Feb 012020
 


Russell Lee Street scene. Spencer, Iowa 1936

 

Coronavirus “HIV Insertions”: Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon (ZH)
Chinese Furious At Officials Who Lied About Human Transmission (ZH)
China Voices Anger At US Travel Ban (G.)
Australia Bars Entry To Foreign Nationals Traveling From Mainland China (R.)
What Trump Acquittal Would Mean For 2020 Election (BBC)
Is Bernie’s Hour of Power at Hand? (Buchanan)
Hillary Clinton Blames Bernie Sanders For Disunity In Democratic Party (WE)
DNC Members Discuss Rules Change To Stop Sanders At Convention (Pol.)
Democrats Announce New Debate Rules Likely To Allow Bloomberg To Join (R.)
The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich (Craig Murray)
Flynn Prosecution Exposed As Massive FBI and DOJ Abuse Of Power (NYP)
Soros: Facebook, Zuckerberg In Cahoots With Trump To Win 2020 Election (USAT)
Zuckerberg: Facebook’s New Approach ‘Is Going To Piss Off A Lot Of People’ (CNN)
Tales From the Crypt (Jim Kunstler)

 

Apparently because of an article it wrote Wednesday about Chinese virologist Peng Zhou, which was noted by someone at BuzzFeed, a site without an identity, read exclusively be people who have none either, Twitter banned the Zero Hedge site that @Jack follows:

Long live the thought police. Tyler suspects this has something to do with publishing Peng Zhou’s phone# and email, but also points out these are freely available on his employer’s website.

 

Today’s 2019nCoV numbers may show a little leveling off, but there’s no way we can be sure.

• Confirmed cases: 11,821 in China, 124 abroad. Total 11,945 (yesterday: 9.821)

• Deaths: 259 (up 46 from yesterday)

• Discharged from hospitals on the Chinese mainland: 243

• Hubei province: 1347 new cases and 45 deaths on Jan 31 compared with 2102 new cases and 46 deaths nationwide.

What I found interesting to see is this: “Xinyu, a city in Jiangxi province – adjacent to Hubei – said 17 new cases had been confirmed in the city, and that 15 of the afflicted patients were infected by a single person.” That may say something else -again- about the R-naught (R0) infection rate. About which -just like the mortality rate- there are a lot of different ideas still.

 

 

From a new study by Gabriel Leung et al, published by the Lancet, comes this graphic:

 

 

Make from it what you want. Looks scary. Majority of Wuhan infections are now without a link to the fish/meat market.

Coronavirus “HIV Insertions”: Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon (ZH)

Over the past few days, the mainstream press has vigorously pushed back against a theory about the origins of the coronavirus that has now infected as many as 70,000+ people in Wuhan alone (depending on whom you believe). The theory is that China obtained the coronavirus via a Canadian research program, and started molding it into a bioweapon at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan. Politifact pointed the finger at Zero Hedge, in particular, though the story was widely shared across independent-leaning media. The theory is that the virus, which was developed by infectious disease experts may have originated in the Wuhan-based lab of Dr. Peng Zhou, China’s preeminent researcher of bat immune systems, specifically in how their immune systems adapt to the presence of viruses like coronavirus and other destructive viruses.


Somehow, the virus escaped from the lab, and the Hunan fish market where the virus supposedly originated is merely a ruse. Now, a respected epidemiologist who recently caught flack for claiming in a twitter thread that the virus appeared to be much more contagious than initially believed is pointing out irregularities in the virus’s genome that suggests it might have been genetically engineered for the purposes of a weapon, and not just any weapon but the deadliest one of all. In “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag”, Indian researchers are baffled by segments of the virus’s RNA that have no relation to other coronaviruses like SARS, and instead appear to be closer to HIV. The virus even responds to treatment by HIV medications.

“3D modelling of the protein structure displayed that these insertions are present at the binding site of 2019-nCoV. Due to the presence of gp120 motifs in 2019-nCoV spike glycoprotein at its binding domain, we propose that these motif insertions could have provided an enhanced affinity towards host cell receptors. Further, this structural change might have also increased the range of host cells that 2019-nCoV can infect. To the best of our knowledge, the function of these motifs is still not clear in HIV and need to be explored. The exchange of genetic material among the viruses is well known and such critical exchange highlights the risk and the need to investigate the relations between seemingly unrelated virus families.”

Read more …

Xi is being praised now, but Beijing sat on his hands for a full month in December.

Chinese Furious At Officials Who Lied About Human Transmission (ZH)

For reasons that haven’t been shared with the public, the WHO has chosen to lavish praise on Beijing, insisting that travel to China isn’t dangerous even as more governments impose restrictions, and claiming that Beijing has been completely transparent and a ‘model’ for how countries should handle outbreaks like this. When pressed by a reporter, Dr. Tedros, the director general of the WHO, replied that local authorities in Wuhan had been “very transparent” with the Chinese people by publishing up-to-date notices about new cases and deaths. First of all, many suspect that Beijing hasn’t been entirely truthful as far as these tallies are concerned.

Second, it’s not so much about what Beijing told the Chinese people. Everybody knows the government censors anything that might reflect badly upon the Communist Party. So to claim that the government has been completely transparent with the people is almost disingenuous. Of course that’s not true. But the real issue is what they did and didn’t tell the international news media, and their international partners. Now, a new study has exposed the Communist Party’s lies. The research has once again moved back the timeline of when senior Chinese leaders knew about the outbreak in Wuhan, suggesting that they waited longer to act, and longer to inform the international community, than they had led the world to believe. The claim appeared in a top American medical journal. From Nikkei Asian Review:

“The deadly new coronavirus from Wuhan was spreading from person to person as early as mid-December, weeks before China officially confirmed such transmission, government-funded Chinese researchers report in a top American medical journal. The paper in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzes data on the first 425 confirmed cases in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated. “On the basis of this information, there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019,” it reads. The paper notes that seven health care workers contracted the virus between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11 – significant evidence of human-to-human transmission. The findings sharply contrast with the accounts of Wuhan health authorities who had maintained until mid-January that there was “no clear evidence” that the virus could be passed among humans. Officials also claimed Jan. 11 that no health care workers had been infected.”

But…but…but…the local authorities in Wuhan said they didn’t have evidence of person to person transmission until mid-January! That’s increasingly difficult to believe, seeing as the signs were clearly there after the first wave of patients was diagnosed and examined and interrogated. Research suggests fewer than 60% of the early virus-carriers had been directly linked to the seafood market. The rest were associates, friends and relatives of the people who had. That, right there, is evidence of human-to-human transmission – and this was known as early as mid-December.

