Former World Health Organisation medical officer Dr David Bell says talks to draw up a global pact to help fight future pandemics is a “business scheme” based on a “fallacy” there is an increasing risk of widespread epidemics.
The WHO’s 194 member states are attempting to strike a landmark global agreement on handling future pandemics.
“It’s a business scheme on a level we’ve never seen before to channel public funds into pharmaceutical companies and investment houses that own them,” Dr Bell told Sky News Australia.
“In the process impoverish the population and take away the basic freedoms we thought were ours.”
This interview on The Outsiders was recorded the day after our International Press Conference last weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V58v-sRK8M
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Global pact to fight future pandemics is a “business scheme”
Friday, May 17, 2024
Only 4 to 5% of COVID vaccine batches responsible for all vaccination-related deaths
Startling Revelation: Only 4 to 5% of COVID Vaccine Batches Responsible for All Vaccination-Related Deaths, Yet U.S. Medicine Regulators Turn a Blind Eye!
By The Exposé on December 8, 2023
An investigation of official U.S. Government data, provided by the Centers for Disease Control, has revealed that extremely high numbers of adverse reactions and deaths have been reported against specific lot numbers of the Covid-19 vaccines numerous times.
This means the deadliest batches of Covid-19 vaccine have now been identified but Medicine Regulators have refused to withdraw them and they are still being administered to the public.
The figures reveal that every single death reported as an adverse reaction to the Covid-19 injections has been caused by just 4 to 5% of the batches of Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines produced.
But what’s perhaps more concerning is that the small minority of “deadly” lots were distributed widely across the United States, while other “benign” lots were sent to just a few locations.
The data used in the investigation was pulled from the publicly accessible VAERS database which can be viewed here. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a United States programme for vaccine safety, co-managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The programme collects information via reports made by doctors, nurses, and patients about adverse events (possible harmful side effects) that occur after the administration of vaccines to ascertain whether the risk-benefit ratio is high enough to justify the continued use of any particular vaccine.
The reports pulled from the database were ones that had been submitted up to October 15th 2021 and they included all adverse reactions reported against the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Covid-19 injections, as well as all adverse reactions reported against the influenza vaccines; which were used to generate a control dataset.
The VAERS database showed a total of 1,608 adverse event reports against the flu vaccines alongside 15 deaths and 73 hospitalisations. The total count of lot numbers returned was 494.
The ‘lot number’ is a specific string of numbers and letters that tracks a specific batch of vaccine from production and into a person’s arm and it is usually found on a vaccine label or accompanying packaging.
The above chart shows the number of adverse event reports made to VAERS against the influenza vaccines sorted by the lot number of vaccine that was administered prior to the adverse event.
Except for a few spikes, the number of adverse events per lot number was generally the same, with no more than 26 reports being made against a single lot number of influenza vaccine.
The above charts show the count of lots by the number of reports of adverse reactions per lot for the influenza vaccines. It shows that 33% of the lots (165 / 494) only had a single adverse reaction report made against them, whilst just 0.6% of the lots (3 / 494) had at least 20 adverse reaction reports made against them.
The above chart shows how many times a specific lot number was identified in an adverse reaction report of which the person had died following vaccination against the Flu. Ninety-seven percent of the lots (480 / 494) were associated with zero deaths, whilst 13 lots were associated with a single death and 1 lot was associated with 2 deaths.
The above chart shows the number of states within the USA a specific log number of the influenza vaccine was distributed to.
The VAERS data shows that 44% of the lots (219 / 494) were sent to just a single state within the USA, whilst a further 17% (86 / 494) were sent to 2 states, 10% (50 / 494) were sent to 3 states, 5% (24 / 494) were sent to 4 states, 3% (17 / 494) were sent to 5 states, 2% (11 / 494) were sent to 6 states, and just 0.4 (2 / 494) were sent to 12 states within the USA.
All of the above data was then used as a control dataset to compare against VAERS data for the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.
The VAERS database showed a total of 171,463 adverse event reports against the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine alongside 2,828 deaths and 14,262 hospitalisations. The total count of lot numbers returned was 4,522.
This data alone shows that there have been 106 times as many adverse reactions, 189 times as many deaths, and 195 times as many hospitalisations due to the Pfizer Covid-19 jab than there have been due to all other influenza vaccines combined.
The above chart shows the number of adverse event reports made to VAERS against the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine sorted by the lot number of vaccine that was administered prior to the adverse event. Unfortunately, we do not have reliable information about standard lot sizes.
The highest number of adverse event reports made to VAERS against a single lot number of the influenza vaccine was 26. Which makes it all the more shocking to discover that the highest number of adverse event reports made to VAERS against a single lot number of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine up to October 15th 2021 was 3,563, and this isn’t an anomaly.
Thousands of adverse event reports have been made against a single lot number of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine numerous times, and unfortunately, the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine hasn’t fared any better.
The VAERS database showed a total of 188,998 adverse event reports against the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine alongside 2,603 deaths and 10,225 hospitalisations. The total count of lot numbers returned was 5,510.
This data alone shows that there have been 118 times as many adverse reactions, 174 times as many deaths, and 140 times as many hospitalisations due to the Moderna Covid-19 jab than there have been due to all other influenza vaccines combined.
The above chart shows the number of adverse event reports made to VAERS against the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine sorted by the lot number of vaccine that was administered prior to the adverse event, and it shows that the Moderna jab fared even worse than the Pfizer jab in this department with the highest number of adverse event reports against a single lot number of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine totalling a staggering 4,967.
The above chart shows the count of lots against the range of adverse events reported per lot of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. The data reveals that 2,908 lots (64%) had just a single adverse event report made against them, whilst 2 specific lots had over 3000 adverse event reports made against them.
Shockingly we can also see from the data that 30 lots of Pfizer vaccine had between 1,000 and 1,499 adverse event reports per lot, another 20 lots had between 1,500 and 1,999 adverse event reports per lot, and another 23 lots had between 2,000 and 2,499 adverse event reports per lot.
This suggests that there was a small number of dangerous batches of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and a large quantity of seemingly harmless (at least in the short term) batches of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.
But the investigation of VAERS data also revealed that reported deaths due to the Pfizer vaccine were again only associated with certain batches of the jab. The chart above shows that 96% of the lots of Pfizer vaccine had zero death reports made against them. Meaning the 2,828 reported deaths were associated with just 4% of the lots of Pfizer vaccine.
