Oct 142020
 
 October 14, 2020  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Giotto Legend of St Francis, Renunciation of Wordly Goods c.1297-1299

 

Google Researcher Warns Google May Be ‘Shifting Power’ to Flip Senate (NB)
Russia Health Watchdog: Shutting Down Economy For COVID19 is Pointless (RT)
UK Hospitality Firms Threaten Legal Action Over Lockdown (BBC)
Dutch PM Closes Pubs, Restaurants, Cafes As Coronavirus Cases Rise (RT)
Northern Ireland To Impose ‘Circuit Breaker’ Lockdown For 4 Weeks (Sky)
Johnson, Grassley Press FBI For All McCabe Texts (Fox)
FBI Used Media Reports Seeded By Steele To ‘Corroborate’ Anti-Trump Dossier (RT)
Consortium News Sues Canadian TV Network for Defamation (CN)
The Barbarians Are Threatening Us! (Crooke)
Fifth of Countries At Risk Of Ecosystem Collapse – Swiss Re (G.)

 

 

Lockdowns are all the fad again. They shouldn’t be, and this won’t end well. Give people N95 masks and vitamin D instead and let them live.

 

 

Let’s say: Interesting. It’s like a silent form of propaganda.

Google Researcher Warns Google May Be ‘Shifting Power’ to Flip Senate (NB)

The social media researcher who warned about Google’s power to shift the election said that the company may be focusing on a new solution: the United States Senate. Dr. Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, told the Media Research Center that Google is “now focusing most of their vote shifting power on the Senate races, where big-margin outcomes will be hard to contest.” Thirty-five seats in the Senate are up for election on Nov. 3, 2020. Out of those races, 23 seats currently belong to Republicans. Epstein theorized that Google had the power to “mobilize the base supporters of Democratic candidates to register to vote and then to vote; they can discourage some Republican voters from registering to vote or voting.”


He wrote that the company had “at least 9 million undecided voters they can still play with.” A Google search not affiliated with an account shows the search bar auto-completes certain terms with “senate.” When a user types in “flip the,” “senate” shows up three times.

More references to flipping auto-populate with “senate.”

Searches that involve the term “democrat” also auto-complete with “flip the senate.” In addition, when it comes to a search with the term “Mitch,” the first name of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Google auto-completes with “vote mitch mcconnell out.”

The official Google blog stated, “How do we determine these predictions? We look at the real searches that happen on Google and show common and trending ones relevant to the characters that are entered and also related to your location and previous searches.” However, a look at Google Trends shows that interest in the term “flip the senate” has been in steady decline since September 26. A report in Psychology Today noted that “Trump has generated by far the most search interest both nationally, and in each and every state.” However, Epstein countered Psychology Today’s statement by saying, “Google controls people’s perceptions about what kind of search activity is occurring. They have complete control over the numbers they display.


And while it should surprise no one that Trump generates a lot of online activity, we’re only aware of those big numbers (if they’re even real) because Google wants us to be aware of them.” Eight Republican-held Senate seats, according to USA Today, have the potential to flip. Google has the power, said Epstein, to be “personalizing the content of newsfeeds, search suggestions, search results, answer boxes, and other ephemeral content.” These actions could direct specific kinds of people to register to vote, to goad unwilling voters into voting, and convince specific kinds of people not to vote.

Read more …

“Despite the fact that we see a growth in cases, today, in Russia, we are not talking about blocking the economy,” Popova said. “We do not see any point in it.”

Russia Health Watchdog: Shutting Down Economy For COVID19 is Pointless (RT)

The top official at Russia’s state health watchdog believes that there is no point in suspending the economy to fight coronavirus. Anna Popova’s comments came after the Kremlin said a second lockdown isn’t even being considered. Speaking at a coronavirus event at well-known university RANEPA, on Tuesday, Rospotrebnadzor boss Anna Popova explained that Russia has quite a low rate of Covid-19 per capita, and therefore there is no sense in taking drastic measures. Currently, there are few restrictions in the world’s largest country with bars, restaurants, and shops open as usual. “Despite the fact that we see a growth in cases, today, in Russia, we are not talking about blocking the economy,” Popova said. “We do not see any point in it.”

In addition, she noted that Covid-19 testing has not dropped off at any point, even during the summer. Statistics from the country’s official coronavirus center show that Russia has carried out over 51 million tests, fourth globally, behind the three most populated countries, China, the US, and India. According to Popova, over the last week, the average daily rate for new coronavirus cases is eight per 100,000 people. This is much better than in other countries such as Israel (54), France (28), and the Netherlands (27), which are all more than three times worse.

Earlier this year, in the spring, the country saw some of the world’s strictest measures, with Moscow residents being restricted from leaving their apartments for anything other than food, medical help, or walking a dog. The restrictions were partially lifted on June 16, with cafes and restaurants being allowed to open terraces. With many business owners still battling the consequences of Russia’s lockdown, another closure of the economy could be a hammer blow. Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed the need for Russians to wear masks and comply with all measures, warning that numbers will rise if citizens refuse to follow the rules. Previously, Peskov had denied that a second lockdown was even being considered.

Read more …

Kill the pubs!

UK Hospitality Firms Threaten Legal Action Over Lockdown (BBC)

The UK hospitality industry has said it will take legal action to stop new local lockdown rules that could force pub, clubs and other venues to close. Trade body the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) said there was no evidence that hospitality venues contributed to the spread of Covid-19. It comes as the government prepares to unveil new restrictions for England. NTIA boss Michael Kill said the hospitality industry had been left with “no other option”. “These new measures will have a catastrophic impact on late night businesses, and are exacerbated further by an insufficient financial support package presented by the chancellor in an attempt to sustain businesses through this period,” he said.


“This next round of restrictions are hugely disproportionate and unjust, with no scientific rationale or correlation to Public Health England transmission rates, when compared to other key environments.” The Liverpool City Region is expected to face the tightest restrictions under a new “three tier” system, which will classify regions as being at a “medium,” “high” or “very high” level of alert. In the most infectious areas, pubs, bars and other hospitality and leisure businesses are likely to be forced to close, as has happened in parts of Scotland. The chancellor has promised to pay two-thirds of workers’ wages if employers have to shut. But some fear this will not be enough and there could still be an impact on jobs, said Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of business lobby group the CBI.

