Scientists working for the US military have designed a new Covid-19 test that could potentially identify carriers before they become infectious and spread the disease, the Guardian has learned.

In what could be a significant breakthrough, project coordinators hope the blood-based test will be able to detect the virus’s presence as early as 24 hours after infection – before people show symptoms and several days before a carrier is considered capable of spreading it to other people. That is also around four days before current tests can detect the virus.

The test has emerged from a project set up by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) aimed at rapid diagnosis of germ or chemical warfare poisoning. It was hurriedly repurposed when the pandemic broke out and the new test is expected to be put forward for emergency use approval (EUA) by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within a week.

“The concept fills a diagnostic gap worldwide,” the head of Darpa’s biological technologies office, Dr Brad Ringeisen, told the Guardian, since it should also fill in testing gaps at later stages of the infection. If given FDA approval, he said, it had the potential to be “absolutely a gamechanger”.

 

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/us-germ-warfare-lab-create...

 

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What killed the Roman Empire? We could blame the hordes of barbarians… but it was the Catholic religion. This could appear as nonsense... but look at it carefully. When Constantine adopted the Christian beliefs to help him control people and conquer more land, the Roman Empire went into steep decline. Before being invaded by the Christian disease, the Romans were ruthless, were inventors of technology and had fun with joyful orgies and sex. It was at the top of its success, despite power machinations, assassinations of leaders and other normal shenanigans.

It was not the the latter one that killed the Empire, but the religious beliefs that declared that these behaviours were “decadent” and thus prevented the Romans from positive aggression. Based on killings and ransacking, the Roman Empire flourished. Based on Christian beliefs it died. Developing a godly conscience, the Empire floundered. 

Not that this stopped the Christians to soon develop a ruthless attitude themselves. The next thousand years following the fall of the Roman Empire were in the grip of the roaming armies of the popes and their allies — the kings of whatever be England, France, Germany or Poopooland. The Christian hierarchy had learnt from early mistakes: peace was a dirty word and the system would have died without uber control and war. Other beliefs needed to be eliminated by force. The Catars were eradicated. 

This state of papal aggression got a few chinks when Henry VIII chose to go it alone, Luther decided to challenge the golden statues and the indulgences — and Calvin though the Church was beyond the pale. To fight the break-aways the papish side reinforced the dosage with religious wars and Baroque displays beyond extravagances.. All this lasted till the demise of the papal Christians with the inevitable advent of the Enlightenment. 

In order to survive, the Catholics tried to absorb and control the scientific investigation, as well as declaring itself for “peace”, “love”, "Charity” and a few other tricks. Its army got disbanded — now only a small shadow of its former glories, with a Swiss Guard regiment. Meanwhile, it had and still has its secret agents, its banks and its many cover ups. The Church had created wealth and has to protect it… 

God? An effing moron for letting all this happen… Actually god does not exist. Clear?

This is the planet of the proteins, where the survival of most proteins is dependent of stealing from other proteins, without any nefarious intent — using sugars and fats as construction materials. This existential process induces food and diseases. We’re in the middle of it… We fiddle with it...

 

From Walter A. McDougall

...

... I suppose it will depend on what Americans do when and if Providence comes to their rescue. Will most simply sigh in relief, utter a quick prayer of thanks, and rush back to enjoyable decadence? In How the Irish Saved Civilization, his little classic on the so-called Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire, Thomas Cahill quotes cultural historian Kenneth Clark to the effect that “Civilization requires confidence—confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers…. Vigour, energy, vitality: all the great civilizations—or civilizing epochs—have had a weight of energy behind them.” Can Americans recover that confidence and display that energy after this emergency has passed? Will a critical mass of them come to realize (as Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) that the decadence of a technological civilization lies in its worship of Quantity over Quality?

I believe we shall know that postmodern America has begun to exit La Décadence only when her people embrace faith, hope, and charity, and begin to create beauty again.

 

Walter A. McDougall, 73, holds the Alloy-Ansin Chair in International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored seven fat books and won a Pulitzer Prize, but his most precious calling is to teach humility, which is to say history.

 

 

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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/on-decadence-decline-an...

 

 

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Decadence happens when the Religiosity takes over the Enlightened secularity. Faith is the bastard child of an illusion. Hope is not creative. Charity is a poor aspect of compassion and sharing. 

 

This is where the US are "sinning" (fumbling at present). They have not wanted to share with the rest of the world (not just Trump, but all the administrations before him), they are in the grip of the "evangelicals" dishing prayers of hope — and in the hands of selfish private enterprise, where everyone (most people) are "in it for a buck". And they blame everyone else for their predicament, thus have not a single drop of positive understanding, except flustered hubris.

