Nov 192020
 
 November 19, 2020  Posted by at 9:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Paul Klee Ghost of a Genius 1922

 

Expert Says Alberta Politicians “Playing Medicine” (WSO)
50,000 Doctors And Scientists Sign Global Anti-lockdown Proclamation (JTN)
Danish Study Finds Face Masks Provide Limited Protection To Wearer (R.)
UNICEF: Schools Are Not ‘Main Drivers’ Of Covid Among Kids (Pol.)
Wisconsin, Like MI, GA, PA and VA, Caught Doing the ‘Drop and Roll’ (GP)
Wayne County Election Board Republicans Rescind Votes Certifying Results (JTN)
Durham Probe Moving ‘Full Steam Ahead’ After Election Day (Fox)
IIF Shocked To Forecast Global Debt Hitting $360 Trillion In Ten Years (ZH)
Americans’ Mortgage Debt Soars To A Record $10 Trillion (CNN)
Biden Wants To Help Pay Some Student Loans
Bipartisan Resolution to End War in Yemen (Antiwar)

 

 

Greenwald Threat to democracy

 

 

Greenwald press freedom

 

 

You can’t claim to be listening to “the science” and ignore people like him.

Expert Says Alberta Politicians “Playing Medicine” (WSO)

A top Edmonton doctor in virology says Albertans “are being led down the garden path” by government health officials in their efforts to stop the COVID-19 virus. Dr. Roger Hodkinson says the virus is no worse than a “bad flu.” Hodkinson is the CEO of Western Medical Assessments, and has been the company’s medical director for over 20 years. He received his general medical degrees from Cambridge University in the U.K., and then became a Royal College certified pathologist in Canada (FRCPC) following a residency in Vancouver. He also taught at the University of Alberta and runs MutantDx, a molecular diagnostics company in North Carolina.

“What I am going to say is lay language and blunt,” Hodkinson said during an Edmonton City Council Community and Public Services Committee meeting, audio of which is currently making the rounds on YouTube. “There is utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It’s outrageous. This is the greatest hoax every perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. “There is absolutely nothing to be done to contain this virus other than protecting your more vulnerable people. It should be thought of as nothing more than a bad flu season. “This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS. It’s politics playing medicine. And that’s a very dangerous game.”

“Masks are utterly useless. There is no evidence based on their effectiveness whatsoever. Seeing these people walking around like lemmings obeying without any knowledge…putting the masks on.” Hodkinson said social distancing is also “useless” because the virus can travel up to 30 m before landing. He said positive tests, which do not accurately reflect whether you have the virus, are driving “public hysteria,” adding testing should stop unless you show up at a hospital with respiratory problems. He called for residents of long term care homes to be given daily doses of Vitamin D which can help battle the virus.

Hodkinson said the risk of death from COVID-19 to Albertans under 65 is 1 in 300,000. He also blamed businesses closures for a spate of suicides and other social problems. “It’s just another bad flu, and you have to get your minds around that. You’re being led down the garden path by the chief medical officer of health (Dr. Deena Hinshaw) in this province.,” he said. “I am absolutely outraged that it has reached this level.”

City of Edmonton council meeting

Read more …

Nor should you ignore these 50,000

Great Barrington Declaration

50,000 Doctors And Scientists Sign Global Anti-lockdown Proclamation (JTN)

Six weeks after it was first published, the Great Barrington Declaration — an international pronouncement meant to shine light on what it calls the “damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies” — has garnered nearly 700,000 signatures from scientists, academics, doctors and citizens worldwide, with more signatories being added each day as a fresh spate of lockdowns continues across Europe and parts of the United States. Regional and nationwide lockdowns have been an international feature of the COVID-19 pandemic since almost the start of the year. At the outset of the pandemic, China instituted a severe lockdown of the Hubei province where the disease first originated. Global health officials were initially skeptical of the Chinese lockdown, which went against many major established pandemic guidelines.

As the virus spread west into Europe and the United States, however, many heads of state began instituting their own lockdowns, with major countries such as Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom instituting broad stay-at-home orders, business shutdowns, school closures and other unprecedented policies in order to prevent a modeled catastrophic death toll. In the United States, President Trump declined to impose a national lockdown, but throughout March and April governors and local leaders across the country issued their own shutdown orders, some of them lasting for months at a time. The ongoing fall spike of positive COVID-19 tests, meanwhile, has been followed by governors reimposing some of those measures after they were loosened over the summer.

Many public health officials, scientists, epidemiologists and other experts have been broadly supportive of these measures, with many arguing that they are necessary to avoid huge death rates, overwhelmed medical systems and destabilized societies. Yet the Great Barrington Declaration has, in the relatively brief period since its Oct. 4 publication, managed to snag several dozen thousand signatures from experts in those fields and others who believe the lockdowns are causing, in the words of the declaration, “irreparable damage.” “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” the document states. “The results … include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health — leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.”

Boris Kotchoubey, a medical psychology professor at the Universiy of Tubingen who has affixed his signature to the proclamation, told Just the News: “I signed the Declaration … because I share the views formulated in it.” “Anti-Corona measures in all countries that I know (mostly, West Europe) are non-directed, imprecise and, therefore, yield more damage than the disease itself,” he said. “Actually, we know more or less where the infection is spread,” he continued. “(1) big events like high level sport events, rock concerts etc.; (2) loud parties; (3) activities in closed rooms, particularly with screams or songs (worship); (4) public transportation, particularly in big cities; (5) last but not least invasion of the infection in retirement homes.

Rodney Sturdivant, another signatory and the director of Baylor University’s Statistical Consulting Center, echoed those criticisms of lockdown policies. Epidemiological research “does not reflect what has been reported and cited as justifying many policy decisions,” he told Just the News. He described the Declaration as “a call to return to public health practice supported by data and science.” “An important public health principle is to not ignore the totality of public health with fixation on a single aspect,” he said. “The consequences of doing so is catastrophic. We are already seeing the impacts: mental health issues, missed cancer treatments, missed immunizations, hunger, drug overdose, domestic abuse, incredible harm to children … the list is tragically long and preventable.”

Read more …

Come again?! “The study could not rule out that face masks do not provide any protection.”

Danish Study Finds Face Masks Provide Limited Protection To Wearer (R.)

A Danish study released on Wednesday found face masks provide the wearer with only limited protection against COVID-19 infection, but said this should not be used to argue against their widespread use to prevent people infecting others. In the study, which was carried out in April and May when Danish authorities did not recommend wearing face masks, 6,024 adults were divided into two groups, one wearing face masks and one control group. After one month, 1.8% of the people wearing masks had been infected, while 2.1% of the people in the control group had tested positive, Copenhagen University Hospital said in a press release. “The study does not confirm the expected halving of the risk of infection for people wearing face masks,” it said.