Read more …

Mandatory non-medical masks. Which make no difference. How do these people hang on to their jobs despite their glaring failures? Well, by blaming everybody but themselves.

Dutch PM Closes Pubs, Restaurants, Cafes As Coronavirus Cases Rise (RT)

Bars, restaurants and cafes in the Netherlands will close their doors as the Dutch government tries to control the spread of Covid-19. Unlike many of its European neighbors, the Netherlands has thus far avoided harsh lockdowns. Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced the “partial lockdown” on Tuesday evening, after health officials in the Netherlands reported a record 7,393 new cases of Covid-19 that day. A total of 43,903 new infections were recorded in the preceding week, along with 150 deaths. The new measures, which come into effect on Wednesday, will see all bars, restaurants and cafes close, and the sale of alcohol banned after 8pm. In addition, the wearing of face masks will be mandatory in all indoor spaces.


Rutte’s government has held off on some of the harsher lockdown measures imposed in other European countries since the pandemic began. Masks were only mandatory on public transport, and bars and hospitality venues operated as usual – albeit with some social distancing measures, and contact tracing forms given to customers. These rules tightened somewhat late last month, with restaurants and bars in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague ordered to close by 10pm, and workers in these cities advised to do their jobs remotely if possible. “It hurts, but it’s the only way,” Rutte said of the new restrictions on Tuesday. “We have to be stricter.” The Netherlands has so far recorded nearly 190,000 cases of Covid-19, and more than 6,600 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Read more …

Partial lockdown, circuit breaker lockdown, fancy terms.

Northern Ireland To Impose ‘Circuit Breaker’ Lockdown For 4 Weeks (Sky)

Northern Ireland is set to become the first part of the UK to impose a “circuit breaker” lockdown. Tighter restrictions will be in place for four weeks – with schools closing for two of them, Sky News understands. According to the PA news agency, the new measures will mean pubs and restaurants have to close, with the exception of takeaways. PA said closures of hospitality outlets would begin on Friday 16 October, and other measures from Monday 19 October. Current restrictions on household mixing were expected to remain unchanged. Retail outlets are expected to remain open, as well as churches and gyms for individual training.


First Minister Arlene Foster will address the Stormont Assembly later today, following a meeting of the Stormont executive that extended into the early hours of this morning. After the executive meeting concluded, Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill tweeted to say “painstaking consideration” had been given to the “next steps”. She wrote: “We know this is hard and that people will be worried about their livelihoods, but we will do everything we possibly can to make sure there are protections in place for businesses, workers and families.”

Read more …

Trump should have ordered declassification outright.

Johnson, Grassley Press FBI For All McCabe Texts (Fox)

Top Senate Republicans investigating the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe are pressing the bureau to produce all text messages belonging to former deputy director Andrew McCabe, calling the delay “unacceptable.” In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, demanded that the FBI turn over the documents, noting that their production would be responsive to a subpoena issued by Johnson’s committee in August.

“As you know, on August 6, 2020, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee subpoenaed the FBI for all records related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which requires that records actually be produced to the Committee, not merely made available for review in a reading room,” they wrote. “We have waited nearly 70 days to receive these text messages, and when records were actually produced, we received only 8 percent of what we know exists.” They added: “It is simply unacceptable that we have waited so long to receive so little.” Johnson and Grassley said the text messages belonging to McCabe that the FBI did produce “include notable information that is highly relevant to several aspects of the Committees’ oversight efforts.”

One aspect the committee is investigating involves records made public last week by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s purported “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public form her use of a private email server” ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The documents, which were first reported and exclusively obtained by Fox News, included Brennan’s handwritten notes — which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received — and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok for potential investigative action.

“We have made a public commitment to determine and reveal the full extent of official investigative and intelligence action taken by federal officials against the Trump campaign, its presidential transition, and into the administration,” the senators wrote, adding that the information that has already been made public “reveals what might be the most outrageous abuse of power in U.S. history against a presidential candidate and sitting president.”

Read more …

Someone investigate the media’s role.

FBI Used Media Reports Seeded By Steele To ‘Corroborate’ Anti-Trump Dossier (RT)

The FBI sought to ‘verify’ information in the notorious dossier at the heart of Russiagate by using media articles seeded by the actual dossier author, British spy Christopher Steele, the newly released evidence has shown. The so-called Steele Dossier is the centerpiece of ‘Russiagate,’ the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump “colluded” with Moscow in the 2016 US presidential election. The dossier’s most bombastic claim was that Russia had “kompromat” on him in the form of sex tapes from a Moscow hotel involving urinating prostitutes. Steele compiled the dossier for Fusion GPS, a DC-based firm paid by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through the DNC. The FBI then used it to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page in October 2016, and extended it three times well into 2017.

A 94-page spreadsheet made public on Monday, however, shows the FBI relied heavily on media reports to corroborate Steele’s claims – in many cases, the very same reports Steele had planted himself. According to analyst Stephen McIntyre, footnotes listed in the spreadsheet show that 39 percent of the footnotes lead to Washington, DC media outlets, another 29 percent are redacted, and Steele himself was cited on 18 occasions, somehow self-verifying his own work. In one instance, McIntyre notes, the FBI triple counted an article from the Daily Beast as three separate sources. Other media outlets named in the document are CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News and Mother Jones.

The FBI had actually decided to fire Steele as a paid informant in September 2016 – before obtaining the Page warrant – because he leaked to the media, specifically Yahoo and Mother Jones, but that never raised any red flags either with the warrant or the corroboration, apparently. Moreover, the Bureau knew in December 2016 that the “primary sub-source” (PSS) for the dossier was a Russian national they had investigated as a foreign agent in 2009, but the investigation was abandoned without explanation and this fact was never flagged. Even after interviewing the PSS in January 2017, and establishing that most of the dossier was fabricated outright, the FBI continued to use it at the FISA court to extend the Page warrant.

Read more …

It doesn’t only happen in the US: “Global received the storyline from CSE and then consciously regurgitated the preconceived narrative that it knew to be false.”

Just mention Russia and you’re good to go.

