle of the night, they terrorized the families that were living there. There were children who were without clothing, they were zip tied, taken outside at 3 o’clock in the morning. A senior resident, an American citizen with no warrants, was taken outside and handcuffed for three hours. Doors were blown off their hinges, walls were broken through, immigration agents coming from Black Hawk helicopters … This is America.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
When the government can label anyone or anything an enemy in order to wage war,…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/13/trumps-everywhere-war-an-insurrection-against-the-constitution/
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Beneath the Flyover, Beside the Temple
The word ‘development’ is often invoked as a moral good. Corporations and international investors regard it as a massive business opportunity, and politicians sell it as a template for ‘progress’.
For decades, development has been framed as the path out of poverty and a holy grail. But there are certain things that are seldom questioned, at least in mainstream narratives: what is development, who defines it, and what does it destroy?
Perhaps we should begin by answering the last question first by turning to India: it destroys the rural—by the deliberate running down of agriculture resulting in a decades-long…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/15/beneath-the-flyover-beside-the-temple/
The word ‘development’ is often invoked as a moral good. Corporations and international investors regard it as a massive business opportunity, and politicians sell it as a template for ‘progress’.
For decades, development has been framed as the path out of poverty and a holy grail. But there are certain things that are seldom questioned, at least in mainstream narratives: what is development, who defines it, and what does it destroy?
Perhaps we should begin by answering the last question first by turning to India: it destroys the rural—by the deliberate running down of agriculture resulting in a decades-long…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/15/beneath-the-flyover-beside-the-temple/
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Russian banks unveil “pay with your palm”
Last week, Russian government officials and representatives from fintech firms gathered for the annual Finopolis forum to discuss the future of Russian finance and banking.
source: https://finopolis.ru/en
The conference was held in the Sirius Federal Territory, located outside of Sochi, which operates under an “experimental legal regime”, allowing the municipality to implement “projects that serve as models for Russian regions”.
Thanks to its special status, Sirius has plans to fast-track the use of robots, artificial intelligence, biometric technologies, and the digital ruble in shops and restaurants.
It’s perhaps no surprise then that Russia’s fintech…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/16/russian-banks-unveil-pay-with-your-palm/
Last week, Russian government officials and representatives from fintech firms gathered for the annual Finopolis forum to discuss the future of Russian finance and banking.
source: https://finopolis.ru/en
The conference was held in the Sirius Federal Territory, located outside of Sochi, which operates under an “experimental legal regime”, allowing the municipality to implement “projects that serve as models for Russian regions”.
Thanks to its special status, Sirius has plans to fast-track the use of robots, artificial intelligence, biometric technologies, and the digital ruble in shops and restaurants.
It’s perhaps no surprise then that Russia’s fintech…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/16/russian-banks-unveil-pay-with-your-palm/
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The BritCard Psyop: What Is True Digital ID in the UK?
The proposed rollout of the so-called BritCard is a bait-and-switch psychological operation (psyop). The evident purpose is to frame the debate about digital ID in the UK by fundamentally misrepresenting what digital ID is.
People often say “if you don’t have anything to hide what’s the problem?” There is no rational argument for allowing people you don’t know and have never met to have any power to control your life. The “nothing to hide” mantra is based on the historically illiterate assumption that you will never have anything to fear from authority. To offer this argument as a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/18/the-britcard-psyop-what-is-true-digital-id-in-the-uk/
The proposed rollout of the so-called BritCard is a bait-and-switch psychological operation (psyop). The evident purpose is to frame the debate about digital ID in the UK by fundamentally misrepresenting what digital ID is.
People often say “if you don’t have anything to hide what’s the problem?” There is no rational argument for allowing people you don’t know and have never met to have any power to control your life. The “nothing to hide” mantra is based on the historically illiterate assumption that you will never have anything to fear from authority. To offer this argument as a…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/18/the-britcard-psyop-what-is-true-digital-id-in-the-uk/
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Slow Drift to New Norms
The agenda moves so slowly that everything they are bucking for will eventually be fact, but no one will think it the least bit odd. It’s like a foxtail slowly digging its way under an unsuspecting dog’s skin, causing serious infection, with the poor animal having no clue it is even there.
