Jul 112020
 


Berenice Abbott Murray Hill Hotel, New York 1935

 

Trump Commutes Roger Stone’s Sentence (Hill)
Blood Clots Found In ‘Almost Every Organ’ Of COVID Victims (NZH)
Official Covid-19 Statistics Are Missing Something Critical (EM)
The Risk-Free Upsides For China In The WHO’s Coronavirus Origin Quest (SCMP)
Ghislaine Maxwell Wants Bail Release Due To ‘Unprecedented’ COVID19 Risks (G.)
Catholic Church Lobbied For Taxpayer Funds, Got $3.5 Billion (AP)
Now What? (Jim Kunstler)
Democracy and the Illusion of Choice (CP)
American Airlines Tells Boeing: No Financing, No 737 MAX Deliveries (CNBC)
NYPD Limits Retirement Applications Amid 400% Surge This Week (NYP)
Erdogan Declares Hagia Sophia A Mosque After Turkish Court Ruling (R.)

 

 

Like the election of Donald Trump is the perfect symbol for what America has become, Roger Stone is the embodiment of Washington DC. There must be so much to be found out there if they want to go after him. But it’s not about him. Stone made the mistake of bragging about his links to Wikileaks, which he never had. If not for that, they would have left him alone.

That link was needed because from Wikileaks Robert Mueller could get to Russia on the entirely fabricated claims of connections Julian Assange was alleged to have had to Russian hackers (DNC files). Mueller’s investigation ended in absolute and embarrassing failure, and zero evidence, but what he could leave standing, because they could not defend themselves, were accusations against Assange and “13 Russians”.

Mueller chose that route. Which is why I have called him a coward and a liar.

I was reading earlier about the insane pre-dawn FBI raid on Stone’s home, executed by an entire army of agents, and including even helicopters. While they could have simply rung his doorbell. No love lost here for the man, but yeah, let him be.

 

 

Another round of new records all over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Hunt

 

 

Commuted, nor pardoned, in order for Stone to be able to fight on in court,

Trump Commutes Roger Stone’s Sentence (Hill)

President Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone after the former campaign adviser was sentenced to three years and four months in prison in connection with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The decision capped a months-long saga that has roiled the Justice Department and divided some of the president’s advisers. Stone was set to report to prison July 14, but his allies had lobbied for a pardon or a commutation, citing his risk of contracting coronavirus while in jail. The move Friday did not come as a particular surprise, as Trump had at various points in recent months signaled he was leaning toward intervening in Stone’s case. Trump told reporters he was considering a commutation or pardon for Stone as the date he was scheduled to report to prison loomed.

The announcement from the White House came roughly an hour after an appeals court denied Stone’s motion to delay the start of his prison term, scheduled to begin Tuesday. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany issued a statement Friday evening describing Stone as “a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency.” McEnany said that Trump had signed an executive grant of clemency commuting his “unjust” sentence. Trump has regularly railed against the prosecutors involved in the case, singled out the Obama-appointed federal judge overseeing the trial for criticism and complained that the conservative provocateur was the victim of a “ridiculous” process.

Stone, who has maintained his innocence and tried to appeal his conviction, was the last of six Trump associates to be charged in connection with Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia that dogged the president’s first two years in office. Mueller did not find evidence to charge Trump campaign associates with conspiring with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, but found that the campaign welcomed Moscow’s interference efforts. Justice Department leadership moved to reduce Stone’s sentencing recommendation in February in a highly controversial move, leading all four career prosecutors working on his case to quit. Stone was convicted in November by a jury in Washington, D.C., of all counts he was charged with, including lying to Congress in connection with its separate investigation into Russian interference, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding.

McEnany argued Friday that Stone was charged with “alleged crimes” arising “solely” from Mueller’s “improper” investigation and that the GOP operative’s imprisonment would put him at “serious medical risk.” However, she said that Trump did not want to “interfere” with Stone’s efforts to appeal his conviction, meaning that those efforts will move forward and his conviction will stand. “Roger Stone has already suffered greatly. He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Read more …

It’s the blood, not the lungs.

Blood Clots Found In ‘Almost Every Organ’ Of COVID Victims (NZH)

Doctors have revealed fresh details on the terrible toll taken on the body by Covid-19, releasing the results of autopsies of those who have died in the pandemic. In a study published in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine, Dr Amy Rapkiewicz, the chair of the Department of Pathology at NYU Langone Medical Centre, showed the role played by blood clots in the progression of the disease. Describing how scientists found clotting in tiny blood vessels throughout the body, Rapkiewicz told CNN the findings were “dramatic”. “Because though we might have expected it in the lungs, we found it in almost every organ that we looked at in our autopsy study.” The autopsies also showed the extensive presence of megakaryocytes, large bone marrow cells that don’t usually appear outside the lungs and bones.