Consortium News Sues Canadian TV Network for Defamation (CN)

Consortium News has sued the Canadian TV network Global News for defamation in federal court in Virginia over a report that said CN was part of an “attack” and a “cyber influence” campaign “directed” by Moscow against a Canadian leader. The lawsuit accuses the Corus Entertainment-owned network of entering into a business conspiracy with the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE)–Canada’s NSA—to “link …critics” of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to “’Russia’ as a way of discrediting those critics and protecting themselves.” The suit says: “Global received the storyline from CSE and then consciously regurgitated the preconceived narrative that it knew to be false. In its quest to paint Plaintiff as a ‘Russian collaborator’, Global abandoned journalistic integrity and ethics, misrepresented the content of CN’s articles, and applied false labels to Plaintiff.”

In January Consortium News sent libel notices to both Global News and the CSE, demanding an apology and retraction of any mention of CN in Global News’s Dec. 10, 2019 on-line article and video reports. The CSE did not respond to the notice. Global News refused to retract all mention of CN from the article or to apologize. Global News did not contact Consortium News for comment before it published its article and broadcast two TV reports. Instead, two months after the Global News reports appeared—and after receiving the libel notice—Global News attached an editor’s note to its article, which is still on-line. It says: “Editor’s Note – Subsequent to the publication of this article, Consortium News advised Global News it disputes statements about it referred to in the CSE document that are reported on in the article.“

Consortium News has told Global News it denies any implication it is ‘an organ of or directed by the Russian government’ and says it is an independent news source.” CN informed Global News that the editor’s note coming after publication was insufficient and insisted that without a retraction and apology it would pursue litigation. Citing case law, the suit filed on Tuesday states that “a clear evasion from the truth and the failure to interview an important witness, who was easily accessible, supports a finding of actual malice.” The lawsuit says: “The focal point of Global’s accusations was an article published in February 2017 in Virginia by Plaintiff and false accusations that Plaintiff – a Virginia corporation – is linked to Russia and knowingly published Russian propaganda to harm the reputation of Freeland.”

Read more …

“The values of the Millennial and Gen Z generations that will dominate in the years ahead are the opposite of Boomer values..”

The Barbarians Are Threatening Us! (Crooke)

Now, as we enter the final month of the U.S. election, the expected climax to long-buried animosities is at hand. It is unlikely to be brief or decisive. The internal convulsions of the U.S. however, are one thing. But the implosion of social trust in the U.S. is radiating out, and its effects are radiating out across the globe. If the imprecarity of our times – compounded by the virus – is making us nervous and tense, it may be because we intuit that a way-of-life, a way-of-economics, too, is coming to its end. The fear of social upheaval sows distrust. It can produce the spiritual state that Emile Durkheim called anomie, a feeling of being disconnected from society; a conviction that the world around one is illegitimate and corrupt; that you are invisible – a ‘number’; a helpless object of hostile repression, imposed by ‘the system’; a feeling that nobody is to be trusted.

Russian nineteenth century literature, including novels by Dostoevsky, chronicled how such feelings amongst the children of the Russian well-to-do could evolve into burning hatred. This hatred extended to nail-bombs hurled into smart cafés, in order “to see how the foul bourgeois will squirm in death agony”. The West’s post-war era largely was defined by the ‘Woodstock’ generation: an era in which the rich (white) 20% of the globe lived in a consumer paradise of choice and over-consumption, whilst the 80% non-white, did not. That generation lived at a period of relative cultural cohesion and social stability – and rarely was called upon to make sacrifice or to endure hardship. It was the era of one ‘easy-decision’ after the other, building up to an ethos that put personal liberty above every other value, including social obligation.

The emerging generations of today, David Brooks argues in The Atlantic, “enjoy none of that sense of security. They grew up in a world in which institutions failed, financial systems collapsed, and families were fragile. Yet human beings need a basic sense of security in order to thrive, as the political scientist Ronald F. Inglehart puts it: their “values and behaviour are shaped by the degree to which survival is secure””. “The values of the Millennial and Gen Z generations that will dominate in the years ahead are the opposite of Boomer values: not liberation, but security; not freedom, but equality; not individualism, but the safety of the collective; not sink-or-swim meritocracy, but promotion on the basis of social justice… Distrustful people try to make themselves invulnerable, armour themselves up in a sour attempt to feel safe… start to see threats that aren’t there.”

Read more …

Ecosystems don’t recognize borders.

Fifth of Countries At Risk Of Ecosystem Collapse – Swiss Re (G.)

One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re. Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity. More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing. Countries including Australia, Israel and South Africa rank near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, with India, Spain and Belgium also highlighted. Countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged up.

Countries including Brazil and Indonesia had large areas of intact ecosystems but had a strong economic dependence on natural resources, which showed the importance of protecting their wild places, Swiss Re said. “A staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services,” said Swiss Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry. “If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,” said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research.

Jeffrey Bohn, Swiss Re’s chief research officer, said: “This is the first index to our knowledge that pulls together indicators of biodiversity and ecosystems to cross-compare around the world, and then specifically link back to the economies of those locations.” The index was designed to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses but Bohn said it could have a wider use as it “allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making”. The Swiss Re index is built on 10 key ecosystem services identified by the world’s scientists and uses scientific data to map the state of these services at a resolution of one square kilometre across the world’s land.

The services include provision of clean water and air, food, timber, pollination, fertile soil, erosion control, and coastal protection, as well as a measure of habitat intactness. Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing. Just one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of their country area. Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle October 14 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 43 total)
  • Author
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  • #64385

    Giotto Legend of St Francis, Renunciation of Wordly Goods c.1297-1299   • Google Researcher Warns Google May Be ‘Shifting Power’ to Flip Senate (
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 14 2020]

    #64386
    generic
    Participant

    I’m not inclined to be one of those passive obedient serfs that feels compelled to vote for either Trump or Biden. Those two cons are engaged in the degradation of the nation and its future.

    So I intend to write-in Lincoln Chafee for president and Tulsi Gabbard for vice president.

    Chafee was the captain of the wrestling team at Brown University. Even though he had a somewhat privileged upbringing, he decided to become a farrier, went off to learn the trade in Montana, and worked at shoeing horses for seven years. The blacksmith work and dealing with uncooperative horses can be hard physical labor. There is also danger in working under a horse, particularly young race horses. He knows what it’s like to struggle with the risks running an independent small business.

