Feb 102021
 


Claude Monet Houses of Parliament (Sun Breaking through the Fog) 1904

 

Nation To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve (BBee)
Mindless Lockdowns Destroy Lives — And Our Constitution (NYP)
Doctors Link Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines to Life-Threatening Blood Disorder (CHD)
Biden Team Fears No COVID Herd Immunity Until Thanksgiving (DB)
Trump Hid His Calls With Putin. Now, Biden Has Access To Them. (Pol.)
With Biden in Charge, Media Forgets Kids in Cages (MPN)
Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign Lives On Under Biden’s Command (ZH)
Trump Plans A Reemergence And Some Retribution After Impeachment (Pol.)
Trump Reportedly Shocked, Enraged By Bruce Castor’s Performance (F.)
Births In China Plummeted 15% In 2020 (ZH)
Mark Cuban’s Mavericks Won’t Play National Anthem Anymore (NYP)
Biden Continues Push For Assange’s Extradition Ahead of US Appeal Deadline (RT)

 

 

“I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–poor young clerks who loitered in front of the windows until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like a good time to open with Babylon Bee.

Nation To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve (BBee)

The nation is preparing to celebrate what is expected to become a beloved annual holiday: Two Weeks To Slow The Spread Day, to be held in March every year. “This time of year we like to come together to remember the historic day one year ago when we put on masks and locked ourselves down, trusting that the lockdown would be over in just two weeks,” said local man Paul Christof as he stared out his window longingly, his three masks securely in place. “This year, I’m going all out with a Zoom party with no more than five of my closest friends — I mean, closest, figuratively speaking, of course. We’ll be literally far apart, because I want to stay home and stay safe, and I don’t want grandma to die.”


Traditional festivities for the newly christened American holiday include remote Amazon gift exchanges, ordering DoorDash feasts for just yourself, and the customary binging of the Netflix. Historians believe the holiday will become a hit, and people will continue to wear masks and stay home throughout the year as the festive day is celebrated for hundreds of years to come.

Read more …

“The Constitution, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote, “is not a suicide pact.”

Mindless Lockdowns Destroy Lives — And Our Constitution (NYP)

The US Supreme Court on Friday made clear to Team Biden and state governors that the fight against the pandemic doesn’t give them a blank check against individual liberties. In South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, the high court struck down a California emergency regulation that prohibited all indoor religious services. Six justices held that Gov. Gavin Newsom had violated the First Amendment by subjecting religious groups to a complete ban, even while groceries, public transit and retail shops remain open. Americans accepted a broad — but temporary — lockdown of society to slow the pandemic a year ago. Yet many still live under unprecedented restrictions: business and school closures, travel bans, curfews, quarantines, limits on groups and mask mandates.

Whatever the health benefits of these diktats (and many are questionable), they have been handed down with shocking disregard for the costs: strokes uncared for, cancers left undetected, psychological anguish (especially among young adults), skyrocketing domestic abuse and harm to children from lack of in-person schooling. Unemployment from lockdowns, meanwhile, will cause 890,000 additional US deaths over the next 15 years, according to a recent study. Lockdowns also inflict great harm upon liberty. Governments overrode the rights to meet, work, speak, worship or organize. Bureaucracies decided which businesses could open and which should die.

Our legal system understandably defers to the executive branch during an emergency, when swift action can save lives. The Constitution, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote, “is not a suicide pact.” Emergency policies may prove imperfect, but our legal and political systems accept more mistakes during emergencies or war, because the costs of inaction are far higher. Still, our system doesn’t permit permanent dictatorial powers in the face of contrary data. In California, for example, the governor can unilaterally exercise any and all authority vested in the state, such as to impose quarantines and curfews, ration goods and services and regulate or even prohibit any economic and social activity.

Read more …

mRNA and auto-immune.

Doctors Link Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines to Life-Threatening Blood Disorder (CHD)

For the second time in under a month, The New York Times has published an article about people who developed a rare autoimmune disease after receiving COVID vaccines. Monday’s article featured two women, both of whom were described as healthy before they received the Moderna vaccine. The women, ages 72 and 48, are now being treated for immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a condition that develops when the immune system attacks platelets (blood component essential for clotting) or the cells that create them, according to the Times. On Jan. 13, the Times reported on the death of Dr. Gregory Michael, a Florida doctor who died 15 days after getting the Pfizer vaccine. Michael, who was 56 and described as “perfectly healthy” by his wife, developed ITP three days after being vaccinated.