“The results could indicate a more moderate degree of protection of 15-20%, however, the study could not rule out that face masks do not provide any protection.” The findings are consistent with previous research. Health experts have long said a mask provides only limited protection for the person wearing it, but can dramatically reduce the risk to others if the wearer is infected, even when showing no symptoms. Preventing the spread to others is known as source control. The study’s findings “should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the authors wrote.

Read more …

“The future of an entire generation is at risk.”

UNICEF: Schools Are Not ‘Main Drivers’ Of Covid Among Kids (Pol.)

Data from 191 countries shows no consistent link between reopening schools and increased rates of coronavirus infection, UNICEF reported in an analysis Thursday. In releasing its first comprehensive assessment of the pandemic’s effects on children, the United Nations agency said “there is strong evidence that, with basic safety measures in place, the net benefits of keeping schools open outweigh the costs of closing them.” “Schools are not a main driver of community transmission, and children are more likely to get the virus outside of school settings,” UNICEF said.


The numbers: As of November, 572 million students — about 33 percent of all students — are being affected by 30 nationwide school closures, the report found. At their peak, school closures affected almost 90 percent of students around the world. Kids accounted for one in nine reported Covid-19 infections worldwide, the report found. “While children can get sick and can spread the disease, this is just the tip of the pandemic iceberg,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director. “Disruptions to key services and soaring poverty rates pose the biggest threat to children. The longer the crisis persists, the deeper its impact on children’s education, health, nutrition and well-being. The future of an entire generation is at risk.”

Read more …

Impossible patterns.

Wisconsin, Like MI, GA, PA and VA, Caught Doing the ‘Drop and Roll’ (GP)

We’ve reported on multiple incidents of ‘glitches’ that people observed related to the 2020 Presidential Election. These incidents seem odd and so we sought out and found a data set from the 2020 Presidential election. A group of IT patriots analyzed a data set of election vote data and found millions of votes in the election that were either lost or transferred from President Trump to Joe Biden. We reported this and our post was retweeted by the President. Then in Pennsylvania we identified a strange pattern in vote percentages between President Trump’s Election Day votes and his mail-in votes that was basically impossible and suggested fraud. Then we reported on a pattern from a few select counties in Michigan that were consistent but made no sense other than to indicate fraud.

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai using his approach identified 138,000 votes transferred from Trump to Biden in his study. Then we used the same analysis used by Dr. Shiva on a data set from Milwaukee and found more votes transferred from President Trump to Biden. This was enough to change the Wisconsin election to President Trump. We then re-performed Dr. Shiva’s work on one Michigan County he reviewed and materially agreed with Dr. Shiva’s result. Next we reported on another unusual pattern in vote reporting in Virginia and Pennsylvania where after large entries were made which provided a lead for Joe Biden late in the election process, nearly all subsequent entries after that period of time had the exact same unusual ratio in Trump to Biden votes.

Then we found the same ‘Drop and Roll’ pattern, which is virtually impossible, in Georgia and Michigan. Tonight we can report we found the same impossible pattern in Wisconsin that we saw in MI, PA, GA and VA. Just like the other states we reviewed, in Wisconsin President Trump was up in the Presidential Election all Election Day and night. When most Americans went to bed the President was way up and they expected another Trump win, but when they woke up in the morning after the election they quickly notices something had happened. We reported the next day what it was. President Trump was ahead all night and then suddenly early in the morning over 100,000 votes were dumped for Biden.

Then once Biden took the lead after data dumps nearly every single entry was at the same ratio of Trump to Biden votes. Again, it is completely INCONCEIVABLE mathematically and statistically that after the switch in the lead to Biden, batches of votes would have exactly the same distribution to both candidates.

Read more …

“Wayne County MI election board Republicans rescind votes to certify, file affidavits that their families were threatened..”

Wayne County Election Board Republicans Rescind Votes Certifying Results (JTN)

In an extraordinary turnabout that foreshadows possible legal action, the two GOP members of Wayne County’s election board signed affidavits Wednesday night alleging they were bullied and misled into approving election results in Michigan’s largest metropolis and do not believe the votes should be certified until serious irregularities in Detroit votes are resolved. The statements by Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chairwoman Monica Palmer and fellow GOP member William C. Hartmann rescinding their votes from a day earlier threw into question anew whether Michigan’s presidential vote currently favoring Democrat Joe Biden will be certified. They also signaled a possible legal confrontation ahead. “I voted not to certify, and I still believe this vote should not be certified,” Hartmann said in his affidavits. “Until these questions are addressed, I remain opposed to certification of the Wayne County results.”


Added Palmer in her affidavit: “I rescind my prior vote to certify Wayne County elections.” Both GOP board members said their concerns included discrepancies in nearly three quarters of Detroit’s precinct poll books where ballots are supposed to be matched to qualified voters. “The Wayne County election had serious process flaws which deserve investigation. I continue to ask for information to assure Wayne County voters that these elections were conducted fairly and accurately. Despite repeated requests I have not received the requisite information and believe an additional 10 days of canvas by the State Board of canvassers will help provide the information necessary,” Palmer explained.

Read more …

But we can’t see it.

Durham Probe Moving ‘Full Steam Ahead’ After Election Day (Fox)

U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe remains “full steam ahead,” a source familiar with his progress told Fox News, despite concerns from Republicans and allies of President Trump that the probe has been dormant following Election Day. “Durham remains full steam ahead,” the source familiar with the investigation told Fox News. Another source told Fox News that his investigation “is definitely still happening,” despite radio silence coming from the U.S. attorney from Connecticut. Durham’s investigation has produced one criminal charge so far, against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who was accused of altering an email related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide.


That prosecution, though, did not allege a broader conspiracy within the FBI, and the conduct it involved had largely been laid out in a Justice Department inspector general report from last December. After the Clinesmith charge, Durham’s team went silent. Two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News over the summer that Durham was not finished with several lines of investigation, which he believed were “critical.” One source told Fox News Durham had been “feeling more pressure to get this done and wrapped up” over the summer, but said that Durham “does not want this to be viewed political,” and would likely “punt it to after the election,” which he ultimately did.

Read more …

We stopped counting long ago.

IIF Shocked To Forecast Global Debt Hitting $360 Trillion In Ten Years (ZH)

The latest quarterly report from the IIF which among other things, has the unpleasant task of calculating total global debt (which consists of Household, Non-financial corporates, General government and Financial debt), was published today and it’s a whopper because it shows, in no uncertain terms, a world that is careening toward either the spectacular deflationary supernoava of a debt collapse, or a hyperinflationary explosion that will need to sweep away hundreds of trillions in debt in the next few years.