    I think of him as something of a man’s man. By contrast, prissy Trump is devoid of any characteristics of manhood.

    Chafee served in politics as a mayor, a US senator, and governor of Rhode Island. Voting for any presidential candidate with no experience in the national legislature is usually a bad idea, but Chafee has the legislative experience and executive experience as well. He’s soft spoken and not a great speaker. Chafee is somewhat awkward when required to do self promotion, which is so unlike Trump who does very little else than shameless self promotion. Chafee is not a standard political ideologue, which accounts for him running for office as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, and a Libertarian. His rejection by the corrupt political bureaucracies makes him appealing to me. He thinks for himself.

    Chafee questioned the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the invasion of Iraq because he was the only Republican senator with any common sense. We have a long list of Democrats who voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq, showing that they were totally lacking in common sense and should never be given any position of responsibility. Prominent on that list are the names of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Joe Biden.

    Tulsi Gabbard is probably the most hated of candidates as viewed by the Democratic Party bureaucracy. She has been effectively kicked out of the party, just like Dennis Kucinich. Her most emphasized position is one of non-intervention. This is anathema to the Democratic and Republican Parties which are populated with chicken-hawks thoroughly infected with neoconservative lust for war.

    Gabbard is heavily criticized for talking to Bashar al-Assad. The US has talked to worse characters than that, and to the advantage of the US. Assad complains rightly about the Sykes Picot agreement leaving him with a nation that is close to ungovernable and requiring the heavy hand of government to maintain order. The British and French created many irresponsible and disastrous situations at the end of WWI to gain their own short term “spheres of influence.”

    The world needs much more talking and far less war. Gabbard shows real backbone on this and other issues, and that’s inspiring to see. If Gabbard could get a few years of solid experience in the executive branch and gain a deeper understanding of the issues, she might make an exceptional president one day.

    Russia undoubtedly has many internal problems. Never the less, Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov are the only two world leaders I see trying to act like real statesmen on the world stage. Why can’t the US produce statesmen any more? Hillary and Pompeo?…frauds.

    I knew twenty years ago that I would never vote for Hillary, Trump, or Biden for president because they are not even the crudest approximation of presidential material. They are viewed around the world as a sign of the collapse of governance indicating that the US is a failed state on a downward trajectory. Electing Biden or Trump is a form of national suicide.

    Now, I’m aware that “honest politician” is an oxymoron. But Chafee and Gabbard are the finest examples of common sense, honesty, integrity, maturity, and decency as can be expected to come out of Washington at the present. Those are certainly rare traits in the political leadership today. Chafee and Gabbard are not great experts in military affairs, economics, technology, health care, and so forth, and I don’t know what kind of policies they might pursue. To my continuing frustration, there hasn’t been a competent honest president in the White House in my adult lifetime. So I’m looking around for the candidates with the best character I can find. Right now, that’s Lincoln Chafee and Tulsi Gabbard.

    (I see a number of claims that there will be great civil unrest if either Trump or Biden wins. So to avoid a civil war, don’t vote for Trump or Biden.)

    #64389
    John Day
    Participant

    @Generic et al: I voted for Tulsi Gabbard for President about 5:50 yesterday afternoon, after standing in a long snaking line in the shade for a little over an hour and a half. Why did I do that? There were 2 places to vote early on my hour bike ride home, and the first one had long snaking lines through a sunny parking lot, so I rode to the second one, with the shade of oak trees.
    Otherwise, my reasoning is similar to yours.
    I am now done with that. I suspect a lot of the other people in line wanted to be done with that.
    I wore my Chairman Mao t-shirt from China. I saw an Ozzie for President T-shirt, and a pretty good Grateful Dead t-shirt with a skeletal Uncle Sam riding a chopper. Everybody was pleasant and polite.
    At least 2/3 of the machines had nobody voting. The bottleneck was at the ID and sign-in stations, just 2 of them. The elderly black lady who told everybody in line how to do it from time to time was the more efficient. Nobody knew how to do a write-in when I asked, but they found out, and told me, and it was easy. I had not done it before. I was going to write-in Cynthia McKinney for VP, but it would still have been the same vote on the same line, my protest-vote.

    #64390
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you hear an echo?

    • The Barbarians Are Threatening Us! (Crooke)

    “…. we intuit that a way-of-life, a way-of-economics, too, is coming to its end.
    The fear of social upheaval sows distrust. It can produce the spiritual state that Emile Durkheim called anomie, a feeling of being disconnected from society; a conviction that the world around one is illegitimate and corrupt; that you are invisible – a ‘number’; a helpless object of hostile repression, imposed by ‘the system’; a feeling that nobody is to be trusted.”
    “…. those states who disagree with you are not just wrong, but illegitimate and always threatening. They are the barbarians beyond the city walls.”

    #64391
    tony smyth
    Participant

    “Mandatory non-medical masks. Which make no difference”. Where do you get this from? They may not be perfect but these masks work if EVERYONE wears them. Lots of countries have done this and kept their corona numbers low. Here in Tokyo there were 155 new cases yesterday, in a city of up to 16 million in daytime ( maybe less now due to some working at home), and 550 cases for the entire nation which has about half the population of the US.

    The main way that the virus enters the body is via the nasal passages. You stop this by wearing a mask so that you don’t (unintentionally) give the virus to others. Masks work, and a crowded city like Tokyo, with a large number of old people, most using public transport, and restaurants and sports centres all open (with social distancing). Saying that masks don’t work is nonsense. I see the evidence that contradicts this every day.

    Now if the US would just get its act together…..

    #64392
    zerosum
    Participant

    Fabrication !!!!!
    Smear campaign?????
    Fact check – Who’s laptop?

    According to the Post, the images and correspondence were taken from the hard drive of a laptop that was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware, and never retrieved. After seeing what was on the hard drive, the owner of the shop copied it, and turned it over to a lawyer connected with former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani reportedly turned it over to the NY Post over the weekend.
    We imagine the MSM will cover up this report, as is standard practice for any concerning information involving Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/smoking-gun-emails-show-hunter-biden-introduced-vp-dad-burisma-executive

    #64393
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Shows we DO have quality candidates. Many of them. No surprise.