Five lot numbers were associated with 61-80 deaths each, a further 5 lot numbers were associated with 81-100 deaths each, and just 2 separate lot numbers were associated with over 100 deaths each.
The same can be seen for the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. Ninety-five percent of the lots of Moderna vaccine had zero death reports made against them. Meaning the 2,603 deaths were associated with just 5% of the lots of Moderna vaccine.
Thirteen lot numbers were associated with 41-60 deaths each, 2 lot numbers were associated with 61-80 deaths each and 1 lot number was associated with 81-100 deaths.
The investigation of VAERS data also found that specific batches of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines which were distributed to between 13 and 50 states across the USA had an unusually high number of adverse event reports and deaths compared to lots that were distributed to 12 states or less across the USA
As you can see from the above table 4,289 different lots of Pfizer vaccine were distributed to 12 states or less across the USA, recording 9,141 adverse event reports against them alongside 99 deaths and 657 hospitalisations. This equates to an average of 2 adverse event reports per lot and 0 deaths and hospitalisations.
However, a further 130 different lots of Pfizer vaccine were distributed to between 13-50 states across the USA, recording 166,170 adverse event reports, 2,799 deaths, and 14,155 hospitalisations. This equates to an average of 1,278 adverse event reports per lot number, alongside 22 deaths and 109 hospitalisations.
This data, therefore, shows that each lot from the 130 different lot numbers of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine distributed to more than 13 states, harmed on average 639 times more people, hospitalised on average 109 times more people, and killed on average 22 times more people.
The above chart on the left shows the number of adverse event reports by lot number sent to 13 or more states across the USA. This chart has identified the actual lot numbers of Pfizer vaccine that have caused the most harm in the USA. The most harmful of which is lot number ‘EK9231’; causing over 3,500 adverse event reports.
The above chart on the left shows the number of deaths reported as adverse reactions to the Pfizer vaccine by lot number sent to 13+ states across the USA. This chart has identified the actual lot numbers of Pfizer vaccine that have caused the most deaths in the USA. The deadliest of which is lot number ‘EN6201’ causing almost 120 deaths.
The above chart on the left shows the number of adverse event reports against the Moderna vaccine by lot number sent to 13 or more states across the USA. This chart has identified the actual lot numbers of Moderna vaccine that have caused the most harm in the USA. The most harmful of which is lot number ‘039K20A’; causing over 4,000 adverse event reports.
The second most harmful batch of Moderna vaccine was assigned lot number ‘041L20A’, and media reports show that it was actually recalled by the Orange County Healthcare Agency in January 2021 following reports of allergic reactions.
The above chart on the left shows the number of deaths reported as adverse reactions to the Moderna vaccine by lot number sent to 13+ states across the USA. This chart has identified the actual lot numbers of the Moderna vaccine that have caused the most deaths in the USA. The deadliest of which is lot number ‘039K20A’ causing almost 100 deaths.
Conclusion
This investigation of VAERS data reveals several concerning findings which warrant further investigation, but it also leads to questions of why authorities within the USA, which are supposed to monitor the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine,s have not discovered this themselves.
The data clearly shows that the Covid-19 vaccination campaign has been significantly more harmful and deadly than the influenza vaccination campaign. This fact alone begs the question as to how the FDA advisory committee could possibly vote Seventeen to Zero in favour of approving the Pfizer vaccine for use in children aged 5 to 11.
One voting member of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee admitted that it will not be fully known whether Pfizer’s vaccine is safe for 5 to 11-year-old children until it begins being administered.
Dr Eric Rubin of Harvard University said – “We’re never going to learn how safe the vaccine is unless we start giving it, and that’s just the way it goes”.
But the investigation of VAERS has also identified the specific batches of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that have caused the most harm across the USA, which leads to other extremely serious questions requiring urgent answers.
Why is it that certain batches of the vaccine have proven to be more harmful than others?
Why is it that certain batches of Covid-19 vaccine have proven to be deadlier than others?
Why is it that the most harmful and deadly Covid-19 vaccines were distributed across the entire USA, whilst the least harmful and deadly were only ever distributed to a few states? Was this done on purpose?
Could this just be a quality control issue?
A Pfizer whistleblower from a Kansas manufacturing facility did after all reveal that “People are being made to sign off on things that normally they wouldn’t, and then they wonder why their own employees won’t take it”.
New heart syndrome affects 90% of US population
Brand-new heart syndrome reportedly affects 90% of U.S. population, American Medical Association claims, no explanation offered
Mysterious Brand-New Heart Syndrome Reportedly Affects 90% of U.S. Population
COVID Propaganda Roundup: The latest updates on the “new normal” – chronicling the lies, distortions, and abuses by the ruling class.
By Ben Bartee
Global Research, May 14, 2024
Via American Heart Association, October 2023:
“Health experts are redefining cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, prevention and management, according to a new American Heart Association presidential advisory published today in the Association’s flagship journal Circulation.
Various aspects of cardiovascular disease that overlap with kidney disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity support the new approach. For the first time, the American Heart Association defines the overlap in these conditions as cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome. People who have or are at risk for cardiovascular disease may have CKM syndrome…
According to the American Heart Association’s 2023 Statistical Update, 1 in 3 U.S. adults have three or more risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders and/or kidney disease. CKM affects nearly every major organ in the body, including the heart, brain, kidney and liver. However, the biggest impact is on the cardiovascular system, affecting blood vessels and heart muscle function, the rate of fatty buildup in arteries, electrical impulses in the heart and more.”
Although the diagnostic designation CKM only materialized last fall, according to recently released data from the Journal of the American Medical Association, a full 90% of Americans might be afflicted.
Via Healthline (emphasis added):
“A new study has revealed that roughly 90% of Americans may have cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome.
The risks are greatest among older adults, men, and Black individuals, the report, which was published in JAMA Wednesday, found.
The American Heart Association (AHA) introduced a new staging system in 2023 — called CKM syndrome — to better treat and manage cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases, since they are deeply connected and often require a multidisciplinary approach.
CKM syndrome is a systemic disorder that has links between heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and obesity.”
Via Journal of the American Medical Association (emphasis added):
“Almost 90% of US adults met criteria for CKM syndrome (stage 1 or higher) and 15% met criteria for advanced stages, neither of which improved between 2011 and 2020. The lack of progress, in part, may reflect concomitant improvement and worsening of different risk factors over time. Substantial between-subgroup differences in advanced stages were observed, with older age, men, and Black adults at increased risk.”
