Feb 052020
 
 February 5, 2020  Posted by at 10:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


DPC Pine Street below Kearney after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire 1906

 

China Applies For Drug Patent, Virus Death Toll +65 To 492 (SCMP)
Cruise Ship Carrying 3,700 Quarantined In Japan After 10 Test Positive (G.)
China’s Airlines Told Not To Axe Global Flights As Thousands Cut (R.)
Cathay Pacific Asks All 27,000 Employees To Take 3 Weeks Unpaid Leave (SCMP)
Trump-Pelosi Feud Erupts During SOTU As Impeachment Trial Nears End (R.)
Ocasio-Cortez Among 10 Democrats Planning To Boycott State Of The Union (G.)
Joe Biden Flopped In Iowa. And So Did The Democratic Party’s Reputation (G.)
The Big Tech Money Behind The App That Brought Chaos To The Iowa Caucus (F.)
Oil Flips Into Contango, Indicating Months Of Surplus (R.)
Britain To Ban New Petrol And Hybrid Cars From 2035 (R.)
Tesla Shares March Toward $1,000 (R.)
Musk’s Tesla Stake Worth $30 Billion After Electrifying Stock Surge (R.)
Council of Europe Sides With Julian Assange (IA)

 

 

Here we go again. The WuhanCorona virus continues on its record-setting path.

• Total cases 24,542 (+3872)

• 4,105 new cases in China (record daily high)

• 492 deaths (+65, also a record daily high)

• 185,555 cases under medical observation

Note: this pic below comes from a SCMP app that constantly updates. Numbers in articles do not necessarily. Therefore, they don’t always “add up”.

Note also the addition of recovered cases.

 

 

A few pics I picked up. How stark would you like it?

 

Here someone is trying to make the argument that the mortality rate is falling. That would be great, but I’m not sure it is true. Many factors have changed since the count began.

 

 

 

Gilead’s remdesivir looks like a Hail Mary. Not sure what the new patent application entails. A general anti-viral that came out of Ebola research?!

China Applies For Drug Patent, Virus Death Toll +65 To 492 (SCMP)

Daily deaths caused by the new coronavirus have reached yet another record high in China, with 65 fatalities – all in Hubei province – confirmed in overnight figures released by health authorities. The newly reported fatalities took the death toll in mainland China to 490. According to data released on Wednesday morning by China’s National Health Commission (NHC), confirmed cases around the country rose by 3,887 – also a daily record high – to 24,324, the majority of which were in Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak. Cases of the novel coronavirus in Hubei rose by 3,156 to 16,678, according to provincial figures as of midnight on Tuesday. Almost 2,000 of those new cases were confirmed in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated at a seafood and meat market.

China has applied for a new patent on an experimental drug to treat the coronavirus. Wuhan Institute of Virology said in an online notice that a patent application had been filed on January 21 for the use of remdesivir, a drug developed by biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. The drug has not been approved or licensed anywhere in the world, but has been rushed into trials in China after showing signs of effective use on coronavirus patients. Chinese scientists have found remdesivir – and chloroquine, an 80-year-old malaria drug – “highly effective” in laboratory studies aimed at thwarting the coronavirus, they said in a paper published on Tuesday in the journal Cell Research.

The two drugs’ effect on humans required further clinical tests, the Wuhan institute said in the online notice. It made the patent application in the national interest and would not exercise its patent rights if foreign pharmaceutical firms worked with China to curb the contagion, it said.

Read more …

The only people that can get off the ship are the ones that are confirmed infected. Hell on water.

One 80-year-old tested positive After leaving the ship. Then 273 were tested. When the first 31 results came in, 10 tested positive. That leaces 3,300 untested?

Cruise Ship Carrying 3,700 Quarantined In Japan After 10 Test Positive (G.)

Thousands of people face spending the next fortnight stuck on a luxury cruise ship quarantined off the Japanese port of Yokohama, after initial results showed 10 passengers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The Diamond Princess, with more than 3,700 passengers and crew onboard, had been prevented from sailing on Monday after an 80-year-old passenger who had travelled on the vessel late last month tested positive after he arrived home in Hong Kong. Of a further 273 people on board who have since been tested following health screenings, 31 results had come back – and of those 10 were positive, according to Japan’s health minister, Katsunobu Kato. It is not clear if more tests will be carried out.

Also on Wednesday, health checks began on 1,800 passengers and crew on a second cruise ship docked in Hong Kong, after 30 staff members reported symptoms including fever, according to Reuters. Hong Kong’s health department said that 90% of the passengers were Hong Kongers and no mainland Chinese were on board. Previously, three mainland Chinese that had been on the ship between 19 and 24 January, and were found to have contracted the virus. No passengers have been able to leave the World Dream ship, operated by Dream Cruises, without permission. David Abel, a British passenger who has been on the Diamond Princess for more than two weeks, said that people were now being confined to their cabins.

“We’re not even allowed to open the cabin door to go down the corridor. They bring the food to us – it’s a knock on the door. For the first time ever the crew are masked up,” he said. [..] Two Australians are among the 10 people who have tested positive, the cruise company Carnival confirmed. The other people infected are three Japanese, three from Hong Kong, one American and one Filipino crewmember. The patients, who are reportedly aged in their 50s to their 80s, were being removed from the ship by the coast guard and taken to local hospitals. The ship’s owner, Princess Cruises, said 3,711 people were aboard the ship, consisting of 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew. About half of the passengers are from Japan, with 223 Australians on the vessel.

Read more …

They’ll be stopped soon enough. There are no other options left.

China’s Airlines Told Not To Axe Global Flights As Thousands Cut (R.)