He died of a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 3. As The Defender reported on Jan. 13, Dr. Jerry L. Spivak, an expert on blood disorders at Johns Hopkins University, said it was a “medical certainty” the Pfizer vaccine led to Michael’s death. Spivak, who was interviewed for Monday’s article in the Times, reiterated the link between the vaccine and ITP. Another doctor, Dr. James Bussel, a hematologist and professor emeritus at Weill Cornell Medicine who has written more than 300 scientific articles on the platelet disorder, also said he thinks there is a “possible” association between the vaccines and ITP. Bussel told the Times: “I’m assuming there’s something that made the people who developed thrombocytopenia susceptible, given what a tiny percentage of recipients they are. Having it happen after a vaccine is well-known and has been seen with many other vaccines. Why it happens, we don’t know.”

Bussel and a colleague, Dr. Eun-Ju Lee, have identified 15 cases of ITP in COVID vaccine recipients by searching the government’s database — the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — or by consulting with other physicians treating patients, and have submitted an article about their findings to a medical journal, according to the Times. In a statement provided to the Times, Pfizer said it was aware of ITP cases in vaccine recipients and that the company is “collecting relevant information” to share with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine maker added, however that “at this time, we have not been able to establish a causal association with our vaccine.” Moderna also provided a statement, but didn’t address cases of ITP, only saying that it “continuously monitors the safety of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine using all sources of data” and routinely shares safety information with regulators.

Read more …

Blind.

Biden Team Fears No COVID Herd Immunity Until Thanksgiving (DB)

Top members of President Joe Biden’s COVID response team are warning internally that the U.S. may not reach herd immunity until Thanksgiving or even the start of winter—months later than originally calculated—according to two senior administration officials. In an interview with CBS News this week, Biden hinted at some of these concerns, saying it would be “very difficult” to reach herd immunity—a population-wide resistance to the virus—“much before the end of the summer” with the current daily rate of approximately 1.3 million vaccine doses. Other top officials working on the federal government’s COVID-19 response say the are uneasy about vaccine supply long term and the impact on herd immunity, and have begun to explore ways to expand U.S. manufacturing capacity, potentially through new partnerships with outside pharmaceutical firms.


Beyond supply issues, though, top health officials say they are increasingly worried about the United Kingdom and South African COVID-19 variants, the likelihood that more variants will emerge in the coming months, and the possibility that those variants will evade the vaccines. There is some evidence to suggest that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect against the B117 United Kingdom variant, though a recent study shows a new mutation could make the vaccines less effective. Data gathered by the Novavax and Johnson and Johnson clinical trials in South Africa suggest their vaccines are less effective against the variant spreading rapidly in the country. And South Africa recently said it was halting the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine because evidence from clinical trials suggested the vaccine did not work well against the variant.

Tucker: Big Tech attempting to censor COVID-19 vaccine dissent

Read more …

RussiaRussia is alive and kicking.

Trump Hid His Calls With Putin. Now, Biden Has Access To Them. (Pol.)

Few Trump-era mysteries are as intriguing as what the 45th president said to Vladimir Putin in at least a dozen rambling, off-the-cuff calls and meetings over four years. Understanding what was said between the two could help illuminate whether Trump ever revealed sensitive information or struck any deals with the Kremlin leader that could take the new administration by surprise. Now that President Joe Biden is in the White House, he can see for himself. “They don’t need our approval to see those [records],” a former Trump White House official said, referring to the new Biden national security team. “Biden owns all the call materials. There is only one president at a time.” The Biden White House did not comment on whether it had seen the content of the calls.

But so far, at least, the National Security Council has not registered any complaints with their ability to access relevant call records from the previous administration. “It is a national security priority to find out what Trump said to Putin” over his four years in office, said one former national security official who is close to the new president. “Some things, like what happened in some face-to-face meetings where no American translator or note-taker was present, may never be fully known. But I would be very surprised if the new national security team were not trying to access” the call records. Trump closely guarded his private conversations with foreign leaders while in office, going as far as to have some hidden in the NSC’s top-secret codeword system to limit staffers’ and even cabinet members’ access and prevent leaks.

Readouts of their calls would often come from the Kremlin first, or through Trump’s Twitter feed. But while the calls were not recorded, aides were typically still on the line and taking notes of what was said. The resulting loose transcripts are known as “memcons,” or memorandums of conversation. Trump went to particularly great lengths to keep his in-person conversations with the Russian leader private, from confiscating his interpreter’s notes to forgoing American translators and notetakers altogether in their meetings. That desire for secrecy has extended even past his time in office. One former Trump official argued last week that records of Trump’s conversations with Putin, which often lasted an hour or more, should not be made available to his successor. “There are certain things a president and his immediate staff should be able to hold privileged to do the work of government, without being subject to constant partisan gamesmanship,” said a second former Trump White House official.

