May 082020
 


NPC Shad fishing on the Potomac 1920

 

US Death Toll Would Have Been Halved Had It Acted 4 Days Sooner (SCMP)
US Doctors Want Details On Federal Distribution Of Remdesivir (R.)
China Backs WHO Investigating COVID19 Origin (SCMP)
Blood Thinners May Help Sickest COVID19 Patients Survive
COVID19 Wreaks Economic Havoc Across Europe (ZH)
Japan On Course For Deep Recession As Spending, Services Plunge (R.)
Black Britons Face ‘Twice The Risk’ Of Death – ONS (BBC)
Black African Deaths Three Times Higher Than White Britons (BBC)
Black People Four Times More Likely To Die From COVID19 – ONS (G.)
No One Can Be Evicted In New York Until August 20 (JTN)
The Great Potato Giveaway: US Farmers Hand Out Spuds To Avoid Food Waste (R.)
Seattle Permanently Closes 20 Miles Of Residential Streets To Most Traffic (ST)
This Year’s Pulitzer Prize Award Has An Anti-Russian Infowar Agenda (OffG)
Schiff Releases Transcripts Undercutting Dem Claims Of Russia Collusion (JTN)
Former FBI intel Chief Slams Comey’s Pursuit Of Flynn (JTN)

 

 

 

 

• US records 2,448 #coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 75,543, according to Johns Hopkins University.

• The US has now confirmed a total of 1,254,750 case

• Russia has 6th consecutive day of over 10,000 new cases

• Peru, India keep rising fast, Saudi Arabia is the next “crown prince”

 

 

 

Deaths are not increasing, but cases are in an upward trend. Today close to 100,000. Give it another half hour.

 

Cases 3,934,711 (+ 97,885 from yesterday’s 3,836,826)

Deaths 271,095 (+ 5,729 from yesterday’s 265,366)

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

From Worldometer Deaths among Closed cases is down to 17%. That still needs to come down much more.

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

True for every country, we must assume. There was a report a while ago that said China could have avoided 95% of cases had it acted earlier, I think that was a week.

US Death Toll Would Have Been Halved Had It Acted 4 Days Sooner (SCMP)

The daily death toll from Covid-19 in the United States could have been more than halved if authorities had acted more swiftly in recommending self-isolation and the wearing of face masks, according to a new study. Several US states began issuing stay-at-home orders in late March, while federal health authorities began recommending the use of face masks for all in early April. However, had such measures been implemented just four days earlier, the roughly 2,000 Covid-19 deaths currently being recorded each day would have been cut to less than 1,000, the study said. Furthermore, lifting the measures in a bid to kick-start the economy would almost instantly increase the daily death toll to more than 3,000, it said.

“These findings may inform policymaking,” said the researchers from Princeton Medical Centre and other research institutes in a yet-to-be-peer reviewed paper posted on Medrxiv.org on Wednesday. The findings echoed comments made last month by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US. “Obviously, if we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different,” he said in a television interview on April 12. “But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then”. Both Fauci and other senior health officials were banned from speaking freely to the media or testifying at congressional hearings by the Trump administration, according to media reports. Swifter action “could have saved lives”, he said, without giving an exact number.

But the figures could be found in publicly available data, according to the research team led by Lanjing Zhang, director of gastrointestinal and liver pathology at Princeton Medical Centre. By tracking the changes in the numbers of infections and deaths after the implementation of the containment measures in the US, Zhang’s team was able to build a mathematical model to simulate the impact of the policies, and then used it to estimate what might have happened had they been introduced at different times. California was the first state to issue a stay-at-home order to its 4 million residents on March 19, and by April 7 similar restrictions had been implemented across the country, affecting almost 90 per cent of the population.

On April 3, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention changed its long-standing policy on the wearing of face masks, and urged everyone to cover their nose and mouth when in public. The effect of the policies was almost instant, the study said. The growth rate for both infections and deaths began slowing on March 23 and by April 4 had plateaued and begun a gentle decline. But according to the model, had the same measures been introduced just four days earlier, the number of new daily infections in April would have fallen by about two-thirds to 10,000. And had the move been made a week sooner, that figure would have dropped to just 3,000, with about 300 daily deaths, it said.

Read more …

We know since last week’s report that remdesivir has no impact on cure, it only -at best- helps patients spend a few less days in hospital. So you would expect doctors to have questions about that. But no, they only worry about how fast they can get the drug. If Reuters is to be believed, that is. But why worry about a drug that has zero chance of avoiding death? Nothing better to do?

US Doctors Want Details On Federal Distribution Of Remdesivir (R.)

The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) is asking for more information on the federal government’s plan for deciding how and where to supply the only drug so far shown to help patients infected with the novel coronavirus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday gave emergency use authorization to Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir for patients with severe COVID-19 – the disease caused by the coronavirus – clearing the way for broader use in more hospitals around the United States. The federal government began distributing the drug this week.