Some frustrated Chinese have chosen to defy censors and lash out on Chinese social media networks like Weibo. “Many of the paper’s authors work for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and local counterparts. Many were among the first batch of medical experts to have entered Wuhan for on-the-ground inspections, developing “a tailored surveillance protocol to identify potential cases” on Jan. 3. “They all knew,” a user on the Weibo microblogging platform said. “They just didn’t say, but lied to us.” “If only they could have told people earlier, we could have taken better preventive measures, and the virus would not have spread this fast,” another wrote.”

Read more …

China know very well there is no other solution than isloation.

China Voices Anger At US Travel Ban (G.)

China has reacted angrily to a US entry ban on foreign nationals who have visited the country in the past two weeks, as countries around the world raced to contain the coronavirus outbreak amid a rising death toll. The US administration on Friday declared the virus a public health emergency, although it insisted the risk to Americans remained low. Foreign nationals who have recently been to China, where the death toll from the virus rose by 46 overnight to 259, will be barred from entering the US from Sunday. American citizens who have travelled within the past two weeks to Hubei province – where the outbreak is thought to have begun – will be placed in quarantine for 14 days, the longest incubation period for the virus. Those who visited other parts of mainland China will undergo health checks and 14 days of “monitored self-quarantine”.


The Chinese government criticised the measures, saying it contradicted the World Health Organization’s (WHO) appeal to avoid travel bans and implied that Beijing was not doing enough to contain the virus’s spread beyond China’s borders. “Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the US rushed in the opposite direction,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. “[It is] certainly not a gesture of goodwill.” The row came as another airline, Qantas, suspend direct flights to China and the organisers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were forced to respond to unfounded online rumours that the Games had been cancelled due to the outbreak. They insisted they were “not considering” cancelling the Olympics and Paralympics. “We will work closely with the IOC and other concerned bodies to draw any countermeasures whenever necessary,” they said.

Read more …

Et tu, Qantas?

Australia Bars Entry To Foreign Nationals Traveling From Mainland China (R.)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia will deny entry to all foreign nationals traveling from mainland China from Saturday due to the increasing threat from the coronavirus epidemic. Morrison also announced that Australia was raising its travel guidance for China to the highest level, advising people against visiting the country at all. “We’re in fact operating with an abundance of caution in these circumstances,” Morrison told reporters in Sydney. “So Australians can go about their daily lives with confidence.” The new incoming travel ban includes anybody who has been in China from Feb. 1, whether they have traveled directly from the country or through another port.


It extends an existing ban on travel from the province of Hubei, the center of the epidemic, to the entire country. Australian citizens and permanent residents returning home are exempt from the ban but are required to isolate themselves for 14 days after their arrival. Australian authorities have identified 10 coronavirus cases in Australia, but no deaths. The Australian travel restrictions came just hours after the United States announced border curbs on foreign nationals who have been in China amid fears that the virus could spread further overseas. Around two dozen countries have reported confirmed cases of the virus, but the vast majority of those infected remain in China, where the number of deaths stood at 259 on Saturday.

Read more …

Hunter Biden was kicked out of the Navy on Feb 14 2014. Burisma hired him, with his lack of skills in oil and Ukraine and all, at $85k a month in April 2014. Not suspect at all.

Still would like to know who debunked the theory though.

And some proof that Trump is “scared to death” Biden will be the nominee. I still see no reason he would be.

What Trump Acquittal Would Mean For 2020 Election (BBC)

Barring an unforeseen and unexpected blockbuster development, a largely party-line vote will acquit him of the two charges brought by the House of Representatives, which itself approved those articles of impeachment on a nearly party-line vote. Both sides will soon be left to sift through the political rubble just nine months before a national election that has the entire House, more than a third of the Senate and the presidency itself on the ballot. According to polls, the nation’s political disposition is much as it was before the impeachment process began. The US is sharply divided along partisan lines. The president’s approval ratings hover in the low to mid-40s, roughly where they’ve been the entirety of his term in office. His re-election chances are dicey but far from slim.

The decision not to seek witnesses – which polls show Americans overwhelming wanted – may be forgotten before long. After all, Democrats and Republicans had very different views about what “witnesses” means. The former wanted to hear from Trump administration officials like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, who they think could corroborate the charges against the president. The latter sought to call Joe Biden’s son Hunter, head impeachment manager Adam Schiff and the whistleblower – and will be just as happy to see the whole matter put to rest. Impeachment didn’t change the existing political disposition in the US; instead, it was subsumed by it.

[..] There is no evidence indicating that Biden engaged in any kind of misconduct in Ukraine, but in politics such technicalities don’t always matter. True or not, if hurts, it hurts. And during the opening arguments for the president’s defence team, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi did her best to make it hurt. In her remarks, she sounded more like a prosecutor – laying out what she saw as the case against Hunter Biden and, by connection, his father, former Vice-President Joe Biden. She said the Ukrainian energy company Burisma gave a board position to the Biden son in to attempt to influence US policy.

She questioned whether Joe Biden did anything as point-man for the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy that may have helped protect his son from investigation. That suspicion alone, she continued, should justify the president’s decision to ask the Ukrainian government to look into the Bidens. “All we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue, and that is enough,” she said. [..] Biden has tried to turn Republican interest in damaging his political prospects into a strength, tweeting last week that [Iowa Republican Senator Jodi]Ernst and Trump are “scared to death I’ll be the nominee”. An October poll, however, showed that 40% of Democrats and majorities of Republicans and independents think Hunter Biden’s Ukraine dealings are a valid campaign issue.

Read more …

Bernie gets attacked from the right, not just his own party. Pat Buchanan legitimizes his candidacy.

Is Bernie’s Hour of Power at Hand? (Buchanan)

Can a septuagenarian socialist who just survived a heart attack and would be 80 years old in his first year in office be elected president of the United States? It’s hard to believe but not impossible. As of today, Bernie Sanders looks like one of the better, if not best, bets for the nomination. Polls have him running first or second in the first three contests: Iowa on Monday, and then New Hampshire and Nevada. If Bernie can best main rival Joe Biden in Iowa, he will likely thump Joe in New Hampshire. Biden’s campaign, built around “electability,” could suffer a credibility collapse before he reaches South Carolina, where Joe is banking on his African American base to rescue him if necessary and give him a send-off victory straight into Super Tuesday.