“We found them in the heart and the kidneys and the liver and other organs,” Rapkiewicz said. “Notably in the heart, megakaryocytes produce something called platelets that are intimately involved in blood clotting.” “I could not remember a case before where we saw that,” Rapkiewicz told the Washington Post. “It was remarkable they were in the heart.” Speaking to TCTMD, Rapkiewicz said it is “a very interesting observation that seems to be consistent across multiple Covid cases.” Noting that Covid’s effect on blood clotting is at the opposite end of the spectrum from other killer viruses such as ebola, Rapkiewicz said researchers need to be diligent and “learn from our history” and explore what is known about other contagious diseases that affect the body’s coagulation systems.

Read more …

Mortality vs Morbidity. The Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY) and its sister statistic, the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY).

Official Covid-19 Statistics Are Missing Something Critical (EM)

At the moment, official record-keeping offers only three options when it comes to Covid-19: infection, recovery, or death. This misses a broad range of other potential outcomes for people who catch the virus — many of them bad. In medicine, physicians talk about “M&M,” or “Mortality and Morbidity.” Many hospitals even hold closed-door “M&M” conferences, where their providers discuss everything that’s gone wrong with their patients over the last week or month. Mortality is a pretty straightforward concept. Have patients died from a particular disease process, and if so, how? Were their deaths avoidable? Can the field of medicine learn anything from them which will improve patient care in the future?

Morbidity, though, is a much trickier concept. It includes the complications, health issues, and other negative outcomes (other than death) that a disease causes. Basically, it’s all the ways that a disease can make you unwell, even if it doesn’t actually kill you. Official statistics capture deaths that occur from Covid-19 reasonably well. Reporting methods are often updated, and epidemiologists have gone back and attempted to quantify Covid-19 deaths that were originally missed. But overall, death counts are a relatively easy metric to apply. Patients are either alive or dead. Knowing the difference is comparatively simple. But these official statistics miss quite a lot. Specifically, they fail to represent Covid-19 morbidity — the harm that the disease causes, even in people that it doesn’t kill.

In terms of measuring the long-term impact of the disease — and accurately evaluating risk — that’s a big problem. Mounting evidence shows that even if Covid-19 kills less than 1% of patients, it doesn’t necessarily leave the others it infects unharmed. Even those who have “recovered” may have long-term impacts from it. Morbidity can happen over a long-term period, so it is a harder variable to study and track in the early stages of a pandemic than death. Anecdotal reports and early data, though, show that Covid-19 morbidity may be a very real concern. According to a report in The Atlantic which followed several people with Covid-19 over multiple months, many had long-lasting symptoms and impairments (including headaches and debilitating fatigue) that didn’t resolve when their active infection stopped.

All of these cases were considered “mild” and didn’t result in the use of a ventilator or a stay in the ICU. And they occurred in people from a variety of age groups, not only older adults and the infirm. Yet despite these “low risk” factors, patients were still experiencing major impacts from the disease months after contracting it. A handful of studies about Covid-19 (as well as scholarship on previous coronaviruses) bears this out. Covid-19 infection can have long-term impacts on the lungs, heart, immune system, and even the brain. These include an increased risk for heart attacks, future respiratory infections (including more severe cases of flu), and neurological impacts like cognitive impairment.

[..] As risk professionals like Nassim Nicholas Taleb have pointed out, the failure to measure Covid-19 morbidity makes it far harder to evaluate the true risk from the pandemic. Simply looking at deaths is not enough. Mortality statistics fail to account for the people who survive the disease but suffer long-term harm — or those who die from its complications long after their initial infection has subsided. This blindness to morbidity may push populations toward more aggressive reopening, or away from risk-reduction measures like mandating face coverings. If deaths are declining, the picture may appear rosy. But in reality, the disease may be causing irreparable harm to millions of people — just in a way that’s invisible in current statistics.

Read more …

How much control do they really have? Are they sending their best people?

The Risk-Free Upsides For China In The WHO’s Coronavirus Origin Quest (SCMP)

China’s decision to allow in a WHO-led coronavirus investigation could offer a risk-free boost to its reputation and help to find an answer to a big question – how the disease began. That was the assessment of health specialists, who said the answers were needed to prevent future outbreaks. Two World Health Organisation experts, an animal health specialist and an epidemiologist, are expected to arrive in Beijing this weekend to meet Chinese scientists and doctors to discuss the terms of a WHO-led mission to trace the origin of the coronavirus. China agreed to the mission after a resolution passed unanimously in May at the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s governing body, calling for the WHO to work to identify the virus’ animal source.

