Jul 142020
 


DPC The Wizard Tree, Cathedral Woods, North Conway, White Mountains, New Hampshire 1900

 

Pandemic May Get ‘Worse And Worse And Worse’ – WHO (RT)
US Kids At Higher Risk From Coronavirus Than Kids In Other Countries (CNBC)
Hong Kong To Impose Most Severe Social Distancing Restrictions (R.)
Italian Doctors: Effects of COVID-19 Worse Than First Thought (Sky)
Japan Has Long Accepted COVID’s Airborne Spread (CBS)
California’s New Lockdown Dims Outlook For US Growth In Pandemic (R.)
Federal Reserve’s $3 Trillion Virus Rescue Inflates Market Bubbles (R.)
Goya “Boycott” Becomes “Buycott” (ZH)
FBI Believed Michael Flynn Was ‘Forthcoming’ And ‘Telling Truth’ (Solomon)
Trump Doesn’t Rule Out Pardoning Michael Flynn (CNBC)
Roger Stone Judge Demands To See Trump Clemency Order (ZH)
Weissmann To Publish Insider Account Of Trump-Russia Investigation (G.)
Top Mueller Aide Weissmann Calls For Roger Stone To Face Grand Jury (Turley)

 

 

Well, I did warn about those second lockdowns, and said they would be much harder than the first ones. Never let a lockdown go to waste, they’re against human -social- nature, no matter how needed they may be. It’s also stunning to see how unprepared everybody is for entering one. There’s no organization anywhere. There should be playbooks for these things, it’s not improv theater. You need to be able to identify the weakest people in society, and look after them.

And in the present day US, where everyone is hellbent on not listening to one another anymore, this can only lead to big trouble. Increasingly, the virus is becoming a political attribute, even if that is about the worst idea imaginable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But who still listens to the WHO?

Pandemic May Get ‘Worse And Worse And Worse’ – WHO (RT)

The Covid-19 pandemic is set to get “worse and worse” if countries do not stick to strict healthcare guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The disease has already killed more than half-a-million globally. Speaking on Monday during a press briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva via videolink, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave an alarming prognosis on the pandemic’s course. “Let me be blunt. Too many countries are headed in the wrong direction, the virus remains public enemy number one,” Tedros said. “If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go: it is going to get worse and worse and worse.”


The grim prognosis comes after the WHO registered a record daily increase in active coronavirus cases worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic. On Sunday, the global health watchdog registered some 230,370 new cases of the virus. The Covid-19 death rate remains steady, claiming around 5,000 lives on a daily basis. The global coronavirus tally for confirmed infections has risen above the 13-million mark, according to Reuters’ figures for the pandemic. Over 560,000 people have succumbed to the disease. The US, Brazil and India remain the worst-hit nations, accounting for nearly a half of all cases.

Read more …

“.. young people in the U.S. are generally sicker than young people in Sweden, for example. ”

US Kids At Higher Risk From Coronavirus Than Kids In Other Countries (CNBC)

Children in the U.S. are more likely than kids in other countries to have underlying conditions that place them at an increased risk of becoming severely sick with Covid-19, complicating the U.S. debate over how and whether to reopen schools this fall, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Monday. President Donald Trump has been pressuring U.S. schools to reopen this fall, tweeting last week that schools in “Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, along with many other countries” were “open with no problems.” But Gottlieb said Monday it’s difficult to compare the U.S. to most of those countries because they were able to bring the level of daily infection down to a manageable degree before reopening schools.

The outbreak in the U.S., in contrast, continues to set daily new records as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on local officials to commit to reopening schools. The U.S. is suffering from the worst Covid-19 outbreak in the world with more than 3.3 million confirmed cases so far and at least 135,200 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. “The only country that had schools open against a backdrop of a fair degree of spread was Sweden, and that’s what everyone extrapolates from,” he said on “Squawk Box.” “We didn’t study that systematically. We don’t know how many kids were really infected.” [..] Another concern that ought to be considered when deciding whether and how to reopen U.S. schools, Gottlieb said, is that young people in the U.S. are generally sicker than young people in Sweden, for example.

Regardless of age, other underlying conditions more prevalent in American kids puts them at a greater risk of a severe Covid-19 infection. “We have more co-morbid illness among young people in this country — more asthma, more obesity, more diabetes — so there is going to be higher risk with our school age population,” Gottlieb said. Those so-called co-morbidities have resulted in more severe illnesses and even death in Covid-19 patients across all age groups, scientists have found. The CDC says 18.5% of U.S. children between the ages of 2 and 19 suffer from obesity, or about 13.7 million children. About 6 million children under the age of 18 have asthma, according to the CDC, and the agency notes that Black children suffer from asthma at more than double the rate of White children.

Read more …

A lot of places see fresh outbreaks. People are eager to call them a second wave, but given how strongly that term is linked to the 1918 flu, I’d be careful with that.

Hong Kong To Impose Most Severe Social Distancing Restrictions (R.)

Hong Kong will impose strict new social distancing measures from midnight Tuesday, the most stringent in the Asian financial hub since the coronavirus broke out, as authorities warn the risk of a large-scale outbreak is extremely high. The measures dictate that face masks will be mandatory for people using public transport and restaurants will no longer provide dine in services and only offer takeaway after 6 pm. Both are new rules that were not implemented during the city’s first and second coronavirus waves earlier this year. If a person does not wear a mask on public transport, they face a fine of HK$5,000 ($645). Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Monday the government would limit group gatherings to four people from 50 – a measure last seen during a second wave in March.


Twelve types of establishments including gyms and places of amusement must shut for a week. “The recent emergence of local cases of unknown infection source indicates the existence of sustained silent transmission in the community,” the government said in a statement late on Monday. The Chinese-ruled city recorded 52 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, including 41 that were locally transmitted, health authorities said. Since late January, Hong Kong has reported 1,522 cases and local media reported an eighth death on Monday. The government said it is very concerned about the high number of imported cases and planned to impose further measures on travellers from high-risk places, including securing mandatory negative test results before arrival.

Read more …

“Psychosis, insomnia, kidney disease, spinal infections, strokes, chronic tiredness and mobility issues..”

Italian Doctors: Effects of COVID-19 Worse Than First Thought (Sky)

The long-term effects of COVID-19, even on people who suffered a mild infection, could be far worse than was originally anticipated, according to researchers and doctors in northern Italy. Psychosis, insomnia, kidney disease, spinal infections, strokes, chronic tiredness and mobility issues are being identified in former coronavirus patients in Lombardy, the worst-affected region in the country. The doctors warn that some victims may never recover from the illness and that all age groups are vulnerable. The virus is a systemic infection that affects all the organs of the body, not, as was previously thought, just a respiratory disease, they say. Some people may find that their ability to properly work, to concentrate, and even to take part in physical activities will be severely impaired.

