Leighton Smith Podcast #258 - October 2nd 2024 - Ashley Rindsberg

doubt that it's worthy of your attention. His feel for the moment is pronounced, and following the mail room, some referrals that you will or may find worthy of your attention, and an article from Jeffrey Tucker that I decided to include, and I'll explain why now. While we discussed the situation in Lebanon to some degree, it hadn't advanced as far as it now has and undoubtedly will. But there was a short discussion with Ashley Rinsburg with regard to the

state that Lebanon was in before this event developed. We spoke two days ago on Monday. Today is Wednesday, of course, and I want to include something that was published only this morning that covers this off and is worthy, is worthy of a little attention inside Lebanon's currency crisis, how hyperinflation feels. And I'll pick out one or two little bits from it and tell you where to find it later. Lebanon a country on the brink before its economic collapse.

Lebanon was a vibrant, cosmopolitan country, often called the Paris of the Middle East. Is economy thrived on banking, tourism and services, positioning it as a bridge between East and West. For Tony, who happens to be a friend of the author, this prosperity was not an illusion. It was his daily life. He said. My life in Lebanon was extraordinary. I ran three thriving businesses and lived a luxurious lifestyle, whether it was the latest cars, the best restaurants, or the hottest

clubs be rout had at all. Yet beneath the surface, cracks were forming. Lebanon's banking sector, once a source of pride, was built on unsustainable practices and the country was drowning in debt. For years, Lebanon's Central Bank had pegged the Lebanese pound to the US dollar at an artificially high rate, creating a false sense of stability. This currency peg required constant inflows of dollars to maintain. When those inflows dried up,

the house of cards collapsed. And if your interests lie in the direction of mens coin at all, you'll find some interesting, well opinion and information now in a moment. Ashley Rinsburg. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverrix relieves hay fever in skin, allergies, or itchy skin. It's a dual action antihistamine and has a unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief, and it works in under an hour and lasts for

over twenty four hours. Leverrix is a tiny tablet that unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quantity. So next time you're in need of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask for Leveris l e v Rix Leverix and always read the label, take us directed, and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker

Auckland Leighton Smith. We last spoke to Ashley Rinsburg in Well, it was two years ago, in twenty two, and we discussed essentially the Gray Lady winked his book on the New York Times, which was a huge success as far as I'm concerned, and I hope it is. Hope it is or was, well, still is as far as you're concerned. Ashley, Welcome back. It's great to have you on the Lake the Smith podcast.

into Gaza, young party goers massacred within Israeli territory. Question Marks follow all of these comments, children babies taken by Hamas terrorists, and scores of people murdered in their homes. None of these things, let alone all of them, was in the realm of the possible. You wrote that and published it a week after October seventh, How would you rate things today compared with what you as you saw it then one week after? Did you have any thought about where this could go?

With Hamas, the planning I think was probably more ad hoc because I don't think Israel had any expectation that it was going to be attacked the way it was attacked on October seven, and I think in order to make up for Israeli surprise, there was probably a lot of scrambling going on in terms of how how does the country pull off a ground invasion and essentially an occupation of Gaza military occupation of Gaza in order to

root out Hamas. I'm guessing a lot of that was done very much on the fly and very much as the situation was unpholding.

unnecessarily ignite a regional war. When Hamas committed the Atrucity atrocity is on October seventh, and on October eighth, or even on October seventh has Ballap again firing rockets and missiles into Israel, that regional war was already present for Israel and for Israelis. And this is something I think people in the West are missing, where we hear a

lot of talk about Israeli escalation. For Israel, the war had already begun, and talk of escalation or de escalation is sort of irrelevant when you have one hundred thousand Israelis displaced from their homes in the north near the northern border with Lebanon. Yeah, you're already in the kind of regional war that everyone else is talking about avoiding.

It knew that Israel had grown a bit complacent. It had thought that Israel was a little bit over interested in peace and stability with Gaza, because Hamas had played that card very handily, where they had kept quiet, deliberately in order to fool Israel into thinking that there's had taken sort of a get along to go along strategy where you know, a sort of a practical piece, a pragmatic piece, if not a formal one, where in reality what they had been doing was planning and this invasion

for many years. But what they didn't take into account was their own failing. Hamas was so zealous and so savage and barbaric in its attack, that it actually had an effect of changing its enemy, changing the Israeli posture, changing the Israeli mindset from one of containment and try to limit these kinds of interactions with Hamas into something that looked at the situation, said we have no choice except to wage a war that ends in Hamas's complete

military destruction, if not political destruction. So Hamas overplayed its hand drastically, and it never could have seen. I think what twenty to thirty years of Israeli engagement had shown them was that Israel was really really disincentivized from having an aggressive ground invasion and occupation. It really did not want to go there. It was after the Gaza pull

out in two thousand and five. It did not Israel did not want to be back in Gaza's the last thing every Israeli wanted in the country.