A 90% diagnosis rate for a newborn medical condition impacting multiple organs simultaneously would seem to beg for deep, deliberate, comprehensive reflection within the medical community — the kind of sweeping mobilization of resources seen during Operation Warp Speed — to ferret out root causes, which in other contexts, like mass migration, the likes of the Karamel-uh entity are exceptionally curious about.
…Unless, of course, true healthcare isn’t the overriding objective of the brand of institutionalized, corporatized “healthcare” championed by the governing authorities and industry.
One doesn’t require an epidemiology degree to get the sense that whatever is triggering functional meltdowns in multiple organs at once in 90% of a population is probably something coming from a source ubiquitous in the environment, like the food supply, or the water, or the tip of a syringe filled with a certain experimental gene therapy — or all three at once.
Yet — and you’ll be shocked to learn this — perusing all of the literature on CMK pushed out by mainstream outlets and medical organizations like the AMA, there is a palpable lack of interest in asking fundamental questions.
What they are interested in, and what we can expect coming down the pipeline, is new patented drugs for CMK to the great ecstasy of Pfizer and Merck shareholders.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is anathema to the industry’s business model, so what we get is the inverse paradigm.
*
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.
https://armageddonprose.substack.com/p/mysterious-brand-new-heart-syndrome
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
Doctors Were Bribed to Push Covid Shots
Top Cardiologist Blows Whistle: Doctors Were Bribed to Push Covid Shots
Frank Bergman
May 12, 2024
One of the world’s leading cardiologists has blown the whistle to alert the public to a bribery scheme that led to doctors everywhere pushing Covid mRNA shots onto their patients.
Renowned cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough recently revealed startling figures to highlight this bribery scheme.
The figures expose the staggering earnings that doctors received for pushing the experimental injections.
Speaking during an appearance on the “Tommy T Podcast,” McCullough explained how t a typical doctor could earn huge bonuses if they injected a substantial portion of their patients.
More specifically, if a doctor injected 75% of his or her patients at $250 per newly injected person, that would end up being around $250,000.
This revelation was discovered through a leaked Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield document.
McCullough explained that a full-time primary care physician typically manages a patient panel ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 people covered by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Factoring in the incentive, 1,000 newly vaccinated patients, at $250 per person, equates to a $250,000 bonus for the doctor.
REPORT: Dr. Peter McCullough tells Tommy T that doctors were BRIBED to push the COVID vaccines.
A typical doctor could make an extra $250,000 if they injected 75% of their patients.
This was discovered through a leaked Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield document.
The question is,… pic.twitter.com/iANBzBB59A
— The Vigilant Fox ?? (@VigilantFox) May 12, 2024
Some doctors made less; some made more, depending on how many patients they injected.
However, doctors were financially incentivized to inject as many patients as possible, despite the risks to public health.
The question is, was Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield incentivizing doctors?
Or, were they being paid to do so by the federal government?
The comments from McCullough come amid a flood of whistleblowers speaking out about the mass vaccination campaign.
Earlier this week, a Pfizer insider leaked documents showing that the pharmaceutical giant offered “separate” doses of vaccines to employees and elites.
As Slay News reported, the documents assure those offered the special injection that it is “distinct” from the shots given to the general public.
“The vaccine doses to be used for this program are separate and distinct from those committed by Pfizer to governments around the world,” a Pfizer email to high-level employees reads.
Meanwhile, another Pfizer whistleblower put out a video statement to confirm that she is “not suicidal.”
Former Pfizer employee Melissa McAtee issued the warning following the recent sudden deaths of two Boeing whistleblowers.
McAtee leaked internal Pfizer emails alleging the use of human fetal tissue-derived cell lines in mRNA vaccine lab tests.
She also alerted the public about concerns regarding vaccine ingredients and their links to injuries and deaths.
Additionally, Bill Gates’ former vaccine advisor has issued a red alert to the public, warning that a “wave” of “unprecedented death” is about to “decimate” the Covid-vaccinated.
As Slay News reported, former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation scientist Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche warned that populations around the world will soon experience a “completely unprecedented” plunge.
Bossche predicts that the death toll will be “up to 30-40% in highly vaccinated countries.”
“What we will see is something completely, completely unprecedented in terms of the magnitude of the wave of morbidity and unfortunately mortality that we will see,” he warned.
Australia: ABC-RMIT FactCheck is a Scam
Australia: ABC-RMIT FactCheck is a Scam
By Rhoda Wilson on August 16, 2022
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (“ABC”) and RMIT University might well be a match made in heaven. Or, more likely, hell. These two Covid State acolyte institutions, beyond-woke corporates both, true believers in the climate hysteria and, ironically, servants of Big Pharma, have teamed up to form a fact-checking outfit.
By Paul Collits
This ABC-RMIT scam, the so-called “Fact Check”, consists of seven elements:
It is essentially ideological, that is, it only selectively and very carefully investigates certain viewpoints on certain issues deemed to be counter to its own priorities;
Its principal purpose is narrative maintenance;
Its method is to cherry-pick what it takes to be soft targets and weakly stated arguments, so avoiding the heavy hitters among its opponents, many of whom have published counter-narratives in peer-reviewed journals;
Its activities are wrapped in the language of “fact-checking”, which in turn is given life by the allegation of “fake news” that is abroad;
It receives cover for its activities by virtue of the (farcical) veneer of university “independence” and scholarship;
It draws upon a plentiful and easily accessible band of tame, on-side academics to bolster the case studies;
It rubbishesopposing viewpoints (with a veneer of scholarship) as but one tactic among several in the overall exercise, the other tactics being to ignore or to silence such viewpoints (through censorship, de-platforming, cancel culture, shadow banning, bullying, threats and so on).
This is very, very clever stuff. It is also thinly disguised propaganda. Using methods of which Joseph Goebbels, the CIA and Edward Bernays, the godfather of marketing, would be proud. Redolent of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
These two Covid State activists were out of the blocks pretty smartly – in March 2020, in fact. Almost as if they were ready for the “pandemic”. Knew it was coming, even. And realised its potential for furthering their shared agendas. Perhaps they were tipped off by Brett Sutton’s sister-in-law, Jane Halton, Australia’s pandemicist-in-chief, who attended Bill Gates’ October 2019 pandemic planning “hypothetical” (Event 201). The Covid State, is, after all, highly inter-connected. (A little like the Get Pell team which is now revving up again).
Here is the stated rationale for the ABC-RMIT Fact Check machine:
With the world in the grip of an unprecedented health crisis, RMIT ABC Fact Check is launching CoronaCheck to ensure that the information we share is accurate and fact-based.