If Sanders can beat Biden two or three times in the first four primaries in February, the last remaining roadblock on Sanders’ path to the nomination could be Mike Bloomberg’s billions. Hillary Clinton may sneer, “Nobody likes him,” but Bernie has a large, dedicated, loyal following, especially among millennials, and tens of thousands more small-dollar donors than any other Democratic candidate. He is flush with cash. He has a radical agenda that appeals to the ideological left and the idealistic young. The rising star of the party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is campaigning alongside him. And, say what you will, Sanders is no trimmer or time-server. He has consistently voted his values and views. He voted no to Bush 41’s Gulf War, no to Bush 43’s Iraq War, no to NAFTA, no to GATT.

In the ’80s, when President Reagan battled the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Sanders was on the other side. But what makes Sanders an appealing candidate for the Democratic nomination may prove poisonous to him as a party nominee in the fall.

Read more …

The Democratic Patry’s wrecking ball strikes again. Hillary won’t share that title with Schiff.

Hillary Clinton Blames Bernie Sanders For Disunity In Democratic Party (WE)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Sen. Bernie Sanders and his support network of being responsible for disunity within the Democratic Party. In a Friday podcast, Clinton called the behavior of Sanders supporters “distressing,” assigning blame to them for the outcome of the 2016 election. Clinton beat Sanders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016, but not after a bitter primary contest in which the Vermont independent ran a surprisingly competitive campaign. “All the way up until the end, a lot of people highly identified with his campaign were urging people to vote third-party, urging people not to vote,” Clinton, 72, told Emily Tisch Sussman on her podcast Your Primary Playlist. “It had an impact.”


Clinton lauded former President Barack Obama’s behavior during the 2008 election, when he defeated her for the party’s nomination, claiming he helped unify the Democratic Party in a way Sanders did not eight years later. “That cannot happen again,” she said, alluding to the 2020 election. “I don’t care who the nominee is. I don’t care. As long as it’s somebody who can win, and as long as it’s somebody who understands politics is the art of addition, not subtraction.”

Read more …

The DNC aims to make sure the Dems have no chance in the election. For their track record, see 2016.

DNC Members Discuss Rules Change To Stop Sanders At Convention (Pol.)

A small group of Democratic National Committee members has privately begun gauging support for a plan to potentially weaken Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and head off a brokered convention. In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

“I do believe we should re-open the rules. I hear it from others as well,” one DNC member said in a text message last week to William Owen, a DNC member from Tennessee who does not support re-opening the rules. Owen, who declined to identify the member, said the member added in a text that “It would be hard though. We could force a meeting or on the floor.” Even proponents of the change acknowledge it is all but certain not to gain enough support to move past these initial conversations. But the talks reveal the extent of angst that many establishment Democrats are feeling on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

Sanders is surging and Joe Biden has maintained his lead nationally, but at least three other candidates are widely seen as viable. The cluster raises the specter of a convention requiring a second ballot. If Sanders wins the Iowa caucuses on Monday and continues to gain momentum, it is possible he could arrive at the convention with the most delegates — but without enough to win the nomination on the first ballot. It is also possible that he and Elizabeth Warren, a fellow progressive, could arrive at the convention in second and third place, but with more delegates combined than the frontrunner.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1223356793805398018

Read more …

Little Mike to save the nation. Not tainted by failed impeachment: ideal.

Democrats Announce New Debate Rules Likely To Allow Bloomberg To Join (R.)

The Democratic Party on Friday announced new rules around how presidential hopefuls can qualify to take part in debates, changes likely to allow billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg to join the stage in February. Starting with the debate on Feb. 19 in Nevada, candidates who want to participate will no longer have to demonstrate grassroots support by collecting donations from thousands of donors, according to a press release from the party. Bloomberg is funding his campaign entirely with his own money, estimated at $60 billion, meaning that while he has climbed in the polls, he could not qualify for debates under the old rules.


“We are thrilled that voters could soon have the chance to see Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage, hear his vision for the country, and see why he is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump and bring our country together,” Bloomberg campaign Manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement. A late entry to the competition to take on Republican President Donald Trump in November, Bloomberg contributed more than $200 million from his own fortune to his bid as of the end of 2019, according to disclosures his campaign filed on Friday with the Federal Election Commission. [..] “To now change the rules in the middle of the game to accommodate Mike Bloomberg, who is trying to buy his way into the Democratic nomination, is wrong. That’s the definition of a rigged system,” Jeff Weaver, a senior advisor for Sanders’ campaign, said in an emailed statement.

Read more …

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Sound familiar?

The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich (Craig Murray)

A persistent American lawyer has uncovered the undeniable fact that the FBI has been continuously lying, including giving false testimony in court, in response to Freedom of Information requests for its records on Seth Rich. The FBI has previously given affidavits that it has no records regarding Seth Rich. A Freedom of Information request to the FBI which did not mention Seth Rich, but asked for all email correspondence between FBI Head of Counterterrorism Peter Strzok, who headed the investigation into the DNC leaks and Wikileaks, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, has revealed two pages of emails which do not merely mention Seth Rich but have “Seth Rich” as their heading. The emails were provided in, to say the least, heavily redacted form.

The major point is that the FBI claimed it had no records mentioning Seth Rich, and these have come to light in response to a different FOIA request that was not about him. What other falsely denied documents does the FBI hold about Rich, that were not fortuitously picked up by a search for correspondence between two named individuals? To look at the documents themselves, they have to be read from the bottom up, and they consist of a series of emails between members of the Washington Field Office of the FBI (WF in the telegrams) into which Strzok was copied in, and which he ultimately forwarded on to the lawyer Lisa Page.


The opening email, at the bottom, dated 10 August 2016 at 10.32am, precisely just one month after the murder of Seth Rich, is from the media handling department of the Washington Field Office. It references Wikileaks’ offer of a reward for information on the murder of Seth Rich, and that Assange seemed to imply Rich was the source of the DNC leaks. The media handlers are asking the operations side of the FBI field office for any information on the case. The unredacted part of the reply fits with the official narrative. The redacted individual officer is “not aware of any specific involvement” by the FBI in the Seth Rich case. But his next sentence is completely redacted. Why?

Read more …

Wait, what did I just say: “Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Sound familiar?”

Flynn Prosecution Exposed As Massive FBI and DOJ Abuse Of Power (NYP)

Here’s another black eye for the Justice Department’s Obama-era leadership: The case against Gen. Michael Flynn is in full collapse. Federal prosecutors just backed down from their demand that Flynn — President Trump’s first, short-lived national security adviser — serve jail time for lying to FBI investigators, telling a court Wednesday that probation would be a “reasonable” sentence. In fact, Justice had long wanted leniency, since Flynn cooperated fully with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations. But last month it started seeking up to six months of confinement — mainly because he’s no longer taking responsibility for his crime.