Countries like Australia and the United States had previously led a call for a broader investigation into China’s handling of the outbreak, which was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December. Sara Davies, an international relations professor specialising in global health governance at Griffith University in Australia, said China might have given approval because WHO officials were clear that the investigation was not about laying blame. “This is a scientific investigation, and that is a deliberate attempt to establish a clear marker that this is not about fault. It’s not the type of investigation that Australia and others were proposing earlier this year,” Davies said. The message was underlined earlier this week when Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian stressed that the search for the origin would not just be in China.

Zhao said China had reached a “fundamental consensus” with the WHO that tracing the source of the disease should take place around the globe, a process that the WHO suggested would be ongoing and involve many countries. Wang Huiyao, president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, said China was honouring its promise to allow a WHO-led investigation when domestic outbreaks were under control. Wang added that China would benefit by addressing persistent claims about the pathogen’s origins. “There have been some doubts and rumours internationally, like the conspiracy theory concerning the laboratory in Wuhan. The investigation will help quash such rumours,” he said.

Read more …

So does Assange.

Ghislaine Maxwell Wants Bail Release Due To ‘Unprecedented’ COVID19 Risks (G.)

Ghislaine Maxwell should be released on bail while awaiting trial for her alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring because of “the Covid-19 crisis and its impact on detained defendants”, the British socialite’s lawyers argued in Manhattan federal court papers filed on Friday. Maxwell, 58, was arrested on 2 July at her Bradford, New Hampshire, home. She faces up to 35 years in federal prison if convicted. Her lawyers insisted that Maxwell is not a flight risk, and said she is trying to keep a low profile amid unrelenting “carnival-like” media scrutiny. “As this court has noted, the Covid-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented health risk to incarcerated individuals, and Covid-19-related restrictions on attorney communications with pre-trial detainees significantly impair a defendant’s ability to prepare her defense,” Maxwell’s lawyers claimed in their bail argument.

“Simply put, under these circumstances, if Ms Maxwell continues to be detained, her health will be at serious risk and she will not be able to receive a fair trial.” Maxwell’s legal team proposed several bail conditions, including a $5m personal recognizance bond co-signed by six financially responsible people, backed by property in the UK worth over $3.75m. They also proposed limiting her travel to the New York City area, turning in all her travel documents, imposing home confinement in New York City with GPS monitoring, and restricting visitors to her immediate family, close friends and lawyers. A judge has set a hearing for Tuesday to hear bail arguments and to arraign Maxwell on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through 1997 at his homes in New York City, Florida and New Mexico, and at Maxwell’s residence in London.

[..] “Ever since Epstein’s arrest, Ms Maxwell has been at the center of a crushing onslaught of press articles, television specials and social media posts painting her in the most damning light possible and prejudging her guilt. The sheer volume of media reporting mentioning Ms Maxwell is staggering,” her lawyers argued in the court papers. “The ‘open season’ declared on Ms Maxwell after Epstein’s death has come with an even darker cost – she has been the target of alarming physical threats, even death threats, and has had to hire security guards to ensure her safety. The media feeding frenzy, which has only intensified in recent months, has also deeply affected her family and friends,” they said. They said later that “Ms Maxwell will be at significant risk of contracting Covid-19 if she is detained, and she will not be able to meaningfully participate in the preparation of her defense due to the restrictions that have been placed on attorney visits and phone calls in light of the pandemic.”

Read more …

And here’s some more rich sex offenders.

“Catholic dioceses whose financial stress was due not simply to the pandemic, but also to recent payouts to victims of clergy sex abuse…”

Catholic Church Lobbied For Taxpayer Funds, Got $3.5 Billion (AP)

The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups. The church’s haul may have reached — or even exceeded — $3.5 billion, making a global religious institution with more than a billion followers among the biggest winners in the U.S. government’s pandemic relief efforts, an Associated Press analysis of federal data released this week found. Houses of worship and faith-based organizations that promote religious beliefs aren’t usually eligible for money from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

But as the economy plummeted and jobless rates soared, Congress let faith groups and other nonprofits tap into the Paycheck Protection Program, a $659 billion fund created to keep Main Street open and Americans employed. By aggressively promoting the payroll program and marshaling resources to help affiliates navigate its shifting rules, Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools and other ministries have so far received approval for at least 3,500 forgivable loans, AP found. The Archdiocese of New York, for example, received 15 loans worth at least $28 million just for its top executive offices. Its iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $1 million. In Orange County, California, where a sparkling glass cathedral estimated to cost over $70 million recently opened, diocesan officials working at the complex received four loans worth at least $3 million.

