Apr 112020
 


Dorothea Lange Six tenant farmers without farms, Hardeman County, Texas 1937

 

115-Year-Old Supreme Court Opinion Could Determine Rights In A Pandemic (CNN)
Fauci: Immunity Cards Option For US, Antibody Tests To Come Next Week (Hill)
Fauci: World Health Organization Boss ‘Really An Outstanding Person’ (JTN)
New York Gov. Cuomo Tells Giuliani Coronavirus Modeling ‘100% Wrong’ (JTN)
Democrats Want To Drop Joe Biden For Andrew Cuomo – Poll (NYP)
New York Gov. Cuomo Joins International Criticism Of WHO (JTN)
Progressive Caucus Demands Pelosi Unveil Bold Coronavirus Package (CD)
68% Of COVID-19 Patients Improve After Gilead Drug Remdesivir: NEJM (R.)
New Jersey Loosens Restrictions On Hydroxychloroquine In Nursing Homes (NJ.com)
Less Than 1% Of Austrians ‘Acutely’ Infected With Coronavirus (G.)
French Coronavirus Toll Over 13,000 As Nursing Home Deaths Jump (R.)
Deaths Soar At Britain’s Care Homes As COVID-19 Stalks Elderly (R.)
2,000 Extra Deaths: Dutch Coronavirus Toll May Be Far Higher Than Known (RT)
Refusing To Share Debt Across The Eurozone Threatens EU’s Future (Varoufakis)
Risings and Fallings (Kunstler)
What if Ignored COVID19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks? (Ray McGovern)

 

 

• The US becomes the first country to record more than 2,000 #coronavirus deaths in one day, with 2,108 fatalities in the past 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally

• The US has now recorded 18,586 deaths, closing in on the toll of 18,849 dead in Italy which has seen the most fatalities so far,

• US records more than 500,000 coronavirus cases: Johns Hopkins as of 0030 GMT Saturday, up 35,098 in the past 24 hours

• U.S. Bureau of Prisons reports that 318 federal inmates and 163 employees have tested positive for coronavirus.

• Top 10 States – Positive Tests 4/10/20
1) NY/ 170,512;
2) NJ/ 54,588;
3/ MI/ 22,783;
4) MA/ 20,974;
5) CA/ 20,917;
6) PA/ 20,251;
7) LA/ 19,253;
8) FL/ 17,968;
9) IL/ 17,887;
10)TX 11,671.

 

 

Cases 1,710,152 (+ 95,103 from yesterday’s 1,615,049)

Deaths 103,506 (+ 6,715 from yesterday’s 96,791) (of 6,715 new deaths, over 2,000 were in the US)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-

 

 

From Worldometer – NOTE: mortality rate for closed cases is at 21% !

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID2019Info.live:

 

 

 

 

The legal game is definitely on.

115-Year-Old Supreme Court Opinion Could Determine Rights In A Pandemic (CNN)

When a US appeals court ruled this week that Texas could prevent physicians from performing abortions because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the judges leaned heavily on a 1905 Supreme Court decision against a Massachusetts man who had refused vaccination during a smallpox outbreak. That case could be invoked more in the months ahead. It is the high court’s touchstone for state power during public health crises. But it is a decision with limits. The 1905 court warned against “arbitrary” or “oppressive” regulation and expressly connected mandatory vaccination to ending the spread of smallpox. Today, the question is how bluntly the case, known as Jacobson v. Massachusetts, might be wielded to justify curbing individual liberties without caveat.

In the first decision of its kind during the coronavirus crisis, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals relied wholly on the 1905 case to permit Texas to include abortion clinics in its ban on non-essential medical services and surgeries. The panel, ruling by a 2-1 vote, rejected arguments regarding the right to abortion ingrained by the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade and subsequent rulings. “Jacobson instructs that all constitutional rights may be reasonably restricted to combat a public health emergency,” wrote Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan for the majority. The 5th Circuit has a record of decisions against abortion access, including in a Louisiana dispute over physician regulations, begun long before the current pandemic and now pending at the US Supreme Court.

Dissenting in the new case, Judge James Dennis argued that the majority had taken the Jacobson precedent too far. Unlike in the early 1900s, Dennis wrote, when vaccination would stop the smallpox outbreak, “the thread connecting (the Texas measure) to combatting COVID-19 is more attenuated—premised not on the idea that abortion providers are spreading the virus, but that their continuing operation requires the use of resources that should be conserved and made available to healthcare workers fighting the outbreak.”

Read more …

Something tells me a few gun-toting Americans will not like those cards.

Fauci: Immunity Cards Option For US, Antibody Tests To Come Next Week (Hill)

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said it’s possible that in the future Americans may carry documents to prove they are immune or not infected with the coronavirus. Fauci, who is one of the public health officials on the administration’s coronavirus task force, said such a system is one of several options they are discussing. “That’s possible,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.” “It’s one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure who the vulnerable people are and not,” Fauci added. “This is something that’s being discussed, I think it might actually have some merit.”


The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also said that within a period of “a week or so” there will be a large number of new antibody tests, which allow users to discover whether they possess a unique immune response to the virus. “As soon as they get validated, they’ll be out there for people to use,” Fauci said. “It’s very likely that there are a large number of people out there that have been infected, have been asymptomatic and did not know.”


Coney Island 1940

Read more …

This is just nonsense. Ask Fauci why the WHO declared a pandemic only on March 11.

Fauci: World Health Organization Boss ‘Really An Outstanding Person’ (JTN)

The World Health Organization has landed in President Trump’s crosshairs for its handling of the coronavirus, yet Dr. Tony Fauci, a senior adviser on the White House’s coronavirus task force, has recently praised the group’s top leader. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has come under fire for allegedly failing to warn the world about the speedy, lethal nature of the coronavirus originating in China. Multiple U.S. lawmakers, as well as Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, have called for Ghebreyesus’s removal. A Change.org petition has garnered nearly 780K petition signers urging Tedros’ ouster. “Tedros is really an outstanding person,” Fauci said during the March 25 coronavirus task force briefing. “I’ve known him from the time that he was the minister of Health of Ethiopia.


“I mean, obviously, over the years, anyone who says that the WHO has not had problems has not been watching the WHO. But I think, under his leadership, they’ve done very well.” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), praised Ghebreyesus’ handling of the coronavirus epidemic. “He has been all over this,” Fauci said. “I was on the phone with him a few hours ago leading a WHO call.” “The W.H.O. really blew it,” Trump recently tweeted. “For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?”

Read more …

Cuomo called for a lot of ventilators that turn out to be not needed.

New York Gov. Cuomo Tells Giuliani Coronavirus Modeling ‘100% Wrong’ (JTN)

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been the stoic face of the state’s battle against the deadly coronavirus, but he recently acknowledged that his efforts to save residents’ lives and keep the regional economy afloat have been hampered by “100 percent wrong” projections. “All of the projections, by the way, and the statisticians have been 100 percent wrong at this point,” Cuomo on Thursday told former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on his radio show.