“I am innocent,” he writes in a new filing, explaining that he pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to the FBI because he felt helpless to fight the charges: He’d already had to sell his home to pay legal costs and was told his son could be indicted, too. The “crime” came days after the inauguration, when FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka questioned Flynn at the White House about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Yet the FBI had already reviewed transcripts of the calls and found nothing illicit. The visit was a fishing expedition: The agents even skipped the customary heads-up to the president’s Office of Legal Counsel — aiming to avoid having a lawyer present for the talk.

Even so, Strzok and Pientka wound up finding “no indication” that Flynn had lied to them. But then FBI lawyer Lisa Page (Strzok’s mistress at the time) instructed them to alter their official writeup of the conversation to say otherwise. And that’s the entire basis of the charges against him.

Read more …

George is 89 and afraid global dominance will escape him.

Soros: Facebook, Zuckerberg In Cahoots With Trump To Win 2020 Election (USAT)

George Soros blasted Facebook at Davos, accusing the company of conspiring to help President Trump win re-election. “I think there is a kind of informal mutual assistance operation or agreement developing between Trump and Facebook,” Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “Facebook will work together to reelect Trump, and Trump will work to protect Facebook so that this situation cannot be changed and it makes me very concerned for 2020.” The liberal billionaire did not offer any proof, and Facebook denied it, but Soros doubled down on his anti-Facebook talk Friday in an opinion piece published in The New York Times.

“I believe that Mr. Trump and Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, realize that their interests are aligned – the president’s in winning elections, Mr. Zuckerberg’s in making money,” Soros wrote. Soros also said neither Zuckerberg nor Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, should be left in charge of Facebook. “They follow only one guiding principle: maximize profits irrespective of the consequences,” Soros wrote. Facebook pushed back in a statement. “While we respect Mr. Soros’ right to voice his opinion, he’s wrong. The notion that we are aligned with any one political figure or party runs counter to our values and the facts.” Last week in Davos Trump was asked about Zuckerberg. “I heard he’s gonna run for president,” Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “That wouldn’t be too frightening I don’t think.”

There’s no evidence that Zuckerberg and Trump have any kind of pact. But it’s true that Facebook gave Trump a big boost in 2016. Just ask Facebook. In January, a leaked internal post from longtime Facebook executive Andrew “Boz” Bosworth credited Trump’s 2016 win to the president’s digital advertising campaign. In 2020, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is focused again on Facebook. “Was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected?” Bosworth wrote in the Dec. 30 post. “I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks. He didn’t get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica. He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”

Read more …

Posing as controversial. Most people will buy it too.

Zuckerberg: Facebook’s New Approach ‘Is Going To Piss Off A Lot Of People’ (CNN)

Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will stand up for principles like free expression and encryption, even if it means facing a backlash. “This is the new approach, and I think it’s going to piss off a lot of people. But frankly, the old approach was pissing off a lot of people too, so let’s try something different,” Zuckerberg said at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Utah on Friday. The Facebook (FB) cofounder and CEO said his company’s aim for a long time was to not do anything that would be deemed as “too offensive,” but he is now changing that approach in the face of what he deems as excessive censorship.

“Increasingly we’re getting called to censor a lot of different kinds of content that makes me really uncomfortable,” Zuckerberg said, while acknowledging Facebook’s responsibility to purge its platforms of content related to terrorism, child exploitation and incitement to violence. “We’re going to take down the content that’s really harmful, but the line needs to be held at some point,” he added. Zuckerberg also said Facebook would continue to fight for encryption, another stance that has sparked controversy in recent months. The company has come under fire for allowing politicians to lie in ads, at a time when Twitter has decided to ban political advertising altogether.

Zuckerberg has been increasingly vocal about Facebook’s determination to stick to its positions even when they prove unpopular. His comments in Utah came days after he said on the company’s latest earnings call that his goal for the next decade “isn’t to be liked, but to be understood.” The 35-year-old tech billionaire reiterated that sentiment on Friday. “If you’re not out there standing for things that people care about then it’s not possible for people to feel that strongly about what you’re doing,” he said.

Read more …

“It’s hard to think of a more loathsome figure in US political history than Adam Schiff.”

Tales From the Crypt (Jim Kunstler)

What a fatal mistake, allowing Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to make himself the face of the Democratic Party. They would have been better off with another scion of Hollywood: the Phantom of the Opera. This grubby seditionist has marched the party into a wilderness of deceit and knavery that taints them all, and when this grotesque impeachment episode is over, a new chapter of consequences will open that should leave the party for dead. It’s hard to think of a more loathsome figure in US political history than Adam Schiff.

[..] The impeachment he led was crippled from the start with violations of process and errors of logic of exactly the kind that drives his party’s Woke hysteria with its assaults on free speech, its vicious “cancel” culture, its reckless race-hatred, its depraved Transsexual Reading Hours, and its neurotic obsession with Russian phantoms — a matrix of beliefs that would embarrass a conclave of medieval necromancers. Of course, the impeachment was just the latest sortie in a three-year campaign to confound and conceal the arrant misdeeds of a network of government employees in the Departments of State and Justice, the FBI, the CIA, and the remnants of Barack Obama’s White House, who are all connected and all liable for prosecution, not to mention characters in congress such as the co-seditionist Mark Warner (D-VA), who trafficked the Steele dossier around official Washington.

The “Whistleblower” in the current impeachment fiasco was a CIA agent and John Brennan protégé who had worked for Joe Biden both in the US and on trips to Ukraine when he was detailed to the Obama White House. Hunter Biden was known to be a dangerous abscess of grift years before Mr. Trump ever rode down that fabled golden escalator, and the “WB” was present for White House meetings with Ukrainian officials when embarrassing questions about Burisma and the Bidens came up. His supposed right to anonymity is fairytale and the time is not far off when he’ll have to answer for his deeds, whether it’s in a Senate committee or a grand jury.

Read more …

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 1 2020

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  • #53300

    Russell Lee Street scene. Spencer, Iowa 1936   • Coronavirus “HIV Insertions”: Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon (ZH) • Chinese Furious A
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 1 2020]

    #53301
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Russell Lee Street scene. Spencer, Iowa 1936
    The daily Reporter; hmpf, what a quaint term…

    Make from it what you want. Looks scary. Majority of Wuhan infections are now without a link to the fish/meat market.

    And then there is the HIV-insert…
    This is proving a wild ride to? Hang on for dear life…
    True? Or not? Who knows, but we’ll see where this goes, no?