    Paint peeling NSFW language. Far, FAR leftist Jimmy Dore is harder on Obama than I am.
    However, still very relevant. As in, why the Left is not motivated to vote despite all.

    It’s leaking out that Joe had conventions of 30 individuals in AZ and his home state of PA. That’s worse than Hillary. 12 point lead! Maybe 1,000 points, who knows? You know, with a 1000:1 disparity in Rally attendees. 99.9% chance of DNC landslide, just check the betting odds! (Like ’16) Meanwhile, the 12-point lead polls internally show that Rasmussen and others claim only 75% of Republicans will vote for DJT. While 99% voted for him in the Primaries, GOP registration now equals DNC, and people came out en masse to vote for him in the primary when there was no reason at all.

    How did they do that? Pretty easy: they just moved the slider bar to wherever it needed to be to get the results they wanted and CNN or whoever paid for. You know: they were lying. Herr Docktor, wouldn’t that ruin their credibility, their only saleable product? Hahahahahahaha! Yeah, let’s pretend that would happen.

    “RussiaRussiaRussia,” “WMD and ties to Al-Qaeda,” “3% death rate for COVID and masks help.” I can’t cure you if you love lies more than oxygen itself. And they do. They love the lies and the liars, more than their nations, more than their towns, more than families, more than themselves. Can I put my daughters on your private jet, sir? You look rich.

    Is the election close? Probably, in a way. I bet the voting will come in in the long-term window where the parties are within historic averages. 48-52% popular or something. But if that tips you could have both all swing states and even Blue Siege states collapse like under Reagan + Mondale. Remember under our system a few points can do that, and thanks to the Electoral that they are desperate to erase, no one knows which states to defend, or put another way, which states and people to forever trample and ignore. Of course, there remains an even worse way to do this bad system: with direct popular democracy. So I expect we will try it.

    Trample? Surely you exaggerate. “Guillotines, Motherf*cker”: Colorado Democratic Committee Member Caught On Hidden Camera” (Khristopher Jacks) You know, just a month after Bernie Bros said the same thing. Kill everyone. That’s Love and Tolerance of Diversity.

    Luckily, “Jacks claims the left is ‘armed and ready to go'” while 90% of all police, military, veterans, hunters, and gun owners are on the “right”, or really ordinary Americans in 95% of U.S. counties, but they would call the “Ultra-Far Right bootlicking Putin-Nazis”. (the article has him using some of this language, nevermind that Russia fought 2/3 of the war and defeated Germany while we couldn’t get American soldiers as far north as Rome.)

    Continuing his long interview, “Jacks also condemned moderate Democrats, which he says is ‘half his struggle.’” Just like Jimmy Dore. And then covers the far-left plan to take over and control Biden. Must-see TV. Cause as they’ve been quoted: ‘which is easier to overthrow, a dictator, or a tired old man?’

    Anyway, yeah, guillotines for all, they’re going to nuke all subhumans and deplorables (Swalwell) from Pocono to Reno. Been hearing it since the 90’s. Did a pretty good job. Final solution on 30,000+/year with totally authorized opioid injections, still not prosecuted. 10-20 years, that’s some 500,000 deplorables. #Winning. But remember: they’re the bad guys, the Coasts and D.C. are love and light. Unfortunately, unlike special snowflakes, grim flyover children beaten daily for 20 years running get pretty tough. Cesar Flickerman and Jimmy Fallon in Capitol City laugh. Ain’t that a hootenanny! Like a Game. I could watch them suffer and die all day!

    Speaking of things we long knew: “Google Researcher Warns Google May Be ‘Shifting Power’ to Flip Senate (NB)” Yeah, George wrote about that back in 1949. It was not an instruction manual.

    “Russia Health Watchdog: Shutting Down Economy For COVID19 is Pointless (RT)”
    “Dutch PM Closes Pubs, Restaurants, Cafes As Coronavirus Cases Rise (RT)”

    This was amazing a day after the Dutch Health minister said stop. And because when you TEST, you get CASES, you know, cases that have no hospitalizations and no deaths. Like NY. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/new-york-coronavirus-cases.html (live data, cannot imbed)

    When will science return? Never: we need Green NeoFeudalism. Carbon-Free by 2025. That’s tomorrow, with no grid.

    “Northern Ireland is set to become the first part of the UK to impose a “circuit breaker” lockdown. Tighter restrictions”

    You know: because 10 months of lockdowns did f—k-all but kill people via the economy, like the U.N. warned in March and the WHO just told you to stop only yesterday, so of course. They’re so dumb they don’t know what a “Case” is as opposed to a “Death.” Experts! Pull their medical license. Now. No. They’ll pull yours instead, and ’round you up in Australia and “Round up dem Jews!” in NYC.

    “UK Hospitality Firms Threaten Legal Action Over Lockdown (BBC)”

    They’re small businessmen and not Jeff Bezos so it goes without saying they have to die. And like TN, statistical zero people got it via pubs and gyms, with most deaths from State-run “expert” nursing homes. Obviously. Just like when 19 Sunni Saudis attack your nation, you attack Baathists in Iraq and stay there 100 years. That just goes without saying. Logic!

    Trump should have ordered declassification outright.”

    He did. Twice. No one does it. And no one is arrested.

    “The values of the Millennial and Gen Z generations”

    He’s missing that the Y and Z generations have opposite values. Y is to the left of Chairman Mao while Z is the most conservative ever recorded. They are therefore not in favor of taking the world apart.

    One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing”

    I’m at a loss for what this means. All of New Jersey was clear-cut and paved into strip malls. London did that 500 years ago. Was that a “collapse”? Can people drink water there? Where is the wolf and elk in the Highlands? So it’s good for us, but YOU don’t do it. …and we won’t help you but instead extract gold and lithium from Chile to London and lecture you endlessly. Suck an egg.

    “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” — Arnold J. Toynbee

    Yeah, they might voluntarily and for no scientific reason shut down their entire economy.

    #64394
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Tony: 15 or more studies from the CDC since at least 1960, if not 1900, that’s who. Here was yesterday’s same as all the others:

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6936-H.pdf

    Here are the studies on masks over the years, courtesy of American Association of Physicians and Surgeons. https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/

    Sub-N95 do absolutely, positively, double-blind nothing against 5nm viruses. Never have. They conflate “masks” of a 6-ounce jersey t-shirt with a N95 respirator and also viruses like COVID with many-fold larger bacteria that are not essentially aerosol transmission. On purpose.