China’s civil aviation authority has urged domestic carriers to continue flying international routes as they consider cuts in response to a drop in demand due to the coronavirus outbreak, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday. Airline capacity is being axed in the world’s second largest aviation market with “the most dramatic change in schedules”, OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd said, adding that more than 25,000 flights to, from or within China will be canceled this week. The coronavirus epidemic, which has killed more than 400 people in China, has resulted in bans or restrictions on travel to and from China imposed by countries including Singapore and Italy. The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had said travel bans were unnecessary.


The Civil Aviation Administration of China’s appeal to the country’s airlines was reported on Xinhua’s account on Chinese messaging app Weibo. Data from aviation statistics provider VariFlight showed 41 Chinese carriers canceled nearly two-thirds of the 16,623 planned flights for Tuesday as of 10:30 a.m. Beijing time (0230 GMT). In addition, 10 regional airlines from Hong Kong and Taiwan had canceled 162 flights, while 37 airlines from other countries canceled 168 flights on the same day, VariFlight said. It also said that some 90,000 flights were canceled between Jan. 10 and Feb. 3, and that about 10,000 planned flights on average have been scrapped each day since the start of February.

Read more …

But Hong Kong’s airline is not listening…

Cathay Pacific Asks All 27,000 Employees To Take 3 Weeks Unpaid Leave (SCMP)

Cathay Pacific is asking all of its 27,000 employees to take three weeks of unpaid leave over the coming months, the company’s CEO told staff on Wednesday, as Hong Kong’s flagship carrier reels from the devastating impact of the deadly coronavirus on air travel. “I am appealing to each and everyone one of you to help,” said Augustus Tang Kin-wing in a taped video recording. “The situation now is just as grave.” On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s flagship carrier unveiled massive cuts to flying schedules, by 30 per cent worldwide for two months, including in mainland China which would see 90 per cent of its capacity cut during that period.

Read more …

Grace, Nancy. It has a place. You lost your gamble, and the way you take your losses tells people a lot about you.

Trump-Pelosi Feud Erupts During SOTU As Impeachment Trial Nears End (R.)

A bitter feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and top Democrat Nancy Pelosi boiled over at his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, with Trump denying her a handshake and Pelosi ripping apart a copy of his remarks behind his back. Trump avoided the subject of his impeachment drama in a pugnacious 80-minute speech, but the raw wounds from the battle were evident with fellow Republicans giving him standing ovations while rival Democrats for the most part remained seated. The Republican-led Senate was expected to acquit him of charges he abused his powers and obstructed Congress during a vote beginning at 4 p.m. EST on Wednesday.


How some Republicans watched SOTU

Seeing Pelosi, the U.S. House of Representatives speaker, for the first time since she stormed out of a White House meeting four months ago, Trump declined to shake her outstretched hand as he gave her a paper copy of his remarks before starting to speak. Despite having not spoken to Trump since their last meeting, Pelosi appeared to be taken aback. She avoided citing the customary “high privilege and distinct honor” that usually accompanies the speaker’s introduction of the president to Congress. “Members of Congress, the President of the United States” was all she said in introducing Trump.


When his speech ended, Pelosi stood and tore up her copy of the remarks he had handed her, later telling reporters it was “the courteous thing to do, considering the alternative.” Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, said of Pelosi: “Her hatred for @realdonaldtrump has blinded her to the repulsive nature of her smug, elitist behavior.” After the event, Pelosi tweeted a photo of her with her hand reaching out to Trump and said, “Democrats will never stop extending the hand of friendship to get the job done #ForThePeople. We will work to find common ground where we can, but will stand our ground where we cannot. #SOTU”

Read more …

Preaching only to her own little crowd, empty virtue signals. Same as Pelosi: grace has its place.

Ocasio-Cortez Among 10 Democrats Planning To Boycott State Of The Union (G.)

At least 10 Democrats have said they will boycott Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night on the eve of a Senate impeachment trial vote that is expected to acquit him. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, said she would not be attending because she did not want to normalize Trump’s “lawless conduct” and “subversion of the constitution”. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts issued a statement explaining her decision, saying: “The State of the Union is hurting because of the occupant of the White House, who consistently demonstrates contempt for the American people, contempt for Congress, and contempt for our constitution – strong-arming a sham impeachment trial in the Senate. This presidency is not legitimate.”


“On the eve of Senate Republicans covering up transgressions and spreading misinformation, I cannot in good conscience attend a sham State of the Union when I have seen firsthand the damage Donald J Trump’s rhetoric and policies have inflicted on those I love and those I represent.” Both women attended Trump’s State of the Union speech last year just a month after taking office, but have since been the target of his racist attacks. The two other members of “the Squad” of progressive freshman congresswomen who were also subjected to those attacks, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota confirmed they would attend the address.

Read more …

Biden is gone. Buttigieg is suspicious. It’s not about the party’s reputation anymore, it’s about the Party itself.

Joe Biden Flopped In Iowa. And So Did The Democratic Party’s Reputation (G.)

If you’re the type of person who thinks the Democratic party is a creaking, incompetent entity whose leadership needs overthrowing, the Iowa caucuses certainly validated your point of view. None of us knew who would win, but we had at least expected a result. We didn’t get one, at least not on caucus night. State Democratic party officials announced that due to “quality control” issues, release of the result would be indefinitely delayed. On a conference call with representatives of the candidates, party officials hung up the phone when asked when the totals would be released. So what do we know? Well, one thing we can say confidently is that “frontrunner” Joe Biden flopped.

There were places where Biden didn’t even meet the 15% threshold needed to maintain viability from the first round to the second round – at one caucus site, the attorney general of Iowa had to switch from Biden to Buttigieg when Biden was disqualified. It explains why Biden’s surrogate John Kerry was heard on the phone the other day asking whether it would be possible for him to enter the race at the last minute to save the Democratic party from being conquered by Sanders. Internal numbers released by the Sanders campaign, showing results from 40% of caucus sites, showed Sanders winning with approximately 30% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg coming in second with 25%, Elizabeth Warren third with 21%, and Joe Biden a very distant fourth with 12%.