Read more …

Just give it a new name and you’re squeaky clean.

With Biden in Charge, Media Forgets Kids in Cages (MPN)

The Biden administration is opening a new child prison along the United States-Mexico border. The center, located in Carrizo Springs, around 100 miles southwest of San Antonio, is being specifically built for unaccompanied migrant children attempting to cross the border and will hold around 700 people when finished, although plans noted it will be expanded if the government deems it necessary. But corporate media do not see it that way. While the Trump years were filled with stories about “kids in cages” and ICE “concentration camps” along the border, they have instead almost universally referred to the new project as an “overflow facility” to help migrant children, as the following headlines demonstrate:

“Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CNN, “Biden administration to open overflow facility for 700 migrant children,” New York Post, “Biden administration to house migrant teens at overflow facility in Texas closed under Trump,” USA Today, “Biden Admin. to Open Migrant Overflow Facility amid Increase in Unaccompanied Minor Apprehensions,” Yahoo! News, “Biden administration prepares to open overflow facility for migrant children,” CBS. “Overflow facility” is a distinctly pleasantly sounding term for such an establishment, suggesting links to positively-charged services like swimming pools or libraries. The phrase is a completely new way to refer to prisons; a news search for “overflow facility” pre-January 2021 brings up only stories about COVID overflow clinics or emergency sewage treatment works.

The phrase “concentration camp” to describe the structure was completely absent. Searching for “Biden concentration camp” into news databases is more likely to generate stories about the plight of Uyghurs in Western China rather than domestic affairs. Perhaps the worst offender, however, was Fox News, whose headline informed readers: “Biden administration to open overflow shelter for migrant children in Texas” — a framing that invites the audience to see the move as a humanitarian gesture, along the lines of rape crisis shelters. None of the children who will be sent there will go of their own free will and it is doubtful whether many will appreciate the “shelter” that the U.S. government will provide them.

[..] Over much of the past three years, corporate media have been comparing the detention centers on the border to concentration camps, if not directly labeling them as such (e.g. CNN, Esquire, Washington Post). Data from Google Trends shows that phrases like “ICE concentration camp” were barely used until 2018, the term exploding into public consciousness a year later, especially after prominent Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began using it. President Biden has promised to rein in many of the worst excesses of ICE policy, yet the organization’s role in society will not fundamentally change. Indeed, during the time he was vice-president (2009-2017), President Obama deported well over 2.5 million people through immigration orders, more than any other president in American history, earning him the moniker “Deporter-in-Chief” from critics.

Read more …

Iran, Russia, China. Axis of ….

Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign Lives On Under Biden’s Command (ZH)

Tehran is continuing to reinforce its positions and pursue its interests. This is prompted by the fact that US President Joe Biden’s vow to rejoin the Nuclear Deal turned out to be entirely hollow. Iran demanded that the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration be removed, otherwise rejoining the deal meant nothing. On February 8th, Biden confirmed that sanctions on Iran wouldn’t be lifted, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying that such a “big policy change” wasn’t planned. To show some “reduction in pressure”, the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was pulled out of the region, in a signal that an escalation with Iran isn’t planned. That happened as Tehran, Moscow and Beijing announced they would hold joint naval drills.


In response, US Central Command’s Gen Kenneth McKenzie said that Iran was the “Main Driver of Instability”, in his first public address since Biden became president. McKenzie repeated a usual a US accusation against Tehran, claiming that for more than forty years it “has funded and aggressively supported terrorism and terrorist organizations.” The “maximum pressure” campaign is simply “on hold”, but is not canceled. [..] US and allied interests are being pressured all around the Middle East, as the Biden administration refuses to turn its back on any of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies. The withdrawal of the USS Nimitz CSG is a likely a welcome sign, but the sanction regime remaining, surely, spoils the party.

Read more …

Politico keeps the threat of Trump alive.

Trump Plans A Reemergence And Some Retribution After Impeachment (Pol.)

Three weeks ago may have been the nadir of Donald Trump’s political influence. A meager crowd of supporters gathered to send him off to Florida, he’d lost access to Twitter and the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell, seemed fully prepared to ghost him out of the party. Now, heading into what could have been an historic bipartisan rebuke, the former president and his team are confident both of his acquittal and that he’ll come out of the trial with his influence over the Republican party all but cemented. Not even Trump’s closest allies can believe the turn in fortunes. “He’s Teflon, right. It’s been a month since the Capitol riot and I would say, for the most part, the GOP has coalesced back behind him,” said a former Trump campaign official.