I remember when I was a kid and first learned of a technique astronomers used to differentiate a planet from a star. Planets actually move, albeit very slowly to the human eye, stars do not move, so astronomers developed an ingenious method called blink comparison to spot…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/slow-drift-to-new-norms/
The agenda moves so slowly that everything they are bucking for will eventually be fact, but no one will think it the least bit odd. It’s like a foxtail slowly digging its way under an unsuspecting dog’s skin, causing serious infection, with the poor animal having no clue it is even there.
I remember when I was a kid and first learned of a technique astronomers used to differentiate a planet from a star. Planets actually move, albeit very slowly to the human eye, stars do not move, so astronomers developed an ingenious method called blink comparison to spot…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/slow-drift-to-new-norms/
OffGuardian
Slow Drift to New Norms
The agenda moves so slowly that everything they are bucking for will eventually be fact, but no one will think it the least bit odd. It’s like a foxtail slowly digging its way under an unsuspecting…
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The Wheel of Decline
Unlimited growth. It’s the logic that says a business making a tidy profit is, somehow, failing—unless next quarter is bigger, wider, taller, louder, forever. Growth without end. As if anything in the known universe behaves like that, beyond mould, death and taxes.
Once upon a time—and by that I mean from the dawn of bartering until fairly recently—you made a thing and, if other humans liked it, they gave you something for it. A shoemaker made shoes. If he sold two pairs in a month, that was a good month. No one turned up at his door to inform…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/the-wheel-of-decline/
Unlimited growth. It’s the logic that says a business making a tidy profit is, somehow, failing—unless next quarter is bigger, wider, taller, louder, forever. Growth without end. As if anything in the known universe behaves like that, beyond mould, death and taxes.
Once upon a time—and by that I mean from the dawn of bartering until fairly recently—you made a thing and, if other humans liked it, they gave you something for it. A shoemaker made shoes. If he sold two pairs in a month, that was a good month. No one turned up at his door to inform…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/the-wheel-of-decline/
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The Masks Have Come Off
If you believe what is written on those hats worn in the Israeli Knesset – “Trump the Peace President” – you are deluded beyond hope. Halloween may be coming, but you don’t need a frightening mask to realize the horrors that confront us. Trump is the culmination of a long developing horror story.
Unlike his predecessors who prepared the way for him and who generally wore traditionally allaying masks to hide their evil actions, he is the greatest blatant fraud to ever occupy the White House. He is a war monger, a genocidal killer, and an enemy of people…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/the-masks-have-come-off/
If you believe what is written on those hats worn in the Israeli Knesset – “Trump the Peace President” – you are deluded beyond hope. Halloween may be coming, but you don’t need a frightening mask to realize the horrors that confront us. Trump is the culmination of a long developing horror story.
Unlike his predecessors who prepared the way for him and who generally wore traditionally allaying masks to hide their evil actions, he is the greatest blatant fraud to ever occupy the White House. He is a war monger, a genocidal killer, and an enemy of people…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/19/the-masks-have-come-off/
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Police State Bounty Hunters: The Rise of ICE’s Unconstitutional War on America
Masked gunmen. Tasers. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Unmarked vehicles. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Racial profiling. Children traumatized. Families terrorized. Journalists targeted. Citizens detained. Disabled individuals, minors, the elderly, pregnant women, military veterans—snatched off the streets. Private property destroyed.
This is not a war zone. This is America.
This is what now passes for law-and-order policing by ICE agents in Trump’s America—and it is not making America safer or greater.
What began as an agency tasked with enforcing immigration law has…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/20/police-state-bounty-hunters-the-rise-of-ices-unconstitutional-war-on-america/
“Brother, I am American. You are twisting my arm.”
Man shouts “I am American” while ICE agents detain him
Masked gunmen. Tasers. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Unmarked vehicles. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Racial profiling. Children traumatized. Families terrorized. Journalists targeted. Citizens detained. Disabled individuals, minors, the elderly, pregnant women, military veterans—snatched off the streets. Private property destroyed.