I think with Hisbella the same as largely true. I think Isbela was thinking about this sort of tit for tat, limited engagement, very contained kind of interaction with Israel, and that's what they thought would go on, and that's what they needed to go on because the moment that they risked all out full confrontation with Israel, what they really risked was a Ran losing its key strategic weapon, which is his Bollah, and once that would happen, once that

risk factor was in play, that meant that Iran would become completely exposed to Israel, which is now the case. Iran has is virtually defenseless, Its force projection is very limited, aside from its proxies, which is Hamas, Isballa, the Hutis and some Iraqi militias which are less effective than Hisbola

and Homas. I don't think any of these groups saw this kind of route that we've seen that we've seen play on the last weeks and months coming, and I think they have been left in complete disarray.

in the worst possible way, and the person who bears responsibility for that is the person.

in November. Which way that goes, this could lead to much greater pressure on Hamas and on Iran to put pressure on Hamas to cut a deal with Israel, a realistic deal, not a deal that it knows Israel cannot possibly agree to, that would have a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of the hostages and perhaps some other kinds of conditions. But is Natanyahu's hand is massively, massively strengthened by what's gone on just in the last week, so.

of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. The introduction of Donald Trump into this is is for a reason as a continuation of the position that Nettna, who now finds himself in, as you've just described there, there's been quite a bit from some quarters, in particular in America describing the situation that Netanya, who found himself in with the opposition and the media, was very similar to

the one that the Trump has experienced. And I wonder if there's not a parallel from which one could one can learn from the other. But more importantly, as you were alluding, the outcome of November five will have some considerable input into what happens to let Nyaho and too Israel in general.

until Ronald Reagan took the office that that happened. And I think Trump looks back on that and says, says to himself, there is no way that a global superpower should be cow towing to a regional power at best, which is why during his presidency he took a remarkably bold step of killing assassinating Solomoni, who is their most important military figure to the Islamic regime in Iran. And that's because you know, I think he has very little

patience with Iran. Just it's sort of a mirror image between Kamala Harris's impatience with Israel and Trump's impatients with Iran. So they both have chosen sides, and that election outcome will be very important for what goes what happens next.

But I think Israel is also looking at this very narrow gap in time that we have right now from the beginning of October until the election, until we know who is going to be the president elect, And in this sort of gray area, it's got the most freedom to operate that it will have until we know the outcome of that election.

they've got this opportunity. But instead of that, at this point, we're talking about Israel being, if you're going to be realistic about it and innocent in this, defending itself rather than rather than asserting its strength to gain whatever. It's a reversal of what most people sought. Let me ask you to extend your experience and knowledge with regard to those other countries that I just mentioned, and you might

want to include a couple more. Are you of any opinion they could extend the stress that we're experiencing at the moment.

and other weaponry to Russia and vice versa. Russia has supplied some air defense to Iran, and this is sort of that the larger you know, the Iranians talk about the axis of resistance, which is sort of an Islamic resistance to Israel, which spans Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. But there's a bigger axis, which is the one you've sort of alluded to, which is China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela sort of circling the globe from Far East Asia

to the Americas. So they are trying to maintain that power structure visa vi the West, where Israel, of course, is very closely aligned to the United States. It's one of its closest allies, and for China Russia to be able to disrupt that alliance would be a major strategic win for them, which is why they've opposed Israel. That said, no one wants to back a loser, especially not China.