The confidence from Trump allies heading into the former president’s second impeachment trial — this time over the deadly riots by Trump supporters on Capitol Hill — may seem premature, given the lingering political and legal hurdles he still must confront. But it provides a road map of sorts for how they view his path ahead. Already, Trump aides contend, the impeachment process has proved beneficial to the ex-president — exposing disloyalty within the party’s ranks and igniting grassroots backlash against Republicans who have attempted to nudge the GOP base away from Trump. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse spent last week fending off constituent criticisms and censures from state party officials after he compared Trumpism to “a civic cancer for the nation.” And Trump’s allies believe the ex-president’s impending impeachment trial will further illuminate who the turncoats are.

“It’s going to help expose more bad apples that he can primary if any senators vote to convict,” added the former campaign official. While ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Trump has remained in touch with political allies and advisers. But he has intentionally kept a low profile, something that will likely continue this week. A former aide suggested Trump try to demonstrate his indifference to it all by spending much of impeachment playing golf, “as a way of sort of saying, ‘Who cares?’” Aides expect that to change once the trial wraps up though, with Trump gradually reemerging in public and turning his attention toward seeking revenge against Republicans who, he believes, crossed him after he left office.

Read more …

A knack for picking lawyers.

Trump Reportedly Shocked, Enraged By Bruce Castor’s Performance (F.)

Count former President Donald Trump among the many critics of attorney Bruce Castor’s widely panned performance on the first day of his Senate impeachment trial, with Trump reportedly outraged at his lawyer’s apparent inability to form a coherent argument, according to multiple reports. During Castor’s muddled, 50-minute speech, NBC News and the New York Times quoted an anonymous Trump source who said it was a “deliberative strategy” aimed at “lowering the temperature” after the impeachment managers’ emotional argument. But Trump had been prepared for his current impeachment team to be far less persuasive than the group of high-powered lawyers who defended him during his first impeachment trial, according to ABC News.


Still, Trump was “stunned to hear some of the arguments,” particularly Castor’s praise for his adversaries, according to ABC and the Times, which reported that “some in Trump’s orbit were unsure why Castor seemed caught off guard by video clips that were expected for days.” Trump was “deeply unhappy” with Castor’s performance and was “borderline screaming over what was going on as he was talking to people about this,” CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins said. Even Trump allies who voted to affirm Castors’ argument that the trial is unconstitutional lashed out publicly at his performance. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) told reporters Castor “rambled on and on,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he was not “effective.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters, “I thought I knew where he was going, and I really didn’t know where he was going.”

Read more …

“The collapse of the newborn population is really here..”

Births In China Plummeted 15% In 2020 (ZH)

Preliminary numbers assessing China’s births in 2020 released by the country’s household registration system are setting off alarm bells for Beijing, suggesting a continued severe population decline, given the new numbers for last year show a whopping 15% decline in births from the year before. “Concerns over the outlook for China’s population have grown after the number of newborns recorded in the country’s household registration system declined 15 per cent during a coronavirus-hit 2020,” South China Morning Post observes of the new numbers. “Last year, a total 10.035 million of newborns were recorded in the household registration system, known as hukou in China, down from 11.79 million in 2019, according to figures released by the Ministry of Public Security on Monday.”

While the hukou system only reveals preliminary information on total births across the population, it’s official demographic stats for COVID-impacted 2020 is expected to come out soon via China’s National Bureau of Statistics based on a once in ten year national census it recently conducted. As SCMP underscores it’s predicted that when total official stats do come out, expectations are for a further decline after previously 2019 saw “the lowest level since 1961” and down from 2018 as well. China is the world’s most populous country with the number of people commonly estimated at just over 1.4 billion. When the current working-age population hits retirement, there are fears the decline in births trend will severely impact the world’s second largest economy.

This also given the latest official figures out of the National Bureau of Statistics show that some 18% of the population is already over 60, with this ageing demographic to grow to one-third of the entire population by 2050. The SCMP report cited one prominent research economics professor to say the writing is on the wall. “The collapse of the newborn population is really here,” he warned, writing that: “Although we cannot deduce the decline in the birth population in these regions as the annual decline in the country, we consider that idea of having two children is weak and the number of women of childbearing age has decreased, so we need not anticipate further that the birth population in 2020 will drop significantly compared with 2019. The collapse of the newborn population is really here,” said James Liang, a research professor of applied economics at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, in a blog post last week.

Read more …

And we all care?!