The roughly 9-minute interview on WABC-AM was all pleasantries between the longtime New York pols, as the state, now the epicenter of the virus, appears to be near the height of infection cases and related deaths. “Thank you for asking about Chris, Mr. Mayor,” said Cuomo, who now gives daily TV briefings, when Giuliani inquired about his brother, Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor recovering from the virus. Giuliani started the interview by telling his audience that his guest is Gov. Cuomo “who, I think, is known to every American as a person who has supplied great, great leadership for his state and for his country.” Giuliani also added: “You’re doing a great job.”

Read more …

I have a question. Cuomo is governor of a state where the virus has run way out of hand. But nobody even tries to hold him accountable, it’s as if everything happened beyond his view, or power. It’s everybody’s fault but his. Why is that?

Democrats Want To Drop Joe Biden For Andrew Cuomo – Poll (NYP)

A majority of Democrats want to nominate New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for president instead of Joe Biden, according to poll results shared exclusively with The Post. The national poll found 56 percent of Democrats prefer Cuomo, with 44 percent wanting to stick with presumptive nominee Biden — a 12-point margin well outside the 4.8 percent margin of error for the Democratic sample. Hispanic voters, young people, women and self-identified liberals are most likely to favor dumping the former vice president for Cuomo. The poll, conducted April 3-6, was commissioned by the conservative pro-market Club for Growth, which generally supports Republican candidates.


Cuomo denied last month that he wanted to run for president, but some Democrats still are clamoring for an alternative to Biden, who faded from public view during the coronavirus outbreak, which elevated Cuomo in daily press conferences. Club for Growth vice president of communications Joe Kildea told The Post that the results highlight Biden’s weakness as a candidate. “With every major news event, Democrats realize more and more how bad of a candidate Joe Biden is, and Democrats now preferring Cuomo is just another example,” Kildea said.

Read more …

Here Cuomo is blaming yet another party. Not himself.

New York Gov. Cuomo Joins International Criticism Of WHO (JTN)

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday joined the bipartisan – and international – criticism of the World Health Organization’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “Where were the warning signs?” Cuomo asked at his daily briefing. “Who should have blown the whistle?” President Trump has been among the most vocal of world leaders on the issue of the WHO’s response, which they argue was slow and less than exact in its reporting and guidance. But the backlash against China appears global. Taiwan officials have suggested the WHO excluding it from membership has hurt the country’s response to the pandemic. Trump has vowed to withhold U.S. support for the group and said Friday that he’ll make a decision on the matter next week.


Cuomo pointed out Friday that headlines appeared in December and January about a new virus emerging in China, while the WHO failed to issue formal warnings. “Did we really need to be in this situation where the United States winds up having a higher number of cases than the places that came before?” he asked. Also in the U.S., congressional bills are being proposed by a number of GOP legislators, including Sens. Tom Cotton (Arkansas) and Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wisconsin), to encourage U.S. companies to source ingredients and goods outside of Chinese markets.

Read more …

This is as close as you can get to UBI without naming it that.

Progressive Caucus Demands Pelosi Unveil Bold Coronavirus Package (CD)

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to meet the coronavirus crisis with the urgency it deserves by advancing another sweeping stimulus package that—unlike the previous business-friendly legislation—guarantees economic security for all, protects public health, and ensures election safety. “Our actions now can lay the foundation for a just and resilient recovery, but only if we recognize the scale of this unprecedented crisis and fashion a response that meets that scale,” the two dozen members of the CPC Executive Board wrote in a letter sent to Pelosi on Thursday. With the U.S. economy rapidly deteriorating as the coronavirus continues to spread—nearly 17 million Americans filed jobless claims between March 15 and April 4—the CPC urged Pelosi to quickly assemble a relief package that provides robust assistance to workers and the unemployed until the coronavirus pandemic completely subsides.


To ensure that Americans will not have to wait for further congressional action if the economic and public health crisis deepens, the CPC called for a legislative package that contains automatic triggers so that “assistance continues based on economic conditions throughout the duration of the pandemic.” CPC’s list of specific demands includes: • Monthly direct cash payments of at least $2,000 to every adult in the U.S., and an additional $1,000 for every child for up to a year; • A nationwide moratorium on all evictions and foreclosures; • At least $30,000 in student debt relief; • Suspending collection of all consumer debt, including medical debt; • Opening Medicare to all people who are unemployed and uninsured; • Ensuring that no one in the U.S. faces out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment; • Increasing federal nutrition assistance benefits; • Creating a “federal Paycheck Guarantee program” to stop mass layoffs; and • Guaranteeing nationwide vote-by-mail to make sure elections don’t contribute to the spread of COVID-19.


Top right: the Rest Of Us

Read more …

I’d go for hydroxychloroquine. 68% is hardly spectacular.

68% Of COVID-19 Patients Improve After Gilead Drug Remdesivir: NEJM (R.)

More than two-thirds of severely ill COVID-19 patients saw their condition improve after treatment with remdesivir, an experimental drug being developed by Gilead Sciences, according to new data based on patient observation. The analysis, published on Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine, does not detail what other treatments the 61 hospitalized patients were given and data on eight of them were not included — in one case because of a dosing error. The paper’s author called the findings “hopeful,” but cautioned that it is difficult to interpret the results since they do not include comparison to a control group, as would be the case in a randomized clinical trial.

In addition, the patient numbers were small, the details being disclosed are limited, and the follow-up time was relatively short. There are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide. Gilead last month sharply limited its compassionate use program for remdesivir and is conducting its own clinical trials of the antiviral drug, with results expected in coming weeks. Researchers in China as well as the U.S. National Institutes of Health are also testing the drug in COVID-19 patients. The new analysis includes patients in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan who received a 10-day course of intravenous remdesivir.

Before the treatment, 30 patients were on mechanical ventilators, and four were on a machine that pumps blood from the patient’s body through an artificial oxygenator. After a median follow-up of 18 days, 36 patients, or 68%, had an improvement in oxygen-support class, including more than half of the 30 patients receiving mechanical ventilation who had their breathing tubes removed. A total of 25 patients, or 47%, were discharged from the hospital. Seven patients, 13% of the total, died. Twelve patients, 23%, had serious side effects including multiple-organ-dysfunction syndrome, septic shock and acute kidney injury.

Read more …

If people use it anyway, might as well.

New Jersey Loosens Restrictions On Hydroxychloroquine In Nursing Homes (NJ.com)

The state on Friday loosened restrictions on using a controversial malaria drug for COVID-19 patients, making it more readily available for people in nursing homes and other facilities. The decision comes amid reports of nursing home residents dying from complications of the disease and after some doctors, politicians and pharmacists had called for a change in the state’s rules. Until Friday’s order, doctors had been barred from prescribing hydroxychloroquine and some other drugs to treat COVID-19 outside of hospitals unless patients tested positive for the virus. Officials have reported that 262 of 375 of the state’s long-term care facilities have had at least one case of coronavirus, with reports of multiple deaths at some homes.