 

 

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Foreign Correspondent / 

By Eric Campbell

 

 

Posted 28 AprApril 2020, updated 29 AprApril 2020

I'm in downtown Warsaw in the middle of Europe's biggest far-right rally and it's messing with my mind.

The weird part isn't the souvenir stands selling anti-Muslim t-shirts or the angry young men wearing skull masks and chanting "faggots forbidden". 

That's standard for an ultranationalist rally.

What's really jarring is the sight of priests standing behind them clutching rosaries.

Then there are the old ladies singing songs about bashing Marxists and the young families who've brought their babies out in prams to celebrate the parade.

In Poland, ultranationalists aren't just obsessed with white civilisation and getting rid of foreigners. 

They're also big on Catholic family values and determined to stamp out what they see as decadent Western liberalism.

"You know what Marxists and Lefties are afraid of?" far-right leader Robert Bakiewicz shouts to the crowd of 60,000. 

"They are afraid of this," he says, holding up a crucifix and kissing it.

A new crusade

Mr Bakiewicz is the former head of the National Radical Camp, a revival of a 1930s Polish fascist group inspired by the Catholic Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. 

But he denies his followers are fascists, insisting they're just patriotic Catholics. His vision is of a new crusade against cultural Marxists.

"Listen, I am asking you to create a counter-offensive, to start a counter-revolution!" he shouts.

"Only a real spiritual counter-revolution is able to defend our nation. Thank you once again and hail, great Poland!"

The crowd responds with chants of "Hail! Bravo, Robert!"

The occasion is the annual celebration of Poland's independence. 

The far right organises a huge rally every year and while it has no official status, it's popular with priests and mainstream politicians.

In 2018, on the 100th anniversary of independence, it was addressed by Poland's right-wing president, Andrzej Duda. 

Later, in his group's TV studio, I ask Robert Bakiewicz what Catholic values he would like enshrined in law.

"All Catholic values," he says. 

"They are founded on what we can call the greatest and the most wonderful and beautiful civilisation that ever existed on Earth. I mean Latin civilisation."

Ultranationalists may be at the extreme end of Polish politics, but their desire to put conservative Catholic doctrine into law is shared by the Government.

A 'rainbow plague'

Since the populist Law and Justice Party was elected in 2015, it has tried to make abortion even more restricted, cracked down on IVF, voted to make sex education a criminal offence and declared much of the country to be "LGBT-free zones".

The church leadership is right behind the moves. The Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jędraszewski, says Poland is facing a "rainbow plague" of gay ideologues pushing for same-sex marriage and adoption rights. 

He likens them to the much-hated Soviets who occupied Poland until 1989.

"This ideology is a threat like the Red plague," he says. 

"It wants to make us support something that takes away our souls. It is a great danger. So we need to defend ourselves just like against any other plague."

And it's welcome news to many Polish families.

This was always a deeply religious country, even under communism, when the country was officially atheist. 

When democracy came in 1989, a lot of unfamiliar Western liberal values came with it, like feminism and gay rights. 

Conservative Catholics are now using their democratic votes to bring in laws they believe will protect their children. 

Cheaper by the octet

"I believe that we can remain a Catholic country, a bedrock of faith in Europe," says father of eight Piotr Tolsdorf. 

"The family is: mother, father, children. All attempts to change it will destroy the family and the society."

The Tolsdorfs live in a two-bedroom apartment, their eight children sharing bunk beds in the larger room. 

They're remarkably neat and cheerful and well behaved. It's almost not surprising when Mr Tolsdorf says they're planning to have more kids.

But the Government helps with that too, paying an allowance of nearly $200 a month for every child after the first to encourage large families.

"We can afford some trips and holiday sightseeing," he says. 

"Basic expenses, you know, eight pairs of shoes, eight jackets, eight school backpacks. 

"It all costs money and it is a significant help for us and for many other families. This is very helpful and was missing earlier."

'They don't care who I'm sleeping with'

But many Poles cringe at the image of their country as a Handmaid's Tale in the making. 

Marcin Nikrant is a 34-year-old construction manager in Lesniewo, a small town in northern Poland.

The townsfolk voted strongly for the Law and Justice Party last year.

But Mr Nikrant doesn't think the community is innately intolerant — they've elected him mayor three times despite him being openly gay.

"They're really interested in what I can do for them — if I'm helpful or not," he says. 

"They really don't care about my private life. They don't care who I am sleeping with."

He feels the church has been deliberately stirring up homophobia with its talk of a "rainbow plague". 

"The church should in no way allow hate speech against homosexual people and today it does," he says. 

"This increases hatred spreading against homosexual people. The church should stay on the side of the weakest, those in need of help and support."

Of late, the church has been fighting claims it preys on the weakest.

Priests of prey

Last May, a crowd-funded documentary called Tell No One was released on YouTube after no cinema or television station would show it. 

It soon became one of the most watched films in Polish history. 