If those numbers match the ultimate totals, they are great for Sanders and absolutely horrific for Biden. Sanders will have kicked the crap out of the frontrunner, Barack Obama’s former vice-president and the man most favored to win the nomination. It would be a stunning upset. But Biden caught a lucky break. With the party not releasing the actual result, his campaign sent a letter demanding that the result be suppressed until such time as the “quality control issues” were resolved. If it takes long enough to get the official count, Biden may hope that Iowa is old news, or that the issues surrounding the caucus are discussed far more than the actual result. (That’s one reason we need to make sure we don’t get bogged down too much in talking about the procedural issues rather than the actual outcome.)

[..] If you’re a Sanders supporter, you have reason to be suspicious. We had already seen the Des Moines Register suppress the results of its “gold standard” poll on the eve of the election, after a complaint from Buttigieg. And with 0% of caucus results in, Buttigieg declared himself “victorious”, praising the “incredible result” and saying Iowa had “shocked the nation”. The only thing that had shocked the nation at this point was Iowa’s total inability to perform the relatively simple task of counting people’s votes. But Buttigieg, good McKinseyite that he is, was getting a head start on deploying the PR spin.

Read more …

“..cutting-edge technology to stymie a Trump re-election..”

The Big Tech Money Behind The App That Brought Chaos To The Iowa Caucus (F.)

The smartphone app that caused a major delay in reporting results during Iowa’s Democratic caucus was funded by both Democratic presidential candidates and Silicon Valley veterans anxious to use cutting-edge technology to stymie a Trump re-election. The app that was supposed to count and report caucus results was created by Shadow Inc., a for-profit tech company cofounded in February 2019 by former Google engineer Kirsta Davis and Gerard Niemira, an engineer who worked at San Francisco microlender Kiva.org. Both later worked on Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign.


Washington D.C.-based Shadow was acquired last year by Acronym, a nonprofit also based in D.C. and founded in March 2017 by former journalist Tara McGowan to advance “progressive causes through innovative communications, advertising and organizing programs.” It has an affiliated political action committee called Pacronym. Silicon Valley heavyweights make up the liberal-leaning roster of Pacronym’s backers. One supporter is billionaire Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital, whose net worth of $4.1 billion stems from his early bets on Google, LinkedIn and PayPal. According to Federal Election Committee data, he gave $1 million to Pacronym, or 12.8% of the $7.8 million that it has raised since early 2019.

Read more …

Mighty OPEC loses to tiny virus.

Oil Flips Into Contango, Indicating Months Of Surplus (R.)

The oil market looks set for at least four months of depressed demand because of China’s coronavirus outbreak, with a large crude surplus not expected to clear at least until August, analysts and traders said. Fears of a virus-related slump in global energy demand have flipped the market into contango this week – a structure in which longer-dated oil futures trade at a premium that encourages traders to keep crude in storage for more profitable resale in the future. Brent crude has not been in contango since July 2019. On Tuesday the benchmark was in contango for as much as $0.40 a barrel between prices for closest trading month April and August. For U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude the contango between March and July prices was $0.60 a barrel.

The structure of the market has significant implications. Besides encouraging storage of oil, contango also hurts financial investors who have to pay a premium every month they renew a futures contract. [..] Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, said the flip of time spreads into contango is consistent with the physical market suddenly shifting into a large surplus. “While deferred Brent time spreads are too discounted in our view, evidence that Chinese refiners are pushing back on crude shipments and Atlantic loadings points to ongoing weakness for nearby Brent time spreads,” Goldman said in a market note. China has been the main driver of global energy demand growth in recent years and ING Bank said the market is clearly worried that Chinese refinery demand will retreat.

“The issue for the market is if travel restrictions continue for an extended period … demand loss will become increasingly difficult for the market to swallow,” ING said, adding OPEC+ could come under increasing pressure to cut output by more than laid out in their existing supply pact.

Read more …

Until you have been explained exactly where the electricity will come from, this is nothing but a swindle. Do you like being swindled?

Britain To Ban New Petrol And Hybrid Cars From 2035 (R.)

Britain will ban the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035, five years earlier than planned, in an attempt to reduce air pollution that could herald the end of over a century of reliance on the internal combustion engine. The step amounts to a victory for electric cars that if copied globally could hit the wealth of oil producers, as well as transform the car industry and one of the icons of 20th Century capitalism: the automobile itself. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seeking to use the announcement to elevate the United Kingdom’s environmental credentials after he sacked the head of a Glasgow U.N. Climate Change Conference planned for November known as COP26.


“We have to deal with our CO2 emissions,” Johnson said at a launch event for COP26 at London’s Science Museum on Tuesday. “As a country and as a society, as a planet, as a species, we must now act.” The government said that, subject to consultation, it would end the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans in 2035, or earlier if a faster transition was possible. Countries and cities around the world have announced plans to crack down on diesel vehicles following the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal and the EU is introducing tougher carbon dioxide rules. The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have said they plan to ban diesel vehicles from city centres by 2025. France is preparing to ban the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars by 2040.

Read more …

Trading hot air.

Tesla Shares March Toward $1,000 (R.)

Shares of Tesla Inc surged 20% on Tuesday to hit $940, extending a stunning rally that has more than doubled the company’s market value since the start of the year as more investors bet on Chief Executive Elon Musk’s vision. The latest surge was partly fueled by Panasonic saying on Monday its automotive battery venture with Tesla was in the black for the first time. “Investors are now starting to believe that Tesla can make mass-volume electric vehicles, and automakers, battery makers and suppliers can make money from EVs,” said Cho Hyun-ryul, analyst at Samsung Securities. Some analysts have attributed the rally to short covering as well. Short interest in Tesla stood at 13.8% as of Jan. 30, according to Refinitiv data.