Mark Cuban’s Mavericks Won’t Play National Anthem Anymore (NYP)

Haven’t heard about any national anthem protests at Mavericks games? There’s a good reason for that: Dallas isn’t and won’t be playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” anymore. Mark Cuban told The Athletic it was his decision to eliminate the tradition of playing the anthem before games. The move went by unnoticed through the first 13 combined preseason and regular-season games at American Airlines Center because the Mavericks did not publicize it, either within the organization or through an announcement to media. Monday marked the first game in which the Mavericks allowed a limited number of fans into their arena.


Cuban has been vocal about his support of those who wish to kneel during the playing of the national anthem, the practice which former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began in 2016 and which became a lightning rod for partisan political debate. The outspoken Mavericks owner told ESPN last July of the potential for his team’s players to kneel during the anthem: “If they were taking a knee, and they were being respectful, I’d be proud of them” and that he hoped he would “join them.” He later tweeted, in response to what he called “The National Anthem Police,” that if critics of the nonviolent protest of systemic racism in the United States took issue then they could “complain to your boss and ask why they don’t play the National Anthem every day before you start work.”

Read more …

Depraved.

Biden Continues Push For Assange’s Extradition Ahead of US Appeal Deadline (RT)

The Joe Biden administration will continue to pursue extradition for Julian Assange, the Justice Department said, rebuffing calls from rights groups to reverse course ahead of an appeal deadline in the WikiLeaks co-founder’s case. DOJ spokesman Marc Raimondi said on Tuesday that Washington has not abandoned plans for Assange’s extradition from the UK, noting that Biden will still challenge a January ruling from a British judge barring extradition over concerns that Assange might take his own life in American custody. “We continue to seek his extradition,” Raimondi told Reuters, signaling that the new Biden administration will pick up where ex-president Donald Trump left off in seeking to charge the anti-secrecy activist for his publication of classified documents.


The statement from the DOJ comes mere days before a February 12 deadline for the US government to submit its “grounds for appeal” in Assange’s extradition case, in which American attorneys will argue against UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling against the move. Calls on Washington to abandon the Assange case picked up momentum in the waning days of the Trump presidency, with activists and journalists across the political spectrum demanding he pardon the WikiLeaks publisher before his term was up. While Trump ultimately refused to grant clemency, much of the same pressure has carried over to the Biden administration, illustrated most recently in a letter from some two dozen civil liberties organizations condemning the indictments against Assange as a “grave threat to press freedom.”

Read more …

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

5% of humans in the blue, 5% in the red.

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in 2021. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle February 10 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #69495

    Claude Monet Houses of Parliament (Sun Breaking through the Fog) 1904   • Nation To Celebrate 1st Anniversary Of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve (
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 10 2021]

    #69496
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    LOCKDOWNS DESTROY LIVES

    Certainly in the UK where draconian edicts are issued daily.

    Today’s edict is a total ban on holidays this year, either in Britain or abroad!

    There seems to be another drug which could reduce hospitalisation, by 90% : the steroid budesonide. Sold as Pulmicort by AstraZeneca

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9242771/Common-asthma-drug-cuts-need-send-Covid-patients-hospital-90-Oxford-says.html

    #69497
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Claude Monet Houses of Parliament (Sun Breaking through the Fog) 1904

    Monet on a roll…
    Outstanding silhouettes of the Houses of Parliament…
    They are rather impressive buildings…

    #69498
    Dr. D
    Participant

    From yesterday:

    “Fossil fuel pollution causes nearly 1 in 5 deaths globally each year”
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/world/climate-fossil-fuels-pollution-intl-scn/index.html

    Yup. Oil is now the leading cause of death. Not cancer, not heart disease, not Covid. People are so math illiterate they don’t even notice CNN is the most fake, made-up, illogical, unscientific adder of random word soup on the internets.

    But they are quoting Harvard, so…clearly false. Using a computer model, so false to the false squared.

    Maybe someday being catastrophically wrong about everything while shifting money from the poor to the rich will matter, but today is not that day.

    This is so important France won’t pay for it. And China doesn’t have to. YOU will.

    How about deaths from GREEN fuel?

    Achtung Baby! (It’s Cold Outside) – Germany’s “Green” Energy Fail Rescued by Coal and Gas
    Its millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice and breathless, freezing weather is encouraging its 30,000 wind turbines to do absolutely nothing at all…”

    That’s what I say when I hear “wind and solar”: Well, I hope you don’t like air conditioning. Wasn’t the last French heatwave killed more people than Covid because being a moderate climate, they don’t have A/C?

    And that’s besides Germany not being a nation, depending on the grid (as well as actual power on slow days) from France and Russia, and therefore their “Green” energy is really badly outdated nuclear plants? Are they really a sovereign nation if they collapse without Russia holding them up? Reminds me of the electric car people. Cars that run on coal using lithium mined at gunpoint in Afghanistan. Good idea!