But doctors across the country, particularly in COVID-19 hotspots like New York and Boston, became concerned after being denied their request to obtain the new therapy, IDSA president Dr. Thomas File told Reuters on Thursday. “Some are seeing other hospitals approved, but say ‘we have more cases than they do, so why were we turned down?’” he said. The IDSA on Wednesday called on the Trump Administration to explain how it will ensure equitable distribution of remdesivir to states and hospitals based on COVID-19 case and hospitalization rates. The physician group also stressed the importance of fair allocation to health facilities in communities disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, including African American and Hispanic populations.

Read more …

This becomes interesting only if and when a WHO team can investigate in China, not bothered by anyone.

China Backs WHO Investigating COVID19 Origin (SCMP)

China says it supports World Health Organisation efforts to investigate the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, but rejects any “presumption of guilt”, after the global body said it was talking to Beijing about sending another delegation to the country. The remarks came as Beijing is under mounting international pressure – particularly from the United States – to allow an inquiry into how the pandemic started, and if it was linked to a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the new virus strain was first reported. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist with the WHO, on Wednesday said the agency was in discussion with China about examining potential animal origins of the coronavirus.

“There is discussion with our counterparts in China for a further mission, which would be more academic in focus and really focus on looking at what happened at the beginning in terms of the exposures with different animals, so that we can look to have an approach to find the zoonotic source,” she said. “The public health importance of this is critical because without knowing where the animal origin is, it’s difficult for us to attempt to prevent this from happening again,” she added. US President Donald Trump has suggested the virus may be the result of an accident at a Chinese lab, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the US had evidence of this. Trump has also been critical of the WHO, calling it “China-centric” and halting funding to the body. He described the pandemic as an “attack” worse than Pearl Harbour and September 11 that “could have been stopped in China”.

In Beijing on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying accused the US of “untruthful and insincere remarks”, but said China would support a review of the outbreak “at an appropriate time”. “China has supported the work of the WHO for a long time, and worked with the WHO in an open, responsible and transparent manner. China agrees to make a conclusion on the origin of the virus at an appropriate time,” Hua said. “China opposes nations such as the US politicising the issue regarding the origin of the virus, and pushing for an international investigation with a presumption of guilt.”

Read more …

And they can kill them too.

Blood Thinners May Help Sickest COVID19 Patients Survive

Blood thinners could improve the survival rate among the most severely ill Covid-19 patients, according to a hospital study in New York City. The finding comes as doctors have been observing blood clot disorders among coronavirus patients that can damage vital organs. The researchers found that intubated patients treated with anticoagulants – medicines that help prevent blood clots – had a mortality rate of 29 per cent. Of those who were not treated with blood thinners, 63 per cent died. And among the ventilated patients who did not survive, those on anticoagulants died after 21 days, while those not given the medicine died after nine days, the researchers said.


“Our findings suggest that systemic anticoagulation may be associated with improved outcomes among patients hospitalised with Covid-19,” they wrote in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on May 6. The study analysed 786 cases where patients had been given blood thinners – about 30 per cent of all Covid-19 patients admitted to five hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City between mid-March and April. They were given the medicine orally and via injection under the skin or into a vein, the study said. The researchers also noted that “patients who received anticoagulation were more likely to require invasive mechanical ventilation”.

Read more …

No. The economic system is eating itself. The virus is merely a catalyst.

COVID19 Wreaks Economic Havoc Across Europe (ZH)

The European Commission has released its Spring 2020 Economic Forecast which shows that COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on Europe’s economy. The collective GDP of the EU-27 was expected to grow 1.2 percent this year but it is now forecast contract 7.4 percent due to the pandemic. By contrast, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that the Financial Crisis “only” led to a contraction of 4.5 percent for the EU-28 back in 2009. The current crisis has now pushed the EU into the deepest recession since its foundation with unemployment rates set to rise drastically. Last year, unemployment across the bloc was 6.7 percent and it is now forecast to grow to 9 percent this year.

The data shows that no EU member state is going to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis unscathed with countries in southern Europe set to be worst impacted. Even though Greece has made progress since the Financial Crisis and has earned plaudits for limiting the spread of the coronavirus, it is expected to suffer the worst decline in GDP our of all EU member states at 9.7 percent. Italy and Spain who have both been badly impacted by the pandemic are also expected to suffer GDP contractions greater than 9 percent this year. Even though Germany has suffered a far lower death toll than many of its neighbors and is slowly easing its lockdown, Europe’s economic powerhouse is still predicted to see its GDP shrink by 6.5 percent this year.

While the situation remains serious in some parts of Europe, particularly the UK, there is light at the end of the tunnel. After 7 weeks of strict confinement, Italians finally emerged from their homes at the start of the week while Germany’s schools and restaurants are set to open over the next couple of days. Even though the situation is improving, most EU leaders are remaining cautious due to the possibility of a second wave of infections. The European Commission has stated that fundamental uncertainty surrounds the forecast and that the danger of a deeper and more protracted recession is very real.