Fact-checking during the pandemic, RMIT Australia, 26 March 2020
Unprecedented? I think not, as almost anyone apart from Professor Pantsdown, Neil Ferguson, and Anthony Fauci now recognises. Indeed, some of us recognised it from the start.
Ruther reading: The Establishment’s Crisis, Paul Collits, 25 March 2020
We are not in the midst of a health crisis, and we never were. We have been in the midst of an economic and liberal-democratic crisis brought about by a cabal of committed and focused globalists, useful idiot politicians here and abroad, committed medical fascism practitioners embedded in government bureaucracies, corporates, universities and media, and clueless punters who love nothing more than a pretend crisis and the excitement it generates in their otherwise dull lives. Not to mention the fresh opportunities for virtue signalling and lording it over the deplorables and dissidents.
That an institution supposedly dedicated to rigour in research could make such a claim only weeks into WuFlu is breathtaking. It suggests RMIT and the ABC were dusting off their ideological weaponry for the next opportunity to advance the cause of what CJ Hopkins calls “GloboCap”, and what we know simply to be the ruling class elite.
Sitting astride this very peculiar collaboration with our ABC is RMIT’s FactLab:
RMIT FactLab is a research hub dedicated to debunking misinformation online and developing critical awareness about its origins and spread. The hub also conducts original research into the digital news ecosystem.
RMIT FactLab is devoted to social media verification, research and education. It brings together the best of quality journalism and academic excellence to build awareness of the damaging impact of bad information. With misinformation on the rise worldwide, it is engaged in building tools and strategies to combat the viral spread of misleading and false information on social media platforms.
RMIT FactLab also works hand in hand with RMIT ABC Fact Check, a partnership between RMIT University and the ABC which focuses on fact-checking claims by public figures.
RMIT FactLab
I should disclose that I spent some years working at RMIT, years that I will never get back. I should also mention that I have previously taken to task my former colleague, David Hayward, for his (probably willful, and certainly sloppy) misstatements – putting it kindly – about Covid vaccinations and related matters.
Further reading: Academics without intellect – but plenty of cash, Paul Collits, 8 December 2021
Fact-checking Covid claims seems to be a preoccupation of both RMIT and of the ABC. In their latest investigation, they are picking on, of all people, the NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet, for his reported recent, off-the-cuff claims about the relative seriousness of Covid and influenza. Here is what he said:
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has warned this winter’s strain of influenza can be more severe than Covid 19 – as he calls for Australia to review the seven-day pandemic isolation rule.
During an interview with 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Monday, Mr Perrottet argued the current strain of influenza was ‘more severe than the current strains of Covid’ but, under the country’s health rules, Australians must self-isolate for seven days after infection with the virus.
Dominic Perrottet warns the flu is more severe than the current strain of Covid-19 – and says it’s time for the government to review the seven-day isolation rule, Daily Mail, 18 July 2022
So, the claim was the current flu is worse than the current (Omicron) Covid strain. A seemingly reasonable thing to have said, in support of a quite reasonable policy action to have taken. That the ABC and RMIT sought to challenge Perrottet says three things.
First, these anything-but-scholarly-and-intellectually-robust institutions will go to any lengths to keep the fear campaign over Covid lapping along. It simply cannot be allowed to be walked back by the useful Covid idiots that run the country, but who, collectively, sense growing public ennui over the CCP virus. Despite the persistently high cases, hospitalisations and deaths. Among a highly vaccinated population, it needs to be said (over and over again). In short, the tough rules should never be loosened, even marginally. They should be tightened! This is all part of an attempt by the medical industrial complex to bring back the masks and the distancing and, no doubt, the lockdowns. Alas, for them, the useful idiots are in election or pre-election mode, and plan to stay that way. We even have a unity ticket now between non-natural allies Perrottet and Mr Lockdown himself, Daniel Andrews.
Second, RMIT and the ABC are paid-up members of the Covid State, and all that it connotes. Public duty over individual self-concern. Coercion over choice. Big government over freedom. The establishment over Covid dissidents, outliers like (to them) the abominable Christensen and Craig Kelly, and, as they no doubt would have it “conspiracy theorists”. The surveillance state over individual rights. Social credit to come, no doubt. Scientism turbo-charged. Use of the Covid State methods to enact climate clampdowns. The corporate ideologies of the ABC and of RMIT align splendidly with the current iteration of the administrative state and of the emerging globalist clerisy. They want us all to “build back better” and to embrace the new normal. They are fully on board with the medical Reich. They cheer on the silencing and cancelling of heterodox views, the censorship practised daily by social media companies. Indeed, RMIT has partnered with the parent company of Facebook and Instagram (Meta) to join in the censorship, the lying about and the bullying of opponents. Remember, this is a university doing this. The ABC and RMIT are, clearly, two institutions (among many, alas) that wish to embrace Rahm Emanuel’s strategy of never letting a crisis go to waste.
And third, RMIT and the ABC have always been, and remain, fundamentally committed to activist journalism. To describe whatthey are doing as “fact-checking” is to stretch the meaning of that phrase way beyond what it will bear.
Some recent examples of the things that RMIT chooses to fact-check give the ideological game away:
Survey suggests a short-term link between vaccines and periods, but no need for alarm.
Nothing to see here, then. Despite masses of evidence to the contrary, from all over the planet. Speaking of the planet, then there is the “unprecedented” climate “emergency” that has attracted the snoops at RMIT:
No, polar bear numbers haven’t exploded.
It is safe to keep lamenting the decline of polar bear numbers, due, ahem, to global warming and melting icecaps.
Then there was this:
Mark Latham says 13,699 NSW teachers are not allowed to teach because of vaccine mandates. Verdict: Mr Latham’s claim is misleading.
Oh, then there are Safe Schools:
Safe Schools program does not require primary school kids to discuss explicit sexual matters with parents.
No, nothing to worry about there. Dangerous Covid jabs? Nope, all is safe and fit-for-purpose:
Former AFL stars wrongly suggest heart issues going ‘through the roof’ due to COVID jabs.
The causes of the current global inflation?
Facebook posts claiming the war in Ukraine “is not the reason” for higher petrol prices are false.
Protecting the Covid narrative, indirectly. Clever stuff. Excess deaths and vaccines?
Covid-19 vaccinations have not caused excess deaths among American millennials.
We simply must not let the obvious connections between the two seep into the public consciousness.
I imagine readers are getting the drift?