Shares of heavily shorted companies can at times get pushed higher as traders rush to buy stock to cover their short bets, triggering what is known as a “short squeeze”. Panasonic shares closed up 10%, while those of Tesla’s Asian suppliers South Korea’s LG Chem and China’s CATL also closed higher. Tesla’s surge on Tuesday valued the company at nearly $170 billion, nearly double the combined market capitalization of General Motors and Ford Motor. Tesla last week reported a second consecutive quarterly profit and said it would comfortably make more than half a million vehicles this year. Billionaire investor Ron Baron, whose firm holds a nearly 1% stake in Tesla, said he will not be selling a single Tesla share, adding he believes the carmaker could hit $1 trillion in revenue in 10 years.

Read more …

Fridges for Inuit.

Musk’s Tesla Stake Worth $30 Billion After Electrifying Stock Surge (R.)

Tesla is making Elon Musk a lot richer without paying him a dime. A blistering stock rally has bolstered the value of CEO Musk’s 19% stake in the electric car maker by $16 billion since the start of 2020, to $30 billion. Tuesday’s steep climb in the share price could sweeten Musk’s payday under his record-breaking compensation package, which is built on stock options that rely on market value targets. Two milestones have now been achieved that could see Musk unlock options worth $1.8 billion. The controversial chief executive, who is also the majority owner and CEO of rocket maker SpaceX, recently testified that he did not have a lot of cash as he successfully defended himself in a defamation lawsuit. He previously has taken loans using his Tesla shares as collateral.


Musk does not take a salary, choosing instead a risky options package that envisions the stock market value of Tesla rising to $650 billion over 10 years, a prospect that was derided by some investors when the deal was announced in 2018. That target now looks less crazy. Shares of Tesla have rallied over 50% since the company posted its second consecutive quarterly profit last Wednesday, which was viewed as a major accomplishment for a company competing against established automotive heavyweights including General Motors Co and BMW. Tesla shares have climbed about 400% since early June, helped by the company’s better-than-expected financial results and ramped-up production at its new car factory in Shanghai. [..] Musk’s Tesla stake worth $30 billion after electrifying stock surge

Read more …

Now apply the Force.

Council of Europe Sides With Julian Assange (IA)

The attitude of European institutions is changing after years of silence. In this case, it was Andrej Hunko and Gianni Marilotti that convinced the European Assembly to speak up. The moment that press freedom advocates have been waiting for so long has finally arrived. The European institutions are starting to officially state that they don’t want Julian Assange to be extradited to the U.S. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has become the first one to step in and call for Assange’s immediate release, joining the call of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who some months ago clearly stated that Assange should walk free.

The call was made on the 28th of January, 2020, when the PACE was debating on a resolution for the Member States included in a report on Threats to Media Freedom and Journalists’ Security in Europe. Drafted by the Labour member of the British House of Lords, George Foulkes, the document opens stating that the Council of Europe and its Assembly are firmly committed to strengthening media freedom in all its aspects, including the right to access to information, the safeguard of editorial independence and of ‘the ability to investigate, criticise and contribute to public debate without fear of pressure or interference’. Several amendments to the report were proposed inside the PACE Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, and Lord Foulkes, who is part of it, was happy to accept the one on Assange.

Lord Foulkes said: “UK colleagues supported it because we don’t want to see him extradited by the UK Government to the United States and facing centuries in prison.” The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading institution on human rights and includes 47 member states, 28 of which are also part of the European Union. What this Parliamentary Assembly, made up of members of national legislatures says about freedom of the press is something civil society should take notice of. In this light, you would hope that the work of Wikileaks and his founder can hardly be forgotten. Or maybe it could — it seemed to be surprisingly off the agenda until some weeks ago, but January 2020 seems to have marked a change of course.

Read more …

 

Every color is home to 1 billion people. Find Wuhan on the map.

 

 

 

Please donate what you can.

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle February 5 2020

Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
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  • #53521

    DPC Pine Street below Kearney after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire 1906   • China Applies For Drug Patent, Virus Death Toll +65 To 4
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 5 2020]

    #53522
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    DPC Pine Street below Kearney after the great San Francisco earthquake and fire 1906

    Another great shot of San Francisco after the quake…
    Some photo’s are just superior in black and white, this being one…

    #53523
    oxymoron
    Participant

    The old folks on the cruise ship are doing their bit for the environment. In other news so is the oil industry by saving some of it for the future (even though they wanna use it up as fast as they can for dollars, I think also the airlines are helping hugely. They must have asked the question – “We have declared a climate emergency now what do we do?” Ah get a real job and learn to use your damn hands again or alternatively …..
    Do nothing and all things will be done.

    #53524
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “more than 25,000 flights to, from or within China will be canceled this week”

    In a crazy way, the above is perhaps the most uplifting datum I’ve seen concerning this. It’s a negative updraft; the cessation of so many flights is an impressive reduction in vectors, especially the globe-trotting kind. But wait! it’s better! but worse! That is toi say that the thrill I got, the uplift, was mostly my astonishment at the actual figures. Seeing how many jets full of people are in the air at any time stunned me even though I know that way back in early 911 days, the quotable average was that any time, a population the size of a large town or small city (150k) was aloft in transit.

    One wonders how many espionage post-neo-cyberpunk authors are locking into their keyboards this Pac NW am working into their next novel the now freshly revitalized weaponized virus gone rogue motif (motif is a more powerful and useful term now that meme has been smeared all over the semiotext world). Quick! See the movie version before the next plague hits!

    In his later years, just crossing into early geriatrica, no one could sell sanitation hoods like Kiefer Sutherland. His eyes were so in on the joke, twinkling over their 5-ply Fatima(r) veil.

