Droves Of People Fall For 'Blue Check Homes' Hoax

Droves Of People Fall For 'Blue Check Homes' Hoax A San Francisco artist who mocked Twitter 'blue check' elitism was forced to put a disclaimer on a satirical website, which encouraged 'thought leaders, athletes and famous actors' to apply for a blue "Verified Badge Crest" on the exterior of their homes - letting everyone know how important one is. In a Friday tweet that immediately went viral, Danielle Baskin announced the new service - and in a matter of hours, had over 40 million impressions and thousands of retweets and likes, according to SFGate.  You can now get a Verified Badge crest on your Bay Area home if you're an influencer, public figure, or represent a brand. https://t.co/SyoURdSGe7 pic.twitter.com/H1Sz3gwBdL — Writer for Black Mirror (@djbaskin) January 30, 2021 Upon landing on the homepage for bluecheckhomes.com, visitors are prompted to enter their name and all social media accounts that represent you. Then, after qualifying, applicants need only pay a $3,000 fee to let everyone know how special they are. Those who can apply must be "Homeowners who are prominent executives, thought leaders, influencers, authors, and journalists who represent prominent organizations, including companies, brands, non-profit organizations, and media organizations," along with "Homeowners who are government officials, "Homeowners who are actors with at least 5 production credits on their IMDB profile," and "Homeowners who own entertainment companies, such as film studios, TV networks, and music entities as well as homeowners with public facing roles associated with their productions." The deadpan satire continues with: " Homeowners who are athletes or on professional esports leagues, and coaches listed on the official team website or who have 3 or more featured references within the 6 months prior to applying in news outlets such as Kotaku, Polygon, or IGN." Applicants must be willing to provide proof of home ownership. Apparently so many people fell for the hoax - and didn't catch on to the increasingly absurd qualifications - that Baskin had to add a disclaimer to her website. "...Baskin, the SF-based artist behind the prank, had no idea the website she crafted to back up the fake service would receive 495 applicants, all hoping for a crest of their own." -SFGate "I will say a percentage of them are not from a real person. People added, like, Kim Kardashian, and that was clearly a joke," she said, adding "But everyone else thought the website was real. I did what I thought was a mediocre Photoshop job … I thought, ‘This is all very clickbait-y.’ All of the copy, I thought, was so obviously satire." Now, the website reads: WTF IS THIS REAL? For context, I'm an artist who makes random internet jokes that sometimes pokes fun of "let's turn this into a service" culture, internet vanity culture, and terrible capitalist ideas. Historically, decorative crests found on Victorian homes were a mark to signal wealth and importance and I thought it would be dumb if that concept also existed today. But if it existed today, would you need to be verified by a third party to signal status? Here's the origin of the joke. Yes, I ALSO THINK THE IDEA OF VERIFIED BLUE HOUSE BADGES IS DUMB. I also love to fabricate funny shitposts on a Friday night, but my medium is writing satirical copy for landing pages and creating product launches. I'm also actually a sculptor and would totally make one for someone (IDK about pricing). If I do make one, it's unlikely anyone walking around outside would react to a blue check mark on someone's house. They will probably never find it. So is this real? It's somewhere in between real and fake. Anyone can craft something out of plaster. Anyone can apply to be verified. Anyone can make a landing page. Is there an entity involved and is this being rolled out across Bay Area neighborhoods? No. If you thought this was a full-fledged service, please investigate the things you read on the internet! And if you're an artist making jokes on the internet, we should consider adding disclaimers like this, because not everyone understands your commentary and will share your jokes as fact. 😢 Tyler Durden Wed, 02/03/2021 - 22:10
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Global COVID Vaccinations Pass Confirmed Cases As Wealthy Countries Lead The Way