On Thursday, the National Guard arrived at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus to help its staff cope with an outbreak of the virus that has infected 40 veterans and killed 10. The same home has had nearly 30 other deaths over the last two weeks, but a lack of testing for Covid-19 means they might not be attributed to the disease. The new regulations list a number of settings outside of hospitals “where the prescribing limitations” of the old order “do not apply,” according to a statement released Friday evening by the Division of Consumer Affairs. Doctors already had been prescribing hydroxychloroquine to patients in hospitals, where a positive test was not required by the state. The new regulations add post-acute care facilities, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, field hospitals and “other locations designated as emergency health care centers by the Commissioner of Health.”

Read more …

The Guardian left the word ‘Acutely’ out of the headline, That makes all the difference. The article also mentions a “World Health Organization report in February suggesting truly asymptomatic cases were relatively rare”. We now know they could be 50%.

Less Than 1% Of Austrians ‘Acutely’ Infected With Coronavirus (G.)

Less than 1% of the Austrian population is “acutely infected” with coronavirus, new research based on testing a representative sample of more than 1,500 people suggests. The government-commissioned study, reportedly the first of its kind in continental Europe, was led by the polling company Sora, which is known for projecting election results, in cooperation with the Red Cross, the Medical University of Vienna, and other institutions. The study made it possible to estimate the prevalence of acute coronavirus infections in Austria among those not in hospital at the beginning of April, and was designed to provide a clearer picture of the total number of infections, given gaps in testing.

The research, if replicated and confirmed elsewhere, would appear to scotch hopes of countries being remotely close to relying on “herd immunity” – where enough of the population is exposed to the virus to build up a combined immunity – as a viable policy option. The study stands in contrast to controversial modelling by researchers at Oxford University who, in one scenario they examined, suggested most people in the UK might already have been infected with Covid-19. The co-founder of Sora, Christoph Hofinger, told a news conference: “Based on this study, we believe that 0.33% of the population in Austria was acutely infected in early April.” Given the margin of error, the figure was 95% likely to be between 0.12% and 0.76%. The Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who saw initial findings a few days ago, said on Monday that the rate of infection was around 1%.

This disproved the idea of herd immunity, which requires widespread infection, as a viable policy option, he said. However, researchers, speaking at a press conference to release the results, said the study provided only a “snapshot” and did not account for asymptomatic infections, or people who were immune. “We did not find out how many people are immune, but only how many people in Austria are currently acutely infected,” said Günther Ogris, from Sora. The issue of the proportion of asymptomatic infections in the population remains highly contested, with a World Health Organization report in February suggesting truly asymptomatic cases were relatively rare. However, another small Chinese study, reported in the British Medical Journal earlier this month, posited that up to four-fifths of all infections could be without symptoms

Read more …

Nursing homes, care homes, whatever you call them, they’re petri dishes.

French Coronavirus Toll Over 13,000 As Nursing Home Deaths Jump (R.)

The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France jumped by nearly 987 or 8% to 13,197 as nursing home deaths swelled but fewer people were in intensive care as the effect of nationwide confinement started to show. The total number of confirmed and probable coronavirus infections in the country rose by 7,120 to 124,869, although the ministry does not provide a total, splitting the number instead between cases in hospitals and cases in nursing homes. That total number is set to increase as just under 5,000 out of 7,400 homes so far have reported coronavirus cases to the government, a ministry official told Reuters.


The health ministry said on Friday that 7,004 people were in intensive care, a fall of 62 or 0.9% following a 1% fall on Thursday. “We seem to be reaching a plateau, albeit a high level,” health ministry director Jerome Salomon told a daily press briefing by video. But the death toll picked up again, with the number of people dying in hospitals up by 554 or 7% to 8,598 on Friday, after increasing 5% on Thursday. The number of people who died in nursing homes – according to incomplete data that cover several days and do not include all nursing homes – went up by 433 or 10% to 4,599 and now make up more than a third of the total toll.

Read more …

They should really publish case numbers among their staff as well.

Deaths Soar At Britain’s Care Homes As COVID-19 Stalks Elderly (R.)

Thousands of care homes across Britain were locked down last month to stop COVID-19 from spreading among their frail and elderly residents. For Jamshad Ali, 87, it came anyway. Ali and six other residents at Hawthorn Green Care Home in east London died with “symptoms consistent with COVID-19,” with 21 others also possibly infected, said a spokesman for the home. With growing reports of COVID-19 deaths and cases at other homes, experts fear the disease, caused by the new coronavirus, which has already ripped through the care sector in the United States and the rest of Europe is now doing the same in Britain. Care workers and advocacy groups are calling for more equipment to keep themselves and their residents safe, and for testing to get self-isolating staff back to workplaces already understaffed when the pandemic struck.

They’re also calling for more support for a sector whose workers are, like Britain’s National Health Service, fighting the coronavirus up close, but with less pay, training and recognition. Jamshad Ali’s daughter, Luthfa Hood, is heartbroken but also angry that care homes are considered such a low priority. “Young people, if they get the virus, they can fight it,” she said. “But (with) older people, it just seems like we’re saying, ‘We don’t care about you – you’re too old.’” Reporting delays and lack of testing make the death toll in care homes hard to pinpoint. Over 9% of them had reported cases and the number would continue to rise, said England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty on Tuesday.

“If you have a virus this infectious in a setting with lots of vulnerable older people, then it’s very bad news,” said Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director of Age UK, which supports older people. “The mortality rate is likely to be very high.” On Monday, France announced there had been more than 2,400 deaths in its care homes. About 433,000 people live in Britain’s 11,000 care homes, which have over 450,000 beds – three times more than the National Health Service.

Read more …

2,000 extra people died last week. 881 were COVID19. That leaves 1,119 “undeclared” deaths. Every country should look at these numbers in their own jurisdiction.

2,000 Extra Deaths: Dutch Coronavirus Toll May Be Far Higher Than Known (RT)

The Netherlands suffered 2,000 more deaths than usual during the first week of April, the country’s statistics office has said. The spike suggests the Covid-19 toll might be significantly higher than officially registered. Figures released by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on Friday show that around 5,100 deaths were registered across the country in the week ending April 5. The number is abnormally large and exceeded expectations, which were based on an average taken of the past several years, by some 2,000 people. Over the same period, the country’s National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) registered 881 coronavirus deaths – and the extra deaths overall in early April may also be due to the dreaded disease.


“The rising mortality rate coincides with the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in the Netherlands,” the organization said. A more complete picture emerges by looking at the total weekly number of deaths as based on the data received by CBS, regardless of the cause of death. In some municipalities, the weekly death toll exceeded the average twofold and even fourfold, the CBS said. The abnormally large figures alone, however, cannot conclusively show that Covid-19 is to blame, and the spike may be “coincidental and not necessarily related to the coronavirus crisis,” the statistics body noted.

Read more …

The complaints about the EU become a broken record. What are the odds it will ever change?