[..] There is no doubt that state shelter-in-place orders disrupted houses of worship and businesses alike. Masses were canceled, even during the Holy Week and Easter holidays, depriving parishes of expected revenue and contributing to layoffs in some dioceses. Some families of Catholic school students are struggling to make tuition payments. And the expense of disinfecting classrooms once classes resume will put additional pressure on budgets. But other problems were self-inflicted. Long before the pandemic, scores of dioceses faced increasing financial pressure because of a dramatic rise in recent clergy sex abuse claims.

The scandals that erupted in 2018 reverberated throughout the world. Pope Francis ordered the former archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to a life of “prayer and penance” following allegations he abused minors and adult seminarians. And a damning grand jury report about abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses revealed bishops had long covered for predator priests, spurring investigations in more than 20 other states. As the church again reckoned with its longtime crisis, abuse reports tripled during the year ending June 2019 to a total of nearly 4,500 nationally. Meanwhile, dioceses and religious orders shelled out $282 million that year — up from $106 million just five years earlier. Most of that went to settlements, in addition to legal fees and support for offending clergy.

Loan recipients included about 40 dioceses that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years paying victims through compensation funds or bankruptcy proceedings. AP’s review found that these dioceses were approved for about $200 million, though the value is likely much higher.

Read more …

“..this bare ruin of a crooked old pol..”

Now What? (Jim Kunstler)

[..] the linchpin of Wokesterism: it’s Whitey’s fault. Whitey is racism incarnate. White Fragility makes redemption impossible. No amount of penance, apology, or remediation can fix it. Which raises another question: why even bother entertaining reparations for slavery? It will never be enough. Which may be exactly why the Woke Inquisition’s real aim is to undermine all of America’s institutions and then bust up the republic. The petulant “Resistance” that dug in after Hillary’s shocking 2016 election loss did the groundwork by enlisting the FBI, CIA, NSC, DOJ and other federal agencies into seditious intrigues that made the federal apparatus of justice look (and act) corrupt and untrustworthy.

Everything about the Mueller inquiry was an exercise in bad faith and perfidy, leaving the engines of official justice so broken that their misdeeds can barely be corrected, let alone prosecuted. To this day, the Lawfare cadres sponsor the continued persecution of General Michael Flynn, months after the DOJ formally dropped its case against him. Do you suppose these turpitudes don’t rankle the substantial number of citizens who still refuse to be driven insane by the Woke terror? And who is the figurehead leading this Democratic Woke party wrecking crew of coercion? The empty shell of Joe Biden, a bumbling senator turned grifting vice-president, now a mere hologram of a candidate.

The renewed campaign of Covid-19 hysteria in the Woke press may be just a psy-op to stuff poor Joe back in his basement and make sure he stays off public view. They took him out for a brief airing yesterday in Pennsylvania, a low-grade fiasco. In a formal speech, Mr. Biden said, “So today, I’m releasing a brewplint [sic] — I think the press had — how to create millions of good-paying union jobs, using Protestant technology [say what?] that we need now, and in the future.” Hmmm. Protestant technology? What could that be? Sounds like another one of Whitey’s endless tricks.

After the speech, some media cornered the candidate beside a campaign limo. He managed to decline taking any questions and waddled stiffly away, glassy-eyed, his hands strangely splayed like seal flippers (another symptom?). Who are they kidding with this pathetic wind-up mummy, this bare ruin of a crooked old pol? What treacherous game are they playing now? What’s next…?

Read more …

Excellent from Rob Urie.

The Russiagate allegations shifted attention away from rejection of the Democrat’s political program in 2016 so that they could run the same program again in 2020…

Democracy and the Illusion of Choice (CP)

[..] from the potential victory of a social democratic program five months ago, electoral choice is now between a right-wing demagogue and the chief architect of the carceral state, militarization of the police and liberal obeisance to capital. There is a connection between the Democrats three-plus years spent pushing the un/disproven Russiagate story and Joe Biden’s miraculous ascent as the establishment candidate in 2020. The Russiagate allegations shifted attention away from rejection of the Democrat’s political program in 2016 so that they could run the same program again in 2020. Amongst the political variables open for ‘discussion,’ the choice of candidate is all there is. The political program is determined at the intersection of campaign contributions, the needs and desires of capital, and the ids of oligarchs freed from public accountability. Democracy has nothing to do with it.