The physicians warn that people who do not consider themselves in a vulnerable group and aren’t concerned at contracting the disease could be putting themselves in danger of life-changing illnesses if they ignore the rules to keep safe. They stress that the need for social distancing, hand washing, and masks is as important now as it ever was. The warnings come amid growing concerns in northern Italy that a second wave of the virus could be imminent. Doctors in two of the main hospitals in the region have reported a handful of new cases of severely ill people with respiratory problems. Dr Roberto Cosentini, head of emergencies at Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, oversaw the response to the virus that swept through this alpine province claiming the lives of at least 6,000 people.

He gave Sky News unprecedented access to the hospital’s emergency rooms in March when the first shocking effects of the virus were broadcast around the world, changing perceptions of the scale of the problem. Now he is leading efforts to again send a warning across the globe that COVID-19 is a lethal killer that affects the whole body, and is not going away. “At first, initially, we thought it was a bad flu, then we thought it was a bad flu with a very bad pneumonia, it was the phase when you came here, but subsequently we discovered that it is a systemic illness with vessel damage in the whole body with renal involvement, cerebral involvement,” he told me in the now silent COVID-19 emergency room that was overwhelmed a few months ago.

“So we are seeing other acute manifestations of renal failure that require dialysis; or stroke, and then acute myocardial infarction, so a lot of complications or other manifestations of the virus. “And also now we see a significant proportion of the population with chronic damage from the virus.”

Read more …

Which the WHO still halfway denies.

Japan Has Long Accepted COVID’s Airborne Spread (CBS)

Under pressure from the scientific community, the World Health Organization acknowledged last week the airborne transmission of “micro-droplets” as a possible third cause of COVID-19 infections. To many researchers in Japan, the admission felt anti-climactic. This densely populated country has operated for months on the assumption that tiny, “aerosolized” particles in crowded settings are turbo-charging the spread of the new coronavirus. Very few diseases — tuberculosis, chicken pox and measles — have been deemed transmissible through aerosols. Most are spread only through direct contact with infected persons or their bodily fluids, or contaminated surfaces. Still the WHO has refused to confirm aerosols as a major source of new coronavirus infections, saying more evidence is needed.

But scientists are keeping the pressure on. “If the WHO recognizes what we did in Japan, then maybe in other parts of the world, they will change (their antiviral procedures),” said Shin-Ichi Tanabe, a professor in the architecture department of Japan’s prestigious Waseda University. He was one of the 239 international scientists who co-wrote an open letter to the WHO urging the United Nations agency to revise its guidelines on how to stop the virus spreading. Large droplets expelled through the nose and mouth tend to fall to the ground quickly, explained Makoto Tsubokura, who runs the Computational Fluid Dynamics lab at Kobe University. For these larger respiratory particles, social distancing and face masks are considered adequate safeguards.

But in rooms with dry, stale air, Tsubokura said his research showed that people coughing, sneezing, and even talking and singing, emit tiny particles that defy gravity — able to hang in the air for many hours or even days, and travel the length of a room. The key defense against aerosols, Tsubokura said, is diluting the amount of virus in the air by opening windows and doors and ensuring HVAC systems circulate fresh air. In open-plan offices, he said partitions must be high enough to prevent direct contact with large droplets, but low enough to avoid creating a cloud of virus-heavy air (55 inches, or head height.) Small desk fans, he said, can also help diffuse airborne viral density. To the Japanese, the latest WHO admission did at least vindicate a strategy that the country adopted in February, when residents were told to avoid “the three Cs” — cramped spaces, crowded areas and close conversation.

Read more …

Maybe you shouldn’t target growth in a pandemic?!

California’s New Lockdown Dims Outlook For US Growth In Pandemic (R.)

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision Monday to reimpose restrictions on bars, restaurants, gyms and even ordinary office work to tamp down a surge of coronavirus infections is dimming economic growth prospects for the nation as a whole. Darkening the outlook further was the decision by California’s two largest school districts – Los Angeles and San Diego – to conduct only online instruction when classes resume next month, a move that will make it challenging for parents of more than 825,000 students to return to work. The Golden State, with 40 million people, employs more workers than any other state in the nation, and its production of goods and services is about equal to the combined output of Florida and Texas, two others states that have also seen resurgences of the virus.

After the Great Recession, California was the nation’s inarguable job growth engine, creating about one in every seven jobs, more than any other state. By comparison, over the course of the 12-year post-financial crisis expansion Texas created one of every eight U.S. jobs, and Florida, about one of every 11. In March, after becoming the first U.S. state to impose a stay-at-home order in response to the coronavirus pandemic, California also became the nation’s job-loss leader. Some 2.6 million jobs disappeared in March and April, about equal to the combined job losses in Texas and Florida. Many states began to reopen in May. California allowed businesses to resume activity at a slower pace than many states did.

That shows in the most recent state-by-state jobs data: during the course May, California added just 141,600 jobs, versus 182,000 in Florida and 237,000 in Texas. Since then, the virus has resurged in much of the country, with the biggest increases in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, forcing governors in all of those states to reimpose some restrictions. But none has gone as far as Newsom did on Monday; and none of those states has near the footprint of California when it comes to economic heft on a national scale. Before the coronavirus crisis, the state accounted for about 14% of the whole U.S. economy.

Read more …

Article gives a few examples, I bring my own. There is no better example of a Fed manufactured bubble than Tesla.

Federal Reserve’s $3 Trillion Virus Rescue Inflates Market Bubbles (R.)

The Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion bid to stave off an economic crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak is fuelling excesses across U.S. capital markets. The U.S. central bank has pledged unlimited financial asset purchases to sustain market liquidity, increasing its balance sheet from $4.2 trillion in February to $7 trillion today. While the vast majority of these purchases have been limited to U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, the Fed’s pledge to bolster the corporate bond market has been enough to spur a frenzy among investors for bonds and stocks. “COVID-19 is now inversely related to the markets. The worse that COVID-19 gets, the better the markets do because the Fed will bring in stimulus. That is what has been driving markets,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at NatAlliance.

Read more …

Brilliant idea. And no, I don’t think a boycott is in place just for talking to the president.

Goya “Boycott” Becomes “Buycott” (ZH)

In what is turning into a spectacular backfire, Goya products are being cleaned out of grocery store shelves in what is being dubbed the “Chick-Fil-A” effect by The Daily Wire. Namely, leftists have called for a boycott over the brand after its CEO publicly praised President Donald Trump. Instead, conservatives took matters into their own hands and are reportedly buying more Goya products than they normally would to show support for the company, its CEO and the President. It’s being called a “Buy-Cott”. It began when radio host Mike Opelka began encouraging people on Twitter to buy $10 worth of Goya products to turn around and donate to their local food bank.


He Tweeted: “My brother came up with a terrific idea and I am encouraging all to join me in purchasing $10 worth of Goya Foods products and donating them to your local food bank. Let’s push a BUY-cott, not a boycott. Let’s show the #Goyaway people what compassion can do.” And this weekend a GoFundMe effort was launched to feed the hungry using only Goya products. It has raised over $43,000 so far. Casey Harper, who started the GoFundMe, said: “I’m not surprised we have raised so much because people are tired of having to walk on eggshells in political discourse. Also, Americans are fundamentally generous people, so a chance to feed the hungry and stand up to cancel culture was an easy win.” Recall, three days ago, we reported that the Goya CEO “refused to apologize” for his comments praising President Donald Trump. As a result, many liberals announced they were boycotting his company. By last Thursday evening, “Goya,” #BoycottGoya and #Goyaway were trending topics on Twitter.