    #53302
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Wife and I ordered a buncha Vitamin D3 and vitamin C from Amazon last night. One never knows when the media will trigger a panic run on such items. All it takes is some expert doctor on some talk show advising people to buy this or that preventative measure. If it happens in the right moment of general public awareness from public health announcements, like we’re seeing now, the just-in-time stocks can vinish quickly. I saw that Singapore required registration to purchase face masks. One assumes this is so scalpers don’t but the stocks and then gouge the public with hyper-priced face masks as people panic.

    I’m old and growing rather frail, with lungs weakened by periods of nasty smoking from times when bleeding really got me down and desperate. I mention this because, iirc what I read last night (my brain is still a whirlagig from having the inside of my face fried), the fuirst reported case in the USA was a guy in the Seattle area. He was 35 years old and went from mild symptoms to raging pneumonia. He lived but it took eight days in the hospital. Eight days.

    So I will be following WES’s example and the advice of otheras like John Day and taking extra good care of myself.

    Ironically, the latest version of coronavirus running at large in the world is triggering a renaissance of self-care after a year of just kind of hanging on while I often smoked too much dope and frequently broke down and smoked cigarettes.

    I hope this stuff doesn’t affect crows. I have adopted two crows who claim the trees behind “our” apartment complex. GOmez and Morticia Adams. Morticia has a lame right foot. After almost a year, they have come to trust me enough to regularly get into easy pellet gun range, which I take as high trust. Crows are smart and wary. Morticia will sit in the pine tree just 6-8 yards from our veranda and gently, politely caw for peanuts. I toss hard-boiled eggs onto the carport roof below every morning.

    I take uncanny pleasure in being their “retirement fund”.

    But also, I figure that, since people will quite likely literally be eating crow in a few years, I might as well up the population of same by making it easier for them to brood and raise more crows. I find it disturbing to observe how readily I anticipate the worst happening sooner than not, but that continually seems the most logical outcome. When logic and intuition both nestle in my gut like old friends, I figure they’re on to something and I should believe what they tell me.

    ***

    Hillary is acting like a classic sociopathic narcissist. If she can’t have it, she’ll take down everyone else with her if she can. Since my biases imprinted toward the left as I learned about and became involved in politics (that’s a curious expression from someone raised in a democratic republic with compulsory public education), I feel more bitterness toward the icons of that side of the spectrum than I do toward those of the other side. I expect Lindsey Graham to be a punk. I expect Mitch McConnel to be a slow-moving reptile with the soul of a restaurant check. Cruz, Rubio, the infamous Bushies… but watching Hillary turn nto hazmat what was left of an already thinned-out Democratic party, is especially galling.

    There is no good reason for me to be mad at any of them. They’re made possible by collective human nature, the inherently toxic nature of what we call civlization (military forces invading and acquiring slaves and plunder in the name of some glorious concept of group identity that allows us to fall for Us vs Them without considering that we’re Them to their Us), our generally hypnotized state in a realm of increasingly virtual reality.

    But I would love to be close to her, vetted through a Secret aservice line, shake her hand, and say, “I feel so sorry for you. You’re obviously a miserably deranged pathetic wretch. I pray for you just to rinse from my soul my disgust toward you .”

    My brain must be calming down. I’m registering the necessities of orderly syntax again.

    Get Some Help, You

    #53303
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Reading about media star after media star making the same dumb conclusions per their general political bias and, worse, their general adherence to status quo cultural concepts, is disheartening. Stephen King is obviously a very intelligent man.

    Horrified Horror Mongerer

    But success breeds enhanced self-esteem that in turn makes people like him think they understand things they scarcely analyze.

    It’s like the rather terrifying heartbreak I felt reading Nicole Foss touting the same old Trump Is the Sickness! nonsense. She should know enough about large systems and nodal points to recognize that Trump is just a big pimple oozing the pus flowing creepy through the veins of our various governances.

    It reminds me again that, should things collapse (how can they not?), the most reliable neighbor will be a dead neighbor.

    I’ve ashared the following before. I share it again:

    Molecular Civil War

    When the basis of one’s culture is a failing sham, the collapse of its facades reveals a glaring nihilism only needing hardship and mistrust for it to become a mutual mistrust of pert near everything except what you can hold in your hand. I hasve a copy of Among the Thugs, and both volumes of Victor Klemperer’s I Shall Bear Witness. Their observations are not encouraging.

    Our currency reads In God We trust, but people only trust cash to cooperate together. We have entirely lost ancient social protocols involving mutual understanding of mutual needs including, especially, the mutual need to cooperate together to survive even during the best of times. “Entirely lost” isn not hyperbole. As someone who spent much of his young aduly years homeless in various forms, I can attest how little we know how to function without money easing the way for us.

    Money, said some smart guy in a book called Non-Zero Sum or something like that, is “deferred reciprocal altruism”: we trust that a dollar exchanged for something will in turn be exchangeable (although it’s more fun to say ‘fungible’ 😉 ) for something “equally valuable”, that if you scratch my back today in exchange for some currency, said currency will be redeemable in the future for a back scratch or maybe a lollipop.

    Even the concept of barter is downright rude and offensive to our sensibilities. This is a Puritan or Calvinist, I forget, product of the Euromerican colonial experiement in North America a few centuries back, when some New England shopkeeper decided to employ the radical notion of setting a fixed price whose appeal at the time was that he wanted gouge anyone but instead, ask a fair price. It was heavenly at first but it cost us our ability to negotiate exchange values and contracts outside of things like the stock market which, as we’ve seen, are now cattle pens where the population of beed grows far past any healthy sustainable population because of central bank equivalent of hormones and antibiotics.

    We have two basic social modes available to us at this point: everything’s swell or I’ma take from you what I want if I can. We ignore the latter prospect because aren’t we nice civilizwed human beings? Look how we gather together as comrades when the power goes out or the levve breaks and we’re briefly without various necessities. But let those periods go past a few weeks and all hell will break loose.

    I don’t think there has ever been a more pampered, complacent population so disconnected from the fundament (the earth) of provisions. We’ve never seen a population so conditioned by ludicrous false beliefs, or so dependent on inevitably collapsing resource bases amid the growing disruptions caused by the greatest resource extraction and waste thereof in history.

    But Nicole Foss and Stephan King are worried about Donald Trump being a pighead in open rather than the socially approved secret mode of pigheadedness.

    pig mask

    #53304
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ” when some New England shopkeeper decided to employ the radical notion of setting a fixed price whose appeal at the time was that he wanted gouge anyone but instead, ask a fair price. ”

    Wouldn’t not “wanted”. I’ll be glad when my brain is no longer on fire.