Here are the findings:
• Global debt has surged by over $15 trillion since 2019, hitting a new record of over $272 trillion in Q3 2020.
• As the fiscal response to the pandemic continues, the IIF expects global debt to hit $277 trillion (365% of GDP) by end-2020
• Debt outside the financial sector on track to hit $210 trillion (274% of GDP) this year—up from $194 trillion (240%) in 2019
• Emerging market debt (ex-financials) is fast approaching 210% of GDP—up from 185% in 2019 and 140% a decade ago
• Sharply declining revenues have made debt service much more onerous for EM governments—despite low borrowing costs
• Some $7 trillion of emerging market bonds and syndicated loans come due through end-2021, 15% of that in U.S. dollars

And things get really batshit insane after that, but more on that in a moment. First, here the details: According to IIF calculations, global debt is on track to exceed $277 trillion in 2020: Spurred by a sharp rise in government and corporate borrowing as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, the global debt load increased by $15 trillion in the first three quarters of 2020 and now stands above $272 trillion. Much if not all of that increase was monetized by central banks who have now activated the disaster contingency plan known as helicopter money. And with little sign of a slowdown in debt issuance, the IIF estimate that global debt will smash through records to hit $277 trillion by the end of the year.

Read more …

Let’s just cancel it.

Americans’ Mortgage Debt Soars To A Record $10 Trillion (CNN)

Low interest rates have helped fuel a boom in the US housing market: Last quarter Americans’ mortgage debt climbed to a record high of nearly $10 trillion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday. Homebuyers are leveraging the near-constant new lows in rates. At the beginning of this month mortgage rates fell to a record low — the 12th record low in 2020. So it’s no surprise that Americans are out buying houses. Between July and September, mortgage debt increased by $85 billion to a total of $9.86 trillion, a record high, according to the report. Mortgages are the largest contributor to household debt in the United States. The New York Fed’s report was full of records or near-records.

For example, when combining new home loans as well as refinancings, the value of new mortgages was even higher at $1.05 trillion. That’s the second-highest volume on record, rivaled only by the refinancing boom of 2003, according to the report. And though mortgage debt is now much higher than it was during the housing boom ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, it’s notable that the share of borrowers with credit scores above 760 points is far higher than it has been in the past. It’s not just home loans that boomed. A rush to buy cars also propped up auto loans and leases, which climbed to the highest level on record: $1.36 trillion.

Meanwhile, rates of loan delinquencies fell in the third quarter, helped by the forbearance programs created by the CARES Act that allowed for deferral of payments, as well as deferrals offered by lenders. Student loan delinquencies, for example, dropped to 4.4% in the third quarter, down from 9.3% in the second quarter. However, the government’s forbearance programs are due to sunset at year-end, leaving people benefiting from those pandemic policies in limbo. Only 132,000 consumers had a bankruptcy notation on their credit reports between July and September, a new historical low, the NY Fed said.

Read more …

“They say student debt cancellation is, in that sense, regressive, because it’s a form of economic aid targeted to people who are already at an advantage.”

Biden Wants To Help Pay Some Student Loans

President-elect Joe Biden has affirmed his support for erasing some student debt “immediately.” Student debt forgiveness was a major campaign plank of some of his more progressive rivals for the Democratic nomination, but it remains controversial even among some Democrats. In answer to a question at a Monday press conference, Biden repeated his support for a provision passed as part of the HEROES Act, which the Democratic-controlled House updated on Oct. 1. The provision calls for the federal government to pay off up to $10,000 in private, nonfederal student loans for “economically distressed” borrowers. Biden specifically highlighted “people … having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent,” and said the debt relief “should be done immediately.”

Senate Democrats are pushing for much more debt relief. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer co-authored a resolution in September with Sen. Elizabeth Warren calling for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal student loans per borrower. According to data from the College Board, that would mean erasing all debt for more than three-quarters of borrowers. The senators cited an opinion from attorneys at a Harvard legal clinic who argue that the power to cancel federal student loan debt rests with the president and his or her education secretary, since it’s the Education Department that actually originates these loans. That means it can be done regardless of who controls the Senate without passing any new laws. It can be done — but should it be done? Some economists argue canceling student debt will boost the economy, freeing up younger people to start businesses, buy homes and even start families.

Warren, in her presidential campaign proposal, cited arguments that debt forgiveness would reduce the racial wealth gap, reverse rural brain drain and allow more people to complete their educations. Activist groups such as the Debt Collective go further, arguing that student debt is wrong in principle. “We must return education to the status of a public good,” the organization says on its website. Critics point out that people with college degrees usually earn more money than those who don’t have them. They say student debt cancellation is, in that sense, regressive, because it’s a form of economic aid targeted to people who are already at an advantage. Some commentators also see a partisan slant to debt forgiveness. That’s because white voters without a college degree are far more likely to vote Republican. And then there’s the moral hazard argument — that debt cancellation would tempt people to take out more student loans and act irresponsibly in the future.

Read more …

Bring them home. All of them.

Bipartisan Resolution to End War in Yemen (Antiwar)

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is expected to introduce a resolution in the House on Thursday that calls for an end to US involvement in the war in Yemen. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) is expected to co-sponsor the legislation, making the bill a bipartisan rebuke to the war, similar to a resolution President Trump vetoed in 2019. In a draft of the bill obtained by Antiwar.com, the legislation invokes the 1973 War Powers Resolution and calls for the president “to remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Republic of Yemen.” Since 2015, the US has supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in a war against Yemen’s Houthis. While US troops are not fighting on the ground against the Houthis, the support the US military gives the coalition is covered under the War Powers Resolution.

Section 8(c) of the War Powers Resolution defines the introduction of US Armed Forces to include “the assignment of members of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.” The bill says that the “activities that the United States has conducted in support of the Saudi-led coalition fall within” the above definition. US support for the coalition includes things like training, providing spare parts for airplanes, logistical assistance, and intelligence sharing. Experts agree, if the US cuts off support for the coalition, the war in Yemen would quickly come to an end.

While President Trump vetoed previous efforts the end the war in Yemen, including bills banning arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the incoming administration could support the measure. Joe Biden has said that his administration will end support for the Saudi’s war in Yemen.

Read more …

 

 

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€7 rapid test in Germany
https://twitter.com/stevelizcano/status/1328972463825326080

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 19 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
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  • #65767

    Paul Klee Ghost of a Genius 1922   • Expert Says Alberta Politicians “Playing Medicine” (WSO) • 50,000 Doctors And Scientists Sign Global Anti-lo
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 19 2020]

    #65768
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Starting from Yesterday, not only did China buy our soybeans or starve, the price is just peachy:
    “Soybeans Near $12 Per Bushel as US Farmers Celebrate Surging Prices”

    Media: Everything they print is totally wrong. Every word is a knowing lie. “Manhattan will be underwater by 2012.” “Kids born today may never know snow.”