Read more …

“..the FBI planned on Jan. 4, 2017 to close down its investigation of Flynn but then reversed course.”

FBI Believed Michael Flynn Was ‘Forthcoming’ And ‘Telling Truth’ (Solomon)

Months before Michael Flynn was charged with the lying to agents, the FBI told the Justice Department the Trump national security adviser was “very open and forthcoming” in his interview and believed he was telling the truth about his contacts with Russia, according to long withheld government notes that sharply contrast with the criminal case Robert Mueller eventually filed. FBI agents told senior DOJ officials at a Jan. 25, 2017 meeting that Flynn was “telling truth as he believed it” and that he “believe[d] that what he said was true,” according to handwritten notes taken by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar that were belatedly turned over to Flynn’s defense this month.

The agents also believed Flynn was “being forthright” during his interview and simply didn’t remember some facts from his calls with the Russian ambassador during the post-2016 election transition, Gauhar wrote in the notes. A separate DOJ memo described Flynn as “very open and forthcoming” during the interview. Copies of the notes from Gauhar, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia collusion case, and former DOJ and FBI official Dana Boente were made public in a court filing over the weekend, adding to a large body of belatedly released evidence that suggested the FBI did not believe it had grounds to charge Flynn with a crime as news media were reporting at the time. In fact, Boente stated in handwritten notes dated in March 2017 that the FBI had concluded Flynn wasn’t an agent of Russia. “Do not view as source of collusion,” Boente wrote.

Likewise, the notes show DOJ did not believe it could prosecute Flynn under the Logan Act, lone of the laws that was leaked as a possible Flynn liability in the media. “No reasonable pros to Logan Act,” one of the entry in the notes declared. The notes also confirm previously released evidence showing the FBI planned on Jan. 4, 2017 to close down its investigation of Flynn but then reversed course. Remarkably, the FBI claimed to DOJ the reason it kept the Flynn probe open and interview him was because a news media leak of a classified transcript of his call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The “media leaks” about the calls being intercepted brought the “investigation in the open” and “changed the dynamic,” the notes quote FBI officials as saying.

Read more …

He won’t have to. Flynn got Sidney Powell.

Trump Doesn’t Rule Out Pardoning Michael Flynn (CNBC)

President Donald Trump on Monday did not rule out granting a pardon to his first national security advisor Michael Flynn, just days after commuting the 40-month prison term of his longtime ally Roger Stone. But Trump said “I don’t have a decision to make” about a potential pardon for Flynn “until I find out what’s going to happen” with Flynn’s efforts to get a dismissal of his conviction for lying to FBI agents. “I think he’s doing very well with respect to his case,” Trump told reporters. “I hope that he’s going to be able to win it.” The Justice Department has asked that Flynn’s conviction be tossed out, but Judge Emmet Sullivan so far has not ruled on that request. A federal appeals court panel ordered Sullivan to dismiss the case, which relates to Flynn’s discussions with a Russian diplomat in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration.


But Sullivan last week asked the appeals court’s full line-up of judges to reconsider that decision. Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell said in an email, “As I have said from the inception of my representation, the government has long withheld evidence of Mr. Flynn’s innocence.” “The FBI and [special counsel’s office] made up this prosecution and coerced his plea by multiple means. The result for which we have steadfastly and relentlessly worked is his complete exoneration by the Department of Justice and the judicial system,” Powell said. “We believe it is very important for the Rule of Law and the public’s trust in the system for his case to be dismissed according to the Government’s motion and because of all the newly disclosed evidence of government misconduct and his innocence.”

Read more …

Judges questioning their superiors. It’s quite the fashion.

Roger Stone Judge Demands To See Trump Clemency Order (ZH)

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson demanded more information concerning President Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of Roger Stone – a longtime ally who avoided a 40-months in prison sentence for making false statements to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Russia investigation. According to AP, Berman Jackson ordered the parties to provide her a copy of Trump’s executive order commuting Stone’s sentence, as well as clarity for the scope of the clemency – including whether Stone’s two-year supervised release is covered by the decision. To answer Berman Jackson’s question, Trump commuted “the entirety of the two-year term of supervised release with all its conditions.”

“The president told reporters on Monday that he was getting “rave reviews” for his action on Stone and restated his position that the Russia investigation “should have never taken place.” Democrats lambasted Trump’s decision as having undermined the rule of law, and Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican to vote to convict the president during his impeachment trial, called the clemency decision “unprecedented, historic corruption.” Mueller himself defended the Stone prosecution in a Washington Post opinion piece in which he said Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.” Although presidents have broad authority to commute prison sentences and issue pardons, the brief order from Jackson — who presided over Stone’s trial last year — made clear that the judge still is seeking information and clarity about the clemency, including the actual executive order from the White House. -AP (via WTOP)

The order was entered into the docket several hours later.

Read more …

Oh, and Mery Trump is now free to speak.

Weissmann To Publish Insider Account Of Trump-Russia Investigation (G.)

Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who played a leading role under Robert Mueller in the investigation of Russian election interference, will release a book about the special counsel’s near two-year examination of links between Donald Trump and Moscow. Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation will be published by Random House on 29 September. The publisher promised “a meticulous account of the Mueller team’s probe and its ongoing battles with the Trump administration”. It will be the latest in a lucrative stream of books about Trump, his presidency and the Russia investigation. In court in New York on Monday, the president’s niece, Mary Trump, will find out if a temporary restraining order will be lifted so she can discuss her book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man, which will be published by Simon & Schuster on Tuesday.

In a statement, Weissmann said: “I felt it was necessary to record this episode in our history, as seen and experienced by an insider. “This is the story of our investigation into how our democracy was attacked by Russia and how those who condoned and ignored that assault undermined our ability to uncover the truth. My obligation as a prosecutor was to follow the facts where they led, using all available tools and undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our work.” Weissmann was active on Twitter over the weekend, after Trump announced the commutation of a prison sentence awaiting Roger Stone, an aide and ally, arising from Mueller’s work.

Stone, 67 and suspected of being the link between Russian intelligence, WikiLeaks and the president himself, was convicted on counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness intimidation. He had been due to report to prison on Tuesday, to serve a 40-month sentence. [..] Weissmann agreed with the Republican senator Mitt Romney’s description of an instance of “unprecedented, historic corruption” and advocated that Stone be brought in front of a grand jury. There, Weissmann said, Stone would have “three choices: lie and risk prosecution, refuse to testify and be held in civil and criminal contempt, or tell the truth. Let’s do what we can to get at the truth.”