I mean, Russia might have some sort of ideological sympathies with the Iran that dig back to the Soviet Union, which we know Putin is still very much nostalgic about. But I don't think China has any such qualms and any such ideological hang ups. I think they're looking to who is most effective in boosting Chinese power and Chinese interests. Right now, the equation is still pretty simple because Israel is so tightly aligned with the US and allied with

the US. But I would think that China's got its antenna up in the air waiting to see who is the smarter power to back, especially as we see a weakened US on the world stage, where the United States has not asserted itself the way that it had in the past decades, and China is looking to step into

that role, and it wants strong allies. It doesn't want weak allies, and if it looks at Iran and looks at a weak ally, it would rather trade I would think for a strong, bold, technologically sophisticated Israel rather than a sort of backward Islamist fundamentalist regime that we have in Iran.

in the past. You know, under the Trump administration, we had the Abraham Accords, which forged actual peace between Israel and a number of Gulf Arab states, which was truly, truly remarkable, and right up until October seventh, Israel and Saudi Arabia were on track to normalize relations, so they would have diplomatic relations and sort of over time unfold economic relations, trade relations, all all those kinds of things, just as we have done with UAE with Dubai, where

you now have Israelis living in Dubai, buying property there, working there, you have synagogues there, you have kosher food. You have really a vibrant interchange between these two peoples that was really unimaginable just a few years ago. So this dynamic between the Gulf States is something that's totally new, and I think in the background of what we're seeing is Iran doing its best to disrupt not just Israel's role in this, but it's other arch enemy, which is

Saudi Arabia. So it's sort of two sects of Islam vying for pre eminence and for power in the region, and Israel in some regards becomes a wedge issue for that even though the Iranians, I think the Iranian Islamist regime that's controlling the country do actually authentically hate Israel and they hate the existence of the Jewish state in

the Middle East. But it is I think an emerging dynamic just because we're still seeing so much possibility for change among relations between Israel and other Arab states, and I do think that Saudi Arabia normalization is very much still on the table. Incredibly, even through a war in Gaza, it has not gone away, primarily because it's an Iran back to war on the other side of Hamas is back by Iran. Kasballa of course is backed and sponsored

by Iran. So in a way, the studies are looking on and seeing Israel doing their dirty work for them and doing it very effectively. And again this is all about trying to back a winner in the region. That's what everybody wants and at the moment at least anything can change. But at the moment Israel is obviously winning.

That would be the first truly healthy step that it could take to align itself with it with the Gulf States and to try to try to receive economic support from them, try to boost trade among Golf States and Lebanon and open its borders, open its open trade relations with Israel. I don't know that any of those things are actually going to happen. So in the meantime, it looks pretty grim.

the others or some kind of coalition to govern. It's it's really a big question mark for for that state to understand, for them to understand what kind of state, what kind of country they want to be, and they're able to be this day and age. I mean, the potential there is really remarkable. It's an amazing country. Of course, I've not been able to go there. I'm Israelian. It's illegal for it's actually illegal for a Lebanese person to even speak to in Israeli.

look great, unfortunately. I mean, look at Syria. It's neighbor where you had a very similar effect.

we know. So somehow Israel has managed to track his movements and whereabouts without him knowing that, without any of his Ballah's counter intelligence operations, figuring that out and doing this to the effect that they were able to kill him and a number of his senior deputies and a senior officer from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard at the same time, within days after decimating the entire top ranks of his BALLA.

Part of this had to do with the beepers, the pagers that Israel had sort of infiltrated and put placed explosives inside of. This took place about a week and a half ago, where they at the same time, at

three point thirty in the afternoon, detonated them. These were being used by his Balla operatives to communicate because prior to that, Israel had infiltrated their cell phones, and his Ballad learned about this and told told their operatives told their officers to get rid of the cell phones, and Nocerella famously told them to bury them underground or put them in an iron box, and instead his bala distributed these pages because they believed that they could not be infiltrated.

It turns out that Israel had probably engineered this entire sequence of events, beginning with the cell phones right through to the pagers, and what it meant for Nostralla and his top leadership was that because they no longer had reliable communications, they had to meet in person, and having met in person, that brought them to the same place at the same time, and boom, that's where Israel delivers its coup de grass and kills basically the entire leadership.

with edhud Barak as the Israeli representative the Prime Minister at the time, and yes Ir Arafat for the Palestinians. The deal was to give the Palestinians Gaza I think ninety percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the capital.

to still make a peace deal with the Palestinians. I would say, even the majority of Israelis wanted a peace deal and were willing to make painful concessions like the withdrawal from Gaza in two thousand and five, where Israeli unilaterally left Gaza and gave it to the Palestinians to govern. And what we have seen, even after the years and decades of rockets being fired at Israel by Hamas from Gaza, the Israelis I think we're still more optimistic about a

two state solution after October. I think that Tuesday solution is practically dead. I cannot imagine any Israeli government even daring to raise it as an issue at this point. Public sentiment, it's not just it's that, it's it's antagonistic toward the pastings. It's more just that when you have made peace of matures to a people and in response you've had your arm cut off, there's just no way you would extend your other arm. It's it's human nature

at this point. So where this goes in the meantime, I think that's the that's the main question.

out of Gaza. Not because they were concerned about Gaza, so some of them obviously were more because this is a civilian army, this is a this is an army of the nation's sons and daughters, and people didn't want their sons and daughters hanging around Gaza for unclear reasons.

that's why we travel is such an amazing thing. But when you go and you live a different place and you're exposed to a whole different kind of culture, to new people, to friends, colleagues, and after let's say twenty years in Israel, where Israel is a tough place to live for so many reasons. It's a challenging culture to live in. It's a very fast pace in daily life. And you know, there was something appealing about about the UK.