Refusing To Share Debt Across The Eurozone Threatens EU’s Future (Varoufakis)

Most of continental Europe using the euro is in lockdown. The economic shockwaves caused by a lockdown do not care what currency we use. Just as in the United Kingdom, the United States or Japan, the precipitous falls in private incomes must be counterbalanced by substantial increases in public expenditure. If governments fail in this, the sum of private and public expenditure (which equals aggregate income) will crash even faster, bankruptcies will burgeon and government tax revenues will collapse further in the medium turn. The challenge facing the 19 countries of the eurozone is unique. The massive boost in public debt that is now so necessary is hampered by the quaint arrangement of sharing a central bank that, on the one hand, has no common treasury to lean against and, on the other, is banned from backing directly the 19 treasuries that must borrow in euros to fight the crisis.

The euro crisis that began in 2010 stretched this monetary architecture to its limits. The coronavirus recession is now pushing it beyond them. With the countries worst hit by Covid-19, such as Italy, being the most indebted and thus the least able to shoulder the necessary new debt, an impossible conundrum emerges: the new debt needed to revive the private sector will push the state into default, so destroying the banks whose capital is mostly government debt and, in short order, the rest of the private sector. The only way out of this trap is for the new debt not to fall on the weak shoulders of the most indebted eurozone countries but to be shared across the eurozone. Except that this debt-sharing is banned by the treaties that created the eurozone, at the insistence of the northern european countries running a trade surplus with the rest.

[..] The message today to Italians, Spaniards and Greeks is: your government can borrow large amounts from Europe’s bailout fund. No conditions. You will also receive help to pay for unemployment benefits from countries where employment holds up better. But, within a year or two, as your economies are recovering, huge new austerity measures will be demanded to bring your government’s finances back into line, including the repayment of the monies spent on your unemployment benefits.

Read more …

“..readers are twanging on me to declare the whole Covid-19 story “a hoax,” which I’m not ready to do.”

Risings and Fallings (Kunstler)

In the corkscrewing anguish of the social sequester, with careers, savings, futures, and dreams whirling down the drain, voices rise above the din of conflicting statistics to ask: what is going on here? To some, it looks like a deliberate attempt to demolish what’s left of the economy for political advantage. Clouds of suspicion gather over the two medical superstars of the Daily Briefing show, Doctors Fauci and Birx, as they somewhat sheepishly revise their numbers for contagion and death downward and attempt to “balance” the formula of modeled projections versus mitigation efforts. Was the stay-at-home panic necessary, after all? Will it save the day or kill off modern life as we knew it? Well, everyplace else in the world was shutting down, weren’t they? Did they all go off their rockers, too?

At least a hundred doctors died in Italy heroically tending the stricken, so they say. South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore opted for flat-out medical Gestapo action. Britain, Spain, France, and Germany about the same, but minus testing at the grand scale and tracing of contacts. Honestly, how is it possible the whole planet punked itself? I certainly don’t know the answer to all this, though readers are twanging on me to declare the whole Covid-19 story “a hoax,” which I’m not ready to do. I do know this: America has become utterly intolerant of uncertainty. And in the absence of certainty, that age-old human cognitive skill called pattern recognition, which has made us such a successful species, kicks into high gear scanning the field-of-view for answers. Any string-of-dots that affords even the slimmest plausibility goes on the table for review, including a lot of stories tagged as “conspiracy theories.”

[..] And meanwhile, the American public sequesters and festers, waiting for those $1,200 checks that will fix… everything! Let’s face it: this is a twilight zone between stupor and fury. Nobody is paying anything to anyone. All obligations are suspended: salaries, rents, mortgages, bills, loans, bets, and vigs, all up in the air somewhere, but definitely not moving to their assigned destinations. The velocity of money is zero and all the various new term facilities and structured vehicles conjured by the Federal Reserve and Congress amount to a mere shadow of money moving – even though they are represented by trillions of brand-new alleged dollars.

Read more …

It’s Free Assange Day today.

What if Ignored COVID19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks? (Ray McGovern)

As I think of my good friend Julian, what comes to mind are the desperate words of Willy Loman’s wife Linda in “Death of a Salesman”: “He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.” (On the chance you are wondering, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal — as well as National Public Radio — have paid zero attention to the extradition hearing in recent weeks — much less to Judge Baraitser’s Queen of Hearts-style, “off-with-his-head” behavior.)

The pitiable Baraitser, of course, is simply a cog in the imperial machinery, a self-impressed, self-interested, rigid functionary aping the role of Caiaphas, the high priest beholden to an earlier Empire. “It’s better that one man die,” he is said to have explained, when another nonviolent truth-teller dared to expose the cruelties of Empire to the downtrodden of his day — including the despicable accessory role played by the high priests. Here is how theologian Eugene Peterson’s renders Caiaphas’s words in John 11: “Can’t you see that it’s to our advantage that one man die … rather than the whole nation be destroyed.” (“Nation” in that context meant the system of privilege enjoyed by collaborators with Rome — like the high priests and the lawyers of the time.)

The lesson meant to be taken away from Assange’s punishment are as clear — if less bloody — as the crucifixion that followed quickly after Caiaphas explained the rationale. The behavior of today’s empire pretends to be more “civilized” as it manufactures stories of rape, leans on ratty satraps in Sweden, England, and Ecuador, and ostentatiously thumbs its nose at official UN condemnations of “arbitrary detention.” And, if that were not enough, it also practices leave-no-marks torture.

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 11 2020

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  • #56973

    Dorothea Lange Six tenant farmers without farms, Hardeman County, Texas 1937   • 115-Year-Old Supreme Court Opinion Could Determine Rights In A P
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 11 2020]

    #56974
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Raul, it is absolutely insane that some are calling this a hoax, especially in the US. There are still so many things that we do not know and understand about this disease. Two months ago there were fewer than a dozen confirmed cases in the US. Now there are at least half a million, and 90% of those are still open cases. And yet Americans are calling this a hoax? What??? We have seen the pictures of the mass graves in NY. And yet, and yet, and I think this can only happen in the USA, in spite of the fact that in record time the US has now sprinted into first place in confirmed cases, the “get back to work” crowd is now saying that this is all a hoax because models projected even higher numbers if there had been no NPIs?? (but, but, but . . . there have been NPIs — aren’t we supposed to take that into account when evaluating whether the dire warnings were correct?)

    My Korean wife asks me how the US can have screwed this up so badly and have the worst numbers in the world in such short time, and I am trying to explain to her that in spite of this, Americans are trying to convince themselves that this is no big deal because some said it might be worse. She just doesn’t get US politics . . . neither do I . . . .

    Models predicted that more ventilators would be needed. But many people who needed them only recently went on them, and most will be on them for a long time. I have not seen any data that patients in the US medical system will come off them faster than elsewhere. And 90% of US cases are still open? What does that mean? Have the US health professionals actually treating the patients sounded the “all clear” siren?

    What makes the US cases more puzzling to me is that the spread had been so uneven. If it had been evenly spread across the country, the “hoax” calls might carry more weight. But because it has been concentrated in certain pockets, I am more inclined to believe that this might just be a matter of time. If the New York experience spreads to all major metropolitan areas, then what?

    Having said that, I still think that we will make tremendous advances in understanding this disease in a relatively short period of time. I doubt that we we have a vaccine within a year. But we will know how to treat the symptoms and keep people out of the hospital. And those of us who benefit from that will be able to look back and be grateful for the hammer that slowed the spread at the early stages and bought us more time.