    Squirrel. Gell-Man Amnesia. I’m breathless in anticipation: what did CNN report today??? Inquiring minds want to know!

    “PA Gov Announces New COVID rules, Including Wearing A Mask in Your House” (in between bites)

    I’m not a scientific genius here, but if masks or lockdowns worked – even a teensy, tinsy bit – wouldn’t PA already be virus free? How come every lockdown state is terrible and getting worse, and everybody who didn’t bother – you know, bother ending all human rights for eternity — is just fine? Anyone? Beuller?

    Okay, given that, why is the WORST place the one Fauci applauds, and the best place the one he most condemns? Shouldn’t it maybe be the opposite? But CNN had the explanation: it’s the Republicans’ fault! Yes, NYC is locking down thanks to being that hotbed of Republicanism, and Republicans out in the streets every night maskless! And New Jersey. And Seattle. Oh wait: are those all +90% DEMOCRATIC cities? With 100% DNC mayors, and 100% COVID failure and death? And those are the exact states and cities that had health problems from the beginning, through the middle, and right to the end? …And that’s how you know CNN reported it, because it’s stupid, illogical, and false.

    However, DeBlasio can round up and tag dem Jews. The people cheer! Go Uncle Joe! Get the Mensheviks. Get anyone who works, make sure they don’t own anything any more. Make them so god d—ned happy that they won’t DARE say they’re not on penalty of death. “Now’s our chance” Justin Beaver says. Get those store shelves empty like they’re supposed to be in a properly-run Socialist state. That’s super-green doncha know. And nobody’s greener than the Socialists who’ve killed 300M humans in the last 100 years. Behold! A Green horse! That’s why the Green horse rides with War and Plague and keeps up the pace just fine, thank you. “καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἵππος χλωρός, καὶ ὁ καθήμενος ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ὁ Θάνατος, καὶ ὁ Ἅιδης ἠκολούθει μετ’ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἐξουσία ἐπὶ τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς, ἀποκτεῖναι ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς.” Rev6:8

    Hey, another day, another massive medical study that say masks do zero, zip, nada, bupkis:

    “Danish Study Finds Face Masks Provide Limited Protection To Wearer (R.) https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 But they couldn’t prove a negative, so throw it out I guess. From Denmark, the one they tried to prevent from being published and discussed, because: “Science!”™ “If it’s a fact, we don’t publish! Then we change the data!” — The Lancet, whose editor publicly said so a year ago, and who was just caught doing it last month. But, muh Science! Just because 50,000 doctors and the World Health Organization disagree doesn’t mean the Science isn’t settled.

    Hey, here’s the BBC publishing that lockdowns and delayed medical care killed 25,000 people, equivalent to 250,000 in the U.S., more than the virus itself. …Oh and then there’s the economy. Every time fewer people are out, less work is done, we get richer and safer than ever! That’s just common sense. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52382303

    As predicted. As was totally, perfectly easy to see as far back as January given the known description of the virus. We can absolutely kill MOAR people with all our “helping”, but we won’t kill less. …They chose moar, of course. A year later, still not discredited for the quarter-million additional deaths, of course. The people still believe them, of course.

    Excuse me if I can’t get as detailed links and quotes as usual. I’m in a rush.

    ” Obama: Freedom of Speech The Internet Is “The Single Biggest Threat To Our Democracy” (AP)”

    “This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.”
    But he’s a doctor, so we ignore him. Watch CNN and Bureaucrats like Fauci and Governors who’ve been caught murdering 20,000 citizens. THEN ignoring every Law, Court, Medical Board, Legislature, and Attorney General. Yay! Obey! I will fight, fight, fight for Stalin. We won the election and defeated Fascism: quick, lock me down for eternity!

    UNICEF: Schools Are Not ‘Main Drivers’ Of Covid Among Kids (Pol.)”

    There is no COVID among kids. We’ve know that for a YEEEAAAAARRRR. And we just had a U.S. study that if anything, said having kids in the house makes you SAFER and MORE immune. So apparently we should be arrested for NOT sending our kids to school without masks. But it is, but it isn’t. Is but isn’t, true but false, except when it’s true, or we can round up the Jews. Or transfer a trillion dollars of small-business wealth to billionaires. Then definitely, definitely true.

    MI Elections: This vote is absolutely correct and certified! Except it’s totally false and needs to be audited! Both, neither, aaaaaiiiiii! Don’t shoot me!

    Elections: No evidence! Because we haven’t looked! And never will! Haha! Now how can you say there is fraud when we categorically refuse to look? When anything we find we won’t report?

    Hey, when the U.S. Army absconded with the Dominion server in Hamburg, did THEY look? Did THEY find evidence? Guess we’ll find out. And we’ll all know because Jack Dorsey will take his newly-hired, top-hacker-on-planet-earth and shut off the President, the US Army, and everybody else. It’s not hot yet until we see that, and it’s soon.

    “They say student debt cancellation is, in that sense, regressive, because it’s a form of economic aid targeted to people who are already at an advantage.”

    Kind of, but it’s hyper-regressive for a far more simple reason: printing money to pay it — which I assume is the only possible way — is an inflation tax. That always and exclusively hits the poor in cost-of-living exactly as it exclusively helps high-net-worth market speculators. If only this had been tried somewhere in history so we could be sure… If only some nation had an unbacked currency they printed at multiples of GDP so we could see the ultimate result on the poorest and the rich. Oh well: 152 Fiat currencies later, it’s a mystery. I guess we’ll never know.

    “€7 rapid test in Germany” Guaranteed to give completely random results! But never fear: to straighten that out, we’ll sell you even MORE tests.

    GoldStar
    https://edge.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sneetches2.jpg

    #65770

    They’re killing off your culture. That means you yourself are being cancelled. To Kill a Mockingbird, Fairytale of New York, Huck Finn, it’s all the same thing.

    BBC Edits Out ‘Derogatory’ Words In ‘Fairytale Of New York’

    #65771
    zerosum
    Participant

    HELP!
    • IIF Shocked To Forecast Global Debt Hitting $360 Trillion In Ten Years (ZH)
    (Where did $277 trillion of money come from.
    Where did $277 trillion of money go. example It’s 7 euros a test and I bought a pack of 25 tests)

    monetized by central banks who have now activated the disaster contingency plan known as helicopter money.