It always has been to me. It's an amazing Anglo history and tradition, political tradition, and literary tradition.

as a country? What are we doing and how are we going to face these massive issues that this country is facing, such as immigration, the health system that is really failing, economic stagnation, things on this level where you really have massive problems and people who don't really at least at a political level, are not providing solutions.

stance on COVID was in my view a failure. The severe lockdowns that obviously they were not alone in that, the spending that's gone on here, the unchecked illegal immigration across the Channel, and other forms of immigration, net immigration here going up and up every year, inability to even address the NHS issue, the health system which is failing and where you will wait literally years for procedures, important procedures.

And these are people who are especially older people, who have been paying into this system for their entire lives. They've been paying their taxes, they've been paying into it, and they get to a point where they need some sort of very important surgery or procedure, and they're being told to wait two years for a.

really great cultural stuff. I've been doing a lot of reporting on Wikipedia and how Wikipedia has sort of institutionalized bias into its both the way that it structures its foundation, the foundation that owns the website that has been making alliances with radically progressive foundations in the United States that are pushing all sorts of weird defund the police type stuff, shut down bridges and whatever else, and.

of course that meta entity is the United Nations. We saw how this work worked with so called ESG and DEI, the environment, social and governance, these policies about how businesses

should run. And that's something that came out of the UN in the nineteen nineties and slowly trickled up through the system to the point where now every big company in the US and the UK, and I'm sure New Zealand and Australia has to hire and fire and conduct itself by these processes that have to do with the environment and with diversity and inclusion that I really don't have much to do with business, but it's all just sort of been just sort of gerrymandered into our lives.

And what we're seeing now is a similar kind of focus, but on the information sphere, because we live lives in this landscape of digital information and the question of who gets to control that information, who gets to control what's considered true and false, disinformation, misinformation. We've heard all these new fancy terms, and this is where I think governments, but more than governments, these global bodies are trying to grab power, and they're doing it through things like the

Pact for the Future. And again it's always under this really soaring rhetoric about brotherhood and all the lovely stuff that it's going to bring. But at the end of the day, it's I think pretty clearly an attempt to gain control.

accounts for its unprecedented turnaround? And then the follows nine pages are very closely typed print out. But the reason that I found that was because it came from from The Tower, which no longer exists. A very quick brief on the Tower, because you you contributed to that.

anyone at the Lancet has ever hidden. This is known as part of its history. I wrote a big piece about this for Unheard. If you if you google Unheard the Lancet my name, it'll come up. The history of the Lancet is a history of making waves, making controversy, and each time it creates a new controversy, it gets more and more attention, and sometimes they'll do a little bit of a retraction or an apology if they don't

do a retraction. They had a number of big COVID retractions, including regarding I think one or two of the medications that they considered to be unhealthy. I have to do refresh my memory. But they also were the publication that printed the lie of a million deaths as a result of the Iraq War that was just never true. It was something that is sort of one of these fanciful Lancet things. Richard Horton, who's the editor of the Lancet,

really revels in this kind of scandal making. And again this is very much true to its own history and its origin as a publication that was a tempting to establish the London medical to challenge the London medical establishment by sort of making false claims, claiming in one of its early cases that a surgeon had deliberately tortured a patient when they knew that there was not the case.