    Today’s Austria data (though the use of the word “acute” is confusing) reaffirms what I have suspected from the Korean data that we are still in the very early stages of this. Hoping to see more data asap, and hoping the antibody testing can be rolled out as fast as possible …

    #56975
    zerosum
    Participant

    Jubilee for the elites: Pennies for the rest of us:
    • Progressive Caucus Demands Pelosi Unveil Bold Coronavirus Package (CD)
    ——
    Truth
    A more complete picture emerges by looking at the total weekly number of deaths as based on the data received by CBS, regardless of the cause of death.
    ———–
    Jubilee for elites OR ELSE
    “huge new austerity measures will be demanded to bring your government’s finances back into line, including the repayment of the monies spent on your unemployment benefits.”

    —–
    Don’t be afraid. Say it … Jubilee
    All obligations are suspended: salaries, rents, mortgages, bills, loans, bets, and vigs, all up in the air somewhere, but definitely not moving to their assigned destinations. The velocity of money is zero and all the various new term facilities and structured vehicles conjured by the Federal Reserve and Congress amount to a mere shadow of money moving – even though they are represented by trillions of brand-new alleged dollars.
    ———
    Mass graves for covid19 and for the poor and destitute seniors in care homes …. equals funeral home going bankrupt!!!!

    #56976
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Sorry did she say that? – “But (with) older people, it just seems like we’re saying, ‘We don’t care about you – you’re too old.’” I mean we are sending economies off a cliff and apparently we don’t care about the old people?
    This is a new strain of the flu (and a bit of a nasty one) but not a lot changes in the real world of nature – you know the one where living things procure resources from their environment. As in nature weak, ageing and diseased individuals and organisms express poor resistance to the demands of the living environment – namely that they have vigour and health. I see it with trees and plants with my work. I don’t stop watering the entire nursery because some specimens start showing decline. Certainly I may group plants together or allow for some separation but I don’t enact the same protocols for all specimens.
    Defence systems are barriers – we have none globally. Our numbers spiral out of control and our mobility just keeps increasing. Viruses have unlimited access. Globalisation is the real enemy. Now we want to keep the dream alive with virtual global living via our screens and devices but……
    I don’t think it is a hoax but a power grab is a power grab and we should as citizens have some say over how this is handled. I also think it is weird that you can trash your body all your life with shit food and drugs and whatever and crush the health care system with diabetes and the rest and then crush the health care system with Corona. I feel like I am being insensitive but the Lord of More got us here and we ain’t getting out without casualties.

    #56977

    #56978
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “The nation now has the long Easter weekend to stew and ruminate over its fate with spring achingly vivid and beckoning beyond the grim, streaked windows of sequestering.” J. Kunstler

    #56979

    Goddamn fucking pigs! What the cowards run away when he stands up to them and demands their badge numbers.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/watch-philadelphia-man-dragged-bus-cops-not-wearing-face-mask

    #56980

    #56981
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I ask myself why I bother. I’ll answer that question to myself later, in private. It’s Complicated, my media relationship with myself.

    Regarding the Philadelphia transit cops event:

    First, the video doesn’t show what the cops do if the unMasked Man tries to board the next train, so saying they are running away is just so much, uh, bullshit. You/we don’t know unless someone has viewed subsequent footage. He’s off the train and the cops don’t care about his badge # requests. Fuck him awreddy. Cops are cops. (I am anything but a fan of cops, btw. Once came *this* close to killing one. He knew it. He saw me pull my strike back just incher, if that, before his eyes. He declined to arrest me while I verbally abused him with full impunity and great relish. True story which is why it sounds unreal.)

    Secondly, Typhoid Mary

    The social contract is a contract, and contracts are legally enforceable in a society based on Rule of Law under a Monop[oly on Violence as such is The State. That’s how modern life works, warts and all. We believe we’re entitled to live together in large close groups milling about our ant hill all the time, often driving or flying hundreds of miles away to do the same, carrying within us or upon us countless microbes, some of which are pathogenic to those we come into contact with.

    When I was a kid, legally enforceable No Spitting signs were still prominent in the Chicago I grew up in, reflecting older public health campaigns based more on, uh, ‘hygiene etiquette’ than vaccinations and antibiotics. In that time (50s/60s) vaccinations of many kinds were already mandatory, typically enforced by one not being allowed to attend school without immunizations. Since school was/is also mandatory, not being vaccined got you culled from the herd one way or another. The truant officer could take you from your home.

    In any group living situation beyond tribal size, institutions of bureaucratic authroity arise to address perceived problems, some of them real, some imagined. Granted power tends to corrupt its wielders. Beatings occur. Incarcerations happen. Executions, usually public and a popular form of entertainment before TV hypnotized us all with more satisfying forms of vicarious vengeance, become staples of life.

    This is how we live. That sky has always been falling, and someone is always crowing with wings aflap that this is so and deriding us for being stupid because we do not share their precise perspective, at least not in a form they can understand. Understanding is often challenged by the act of crowing and flapping at every thing that seems to confirm one’s personal beliefs.

    Sometimes these incessant alarmists get beat up by cops. Other times, citizens themselves weary of the noise and do the beating themselves. Wearing a mask is sometimes a wiser form of precaution than carrying a gun, although come to think of it, the two often overlap, ci?

    But then, what could possibly be more important than having someone/something to blame? That ALWAYS solves the problem, right?

    Don’t You Know the Sky Is Falling?

    #56982
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Raul: John Gray is a rare treat. He pisses off equally both sides of most any aisle he comes near while honoring both with the respect of honestly acknowledging their genuine truths, whatever they are.

    I especially enjoy how he will naturally piss of Xtians with his at agnostic leaning toward atheism, and he angers secular humanism with his observation that we suck at being fruitful and multiplying in a remotely sane manner.

    My kinda guy. Bit of a one-note Johnny, but to quote one music critic concerning the guitar solo in Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl: “But oh, what a note!”

    Straw Dogs by John Gray

    #56983
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I don’t think it is a hoax but a power grab is a power grab and we should as citizens have some say over how this is handled.” oxymoron

    Yes, a power grab is a power grab, it would indeed be nice if “we citizens” had a say, but which citizens? The give/take 50% who don’t bother to vote in give/take 50% of elections? Those who reactionarily empower authority by opposing authority? Or, my fave, those who work to build the foundations of something that will endure through this transformatiuon and provide some kind of sensible basis for what comes next? We’re quite a blend, we are.

    We the people got us into this mess. We vastly outnumber the 1%. By, give/take, 99%. Congress has an approval rating approaching single digits yet the incumbency rate remains extremely high. We deserve the leaders we put up with, and we deserve the fate we collectively experience via authority, because we are we, and we are not in harmonious communion. We are, as Thomas Carlyle said, “…chaos with ballot urns.”

    “I also think it is weird that you can trash your body all your life with shit food and drugs and whatever and crush the health care system with diabetes and the rest and then crush the health care system with Corona. I feel like I am being insensitive but the Lord of More got us here and we ain’t getting out without casualties.”