[..] Weissmann said: “I am deeply proud of the work we did, and of the unprecedented number of people we indicted and convicted – and in record speed. “But the hard truth is that we made mistakes. We could have done more. Where Law Ends documents the choices we made, good and bad, for all to see and judge and learn from.”

Read more …

Talking about Weissmann, here’s a video from Jan 2019 of Flynn lawyer Sidney Powell talking about Weissman’s role (he was appointed to it by then FBI director Robert Mueller) in the demise of Arthur Andersen.

 

 

You’d think the Special Counsel never fell flat on his face.

Top Mueller Aide Weissmann Calls For Roger Stone To Face Grand Jury (Turley)

One of the most controversial figures selected by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his investigative team was Andrew Weissmann. While some criticized Weissmann for perceived bias, many of us focused on his record of prosecutorial excess. Now a law professor at New York University, Weissmann appears eager to fulfill both criticisms. After the commutation of Roger Stone, Weissmann called for Stone to be pulled in front of a grand jury. It did not matter that there was no crime under investigation or likely criminal charge based on the use of a presidential power that is virtually absolute. Weissmann seemed to call for the use of the grand jury for a fishing expedition — precisely the type of alleged excessive use of prosecutorial power that he faced at the Justice Department. Weissmann is reportedly writing a book on the investigation with the reported titled “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.”

Weissmann wrote “Time to put Roger Stone in the grand jury to find out what he knows about Trump but would not tell. Commutation can’t stop that.” That is certainly true. A commutation does not bar someone from being called into a grand jury. However, ethical prosecutors generally require more than an interest in finding out stuff. Grand juries usually come after an investigation finds probable cause for a crime. There is supposed to be more than a hope and prayer that a grand jury may find a crime. Indeed, this is precisely the type of untethered pursuit that led some of us to criticize the Flynn investigation. In this case, Mueller did not find evidence showing that President Trump or his campaign conspired with the Russian government to obtain hacked emails from the Clinton campaign or Democratic National Committee.

There was no allegation of a crime by Trump linked to the Stone false statements or threats. Stone was convicted on seven counts including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering. The government proved that Stone had lied to Congress to hide his efforts to contact WikiLeaks. However, he was not accused of lying about knowledge or actions by President Donald Trump. [..] The grand jury is not a device for prosecutorial whim or curiosity. It is a powerful tool that demands a modicum of restraint. Conversely, Weissmann seems to follow Oscar Wilde’s famous observation as a virtual prosecutorial mandate: “I can resist everything except temptation.”

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle July 14 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • Author
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  • #61094

    DPC The Wizard Tree, Cathedral Woods, North Conway, White Mountains, New Hampshire 1900   • Pandemic May Get ‘Worse And Worse And Worse’ – WHO (R
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 14 2020]

    #61095
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    DPC The Wizard Tree, Cathedral Woods, North Conway, White Mountains, New Hampshire 1900

    Great photo of a Magnificent tree…

    We don’t know nothin…
    …but we insist to act as though we do…

    #61096
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/07/cat-out-of-bag.html
    This is another story illustrating that SARS-CoV-2 attaches to ACE-2 receptors in the nasopharynx, lungs, and gut, but those are paths to the arterial circulation, where it attacks the blood vessel lining, endothelium, causing inflammatory response, clotting, and shutting off blood supply to bits of hear, brain and kidney, as well as bits of lung.
    Many of the people who donated tissue for this investigation did so posthumously.
    Thank You.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12347287

    Charles Hugh Smith:
    With mass media replaced by Big Tech’s data-flow / behavioral-control molecular media, political coherence has been lost, and so divide-and conquer control mechanisms are now essentially infinite: any group, no matter how coherent, can be splintered into warring fragments by the Big Tech Neofeudal Nobility.
    After all, they have the data and they can use it however they want, with no limits or controls by users, citizens or nominally democratic governments.
    How do we change the leadership of our Neofeudal Nobility, the privately owned, quasi-sovereign Big Tech platforms? The short answer is: we don’t. There is no mechanism left for influencing anything in the monarchies of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc al.
    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly20/neofeudal-nobility7-20.html

    NYPD limits retirement applications amid 400 percent surge this week
    “You have to be crazy to stay on a job where you are losing money, abused by the people you are trying to protect and not appreciated by the politicians,” the source said.
    https://nypost.com/2020/07/08/nypd-limits-retirement-applications-amid-411-surge-this-week/

    Biden Unveils $2 Trillion Plan To Move US To “100% Clean Energy” By 2035
    ​This need not actually be a process of massive rebuilding and restructuring.
    What will naturally happen is the continued loss of fossil fuel energy​, SUBTRACTION​.
    Fracking won’t even be around by the 2024 elections, if they happen.
    “Collapse now; Beat the rush”, as they say.​ Biden leads the way…​
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-unveils-2-trillion-plan-move-us-100-clean-energy-2035

    ​(Disclaimer: I am a fan of face masks in public buildings and crowds, to reduce viral transmission, which Asian countries show works well.​ The point is, power elites are dividing and controlling us with blind fear.)
    ​ ​The coronavirus crisis arrived in a flash with little time to analyze exactly WTF was going on. Americans struggled to process what is real, trustworthy and authentic as the unraveling of deep political decay revealed a behind-the-scenes subterranean power struggle that has surfaced with the intent on disintegration of American Society.
    ​ ​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.
    ​ ​While the Lockdown could have been a wake up call for humanity to change its consciousness with a paradigm shift – whether it be a spiritual awakening, a political realignment or re-evaluating one’s own personal health choices, since, after all, humanity was locked in a major health crisis. And most importantly, it was an opportunity to acknowledge that the planet itself is ailing from abuse and neglect with CV as a metaphor urging a personal reconnection with Nature.

    What is the real purpose of the Lockdowns?

    #61097
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/07/cat-out-of-bag.html
    Iran Prepares Retaliation for Israeli Acts of Sabotage​, Elijah Magnier​
    Israel is trying to stimulate the many Gulf countries who are anxious to run into Israel’s arms and establish overt relationships with Israel. These Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, want Israeli support “to break Iran’s back”. That is nothing new; the Israeli-Saudi relationship dates back to the 80s. Bahrein, Qatar, and the Emirates all have established relations with Israel. However, Israel and Saudi Arabia cannot predict the Iranian reaction. Retaliation will come from the Axis of the Resistance. And it will come in an unexpected way.
    https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/iran/4285-retaliation-for-israeli-acts-of-sabotage.html