Read more …

The entire rich(er) world has economic systems that cannot withstand a few weeks of less activity.

Japan On Course For Deep Recession As Spending, Services Plunge (R.)

Japan’s household spending plunged in March and service-sector activity shrank at a record pace in April, reinforcing expectations that the coronavirus pandemic is tipping the world’s third-largest economy into deep recession. Overtime pay – a barometer of strength in corporate activity – also plunged at a record pace in March, data showed, a sign companies were hit by shrinking business even before the government announced a state of emergency in early April. The weak readings make it a near certainty the economy suffered a second straight quarter of contraction in January-March, the technical definition of a recession, and was on track for a deeper decline in the current quarter as the health crisis kept shoppers home and businesses closed.


“Even without the virus, Japan’s economy was very weak due to the hit from last year’s sales tax hike. The pandemic has completely destroyed any chance of a recovery,” said Taro Saito, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute. “The economy may rebound somewhat in July-September but won’t return to pre-coronavirus levels for the rest of this year,” said Saito, who expects the economy to contract an annualised 30% in the current quarter. Household spending slumped 6.0% in March from a year earlier following a 0.3% fall in February, marking the biggest drop in five years, government data showed on Friday.

Read more …

I noted yesterday that in their coverage of a report, the BBC and Guardian came to very different conclusions. One said blacks in the UK were twice as likely as whites to die from COVID19, the other said it was 4 times. Then when I read the BBC piece this morning, a link had appeared to an article that claimed it was 3 times.

Black Britons Face ‘Twice The Risk’ Of Death – ONS (BBC)

Black men and women are nearly twice as likely to die with coronavirus as white people in England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics. The analysis shows the inequality persists after taking into account age, where people live and some measures of deprivation and prior health. People from Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities also had a significantly higher risk of dying. The government has launched a review into the issue. The analysis by the ONS combined data on deaths involving Covid-19 with information on ethnicity from the 2011 census.


Taking into account age, location and some measures of deprivation, disadvantage and prior health, it found black people were 90% more likely to die with Covid-19 than white people. Men and women from Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities had an increased risk of between 30% and 80%, the analysis found. The ONS suggested some of the risk might be caused by other social and economic factors that are not included in the data. And it said that some ethnic groups may be “over-represented in public-facing occupations” and so more at risk of being infected while at work.

Read more …

And yeah, there are a bunch of different data, age, sex etc., but it looks weird.

Black African Deaths Three Times Higher Than White Britons (BBC)

Coronavirus patients from black African backgrounds in England and Wales are dying at more than triple the rate of white Britons, a study suggests. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said a higher proportion of people from ethnic minority backgrounds live in areas hit harder by Covid-19. However, they tend to be younger on average, so should be less vulnerable. But the report found various black, Asian and minority ethnic groups were experiencing higher per capita deaths. And after accounting for differences in age, sex and geography, the study estimated that the death rate for people of black African heritage was 3.5 times higher than for white Britons. It added that for people of black Caribbean heritage, per capita deaths were 1.7 times higher, rising to 2.7 times higher for those with Pakistani heritage. The IFS study said given demographic and geographic profiles, most minority ethnic groups are dying in “excess” numbers in hospitals.

Read more …

In the end it’s simply a class society.

Black People Four Times More Likely To Die From COVID19 – ONS (G.)

Black people are more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people, according to stark official figures exposing a dramatic divergence in the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales. The Office of National Statistics found that the difference in the virus’s impact was caused not only by pre-existing differences in communities’ wealth, health, education and living arrangements. It discovered that after taking into account age, measures of self-reported health and disability and other socio-demographic characteristics, black people were still almost twice as likely as white people to die a Covid-19-related death.


Bangladeshi and Pakistani males were 1.8 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white males, after other pre-existing factors had been accounted for, and females from those ethnic groups were 1.6 times more likely to die from the virus than their white counterparts. The risk of Covid-19 death for people from Chinese and mixed ethnic groups was found to be similar to that for white people. “These results show that the difference between ethnic groups in Covid-19 mortality is partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained,” the ONS said.

Read more …

And some of the things he does are actually good. Nobody screws up all the time.

No One Can Be Evicted In New York Until August 20 (JTN)

Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday New York renters cannot be kicked out of their homes for failing to pay rent until Aug. 20. “The No. 1 issue that people talk to me about probably is rent, and fear about being able to pay their rent, and this just takes that issue off the table until August 20,” he said at his daily coronavirus briefing. Cuomo extended for another two months his 90-day suspension of evictions in the state — issued in March and set to expire in June. Cuomo said that landlords who face utility bills and mortgages can turn to banks and federal programming for help. He also said that officials will ban any late-payment fees and allow renters to use their security deposits as payment. “Everyone is just making do, and everyone has hardships,” he said during his daily briefing Thursday. “We just want to make sure the people who are most vulnerable are protected.”