    What’s insensitive, perhaps, is that the Lord of More is a vast conspiracy power grab in its own right: we all grew up with constant mentality derangers* called commercials beamed through our optic nerves straight into our brain every 5-10 minutes as we watched TV, which we did in large amounts as soon as the things arrived in our homes. A new state of couch stasis appeared. Preople could sit and stare literally for hours without maving more than their lungs and heart. Even their eyes remained fixed on the narrow visual space. Only kids, still alive and not yet entirely unsubdued, got up close to the action, making it alas, even more real to them as their eyes raced back and forth watching actors mill about the glowing screen. But sill not so hypnotised that when boring parts happened, they’d get up and play or at least pester their siblings for amusement.

    Modernites, especially Euromericans, have voluntarily submitted to a brain wash campaign so blatantly visible we have had to, of course, debate ever since whether it was “really” happening or not. Especially on TV. Oh, how we love to watch things debated on TV. Oh, how hard it is for us to see the ubiquitously obvious. Like goldfish unaware of water because it surrounds them entirely while they admire their (culturally) distorted reflections in the glass.

    Reflections in a Glass Eye

    There are people reading this blog who have “trash(ed their) bod(ies) all (their) life with shit food and drugs and whatever and crush the health care system with diabetes”. Or know someone who has. Like my dear wife, who was raised to watch TV and eat donuts as a kid. Like so many. SHe’s hardly unintelligent or unprincipled or without discipline. She struggles greatly with her early childhood food/TV imprinting.

    Some of us were lucky enough to have spied a hole in The Fence. Typically, we had to experience major physical or cognitive pain to actually squeeze through that tiny barbed wire aperture. A major bitch-slap in my face when I was 16, delivered by my Dad because I wouldn’t cut my hair (oh, 1972, you were a very shaggy year), awoke me with a startle to the irrationality of the Grown-Ups In Charge, and I bolted through that hole so fast I’m still scarred from the exit wounds.

    How we arrive at our given stations in and perspectives on life is as much chance as self-direction. So, if it sounds insensitive to point out what everyone here already knows via a number of mutually shared perspectives, i.e. that we were already screwed beforehand by Das System and are even more screwed now by same, it is perhaps because your language suggests a sense of removal from those poor fat deplorable zombie Twinkie-eating diabetic couch comas. In the sense of Darwinian survival chances, you probably ARE superior to them, but the act of even seeming to belittle them detracts from your appearance of ‘sensitivity’. You are probably anything but insensitive in your affairs with your daily fellows, but the above doesn’t show the best side of your compassionately moral face, maybe? All that said, I think the cornerstone is your use of the word “we” and “you” in your remarks. We all throw those pronouns interchangeably without seeing the subconscious choices that often pick which pronoun we use.

    None of us asked to be born into this world, not that we know of.

    *your nephew Oscar and his girlfriend Shalina want to start a punk band with that name: Mentality Derangers

    #56984
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    Loved the old cartoon of Uncle Sam feeding the corporate monopoly hogs, while ignoring the ‘rest of us’. As the French say: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. Or as it’s known in the US: “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

    I must admit that I’m a bit burned out on the whole pandemic drama. Much of this is due to the craziness which it has excited: the politicizing, the finger pointing, the ass covering, the conspiracy theories, the money printing, the thieving, the overreach of authority, the fear mongering, the ineptitude, the conflicting reports, etc. etc. Sometimes by the end of the day I don’t know which end is up. However, I still have an evolving picture of the situation that has developed instinctually, and I’m curious to see how well it holds up to how this actually plays out over time. There is remarkable potential for this crisis to alter the course of history, which duly needs altering, but in which direction we as yet do not know. Let us hope that Mr. Gates does not have a seat on the steering committee.

    As always, I appreciate the exchange of ideas and shared experiences from Raul, and everyone who comments.

    #56986

    #56987
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Boogaloo do check the link I sent -it offers an explanation for the distribution of covid in the US and elsewhere including Netherlands.

    Connecting the Dots: Glyphosate and COVID-19


    Perhaps one less mystery

    #56988
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/top-pentagon-generals-warn-enemies-not-attack-150-bases-impacted-covid-19
    With a growing number of reports showing the Pentagon absolutely getting pounded by coronavirus, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley issued a statement warning that US readiness remains intact, and that no nation should test the US.

    This at a time that as AFP reports, 150 bases as well as aircraft carriers have been affected: Still, offensive capabilities simply must be taxed by 3,366 Defense Department infections. The USS Theodore Roosevelt is in an extended dock because almost 10% of the crew is infected.

    #56989
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

    The controversy over this drug is getting strange.

    A French scientist says it is effective if give as soon as the disease is diagnosed. Then all supplies in France disappear!

    An American doctor says it is very effective on seriously ill patients if given with a zinc supplement.

    Some say it would need weeks of clinical trials. No it doesn’t – the drug has been around for fifty years!

    It works or it doesn’t!

    One thought is that this is so big pharma can make money from novel vaccines and other treatments, which could be a long time coming. Or never : there is no cure for HIV yet.

    I personally get the feeling that Western governments are trying to make things as bad as possible – deliberately, not through incompetence. The lack of PPE even for medical staff, refusal to ramp up testing to massive levels, etc. Is this in order to justify the extreme monitoring schemes being proposed in various countries?

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-why-france-hiding-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure

    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/while-left-continues-pan-trump-touted-treatment-another-doctor-reports-dramatic-improvement

    #56990
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    FWIW, … yet another interview with a microbiologist with 25 years of experience researching bacterial infections:
    The science of Covid-19

    The science of Covid-19

    … like I said, FWIW.

    F.S.

    #56991
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    MOst of us here are passingly familiar with the D-K Effect.

    Here is a nicely succinct but not crudely simplified of this ultimately complex issue and its sibling, “I.Q.”:

    https://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-hayes/2015/06/20-reasons-why-the-world-is-full-of-dumb-people-who-think-theyre-smart/

    A song for all of us:

    Lyddl Gnose Itt Olzz

    #56992
    democritus
    Participant

    Dear Raúl Ilargi Meijer,

    What is the correct url for covid2019info.live? Is it this one?

    https://covid2019.azurewebsites.net/

    Which spreadsheet are you reproducing?

    #56993

    bosco says: “The social contract is a contract, and contracts are legally enforceable in a society based on Rule of Law under a Monop[oly on Violence as such is The State. That’s how modern life works, warts and all. We believe we’re entitled to live together in large close groups milling about our ant hill all the time, often driving or flying hundreds of miles away to do the same, carrying within us or upon us countless microbes, some of which are pathogenic to those we come into contact with.”

    Well, bosco, just make sure you keep a printed copy of that social contract on your body at all times along with your “I got tested card” after they issue you one. That way, when the swat team executing a no-knock warrant on your next door neighbor for improper social distancing, accidentally comes crashing through your door at three in the morning, you’ll be able to show them that you are a good little slave, and maybe they won’t splatter you all over the wall.