The documentary exposed a shocking history of priests sexually abusing children, and used hidden cameras to show now grown-up victims confronting their abusers. 

Even more shocking were revelations that the church had moved paedophile priests to other parishes rather than reporting them.

I asked the Archbishop of Krakow why anyone should take seriously what the church said about morality when it had so fundamentally failed in its own moral obligations.

"It needs to be understood that the church didn't break any of its own laws or state laws by moving the priests who were guilty of these crimes to other parishes," he says. 

"The accusations in this film are to some extent not true when it comes to the contemporary church. 

"Unfortunately, it used to be like that in the 1980s. But it shouldn't be applied to the modern church's approach."

Evidence of covering up child rape isn't the only thing causing the church discomfort. 

Many suggest it's been complicit in rolling back democracy, including the man credited with achieving it.

'The church needs to go back'

Most people under 40 have never heard of Lech Walesa. But for anyone over 50, he is one of the towering figures of 20th-century history.

In 1980, when he was a young electrician in the shipyard of Gdansk, he set up an independent trade union called Solidarity. The young, moustachioed amateur politician was soon a Cold War hero. 

He asserted that workers had a right to collective bargaining and a right to strike. 

The Soviet-run communist government declared martial law and threw Walesa in prison.

But the Catholic Church, led by the first Polish pope, John Paul II, stood behind him.

It was a successful partnership that marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire. 

By the end of the 1980s, Solidarity had overthrown the communists and Poland became a constitutional democracy. 

Lech Walesa later became president.

These days, Walesa is as critical of the church as he is of the democratically elected Government.

I met him in the shipyard at an EU-funded museum commemorating Solidarity's struggle. 

At 76, he is considerably tubbier and grumpier but still determined to make a stand, always wearing Bono-style shaded sunglasses and a t-shirt emblazed with the word konstytycja (constitution).

"In Poland, I want to say that our constitution is being broken, the separation of powers is violated and we have to do something about it," he says.

He is outraged by the extent to which the Law and Justice Party has taken political control of independent institutions like the courts, giving itself the power to choose judges and sack any who rule against it.

And while he's a devout Catholic, he accuses the church leadership of complicity in return for power.

"The church needs to go back to its right place," he says. 

"Many priests haven't returned to their religious field because they started to enjoy their political roles."

Since our visit, coronavirus has stopped mass rallies and forced priests to hold services in empty churches, live streaming to any internet-savvy flock. 

But this is a long-term struggle, the church determined to regain what it sees as its rightful place in Polish society.

"From the very beginning, the history of the Polish state and Polish nation were connected with the history of Christianity," Archbishop Jędraszewski says. 

"Christianity, nation and state were so tightly connected, they were almost inseparable."

Watch Foreign Correspondent's 'A New Crusade' on YouTube and iview.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-28/poland-catholic-church-revival-lgbt-rights/12180704

 

 

MEANWHILE:

 

The coronavirus pandemic still blighting the United States, Poland and the rest of Europe won’t stop the US Army from holding large-scale drills that come shortly after Warsaw declared Russia a mortal threat. 

As many as 4,000 American and 2,000 Polish service members will descend on the grounds of the Drawsko Pomorskie training area in the country’s northwest, US Army Europe (USAREUR) has announced. The massive, division-size exercise, codenamed Allied Spirit, is set to launch on June 5 and run for two weeks.

The war games, which also involve multiple US vehicles being moved from Germany, should have been held in May, but public health concerns led the Pentagon to postpone it until the following month.

Still, the plans come as the US’ overall coronavirus tally nears 1.4 million, while Poland has over 17,000 Covid-19 patients. Warsaw shut its borders back in May, with the closure expected to remain in place until June 12 – exactly when Allied Spirit will be in full swing.

The Polish army’s top brass had their most notable coronavirus case back in March when General Jaroslaw Mika tested positive after returning from a NATO meeting on the Defender Europe 20 exercise.

The US military, which reportedly has over 5,400 cases in its rank and file, didn’t explain the rationale behind holding the drills amid the pandemic, with USAREUR only promising to take all precautions “to ensure the health and protection of participating armed forces and the local population.”

The news also comes days after Poland, the host nation of Allied Spirit, declared Russia’s “neo-imperial policy” its most serious threat. The Russians, it alleged, are conspiring against Eastern Europe by staging “large-scale military exercises, based on scenarios assuming a conflict with the NATO member states.”

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/488615-us-poland-allied-spirit-drills/

 

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Influential Vatican Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Papal Nuncio to Washington, D.C., has written to President Trump, praising his leadership during a critical juncture in his presidency as he faces harsh criticism for his handling of the coronavirus and the George Floyd protests.