The ‘left’ argument for electing Joe Biden is as a placeholder, without precisely explaining how placeholding has supported the upward redistribution of political and economic power for four decades running. Donald Trump made himself known— seemingly to his political detriment, while five decades in public life left Joe Biden a political unknown who oversaw the writing of the 1994 Crime Bill and the Patriot Act, supported the misguided U.S. war against Iraq, and acted as collection agent for the credit card company MBNA. That both men represent the interests of capital and disjoint constituencies within the neoliberal order again suggests political guidance from outside of electoral politics.

This description is difficult for Democrats because they never took account of their loss in 2016. The stories they told themselves of foreign intrigue and racial backlash weren’t, and still aren’t, supported by the data. The Russiagate pillars have fallen one by one until nothing is left but tribal shorthand for aesthetic aversion to ‘Trump!’ Otherwise, the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) has been the gold standard of ‘ascendance of hate’ reporting since the 2000s. Outside of its made-for-the-establishment-press headlines, the number of racist and neo-Nazi hate groups is falling.

Read more …

Barely an industry anymore.

American Airlines Tells Boeing: No Financing, No 737 MAX Deliveries (CNBC)

American Airlines executives have told Boeing they will not take delivery of 17 737 Max airplanes unless the carrier can secure financing to pay for the aircraft, people familiar with the discussions told CNBC. The 17 Max planes are already built, but will not be delivered until the Federal Aviation Administration recertifies the aircraft and removes a grounding order, which is expected to happen later this summer or by early fall. When the FAA grounded the Max in March 2019, it meant Boeing was not allowed to deliver the 17 Max planes it had built for American. During the 15 months since the grounding, the financing for some of the 737 Max planes expired, leaving them unfunded.

The situation means Boeing Capital, which is Boeing’s financing division, will have to find a way to arrange financing for those planes. This could involve Boeing Capital buying the planes and leasing them to American. Another possible scenario could involve third-party aircraft leasing companies financing the planes in question. While Boeing will not comment specifically on its discussions with American, or on any other order, the company told CNBC: “Our focus continues to be on working with global regulators on the rigorous process they have put in place to safely return the 737 MAX to commercial service. We are not going to comment on discussions with our customers. It is an unprecedented time for our industry as operators confront a steep drop in traffic.

“We continue to work closely with our customers to support their operations, while balancing supply and demand with the realities of the market.” American has already taken delivery of 24 Max planes, and has another 76 ordered with Boeing. The Wall Street Journal previously reported American executives have threatened to cancel some of its Max orders.

Read more …

Who wants the job?

NYPD Limits Retirement Applications Amid 400% Surge This Week (NYP)

New York’s Finest are putting in for retirement faster than the NYPD can handle — while citing a lack of respect and the loss of overtime pay, The Post has learned. A surge of city cops filing papers during the past week more than quadrupled last year’s number — as the city grapples with a surge of shootings — and the stampede caused a bottleneck that’s forcing others to delay putting in their papers, officials and sources said. The NYPD said Wednesday that 179 cops filed for retirement between June 29 and Monday, an astounding 411 percent increase over the 35 who filed during the same period in 2019. The astonishing rush for the door came as 503 cops filed for retirement between May 25 — the day George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, sparking anti-cop protests around the country — and July 3, the NYPD said.

That number represents a 75 percent increase over the 287 who filed for retirement during the same time last year, the NYPD said. Sources said the deluge of applications had overwhelmed the department — due to cancellation of overtime for the workers who process them — and that the number of daily applicants was being limited as a result. On Tuesday, The Post spotted a line of cops waiting outside the office at One Police Plaza where retirement papers get filed. “Apparently, the pension section is only taking a certain amount of people per day and I think they are backed up ’til late July, early August,” one cop said. “That’s why you don’t see like 100 a day, because they are only doing like 35 to 40 a day, by appointment.” A spokeswoman for the NYPD confirmed the “surge in the number of officers filing for retirement.”

“While the decision to retire is a personal one and can be attributed to a range of factors, it is a troubling trend that we are closely monitoring,” the spokesperson added. An NYPD spokeswoman noted that the department is not turning down any applications for officers retiring in the next 30 days — but has told cops putting in to retire after that to come back when a month out due to the increased activity. Sources blamed the situation — which comes amid an alarming spike in shootings — on growing anti-cop sentiment, coupled with a pending city law that would make it a crime for cops to use chokeholds while trying to subdue violent suspects. “There’s just droves and droves of people retiring. But there’s no surprise here, who the hell wants to stay on this job?” one cop said. “Why would you want to stay on this job when people don’t appreciate what you do?”

Read more …

Erdogan turns his back on Turkey’s founder Kemal Ataturk and reaches back to 15th century Ottoman empire.

“For those who don’t know, really near to Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Turks built the Blue Mosque, which is newer and big enough for all the muslims in the area (and then some). Erdogan is just trying to provoke christians and show to muslims worldwide he is their leader.”