This is back to its earliest days, So this is sort of the Lancet's mo o. What's really scandalous about it, though, is that it gets away with it and that with every next new lie that it promulgates, it only becomes more and more influential within that world. That's that to me is the most amazing part of it.

was the first time. I don't know why, but just maybe because it's in the present, in the present.

pharmaceutical company in the world would go broke. When I asked him what DMSO does, he said, you would never believe me, and gave me this lenk And I guess if you go DMSO, the real miracle solution, search sot net, s ott dot net and DMSO. Of course, if you search just DMSO or dimentthal sulfoxide, the ses give it the same treatment that ivermectin received during the pandemic.

special Marie section of the survey. Horizon Pole sounds like a woke polling booth and it says, this is the actual letter, that is email that he's referring to climate change. We want to speak to sixteen to seventeen year olds. This survey covers how younger people in New Zealand feel about climate change and if they identify mainly as Mary. It also has a section with a list of blah blah blah blah. Yeah, Okay, get them while they're young. That's the that's the motto.

seems almost everywhere. We can also only hope that in the not too distant future, the US realizes the mess it's made of the last eighty years and has a sea change in its policy outlook. For one thing, the US dollar will soon no longer be capable of being weaponized.

And for another, the US, if it's going to survive as the same democratic society that it has been, it must put all its energies into paying down its colossal debt and drastically overhauling its governance so that it is once more governed by elected officials instead of the faithless, unelected suits currently heading the country towards economic and nuclear armageddon.

The world will be a very different place, peaceful and prosperous instead of featuring constant belligerents and ongoing financial crises. Once again, with all best wishes from us in El Retiro, Columbia. That's Jim and Jean, Jim and Gene. Yes, they're very regular.

and erstwhile director of the CDC in the USA. The latter mentions the former in his book a number of times, including how he was pilloried for having the temerity to express his own opinions during COVID, especially around the dwindling efficacy of mRNA vaccines and their side effects. It's disturbing reading the book I refer to was written by Pierre Cory. It's called The War On over Megden. It's hard to obtain for what I believe to be quite sinister reasons.

I highly recommend the book, especially through one such as you, an open minded, intelligent man who's he writing about. I can assure you of two things. One, I am not a conspiracy theorist and pro science. Two. I've been on the periphery of an attempted vaccine development in a past life in New Zealand the veterinary field, and have been

involved in agriculture and agribusiness all my life. I have and continue to be pro vaccines in general, but like doctors Merrick and Corey, I will not take a fourth COVID vaccine. My faith in big farmer universities and certain government establishments has been eroded. I can tell you that both my eldest son and I suffered side effects from the vaccine, which I had initially been highly in favor

of until after our third shots. I cannot understand why the new and improved New Zealand government is still advocating for and recommending these mRNA vaccines. Well, they're not vaccines for a start, so let's get that right. And the answer to you last question was because maybe just take some longer to wake up. I don't know. These brave doctors need to be listened to intently as always, Bess regards, Jeff.

of mankind. It confirmed a lot of the idiotic foibles showered onto a submissive global audience of politicians who digest the science offered to them that seems to be so willingly accepted without question, the distinct odor of money and

corruption permeates the corridors of power. There was one paragraph in the last chapter that caught my attention quote it's also worth mentioning that China ducked out of the Paris Accord by claiming that they were a developing country and were going to make use of that exception, but still produce as much omissions as their original plan to twenty sixty. I raise a thought, says Gordon, that crossed my mind about New Zealand being a relatively young and developing country.

Wouldn't that be a perfect point for farmers and haughty culturalists to lobby our politicians for exemption from this overwhelmingly dangerous and costly piece of global agreement. Just to thought latent, and maybe you have already fielded comments relating to this best regards Gordon.

where our electric car factory is go on. So that was well said, I continue, writes Chris, to be annoyed and disturbed at the continued use of the term vaccine. Oh here we are echoing his thoughts, so let me start again. I continue to be annoyed and disturbed at the continued use of the term vaccine for the COVID shot to bastardize a biblical phrase. It never was, isn't now, and never shall be a vaccine in what we doctors know as a vaccine. A traditional vaccine confers long lasting

immunity against the disease and prevents disease transmission. This thing was at best a temporary immune booster, which brings me to the thought I wish to raise with you the COVID shot. Somebody else, I think mentioned that somewhere to me, that you should be calling it a shot, and I agree with that. But every time I come to the word vaccine in a letter or something. I can't think of the word I want to replace it with, so

I go with it, or something along those lines. The COVID shot was mandated, which was dumb as it didn't really help. Suppose that at times it was the best we had unless we talk the Swedish model. You have consistently regaled against the mandates. But where do you sit when you pit this against a proper vaccine such as polio, smallpox no longer needed as eradicated by vaccination, measles and tetanus.