    Batteries CANNOT work. You have to carry around the container, the battery matrix-stuff, which you can only add ions to. It’s impossible for it to be as energy-dense as a tin can of all-energy-no-matrix.

    What we really need are cars that run on clean hydrogen — Space Age stuff. …Except Hydrogen can’t be stored: it’s gaseous and must be high-pressurized, not good for wasted energy on pumps, dangerous gas stations and fill ups, can’t be pipelined, explosive if ruptured in an accident, but more importantly, being so small it escapes from any tank you can make.

    BUT – and I’m just spitballing here – maybe we could find a way to combine the hydrogen bonds into long chains, we could LIQUIFY it, make it a lot safer on rupture, cheaper to pump, and so easy and safe we could store it in a milk jug. It would revolutionize transportation industry if only we could find this product.

    …Congratulations, you’ve just invented “gasoline”, a liquid chain of atomic bonds that are 100% consumable, easily stored, and broken off in a chemical reaction that is astonishingly energy-dense.

    Green Energy isn’t even science. Which you can tell since every Green New Deal from Tesla to Solyndra suck up billions of dollars from the poorest taxpayers, hands it to rich insiders, immediately or eventually goes bankrupt, and leaves an infinitely-polluting, non-recyclable white elephant in its wake, where once virgin forests and topsoil used to be. ‘Cause if you’re not concrete-slabbing 5.3 million square feet every day to create another “alien dreadnaught” where nature used to be, it’s just not environmental.

    Meanwhile, I can build you a Model A or a golf cart that runs on field-grown biodiesel for $3000. No one cares because it doesn’t cause wars overseas or government-mandated profits on the backs of the poor. You do know Tesla’s fortune is paid for by the people of downtown Baltimore and Flint, Michigan, right? Making the rich richer to be ANTI-environmental. #Winning.

    ” J&J CEO Says Annual Covid Vaccine Needed “For Years” as MSM Warns Virus Will “Circulate for Decades”

    You mean the vaccine that doesn’t work and has side effects like “instant death”? Why not? Note the claim in this headline was made by the “Mainstream Media” who has been wrong about everything for 20 years running. WMD and Ties to Al-Qaeda. RussiaRussiaRussia.

    Here’s an idea: STOP BUYING STUFF. The end. Congratulations you’re now more environmental than every politician in Europe, every greenie, and signaling pop star combined. And you’ve blown a hole in the side of billionaires and government too. Sitting at home on your couch. Because it’s SO EASY. And they are just that stupid. But you can’t because that would require responsibility and sacrifice.

    Trump Hid His Calls with Putin. Now, Biden Has Access to Them. (Pol.)”

    So the story here is Biden has access to all the calls and found nothing. Got it. So…you’re LYING. Because it’s a day ending in “Y” and it’s an hour o’clock.

    “he has intentionally kept a low profile, something that will likely continue this week.”

    But I thought he was a narcissist who couldn’t stop Twittering. Now he stopped talking for a month and doesn’t bother him at all. What gives? Maybe because, like everything else said in most of my lifetime, you’re

    LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGGGGG?
    LyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLyingLying?

    Nah. I called the NYTimes. They said they weren’t. RussiaRussiaRussia.

    By the way, they are so totally NOT lying that someone had to build an App that erases their worst, fakest, most lying reporters off social media newsfeeds so you don’t accidentally read them and their lies. (Lookin’ at you, Luke Harding) I couldn’t approve more. This is what we’ve come to when the Editors and Owners won’t fire are remove them. We have to do their jobs for them, as if I have time.

    “Births in China Plummeted 15% in 2020 (ZH)”

    There is a book called “Fewer” that describes – and against all scientists, environmentalists, and thinktanks “helping” humanity die as prematurely as possible — that wealth lowers birth rates, and therefore, demographically, all your arguments about overpopulation will turn out to be complete, fabricated, mass-murdering bulls—t, like always, every year for the 200 years since Malthus. Here they are, proven right again. Doing nothing.

    But hey, our helping at least destroyed all those concrete square feet and leveled some untouched ore mountains, amirite?

    “Biden Continues Push for Assange’s Extradition Ahead of US Appeal Deadline (RT)”

    Well what do you expect from a guy who puts kids in cages.