Read more …

“Everyone in Washington would have to eat about 500 pounds of potatoes from now until the 4th of July to clear out that pipeline..”

The Great Potato Giveaway: US Farmers Hand Out Spuds To Avoid Food Waste (R.)

Giving away food is just one example of how people around the world are adjusting to the strain the coronavirus pandemic has put on supply chains, as restaurants, schools and hotels close. With unemployment soaring, demand from food banks is rising fast at the same time farmers have fewer outlets to sell their crops. In Washington, the No. 2 U.S. potato growing state after Idaho, a billion pounds of russet potatoes, normally processed into french fries and hash browns, are sitting in warehouses that would typically be emptying ahead of the July harvest, the Washington State Potato Commision said. Instead, the organization is handing out the surplus for free in brown sacks, 100,000 pounds at a time.


“Everyone in Washington would have to eat about 500 pounds of potatoes from now until the 4th of July to clear out that pipeline,” said Brandy Tucker, the commission’s director of marketing. Around 90% of Washington potatoes are processed for food service, nearly half for international markets. Potato producers in Europe have also faced enormous surpluses. The commission is planning more than a dozen donation events by the end of May. But even giving away potatoes comes with the cost of washing, bagging and shipping. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is attempting to chip away at the mountain of produce unable to get to consumers. This week it said it would buy an additional $470 million in food, including $50 million in potatoes to give to food banks.

Read more …

Good, give public space back to where it belongs, the public. Not cars. Like the guy’s name, Sam Zimbabwe.

Seattle Permanently Closes 20 Miles Of Residential Streets To Most Traffic (ST)

Nearly 20 miles of Seattle streets will permanently close to most vehicle traffic by the end of May, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced Thursday. The streets had been closed temporarily to through traffic to provide more space for people to walk and bike at a safe distance apart during the coronavirus pandemic. Now the closures will continue even after Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order is lifted. Over the next couple of weeks, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will replace the temporary closure signs on the so-called Stay Healthy Streets with permanent markings, guiding drivers to other routes.


[..] Residents, delivery drivers, garbage and recycling workers, and emergency response vehicles can continue to use the streets, but no through traffic is allowed. “Our rapid response to the challenges posed by COVID-19 have been transformative in a number of places across the city,” SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe said. “Some of the responses are going to be long lasting, and we need to continue to build out a transportation system that enables people of all ages and abilities to bike and walk across the city.”

Read more …

The Off-Guardian has turned too much into a 24/7 anti-lockdown channel lately, but this is good.

This Year’s Pulitzer Prize Award Has An Anti-Russian Infowar Agenda (OffG)

The Russian Embassy in the US condemned the Pulitzer Prize Board’s awarding of its eponymous prize for “International Reporting” to The New York Times “for a set of enthralling stories, reported at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putin’s regime”, describing it as: “.. a wonderful collection of undiluted Russophobic fabrications, which can be studied as a guideline on creating false facts.” The six articles and two videos that were responsible for the outlet receiving that “recognition” shared the theme of military-intelligence intrigue, be it accusing the country’s GRU intelligence agency of involvement in several shadowy assassination attempts across Europe or claiming that businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin had a hidden hand in election meddling in Madagascar, for example.

Other assertions that were made by the “journalistic” pieces in question also include the Russian state’s complicity in carrying out war crimes in Syria. As has become the norm in the Western Mainstream Media’s reporting about Russia, an abundance of unnamed sources, fabricated recordings, and disreputable sources were relied upon to push fearmongering narratives about the Eurasian Great Power. The conclusions that were reached – or rather, “reverse-engineered” after first determining the meta-narrative and then subsequently fleshing it out from a variety of geopolitical angles – were predictable enough because they perfectly conformed to the “politically correct” interpretation of President Putin’s global intentions.

It’s for that reason The New York Times’ pieces were “celebrated” by the Pulitzer Prize Board with this supposedly “distinguished” award in an attempt to “legitimize” them for posterity. The Russian Embassy in the US, therefore, did the right thing by condemning this charade as Russophobic and describing The New York Times’ work as “a guideline on creating false facts.” That said, the success of the Pulitzer Prize Board’s efforts to manage global perceptions about Russia as part of the West’s ongoing Hybrid War against it is dependent on whether their targeted audience even cares about what that institution says. In theory, the Pulitzer Prize is supposed to be one of the most distinguished awards that any journalist or outlet can ever receive, but it’s actually more akin to an elite club commending its own members.