In a June 7 letter addressed to President Trump and obtained by Newsmax, Viganò writes that the President’s enemy is “the children of darkness – whom we may easily identify with the deep state which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days . . .”

The Archbishop indicated that the “Covid emergency” will likely be viewed in the future as a “colossal operation of social engineering.”

“We will also discover that the riots in these days were provoked by those who, seeing that the virus is inevitably fading and that the social alarm of the pandemic is waning, necessarily have had to provoke civil disturbances, because they would be followed by repression which, although legitimate, could be condemned as an unjustified aggression against the population,” Viganò wrote.

The Archbishop claimed that “the same thing is also happening in Europe, in perfect synchrony.”

Viganò praised Trump as a “President who courageously defends the right to life, who is not ashamed to denounce the persecution of Christians throughout the world, who speaks of Jesus Christ and the right of citizens to freedom of worship.”

 

President Trump came under fierce criticism last Tuesday after visiting the Catholic National Shrine of Saint John Paul II in Washington.

Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory, a church liberal, publicly chastised the Shrine for hosting the President.

In a statement Gregory stated: “I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”

The President’s visit to the Shrine came shortly after he signed an Executive Order at the White House supporting religious freedom around the world. The day before the President had visited St. John Church and held a Bible up in front of a press gaggle. On Sunday night, protesters attempted to burn the historic church down.

In his letter Viganò told Trump that the attacks were “part of the orchestrated media narrative which seeks not to fight racism and bring social order, but to aggravate dispositions; not to bring justice, but to legitimize violence and crime; not to serve the truth, but to favor one political faction.”

Without referencing Gregory by name, Viganò implied he was “aligned on the opposing side” to the President.

“They are subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches,” Viganò said.

Viganò concluded his letter, “United against the Invisible Enemy of all humanity, I bless you and the First Lady, the beloved American nation, and all men and women of good will.”

 

Read more:

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Vatican-Archbishop-Carlo-Maria-Vigano-letter-trump/2020/06/07/id/970927/?

 

 

Read from top. Is the letter genuine? Is it "fake" news?

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has accused the western media of “taking his words out of context” after numerous articles covered him equating LGBT “ideology” to communism, insisting he supports equality.

Duda’s Saturday campaign speech, in which he stated that LGBT is an ideology even more sinister than “Bolshevism” was picked up by numerous outlets worldwide.

The president seeks re-election and  conservative voters  constitute his base as he is expected to face liberal Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, known for his pro-LGBT position as the main rival. Yet, extensive foreign media coverage has somehow put him on the defensive.

“Yet again, as part of dirty political fight, my words are put out of context. I truly believe in diversity and equality,” Duda stated on Twitter, picking Reuters, New York Times, AP, the Guardian and Financial Times as targets for his critical rant.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/491812-polish-president-lgbt-western-media/

 

 

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The Catholic Church has asked some priests receiving JobKeeper to donate almost half of the payment back to the organisation.

Key points:

• The Diocese of Parramatta has 41 priests receiving the Government's JobKeeper supplement
• The $3,000 payment almost doubles their usual monthly stipend of $1,590
• Priests and other religious practitioners became eligible for JobKeeper following an amendment to the scheme's rules in May

ABC Investigations has obtained letters sent to priests about the taxpayer-funded payment which ask them to hand back some of the money to help make up for a plunge in donations from parishioners.

The letters, sent to clergy in the Diocese of Parramatta in Western Sydney, say an "amount between $500 and $700 per fortnight is recommended" to "assist with future payments and the balance sheet".

"The closure of churches and the stopping of public masses has had a drastic effect on not only our parish communities, but also the pastoral revenue collection," another letter reads.

It is unclear whether the letters were sent to all clergy in the diocese, or only those receiving JobKeeper payments.

One senior Catholic Church employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, described the church's request to the clergy as "immoral".

"One of the fundamental principles of the church, and the priests who commit to joining it, is to help the poor," the employee said.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-17/catholic-church-asks-priests-getting-jobkeeper-to-donate-back/12359600

 

 

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Cardinal George Pell has praised Donald Trump’s “splendid” supreme court appointments, but questioned his effort to sow doubt in the integrity of the US presidential election.

“It’s no small thing to weaken trust in great public institutions,” Pell told reporters on Wednesday in launching his book, Prison Journal, about the 404 days he spent in solitary confinement before his sexual abuse conviction was overturned by Australia’s high court.

 

In the book, Pell muses on his court case and current events in the Catholic church and around the world, and at one point says Trump is unfortunately “a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways, he is our [Christian] barbarian”.

During the virtual press conference, Pell said Christians had an obligation to bring their values to the public sphere and said Trump had made a “positive contribution” particularly with his three supreme court picks, two of whom are Catholic.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/17/george-pell-trump-is-a-barbarian-but-in-some-important-ways-hes-our-barbarian

 

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