    #53306
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Wu-tang flu may be running against the number of available tests. Think of it: Every day we need say, 10,000 pathogen test kits. Then one day we need 10,000,000. You got a factory for that? Oh and the supply chains feeding that factory are broken. Good luck!

    Yet another fact we don’t have: is everyone we want getting tested or are tests themselves in shortage? If so, the “confirmed” number is in shortage. So we could have 200,000 infected but because it’s the flu, they didn’t even know it. Then the 250 death is nothing. If it’s actually 10k, then the rate is stable at 2%, which isn’t terrible, but annoyingly high. And if a guy flies into Chicago or Seattle and picks up his own car home, meh. But a person walking around the L train in NYC from Kennedy? Crap. We’ll know shortly. …Unless our tests and gloves come from China too, like the thoughtless dummies we often are. Remember kids: It’s racist not to outsource all your critical infrastructure!

    Note they’re getting in trouble now for the disease being visible a month earlier, in mid-December. If so, is that a death rate far lower, or unrecognized and higher?

    “The president’s approval ratings hover in the low to mid-40s,”

    Because: media, is this not essentially the same as Obama’s and many Presidents before? Look at it this way: two party system makes top approval 50%. Really we have 30%L, 30%R and 30%C uncaring/undecided. So he has 30% of his party plus roughly half the independents, like everyone. Okay, looked at another way: the approval of both the Media (BBC) and Congress is under 15%, you know, below cockroaches and bedbugs but above Avanetti. So he’s multiples more popular than either of you. Will he win? The only thing holding back the Democrats is themselves. Unfortunately they don’t seem in the mood to present a winning candidate. They’ve basically said they will investigate and impeach Trump again immediately. We’ll see how that goes over with the electorate, but I think an increasing number of the 30% uncaring will go to the polls just to punch them in the face and shut them up. That’s a rather American thing to do, to run a sick-of-it, you-need-a-good-lesson vote, but we’ve had it what, 5 times, including Obama’s “hope and change” then Bernie, then Trump, because they won’t learn the lesson. We don’t mind punching them some more. We’re Americans, we relish it, love punching for any plausible reason, and as Captain America says, “I can keep this up all day.”

    “here is no evidence indicating that Biden engaged in any kind of misconduct in Ukraine”

    OMGAYFKM. Stop! This is why the punching begins. On the media as much as the elections. This is where they overplay. We know he’s dirty: he’s a politician. We’re immune to it. But to claim there is NOTHING, not a teensy-weensie bit? That’s just insulting, punching us, gaslighting us, and that’s just no respect as the Mafia would say. You can’t be treated like a punk: that HAS to be met with a take-down or you lose all credibility. They run elections for 50 years with paid experts: how can they not know this?

    “Trump are “scared to death I’ll be the nominee”.

    Well that’s never been said. In fact, he said he was worried about Bernie. But compare this to Joe’s long list of quotes shoving voters, insulting them, and telling them not to vote for him. Even the Independent(?) asked “Is Biden really running?” And maybe not. He may just be dodging interrogation and jail. I mean, it was election tampering, as confirmed by the Ukrainian Parliament and the ex-head of Poland, plus tens of millions foreign aid recycled back to his people/DNC campaign for more election rigging. I don’t even need subpoena power to prove that.

    “As of today, Bernie Sanders looks like one of the better, if not best, bets for the nomination.”

    Yes, and that’s great if he’s the honest heart of the Democratic Party, but it’s not a position that will take the moderate/Independents in the general. As weird reasons we still mirror each other, like Corbyn in the U.K. just ran this very election. No one noticed. The Left said, “Ha! See? We won!” –Speechless– Ok honey, you won. Now go sit in the corner out of government and watch cartoons while Daddy works, okay?

    Hillary Clinton Blames Bernie Sanders For Disunity In Democratic Party (WE)”

    Hey, has anybody thought that his geriatric election IS Bernie’s revenge on HRC? ‘Cause boy it sure seems to be, and it’s Hillaryous. She’s now losing –again– to a Bernie that’s even WORSE than last time, older, heart-attack, flip-flopping and all. They still hate her more than him, and it drives her crazy.

    “DNC Members Discuss Rules Change to Stop Sanders at Convention (Pol.)”

    Okay, here’s the only possible worse choice for them to take. So they take it. Slow learners. But Americans are happy to give them another ‘lesson’ at the polls.

    Billionaire Bloomberg just bought the @DNC”

    Sadly, that may be true, as apparently that’s what they’re up to in VA: Bloomberg literally, openly bought them all by funding every campaign, and set a policy that will get thousands on both sides killed. #Winning. But the real question is: Why’s it for sale? If you had firm principles, that wouldn’t be possible.

    “Democrats Announce New Debate Rules Likely to Allow Bloomberg to Join”

    Continuing: so they change rules to erase Gabbard and Yang, –then Bernie– then change rules to force-add Bloomberg. Question: why have rules? Clearly this is a dictatorship of some sort, with no rules at all but “what I say so.” …Trust me, this will not go well with us. Tulsi or even Pete could win if force-run with the media, as usual, using Bloomberg’s appropriate, winning ads. Nope. Anything but that. RussiaRussiaRussia. OMB.

    “The FBI Has Been Lying About Seth Rich (Craig Murray)”

    What? You mean a DNC IT guy was NOT shot for no reason, in a non-robbery, the day after the leak and the Mayor and head of DNC got up and went to the hospital to see him at 3am, AND the guys who did it got shot AND all the police tapes got lost before Wikileaks put out a reward and BOTH Kim.com and the Ambassador suggested the leak was him? Color me surprised. The FBI lying, I mean. Here’s homework: is there any case the FBI has been involved in where they DIDN’T lie? Whitey Bulgar, MLK, Steven Hatfill, the whole meth-smoking FBI lab, blah blah etc going back to J. Edgar and…well, literally everyone.

    Lying? In America? Surely you jest. Anyhoo, yeah, they’re in trouble. But repeat after me: Nobody got arrested.

    “Flynn Prosecution Exposed as Massive FBI and DOJ Abuse of Power (NYP)” Uh-huh.

    Hey, where are those 302’s? Like Comey, they made them up out of personal recollection months later, when it was convenient — oh, and then swapped whose was whose. Okay, well you’re fired for that, OR you’re fired for lying. Take your pick. But? “No one was fired, no one was arrested, no one went to jail.” You know, except all of us citizens, of course. We got to jail for burning cloth or painting our house the wrong color.