I am guessing that the good fact-checkers of the RMIT-ABC industrial complex are not going to be investigating, say, the increase in suicides as a result of lockdowns under Daniel Andrews, or the decline in fertility and increase in stillbirths following vaccinations, unless, of course, it was to debunk any claims along these lines, or the impact of lockdowns on the educational progress of children, or the impact of abortion on the wellbeing of women who have had “terminations”, or the extent of patriarchy and sex abuse in remote Indigenous communities, or the veracity of Tim Flannery’s prediction some years back that the dams would never fill again. No, I do not think the RMIT fact-checkers and their ABC mates ever venture from their ideological lane. The old left – the good old left, you might say – used to rail against the capitalist state and the capitalist media for the things left off the agenda as well as the bias in choosing things to report. Now, we have alleged scholars and researchers at mainline universities committing the same sins that the old left correctly abhorred. Debunking misinformation, they claim. Mostly, they are taking on straw men. Sorry, straw persons. Or attributing claims to ideological opponents that the latter never made. Apart from the utter arrogance of the language used – as if complex scientific and social phenomena and inherently controversial debates can simply be reduced to “misinformation” to be “debunked” – we should be alarmed by the very nature of this task.
Here is another headline from one of RMIT FactLab’s recent “investigations”, again germane to the Covid State: ‘No, Bill Gates does not plan to depopulate the earth with vaccinations’.
What on earth is RMIT doing defending Bill Gates? And defending him, specifically, against the quite plausible claim that this vaccine guru and son-of-a-eugenicist who has publicly endorsed a 15 per cent reduction in the world’s population aspires to using vaccinations to reduce the earth’s population? Who champions vaccines that do not work as claimed, are not needed by most people (the young and the healthy) and are dangerous, indeed, lethal, for many who take the jab. Experimental vaccines that have been linked to tens of thousands of deaths and whose rollout has coincided with an uptick in excess non-Covid deaths in many countries.
Further reading: The Murdoch Media and the Pandemic of the Vaccinated, Paul Collits
Fact-check that, RMIT!
There are two reasons for this otherwise bizarre defence of a gazillionaire by an institution direct from central socialist casting. One, RMIT is totally on board with pro-vaxx stances. And two, RMIT, like every second university and media organisation in the world, is a recipient of Gates’ financial largesse. Most Australian university-based medical research institutes, including many whose “experts” are routinely wheeled out to defend this or that Covid State policy, has received funding from Gates. Often for vaccine research.
This is what Gates funded RMIT to do: To test whether infant footprints captured by low-tech mobile phone cameras could provide a biometric identification system for use in immunisation programs.
Good grief. Where to start in being alarmed about what is going on, under the radar, in Australian medical research and plans for a bio-digital future?
Some years back, Gates set out to create and fund a “decade of vaccines”. He has just about doubled his wealth over this time while actively contributing, nay, leading, the global charge to vaccinate the whole planet. His ultimate dream. Talk about win-win.
That two Australian, publicly funded institutions explicitly set up to seek the truth and to do it in robust ways are behaving like out-of-control schoolchildren should cause alarm among taxpayers, to say the very least. This is a case of grotesque mission creep, on our dime. By ignoring the really big stories of our time, they are merely engaged in narrative protection on behalf of their favourite victim groups and causes. It is all a travesty of the scholarship to which our universities once aspired.
The Conservative Woman’s Laura Perrins describes the British Broadcasting Corporation as a “vaccine propaganda machine” and its approach to the subject as “patronising, selective and abusive”. She might have been describing the ABC’s approach on this and many other subjects. That an Australian university should get into bed with such an outfit, whose attitudes and methods are known to all, bespeaks a worldview that brings shame on all of our higher education institutions. This is nothing but a blatant attempt at propaganda by two institutions that once upon a time would each have had a modicum of intellectual curiosity, and been outraged and appalled by this kind of behaviour and by what they have become. Not only that, there is the utter irony. That two bastions of leftist ideology would be reduced to defending billionaires against society’s “excluded”? Once, they prided themselves on speaking “truth to power”. Today, the activities of the media and the academy side with the powerful and abandon truth. Indeed, they seek to crush the truth.
Clever, yes. Noble and principled, no.
However, rather than simply lamenting what has become theexpected behaviour of these two scions of the new left establishment, those on the right of politics and culture and in the sensible centre should be marching in the streets and demanding a royal commission into the role in the last two years of the legacy media, including the public broadcaster, and its Covid State allies in the academy in destroying freedom, rights, social relations, the polis and the economy through its policies of what Matt Desmet calls “mass formation”.
As The Brownstone Institute notes in relation to the American media:
The media, both traditional and social media, had an outsized role during the pandemic in pushing the US government’s Covid response and defending the resulting coercive measures, including lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates while ignoring collateral damage and treating sceptics of these measures as having bad motivations. Their result was a one-sided, often factually misleading or unsubstantiated narrative on important issues concerning science, economics, and health, for the better part of two years.
This has had a chilling effect on information flows and journalism, and it dramatically distorted public understanding in many areas from science to health to economics to the proper role of media in a free society. A consequence of this shift in the ethos of the media, trust has declined dramatically to only 16% of the total population with trust in papers and only 11% with trust in TV, with partisan differences in the way people answer pollsters.
In addition, cancellation and censorship have been institutionalised in legacy media culture in a way that has been injurious to the free exchange of ideas as well and public health messaging in general.
Articles of Inquiry: The Role of Media, Brownstone Insitute, 22 July 2022
To which we might well add to this tawdry outcome the degrading in the culture of the academy.
Perhaps RMIT might fact-check the secular decline in trust in the media. This once august institution might then learn why we are not that impressed by its recent efforts. As with other institutions of higher education, RMIT’s original purpose was to build knowledge in our society, to “cultivate minds” as per its original motto, dating from 1887. “Perita manus, mens exculta”. RMIT’s fall from excellence has been precipitate, and this cute, cheap trick of creating a FactLab provides further, compelling evidence of the nature and steepness of the decline.
The saddest thing of all is that few other Australian universities are any better. They have been allies-in-chief of the tyrannical regimes across this wide brown land, regimes that have crushed our nation since the outbreak of what Alex Berenson has called “pandemia”, in early 2020. Institutions in search of the truth and seeking to defend both freedom of speech and the rights of the powerless would have a lifetime of awful primary material through which to sift if they so chose. Instead, they prefer charades, circuses and pantos.