To explain, the Pulitzer Prize Board counts among its ranks representatives from The Washington Post and even The New York Times itself. It also includes other professionals as well, such as those from Bloomberg, National Public Radio, and a few folks from academia. Prior to Trump’s rise, these figures might have been almost universally respected, but the American President has since opened the eyes of a broad swath of the country and even the world more broadly to the so-called “Fourth Estate’s” insidious political agendas. Trust in traditional media is dwindling by the day, meaning that the awards ceremonies that they preside over are becoming similarly less prestigious as well.

Read more …

One can only imagine what attention this would have gotten were it not for COVID19. The MSM is still trying to defend the FBI, DNC and Obama White House, but that battle has long been lost.

And there is still this kind of thing, as if nothing had changed: “In releasing the transcripts Thursday, the current Democratic House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff claimed they provided proof of nefarious connections between Russians and Trump associates.”

It is almost hard to believe.

Schiff Releases Transcripts Undercutting Dem Claims Of Russia Collusion (JTN)

“Papadopoulos’ comment didn’t particularly indicate that he was the person that had had — that was interacting with the Russians,” McCabe answered when asked by lawmakers why a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant request in October 2016 focused only on Page and not the man the FBI originally predicated the Trump investigation upon. It was one of the few extraordinary admissions from McCabe: The FBI opened up an entire counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign on a figure agents did not believe was having contact with Moscow. The transcripts, otherwise, contain mostly old news, long since surpassed by revelations in Robert Mueller’s final report that concluded there was no collusion between any Americans and Russia to hijack the 2016 election and Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s detailed report of abuses of the FISA process by the FBI.

But perhaps the biggest piece of previously unreported news came from Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the Perkins Coie law firm that represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. It was that law firm that contracted with Fusion GPS to hire Steele to develop the anti-Trump dossier that was shared with the FBI. Sussmann acknowledged under questioning by Republican staff that in February 2017 he shared dirt he had gotten on the Trump organization’s possible ties to Russia with the CIA. The agency’s name was redacted from the transcript but confirmed to Just the News by multiple U.S. officials. What was your contact [redacted] about?” a lawyer asked Sussmann.

“So the contact was about reporting to them information that was reported to me about possible contacts, covert or at least nonpublic, between Russian entities and various entities in the United States associated with the — or potentially associated with the Trump Organization,” Sussmann answered. The lawyer followed up: “And when did that contact occur, month and year?” “February 2017,” Sussmann answered. “Where did you get that information from to relay to [redacted]?” he was asked. “From a client of mine,” he answered, declining to be more specific. In releasing the transcripts Thursday, the current Democratic House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff claimed they provided proof of nefarious connections between Russians and Trump associates.

“The transcripts released today richly detail evidence of the Trump campaign’s efforts to invite, make use of, and cover up Russia’s help in the 2016 presidential election,” he alleged. In fact, witnesses were repeatedly pressed to offer specific evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia and could offer none, saying it was either too preliminary or they did not have any. “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers. “That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence.

Read more …

Former FBI intel Chief Slams Comey’s Pursuit Of Flynn (JTN)

The FBI’s former top intelligence official says the bureau under James Comey’s leadership did not have a legitimate reason to launch an investigation into Michael Flynn and may have engaged in an “historic misuse” of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. Retired FBI Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock told Just the News that agents had sought to close the investigation into the incoming national security advisor in January 2017 but the “Comey team” intervened via fired agent Peter Strzok to stop the closure and to pivot to an interview with Flynn. The closing memo communicated that “they had never established any reasonable suspicion that Michael Flynn was acting on behalf of a foreign country at all, ever in the beginning. In other words they had no basis to start the investigation in the first place,” Brock explained.

He described the FBI’s interview of Flynn as “some type of intimidation” and he said they did not have a legal justification to question him. “They wanted to get in front of him and see if they could elicit some type of false statement, that was their goal,” Brock told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Thursday. “They had no right to get in front of him. They had no legal basis to be in the same room with him. That’s the disgrace of all of this.” [..] Brock, the bureau’ first ever intelligence chief under former Director Robert Mueller, described the Flynn episode as very abnormal.

[..] Brock described a 302 interview report related to Flynn’s interview as the most peculiar he had ever encountered out of the thousands he has written or reviewed. He said that if it is shown that the FBI interviewed Flynn for reasons pertaining to “a policy dispute” that would represent a “historic misuse of the FBI.”

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 8 2020

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #58510

    NPC Shad fishing on the Potomac 1920   • US Death Toll Would Have Been Halved Had It Acted 4 Days Sooner (SCMP) • US Doctors Want Details On Fede
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 8 2020]

    #58511

    Something I was thinking about but forgot to mention earlier: I noticed that Belgium has both

    • the highest number of deaths per 1 million pop. (735) AND
    • the highest number of tests per 1 million pop. (44,456).

    Is there a link between the two? Not sure. You may find more cases if you test more, but not necessarily deaths. Then again, Belgium is the only country I know that has so expressly stated that it wants to be as honest as possible about its numbers, which will inevitably push up at least some of them.