    “conspiring to help President Trump win re-election”

    Speaking of lies, I have never heard anything so preposterous in my life. Facebook is probably coordinating with CNN, who is run by RussiaRussiaRussia because we all know they both run 99% pro-Conservative, pro-Trump stories all day. Oh wait: Columbia U. research showed it was the #OppositeLand. If only he were senile, but unfortunately, he’s insane. You know: like all his friends. But, when you reminisce about working with the Nazis to turn in fellow Jews as being the best times of your life, well… But it’s anti-Semitic to criticize a guy who works with Nazis to gas Jews. #OppositeLand much?

    He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen”

    Also false. He didn’t screw up the campaign, sure, but this digital army were volunteer chats and meme-creators who did it for fun, and not even for the election. They can’t understand the concept of people not being controlled, working like minions on orders. Warren’s online Meme-army was the example: she wrote a handbook, issued by Harvard, about how memes work, what they should mean, and telling people exactly how they should create memes for her. Um, Liz? That’s not how comedy works. Or life.

    Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will stand up for principles like free expression and encryption”

    Wow. Can it GET any deeper in here? Start with the obvious: Apple has back-door keys, so they already have no encryption, the NSA is still reading all. Apple just provides the fig leaf that it exists, to keep you talking and wiretapped. FB is hardly even that clever. Free speech? They erase everyone every day, even the anti-war left, Jimmy Dore, trans people, so… His plan was to offload that to a hand-picked 3rd party that would accidentally agree with him, corporate fascism, and his (CIA) side of the government in every regard, then say “See? 9 out of 10 hand-picked minions agree, and we’re busy out back shooting the 10th one, so…” Please, please make it stop. I can stand the authoritarian statism, been nothing but all my life, but the lies, you must stop the lies.

    Look, if you want to torture me, spank me, lick me, do it. But if this poetry s–t continues just shoot me now please.” –Tank Girl

    #53307
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Bosco: You’re not going to be around forever. Really need to plant a mulberry tree or something for crowlings. Anywhere in the neighborhood flight range.

    #53308
    Ex-PFC Chuck
    Participant

    From the Kunstler piece on Adam Schiff as the new face of the Democratic Party: “This grubby seditionist has marched the party into a wilderness of deceit and knavery that taints them all . . ”
    Not true! The Democratic Party has been in that wilderness of deceit and knavery for over a quarter of a century.

    #53309
    zerosum
    Participant

    How good are the manipulators
    Even with a printing press at their command ….
    They can only help themselves
    They cannot help everyone, or save the system.
    Best quote: We know he’s dirty: he’s a politician.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/calm-storm-how-will-coronavirus-really-impact-markets
    “Don’t take the recent lack of ‘news’ as meaning the threat from this virus is dying down.”

    What!!! You must be distracter by the “impeachment show”

    The coronavirus has all the hallmarks of a true Black Swan event.

    Yes. Nobody wants to be first to get out of the market and leave money on the table.
    Besides, there is a super bowl party on Sunday.
    Then there is the Iowa caucus.
    Geessss
    Its probably better than the “bread and circus” of the Romans.

    In the US, healthcare costs are the #1 economic threat to households. More families go bankrupt due to our predatory and inhumane medical care system that any other cause.

    In China its FREE coronavirus health care so people are going for treatment.
    In the USA, going for a sniffle is going to bankrupt you. Will it be a 5% death rate or more?
    Will the poor and the street people have a better or worst chance of survival then the insured driven into poverty?
    Go ahead, throw the dice, you only got 5% chance of losing.

    #53310
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Bosco: You’re not going to be around forever. ”

    Party pooper. 😉

    “Even the Independent(?) asked “Is Biden really running?” ”

    Someone somewhere yesterday (I think) raised the idea that Biden was trying to imitate Trump as in driving all over the road and half the countryside. But that’s not something you can imitate. Joe is a highwayman, a devotee of the striped yellow lines and prearranged hijackings. When he tries to drive erratically a la Trump it doesn’t work. Trump’s derangement is Trump’s; Joe’s is Joe’s. Trouble is, Joe’s too deranged to even know how his derangement works. Trump has spent more energy lying to others than himself, as I see it, while Joe has been so busy lying to himself foremost he doesn’t seem to know the difference any more. In other words, Biden actually believes his own rhetoric, whereas Trump’s faith in his own utterances is optional depending on his mood and the needs of the situation as he sees them.

    “Hey, has anybody thought that his geriatric election IS Bernie’s revenge on HRC?”

    Either that or he has no choice but to run per some form of offer he can’t refuse. I find the former more credible and certainly more fun. I suspect he knows with exceptional detail what her triggers are. There may be more than just vengeful bitterness involved. He may be strategically pushing her to prove in public just how very deplorable she is. DO something that all the news agencies can’t ignore if only because it will sell so many ads at premium rates.

    One wonders.

    Interestingly enough, I first encountered the concept of Alternative Energy at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont in 1975. I wasn’t a student. I’d hitchhiked from SLC to Plainfield to be with a girl I’d fallen in love with in SLC as she traveled to Plainfield with a bunch of hippy types who all hoped they’d get a piece of her action. Man were we in love. Anyway, there I learned a lot in two weeks about how/why the petrol/internal combustion engine model was insane and unsustainable. (As positioned in our culture as the center of everything.)

    Ah, Edgar, We Hardly Knew Ye

    Regarding automobiles and the culture they formed:

    Interurban Queen

    #53311
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ” In other words, Biden actually believes his own rhetoric, ”

    I don’t mean he believes it’s TRUE; he just believes it. His mouth is in control, not him. Trump is somewhat verbally incontinent but far from entirely, and he is able to learn from his mistakes. Joe is… different.

    #53312
    zerosum
    Participant

    Consumers have stopped shopping. Workers are not going to work. There is only expenses. Reduce expenses.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/second-chinese-city-bars-residents-leaving-their-homes-hong-kong-workers-demand-city#comment_stream
    “Apple is closing ALL stores, corporate offices, and contact centers in China due to Coronavirus through Feb. 9, company says in statement. “

    #53316
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Across China, drones are being loaded with disinfectant to spray public streets (another shock-and-awe measure with little real-world advantage).”

    Drones

    I am reminded of 911 whodunnit arguments. My final line of reasoning on that was that it didn’t matter if there was complicity or whatever. What mattered was how the Bush admin responded to the event. They took advantage of the event just as if they had wanted it to happen. So, while the investigation stunk just like the Pearl Harbor investigation stunk, and there are ample reasons to believe some complicity or causality by gubmint actors was involved, debating it just wasted energy in light of how brazenly the government exploited 911 to achieve nefarious ends.

    Looking at these useless drones, I feel the same way about the Chinese government. This tells me that the Chinese government’s actions toward this outbreak will be mostly self-serving, and therefore China will deserve (poor people but it’s their government and we deserve the eladers we put up with) the shunning and hardships it seems bent on receiving.