These vaccines do work and save lives, despite what some say, especially with regard to measles, and in my view, should be mandated. If you ever get a chance to talk to someone who has had polio and suffered as a consequence, they feel it is criminal not to mandate a polio shot. You are probably just old enough to recall the polio

epidemic and the harm it caused. Not mandating these vaccinations will lead to a drop in herd immunity and the population will suffer not only deaths, but significant illness with long lasting effects. As an aside, epidemiologists have probably saved more lives than anyone think clean water, sewage, mass vaccination. Michael Baker is still a knob though I know where I stand, but this does pose an interesting philosophical tension.

This is where free will i e. Anti vaxers, especially when it means parents placing their free will views on their children, butts heads against population medicine. Have a great week, Chris with a surname surgeon, So I'm very interested in your attitude. Anytime you want to drop me a line with an opinion, do so because we can debate it. Layton.

he says, ps. Mary and I met you and Carolyn at a mutual friends party when you kindly signed two of your books for us.

My immediate reaction when I first listened to your podcast with doctor Paul Merrick was one of nonchalance, as I wondered why we're still talking about COVID in twenty twenty four, And then I immediately caught myself pauling prey to the public short memory, and corrected myself. We must never forget how quickly we surrendered our rights to the damned, corrupt, unscrupulous elites who are always waiting to capitalize on the

next crisis and usurp absolute power. I was chilled when doctor Paul Merrick said that the healthcare system is not a healthcare system. It's a disease system that's designed to keep you as sick or as long as you can for them to make as much money as they can can I just insert here he was talking specifically, of course, about the US system. I don't I don't think we're as bad here. Having had recent experiences with the local system,

I'm pretty obligated to saying that they do. They do their best, even if they make the wrong decisions at times,

which I also experienced. He goes on. He goes on, have you heard of New Zealand to Speaking Out with Science n z DSS is made up of courageous and principal doctors, dentists, pharmacists and vets who were formed around an open letter to the New Zealand government that expressed their concerns about the phiser COVID nineteen injection, as well as the implication from New Zealand regulatory bodies that branded medical practitioners incompetent if they provided fully informed consent about

the injection. They state that quote, the authorities have only one narrative, be scared, get the JAB and vilify anyone who does not. We may be vilified by our colleagues, those we once respected, inflicting the greatest wounds the authorities they are supposed to service remember and those in the public that are fearful and asleep. But we have looked into our hearts and we cannot stand by while atrocities

are being committed. We no longer trust that the regulators, including Bedsafe, the Medical Council, the Dental Council, of Pharmaceutical Council, and specialist colleges such as the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners are guided by the best interests of New Zealanders. We are concerned that these organizations have become unduly influenced by politics rather than sticking to health principles.

Close quote, and then the author concludes, we the public should fully support brave medical practitioners like doctor Paul Merrick and the New Zealand doctors speaking out with science lest we forget. Thanks for helping us remember later and Carolyn as just a very very quick word. I suffered an oversight last week. I did not mention that doctor Merrick was with us on the podcast courtesy of NZD SOS New Zealand Doctors speaking Out with Science. I didn't mention them. That was my discredit.

and freedoms. The other speakers at the conference were exceptional. Also, that's from Alistair.

Though it was a matter of interest from Paul. He says, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty convinced that I could hear God speaking through your conversation with doctor Paul merrickferences to vitamin C brought back memories of the time my father was afflicted with a case of chicken pox. He

caught from me. His reaction to the disease was severe, and the doctors overseeing his care had indicated to my mother that things were looking a bit grim as they thought the pox may have affected his brain, if memory serves me correctly, My family advice and the local health store suggested vitamin C is a supplement to the good medical care he was receiving. By all accounts, the supplementary vitamin C that my mother provided Dad at his hospital

bedside had startlingly positive results. It all was well, that ended well. Vitamin C has been part of my health outlook ever since. Doctor Paul Merrick is doing God's work and must be supported at all costs. He seeks truth and will in time find it, and he has already pointed at bucket loads of it. Thank you Layton and missus producers for the great podcast PS. The new part of the podcast providing source material is a winner. Paul, Thank you. I think you're the only person who has

commented on that, but we'll see shortly. This is producer. Thank you.