    But don’t take my word for it, read the CDC data end to end and then ask the question: if that’s their research, and they knew it since 1960, why do they have recommendations for a medical procedure that doesn’t work?

    Would that be this?

    “The World Health Organization has long encouraged mass tourism and said closing borders wouldn’t stop the spread of Covid-19. A New York Times investigation found this [WHO] policy was never based on science, but instead on politics and economics. https://t.co/bQcZ9Mquu1 — The New York Times (@nytimes) September 30, 2020

    Huh.

    #64395
    tony smyth
    Participant

    DR D: I don’t care what THEY say, I’m judging by what I see in Tokyo every day. If masks are ineffective then how do you explain such low Covid numbers in Tokyo, one of the worlds largest and most populous cities, one where most people take trains and subways?

    #64396
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @generic and JohnDay:

    I understand why you wrote in your preferred candidates; both Tulsi and Chafee are great choices. If you are serious about their potential to lead, then please reach out to both of them – and offer your services (talent, treasure, time) to help them create and facilitate a dialogue and model for the future. Better yet, why not identify and include local leaders who may be seeking a ROADMAP for building the Way forward?

    I no longer believe that top-down effort for the change we need is possible. The current systems in place are beyond reform/improvement; the incremental change “solutions” being offered up by those in control will fail. We all know it. So why not focus on the few glimmers of potential in the Senate/House while rebuilding from a local/regional level?

    Yesterday’s post by Charles Hugh Smith – “Why We’re Doomed – Our Delusional Faith in Incremental Change” says it all.

    “As everything runs to failure, the only acceptable path is to do more of what’s failed spectacularly, a default to low-risk incrementalism that only accelerates the final inevitable collapse. ”

    Both Biden and Trump are more of what has failed. However, I believe the Dems have a slight edge on potential in the existing system; the large group of young women they currently have in the House of Representatives (emphasis on Katie Porter) provide optimism. For that reason, my efforts are focused on younger, smart, new Senate and House candidates while I am building mentoring relationships supporting local leaders in my county/region. Until the final failure of current systems, I’m playing in both the old arena and on/in the new frontier.

    https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/10/why-were-doomed-our-delusional-faith-in.html?m=0

    #64397

    This is from Off-G’s article “Klaus Schwab & His Great Fascist Reset”, which is the most disturbing thing I have ever read on the internet.

    ” Schwab and Malleret admit that Covid-19 is “one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced over the last 2000 years”, adding that “the consequences of COVID-19 in terms of health and mortality will be mild compared to previous pandemics”.[4]
    They add:
    [Covid19] does not constitute an existential threat, or a shock that will leave its imprint on the world’s population for decades.” [4] ”
    But it sure is useful to bring about techno-fascism.

    The younger generations are addicted to their phones and will do anything to ensure their tech is safe. “The values of the Millennial and Gen Z generations… not liberation, but security; not freedom, but equality; not individualism, but the safety of the collective; not sink-or-swim meritocracy, but promotion on the basis of social justice… ”
    Un-hunh. Hippies turned into yippies and brought us to the hell exposed in the aforementioned Off-G article.

    Without a good understanding of psychology, successful fraud would be impossible. There would be no “pandemic”. There wouldn’t be a Supercollider!

    #64398
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @ Tony Smyth

    The economy would work and we wouldn’t need bailouts if people would just save money. A man can dream, a man can dream.

    #64399
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @Dr.D: thanks for the Jimmy D. video. I’m with Jimmy – Prez O was a failure for all the reasons he highlights. Michelle and Corporatist Dems failing again.

    What is a protest vote? Is there such a thing? Does that mean not voting at all? Does it mean voting for the one you think will bring us down faster? Voting for the least of two evils? Or voting for the one not listed – writing in your choice?

    #64400
    John Day
    Participant

    @ Susmarie108: You assume I am doing less than all-I-can-do, Sister.
    I beg to differ. I reach out to candidates as much as I can, lots of people do:
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/03/six-billion-doses.html
    I bike commute, serve humans as a public health doctor and grow vegetables at the clinic for my coworkers, and especially for their minds. I grow other gardens. I experiment agriculturally. I practice compassion meditation. I, like you, will soon cease to exist, such as we are.
    Do your best today. Sleep. Repeat.

    #64401
    Bill7
    Participant

    > DR D: I don’t care what THEY say, I’m judging by what I see in Tokyo every day.

    Pretty sure the person who wrote that is confusing correlation w/ causation.

    -Bill7

    #64402
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/10/mandatory-suicide.html
    Includes pic of blogger with bike and Mao t-shirt, starting his day yesterday.

    How We Institutionalized Incompetence​, Charles Hugh Smith​
    And so we face the ultimate irony: ‘bailing-out-everything’ destroys the entire rotten system.
    ​ ​You’ve probably noticed things no longer work as well as they once did. For example, the store’s online inventory says something is in stock and when you get to the store, it’s not on the shelf. A small issue, but telling nonetheless.
    ​ ​Or you might call a local government agency to get an explanation of how a new fee is calculated, and nobody’s ever available to explain it–or sort out your punitive late fee even though you paid on time.
    ​ ​You’ve probably noticed services cost a lot more now, but the quality has eroded. Sure, it’s easy to blame it all on the pandemic, but quality has been eroding as costs have risen for years.
    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct20/incompetence10-20.html

    Will Confucius marry Marx?​ Pepe Escobar
    ​ ​Chinese scholar Lanxin Xiang has written a book , The Quest For Legitimacy In Chinese Politics, that is arguably the most extraordinary effort in decades trying to bridge the East-West politico-historical divide…
    ​ ​He identifies two key sources for the Chinese problem: “On the one hand, there is the project of cultural restoration through which Chinese leader Xi Jinping attempts to restore ‘Confucian legitimacy’ or the traditional ‘Mandate of Heaven’; on the other hand, Xi refuses to start any political reforms, because it is his top priority to preserve the existing political system, i.e., a ruling system derived mainly from an alien source, Bolshevik Russia.” ​ ​ Ay, there’s the rub: “The two objectives are totally incompatible”. ​…​
    ​ ​Essentially, the Mandate of Heaven is “an ancient Chinese belief that tian [ heaven, but not the Christian heaven, complete with an omniscient God] grants the emperor the right to rule based on their moral quality and ability to govern well and fairly.”