    #69499
    Basseterre Kitona
    Participant

    • Mark Cuban’s Mavericks Won’t Play National Anthem Anymore (NYP)

    I’m mostly ok with this. Playing the national anthem before every game has always felt a bit absurd to me. At a baseball game, you are sitting there in the bleachers, beer in hand and half way through a hot dog when suddenly you are supposed to drop everything and stand at attention. Probably half the crowd was ignoring it anyway until all this kneeling BS arrived. So I don’t have a problem eliminating it to keep politics out of sports. And don’t even get me started on the recent “tradition” of adding God Bless America to the 7th inning stretch.

    There is also the absurdity of it just in the sense that being at a baseball game is already pretty darn American thing to do. Imagine if the French paused to sing La Marseillaise everytime the ate coq-au-vin…because you know, they might forget that they are French.

    Having said all of that, singing the anthem before big games can add to the ceremonial feel of the affair. Opening Day or a championship game, for example. Also, perhaps first game after something like September 11, 2001. And it is still nice to hear the various anthems at international Olympic style events when an athlete represents his country by winning a gold medal.

    But overall, I’m generally for decoupling sports from the state.

    #69500
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Not sure if anyone here watched the superbowl, i caught half of it because my grandma is a huge tom brady fan wanted to watch. Anyways i found it to be so lacking in fun and enjoyment. The ads are usually the best part part due to being funny/silly. Not this year, i didn’t see a Jeep ad with bruce springsteen but it apparently has made some people angry. Didn’t see a single funny ad, everything was trying to be “inspiring” but really just came of as pathetic. Can you imagine what it was like when the first superbowl was played. All the pomp and circumstance removed, just some football in black in white? Anyways i stopped watching at halftime.

    #69501
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Football, and razors, decided to be political, but I get my politics from news sources, not football games, so they’re all on boycott, forever. The thing sports is selling — their entire POINT — is a break from daily life. But in #OppositeLand, that’s the only place you DON’T get a relaxing break. If you hadn’t noticed, another 15% of all Americans agree. Viewership collapses in every sport in exact proportion to how Woke they are. I.e. China-slave-loving NBA first, PGA let’s-just-play-golf last.

    “Conservatives Sit Down For A Relaxing Evening Of Being Insulted By Every Major Corporation In America” BBee

    https://babylonbee.com/news/conservatives-sit-down-for-a-relaxing-evening-of-being-insulted-by-every-major-corporation-in-america

    I’m not into being lectured on Justice by corporations supporting active, ongoing human slavery. If I wanted that lecture, I’d call my owner and ask.

    #69502
    zerosum
    Participant

    “…..more variants will emerge in the coming months, and the possibility that those variants will evade the vaccines.”

    How to end lockdown. – Herd immunity

    (The following advise is free, therefore, worthless.)

    Best covid 19 test Grey hair
    Give covid 19 vaccine to everyone with grey hair
    Because you cannot get covid19 if you got the vaccine

    Therefore this will end the pandemic
    (for the well-to-do, who can afford to pay for the extra fees/cost that are imposed to go “back to normal” socializing )

    #69503
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Actually, the first Super Bowl wasn’t quite that long ago. It was filmed so that you could see the red of the Chief’s jerseys and the green of the Green Bay Packers. (Also a historic clash of two great quarterbacks, Len Dawson and Bart Starr.)

    I was never a big Springsteen fan. Here he plays–what, a hard-working, salt of the earth rancher? (ie, domesticated, white-collar cowboy. Yet in one shot, pre-hat, he looks almost Native American. ReUnite indeed.) His gravely voiceover may have some sonic gravitas, but his words are sentimental cotton candy platitudes. Not to mention part of the marketing speak of one of our political parties. Guess which one? Gotta think Jeep might just lose a few red state sales. Will the Insurrectionists put all their jeeps up for sale?

    I can’t really tell if Dr. D is agreeing or disagreeing with the idea that overpopulation is a problem. To the extent that it is a further drain on resources, definitely a problem, especially as more and more people are transformed from citizens into consumers.. No doubt China will once again be incentivizing baby-making in the coming years.

    #69504
    John Day
    Participant

    @Polder Dweller: You asked about how the (Vitamin-D) ivermectin, zinc, doxycycline treatment works.
    I had a long Friday at work, then did a lot of real life work and arranging in Yoakum from Saturday through Monday, and back to paid work yesterday. (excuses)
    Nobody, out of about 40 that I recall hearing back from, has gotten worse after starting the treatment. All but a few, who already have nausea/diarrhea, have kept it down well. Vomiting reduces it’s efficacy, but out of those 3, nobody really got bad, either. A moderate number of people take one pill per day of the ivermectin, no matter what is written on the bottle. They don’t get better quickly.
    Almost everybody who takes it and keeps it down feels better within 24 hours.