This is not a war zone. This is America.
This is what now passes for law-and-order policing by ICE agents in Trump’s America—and it is not making America safer or greater.
What began as an agency tasked with enforcing immigration law has…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/20/police-state-bounty-hunters-the-rise-of-ices-unconstitutional-war-on-america/
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Beyond the Farm Laws: Corporate Cloud Poised to Reign Over India’s Fields
Nearly four years after India’s historic year-long farmers’ protests forced the repeal of three pro-corporate farm laws, it is clear that the government’s underlying agenda remains intact. The repeal was little more than a tactical retreat.
Today, the same agenda of corporatisation (recolonisation) is being advanced through bureaucratic schemes, digital agriculture partnerships and policy frameworks that promote ‘efficiency’ and ‘modernisation’.
The book Food Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order offers insights into India’s agrarian crisis, with multiple chapters and substantial sections analysing the impact of neoliberal policies, the Green Revolution and the farm laws. In that…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/21/beyond-the-farm-laws-corporate-cloud-poised-to-reign-over-indias-fields/
Nearly four years after India’s historic year-long farmers’ protests forced the repeal of three pro-corporate farm laws, it is clear that the government’s underlying agenda remains intact. The repeal was little more than a tactical retreat.
Today, the same agenda of corporatisation (recolonisation) is being advanced through bureaucratic schemes, digital agriculture partnerships and policy frameworks that promote ‘efficiency’ and ‘modernisation’.
The book Food Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order offers insights into India’s agrarian crisis, with multiple chapters and substantial sections analysing the impact of neoliberal policies, the Green Revolution and the farm laws. In that…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/21/beyond-the-farm-laws-corporate-cloud-poised-to-reign-over-indias-fields/
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They’re Coming for Your Wood-Burning Stove. Again.
The weather is getting colder, and that means getting back to anti-wood-burning propaganda.
Did you know a wood burner can kill you? They pollute more than cars and cause cancer, “similar to cigarette smoke,” and so on.
Jeremy Vine isasking if it’s time to ban them.
This isn’t new – for want of a better word – “information”. We covered this last Christmas. Then over the summer, it was folded in with a barrage of “indoor air quality” fear-mongering, only to re-emerge now that the days are getting shorter again.
Sort of like…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/22/theyre-coming-for-your-wood-burning-stove-again/
The weather is getting colder, and that means getting back to anti-wood-burning propaganda.
Did you know a wood burner can kill you? They pollute more than cars and cause cancer, “similar to cigarette smoke,” and so on.
Jeremy Vine isasking if it’s time to ban them.
This isn’t new – for want of a better word – “information”. We covered this last Christmas. Then over the summer, it was folded in with a barrage of “indoor air quality” fear-mongering, only to re-emerge now that the days are getting shorter again.
Sort of like…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/22/theyre-coming-for-your-wood-burning-stove-again/
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Quick Take: I Don’t Trust Mainstream Epstein Coverage
Everyone has been talking about Jeffrey Epstein for the last few days, and everyone is asking, “Why isn’t anyone talking about Epstein?”
Which doesn’t make any sense because, you know…everyone is talking about it.
This is not an uncommon situation, where a supposedly taboo subject is plastered across every front page and news channel to highlight its alleged absence from same, but it’s always worth pointing out when it happens.
The furore has kicked up due to the publication of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl.
As with all taboo, establishment-destroying memoirs, it was published by…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/23/quick-take-i-dont-trust-mainstream-epstein-coverage/
Everyone has been talking about Jeffrey Epstein for the last few days, and everyone is asking, “Why isn’t anyone talking about Epstein?”
Which doesn’t make any sense because, you know…everyone is talking about it.
This is not an uncommon situation, where a supposedly taboo subject is plastered across every front page and news channel to highlight its alleged absence from same, but it’s always worth pointing out when it happens.
The furore has kicked up due to the publication of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl.
As with all taboo, establishment-destroying memoirs, it was published by…...
Read full article ...
https://off-guardian.org/2025/10/23/quick-take-i-dont-trust-mainstream-epstein-coverage/
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