    Will Confucius marry Marx?

    It is interesting to observe how for example the main version from Turkish and Azerbaijani sources about the Turkish F-16 jets switched from public denial of their presence to claims that they are not involved directly in the conflict and are just needed to deter Armenian aggression. Reports from the ground and the diplomatic posture of the sides indicate that Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, is preparing a new military push against Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region to consolidate and expand its initial gains before the winter.

    Turkey Threatens Armenia With Direct Military Intervention In Karabakh War

    ​Thanks Marjorie for the Ivermectin/zinc/doxycycline for COVID update:
    ​ Goa’s Chief Minister Pramod Sawant alongside State Health Minister Vishwajit Rane launched the ‘Home Isolation Kit’ to combat COVID-19. Apparently, the Indian state was influenced by Australia’s Dr. Thomas Borody and his combination treatment involving ivermectin and doxycycline (and zinc) targeting SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID. Dr. Tarek Alam at the Bangladesh Medical College has also demonstrated the efficacy of the treatment in a hospital-approved case series study and is now conducting a randomized controlled study in that country. Back to beautiful southwestern India in Goa, calling it a “game-changer,” the Health Minister of this small Indian state is targeting the complete eradication of the virus in a people-centric home-based program.

    Goa Game Changer: Indian State’s Health Authority Approves & Distributes Ivermectin & Doxycycline to Treat COVID-19 as Prophylaxis

    Nihilism?
    ​ ​Through constant vigilance and some good fortune, astronomers have managed to capture the moment a supermassive black hole in a galaxy 215 million light-years away tore a star apart.
    The so-called ‘tidal disruption event’ (TDE) is the closest such death of a star humanity has ever witnessed.
    ​ ​Astronomers were alerted by the intense flash of light, visible hundreds of millions of light years away, just before parts of the star disappeared into the black hole’s event horizon after being ‘spaghettified’ by the immense gravity.
    https://www.rt.com/news/503240-black-hole-devours-entire-star/

    #64403
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Sing it with me folks “keep pushing back those goal posts, never concede that you’re wrong, keep pushing back those goal posts, and force everyone to get along”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/bill-gates-warns-world-wont-return-normal-until-second-generation-covid-19-super

    #64404
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @JohnDay: I did not mean to infer that you were not doing enough. My point was to say that reaching out by calling Congressional field offices has a place in the mix. Tulsi’s team back home would appreciate your input.

    Clearly your contributions here at TAE reveal a LOVING Heart – your community is fortunate to have the direct benefit of your valuable and meaningful presence in action.

    #64405
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks Susmarie108
    I am not doing “enough”. I’m just doing all that I can do.
    I’m getting a vanity-rush. uh, where do you live?
    Just joking! (gasp)

    #64406

    Perhaps we should turn this around. Perhaps Tony can explain why he thinks that a virus of this size…

    (SARS-CoV-2 has a diameter between 0.06 and 0.14 microns. Medical N95 masks — which are considered the most effective — can filter particles as small as 0.3 microns. – Debt Rattle October 12)

    … can be stopped by masks with holes 100 or 1000 times that size. As I said then, N95 (KN95 -Asia-, FFP2 -EU-) masks do stop at least droplets, but that’s it. Anything less appears to be useless. Why have a mask on if the virus can move right through? I said many times that it’s not that masks in general do no good, but you have to have the right masks. They’re few and far between though. A huge failure on the part of many governments. Why promote non-medical masks? Because after 9 months, you still don’t have a supply of medical ones. It”s all about TV, about appearances.

    As I said yesterday, I bought (K)N95 masks for the social kitchen crew here in Athens because it’s the best I can do, Found a local website that links to multiple companies that import them from Asia. Not perfection, but …

    Bill7 appears to be be right with his correlation vs causation point. I’m not in Tokyo, and have no idea what goes on there, but I’m sure strapping your underwear in front of your face, which is what “non-medical masks” means, does exceedingly little good.

    #64407
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Regarding the Giotto art of the day:

    From the WebGalleryofArt:This is the fifth of the twenty-eight scenes (twenty-five of which were painted by Giotto) of the Legend of Saint Francis. When Francis’ father accuses his son before the episcopal tribune of squandering his fortune, Francis returns to him even the clothes he is wearing, and repudiates him. Giotto illustrates this sensational public separation, which signifies the decisive step towards the saint’s future life of poverty, by means of the two groups of people on opposite sides. The buildings further reinforce the gulf between the two worlds.

    What is RENUNCIATION? What role does it play in modern life, if any? People of today rarely “walk the talk”, their actions (deeds) are not in alignment with their thoughts and words. Who today is willing to give up any worldly comforts to prove the integrity of their intentions?

    #64408

    Susmarie,

    Different times, different customs. And Francis must have been a remarkable guy. But it’s all covered in a sauce of what the Catholic church found appealing, which is why and how he got paid, but something we no longer recognize as especially valid. The Catholic church was the US of its time.

    The buildings further reinforce the gulf between the two worlds.

    What strikes me in the Giotto series is the city buildings, To me they look as if they could have been painted in 1900, but he did them 600 years earlier.

    #64410

    “Without documents certifying the authorship of the frescoes of the Legend, art historians have decided to compare this series with what is known as Giotto’s top work: his frescoes in the so-called “Arena Chapel,” also known as the Scrovegni Chapel, in which a similar cycle is found. The stylistic differences between the frescoes found in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and those one finds in Assisi, specialists affirm, cannot be simply attributed to the evolution of the artist, and it has practically been ruled out that Giotto is the author of the Legend of St. Francis, in Assisi.”
    From this website.

    I recall this dispute from way back in college.

    #64411

    Golly! The word is highlighted but the link doesn’t work. I must be getting close.
    aleteia is the name of the site.