    Speaking of globetrotters, the imagery and semiotics of this thing, the historical semiotics or maybe it’s the semiotics’ historicity?, is so weirdly disturbingly apt:

    Don’t Make Me Break Out Josie & the Pussycats

    Now that you’re in hypnotic comatose seizures from the above, here’s a cure:

    Real Harlem

    In case you need electroshock resuscitation:

    ‘nita@Newport

    ***

    “Let us begin with the body. The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain that anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man’s metaphysic. This is all very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into anything: even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch it. When you think you touch a thing, there are certain electrons and protons, forming part of your body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in the thing you think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. The electrons and protons in your body, becoming agitated by nearness to the other electrons and protons are disturbed, and transmit a disturbance along your nerves to the brain; the effect in the brain is what is necessary to your sensation of contact, and by suitable experiments this sensation can be made quite deceptive. The electrons and protons themselves, however, are only crude first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either trains of waves or the statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus matter has become altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which to beat the mind.” Bertrand Russell

    But electrons, whoa. You can flail a brain like lightning on a winter night with some good old electrons. Yee-HA! Pass me that there remote, Aint Bea.

    #53525
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Miss O’Day was flying exceptinally high that day, coasting the sweet spot of heroin addiction before the descent curve of that ballistic arc. Watching her, I feel like I’ve never really lived. Or something like that.

    #53527
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    This thing about patenting an antiviral drug sounds like crazy talk to me. I am no biology expert but have read enough conventional and alternative health experts say that viruses mutate frequently – more frequently than bacteria. Also, conventional anti-viral drugs are one- or two-trick ponies, able to kill a couple of viruses at most, but once mutation occurs you are out of luck. The alternative world offers a number of options including garlic which contains hundreds of anti- microbial compounds that work together in myriad various combinations such that viruses cannot simply mutate their way through the defensive capacity of garlic. You need a big dose though – a few raw cloves per day. Again I am no expert but I would not trust that pre- cut stuff you buy pickled in a jar. Garlic is just one example -easily available. There is also oil of oregano, colloidal or structured silver, raw horse radish etc. If you google fire cider you will see recipes for a herbal powerhouse anti- microbial mixture.

    #53528
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    sumac.carol

    What a great post. Thank you.
    I would only add; a few grams of V-C daily, would be an excellent adjunct to your above recipe for health…

    Oh what I would give for fresh horse radish… 🙂

    #53529
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “65 fatalities – all in Hubei province”

    Question: why are they all in Hubei Province? Before they recognized and got support? Weaker, poorer people (not buying plane tickets)? Better supportive care for pneumonia outside China? New HIV/antivirals? Sure.

    For fun, how about this: you have an actual escape of an actual bioweapon, release and spread unknown. You need to lock down an ENORMOUS area and find the actual cases, but sure as heck aren’t going to admit it. So you release an innocuous generic-flu variety of some corona and let the 0.02% normal flu response hide and cover up your 50% actual-weapon corona release WHILE getting the actually deadly one under control with your full-army-mobilization. Thus Cheeto says “it’s going to turn out fine” because the flu released as cover story is…the flu. Winter 2020, 0.02%, like any other year.

    Stay tuned.

    Trump-Pelosi Feud Erupts During SOTU as Impeachment Trial Nears End (R.)”

    Some pointed out that, as old thinking, we can give the OFFICE respect without giving the person respect. That’s an important distinction, and one not made by AOC, who boycotted. The reason is, one intends to capture the office, the government for themselves, yet if you cannot stand even the office, the government, the blannketty-blank nation it stand for, then you just intend to tear it all down and wreck it, and replace it with I-have-not-yet-planned-what, warlords historically, and this is quite what they say. It’s what ‘revolutionary’ means. They are not kidding you about being revolutionaries any more than they are kidding about being Socialists. They say it and have the membership card. Why would I disbelieve them?

    Anyway, a fine distinction but an important one. About our (non)Pope, too. These things have happened many times, yet the office can recover and live on.

    “Joe Biden Flopped in Iowa. And so Did the Democratic Party’s Reputation (G.)”

    From yesterday:
    “I really admire how the DNC went about preventing Bernie from winning Iowa”
    Yes, that was amazing, a tour de force. First get the app so you can get data first, veto, perhaps even turn on the microphone and spy weeks ahead as there is essentially no security on any phone device. P.S. do NOT have the app vetted by anyone ESPECIALLY the DHS or they will find all these embarrassing “accidents” and close them. Then when Bernie wins, rig the vote…oh wait: Bernie wisely placed a person IN EACH OFFICE, fully expected a rigged count. Oops! They all meet in the principal’s office for a pow-wow, with Biden stomping his feet and refusing to allow any count at all, ever.

    The app — which is about to get double-checked AND fuel GOP calls for voter registration and paper trails in 2020 – then compromises on their crimes by counting ONLY the offices where Buttigieg won…barely. …After the enter polls were magically withheld after a meeting with Mr. Pete. Then suddenly, Lo! Lights out! The DNC sweeps in to count, which will take weeks, preventing Bernie from winning by 6%, taking that momentum into other states, and buying some time. P.S. 106% of all possible voters voted in Iowa last night…in 10 different areas, particularly Dallas — a city district, wot a coincidence! A little bad at maths, are we?

    Um, guys? So…you think Bernie Bros are going to go all-in for #MayorCheat, #NeverWarren or whatever? What are you smoking? That’s what burned you last time…and P.S. did NOT burn the GOP, much as they hated, protested, detested, running the candidate who actually won.
    …Because they were planning to lose to HRC anyway, so who cares? Ask your Cruz – Rubio all-RINO tag team about that.

    “Britain to Ban New Petrol and Hybrid Cars from 2035 (R.)”

    No grid = no driving. Everyone is staying home, immediately, in eco-austerity that will clobber the economy. …The economy of the poor anyway, look at France. The rich will be getting the contracts and stocks and run away while the poor are limited to 5mi from their house, with state travel permission. Bow before your masters, peasant! New boss same as the old boss: NeoFeudalism.