    $10 Trillion Americans’ Mortgage Debt
    $1.36 trillion in auto loans and leases.
    $1.7 trillion in student debt, a financial albatross that Biden is eager to slay.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-11-19/bloomberg-equality-who-benefits-from-cancelled-student-loans

    Bloomberg Equality: Who Benefits from Cancelled Student Loans?
    By Lananh Nguyen
    November 19, 2020
    ——
    Fighting the enemies of peace
    Did Trump succeed in ending the war with the USA military?
    Will Biden succeed in ending the war with the USA military?
    • Bipartisan Resolution to End War in Yemen (Antiwar)
    if the US cuts off support for the coalition, the war in Yemen would quickly come to an end.
    ——
    “Soybeans Near $12 Per Bushel as US Farmers Celebrate Surging Prices”
    I thought that the US gov. had already given billions to the farmers for the soybeans
    ———-
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/donald-trump-coronavirus-farmer-bailouts-359932
    ‘Here’s your check’: Trump’s massive payouts to farmers will be hard to pull back
    By RYAN MCCRIMMON

    07/14/2020

    https://thehill.com/policy/finance/517006-trump-to-announce-another-14b-in-aid-to-farmers-affected-by-covid-19-report
    Trump announces another $13B in aid to farmers affected by COVID-19
    BY JUSTINE COLEMAN – 09/17/20

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-farmers-breakingviews-idUSKBN27I1V7

    NOVEMBER 2, 20206:51 AMUPDATED 17 DAYS AGO
    Breakingviews – U.S. farm aid bonanza is free market nightmare
    By Anna Szymanski

    #65772
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Wow! John Michael Greer, … starts his latest harangue with:
    May I be frank? True, … continues with:
    … This is far and away the most malefic mundane chart I have ever studied. Six of the nine planets are clustered in two tight stelliums that are square to each other, and the other three planets are basically out of the picture.

    I have no idea if Donald Trump or anyone in his inner circle pays the least attention to astrology, but if so, I hope he has the great good sense to button up his ego, let his legal challenges slide, prepare to depart the White House with whatever theatrics he considers appropriate, and thank his lucky stars that he can sit out the next four years and get ready for 2024. Whoever is inaugurated this coming January will be walking face first into a buzzsaw. …
    … rest here [but make sure you also go through comments section]
    USInauguration 2022
    https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/111369.html
    Best,
    F.S.

    #65773
    John Day
    Participant

    @ezixa1949 (wuzzat mean?), Susmarie 108 (I sleep when I can), Teri (I’m grasping at straws), D Benton Smith (tell me how I’m a genius), Gepetto (you know the path), and zerosum (engaging the work).
    Thanks for yesterday’s comments.
    Yes, I biked to work at the clinic.
    Yes “I” have a partial plan as a family man, but “we” don’t have a plan.

    #65774
    John Day
    Participant

    I agree with this. I disagree with some other weighting of this man’s strategy, but anybody who doesn’t say at least this is a Decepticon.
    “He called for residents of long term care homes to be given daily doses of Vitamin D which can help battle the virus.”

    #65775
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @John Day

    I work for a major healthcare provider/insurance group. They had a townhall a few weeks back where everything they said about C-19 was the opposite of what you say. Any ideas why they may be telling people not take vitamins and such?

    #65776
    oldandtired
    Participant

    President-elect Joe Biden has affirmed his support for erasing some student debt “immediately.”

    Is this how it really is?

    Or Biden/Warren come to aid of money lenders. Destitute college grads unable to pay back loans. Biden/Warren make lenders whole by transferring debt to US taxpayers.

    #65777
    Mr. House
    Participant

    oldandtired

    DING DING DING DING, winner winner chicken dinner. Next they’ll just add all mortgage debt to the balance sheet also, and the only people punished will be those who have been punished non stop the past 30 years, the prudent.

    #65778
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Danish Study Finds Face Masks Provide Limited Protection To Wearer (R.)

    That study was done in a place where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect, but masks were not yet recommended, and community use of masks was uncommon.

    The study emphasizes that it did not address whether masks are effective as “source control” that protects others.

    The study also emphasizes that it did not look at the effectiveness of masks “as protection in settings where social distancing and other public health measures are not in effect.”

    The study concludes that the findings were inconclusive.

    Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect, mask recommendations were not among those measures, and community use of masks was uncommon. Yet, the findings were inconclusive… It is important to emphasize that this trial did not address the effects of masks as source control or as protection in settings where social distancing and other public health measures are not in effect.

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

    #65779
    Noirette
    Participant

    Denmark face-mask study.

    “The study could not rule out that face masks do not provide any protection.”

    A very tortured formulation, reads like the authors were enjoined to insert something along those lines.

    This was the study that everyone was muttering about and the authors were daring a journal to publish, heh?

    That no conclusion is reached rests on the fact that the infection rate was in any case extremely low, calculated at 2% for Denmark (1) at that time (this no. also in paper.)

    With 4,862 participants with complete data, that makes a hypothetical 97 ppl infected, which is exactly what they found:

    42 ppl wearing masks, plus 53 going without = 95

    In short, with numbers like this, Covid randomly hits 2% of ppl, nothing more can be said. A lottery. What shoes or socks one wears, what head-gear (masks, veils, bike and motorcycle helmets, elegant hats, face-shields, etc.) if one is bald or not, or has cascading curly locks, and so on, is not shown to be relevant.

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

    1. It was most likely higher but who knows.

    #65780
    John Day
    Participant

    @Mr House
    Widespread Vitamin-D would be bad for bidness, wouldn’t it?

    #65781
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/11/subject-to-revisions.html

    Coronavirus infections were spreading in Italy in September 2019, which is before the Wuhan Games (global military olympics) in China, in mid October. Thanks Bob.
    A further SARS-CoV-2 antibodies test was carried out by the University of Siena for the same research titled “Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the pre-pandemic period in Italy”.
    It showed that four cases dating back to the first week of October were positive for antibodies, meaning they had got infected in September, Giovanni Apolone, a co-author of the study, told Reuters.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-timing/coronavirus-emerged-in-italy-earlier-than-thought-italian-study-shows-idUSKBN27V0KF

    This supports the hypothesis that COVID-19 escaped from Ft. Detrick Maryland in June.
    See third and first stories in this April 2020 post:
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/04/common-interests.html

    What is your direction on the political compass? Ray sent this self test, which I alluded to yesterday. He says he’s also a Left-Libertarian, but there is a lot we disagree about.
    How can that be?
    https://www.politicalcompass.org/test

    Aspartame is poison. It was always known to be a neurotoxin, but Donald Rumsfeld got it rammed through the FDA to help his own bottom line, and corporate co-conspirators.
    This approval of a harmful drug as a soda-sweetener was decried by faculty members when I was a medical student.