    When she was arrested, Ghislaine was living in a luxurious country house on 156 acres in a rural part of New Hampshire. She had bought the property in December for $1.07 million through a limited liability company that does not bear her name which was set up by one of her lawyers. Clearly the police knew exactly where she could be found. The house is a two-hour drive from the Canadian border, which might have been an intended refuge if she felt that the forces of law and order were moving in, but it begs the question as to why she would want to return to the U.S. at all. I rather suspect that she and her lawyers had actually been in touch with the authorities and some kind of plea bargain has been under consideration.
    ​ ​Why now? The timing would seem to relate to other developments. Only last week Federal judge Loretta Preska ruled that the documents relating to Epstein and Maxwell in the possession of litigant victim Virginia Giuffre had to be destroyed. Information about Epstein and Maxwell, extracted from a 2015 civil suit filed against Epstein by Giuffre, appear to have contained the names of individuals with whom Epstein had conducted business, both those he recorded in flagrante as well as his other clients and even his victims.
    ​ ​Preska ruled that Giuffre’s lawyers had obtained the documents improperly and ordered that all the materials in the files “shall be destroyed.” She also demanded proof that the material had been destroyed.​..
    ​ The upcoming trial could easily end relatively quickly with a toothless admission of guilt by Maxwell and a plea-bargained minimum prison sentence. All documents relating to the case, including any recordings, would be sealed, which would inter alia protect other perceived government equities, namely the prominent individuals and the spy agencies that might have been involved either as victims or perpetrators.
    ​ ​There is every indication that the Justice Department aided and abetted by the media is seeking to bury certain aspects of the Epstein case. A recent documentary on Netflix “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” carefully avoids any discussion of the likely Israeli espionage aspect of Epstein’s activities. Ghislaine’s father, who introduced Jeffrey to his daughter, was a prominent Mossad spy who received a state funeral in Israel after his mysterious death in 1991 which was attended by the prime minister as well as by all the former and serving heads of that country’s intelligence services​..​.
    ​ ​Additional confirmation of the Israeli connection comes from a recent book by former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, who claims that Epstein and partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell were engaged in blackmailing prominent politicians on behalf of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad. According to Ben-Menashe, the two had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980’s and their operation, which was funded by Mossad and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world.​..
    ​ ​Conclusive evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli or even American intelligence agent might well be derived from the former U.S. Attorney in Miami Alexander Acosta’s comments when being later cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta testified that he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”​…​ ​The simple answer just might be that Epstein was in fact an Israeli spy preying on prominent figures and anything having to do with the Jewish state, no matter how malodorous, is a political hotwire and off limits to Democrats and Republicans alike. If all of that is true, we the public will not be seeing anything like a “show trial” of Ghislaine Maxwell that reveals all and names names. She will quietly disappear into the legal system and before too long she will be out and around again, taking her secrets with her.​ Philip Giraldi​
    https://ahtribune.com/us/israelgate/4282-show-trial-of-ghislaine-maxwell.html

    #61099
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Hey, are we still doing masks today? Or are we following science and research?

    Mask Facts

    June 1 study, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.
    All of the cloth masks and materials had near zero efficiency at 0.3 µm, a particle size that easily penetrates into the lungs.”

    “Conclusion: Wearing masks will not reduce SARS-CoV-2.”

    Not “Cure”, not “Halt”, it says, “Zero.” Nada. Zip. Ziltch. No-thing. Will not REDUCE.
    Nevermind. Science. Research. Facts. I’m going to use my buffalo rattle and Raven mask with posies.

    “Florida sets record for cases”!!! We all gonna dieeeeee! (and stop conventions and elections)

    Result? 2% increase in hospitals. 100 people. In a state of 20M.

    Calc.exe say 0.0005% So please buy that lottery ticket and swim with sharks in a lightning storm.
    Panic!

    Continuing AAPS:
    “Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as personal protective equipment (PPE).

    “Masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security. If masks had been the solution in Asia, shouldn’t they have stopped the pandemic before it spread elsewhere?”

    That is, they’ve been used all over now, and also not used. Setting aside NYC which was late, no difference in states “helping” and “not helping”, or Sweden, or elsewhere. Differing results do not follow mask use that closely, or there are noticeable exceptions, just as study suggests.

    Don’t trust the research, trust the “Experts”! Obey! “Respect my auth-or-i-tie.” That is, blindly submit to any nonsense we come up with, or boot on the face, forever.

    US Kids at Higher Risk From Coronavirus Than Kids In Other Countries (CNBC)”

    True facts. However, when the risk is practically zero, slightly higher than zero is still effectively zero.
    Hey, does anyone remember the Soviets who maintained tyranny by preventing people from meeting in groups of less than ten? And tracking who talked to whom using a secret database? Good times.

    Japanese pic: 1. Don’t trust your family. 2. Never go outside. 3. Never be happy.

    “Paul Craig Roberts, who was assistant secretary to the treasury in Ronald Reagan’s administration, has announced that collapse of the US is no longer avoidable.” — Dmitry Orlov

    Yes, when a society is incapable of following facts and research but only chases fear, innuendo, and superstition, you can bet that society will collapse forthwith. But like Orlov, I’ve been saying this for years. Decades in fact. Because the one thing you learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history. You can stop it, absolutely! Nobody ever does. Tytler’s Wheel of Fortune turns on. Decadence to Servitude and Slavery as aside from truth, hard work and savings is the only enemy. It’s called “capital” as in “Capitalism” and we must burn savings and tools wherever they are found. That’s true love and compassion! That and all the areas burned are black neighborhoods and black businesses, that’s helping!
    Soooooo… They are moving to mail-in voting. It’s been a wreck, exactly as the Right predicted, cats and dogs living together, getting voter forms. But the irony here is it seems to be disenfranchising mostly minority voters. You know, like the head of the NJ NAACP? But elsewhere throughout the country too. Helping! Helping so much! We’ll help those minorities until they can’t vote at all, like back in the DNC heydays of the Jim Crow South.

    There is no level of satire or irony that can capture this anymore. If I said 70% white people burned black cities, black neighborhoods, shut down black businesses, and sectors that are primarily black jobs while preventing black voters and shooting black children, who would you think would have been responsible? Probably not “Black Lives Matter,” but here we are. No one notices. It’s racist to point it out. So that we can address and fix it and stop the active damage being done, because, you know, they are “Americans” with the rights and my duties to uphold equal law and support my neighbors and my countrymen.

    Meanwhile, the Buycott is buying in active support of something, then donating to charity. Speaking of, now all CHAZ is going to scrub off graffiti and fix all the windows, right? You know, in a biohazard suit since the streets look like San Fran? Or will they leave that to Scott Presler (R.) and the Maga-hats? Stupid question: It’s hard work, like garlic and holy water, the only thing they hate more than history. And elk, of course.

    Minneapolis just asked Trump (and me) to clean up his mess instead. I say do it with all those community service hours you get from convicting arsonists, but that’s me.

    “How do we change the leadership of our Neofeudal Nobility, the privately owned, quasi-sovereign Big Tech platforms?”

    Don’t use them if they’re evil, duh. If something hurts you and everyone, stop. Why is this so hard? If you’re going to PTA meetings and bowling…you know face-to-face, they have no idea what you’re doing, saying, buying, and have no power. So…hop toit.

    “There is no mechanism left for influencing anything in the monarchies of Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc al.” Really? Because I thought if no one uses them, they would be empty websites archived in a dark, unused server somewhere. Like Friendster and Pets.com.