About the Author
Paul Collits is a freelance writer and independent scholar and researcher who lives in New South Wales, Australia. His recent writings on ideology, conservatism, politics, religion, culture, education and police corruption have been published in such journals as Quadrant, News Weekly and The Spectator Australia.
The above is an article titled ‘The ABC, RMIT University and the Fact Checker Industrial Complex’ authored by Collits. You can subscribe and follow Collits on his Substack.
Pfizer employees received a “separate and distinct” COVID-19 vaccine
SPECIAL JABS: Pfizer employees received a “separate and distinct” COVID-19 vaccine, according to leaked Pfizer email
Lance D Johnson
05/14/2024
It’s now evident that multiple experiments were conducted on the global population under the pretense of “vaccination.” A Pfizer whistleblower leaked a company email explicitly stating that the COVID-19 vaccines offered to Pfizer employees were “separate and distinct” from the COVID-19 vaccines offered to the general public. The email, dated January 8, 2021, addresses Pfizer employees and contractors at Pfizer’s Pearl River research site in Rockland County, New York.
The email begins: “I am pleased to inform you that we will begin offering COVID-19 vaccinations to eligible on-site essential colleagues and contractors over the next several weeks.”
“Eligible on-site essential contractors will be notified, either by e-mail or by their Pfizer sponsor, and will receive instructions for registering for an on-site appointment as well. The vaccine doses to be used for this program are separate and distinct from those committed by Pfizer to governments around the world and will not impact supply to national governments in any way,” the email read.
Federal government dehumanized individuals to conduct multiple vaccine experiments
Since the beginning of totalitarian lockdowns, human beings were divided into “essential” and “non-essential” groups – their rights reduced to privileges contingent on dictatorial decrees. As experimental COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out in warp speed, governments further dehumanized individuals and categorized people into priority groups. Governments used social status to divide people into collective study groups so that they could be experimented on at different times and with different batches of “vaccine.”
Since then, independent investigators have analyzed the data on adverse events from the individual batches, as reported by batch number in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). It turns out that certain batches of the COVID-19 vaccine are more toxic and more lethal than others.
This data has provided more evidence for a conspiracy alleging that vaccine companies like Pfizer, Moderna and Jansen conducted several vaccine batch experiments on the population (with varying toxicity), all within the grander experiment that was advertised as “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccines. Now, there is new evidence that Pfizer reserved a “separate and distinct” batch of COVID-19 vaccines for the people who worked for and contracted with the company.
In the leaked Pfizer email, those eligible for the “separate and distinct” COVID-19 vaccine lot had to be “site-essential colleagues.” The email explained that these colleagues and contractors must be based at Pfizer Global Supply and at Pfizer’s Worldwide Research, Development and Medical/Global Product Development sites. Furthermore, these employees and contractors were ordered to get the vaccine specifically at a Pfizer location “to ensure supply of our medicines and vaccines, critical research and development programs continue.”
Specifically, the email reads: “Once the specific dates for our site have been identified, we will share a more detailed plan and each eligible on-site essential colleague will receive an e-mail from Colleague Wellness (formerly known as Occupational Health & Wellness) with instructions for registering for an on-site appointment to receive your vaccination.”
Pfizer employees confess that they received different COVID-19 vaccine than the rest of the population
In an interview with Infowars, the Pfizer whistleblower said they knew that Pfizer employees were receiving either a placebo or a different formula. “I know we employees at Pfizer were receiving different vaccines and/or placebos and this was the word around my site when I worked there,” the whistleblower said. This finding coincides with testimony before the Australian government. At a Senate hearing, Pfizer representatives said the company provided a specific batch of COVID-19 shots for its workers.
“Your vaccine mandate was using your own batch of vaccine, especially imported for Pfizer, which was not tested by the TGA (Australia’s medicine regulator). Is that correct?” Senator Malcolm Roberts asked the Pfizer representatives.
“Senator, so, Pfizer undertook to import a batch of vaccine specifically for the employee vaccination program,” one of the representatives replied.
If a specific vaccine batch was reserved for Pfizer and its associates, then the company knew that there were different batches with different risk profiles. The next investigation must find out the differences in these batches and what drove Pfizer to reserve a specific batch for their employees and contractors. It could be that Pfizer tested out different levels of antigen/lipid nano-particles/mRNA/spike protein and reserved placebos for themselves without the consent of the public.
Robots from the Past...
Two milestones are upon us that reflect the enduring human fascination with the idea of artificial counterparts—robots. The year 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Italian scientist-artist Leonardo da Vinci, whose designs and models of humanoid robots still inspire experts in robotics and Artificial Intelligence (ai). The year 2020 marks the centennial of the term robot itself, coined by Czech playwright Karel Čapek to describe artificial humans who could serve as a new class of workers.
Yet the ancestry of robots reaches back much further, to Egypt of the Pharaohs, classical Greece and the Islamic world of the early Middle Ages, upon which da Vinci based the development of some of his creations.
Robots of Ages Past
Today, smart is no longer a word used exclusively for people.
From cars to vacuum cleaners to fully automated factories, robots—or
programmable machines that accomplish tasks generally reserved for
humans—are increasingly ubiquitous. Some are ai-enabled
refrigerators that can order food for you; some are “digital
assistants” such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. Others are
humanoid, such as Sophia, designed by Hanson Robotics with a face
modeled on mid-20th-century actor Audrey Hepburn and equipped with ai
and facial recognition to interact with humans. (In 2017 Sophia became
the first robot ever to be granted national citizenship—by Saudi
Arabia.)
Eventually, some futurists expect that some robots will look more and more like us, having synthetic skin and hair, individual (or not) faces and bodies. They will increasingly become androids, or virtual humans. Others will remain disembodied but capable of complex tasks (“Alexa, if it’s raining this afternoon, arrange a ride for the kids from school.”) And ever since the dystopic Metropolis in 1927, movies and television have asked whether robots would someday try to overthrow us (Bladerunner; The Terminator; I, Robot; Ex Machina) or whether they would be nice and helpful (Commander Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation; C3PO and R2D2 of Star Wars)?
Surprisingly, our ideas about robots being so futuristic are built on ones that began long, long before electric circuits and computer processors. The field of robotics began centuries — millennia—before the digital era. Ancient Egyptians built automatons that gave not just form but motion and voice to deities. Greeks speculated in early biotech. Muslims of the medieval scientific Golden Age devised complex automatons that helped inspire the drawings and designs of Renaissance polymaths like da Vinci.
Around the world, animated statues and automatons have appeared in early legends from the Americas to Africa to east Asia, often as minions or representatives of gods. And of these, the most influential to our world today were those that began in Egypt, in the second millennium BCE.