    #56994
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Someone posted a non-paranoiac, mainstream summary of primary significant developments toward handling this virus thingamabob. This summary is broadly inclusive not exclusive in its reportings, speaks from outside both today’s bipolar political landscape and the butt-sniffers-in-a-row world of credentialed experts so adeptly misinforming and mistreating so many of us merely because they’re conditioned to do what they’re told. It uses language that will not satisfy the most ardent counter-culturalists and contrarians on both sides of whatever lines draw whatever today’s PC camps represent (Beavis<>Butthead???), but instead uses language that will communicate clearly and calmly to the vast majority of the human herd in a voice they’ve learned to easily trust and understand.

    In the process, it offers what appears to be genuinely accurate information.

    One can, however, quibble with this one, for surez: “All evidence suggests that COVID-19 infections produce an effective immune response that should lead to protection for life.” I don’t know if I’m qualified to refute that or not. The fact that some people have recurrent infections of Corvid-19 sounds kinda spooky and has sold its share of page-views, but I have seen no comparison of that to other viral pathogens. It may be something that has been successfully dealt with before with other viruses. If so, then he is accurate to say that “All evidence suggests that COVID-19 infections produce an effective immune response that should lead to protection for life.”

    But me no gno.

    I repeat: ‘Someone posted a non-paranoiac, mainstream summary of primary significant developments toward handling this virus thingamabob.’ And, it seems mostly accurate and unbiased other than its adherence to vaccinology as the One True Way.

    I can hardly believe my eyes, head asplode, hair on fire. Maybe it’s just a Frigmund of my imagination?

    Am I Losing My Mind?

    #56995
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    bosco understand self-protection and the concept of police invasion of privacy and worse. Him dooz, and would be lying if he said that him wonderz why you imply that he doesn’t. Because him gnoze whies:

    your very human ego and its very human attachment to being right, not necessarily all the time in daily affairs, but certainly when it comes to the worldview you’ve attained to explain human geopolitical reality to yourself.

    That part of the human ego gets butthurt at the drop of a fart… an unfortunate sort of twisted metaphor, that.

    But then, on the other hand: Maybe I Think Too Much

    #56996

    Close to 17000 dead in the US from suspected SARS-CoV-2 illness. Over 17,000,000 have lost their livelihood in the last 21 days.
    That’s over 1000 people out of work, out of money, and out of luck for each deceased individual.
    If compassion were an issue here, things would look different.
    I suppose we can always count the upcoming suicides as victims of The Virus, too.
    I weep for my country. I weep for the world. I weep for the future that’s coming unfurled.

    #56997
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    We may, … just perhaps, end up as a proverbial burnt toast! So goes a jest in this oped, …

    … The belief that it is worth sacrificing anything and everything at the altar of flattening the coronavirus curve is foolish. But many leaders are behaving that way. We need a clearer picture of all that is at stake before those at the helm burn down the village to save it. […]

    … Many difficult decisions lie ahead. We stand the best chance of making good decisions if we consider everything at stake, and not only the singular goal of reducing Covid-19 deaths.

    Lockdowns Won’t Stop the Spread
    Stopping the coronavirus and protecting the economy are one and the same, but it is too late to do either.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/lockdowns-wont-stop-the-spread-11586474560?redirect=amp#click=https://t.co/wvheErK575

    Best,

    F.S.

    #56998
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Bosco, much appreciated your criticism of my venting arrogance. Even read it out to my wife who was in some agreement. I will add though that my statement sounded more specific than it really was meant to be. I AM frustrated with those aspects of myself where imprinting or lack of discipline has reduced my Darwinian winning capacity (sugar was my emotional rescue) and even now wrestle with tooth-ache which will result in another tooth pulled in short order. No one can set the learning limits and time-frame for anyone but themselves and that is why the actual seat of power resides within ones Self. In reality, I know that real and lasting peace comes through a deep and well practiced understanding of this phrase from the late Kenneth Wapnick via Jesus -“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Problem is I let my ego run my mind. Thus my mind lets unkind and ‘insensitive’ thoughts take a front row. What drives this in part is that I just wish we would learn our lessons and move in the direction away from the Lord of More and toward the Lord of Content. This is known as impatience which is itself unloving and unkind, but give me a break – it is frustrating to watch us all do things we don’t need to do all the time. Throw on top of that the ambiguity of just living in this world and trying to do no harm when for example we know the toxins and waste streams eddying behind us from almost all our decisions – like purchasing and using these computers with their third world assembly and polluting after-lives.
    I guess I am saying yep – you are right – I was being a bit of a dickhead but how hopeless is this world of time and space filled with we morons who just do dumb shit all the time?.

    #56999
    WES
    Participant

    The natives are restless! The sky is falling! The world is coming to an end!

    Situation perfectly normal!

    My igloo still hasn’t melted yet!

    Spring is now being delayed until early May!

    Where is Al Gore when you need him!

    #57000
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I am honored and touched, oxymoron. I too despair of human reality.

    HOW A LONE WOLF PRAYS TO GOD

    Aside from the vocal delivery mechanism, which is obviously different than those of most homo sapiens, the message is basically this:

    Let me walk with you, please, o Lord. Although I can’t bear a leash, and we loners are known to roll in carrion for reasons mysterious to everyone including ourselves, we need to know we have a Master who loves us.

    Even if we’re often out of earshot and so don’t always hear when you call, which sometimes causes us trouble and others grief, we sniff your trail often in ways that those who stay close to you can’t, being used as they are to more nearness of your presence than our solitary ways allow. Others are more accustomed to your smell, often to the point where their den is powerfully redolent of your Divine Odor, which can also cause problems: a goldfish doesn’t necessarily notice that its bowl is leaking until the water’s too far gone; we lonesters can smell a trace of your spirit like we can smell the ghost of water on the wind… precisely because we are so often desperately parched.

    Let me walk with You, please. I never asked to be without a pack, but that’s how it is and apparently must be. I haven’t had a pack for 48 years, but you blessed me with a mate so I don’t have to always howl alone.

    Nonetheless, while She is more company than I’d ever hoped for, I walk the woods alone because their darkness scares others. I get lonely, and need a friend I can rely on.

    And… I hate to say, oh, I really hate to say it, but it’s probably you. Not that I don’t love you and adore you, but… I’m a wolf not a God. You’re all I have, like a housedog in a downtown city apartment whose entire world depends on its human. It is not entirely alone: the humans have another dog and they are best friends.
    But neither of them will last long without their human god-of-their-lives, and neither will I nor my mate, o Lord.

    Wolves Talk

    It’s Probably Me

    I will now resume posting relevant links without my personal blather.

    #57001
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Boogaloo do check the link I sent -it offers an explanation for the distribution of covid in the US and elsewhere including Netherlands.

    Sumac, yes, it will be interesting to see if this theory holds up over time, either with respect to the distribution or the severity of the disease. The point that I had tried to make before was that some countries that seemed to do well in the beginning are now struggling, and I do not think that this theory can explain that. For example, she gives the examples of Bhutan (for organic food) and Russia (for resisting biofuels). Russia did well at first, but now sees 15% day-over-day increases.