    Artificial Sweetener Used in More Than 6,000 Products Linked to Host of Serious Health Problems

    #65782
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/11/subject-to-revisions.html

    World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ Plan for Big Food Benefits Industry, Not People
    “The Great Reset is about maintaining and empowering a corporate extraction machine and the private ownership of life.” — Vandana Shiva

    World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ Plan for Big Food Benefits Industry, Not People

    Nothing much to see here… Move along, now.
    Moral Collapse and State Failure: A View From the Past
    ​ ​While causes of decline were varied, we describe and comment on four well-documented examples in which primary causality can be traced to a principal leadership that inexplicably abandoned core principles of state-building that were foundational to these polities, while also ignoring their expected roles as effective leaders and moral exemplars.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2020.568704/full

    ​Openly deciding to murder civilian women and children on whims…
    ​Australian War Crimes Report Means Get The F​..​k Out Of Afghanistan

    Australian War Crimes Report Means Get The Fuck Out Of Afghanistan

    Arguing for a Small Farm Future:
    ​ ​Nobody can tell what the future holds, but it’s a fair bet that global economic output won’t grow sixfold over the next 50 years as it has done over the last 50. Nor is it likely that fossil fuel use will triple like it has done over the same period. In fact, it seems clear that we’ll probably have to make do with less energy globally and with virtually no fossil fuels at all (currently, 85% of global energy consumption is fossil-fuel based) – and even then climate change will force major changes to the world we know.

    Arguing for a small farm future

    #65783
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/11/subject-to-revisions.html

    I don’t think I ever even heard of this important man.
    ​Lord Malloch Brown Revealed: The British Hand Behind the Coup Shows Its Scales Again
    ​ ​While one side of the unipolar world government agenda was driven by a view that the USA should forever be the primary global police force governing a zero sum system of perpetual war, with an unelected elite managing the system from above, the other side believed that the USA should surrender its claims to sovereignty to an international global body with unelected technocrats and financiers at the top managing the zero sum system of perpetual war from above.
    Notice the common denominator?​ [I count 2 common denominators]​ …​
    ​…the key figure controlling Smartmatic is none other than Lord Mark Malloch Brown, a former vice chairman of George Soros’ Investment Funds (2007), as well as Soros’ Open Society Institute and World Economic Forum, former Vice President at the World Bank (1995-1999), UN Administrator for Development (1999-2005), UN Deputy Secretary General and UK Minister of State for Africa, Asia and the UN (2007-2009)…
    On February 24, 2008, Samantha…Power said: “The principal conduit between Britain and the Candidate [Obama] has been Lord Malloch Brown, the Junior Foreign Minister, whom Obama came to admire when he [Malloch Brown] was Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Obama was really taken with him. It’s a relationship that has persisted and they have talked a number of times since.”​…
    ​ ​Speaking to the World Government Summit of June 2020 alongside Cass Sunstein and an array of other Davos-creatures, Lord Malloch Brown expressed his disdain for the rise of the multipolar alliance led by Russia, China and Trump’s USA which has obviously endangered his life’s work.​.. ​“In the wider world a more authoritarian form of government is the new majority. It is not China alone. This “new majority” embraces leaders who come to power by the ballot box and those who didn’t, but who all share a preference for a nationalist foreign policy, the weakening of domestic institutions and the rule of law”

    Lord Malloch Brown Revealed: The British Hand Behind the Coup Shows Its Scales Again

    Yay Slovenia, Boo Merkel…
    Brussels officially has a full-blown populist rebellion on its hands.
    ​ ​After Hungary and Poland blocked the EU’s $900 billion COVID-19 recovery package as well as the seven-year, €1.8 trillion ($2.1 billion) budget over Brussels’ attempt to “force foreign values upon member nations” in a long running dispute over democratic norms, immigration and the “illiberal” tilt of Poland and Hungary.
    ​ ​A clause in the budget would strip Budapest and Warsaw of billions of euros in EU funding if they don’t impose certain measures to strengthen the “rule of law” as Brussels sees fit. Both Hungary and Poland are facing EU “investigations” over allegations they undermined the independence of courts and the media.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/slovenia-backs-hungary-poland-standoff-brussels-thats-delaying-covid-relief

    ​Yay Deutschen Volke:​
    ​ ​Thousands of demonstrators on Wednesday protested against the German government’s attempt to enact additional coronavirus restrictions. German police were forced to unleash water cannons and pepper spray to disperse angry crowds in Berlin’s government district, according to Deutsche Welle (DW).
    ​ ​Around 190 protesters were arrested, and nine police officers were injured after clashes in central Berlin. Police said large crowds ignored repeated calls to wear face masks and practice safe social distancing – though none of the requests were followed by protesters.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/we-are-people-german-protesters-clash-police-over-new-coronavirus-restrictions

    “Great Reset” mastermind Klaus Schwab suggests a number of draconian measures for controlling the population under the umbrella of the ‘4th Industrial Revolution’, including risk-assessment brain scans to cross borders and implantable chips to read people’s thoughts.

    “Great Reset” Mastermind Suggests Risk Assessment “Brain Scans” Before Allowing Travel

    ​Europe needs excuses to buy cheap Russian pipeline gas and not expensive American LNG.
    ​ ​French utility Engie recently pulled out of a major long-term deal with NextDecade that would have seen it import millions of tons of U.S. liquefied natural gas. The Wall Street Journal cited earlier media reports naming the French government as the power behind the decision, which was reportedly motivated by concerns about fracking: according to the reports, Paris considered fracking an emission-heavy way of extracting natural gas.
    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Europes-Green-Deal-Is-Bad-News-For-US-LNG.html

    #65784
    Geppetto
    Participant

    @John Day

    Doc you are kindhearted man. I’m sure you’ve read Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf, the movie was good although as one could expect not so true to the book, many of the scenes in the movie resonated with me none the less. The scene where Mike tells Tyler to quit worrying about the wolves and worry about himself because ..” winter is coming” was a good one. Philosophically my brain has been stuck on the agency/freewill dilemma. I think it relates to some of the discord in our world now. Did you or @Straightwalker read ‘A Yaqui Way of Knowledge’? I know that like Ayn Rand he was discredited in the end but that does not diminish the value in his metaphors. I remember a meeting with Don Juan in the square in the city and a lesson about the red bug and personal power…?? Is that right?

    I took the test. Was happy to see that I was slightly to the right of Ghandi! hahahahah!

    Sorry. Something more pertinent to the discussion at hand. A good one from Doug Casey yesterday:

    https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-the-nature-of-assassinations/

    #65785
    El Cartero Atomico
    Participant

    I have a question about the face mask study. The results indicate an infection rate of 2.1 vs 1.8 %. However, there is no mention of the severity of the cases. Is it possible that masks , while not %100 effective, could reduce the virus load either received or transmitted and result in an asymptomatic or mild case of the virus?