This woodblock print shows the workings of a tea-serving automaton. It appears in Japan's oldest manuscripts of mechanical engineering, the 1796 treatise Kiko zui (Illustrated Compendium of Clever Machines) by Hosokawa Hanzo Yorinao. Other pages detail the structure and the construction of clocks and mechanical dolls.
French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero (1846–1916) tells us the Egyptians had “speaking statues,” images of their deities, made of painted or gilded wood with jointed limbs and voices operated by temple priests. The statues responded to questions and sometimes made lengthy speeches. One statue in the temple of Amun in Thebes was said to raise its arm and select the next pharaoh from among male members of the royal family. Maspero tells us the priests saw themselves as intermediaries between gods and mortals, and they firmly believed the souls of divinities inhabited the statues and guided them in producing voices and movements.
Asim Qureshi, an Oxford-educated tech entrepreneur who writes about the history of engineering, notes that Egyptians of that time “had enough knowledge of mechanics to develop a non-digitized [robotic] machine based on a system of ropes and pulleys.”
This Egyptian tradition appears to have passed north across the Mediterranean to Greece, where it infused myths and legends—and eventually science. Ian Rutherford, classics professor at the University of Reading, points out that “Egyptians and Greeks are known to have been in contact already in the second millennium bce, though we don’t know much about it. The picture becomes clearer from about 600 bce, when the sea-faring Greeks were frequent visitors to Egypt.”
Greek intellectuals of the day developed a solid understanding of Egyptian culture, according to Rutherford: “[They] saw it as a source of knowledge and esoteric wisdom. Some of them believed that Egypt had influenced Greece in the distant past; for the historian Herodotus, Greek religion was mostly an Egyptian import.”
In his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices,
al-Jazari used a wire, spring and pulley to put the arms of this
humanoid elephant driver in motion as part of his design of a clock.
Perhaps the oldest Greek tale involving ai and robotic figures is Homer’s eighth-century epic about the Trojan War, the Iliad. The inventor Hephaestus, god of metalworking, creates intelligent female automatons, made of gold, to assist him in his forge: “In them is understanding in their hearts, and in them speech and strength, and they know cunning handiwork.”
In the fourth century bce, Apollonius of Rhodes penned the Argonautica, the epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts, in which Hephaestus constructs a giant bronze automaton named Talos to protect Zeus’s beloved Europa from pirates on the island of Crete. Talos—in effect a “killer robot”—patrolled the beaches of Crete, circling the island three times a day.
Greek mythological notions of robots evolved into more-detailed (and practical) engineering concepts. Greek scientists and inventors developed techniques for simulating the actions of the human body.
Greek inventor Ctesibius of Alexandria, in the third century bce, pioneered compressed-air and hydraulic devices. He built an automaton operated by cams, or rotating mechanical links that transform rotary motion into linear motion. His robotic statue could stand and sit, and was used in processions. Though Ctesibius’s writings have not survived, later inventors and engineers adopted and improved upon his techniques.
Inventor Philo of Byzantium, who died around 220 bce, was known as “Mechanicus” for his engineering skills. His book Compendium of Mechanics describes a female robotic servant that could mix different liquids to make a drink when a cup was placed in her hand.
In the first century ce, Hero of Alexandria was influenced by Philo. He designed vending machines, automatic doors and an early steam-powered mechanism called the aeolipile, developed 1,700 years before James Watt’s engine, which used steam ejected through angled nozzles on a metal sphere to set the globe spinning. In his treatise On Automaton-Making, Hero describes an automated puppet theater that employs a combination of weights, axles, levers, pulleys and wheels to enact an entire stage play. A programmable robotic cart carried other robots on stage to perform for the audience. Falling weights pulled ropes wrapped around the cart’s two independent axles. Noel Sharkey, professor of ai and robotics at the University of Sheffield, compares this control system to modern-day binary programming.
The collapse of the Roman Empire and onset of Europe’s so-called
“Dark Ages” created an atmosphere in which fantastic tales spread. Among
them were stories of lost Roman treasure, hidden in hoards buried
beneath hills and guarded by golden automatons. 
Driven by a water wheel, al-Jazari used a piston rod to create suction and pump water.
These European stories were echoed later in an Arabic version, “The City of Brass,” an adventure tale in the One Thousand and One Nights. In this story—based on a historical account by Ibn al-Faqih—a military expedition sent by the Umayyad caliph finds an abandoned, walled city in the deserts of northwest Africa. With its lofty walls of brass, the city was reputedly built by King Solomon, and it was once a thriving capital until struck by an unknown catastrophe: All the inhabitants died, and they were mummified where they fell. The city’s beautiful queen, embalmed and dressed in elegance, was seated on her throne and guarded by two sword-bearing automatons. When an explorer tried to remove the queen’s jewels from her body, the automatons came to life, beat the man and beheaded him.
As Bryn Mawr historian E. R. Truitt describes in Medieval Robots (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), it was first the Byzantines and then the Arabs who preserved the mechanical arts in the Middle East following the fall of Rome. Around 850 ce, three Mespotamian brothers known as Banu Musa published The Book of Ingenious Devices, an illustrated work with designs of about 100 automated devices, including a water-powered organ. The Banu Musa, or “Sons of Musa,” were Ahmad, Muhammad and Hasan ibn Musa ibn Shakir, brothers from Khorasan who worked in Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), Abbasid Baghdad’s great center of higher learning. While their book did not deal with humanoid automatons, many of the technologies and automatic controls they developed were adopted and refined by Abu al-‘Izz ibn Isma’il ibn Razzaz al-Jazari, a towering engineering talent of the 12th-century CE.
Constructed in the late 18th century by inventor Baron Wolfgang von
Kempelen and known simply as The Turk, this life-size, chess-playing
automaton was actually a mechanical illusion that allowed a person
skilled in the game to control the motion. As a result, The Turk
defeated many challengers—among them Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon
Bonaparte.
Between the time of Banu Musa and al-Jazari, Arab and Islamic science
flourished. A few manuscripts by the Banu Musa and al-Jazari have
survived, but for many other engineering accomplishments, we must rely
on accounts by historians, travelers and visiting diplomats.
Robotic achievements building on the works of Alexandrian scientists continued in Egypt during the Islamic period. One historical account tells us about 12th-century Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah, whose guest hall featured eight robotic statues of singing girls, four made of camphor and four of amber, clad in fashionable clothing and jewelry. When the vizier stepped into the chamber, the statues bowed; when he sat down, they straightened up. This report, by Ayyubid historian Ibn Muyasser, is preserved in the writings of another Egyptian historian, al-Maqrizi.