    #57002
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Here is a summary of the research connecting glyphosate to vulnerability to covid-19

    esearch scientist at MIT has been studying the role of toxic chemicals in the deterioration of human health. Current focus is covid-19 and its tendency to launch cytokine storms. Of note is that, for most people, covid-19 is barely noticeable, whereas for others it is a serious crisis.
    Author believes the answer is the state of the person’s “innate immune system” which is the normal portion of the immune system, versus the “adaptive immune system” which launches a cytokine storm when the innate system is broken, and the cytokine storm can cause sufficient collateral damage to be lethal.
    The researcher’s hypothesis is that the biofuel industry is inadvertently introducing glyphosate into transportation fuels (for cars, buses, airplanes, ships). Glyphosate is used extensively on the crops and biomass that are the basis for biofuels. The plant material destined for use in biofuels is often transported by barge in major waterways, polluting these waterways with glyphosate also.
    Studies show that aerosol glyphosate causes damage to lungs in such a way as to induce a very strong response (ie cytokine storm) to a new cold virus, leading to extensive damage to lungs, breathing difficulties, and inability to clear the virus from the body. Glyphosate has also been found to cause a number of serious chronic diseases, due to its impact on the immune system.
    Geographical distribution of biofuels maps well to covid-19 hot spots:
    – The 3 leading US cities using biodiesel in vehicles (and for home heating oil) are New York, New Orleans, and Washington DC. These cities are also at the mouths of major waterways used to transport the biomass destined for biofuel production.
    – The US consumes more glyphosate per capita than any other country.
    – Covid-19 hot spot cities in the US are served by airlines that use biofuels.
    – Italy has developed a technology for producing biodiesel from used olive oil, and glyphosate is routinely used to control weeds around olive trees. Lombardy has a serious issue with air pollution, particularly from diesel fuel. 99% of the people in Lombardy who died of covid-19 had at least one chronic disease (heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, copd, liver or kidney disease) while nearly half had three or more (remember chronic diseases are connected to glyphosate)
    – Europe increasingly relies on imported biodiesel from Argentina to meet demand, and Argentinian biodiesel is produced from Roundup-Ready soybeans.
    – KLM, the Dutch airline, was the first airline in the world to use biofuel, and the Netherlands has been hard hit by covid-19.
    Russia has been very slow to adopt biofuels because of their strong oil and gas lobby, and Russia has a much lower rate of infection and mortality from covid-19.

    #57003
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Oxymoron and Bosco thank you both for sharing your beautiful wisdom about humanity. So refreshing.

    #57024
    Dr. D
    Participant

    The trouble with Americans, as I say 4x a day, is that every person that speaks is lying, and every thing you hear, read, or even see, is a lie. When it comes to a crisis, then, what will people believe? As it is composed of almost entirely lies, each person has no possible choice but to invent a constellation of facts, of truths, to make order out of a body of facts that – because all lies – make no sense on their own.

    So “hoax” is quite a big word. I wouldn’t say it’s a hoax but it’s been a generation since media DIDN’T radically and irresponsibly over-hype anything, everything, they put their attention on. We’re catching them at it regularly now. My feeling is that it is like the ‘68 Hong Kong flu no one heard about unless you were there, and had no effects and no memory. Or even the ‘72 Swine Flu that they killed a few thousand in just four weeks with irresponsible vaccines, before they got Reagan to indemnify them against any deaths or injuries, regardless of how bad or how many.

    We add that to our present system, which despite deserved criticism about cost, nevertheless carefully keeps most chronically unhealthy people alive decades longer than before. So they are teetering on the edge, taking 20 drugs daily just to not die already. I don’t know what to say for that. Should we do nothing? Probably not, but with the deaths over 80, you have to wonder where this was going to stop anyway. We mourn death to some extent because of the time stolen from us. But these people have already stolen 10 years from Time.

    We are protected from death, as we are protected from life, now so neurotic that shots are fired if your coffee isn’t hot, much less see things live and die daily: cattle, chickens in a pot, your sister, brother, dog, all die elegantly, “correctly” out of sight, with everything paid to be witnessed and cleaned up by someone else. They don’t want that bubble popped. Who would?

    So it’s easy to create panic when 10 years of delayed deaths occur, or another way, a whole year’s worth of deaths cram into 3 months, in a population that like shiny children, has never once seen death, less faced it.

    My point is simply that we can attempt to save a few – and not even by “saving” them at all, but by delaying their inevitable injury until later, when the hospitals can accept them – and then murder 1,000 more because we forget the economy is 8 billion times larger – larger than the virus, larger than the banks, larger than the government – because the “economy” is us. So in a logical sense: do you want to kill more or fewer people? Apparently, clearly, they want more, which leads to the question: why? If we have potential drugs, they immediately outlaw their investigation everywhere, why? They immediately want new paperwork, new passports, new abuses none of which have any logical purpose in promoting health. Why?

    And so on. So is it a hoax? Yes. No. Is it being planned, engineered, executed for power? Yes. No. At any moment on planet earth, there’s a lot going on, with a lot of people and a lot of intents, many of which are trialed but come to nothing. But you can be sure people will be trying to advantage themselves at the expense of others with whatever comes along.

    Also for Korea, 500k people is just one city. Out of a nation with 3,142 counties. I know that sounds mean, but it’s impossible to recognize how vast and endless America is without spending time here. Like I said, one city is the size of half of Spain. When that’s the case, large numbers seem modest to us. And similar to any other town: should the entire town of Mayberry shut down because two people died at the County Rest Home today? Of course not. And we don’t even have numbers that high.

    Is there a thing? Yes. Should we do something, try to dampen the impact on health workers, get the vulnerable through somehow? Yes. But not at the cost of sacrificing everyone instead, our livelihoods, our centuries of law and freedoms. Especially when their severe measures – even according to themselves – won’t stop the disease anyway. Everybody’s going to get it. They’re just trying to insure a hospital bed for them, while being able to do very little for you if you end up there. 80% mortality rate. Stay at home.

    #57035

    Next morning- Okay. Close to 19,000.
    I desperately need new glasses, but it will have to wait.

    #57048
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    sumac: One important nit: The original article never suggested that “for most people, covid-19 is barely noticeable.” Rather, the author gave one example of one person who had only two minor symptoms. The point was to set the stage for explaining why some outcomes are catastrophic and others are not..

    Dr D: My cynical side says that the elites want to send people back to work NOT because they care about the economy, but because they do not want the government to own the unemployment problem. As a practical matter, the government cannot allow foreclosures to go forward at the same time they are ordering people to stay home. That could lead to an uprising. So instead they will let people go back to work and then give the green light to the foreclosures. Then Wall Street will buy up all of the foreclosed homes with all of the free money they got from the Fed. So in the name of saving the economy we will really be sending a lot of people to economic ruin.

    That’s why I think the people are better off staying at home and insisting on some form of jubilee/reset.

    There is plenty of money out there for bailouts, but in the current rigged system all the money goes to the banks, the hedge funds, the big companies, and the military. Not to the people. It is time to change that.

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