    #58513
    zerosum
    Participant

    • Blood Thinners May Help Sickest COVID19 Patients Survive
    Old wife tale seem to still apply
    Take an aspirin, water, rest,
    ———
    If your country is not on the covid charts,
    If your country doesn’t have a “stock makrket”
    If your country doesn’t keep track of the unemployed servants
    If your country does not have “Fourth Estate’s” insidious political agendas
    If your country does not track GDP to see if it in contracting due to the pandemic.

    your country must be doing something better.
    ——
    Correction
    Black People SERVANTS ARE Four Times More Likely To Die From COVID19 – ONS (G.)

    #58515
    Mr. House
    Participant

    This is us

    “Conquered men, women, children, elderly people — they don’t spontaneously rise up and try to kill people who abuse and oppress them. Most people are not heroic. Most people are easily terrified, especially once they have already been placed in subjugated position. And if they are heroic, they usually die heroic deaths, alone. It continues to happen all over the world. Right now, somewhere, someone is being beaten and horribly abused and even if given the opportunity to strike back at the person doing the abuse, they won’t take it.

    In Roman Britain, the tribes didn’t stage a successful coup against the occupying forces even when given ample opportunity and more than enough reason to unite. On three separate occasions, the governor of Britain broke off from the empire. Even in a state of Roman civil war, the tribes were unable to eject the Romans. The one very notable case of rebellion was during Suetonius Paulinus’ campaign in what is now Wales. The leader of the Iceni, Boudica, was beaten and her daughters were raped because Boudica challenged the transition of her late husband’s authority to the Roman governor (Paulinus). Only with Londinium essentially vacated of military forces did the Iceni and Trinovantes dare to attack. They were successful in causing a huge amount of civilian damage, but in the end, Paulinus’ troops rolled over the Iceni and routed them. The nearby Brigantes provided essentially no help to the Iceni and at least one source suggests Boudica may have even been poisoned by the Brigantes’ queen. Someone mentioned Nero earlier; it’s worth noting that all of this happened under Nero’s rule and Rome still easily held Britain despite Nero’s general lack of… being good as an emperor.

    This pattern can be found a lot in history. It’s rare for spontaneous uprisings to happen against conquerors. Or rather, it’s more appropriate to say that it is extremely common for abusive occupation to go effectively uncontested for years, decades, or even centuries.”

    #58516
    zerosum
    Participant

    I don’t want t see all this reality.
    Reality is even making my dreams into nightmares.
    The only good thing ….. I realize …..
    Boy! oh Boy!
    I’m a lucky.servant.

    #58517

    Mr. House:
    “Divide and conquer” probably started as “It’s easier to conquer divided populations”.
    Boudica was probably envied by that other queen, and that other queen was probably easily bought off by the trinkets and promises of the Romans- so long as she remained a thorn in Boudica’s side.

    Concerning taters:
    And let’s not forget Andrew Taylor of Melbourne who ate nothing but spuds for a year and dropped 115 pounds. Nutritionists do not recommend the diet.

    #58519
    Huskynut
    Participant

    A good article just posted by Matt Taibbi on why the hastily drafted mortgage support measures are likely to fail, having misunderstood the structure of the industry. 2008 redux: https://taibbi.substack.com

    #58522
    Huskynut
    Participant

    Also, for anyone interested the NZ government has just started releasing its internal advice papers.

    I had a quick scan, and the COVID-19-Moving-to-Alert-Level-3-and-Level-4 minute and paper of 23rd march seems particularly relevant. I noted:
    – it references Australia’s environment and decisions as pertinent and applicable to NZ. But after laying out it’s recommendations, it doesn’t contrast how these recommendations compare (and exceed) the Australia response.
    – it provides rationale for moving immediately to Level 3 (as the Aussies did). It then asserts that moving to L4 is inevitable, but provides no justification or rationale why this should be true
    – it seems that the L4 decision was essentially pre-determined by officials and not rationally justified to politicians. In conjunction with Ian Harrison’s modelling I’ve previously linked to, I venture wither the advice of University of Otago (ie who released only results from their model of L0 and L4 scenarios) was trusted at face value. Or an offline discussion took place between officials and modellers, and the commonly agreed results were released
    – it mentions Italy and Iran as scenarios to avoid, and Singapore and Taiwan as ones to emulate. There appears to be no consideration of why NZ was unlikely to follow the trajectory of these exemplars eg due to differing population densities, less pollution etc. Therefore there is no consideration of alternate/third paths forward
    – finally as with most countries without federal government systems, the response assumes a one-size-fits-all strategy across the country. That certainly simplifies planning and communication, but it also guarantees an excessive response in regions of lesser risk

    I’m (mostly) over my anger at the response.. it’s water under the bridge now. But in the spirit of “fool me once, shame on you..” etc), it’s clear with some analyses we can prepare better decision-making frameworks for future pandemic responses (noting these should of course have existed prior to Covid).