    #53530
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Grace, Nancy. It has a place. You lost your gamble, and the way you take your losses tells people a lot about you.”

    Oh, the depths a politician must go to keep the show going. Better than being in jail. Better than people finding out with certainty that you have no problem with someone like Ghislaine Maxwell, the network she ran (and probably still runs if on a reduced power basis), and its relationship to the special club you lead with your tidy toy hammer rapping the podium.

    “The oil market looks set for at least four months of depressed demand because of China’s coronavirus outbreak, with a large crude surplus not expected to clear at least until August, analysts and traders said.”

    That sounds great for Russia. Vlad has their budget streamlined enough not to need go-go-go sales to maintain a steady course, and the stuff he keeps in the ground now only grows in value each year due to its relatively high EROI and all the complementary energy source Russia has developed to soften the cost of the inevitably lowering EROI factor in fossil fuelishness.

    Not so good for USA oil. Good for USA consumers in the short run; in the longer run, a service economy nation can hardly afford a meltdown of the hospitality industry sending a bunch of the lower classes onto the streets, some truly homeless, others marching in protest. (cues La Marsaeilles, dons eye patch, realizes he doesn’t have a single yellow vest in his closet). After that, I’ll need one of Raul’s graph arrays to have a clue. Except that lowered demand for USA oil now affects the USA dollar since the Evil Empire’s members have worked out more than not how to sell stuff to each other without USA dollars.

    Kind of a paradox: if we buy cheap foreign oil it helps our consumers keep rolling to the stores and other consumption sites, but it bankrupts a very large renascent oil industry, and the waves from that hitting our basic currency valuation will have uncommon symbolic weight, since oil sales are the primary traffic defining the USA dollar day by day.

    If we buy our own oil, we have to raise energy prices through the roof to salvage the companies/infrastructure that make the oil. That will be a heavy blow to the Bubble.

    Yeah, you hot dog short-sellers. If ever there was a time to let your nuts hang in the wind on a major bear run, this seems to be it. When the answer to What Could Possibly Go Wrong? is Pert Near Everything, short-selling seems solid.

    COntinuing with Bertrand:

    Matter in motion, which used to seem so unquestionable, turns out to be a concept quite inadequate for the needs of physics.

    “Nevertheless modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul or mind as an entity; indeed the reasons for disbelieving in it are very much of the same kind as the reasons for disbelieving in matter. Mind and matter were something like the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown; the end of the battle is not the victory of one or the other, but the discovery that both are only heraldic inventions. The world consists of events, not of things that endure for a long time and have changing properties. Events can be collected into groups by their causal relations. If the causal relations are of one sort, the resulting group of events may be called a physical object, and if the causal relations are of another sort, the resulting group may be called a mind. Any event that occurs inside a man’s head will belong to groups of both kinds.

    Well, maybe not any event; to take drastic example, being shot in the head.
    from What Is the Soul?

    ballons

    #53531
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I too thank sumac.carol.

    #53532
    Dr. D
    Participant

    From Appreciation article: “Our economic system values growth — nothing more. The luxuries are a side effect. And they come bound up with a plague of other side effects”

    Which is of course a very Socialist worldview. However, what is ‘luxury’? I can live with one begging bowl, is two a luxury? I have one robe, is a winter robe a ‘luxury’? No? How about a car so I can get to work? Yes in 1910, no now? What KIND of car, if, as he says, a Cadillac, then what about a 1984 Seville with 201k? It’s just sloppy thinking not to define these things.

    EVERYONE agrees we don’t need ‘luxury’…because that is Webster’s definition of ‘luxury’: a thing extra, you don’t need. You don’t NEED hospitals, health care, we lived without them for 6,000 years. You don’t NEED doors, heat, A/C…however you will also certainly die without them. That’s okay, but it’s not a thing people CHOOSE for. So the system DOESN’T value growth. PEOPLE in the system want THINGS they didn’t have before, like forks, pots, doctors, cars, they didn’t have before. “Luxuries” to you, desirables that extend their life and ease to them. The people who comprise the system and make the decisions couldn’t give a rip about “growth”, whatever that is, they just want to not be too hot, hungry, and without screen doors buzzed by flies.

    So the “side effects” he’s talking about are the PRIMARY effects: the use and transformation of materials that extends people’s live, ease, and prevents them from dying. The system – built by humans – naturally maximizes this “not dying” part. It may cause growth, in cities, transformations, populations, the “side effects” ARE the “effects”, the SAME side of the SAME coin, are you really going to advocate for MORE deaths and discomforts as so many do?

    Sure, why not? I can do with less. I don’t mind. Chasing the horizon is also a discomfort, a treadmill of endless desire and dissatisfaction, but I think you’re going to need to use other words and other frameworks to describe it, to encourage it, and to sell it to other people, because this just says, “You suck, give up your life and security, and unlike me, go live in a cave. Anything else is world destruction, is evil, is cheating.” I don’t think that line will get many converts, and I know because they’ve been trying it since 1975 and losing harder every year. Meanwhile the guy who invented the LED bulb has already saved more energy than all the hot air used on the subject since then.

    Want this world? Describe a Star Trek world where super-advanced ewok-humans live in the trees but make their own tricorders and medial 3-D printing materializers and quantum sub-space communicators. Just telling us to drop dead or go back to the caves won’t work.

    The car-less Archdruid has been doing a whole year on this subject, https://www.ecosophia.net/ (sidebar) because like everyone, he’s been sick of the smug satisfaction of constantly failing, then repeating the failing so they can win at failing all over again, then complain about always failing, you know, the environment and the elections again. Man Bad. Orange man Very bad.

    Homework, compare St. Greta and Swedish Homestead: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GkLSNBmds1DZit_oHk-Fg
    One of these two people is actually doing something besides flapping gums.