    #64412
    oxymoron
    Participant

    If psychology is the study of the mind then Buddha and Jesus were obviously engaged in fraudulent fields of study according to Taleb

    #64413
    zerosum
    Participant

    Problem:
    Airline around the world a begging, threatening, to be given billions of dollars.
    Tell the your gov. not to give them money.
    Passengers traffic will not increase enough to save the travel industry.
    Solution:
    Give $2,000 travel vouchers to pensioners reporting less than $20,000 on their income tax.

    #64414
    John Day
    Participant

    @oxymoron: There are different, potentially valid approaches to studying anything. The mind is kind of squirmy, and hard to study, as you may have notices. Jesus, Buddha, Freud, Jung, Skinner, Pavlov; there’s lots of room to study whatever you call “mind”.

    #64415
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    @tony smyth

    No matter what you say, you are unlikely convince bill7 or Dr.D. While it seems obvious to you in Japan, and to me in Korea, and to V.Arnold in Thailand, that masks make a difference, for some, seeing is not believing.

    How do they explain the very low transmission rates in densely-populated Asia? They offer no explanation. Maybe they think that Asians are more hygienic? Or that they have superior genes? Or maybe they think it is because of the diet? I have been waiting to hear a non-mask explanation, but so far nothing but crickets . . .

    #64416
    wdt
    Participant

    >Or maybe they think it is because of the diet? I have been waiting to hear a non-mask explanation
    It has been noted that in Japan there is quite high intake of Iodine,,
    possibily close to reasonable maximum
    Maybe???

    #64417
    Bill7
    Participant

    The pro-maskie, anti-human folks comport well with Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the rest of the “we need a vax-seen!” corporofascists.. “it’s just a mask.. it’s just for a week/month/year/decade; oops, there go all your
    civil liberties, we’re *so* sorry!”

    Big hard pass, thanks.

    -Bill7

    #64418
    Bill7
    Participant

    If the last comment was not clear enough: masks are dehumanizing, ineffective against their *purported* targets, as has been well pointed out by other commenters here for some time. Those supporting their use are,
    for *whatever curious reason*, now on the Dark, Corporate Side..

    #64419
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    {sigh} Libertarians will likely be the death of us all. But perhaps it’s what we deserve for constructing an entire society around the cult of the individual.

    #64420
    Bill7
    Participant

    Mr. Roboto on the Langley VA late-watch, it seems. I’m guessing the pay is still good for now. Ahh, Flexians..

    “‘Cases are soaring!” So where are they? Always, always, always *somewhere else*.

    #64421
    Bill7
    Participant

    Final word for the evening: the pervasive and omnipresent OMG COVID19!! fear-porn narrative feels *just like*
    when we were being pushed into the second Iraq war in 2003.. the stakes for all the citizenries are much higher now, though:

    “Where’s your bioPassport/dailyCovidPass!/dailyDNAreading/temperatureTest, and so on

    should be fine™

    #64422
    tony smyth
    Participant

    Bill7: You STILL haven’t offered an explanation as to why countries where all the population wear masks have low numbers of Covid cases and deaths, and countries with many non-mask wearing areas ( The UK and the US in particular) have massively more cases of Covid. Ranting on about Gates and Corporofacists is no argument.
    Lets deal in verifiable FACTS shall we? Japan has far less covid cases than the Anglo-Saxon countries and has had right from the beginning. In Taiwan, Korea and Japan people still work, go to restaurants, sports centres, cinemas etc. Sure, there are certain restraints with social distancing but life has not ground to a halt. By NOT wearing masks and washing hands you are creating more death and misery and wrecking your economy. Contrast Japan with the US: COVID-19 is continuing to cripple the economy as 60% of US businesses that have been shut since the start of the coronavirus pandemic won’t ever reopen, according to the latest Economic Impact Report by Yelp. That ain’t due to ‘cryptofascism’ ( whatever the fuck that is): it is due to idiots being inconsiderate to others.
    A society that works together can handle this outbreak, its the ones that are divided that are suffering the most. The US and the UK are suffering from SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS.

    Average number of daily cases in the US: 100,000
    Average number of daily cases in Japan: 681

    #64424
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    @Bill7

    I also wonder why you associate masks with the mandatory vaccine camp. These are different issues. I am with you on the vaccine issue.

    As Chris Martenson articulately explains in his most recent videos over the last 2-3 weeks, the pandemic is most likely over. Yes, there are still a lot of cases, but people are not getting as sick as they were in March and April. Viral loads are much lower. Cheap and effective treatments are available. Covid is now a manageable disease. The WHO and CDC continue to misinform, and refuse to do the proper research on various “antiviral cocktails” that use cheap drugs like Ivermectin, Hydroxychlorquine and other well known compounds, but that research is ongoing in India, Bangladesh, and other parts of the world. Yes, there are some evil people hoping to get rich off a vaccine, and others trying to cripple the economy for political purposes until the election. But this has absolutely nothing to do with wearing masks.

    #64425
    Bill7
    Participant

    Who used the term “cryptofascism”, dear tony smyth, or are you deliberately misquoting me? The use of “fuck” in your verbiage is another late-neolib (you Dems love that epithet, for some reason; maybe you’re thinking you sound powerful that way? heh!) tell, btw: do rid yourself of it, posthaste, to be taken at all seriously..

    A question: how are you defining “cases” of COVID19™, and are you confident that they’re being attributed accurately in the two instances you quote? I live on the California coast of USA, and have yet to have, meet, know of, or hear of *anyone* who’s been afflicted by the apparent scourge-of-the-very-earth! ZOMG!! COVID-19!!!.

    But I’m talking to a shill, gotta remember..

    #64426
    Bill7
    Participant

    ‘Boogaloo’: how are you presently defining “cases” of COVID-19?

    Thanks.

    #64427
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    @Bill7

    Happy to answer your question. Will you please repay the courtesy and answer mine?

    Here in Korea, anyone who tests positive is regarded as an active case. Here, they do not tell people to stay at home, eat chicken soup, and only go to the hospital if they have trouble breathing. This virus attacks multiple organs, not just the lungs. So the response is a much higher degree of caution. Korea can still afford that give the small number of cases. That would be a luxury we could not afford if we had 50,000 new cases per day.

    Now, if not masks, what is your explanation for why cases in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand are so much lower than in the West?

    #64448
    John Day
    Participant

    @Boogaloo: Thank You. Well comported, sir.

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