The evolution of automatons grew in engineering sophistication over the ages, from the simple temple statues of ancient Egypt, employing basic levers and ropes for moving limbs and tubes for speaking from hidden locations, to the Greek robots, which used hydraulics, compressed air and basic cams to move body parts, to the automatons of the medieval Islamic world, which enabled more realistic movement with sophisticated cams, camshafts and even crankshafts, as well as advanced hydraulics and pneumatics.
An early cam was built into Hellenistic water-driven automatons from the third century bce. Both cam and camshaft would later appear in al-Jazari’s robotic creations. The cam and camshaft began appearing in European mechanisms in the 14th century.
A cutaway diagram reconstructing Kempel's machine explains the mechanics
of the torso and arm—ultimately a device of not-so-remote control that
gave the appearance of an intelligent automaton.
The crankshaft, the next stage in this technology, translates rotary
into linear motion, and it is essential to much of today’s machinery,
including the automobile’s internal combustion engine. Acknowledged as
one of the most important mechanical inventions ever, the crankshaft was
created by al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation while he served as
chief engineer of the Atuqid dynasty. Written in 1206, al-Jazari’s Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
includes developments in the use of pistons and valves, as well as some
of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights.
“It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of al-Jazari’s work in the history of engineering,” says Donald R. Hill, English historian and translator of al-Jazari. “The impact of these inventions can be seen in the later designing of steam engines and internal combustion engines, paving the way for automatic control and other modern machinery. The impact of al-Jazari’s inventions is still felt in modern contemporary mechanical engineering.”
As a result, some historians call al-Jazari the “father of modern-day engineering.” Salim al-Hassani of the University of Manchester, who chairs the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, notes that al-Jazari’s invention of an early programmable robot qualifies him further as “the father of robotics.”
Roboticist Mark Rosheim reconstructed Leonardo da Vinci's robotic
knight, here shown on display in Berlin. Rosheim used fragments of
sketches in da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus. Through sophisticated
arrangements of pulleys and cables, the robot-like "knight" was designed
to sit, stand and maneuver its arms.
The Islamic world’s robotic designs found their way west to Europe. “Throughout the Latin Middle Ages,” says historian Truitt, “we find references to many apparent anachronisms, many confounding examples of mechanical art. Musical fountains. Robotic servants. Mechanical beasts and artificial songbirds. Most were designed and built … in the cosmopolitan courts of Baghdad, Damascus, Constantinople and Karakorum. Such automata came to medieval Europe as gifts from foreign rulers, or were reported in texts by travelers to these faraway places.”
Western scientists of the Middle Ages pushed these engineering concepts even further. Today, their accomplishments sometimes reach us only through the filter of legend, where the technical overlaps with the preternatural.
A scene from the play showing three robots—so called by Czech playwright Karel Čapek to describe a new class of servant workers.
Gerbert of Aurillac, a 10th-century French priest who studied science
in Islamic Córdoba, was a pioneer in astronomical observation,
introducing the armillary sphere and star sphere. He brought
arithmetical calculation with the abacus and Arabic numerals to northern
Europe. His scientific accomplishments resulted in legends that thrived
a century after his death, including one claiming he had built a robot
of sorts—a talking humanoid head—that could track celestial phenomena
and foretell the future. Gerbert, a scientist and humanist long before
the Renaissance, became the first Frenchman to head the Roman Catholic
Church (999–1003 ce) , adopting the name Pope Sylvester ii.
Other medieval European scientists, too, were said to have created such “talking heads.” Scholars suspect the speaking-head concept originated in Arab folk tales. It became a powerful image in Europe and was linked in popular imagination with leading scientists such as Germany’s Albert the Great and England’s Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon.
"Robots" arrived on the world stage in 1920 with the publication of Čapek's R.U.R. (Rossum Universal Robots). Here, an illustration for Čapek's work, by Bedrich Feuerstein, promoted the play for its premiere on January 25, 1921.
The tale of Bacon’s “brazen head” is the best known of these, and it was featured in Robert Greene’s 16th-century play, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Bacon made a human head of brass that could speak and function as an oracle. While the scientist slept, Bacon’s apprentice tried to question the brazen head. It spoke three times, saying, “Time is,” “Time was” and “Time is past.” It then fell to the floor, broken and evermore silent.
Al-Jazari’s influence among European Renaissance scientists was particularly visible in the work of da Vinci, who was fascinated by mechanisms of the human body and investigated ways of simulating actions of living beings. In 1495, he built a humanoid robot with pulleys and gears allowing it to move its arms and jaw, and to sit up and stand. The automaton, dressed as a knight in bulky German Italian armor, could also lift its visor, revealing its face and its moving jaw. Da Vinci’s robot employed a four-factor mechanical operating system integrated in its upper torso, and a separate three-factor system in the legs. It made its public debut at a gala event hosted by da Vinci’s patron, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
Mark Rosheim, a us roboticist whose company develops robotic systems for nasa, built a working version of da Vinci’s automated knight in 2002 using da Vinci’s own drawings.
From the imagination of visionary inventors centuries ago to today's ai: Humanoid robot Sophia takes the stage to answer questions next to her creator, David Hanson, founder and ceo
of Hanson Robotics, at the Moscow Innovative Development “Open
Innovations 2017” conference. A few days later, Sophia became the first
robot to be granted a national citizenship—by Saudi Arabia. She uses
digital neural networking and conversational language processing to
simulate human behavior and response.
Rosheim says he was inspired in his youth by da Vinci. He developed a robotic serving cart from da Vinci’s sketches, which moved in programmable directions thanks to internal wooden cams. During a video interview in 2011, Rosheim revealed the workings of the cart in his company lab. Its intricate gears and cams not only served to transport viewers back to the 15th century, but also, for those familiar with al-Jazari’s influence on da Vinci, carried them even further back to the crucial Golden Age of Islamic science and engineering.
It was a tangible example of not only how far we have come, but also of how far back we go, to where the unexpected richness of our past seeds the unimaginable potential of our future.
Robert W. Lebling (lebling@yahoo.com) is a writer, editor and communication specialist who lives and works in Saudi Arabia. He is author of Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (I.B. Tauris, 2010 & 2014), and he is co-author, with Donna Pepperdine, of Natural Remedies of Arabia (Stacey International, 2006). He is a regular contributor to AramcoWorld.