    #53533
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “then you just intend to tear it all down and wreck it, and replace it with I-have-not-yet-planned-what, warlords historically, and this is quite what they say. It’s what ‘revolutionary’ means. They are not kidding you about being revolutionaries any more than they are kidding about being Socialists. They say it and have the membership card. Why would I disbelieve them?”

    I agree but with this caveat: they don’t know what revolutionary or big or small s Socialism is. They confuse those notions with the megacorpitalist booby traps they call policy. They, I assume, believe they’re big people reshaping the world with a righteous hand. (Go along with me on this, please, indulge the illusion that they believe this. Imagine their Magic Mirror prepping them for today’s news conference. They must hypnotize themselves before they hypnotize us. Look in Schiff’s eyes. he’s his own sock puppet. Insert joke joke about inserting… oh, never mind.;) )

    So while they’re desperately scramblng to stay out of jail or public shame spectacles of a truly disgusting Epsteinian fragrance, they’re also telling themselves they’re the Mr & Mrs Rogers of modern political reality, let us envision.)

    The trouble with a riff as good as your Anti-Logos tirade flag, Doc, is that it sometimes turns to horror when you realize that it’s the literal truth, that these people really are that mentally inverted along with the bligatorily perversions.

    “Um, guys? So…you think Bernie Bros are going to go all-in for #MayorCheat, #NeverWarren or whatever? What are you smoking? ”

    Agreed. Totally. Oh, anything can happen, a buttefly’s wings, blah blah, maybe even a flock of cute robotic sparrows on the podium, but odds are way against that movement taking it to the goal line. I do hope it goes most of the distance, cuz Whoopi does an awesome Bernie imitation and the vids’ll be on youtube ere soon.

    One needs hope in these times. A current hope of mine is the Bernie’s Revenge concept Doc laid out a few days ago. Watching Hillary freak out again, maybe with a chorus line of twerking gay male office aids, no balloons, just lots of lasers…. head asplode!

    NSFA: Not Safe For Anything: Bernie’s Blues Brothers as sung by Whoopi Goldberg from Ghost channeling a deceased British blues rocker

    #53534
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “EVERYONE agrees we don’t need ‘luxury’”

    Excellent points. Now try this exercise: the fantastic waste we produce to stay warm, eat, etc., and consider that such exorbitant waste of finite resources amid a growing megapopulation is luxurious beyond comprehension. It’s likwe God taking out the garbage level waste.

    Inbetween lies a fuzzy living landfill of smartphones out walking their owners, a mountain of Cheetos in neon plastic bags and dumbass “smath pahk” cars…

    #53535
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Did China’s Tencent Accidentally Leak the True Terrifying Coronavirus Statistics?”

    Numbers

    https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/corona%20real%20data.jpg

    #53537
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    And the infowars are in full swing, eh? It’s like we get to watch a show of a show. Very unique time in history.

    #53538
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    I should add that elderberries are also a good antiviral if you can get your hands on them. They need to be cooked – a couple cups of berries simmered in a a pot of water for 45 minutes, strain out the berries and drink the juice hot or cold flavoured if you wish with sugar and lemon. Keeps on fridge about a week. Good studies back up elderberry effectiveness as antiviral.

    #53539
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    VIRUS

    The mortality rate shown in the spreadsheet is completely meaningless. You need to know the average time between diagnosis and death and compare it to the cases at that time.

    If the average time to death from diagnosis is two weeks then the comparison is 642 cases at that time versus 65 new deaths – about 10% mortality rate. If it is a week then the mortality rate is about 1%, which is not realistic.

    The spreadsheet is interesting as looking at it from the bottom up shows cases tripled every three days, then increased less than double every three days. Anyone familiar with the story of the chessboard starting with one grain of rice and doubling at every square will realise this is not a good sign.

    A deadly disease like this has only two possible outcomes : recovery or death. Only when one or the other happens can you calculate the mortality rate. It was worrying that the ‘recovered’ figure lagged ‘deaths’. Perhaps more worrying that the ‘recovered’ figure does not seem to be included any more.

    #53540
    zerosum
    Participant

    If you thought that only poor, dirty, elderly, sick, people who don’t wash their hand would get the virus, then think again. Who can afford to go on a cruise ship? I’ll give you a clue. Naw, I’ll let you figure out how rich you got to be to go on a cruise.
    Oppps. Maybe you forgot to be nice to that poor waiter serving you a bowl of soup.
    I hate to say, “I told you” ……

    • Cruise Ship Carrying 3,700 Quarantined In Japan After 10 Test Positive (G.)
    ——


    “We’re not even allowed to open the cabin door to go down the corridor. They bring the food to us – it’s a knock on the door. For the first time ever the crew are masked up,” he said. [..] Two Australians are among the 10 people who have tested positive, the cruise company Carnival confirmed. The other people infected are three Japanese, three from Hong Kong, one American and one Filipino crewmember. The patients, who are reportedly aged in their 50s to their 80s, were being removed from the ship by the coast guard and taken to local hospitals. The ship’s owner, Princess Cruises, said 3,711 people were aboard the ship, consisting of 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew. About half of the passengers are from Japan, with 223 Australians on the vessel.

    ——
    Canadians are still stuck and facing delays in leaving China.
    Pretty soon, we wont see any planes in the air.

    • Cathay Pacific Asks All 27,000 Employees To Take 3 Weeks Unpaid Leave (SCMP)
    ——-
    Cruise ships tied up. Plane grounded.
    What!!!!
    Oil sales are down. Carbon pollution is down.

    #53541
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    For alternative health info Jon Barron is my go to guy. Here is his link explaining how garlic works.
    https://jonbarron.org/herbal-library/foods/garlic

    #53542
    PlanetaryCitizen
    Participant

    Trump has no respect for anything beyond his own self-aggrandizing self image and his petty vindictive hatred of anyone who opposes him. Decorum goes both ways. He either snubs the hand shake in his pettiness (on multiple occasions) or crushes the hand of those he deigns to acknowledge. Offering this man the respect of the office only serves to diminish the office itself. His constant lies diminish the office and the SOTU speech was nothing but a pack of iies. Giving Rush Limbaugh (another purveyor of lies) the Medal of Freedom is like giving Mengele a Nobel in medicine. Especially on Rosa Parks day.