    #65786
    Noirette
    Participant

    El Cartero Atomico, such a measure wasn’t logged so no answer can be given. So it is possible.. (Denmark Mask study.)

    ———

    quote:

    Obama: Now you have a situation in which large swaths of the country genuinely believe that the Democratic Party is a front for a pedophile ring…I was talking to a volunteer who was going door-to-door in Philadelphia in low-income African American communities, and was getting questions about QAnon conspiracy theories.

    Goldberg: Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice?

    Obama: I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy.

    What a total sleaze. Obama embraced and lauded the intertubes, outreach, so successful, we are tops, stellar, modernity (credentialized class) wonderful connections, power to the people, small donors, blah blah – > his first election.

    Now, the threat to democracy is not the Deplorables (mentally deficient racists, say, skipped over for the mo, too elitist, best hold back), but the Internet….

    Note how he stigmatises low-income African-American communities – they are the dumbests, lowest, of all, like, those folks, believe, oh man, I can’t, in Q-what? Well they don’t know what to believe, thankfully they have the wits to pose questions to their superiors, who may inform them of right-think?

    Argh.

    Heh, and see the language in the question, which includes malevolent information, moral arc destroyed..

    #65787
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    @ El Cartero Atomico

    That mask study does say “Reported symptoms did not differ between groups during the study period (Supplement Table 3).” And they did antibody tests at 30 days, which could catch the asymptomatic or mild cases.

    #65788
    El Cartero Atomico
    Participant

    @ Doc Robinson. Thanks for that info.

    #65789
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @JohnDay
    Think of Lord Brown as a quieter , modernized, version of Oswald Mosely. Same royalist aristocratic class , and deeply personal attraction to (real) German Nazis. Far less flamboyant. No Black Shirt thugs at his rallies or anything like that. But he sure do cleave closely to the sincere love of top down authority. Eloquent speaker, impeccably polite, and a total fucking narcissistic mad man . . . just like Mosely.
    Brown worked many years for Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada , who more or less openly helped displaced Nazi’s assimilate, disappear and prosper in South America after WW2. Not very clear who was paying Brown’s salary, which strongly suggests MI6 or CIA or both. He sure wasn’t working for shits and giggles.

    #65790
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Something about that Danish mask study doesn’t add up. The study period ended on 2 June, when there were 11,734 Covid-19 cases in Denmark [Worldometer]. This is only 0.2% of Denmark’s population. Yet the groups in the mask study had infection rates of 1.8% and 2.1% based on the test results.

    Could it be that only a very low percentage of the study participants actually became infected during the study, and the reported infections are largely due to false positives from the antibody tests and PCR tests? This could totally explain why both groups had similar results.

    Even now, with more than 5 months of new cases added to the total, Denmark’s cumulative number of Covid-19 cases, as a percentage of the population, is only around 1.1%, which is much less than the 1.8% and 2.1% reported for the study participants in June.

    #65791
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. D:

    You mentioned squirrel.

    Would that be the black squirrel with the white tail, my wife nicknamed “White Tail”, I saw at the cottage?

    #65792
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Something about that Danish mask study doesn’t add up.”

    Something about 2020 doesn’t add up.

    #65793
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Hi @Ilargi

    reference : “They’re killing off your culture”

    Well they’re certainly trying , that’s for sure. Big mistake, though, because it’s a fools errand. Ya can’t kill off a thing that does not exist. We Americans don’t have “a” culture , and we never did. Before Columbus there were literally thousands of tribes with at least hundreds of cultures , and soon after the first Europeans jacked up the total by a dozen or so then the floodgates opened to immigrants from every nook and cranny of the whole friggin planet ! Like it or not, for better or worse, the “culture” of the USA is a mind boggling mashup of every race, ever culture, every sane and crazy variety of human being that there is or has been since 1492. There are no exceptions. There are staggeringly huge numbers of people here from literally everywhere. That’s a done deal. It was baked into our tutti fruitti LONG ago, border wall or no.
    So the Globalist bastards think they can homogenize , brainwash and pacify THAT kind of a pots puree of humanity ? Right. About as much chance as the Hubbardites have for “Clearing the Planet.” Hubris is a wonderful thing. It makes the insane feel good about themselves just before they commit suicide by delusional grandiosity.
    There may be trouble. Hell, I’ll even stipulate that there IS going to be trouble. And in the end we will absorb it and them and anyone else who chooses to play. In the end we will be America, and just as crazy and mixed up as we have always been. New World Order implies some sort of “orderliness”, and no one has every been able to do that. Try herding cats.
    If America can be said to have any kind of culture at all, then the chaos I just described is what it is. And we fucking love it.

    #65794
    chettt
    Participant

    “Something about that Danish mask study doesn’t add up.”

    But Doc, what percent of the population has been tested? Maybe if we tested the entire population the infection rate might just be around 2%

    #65795
    WES
    Participant

    I am now back from my nearly 5 month long, self imposed isolation (from the internet), at the family’s island cottage!

    Being at the cottage is living in a simpler world.

    The waves tell us the direction and strength of the wind. We notice in real time when the wind changes direction. We notice the wild life living around us. The deer, coyote, raccoons, mink, muskrats, turtles, white swans, geese, ducks, blue herons, ospreys, eagles, robins, blue jays, swallow, sea gulls, and loons. There is a beaver around but nobody knows who’s boathouse it calls home!

    The cottage is on the St. Lawrence River between Ontario and New York State. This year the summer cottage season was a very strange one because of the virus and the closed Cdn/US border, none of our American neighbors and friends were there. This has never ever happened before. Needless to say we greatly missed them! It was quiet. Way too quiet!

    I spent most of the summer building things. I put a steel roof on the mainland garage. I extended the cottage deck, built a screened in porch, build a pad for a new metal shed which we couldn’t buy as they were all sold out. Getting the desired lumber sizes proved difficult due to lumber shortages.

    I like building things so I had a happy time at the cottage. In hindsight my whole life has revolved around building and fixing things.

    I used a gas chainsaw for the first time in my life as my electric one failed and I couldn’t get replacement parts. Fallen trees provided the firewood to keep s warm during our extended fall stay. I have never stayed this late at the cottage.

    Shotgun blasts early in the morning and again at sunset were a regular feature as duck hunting season opened in late September. Nobody hunts the over abundance Canada geese anymore. Deer hunting season runs from September to June on our mile long but narrow island due to a local native. The coyote’s recent arrival has sadly reduced the surviving fawn population to near zero.

    Naturally i had water pump problems and water leaks in the cottage’s piping. If you don’t, then you are lying that you own a cottage!