    Nope! Do all the bad things, pay them all the money, and complain. Well, you’re going to collapse then, what can I say? If you’re not going to lift a finger to help yourself, why should I? Is it too much to ask you to delete a website? Can’t do that for your and all humanity’s freedom? I guess not. Yup, these people would definitely have stood up to Hitler and sacrificed all for the good guys. Absolutely. You can tell by their Nike shoes and Apple phones bought out of slave plantation, organ harvesting concentration camps in China how much they would stand up.

    #61100

    Just for the fun of it, google images of Dr. Redfield at the CDC, then google images of Wayne Carver, now deceased, who was the medical examiner at Sandy Hook.
    My thanks to “Kia Kaha” over at Rappoport’s site, June 13th.

    #61101
    zerosum
    Participant

    The worse that COVID-19 gets, the better the markets do because the Fed will bring in stimulus. That is what has been driving markets,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at NatAlliance.

    Update – come and play

    THE POKER GAME – the bid so far

    Biden – 5 million jobs – Biden Unveils $2 Trillion Plan
    Trump – 20 million.
    Covid19 – All in – “unknown pneumonia” – Youth spreaders
    IMF – ‘Equity-Like’ – MMT
    military spending package – $740.5 billion
    market – $6.5 trillion. – FED buy everything
    insurers – fold
    Steven Pinker – academicians – fold
    peace – fold
    Christopher Steele – justice – fold
    THE HOUSE – JUBILEE FOR THE SELECTED FEW – Neofeudal Nobility
    Rule of law – illusion –

    ——

    #61102
    zerosum
    Participant

    Hot Spots
    1. Education
    2. Health
    3. MMT
    4. Relationships
    ——
    I went to the restaurant for a sit down meal. Last time was 6 months ago. It felt different. It cost more.

    #61103

    The ‘masks don’t work’ thing is dangerous and complete nonsense.

    #61104
    Geppetto
    Participant

    “The ‘masks don’t work’ thing is dangerous and complete nonsense.”

    I disagree. Sounds like parroting to me? What is dangerous is people like Taleb using his credibility to influence his *followers* to a single point of view. Have you not detected more than a bit of double standard over there? The maestro can refuse *evidence* based anything. I’m cool. But I’m standing here on the face of the planet after 70 years and I never used Wolfram Mathematica on any of that journey.

    Joe Norman’s the best of the RWRI crew. He is at least feet on the REAL dirt doing his own experiment.

    Wax on wax off. Thank you Mr. Miyagi.

    #61105
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    In the early stages of the pandemic I would buy up the masks made by the neighborhood sewing circle and hand them out for free at the local one-stop-shopping mega-store. It was generally a positive experience where most were grateful for the gesture, giving them access to a protective device that was as yet difficult to find.

    Then after several weeks I noticed a change began to occur, wherein the mask took on a political rather than a medical significance. That was when I discontinued the service. It was also when other mask sources began to come online and just about everyone who wanted a mask was able to get one.

    Based on everything I’ve read, and my own gut instinct, I still trust that they are effective. Certainly not 100%, but any help is better than none. In fact, just yesterday I had to get into a car with someone who had just arrived from another region of the country. This was after enduring a sermon about how the whole country had gone crazy, and mask wearing was just another devious step in removing all our liberties. That is when I pulled out my mask a put it on. She looked over at me in disbelief and asked, “What are you wearing a mask for?”, to which I replied, “to protect you from me, and to protect me from you, since we are sharing the air in this car”. Cue the eyeroll.

    “Just for the fun of it, google images of Dr. Redfield at the CDC, then google images of Wayne Carver, now deceased, who was the medical examiner at Sandy Hook.”

    Sorry, close, but no cigar. These are not the same person.

    https://twitter.com/sweepnwin/status/1253836615212052480/photo/1

    #61106
    Geppetto
    Participant
    #61107

    Yeah. Ears, bottom lip, teeth… not the same guy, but, my goodness, they could have swapped out if needed. I wonder if they knew each other.

    Oh, sure- masks work as they are supposed to work: they alienate, subjugate, depress, inhibit breathing, suppress being heard, and brand the wearer as a true believer in the masked medical totalitarian surveillance future that is being mapped out for all of us. It will be Hell, and it will be soon. (Check out “Covid 360”).
    They just can’t block a virus. If they worked for viruses, people would have naturally gravitated to them during colds and flu seasons.
    Japan gets the flu at similar rates to maskless societies.

    #61108
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Cases Spike!

    ” Coronavirus Cases Up The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.

    The Orlando VA confirmed a similar discrepancy.

    The report also showed that the Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had a positivity rate of 76%. A spokesperson for the VA told FOX 35 News on Tuesday that this does not reflect their numbers and that the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent.

    Ah, but we can’t correct this until AFTER the GOP convention. Tsk.

    100,001st coincidence. All in the same direction.

    #61109
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Well, that’s it. We can’t trust the the official published studies of physicians and surgeons either. Science! We trust everything but the open data of published studies of certified experts that match all the previous studies.

    Following my own rule that they are adults, subset: experts, that is completely appropriate.

    #61110
    slatzman
    Participant

    masks inhibiting breathing is easily debunked. Surgeons seem to be able to wear masks for hours and hours and no one is ever falling out in the ORs from lack of oxygen. I guess the next time you need surgery, you are more than fine with a mask optional OR staff?

    See video of gentleman using a mass spec to show that O2 and CO2 level in masks just follow normal breathing patterns

    #61111
    Bill7
    Participant

    Rob Slane talking some rare sense on the Coronavirus Fear-Porn that’s *everywhere* these days,
    and its consequences:

    “In our desire to pretend death is not a thing; to put health and safety so far above the desire to live like free people; and to trust state scientists to order our lives for us, this is what we’ve become.

    A nation in psychological lockdown, unable to get back to normality, because we have accepted abnormality as a price worth paying for protecting us against a virus that is harmless to all but a few, who could have been protected but were not.

    A nation in psychological lockdown, unable to get back to normality, because we have accepted the arbitrary, unscientific diktats of a Government that spooked millions, and are now ready to accept their every imposition in the name of being kept safe.

    A nation in psychological lockdown, in denial about the tsunami of job losses, business closures, resultant increase in poverty, resultant decrease in life expectancy awaiting us, and yet utterly unable to accept that it was not the virus that did it, but the disproportionate response..”

    Psychologically Locked Down

    One of the best conter-Narrative pieces I’ve seen.

    -Bill7

    #61113
    maryballon
    Participant

    From the widely respected voice of Dr Mercola:
    Why the Rise in COVID-19 Cases Is Irresponsibly Misleading
    Isn’t it obvious that counting cases is a function of the number of tests being done and the finding that being “positive” means very little. Please stop this fixation with numbers Raul.
    Two things are driving the numbers of positive tests skyward, yet neither suggest an impending onslaught of deaths may be around the corner. In fact, the most recent data is good news and reinforces the idea that the fatality rate is no longer cause for panic.
    https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/07/14/coronavirus-death-curve.aspx?cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20200714Z1&mid=healthrtlucm20200714z1&rid=916194116

    #61114
    zerosum
    Participant

    Recovery
    the act or process of recovering. …the act or process of returning to a normal state after a period of difficulty. …. the return of something that has been lost, stolen, etc.