    #53543
    zerosum
    Participant

    • Trump-Pelosi Feud Erupts During SOTU As Impeachment Trial Nears End (R.)

    I’m not seeing what Trump is seeing.
    Trump is in LA-LA-LAND

    The USA stock market is not afraid of the coronavirus.
    The printing press is more powerful than the coronavirus.

    #53544
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    IOWA – This could be fun!

    “I am now hearing that the Sanders campaign sent workers to every caucus to record the live results.

    The DNC was unaware of this. When their early tallies did not match the recorded results from campaign workers, his campaign had 5 lawyers contact the DNC. Now they’re meeting.”

    #53545
    John Day
    Participant

    Notably, two compounds remdesivir (EC50 = 0.77 μM; CC50 > 100 μM; SI > 129.87) and chloroquine (EC50 = 1.13 μM; CC50 > 100 μM, SI > 88.50) potently blocked virus infection at low-micromolar concentration and showed high SI (Fig. 1a, b).
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

    #53546
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/02/billionaires-beat-bernie.html
    Our Girl, Helen of DesTroy has these thoughts on the provenance of Wuhan coronavirus​:
    While many alt-media outlets have fingered Event 201 as the replica “drill” that so often coincides with a false flag event, few are aware that on the day after that simulation, the 2019 Military World Games kicked off in Wuhan, bringing 300 US military personnel to the city. Former Malaysian PM Matthias Chang, however, zeroed in on the games as the likely entry point for what he described as a biological war waged by the US against China.
    http://www.helenofdestroy.com/index.php/146-two-birds-with-one-flu-coronavirus-weaponized-against-china-and-american-dissidents

    ​Considering the hypothesis that Wuhan coronavirus cannot remain “novel”, but has jumped far enough and wide enough to become the 5th endemic coronavirus in our world.

    Experts envision two scenarios if the new coronavirus isn’t contained

    US Wuhan coronavirus pandemic spread seems likely. Crisis mitigation is evolving approach. (I have noticed there are no confirmed cases south of Texas in the Americas. It is likely spreading undetected. Brazil and Ecuador are watching a few people. It’s hard to imagine that it does not become pandemic in the global south.)
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-05/coronavirus-update-governments-prepare-for-pandemic

    #53547
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    VIRUS

    TenCent may have briefly published the real figures before quickly changing to the official figures.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/did-chinas-tencent-accidentally-leak-true-terrifying-coronavirus-statistics

    Article concludes :

    “Then again, if China indeed had over 154,000 cases and almost 25,000 deaths as of 5 days ago, then no attempts to mask the full extent and true severity of the pandemic have any hope of “containing” the truth”

    Okay, that’s it for me! there is no point commentating on this again.

    #53548
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “Did China’s Tencent Accidentally Leak the True Terrifying Coronavirus Statistics?” – Zero Hedge

    The 10X virus statistics temporarily posted on the Tencent site look much more realistic, and would justify the extreme containment measures we currently see being implemented. Notice that the daily increments are also in line with the higher totals. If I had to guess, this was not an accidental posting, but someone with a conscience trying to get the truth to the outside world. And like Julian Assange, they have probably been relieved from their job and disappeared.

    #53550
    zerosum
    Participant

    There is no need to get Bolton to testify, wait until March and buy his book.
    If there is anything in his book that the voters don’t like then the voter will not vote Trump.

    #53553
    WES
    Participant

    I have finally concluded that graceful Nancy is secretly working for President Trump!

    Confusion is a direct result of speech not agreeing with actions.

    Nancy has been impeaching Trump since 2018!

    Trump keeps getting stronger!

    Your Honor, I rest my case!

    #53554
    WES
    Participant

    Now that Britain’s has left Europe, isn’t it interesting that Europe is all of a sudden interested in the fate of Julian Assange!

    #53555
    WES
    Participant

    What I find rather amusing is watching people like AOC running around trying to destroy the existing order of things! It never seems to occur to these types that they are not really in charge and are just being “used” by others!

    Comrade Lenin’s “Useful Idiots” phrase comes to mind!

    The deep state doesn’t seem too bothered by AOC!

    However disturber of the status quo, President Donald Trump, is entirely another matter!

    #53556
    WES
    Participant

    I know most people can’t believe the DNC would use an ACME app that doesn’t work to count Iowa’s votes.

    That is not the case!

    The American designed Shadow app worked exactly as it was supposed too!

    The real Iowa results were hidden in the shadows of a back alley!

    And nobody is talking about the real results either!

    I would say the DNC got excellent value for their money!

    #53558
    WES
    Participant

    When it comes to the coronavirus, despite being a rather mathematically challenged engineer, I still believe, rightly or wrongly, in the power of compounding!

    I will first admit, central banker’s NIRPs, shook my beliefs in the power of compounding severely.

    None-the-less, since central bankers now appear to be pushing on a string, my faith in the power of compounding has risen somewhat, because I am now dealing with communist beaurocrats!

    Beaurocrats, communist or not, live only to stay in power tomorrow! This test ensures I am actually dealing with only positive power of compounding math!

    As such, I recommend adding a “ZERO” to all “Official” government numbers to obtain a resultant number!

    If any further doubt remains, I highly recommend multiplying the resultant number by a suitable “fudge factor” number to obtain a proper power of compounding resultant!

    For example, to calculate the actual death toll, multiply 500 by 10 = 5000 then multiply by a fudge factor of 5 = 25,000 dead! See it works!

    P.S. I here by attest that this mathematical model has actually been tested in over 30 countries including communist countries!

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