I can. So let's start with and the Kamala Harris is a third world hellhole, crime, chaos, devastation of an order of magnitude that will never recover unless Donald Trump becomes president again. Authored by paul Ingrassia I N G R A S I A. Paul Ingrassia spelled the way that it sounds. There is one hope to get us out of this rut, and that hope is called Donald Trump. Now, you may or may not agree. You may change your mind after reading it, but you'll find it at paul

Ingrassia dot substack dot com. Number two What city planners are really planning and how to challenge it? Now, this is written from an American perspective, but it has global as well. You'll find it, written by Selwyn Duke in The New American dot Com The New American dot Com first paragraph. In nearly every community of the nation, the policy called sustainable is the catch all term for local planning programs, from water and energy controls to building codes

and traffic planning. The term sustainable was first used in the nineteen eighty seven report called Our Common Future, issued by the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development. The term appeared in full force in nineteen ninety two in a United Nations initiative called You Ready Agenda twenty one. Now I've got your interest, as I say. That is from the New American dot Com, Selwyn Duke, the author.

How about the Hamas Broadcasting Corporation Melanie Phillips. I know that a number of people read her columns and they're often very worthy. We interviewed her once. She was also in Jerusalem at the time. It was a terrible connection. There was nothing I could do about it, So the Hamas Broadcasting Corporation Melanie Phillips dot substack dot com. Another

report lays out the BBC's malevolence toward Israel. Will it ever listen, then this, The UN just adopted the Packed for the Future, which lays the foundation for a new global order. Now this has already had mentioned here or there, but it's worthy of chasing down. While everyone was distracted, the global elite got exactly what they wanted. The un adopted the Packed for the Future on September twenty second, and the mainstream media in the Western world almost entirely

ignored what was happening. Instead, the headlines urged us to just keep focusing on Commala Harrison Donald Trump. Sadly, the vast majority of the population has never heard about the Pact for the Future, and so there was very little public debate about whether or not we should be adopting a document which lays the foundation for a new global order. They've been added for years this lot, and it looks like they might be making progress. Zero hedge dot com

is where it came from. The UN just adopted the Pact for the Future, which lays the foundation for a new global order. And so to the article by Jeffrey Tucker that I mentioned at the top of the podcast, and there is a reason why I wanted to include it. It caught my attension also just this morning. And the reason is this. There is a picture of me in the book beyond the microphone, picture of me sitting with

two things. One is I was cradling between my knees a cello, because I was learning cello at the time. This was when I was about thirteen maybe fourteen, and played in the school orchestra, and I couldn't wait to get rid of it, and the piano came second, much to my regret. The other thing in the photo is the haircut. At the time was when my father got agitated about beyond belief until one day took me down

of the barbers and said cut it. But it all turned out well in the end, so Jeffrey Tucker writing, Find Your Oasis. The Metro North train was packed as it pulled into Grand Central Station, the iconic landmark that opens New York City to commuters and travelers. Leaving the train for the platform plunges you into a strange world of seeming chaos, of people on the move to somewhere.

The United Nations was meeting there this week, with diplomats from all nations crowding the high end hotels at one thousand dollars a night minimum Every major institutional player in banking, finance, and global corporate power was there too, because no one who is anyone wants to miss the chance to be near the action. I was there for a humble dinner with a friend, and the rest was a distraction, something

to endure. The sights and sounds were already cacophonous as I climbed the stairs to the main level of the station. One sound was different. However. It was a cello, and I thought I could make out the sounds of the suites of J. S. Bark. As I finally rounded the corner, it gradually emerged that this was not a recording, but a single cellist in a white tie, playing the full

cello suites without music. His talent was stunning, and it is such a rare treat to sit close by and watch it on display, close enough to see the resin from the bow float around the vibrating strings. The contrast between the ethereal virtuosity of the cellist and the bustling madness of the train station was psychologically and emotionally overwhelming. Though I was anxious to get to the appointed restaurant ten blocks away, I simply could not pass up the

chance to listen. There I stood in people's way for the meta part of twenty minutes, transported by that middle voice between time and eternity. Bach did not write these pieces for public performance. They were a private study. They contain a variety of moods and deploy extremely difficult techniques. The most flausible theory is that the composer wrote them studies and exercises for his son to practice. So far as we knew, they were never heard outside his home

in his lifetime. They were discovered one hundred years later during the Victorian period, where tastes were not compatible with a single instrument playing so elaborately, too lonely, too introspective, too ominous. So when they were first heard it was with an invented piano accompaniment. It wasn't until the turn of the century when a Spanish cellis Publo Casals rediscovered them in a bookstore at the age of thirteen and

worked them up into a public performance. Part of the mystery of these pieces is how they play with the audible imagination of the listener. They're constructed nilly as quartets, with the other three parts left to the imagination, while the notes heard serve as cues, signs, and symbols to the formation of an inaudible voice out there somewhere. It seems like magic that anyone could write such things or