    Recovery implies going back to the way it used to be before covid

    Its a lie. Its misdirection to use the word “recovery”.
    Why not tell the truth. We are never going back.
    We at TAE don’t believe the lie of “recovery”.
    Its starting to look like that those who were in hospital with covid19 are not going to return to a normal state
    Yesterday is gone.

    #61115
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    Steamboat Trips Jr

    It’s quite telling that someone has to barge-pole this virus back into the main flow of the river once a week.

    #61116
    Geppetto
    Participant

    So Slatzman. If we put an obstruction( like a mask?) in front of a an airflow orifice(like a mouth?) the volume of air flow will be the same as without? Basic fluid dynamics would say no. So can you compare the flimsy flat and leaky non conformal masks that the surgeons wear to a tight fitting high filtration mask like a quality N95 ? Do they flow the same? No they don’t . I gave my wife a tight fitting brand new N95 for her first Covid locked down grocery store visit. She had to sit down in the aisle just short of passing out. Compare apples to oranges at your own peril.

    Zerosum. “….starting to look like that those who were in hospital with covid19 are not going to return to a normal state”. Geez man! Why go there? Who can predict the future perfectly? So a person is 35 years old Covid *case* and you say with *expert* authority that that person will for the rest of their life (40-50 years??) never ever again meet your idea of ‘normal’…or your idea of ‘recovered’. Here in lies the bigger problem than Covid. Someone else KNOWS what is best for me. See above.

    #61117
    zerosum
    Participant

    Geppetto

    Nope. Its not my opinion.
    I’m just repeating what I read, what they are saying in the news.
    Time will tell who is lying.

    #61118

    Wearing a mask doesn’t need a “scientistic” study to say it inhibits breathing. Put one on. If you feel no airflow restriction, good for you. You are wearing a badge, not a prophylactic.
    Surgical masks have NOTHING to do with viral exchanges.
    As for the composition of O2 and CO2 behind “a” mask- why would that change? If you have a capacious space behind it, it would most certainly accumulate CO2, leading to feelings of anxiety and panic.

    I just saw that children over two need to wear masks in my area. This is child abuse. The early years are when a child learns if the face matches the words and attitude. It would be more effective to use the wretched thing as a blindfold if mangling the psychology of a child is what we’re after.
    Lockdowns, “social distancing”, isolation, and masks, etc cause depression. Read ANYTHING about it. We’re making a future [that will be] filled with narcissistic, self-absorbed, neurotic “citizens”.

    It’s clear we love the virus so much we don’t want to see it go away. “Slow down the spread?” WHY?
    The totalitarians can use any virus- it doesn’t have to be “Covid” brand. And they will.
    We are no longer basing all this on compassion. It’s about control- the magic juice of bad actors everywhere.

    “Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the CDC’s COVID-19 response, said they do not recommend face coverings for children under the age of 2 “because of concerns about suffocation.”” Star Tribune May 26, 2020.
    Hmmmm.

    #61119
    Geppetto
    Participant

    Zerosum

    Roger, understood, Sorry I meant ‘you’ in the broader rhetorical sense

    #61120
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://news.yahoo.com/brazils-bolsonaro-fed-quarantine-virus-test-012124265.html
    Brazil’s Bolsonaro fed up with quarantine, to take new virus test
    July 13, 2020

    During his weekly Facebook Live post last Thursday, Bolsonaro said that after feeling unwell, he had started taking one hydroxychloroquine tablet every day.

    The drug, originally tested to fight malaria, has been pushed as a treatment for COVID-19 in many countries — but its effectiveness has not been formally proven and the issue is deeply dividing the global scientific community.

    “I took (hydroxychloroquine) and it worked, and I’m fine, thank God. And let those who criticize it at least offer an alternative,” he said during the Facebook Live.

    #61121
    cloudhidden
    Participant

    I see a lot of anti-mask sentiment in the comments here today. It is quite true, masks won’t protect you very much. The point is that they DO protect others. Same as covering you nose/mouth when you sneeze.Did you not learn that when you were a kid? My wife’s sister is a senior ministry of health official in an Eastern European country that was an early adopter of precautions. They have experienced a quite low rate of transmission and deaths because of widespread acceptance of those precautions. (death rate of 33 per million population) It has been noted there that when their precautions are relaxed, cases and deaths increase noticeably. We get the medical information from her as family without the political slant.
    Also those who are nay-sayers, pointing to the high number of cases vs deaths in the world in general are incorrectly focused on a “recovery or death” situation. However, it is now becoming apparent that there are large numbers of down-the-road consequences. Here’s a link that explains some of those currently known https://elemental.medium.com/every-covid-19-symptom-we-know-about-right-now-from-head-to-toe-bd1d47584096
    Personally I don’t like wearing a mask, but do so when in public in order to protect my neighbours. I wear latex gloves to protect myself. It’s no big deal. Lest you might think I am buying the political line, not so. If asked to label myself, I would gravitate towards libertarian. Taking precautions against a disease that we still know little about (maybe by design) is small cost in my way of thinking.
    I don’t care what others may think (assume ) are my motives. As for avoiding groups and gatherings, again, no problem. I am happy with my own company, and run a small business that requires little in person interaction with others.
    Hard to fight the system if you are dead or incapacitated.

    #61122
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    For some, seeing is not believing.

    Look at the data.

    The data shows lower transmission rates in countries with widespread use of masks. What do you attribute that to? Dumb luck?

    Masks help because they train people not to touch their faces. They help because they reduce the amount of virus expelled into the air. The amount of virus you are exposed to is one of the key factors affecting whether you get sick, and if you do get sick, how sick.

    #61123
    Bill7
    Participant

    First linked piece- ‘Pandemic may get Worse and Worse and Worse™’:

    Not sure how this kind of fear-mongering piece benefits anyone other than the Few.. yes, it could get mcWorse; especially
    if that further benefits the elites, who’ve already been enriched by around a half-a-trilion dollars since this mcCrisis began
    (someone tell me how that works, exactly?); but is it not at least equally likely that the Plandemic will *ease* in its real
    characteristics, as opposed to its online ones? Put more simply: who here has *firsthand, verified* experience with
    this purported bane-of-man’s existence? Anyone at all? Not “I read somewhere..” or “my Aunt’s best friend said..”

    Thanks.

    -Bill7

    PS: It’s all gotten-to, now.

    #61124
    Bill7
    Participant

    > My wife’s sister is a senior ministry of health official

    Odd how the info is *always* thirdhand.

    so gotten-to..

    -Bill7

    #61125
    slatzman
    Participant

    Gepetto, i mucked my house after a hurricane in September Houston weather (got all the hot and humid you want together). I had dozens of volunteers in my house and thousands in my neighborhood. We all wore N95’s, i have zero knowledge of a single person in my area that had breathing issues or passed out from strenuous work while wearing an N95.