Global COVID Vaccinations Pass Confirmed Cases As Wealthy Countries Lead The Way As EU regulators push back against approving the Russian Gameleya Institute vaccine even after Hungary already kicked the doors open by becoming the first member of the block to approve it last week, Brussels is caught between a rock and a hard place. Even CNBC's Jim Cramer, a long-time booster for western COVID vaccines, acknowledged during Wednesday morning's premarket show that western consumers must accept that the Russian jab works. Why? Because despite all the propaganda against the Gamaleya Institute, the Russian jab, first developed with the backing of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, has basically been proven effective by the latest report in the deeply respected Lancet, a scientific journal based in the UK that published some of the first international research on COVID-19. Now, just days after the number of vaccinated patients in the US surpassed the total number of confirmed COVID cases, Johns Hopkins and other repositories of COVID data have announced that the world has reached a similar record. As the following chart shows, the number of patients who have received at least one doses has surpassed total confirmed patients by roughly 500K patients. And the trend is likely to continue, even if the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab has been only warily embraced by Western Europe, while the Russian jab has been almost entirely blackballed, since new cases have been falling around the world. Even in India, which - as many might remember was one of the worst hit countries last fall - cases are falling to levels not seen since last fall. Hospitalizations have also declined substantially around the world. The FT doesn’t shy away from pointing out the fact that the figures are incomplete due to the fragmented nature of COVID case reporting. The true number of infections is likely to be many times higher than the total verified by diagnostic tests, since many are bound to have slipped through the cracks. However, on the other hand, the WHO recently admitted that high-cycle PCR tests have produced numerous false positives. Michael Head, global health research fellow at Southampton university, said: “The fact that we have so many vaccines is a huge good news story which has been fed to us in bits and pieces. This moment brings it together, showing how fast we have moved and far we have come.” In another chart, the FT shows how the rich country/poor country divide that the WHO warned about has most definitely emerged around the world. Source: FT Given this latest piece of evidence, wouldn't be surprised to hear or see WHO head Dr. Tedros Adhanom tweeting more warnings, alongside his good buddy, Bill Gates, that the West needs to throw more money at the WHO's Covax international vaccination program. Tyler Durden Wed, 02/03/2021 - 20:50
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Situation Update, Feb. 3 – America to split into FREE states vs censored “SLAVE” states

by Mike Adams, Natural News: As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launches a war against Big Tech censorship, it’s increasingly obvious that tech giants like Google, Facebook and YouTube will soon have to deliver different content results to the “free” states where censorship is banned. Yet those same tech giants will simultaneously deliver heavily censored, limited content results […]
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Von Greyerz: Paper Silver Is Toxic