    The fuel hose lining in our 5 hp four stroke outboard drove me crazy, for over a month, as it chose to disintegrate and clog the carborator. Problem was I couldn’t see what was happening. O.K. being nearly blind didn’t help!

    Now that I am back home, just north of Toronto, with internet access, sadly the world’s problems all return.

    I often joke that I go to the cottage to watch the world go down the drain! Whenever my wife asks what is new, I tell her the world blew up and they forgot to tell us!

    #65796
    Geppetto
    Participant

    @D Benton Smith

    ” If America can be said to have any kind of culture at all, then the chaos I just described is what it is. And we fucking love it.”

    Hear fucking Hear! That wins it today for me!

    Epic!

    #65797
    chettt
    Participant

    D B S

    I would say that America has a very distinct culture. We are a country that was created primarily by people who were not satisfied with the life they were living and made the choice to change their worlds by uprooting themselves from the life they knew to one of unknown risks and dangers. This is a decision that is beyond the capabilities of most human beings. This restlessness is the common thread of American culture. This is an integral part of the American DNA and while society may currently act like deer frozen in the headlights I’m quite confident that the great awakening will occur. People will recognize how great our technology is and how clever we humans are to have invented it all but at the same time realize that technology is just a tool that pales in comparison to being a living emotional being in an unfathomable universe.
    Some people think that humans have reached the planetary limits and that our only choice is to stabilize or severely lower the earth’s population and manage the remaining resources for the good of all that remain. I’m on the other end of that spectrum believing that humans will find a way to expand and populate the entire solar system. Sure there’s a chance that humans will destroy themselves and be a tiny footnote in the universal ledger but I’m betting the other way and believe that we’re far from done. We will come to appreciate just how special a place we have in this planet earth and will do everything we can to preserve it so that centuries from now it will be the Mecca of human existence that all the citizens of the solar system will want to visit at least once in their lifetime.

    #65798

    WES: I envy you your cottage and the life of the temperate north. Are the stars amazing? Do you have northern lights? Meteors?
    Welcome back!

    #65799
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Good to have you back WES. Also have to wonder if Bosco is lurking around… Hope that book is going well.
    Got hacked and fleeced a few thousand from my bank the other day. Good to see they are so good at carefully holding my money. They will reimburse I hope. Cyber-security is obviously not my strong point which is okay when nearly all my wealth is on this small farm with my family.
    Re Raul’s comment. I think the internet censorship is just getting started.

    #65800
    sinnycool
    Participant

    Re. John Michael Greer

    — Life of Brian, scene one. The Birth. —

    MANDY COHEN: Ohhh! Who are you?

    WISE MAN #1: We are three wise men.

    MANDY: What?!

    WISE MAN #1: We are three wise men.

    MANDY: Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.

    WISE MAN #3: We are astrologers.

    WISE MAN #1: We have come from the East.

    WISE MAN #2: We wish to praise the infant.

    WISE MAN #1: We must pay homage to him.

    MANDY: Homage? You’re all drunk. It’s disgusting. Out! The lot, out!

    WISE MAN #1: No–

    MANDY: Bursting in here with tales about oriental fortune tellers. Come on. Out!

    WISE MAN #2: No, no. We must see him.

    MANDY: Go and praise someone else’s brat! Go on!

    WISE MAN #2: We–

    WISE MAN #1: We were led by a star.

    MANDY: So, you’re astrologers, are you? Well, what is he then?

    WISE MAN #2: Hmm?

    MANDY: What star sign is he?

    WISE MAN #2: Uh, Capricorn.

    MANDY: Uhh, Capricorn, eh? What are they like?

    WISE MAN #2: Ooh, but… he is the son of God, our Messiah.

    WISE MAN #1: King of the Jews.

    MANDY: And that’s Capricorn, is it?

    WISE MAN #2: Uh, no, no, no. That’s just him.

    MANDY: Ohh, I was going to say, ‘Otherwise, there’d be a lot of them.’

    #65801
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    chettt: “But Doc, what percent of the population has been tested? Maybe if we tested the entire population the infection rate might just be around 2%”

    I don’t know, but if 1% of the swab tests give a false positive, and 1% of the antibody tests give a false positive, then about 2% of people receiving both tests (like the study participants in Denmark) could be counted as infected when they weren’t actually infected.

    The current rate of operational false-positive swab tests in the UK is unknown; preliminary estimates show it could be somewhere between 0.8% and 4.0%. This rate could translate into a significant proportion of false-positive results daily due to the current low prevalence of the virus in the UK population, adversely affecting the positive predictive value of the test.

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30453-7/fulltext

    We looked for studies that measured the accuracy of antibody tests…
    Our findings come mainly from 38 studies..
    [Antibody] Tests gave false positive results in 2% of those without COVID-19.

    https://www.cochrane.org/CD013652/INFECTN_what-diagnostic-accuracy-antibody-tests-detection-infection-covid-19-virus

    #65802
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Okay, I am trying to post two images from the weekly report posted on the Korea CDC website. If this works, I will comment in the next post.

    First:
    ILI Surveillance

    Second:
    Confirmed Influenza

    #65803
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Not surprisingly, that did not work. Can someone tell me how to insert a JPG file?

    #65804
    John Day
    Participant

    Thanks Geppetto, I read Journey to Ixtlan and a Yaqui Way Of Knowing as a college freshman, tripping out on relativity in physics class, reading Tao of physics, and seriously wanting to know ultimate truth.
    You might make some other guesses about those days.
    I did not care about the controversy regarding the provenance of “Don Juan”.
    All of what was presented in the books seemed like testable hypothesis to me.
    Scientists like to test hypothesis. It’s the right thing to do.
    I did not read Never Cry Wolf, nor did I see the movie. I don’t know the story line, either.
    So “left libber” , too? 🙂

    D Benton Smith : I looked up Oswald Mosely. Seems like kind of a jerk, but not unsure of himself.

    WES: Welcome back. Do you keep alcohol out of your fuel lines now. Alcohol in gasoline can degrade fuel system parts that are not really designed for it. It can dissolve them slowly.

    #65805
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    @ Boogaloo

    Here is a sample URL for a JPG image (presented here as a link):

    http://www.kdca.go.kr/html/a3/namoimage/images/000030/Influenza_surveillance_and_vaccination_schedule_information_(10.19)001.jpg

    To show this JPG image directly in this comment, I click on the “img” button above the text I’m typing in here, then “enter the URL of the image (previously copied, now pasted here), and I leave it blank where it asks for a description, click on OK and voila:

    #65806
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    …and the image did not post. Sometimes they don’t.

    #65807
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    Thanks Doc Robinson. So maybe this will work:

    Weekly Report

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