    I don’t know anything about your wifes health, so cannot compare her to the first hand experience I have of long hours of exertion wearing an N95.

    @myparnentssaid know I encourage you to finish watching the video I linked. He tests multiple styles of masks, also point out the relative size of O2 and CO2 molecules let them freely exchange in and out of masks. Air molecules are more than two orders of magnitude smaller than the covid virus.

    #61126
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @Bill7 re: who else

    I don’t have a large group of friends/family from which to get info, but there are trickles:

    1) My mother, 72, 2x cancer survivor, life-long allergy/asthma sufferer – She got the bug last Nov while on a 3-week river cruise in Netherlands. She was in bed 2 of the 3 weeks of the cruise, horrible pneumonia that as recurred once since she returned. Doctors are concerned about ‘strange spots’ on her lungs. For whatever reason, her doctors have not tested her. It hasn’t incapacitated her, she’s still active in the garden, travels to her mountain retreat with her cat twice a month.

    2) My brother, 50, life-long allergy/asthma sufferer with psych-related stress issues – He cohabits with mom, and got the germ from her. Bedridden for almost a month. Now recovered, and went on a huge hike to a 2900m peak the other day.

    3) My cousin, 35, very obese, living in NYC – He and his house-mates suspect they had it, said it was bad, everyone in the house apparently recovered.

    4) Random old lady, 70, hiker/outdoorsy type – Met her on a mountain trail, said she had it and was ‘tested to confirm’, and said “It’s bad, you don’t want it.”

    My wife and I probably had it early last year, or had a very similar virus. Also, had ‘off-the-scale flu’ 2+ years ago. Wife passed out from fever in the bathroom. I became nearly delirious, required her care/attention for a day.

    #61127
    Mr. House
    Participant

    #61128
    John Day
    Participant

    Special Mask-Day Edition:
    @Dr. D. Theory and practice are the same… in theory …, but not in practice
    Viral particles are small, and they can float in the air a long time and fly through masks because of it, but they almost never do, because they are on teeny-tiny little drops of spittle people exhale and cannot get off of them They have no intentional action, either, which I like. All you have to do to catch the little electron-microscope-visible virions is to catch the microscopic drops of spittle, which are like Gilligan’s Island to them.
    It’s as easy as fishing with dynamite!

    I started Med School in 1982. I’ve worn masks a lot since then, lots of different masks, and now those special plastic face shields that always seem like Mandalorian armor to me (Hi , Boba Fett!)
    Who remembers the huge damned constitutional controversy about requiring manufacturers to INSTALL seat belts in cars, not merely offer them as an option!
    Do you recall how hot under the collar the grown-ups got about that? My grown ups were basically in favor of it, because of little me, and little Robert and Tom and Vickie. They made us pee before we got in the car, and strap-in before Dad turned the ignition key.
    There was a dead-cat-bounce of that for requiring people to wear them by law, but the state had an interest in avoiding orphans and medical bills.
    I may have been primed for mask-tolerance, even before mask-tolerance was inculcated into me, because I went to high school in Yokohama and rode trains about 3 hours per day. Japanese wear masks like Californians wear light jackets, anytime, whenever, especially on the trains.
    I’m just not being made to lick the fresh shit off the bottom of a stiletto spike heeled boot worn by Frank-N-Furter to wear a mask as a basic public-health measure.
    I wear masks all day, whenever at work, and I used to wear them in the OR when I did c-sections and deliveries and scrubbed on other surgeries.
    The mask should never be your focus. It’s just there between important things, not an important thing, just a mobile filtration unit for random contagion.
    Masks make the inside of my nose itch, especially when those little filtration fibers are looe and tickly up my nostrils, where the drip is trying to drip out. All that stuff only bothers me when I’m not focused on caring for a patient, when I’m clicking boxes and typing text on my computer and I want a quick snack that’s right there, but what a bother…
    N-95 masks do have bit more flow resistance, and they make me itch and sweat where they seal around my face. Do you smother at night when you sleep face-down? Not unless you have sleep apnea, you don’t. Your brain has a respiratory center, which senses both oxygen and CO2 levels, and adjusts your respiratory drive, so you breathe deeper, use your chest muscles some. Things like that. Progesterone, the “hormone of pregnancy” stimulates the respiratory center, too, because breathing-for-two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBff-cStE4
    This ain’t the first rodeo for your amazing human body!
    You’ll be ok.
    Focus on important things you have to do today.
    You don’t have to convince anybody. They’re having a hard day with cognitive-dissonance.

    #61129
    Bill7
    Participant

    Commenter mpsk said: “The totalitarians can use any virus- it doesn’t have to be “Covid” brand. And they will.
    We are no longer basing all this on compassion. It’s about control- the magic juice of bad actors everywhere.”

    Hear, hear! Odd that so many- most everyone, in fact- either can’t or *won’t* see this..

    It’s all gotten-to.

    PS- Thomas J Kenney: thanks for those examples.

    -Bill7

    #61130
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Hear, hear! Odd that so many- most everyone, in fact- either can’t or *won’t* see this..

    What I find odd is that it is mostly the North Americans, or a subset of them, who frame this as an issue of tyranny and totalitarianism, and who seek to subvert measures that doctors and public health authorities recommend. I do not see that reaction throughout the rest of the world — at least not as strongly as I see it in North America. Is the rest of the world wrong? Misguided? Oblivious? Clueless? Blind? Is it only in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the last free country on earth, the city shining on a hill, that clear-minded individuals can see what is really at stake — the end of liberty? And masks are really the new chains, a modern form of enslavement?

    #61131
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Is it only in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the last free country on earth, the city shining on a hill, that clear-minded individuals can see what is really at stake — the end of liberty? And masks are really the new chains, a modern form of enslavement?

    LOL! Alas, it would seem so……………… 😉

    #61132
    Geppetto
    Participant

    Re: Mask controversy,
    I thought the article Dr. D linked to was informative. Did confirm some of my ideas, beliefs and bias so I’m sure it was a set up for those of us who foolishly beat to a different drummer. Article was prob foisted but some Sino-Russian trolls? Hahahaha!

    Did appreciate Dr. John’s attempt to inject some humor ! Hahahahahaha!

    🙂

    #61133
    Archie
    Participant

    Thank you John. You sir, are a true gentleman and a TAE treasure.

    #61134
    Bill7
    Participant

    Boogaloo said: > What I find odd is that it is mostly the North Americans, or a subset of them, who frame this as an issue of tyranny and totalitarianism, and who seek to subvert measures that doctors and public health authorities recommend. I do not see that reaction throughout the rest of the world — at least not as strongly as I see it in North America.

    Mmm, that’s not what I’m seeing, at all. Are you familiar with what’s happening in Eastern Europe, for just one example?

    -Bill7

    #61135
    Bill7
    Participant

    Mr. House: Great image you posted! Obey- Consume- Conform- Submit [and above all, show your total submission by wearing your muzzle..]

    I’m a little amused, also, by those who tell us “Stay Home! Wear a Mask! , and then don’t do either.. 😉

    -Bill7

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