perform them at all. If you're only listening to the recording, it helps to remind yourself that there is only one person playing, because otherwise it seems not quite believable. But watching a live performance makes one a believer. This is why these pieces just stop you in your tracks, transport you to a different place, somewhere connected to but set apart from the world around us. The music performed right in front of our eyes takes us to this place

and feeds our soul. Without such music, we might forget there is a soul, that we are purely biological creatures with physical senses. Bark Cello suites deploy the senses in order to compel the rediscovery of our deepest and highest spiritual longings, elevating the mind and heart to experience a place without the passage of time. In today's world of violence, despair, and non stop disorientation, hearing them is startling in the

best possible way. These twenty minutes for me conjured up an image of an oasis in the desert, a source of growth and life in the midst of nothingness. There I rested, however, briefly on my way back to the cacophony, but carrying the music in my mind and heart. Years ago, as a long time trained musician with a focus on

brass instruments, I took up singing. I flattered myself in the mastering a huge range, and performed both as a conductor and singer, and arranged a repertoire from Palestrina, Pergolisi and Monteverdi to Viveldi, Handle and Mozart. One day, I picked up the musical score to one of Mark's hundreds of cantatas. I tried to sing a single aria i'd heard. I simply could not. It was impossible for me. I realized at that moment that I was not a real singer,

at least not one for which this composer wrote. Bach is truly next level. Bark did not live an easy life. He had twenty children over two marriages and supported them all with playing, conducting and compositions. He played for a Lutheran parish in a humble role with a meager salary, and faced down unreletting pressure from the rector to write new works for every Sunday service while preserving traditional hymnody. He often applied for new jobs, but kept being turned down.

He often complained about the poor quality of his musicians, a point I cannot even fathom, since truly only specialists today can perform his harder works. Bark signed all of his works, whether religious or secular, to the glory of God. It was clearly his conviction that all of his skills were from God and owed back to God, and the object of his works were to point to ideals outside

the rough and tumble of the stream of life. However, some consider his b Minor Mass to be his greatest achievement, but it was never performed in his life. It sat in his draw as a private meditation. It's remarkable to imagine Bark being told in his time that three hundred years later, a single cellist would perform his suites in a grand central station, with crowds rushing by, an audience of thousands of people doing other things, and only one

person stopping to listen carefully. Somehow, these pieces transcend all things contemporary and must sound today exactly as they did hundreds of years ago and will sound hundreds of years Hence, I think two of the player who sat there casting blessing on the crowds with his stunning talents what made him take up cello? He shortly faced down warnings from family and friends that he will would never make much

of a living from doing this. He studied decades, with thousands of hours alone in practice, cultivating a level of skill not one in a million corporate functionaries have, and yet here he is. Artists on this level often report that they could do no other They simply had to follow their passions and dream, despite inevitable stuttering and possible poverty. Such beauty and talent often runs headlong into the buzzsaw

of real life. A New York City chalist once told me that there are two kinds of challists who cannot find work in the city, the worst and the best. The part about the worst is easy to explain. The part about the best gets us into gritty reflections on envy and how ubiquitously it crushes excellence. There is never a good rational reason to go into art as a profession,

but there is every idealistic reason. This is the reason that I cannot fathom why any artist would want to participate in any project that makes the world uglier, as we see in so many government funded art venues in large cities today and have for a century. Art that fails to transcend is not worthy of the name in my view. In all times and all places, there are surely settings and moments that we can find that provide sanctuary, oasis, refuge,

and safe haven for the soul. What form mistakes is different for everyone regardless, This space and the soul must be fed for our own sake, but also to beautify the world and keep it together and livable for another day. Those who do the hard work deserve our gratitude, even

if the worldly games will never be there. I would trade the tens of thousands of United Nations hangers on gathered in the city that day for this one cellist, who sitting on that platform at the train station, playing alone to no one in particular, revealed more truth than all the combined speeches that week given to the multitude. I think that last paragraph summarizes it perfectly. It was a bit long, I know, but I thought it was worthy of from sharing for those of you who sat

with it. Thank you, and thank you Jeffrey Tucker, and that ladies and gentlemen takes us out to podcasts two hundred and fifty eight. We shall return shortly with a number nine on the end. Until then, if you would care to comment on anything from today, or anything else for that better Layton at newstalksb dot co dot nz or Carolyn at newstalksb dot co dot nz, I invite you to write on all and sundry. We love getting

it so that takes us away. The only thing left to say is once again, thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.