    Also interesting that the inter-governmental process of ensuring sound decision making within NZ is that a paper called a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) accompanies each recommendation. It’s essentially a problem statement, and a weighted list of possible responses with pros and cons, and a consequent recommendation to proceed. This process has recently been suspended for Covid-related responses. Possibly this can be justified by urgency, but there’s little doubt this wont improve the quality of analysis. One of my friends used to run QA on the RIS’s as they arrived, and was routinely dismayed at their quality at first pass. Imagine what removing them altogether is likely to create!

    #58523
    redshift
    Participant

    Something I was thinking about but forgot to mention earlier: I noticed that Belgium has both

    • the highest number of deaths per 1 million pop. (735) AND
    • the highest number of tests per 1 million pop. (44,456).

    Is there a link between the two? Not sure. You may find more cases if you test more, but not necessarily deaths. Then again, Belgium is the only country I know that has so expressly stated that it wants to be as honest as possible about its numbers, which will inevitably push up at least some of them.

    When it comes to deaths, only if you discard San Marino, which is an acceptable discard. On tests, however, there are some non-discardable countries above Belgium.

    Nevertheless, there might be some correlation between the two since more people already identified with Covid19 are more likely to be have it as a cause of death in the death certificate.

    #58524
    John Day
    Participant

    I accidentally rushed off to do a whole lot of things on “May the Fourth Be With You” day, after saying I was rushing off to get my SARS-CoV-2 antibody test done, which I did, but not at the first place. They sent me to another place, so it took a couple of hours. The result got sent to my work by mistake, but that’s ok. It got to me. I’m as susceptible as anybody. Whatever I had last fall, that was going around, was something else.
    I left the laptop in Yoakum that lets me sign in to TAE, again, same mistake, so it’s Friday night and I’m posting some ketchup…

    The lovely low-rent-Permaculture, “downshifter’s guide to the future” book, Retrosuburbia, which 560 pages I bought for $100 last year (worth it) is now available as online book for whatever-you-feel-is-right. Check it out!
    https://retrosuburbia.com/

    Political speech takes many forms, and others can chime in. Important to watch this trend.
    The Governor of Texas is watching, and took the side against his own edicts, after seeing how the wind blew. (I don’t like him, but he’s not stupid.)
    Half million dollars of donations and counting…
    Thousands Donate To GoFundMe For Jailed Salon Owner Who Stood Up To Judge In Viral Video
    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/thousands-donate-gofundme-jailed-salon-owner-who-stood-judge-viral-video
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jailed-salon-owner-freed-tx-supreme-court-rakes-500k-gofundme-donations

    ​ ​German scientist, Professor Hendrik Streeck has been studying groups of subjects in his country and has reached a number of compelling provisional findings regarding the viral behaviour of the new Coronavirus…
    He also presented data which gives an indication of an “Infected Fatality Rate” (IFR), eg. the percentage of people infected who will end up dying. New findings show a COVID-19 infection fatality rate of between 0.24 – 0.36% (as opposed to Neil Ferguson who claims the IFR to be just under 1%, perhaps 0.8-0.9%). Previous interviews with UnHerd, with experts like Johan Giesecke who believes the IFR is closer to 0.1%, or one in a thousand.
    The difference between IFR is important, not least of all because this statistic will be used by governments to determine he relative severity of the threat in question.

    Leading German Virologist: ‘COVID-19 Less Deadly Than We Thought’

    #58525
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com
    Gotta’ wonder if we could do something like this in the US, maybe even paying more…
    ​ ​In 2018, Pakistan pledged to plant ten billion trees in an effort to slow climate change and to replenish a landscape that has been decimated by decades of deforestation, livestock grazing, and drought. It was an ambitious goal, but as the Washington Post reported at the time, “the idea of a green awakening seems to be taking root… The concept appeals to a new generation of better-educated Pakistanis, and it has sparked excitement on social media.”
    ​ ​That program, whose name is 10 Billion Tree Tsunami, has been chugging along for the past two years, but it recently received an unexpected infusion of help from – of all things – the coronavirus. Many Pakistanis are suddenly unemployed, so the government has given them jobs as tree-planters. Unemployed day laborers have been turned into “jungle workers,” planting saplings for 500 rupees a day ($3), which is roughly half of what a construction worker would normally earn. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to get by​…​
    https://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/pakistan-turns-unemployed-workers-tree-planters.html


    U.S. energy use in 2019 (That big flow chart they do every year)

    Visualizing America’s Energy Use, in One Giant Chart

    #58526
    WES
    Participant

    Redshift:

    The thing about Belgium is that if the person who died showed symptoms of coronavirus, then their death certificate said they died of coronavirus.

    Remember to that many who died were never tested for the virus due to a shortage of tests.

    I don’t think Belgium fared any worst than anybody else.

    More likely everyone else is under reporting!