Von Greyerz: Paper Silver Is Toxic Authored by Egon Von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com, “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not poison”. These words were expressed by the famous Swiss physician and scientist Paracelsus in the 16th century. This week I will discuss two poisonous areas; a toxic derivatives market in silver and ubiquitous fake silver coins and bars. But first a few words about the dollar. CENTRAL BANKERS – MASTER FORGERS The most blatant toxic forgery is carried out by central banks around the world. These banks manufacture $ tens of trillions of fiat paper or electronic entries and then tell the people that it is real money. If ordinary people would print money, the forgers would go to jail and the money destroyed as it is fake and worthless. But when central banks print money, no one goes to jail. Instead they tell us that this money has the same value as the money already in circulation. They might actually be right. Take the dollar – in real terms it has lost 98% since 1971. So all the dollars circulating are virtually worthless. Thus not much different to freshly printed dollars which are also worthless. BIDEN & YELLEN TO MAKE HISTORY In the next 4 years the BY team (Biden&Yellen) will most probably be the ones who fulfil Voltaire’s prediction in 1729 that “Paper Money Eventually Returns To Its Intrinsic Value – ZERO”. Like Matt Piepenburg and myself, Voltaire knew he would be right because history has 100s of examples of governments and central banks destroying the currency. Biden/Yellen don’t really need to do much since the dollar is already down 99% since 1913. So all they will do is to push it down another one percent. But we must remember that this one percent is actually 100% loss of value from today. From the day the Fed was founded in 1913, the dollar’s demise was already written in the history books. And Biden/Yellen is the perfect team to be the executor of history as they drive the dollar to ZERO within the next 4 years. WRONG DOSE OF POISON Financial markets suffer from the wrong dose of poison. Trading financial instruments in the right dose is essential for efficient markets. But the heavily leveraged markets are extremely toxic and kill the weaker patients. And this is the kind of rigged market where the normal investor and small trader has no chance against big players be they hedge funds or central banks. We have just seen how the Reddit group Wallstreetbets has taken on the big hedge fund boys. This Reddit forum is where a very great number of smaller traders discuss investments and interesting trades. Will the Wallstreetbets group succeed in an attack on the massive silver shorts? I will discuss this at the end of the article as well as their chances of success. DAVID DISRUPTS GOLIATH’S POWER Very few have avoided to notice how Wallstreetbets last week attacked Gamestop which was very heavily shorted by the hedge funds. The price went form $19 in early January and settled at $325 last Friday after having reached $350. One trader is said to have made $46 million on a $50,000 bet. This is real David and Goliath stuff when small traders take on the hedge funds in their own game. Some hedge funds are said to have lost billions of dollars and very few people feel sorry for them. The Schadenfreude (gloating) is very apparent. TOXIC GOLD & SILVER Let’s first look at a toxic material that is distributed widely and could flood global markets in the next few years. I am talking about fake gold and silver that could become a real pest. Greed clearly drives these unscrupulous “manufacturers” of fake gold and silver bars/coins. But greed is such a powerful driver that once you discover that people fall for your forgery, the Ponzi scheme grows extremely fast. FAKE BARS AND COINS We are regularly informed of fake gold and silver bars and coins, mainly coming from China. Recently an old and trustworthy contact of mine informed me about his experience in buying silver coins from China on a website like the one below. He spent very little money, just to test the authenticity of the coins. Due to rising metal prices, there are lots of online ads for US silver dollar coins like American Eagles, Peace dollars and Morgan silver dollars. The sellers are mainly in China. My friend ordered the coins from China and when they finally arrived – low and behold, they were found to contain virtually no silver except for the surface coating. This after thorough testing. The coins came from Shenzhen in China. My friend reported his findings to local authorities and the Secret Service and the site is now closed. But like a lot of these counterfeiters, they will most certainly pop up in a different name. To buy US silver coins from China is clearly a red flag already. But since the Chinese are very big buyers of gold and silver, there are a lot of foreign coins on offer and obviously not all are fake. CHINESE FACTORY PRODUCING FAKE GOLD I had first hand information about a case of fake Chinese gold a few years ago. I was in Sydney and interviewed by Channel 7, an Australian news television channel. The news crew had just come back from China where they visited a Chinese gold factory. In the factory they covertly filmed the vast offer of gold coins and bars with perfect markings from the major refiners in Switzerland, Australia and elsewhere. They bought $1/2 million worth of bars and coins for $500. For a layman, there was no chance of telling that the gold was fake. So these are just two examples of fake gold and silver coming out of China. These fake bars and coins are sold over the internet, not just from China but anywhere in the world. But they can also be sold directly by rogue traders in any country. There is less chance that these metals reach the well established chain of integrity between LBMA refiners and reputable sellers and vaults. But the risk is there and even JP Morgan has reported bars with fake logos in their vaults. BUY FRESHLY MINTED GOLD DIRECTLY FROM REPUTABLE REFINERS In order to ensure the quality of gold we purchase for our clients, we always buy new bars or coins directly from the Swiss refiners. If the client sells his gold, we sell it back to the Swiss refiner who melts it down and recasts it. Even if the same gold was sold the previous day by the refiner, they will always refine it again. This totally guarantees the quality of the gold and the integrity of Swiss gold. FAKE GOLD AND SILVER WILL BECOME A MAJOR POISON The obvious conclusion for buyers of gold and silver is to only deal with sellers of the highest reputation. It is preferable to buy fresh bars and coins but this is not easy to verify for an amateur. As the price of the precious metals increase, there will be many new gold and silver “factories” popping up in China and many other countries in Asia. This will create a major supply of fake gold and silver from all parts of the world. These fake products will be distributed via the internet and also flood the retail market in many countries and be a real poison for buyers of precious metals. So dealing with reputable companies is a Sine Qua Non! BYE BYE DOW Finally, we have reached the end of the first month of 2021. In stocks I have in recent articles indicated that the long term secular top could occur in January. This link shows a very important 50 year Dow chart in my article. The second article has two equally important charts of the Dow/Gold ratio which is about to crash. Our proprietary cycles forecast in early October that the charts of the weekly Nasdaq 100 and Dow would form important tops in the week Jan 18-22. So far this forecast is correct. If that is confirmed in the next couple of weeks, we are likely to see the beginning of a major secular bear market with potential dramatic crashes. Even if the big fall in the Dow and the Dow/Gold ratio will come slightly later, it is virtually guaranteed to happen in the next few months. And that will be the end of a spectacular period of debt, fake money and toxic markets. WALLSTREETBETS TO ATTACK SILVER MARKET? The ultimate insurance against a total destruction of your wealth, is obviously physical gold and silver stored outside the financial system. Bitcoin might be a good speculative investment and might also work as a payment method if central banks don’t ban it. But it has nothing to do with real wealth preservation. Silver is normally the leading indicator for the precious metals. Following the spectacular short squeeze in Gamestop by the Reddit group Wallstreetbets, there is now speculation that the same could happen with silver. Yes, everything is possible. But remember that in the gold and silver markets, against the Reddit players there will be: * The BIS (Bank of International Settlement), * The Fed, ECB and other central banks * Plus the bullion banks So a lot of fire power to beat compared to the Gamestop opposition. SILVER – THE INVESTMENT OF THE DECADE The silver market is one of the most toxic of all. Heavily manipulated and with bullion banks now being 100 million oz of silver short on Comex and with no liquidity in London, as Alasdair Macleod has pointed out. Still, even if not in the next week or two, silver will win this game in the medium and long term as the dosage of paper silver shorts is much too big to survive a short squeeze. I would not be surprised to see the 1980 and 2011 $50 high to be taken out in 2021. So silver will lead the metals and the gold/silver ratio, now at 67, will initially reach 30 like in 2011. The long term target is likely to be a lot lower, probably 15 or below. Expect 2021 to be the year when investors wake up to the fact that gold is not a barbarous relic but actually the best wealth protection you can hold and silver the investment of the decade, as I outlined in my October article. Tyler Durden Wed, 02/03/2021 - 03:30
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Europol Warns Gangs Are Selling Fake COVID Certificates For Air Travel