Erdogan Declares Hagia Sophia A Mosque After Turkish Court Ruling (R.)

President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia a mosque on Friday with the first Muslim prayers to begin in two weeks, after a top court ruled the ancient building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal. Erdogan spoke on Friday just hours after the court ruling was published, brushing aside international warnings not to change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument that is revered by Christians and Muslims alike. The United States, Russia and church leaders were among those to express concern about changing the status of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, a focal point of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and now one of the most visited monuments in Turkey.

Greece’s culture ministry described the court decision as an “open provocation” to the civilized world, while UNESCO said it regretted it was not notified ahead of time and would now review the building’s status. Erdogan has sought to shift Islam into the mainstream of Turkish politics in his 17 years at the helm. He has long floated restoring the mosque status of the sixth-century building, which was converted into a museum in the early days of the modern secular Turkish state under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. “With this court ruling, and with the measures we took in line with the decision, Hagia Sophia became a mosque again, after 86 years, in the way Fatih the conqueror of Istanbul had wanted it to be,” Erdogan said in a national address.


In a telling of history at times critical of the Byzantine Empire and the modern republic’s founders, Erdogan said Turkey could now leave behind “the curse of Allah, profits and angels” that Fatih – the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II – said would be on anyone who converted it from a mosque. “Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be open to all, locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims,” said Erdogan, who earlier on Friday signed off on the Religious Affairs Directorate managing the site.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 11 2020

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
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  • #61018

    Berenice Abbott Murray Hill Hotel, New York 1935   • Trump Commutes Roger Stone’s Sentence (Hill) • Blood Clots Found In ‘Almost Every Organ’ Of
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 11 2020]

    #61019
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Berenice Abbott Murray Hill Hotel, New York 1935

    Great shot! But I have to admit I was drawn to the left view of the ironwork balcony’s…

    #61020

    She’s interesting. She studied with Man Ray in the 1920s in Paris

    #61021
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Damnit; of course I meant the right hand…
    …but then you got that… 🙂

    …and yes, she is interesting. Man Ray huh? That’s interesting also…

    #61022
    zerosum
    Participant

    TAE is my window, from which I get to see and investigate the collapse of the USA empire.
    Knowing what is happening, most of the time, means that all I can say, “WOW, I’m lucky, I’m not going to be hit by that.”
    Seeing what is happening elsewhere, is like the weather report. “Will or will not affect my life.”
    I’m old and wise enough to realize that most of what I see coming will happen after I have moved to Eden.
    (Garden of Eden Old Testament the garden in which Adam and Eve were placed at the Creation. a delightful place, region, dwelling, etc; paradise. a state of great delight, happiness, or contentment; bliss.)

    #61024
    zerosum
    Participant

    Who will win?
    Renter
    Landlord
    Lenders

    Hint
    Are the lenders bankers?

    #61025
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Hey, is today a day we have cures, or a day we pretend we don’t? Trying to keep up.
    How about masks? Do they work today, or do we believe the research?

    Talking to yet another person who had yet another 5 tests at $180/pc – all negative, as expected. All pointless. Required by bureaucracy that could easily have avoid it, you know by talking to each other. Ka-ching!! Is she counted five times?

    Cases spike!!! Uh-huh. Because mandated state-corporate robbery spiked? At $1,000 a head, legally required?

    So, haven’t heard much about Sweden lately, wonder why?

    Could it be because once CV burned out of the city, cases dropped to near zero? One death. Rate? 0.7%. Hey wait, how can it stop with such a low rate of immunity?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

    iin
    https://i.insider.com/5f047a9a988ee34eb9508f12?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp
    Kitco compare:
    Keetko
    https://www.kitco.com/commentaries/2020-07-08/images/Wealth_0708_1.jpg
    Pretty average.

    Nevermind. Facts. Math. Calc.exe. OMG bored already! But seems to be over, they won, thus not reported.

    Death rate? 0.06%. Huh, sounds familiar.

    Comparing to U.S., that equates to 180,000. We’re at 125,500 now.

    But of course we had the fun of trampling all human rights while passing no laws, helping oligarchs, destroying small business, handing out $2 trillion to our golfing pals, rioting, throwing an election, attacking all cures, killing 50,000 unnecessary people, and oh yeah: NOT STOPPING THE VIRUS. No different from Sweden. Because we knew from March it was de-facto airborne? And we knew from March Diamond Princess a substantial number were immune? “Knew” as in: the science said?

    Congratulations. Darwin would be proud. When the boat’s sinking, drill more holes. When someone in your house is sick in bed, make sure they lose their job too. That’s just science. That’s helping.