    #58527
    WES
    Participant

    John Day:

    Up here in Toronto we are just beginning five days where night time temperatures drop below freezing.

    We even saw snow flakes falling, Olde Man Winter’s way of saying “Hi, I am still here!”

    No garden yet!

    #58528
    WES
    Participant

    Recently, supposedly some great justice or injustice happened in DC.

    Since the main stream media aren’t reporting it, it probably didn’t happened.

    #58529
    kimyo99
    Participant

    john day: an effort to restore north america’s forest cover could require giving land back to the bison/buffalo. they are at least in part the reason that north america’s cropland was so fertile and productive.

    Buffalo & Native Americans

    Buffalo once roamed from the eastern seaboard to Oregon and California, from Great Slave Lake in northern Alberta down into northern Mexico. Although no one will ever know exactly how many bison once inhabited North America, estimates range from twenty to forty million.

    “It would have been as easy to count or to estimate the number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number of buffaloes living at any given time during the history of the species previous to 1870.”

    #58530
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    Two nations in the five eyes English language intelligence consortium controlled the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic; two did not. Canada is a tossup looking bad in 12th place. Two are islands. Three possess all or most of a continent. All are mostly surrounded by oceans except for the Mexican border. Two were near previous coronavirus outbreaks. All have immigration issues. Three are next to developing nations.

    Australia and New Zealand retained functional governments that did their job and protected the public health. In the USA and UK, hubris rules. The Oligarchs and Corporate Managers drowned these national governments in the toilet. Wild ass theories that support “greed is good” and “there is no society” seized control. With the public health system dismantled and all around dysfunctional, the UK and the USA governments are unable to fight the Pandemic. The USA is about to reopen piecemeal which will raise the number of deaths to near 9/11 levels every day for foreseeable future.

    Yes, Americans are bamboozled but it is just hard to image they would quietly die from the virus, or with no food, no healthcare, no income and their homes foreclosed again without an uprising. Hopefully the 90% will work together to restore a constitution democracy that would combat the virus and repair the economy which at some point in the future 2020 would be a bad memory for the survivors like the Spanish flu was to my grandparents who lost a father and a mother a century ago. But, instead, staying the current course will lead to the splintering the USA into nuclear armed regional states and the UK into England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

    #58552
    Carlos Jimenez
    Participant

    Mr House, great piece apropos of passivity under oppression and/or occupation. A keeper. However, no attribution?

    I’d like to know who wrote such a good insighit.

    Boudica’s name perdures in time but few people know the name of the Queen that apparently poisoned her…

    #58553
    Carlos Jimenez
    Participant

    I’ve been a busy and catching up now with the last two days’ posts.

    Raul’s “wanker and rodent” has the same minting material quality as Matt Taibbi’s famous ” G.S. …vampire squid blood funnel wrapped around humanity’s face…etc”.

    I think it fits his punchable face like a glove.

    I read D. Robinson’s posting and the citations do throw a shade of suspicion on her work. Not that I would ever doubt the integrity of the FBI… but Dr. Mikovits claims those items were planted by the gum shoes. The lack of results in replicating tests by fellow scientists is more damning though.

    Ditto the point brought by Raul. Fair enough. I didn’t stop to think about that. I’m all in for verifiable facts.

    The accusation against Dr. Fauci and Dr. Gallo of having stolen Dr. Garcetti’s work in replicating the isolation of the HIV virus of the French Dr. Montaigneur I think his name was, to personally profit for dirty rupees and personal prestige on the way up the food pyramid, still stands.

    That makes Dr. Fauci not just a wanker rodent, it makes him the biggest rodent on earth, the Capybara of the South American swamps.
    And how about Dr. Fauci’s holding patents to his name? Or his involvement with the funding of the Wuhan lab for ‘gain of function’ of the Corona virus? I’m not gonna throw the baby with the bath water. Not at all. Not yet anyway.

    BTW, the Capybara is becoming an invasive species here in Floriduh.https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/11/12880474/capybara-florida-invasive-animals-science

    #58554
    Carlos Jimenez
    Participant

    Yes, Capybaras eat their own poop, but their meat is a delicacy.

    #58555
    Carlos Jimenez
    Participant

    Dr. D. Thank you for the tip on the “Down Shifter’s Guide to the Future” Gotta have that.

    The time to read it, am not so sure, my list of half read books keeps growing but gotta try.

    What a good title, it synthesizes our only predicament’s option.

    #58557
    zerosum
    Participant

    Anthony Stephen Fauci is an American physician and immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

    There ….. Wake up
    Why do you expect more from him than anybody else?

    #58570
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks WES, Kimyo99 and Carlos Jimenez. I spent a long day gardening, mowing and getting the form ready for the concrete pour Monday, for the work slab for my workshop here in relatively-rural Yoakum, Texas.
    I catch-up, too. I read fast, but it still takes me hours after a day or two away.
    “Dr.D”, too…

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