    Not that our response will be much different, I suspect, but we shall say.

    Hardly matters on ground level trying to avoid getting sick. We’re obviously on our own. It’s going to spread and there will be that much more tension fueling social unrest and mistrust of government.

    2020 looks to be as pivotal as 4th Generation Theory suggests. Right down to the eerie echo-numbering, impressive ocust plagues, wild fires of epic proportion, this or that epidemic, and of course, the ever more tenuous economic prospects of Euromerica.

    Who thinks Trump will get to build in Iraq those bases he said he would? Who thinks he’ll even follow through on it? Verbal bluffmanship of a highly flexible nature is Donald’s standard M.O. I think the frat boys know that they can’t have that oil. Like Orlov explained recently: No More Free Oil for USA.

    I stick my marker again on the slot marked Retreat to Saudi Arabia and hold on if possible. I think we’ll be allowed to do this, because Saudi Arabia is a rancid mess and no one wants to deal with it. Let the USA get sprawled across that mess. Once we subdue the population enough to get the worst inevitable initial ruckus out of the way, then the likes of Iran/Russia can kick us out and come in as “liberators”. Since neither nation needs SA’s oil, said “liberation” will likely be more valid than our “liberation”.

    #53317
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “but we shall say”.. we shall SEE not say.

    Even with glasses…

    #53318
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” Saudi Arabia …. Once we subdue the population enough”
    How is that going to happen?
    Last I hear their prison was in a 5* hotel that only required part of their fortune so that they could be released to go out and grow their fortunes even more.

    #53319
    zerosum
    Participant

    USA is preparing 1,000 bed hospital
    https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a30731622/us-military-coronavirus/

    Finally, the Navy has two hospital ships, USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort. The Navy describes each ship as having:
    “…12 fully-equipped operating rooms, a 1,000 bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan and two oxygen producing plants. Each ship is equipped with a helicopter deck capable of landing large military helicopters. The ships also have side ports to take on patients at sea. When fully operational, the hospital ships have a crew of about 71 civilians and up to 1,200 Navy medical and communications personnel.”

    #53320
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Christ almighty zerosum, I spit my vitamin C dose across the treadmill.
    “Harken! The ol’ Nayvee stands ready to fashion a few pair of glasses for U.S. coronavirus victims!”

    Talk about an expansion of optometric scope of practice. You’re gonna have the American Academy of Ophthalmology hounded your ass for thinking optometrists should be doing cataract surgery AND on the front line fashioning new spectacles for coronavirus patients.
    But that’s what we need, thinking outside the box.

    #53321
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. D. Rich:. I had an uncle who was a doctor. (Still one in family with another finishing med school so we will be back to 2 soon.)

    Once when on a cycling vacation in northern Italy, my uncle complained to another doctor in the cycling group that he was suffering from a new disease that he had recently discovered, called CRS.

    A few days later the other doctor couldn’t take it anymore and finally worked up his courage to finally ask what CRS stood for.

    My uncle replied. “Can’t Remember Shit!”

    #53322
    zerosum
    Participant

    You two got me laughing so hard, I can’t type, tears in my eyes.
    If China can do it for free, then the USA navy can do it for free, and do it better.

    #53323
    WES
    Participant

    I find it rather amusing watching Hillary always blaming everyone else for her repeated failures.

    Using the mirror effect, it is interesting to watch what she says of other people.

    What she says of others, says very little about the people she is critical of.

    Instead what she does say of others, says much more about what she thinks of herself!

    So when she called many Americans “Deplorables”, what she was really saying was she felt deplorable!

    I think the reason few Americans seem to like her, is because she projects such a negative image.

    Most people seem to prefer positive images.

    #53324
    WES
    Participant

    Bosco:. Hey, you are really making some headway with your 2 crow friends!

    Your comment about being within pellet gun range reminded me of my experiences with crows!

    When young I spent summers on my Grandfather’s farm in southern Ontario since summers up in Labrador were non-existant!

    I remember my Grandfather saying he couldn’t get within long 22 range of the crows eating his crops!

    Obviously through evolution we have created super crows! All the dumb crows were bred out of existence!

    Another creature that we have helped greatly speed up their evolution, is the super coyote!

    We never used to have coyotes in southern Ontario. Now they are everywhere including downtown Toronto! (On a side note, there are no longer any ground hogs left!)

    It is nothing to now read about some poor old lady losing her fat little pooch on her front lawn to a coyote in broad daylight!

    #53325
    WES
    Participant

    I am getting great enjoyment watching the DNC trying to to kill Bernie!

    They have to kill Bernie because it is in the script.

    Right now Bernie is suffering death by a thousand cuts!

    But bleeding Bernie seems to be getting stronger!

    The DNC script says he should be getting weaker!

    Now Hillary is throwing poision darts!

    The DNC Is stacking their board with Hillary’s friends!

    DNC is changing the rules in the middle of the game!

    So when can we expect DNC Bernie kill shots?

    Stay tuned to another exciting episode of Bernie refusing to die!

    Sorry Bernie, the DNC script says you have to die in the end.

    The script writers are never wrong!

    Just ask Bugs Bunny!

    It was always about the money!

    #53326
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Corvids are brilliant. I pulled over (while driving) to watch a pair of crows toss nuts on the hiway so cars woul crack them open.
    This vid is an awesome example of their intelligence…

    #53327
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Hopefully Ilargi will fix my ineptitude with posting images and vids…

    #53328
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Well, I think the battle of the viral narratives reached critical mass today. On one hand, ZeroHedge posts an article citing Sen. Tom Cotton as the source of information which condemns a level 4 virology lab in Wuhan as the creator and responsible party for release of weaponized coronavirus. On the other hand, Aletho News credits DARPA (no surprise there) with recent work on weaponizing coronavirus. Even today a reader can easily find “expert” posts reportedly from Chinese scientists/authorities credibly undermine the pandemic hysteria narrative while “western” sources ratchet up the emotion.

    In the meantime, the rest of us will be left to choose sides in warring narratives (false dichotomy) and then be condemned by our society’s Betters should we demonstrate anything less than fealty to our side.

    Knowing what it’s like to be ostracized by my people and profession, i feel comfortable putting my money on the “man in arena” where the situation and patient acuity demands a compassionate, selfless, analytical mind.

    #53329
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Thanks Ilargi.
    Maybe one of these days I’ll figure out how to post vids.
    0 for me; 1 for the corvid
    😉

    #53342
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Me love crows and ravens.

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