Europol Warns Gangs Are Selling Fake COVID Certificates For Air Travel Criminal gangs in Europe are producing and selling fake negative COVID-19 test certificates in airports and online, according to Europol, the bloc's police cooperation and coordination agency. "As long as travel restrictions remain in place due to the Covid-19 situation, it is highly likely that production and sales of fake test certificates will prevail," Europol said in a statement Monday.  We're #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus. But it seems criminals will do anything to exploit the pandemic: 😷fake PPE 💉fake vaccines and now... 🧪fake negative test results. Out now: our latest update on counterfeit negative COVID-19 test certificates.https://t.co/HNl0ekF6Og — Europol (@Europol) February 1, 2021 "Given the widespread technological means available, in the form of high-quality printers and different software, fraudsters can produce high-quality counterfeit, forged, or fake documents … Member states should be vigilant," Europol continued.  Europol issued the alert after member states reported heighten criminal activity at multiple airports of gangs selling false coronavirus test results for hundreds of euros. For instance, police arrested one suspect at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for selling fake test results for up to 300 euros apiece. There have been similar busts in Spain, Netherlands, and at Luton Airport near London.  Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported that popular messaging apps, including WhatsApp and Snapchat, are seeing the increased activity of criminal organizations selling fake PCR test certificates, along with forged signatures of real doctors. The tests sell for around 50 euros, compared with an official test that costs about 150 euros.  All of this comes as EU countries have restricted travel across the continent and request travelers to present negative virus tests before boarding.  Tyler Durden Wed, 02/03/2021 - 02:45
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Embattled Pennsylvania Secretary Of State Resigns After Botching Constitutional Amendment

Embattled Pennsylvania Secretary Of State Resigns After Botching Constitutional Amendment Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar (D), who came under fire for extending deadlines for absentee voters to provide missing proof of identification - has resigned for failing to comply with an unrelated state election law. Boockvar botched a constitutional amendment which would have allowed sexual abuse victims more time to sue their alleged abusers. Pennsylvania law requires that the secretary of state's office must publicize proposed amendments in two newspapers in each of the state's 67 counties ahead of the election and between two separate votes, which her office failed to do. Her last day in office will be Feb. 5. "Because of the error, the process to amend the constitution must now start from the beginning, unless the General Assembly pursues this initiative through the bill process," said Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in a statement. Wolf also noted that "This change at the Department of State has nothing to do with the administration of the 2020 election, which was fair and accurate," adding "The delay caused by this human error will be heartbreaking for thousands of survivors of childhood sexual assault, advocates and legislators, and I join the Department of State in apologizing to you. I share your anger and frustration that this happened, and I stand with you in your fight for justice." Boockvar made headlines in November after she usurped the power of the state legislature and unilaterally sought to accept mail-in ballots three days after the Nov. 3 election, while also extending the deadline for absentee voters to 'cure' their ballots by providing missing proof of identification. Both the state and the US supreme courts sided with Boockvar - with the latter after Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the liberal members of the court to block the GOP's challenge. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (MO) objected to the certification of Pennsylvania's electoral results for Joe Biden following a riot at the US Capitol by protesters who disrupted proceedings. Tyler Durden Tue, 02/02/2021 - 22:00
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State Legislatures Eye Sound Money Reforms

by Jp Cortez, Gold Seek: More state lawmakers than ever are introducing sound money legislation in the opening days of the 2021 legislative session. Several states will consider measures to remove sales or general excise taxes from the purchases of gold, silver, and other precious metals. Many other states will weigh bills to eliminate income […]
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