    Didn’t go to CDC raw numbers but here’s last week’s chart: (Image imbed denied)
    tic
    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallery=8307

    Huh. Almost like we drew forward the year’s deaths into the first months; now they’re gone, we’ll probably have an average year with no additional deaths. …You know, except the million deaths caused by economy, riots, and civil war joined by the elimination of all safety, humanity, and human freedoms and rights. While the rich pick up the $1k/pc x 300M = $300B and buy ruthless private security for themselves while eliminating police for you.

    So predictable.

    Sweden’s coronavirus death toll is now approaching zero, but experts are warning others not to hail it as a success.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-cases-deaths-fall-not-mean-lockdown-plan-worked-2020-7?r=US&IR=T

    Because rising numbers are the success? What are you saying here? Like Fauci, high tests are bad, but low tests are bad. High mortality is bad, but mortality spiraling down below pandemic levels is bad. Everything is bad. Sort of like AGW: heat is proof, but cold is proof, wind is proof, but calm is proof. Everything is proof, the opposite is proof. Science!

    #61027
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    LONG TERM EFFECTS OF C-19

    It would be interesting to know if those treated with HCQ and ZINC suffer similar long term problems.
    [ I mean those treated immediately as soon as the symptoms become serious]

    #61028
    Lily
    Participant

    In the messy panoply of global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden stands out. Unlike its Nordic and European peers, Sweden decided early on for a “soft” approach, forgoing lockdowns for subtle changes to commerce and entertainment, voluntary mitigation guidelines, and encouraging working from home. “This is what has happened,” economic correspondent Peter S. Goodman reports in The New York Times: “Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.”

    “They literally gained nothing,” Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, tells the Times. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.” Sweden did see slightly less contraction in the first quarter, but now its economic pain is essentially equal to its Nordic neighbors. And Norway, which “was not only quick to impose an aggressive lockdown, but early to relax it as the virus slowed,” is actually “expected to see a more rapid economic turnaround,” Goodman reports.

    Ironically, Bloomberg News reports, the social distancing requirements in Sweden are now more stringent than in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, all of which opted for strict lockdowns early on. Sweden’s 5,420 COVID-19 deaths may not seem like much compared with 130,000 in the U.S., but per capita that works out to 40 percent more fatalities than in the U.S. and 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland, and six times more than Denmark, the Times notes.

    #61029

    The hotel (the building on the right) was built in 1884. The architect was Stephen Decatur Hatch. It was razed in 1947. Shame.

    A coronavirus cannot have nearly every symptom (and no symptoms at all!). If the one-solution “Covid19” hadn’t gotten in the way, they might have been on the road to figuring out what’s going on in the blood of people “diagnosed” (or not) with “Covid19 Brand”.

    #61032
    Bill7
    Participant

    ‘What is the real purpose of the Lockdowns? From masks to lockdowns to “social distancing”, do these anti-Covid measures serve another purpose?’:

    “..While the country is fast approaching an existential crisis on steroids, millions experienced an inner knowing that some indefinable thing was not right with recognition that the early explanations were hogwash while others, addicted to mainstream/social media who still believed in the illusion of democracy, were on board with the litany of spin from the medical and political establishment..”

    Yep.

    What is the real purpose of the Lockdowns?

    -Bill7

    #61033
    Bill7
    Participant

    ‘Lockdowns failed to alter the course of pandemic and are now destroying millions of livelihoods worldwide, JP Morgan study claims’:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8347635/Lockdowns-failed-alter-course-pandemic-JP-Morgan-study-claims.html

    Soo-prize, soo-prize, soo-prize…

    -Bill7

    #61034
    Bill7
    Participant

    Dr explaining the pandemic to a coma patient who just woke up…

    Dr: “They shut down the world because of a worldwide pandemic.”

    Patient: “OMG! How many people are infected?”

    Dr : “About 11 Million.”

    Patient: “OMG! 11 million people died?”

    Dr: “No, only 500 thousand… Kind of.”

    Patient: “What do you mean ‘kind of’?”

    Dr: “Well… they keep halving the number of deaths due to double counting, inaccurate tests and mislabeled death certificates. Also, most of the people that die are elderly and dying of other things. There are also people who died because of incorrect ventilator use and other treatments because no-one really understands the virus.”

    Patient: “I don’t get it. So how many died from ONLY the virus… like literally dropped dead in the street?”

    Dr: “No-one. Only in hospitals and nursing homes”

    Patient: “I don’t get it.”

    Dr: “Neither do I, it’s a very confusing time.”

    Patient: “So they cured the other 11 million people then?”

    Dr: “No, most didn’t have any symptoms and in fact they didn’t even know they had it.”

    Patient: “I don’t get it.”

    Dr: “Neither do I.”

    Patient: “It doesn’t sound very deadly. If the other 11 million people didn’t have symptoms then how do they even know they had the virus?”

    Dr: “They were tested.”

    Patient: “But you just said that the tests are inaccurate.”

    Dr: “They are. No-one has isolated the virus so the tests don’t really test for that.”

    Patient: “I don’t get it.”

    Dr: “Neither do I.”

    Patient: “Ok. So when will this pandemic be over?”

    Dr: “When they develop a vaccine to stop the virus.”

    Patient: “The virus that nobody gets or dies from.”

    Dr: “Exactly.”

    Patient: “I don’t get it.”

    Dr: “Neither do I.”

    #61035

    They say there’s no immunity.
    There can be no vaccine.
    I hereby rename this scourge “CogDis2020 virus”.
    I wonder if they have tried Kaspersky?

    #61036

    Write up for patent on new virus.
    If the mind can be seen as a kind of computer, and a virus can infect a computer’s programming, then a computer-like virus can infect the mind. With a high enough threshold of infected minds, a “pandemic” can be declared and the “hive-mind” of a population will destroy itself.
    A means of creating a virus which can be spread via the media creating a defect of function in infected minds.
    Defects can be self-harming: masks to enhance alienation, self-isolation, separation and rejection of families and friends, postponement of key cultural rituals, removal from the deaths of loved ones, etc.; delusion: distortions of math and science, abnormal dread of risk, death-obsession, misalignment of priorities, etc.; and most importantly, cognitive dissonance: a state of believing many things that are exclusive of each other in time and in logic.
    The latter gives rise to the name of the proposed virus: CogDis20.

    #61037

    Write up for patent on new virus.
    If the mind can be seen as a kind of computer, and a virus can infect a computer’s programming, then a computer-like virus can infect the mind. With a high enough threshold of infected minds, a “pandemic” can be declared and the “hive-mind” of a population will destroy itself.
    A means of creating a virus which can be spread via the media creating a defect of function in infected minds.
    Defects can be self-harming: masks to enhance alienation, self-isolation, separation and rejection of families and friends, postponement of key cultural rituals, removal from the deaths of loved ones, etc.; delusion: distortions of math and science, abnormal dread of risk, death-obsession, misalignment of priorities, etc.; and most importantly, cognitive dissonance: a state of believing many things that are exclusive of each other in time and in logic.
    The latter gives rise to the name of the proposed virus: CogDis20.

    #61038

    Sure enough- I didn’t hit it twice, but like the warning said- slow down- you’ve posted twice, and sure enough there it is twice. Hunh.
    My apologies, y’all.

    #61039
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Ilargi,
    Below is a link to a Strategic Culture article by Cynthia Chung:

    How to Take Back Control of Your Mind

    ..it is long, excellently written, and thorough, and I think right down your alley…
    I address this to you because, as far as I can remember, nobody ever reads my links…at least I’ve never gotten any feedback.
    Cheers

    #61040
    zerosum
    Participant

    I read your links
    What’s at the center of the earth?
    Here is one that will make you try to find a link with earthquakes and volcanoes

    The Earth & Moon orbit their common center of mass (barycenter) which is always just below Earth’s surface: Earth is ~4750 km away from the barycenter due to the Moon’s influence. Here’s our path over the next few years in 3d — everything’s to scale *except* Earth–Moon distance

    #61041
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    The hotel (the building on the right) was built in 1884. The architect was Stephen Decatur Hatch. It was razed in 1947. Shame.

    A shame indeed…

    I read your links

    Thanks, nice to know not for naught… 😉

    The earth/moon orbit vid is very interesting; I had no idea…

    #61042
    zerosum
    Participant

    Here is something else to enjoy

    Welcome to Aphelion 2020: Farthest point from the Sun!

    July is summer in the northern hemisphere and you might think this means we are closer to the Sun. This is a common misconception. Earth is actually farther from the Sun in July and on July 4th it is at its farther distance in orbit around the Sun. We call this aphelion.
    Earth orbit around the Sun is an ellipse. Its closest approach to the Sun in this orbit is called perihelion and its farthest is called aphelion.

    Did you know planets don’t technically orbit the Sun? Instead, everything orbits the Solar System center of mass, even the Sun! While the Sun contains 99.8% of the Solar System’s mass Jupiter holds most of the rest (Saturn is 2nd), so the Sun actually orbits Jupiter slightly

    Just think, … the center of mass of the solar system is not often in the center of mass of the sun.

    #61043
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Here is something else to enjoy

    …and I did enjoy, thanks…

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