    #69505
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Hi Mr. House,

    You were smart to turn the SuperBowl off prior to half-time. I tuned in for half-time only – with a thought that it might be “entertaining”, like last year. Big mistake. Guess I was expecting something like last year….

    I’m a high-energy girl who relates to other strong, talented women. Even the beautiful ones! Say what you will about J. Lo and Shakeira, but these two really excelled at their ART. Tell me that this was not an amazing and entertaining only-in-America show moment. Pure energy, unleashed – wild and focused. I get up and dance every time I watch it. Heyyy, why not add a little fun into your mix once in a while?

    #69506

    John Day,

    Here’s the FDA. Have fun. 😉

    COVID-19 and Ivermectin Intended for Animals

    Some of the side-effects that may be associated with ivermectin include skin rash, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, facial or limb swelling, neurologic adverse events (dizziness, seizures, confusion), sudden drop in blood pressure, severe skin rash potentially requiring hospitalization and liver injury (hepatitis). Laboratory test abnormalities include decrease in white cell count and elevated liver tests. Any use of ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 should be avoided as its benefits and safety for these purposes have not been established. Data from clinical trials are necessary for us to determine whether ivermectin is safe and effective in treating or preventing COVID-19.

    #69507
    John Day
    Participant

    Heh,heh, heh…
    What they don’t sayis that ALL of those side effects are from killing the massive load of filariform worms and other parasites infesting your body, like treating “River Blindeness”. A bunch of kinds of worm corpses are now dead and your body reacts with shock as it tries to clean up the mess.

    These side effects do not apply to treating COVID.

    heh, heh, heh… Don’t be a sucker.

    #69508
    John Day
    Participant

    The red on that map looks like Bangladesh and West Bengal, one country as part of India , until civil war, threatened by sea level rise. People will have to leave.

    #69509
    John Day
    Participant

    I remain highly suspicious that Hank Aaron died of immune thrombocytopenia causing “a massive stroke”, which would have been the smoking gun, if it was a bleed, not ischemia (dry),
    Clammed-up. No information will be allowed out.
    “Natural Causes” , is all we will get.
    If it was a dry/ischemic stroke, they would have said so.
    It would have excluded his death as a side effect.

    #69510
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    The Choreography!

    Imagine directing 100’s of dancers to form a “cast” of synergistic support in a huge outdoor stadium venue.

    Did you catch that lighted/animated circular center stage? Watch as it turns into a void surrounded by land and waterfalls.

    The “beat” through music and dance rolled like thunder throughout. Hello! famous Led Zep rif….they must have put that in there just for me.

    The costumes! Give me red fringe and boots or give me death…wait…give me silver and gold body suits or give me….that head of long blonde-ish hair so I can fluff and whip it around for what I do not know (for fun?)….Oh wait…

    Give me/I choose to cultivate dedication to my ART so that I offer full expression of my talents and GIFTS in every moment. Across all meduims. In all ways.

    A superbowl show like this one is a Monet in its own realm….a V. Arnold critique would be delightful.

    #69511
    John Day
    Participant

    @Absolute Galore, from yesterday: Vitamin-D deficiency makes the immune system malfunction.
    Enough vitamin-D helps the immune system be intelligent and discerning.
    Thinking “too much” and “too little” is barking up the wrong tree.
    An intelligent immune system is very likely to stop coronaviruses in the nose and throat area.
    An angry, overwhelmed and desperate immune system busts loose with cytokine storm, which is too-much-too-late.

    #69512
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “I can’t really tell if Dr. D is agreeing or disagreeing with the idea that overpopulation is a problem.”

    I believe the point he was making is that birth rate is strongly correlated with poverty, so when income levels rise the birth rate falls – Japan being a good example of this.

    I think we all agree that overpopulation and overconsumption are problems, but these are so multifaceted and complex that humanity is not capable of getting its head around them.

    Overconsumption, at first glance, appears to be a cultural problem that is more easily solved. Native American tribes, for example, had a pretty harmonious relationship with nature. Buffalo herds were grateful that their hides and other body parts were not extracted by Walmart-sized processing plants and shipped worldwide. The problem of overconsumption has no chance until the profit motive of Capitalism is solved first, and this may only be investigated by those that are left to pick up the pieces after WW3.

    Overpopulation, on the other hand, looks to be a harder nut to crack. We’re getting into biological issues, moral issues, nationalism (power in numbers), etc., and of course resource depletion – a complexity beyond belief. The “pill” has done wonders for sexual liberation without the nasty side effect of birth, but lower life forms have not been too thrilled with all the extra hormones that are being dumped into their ecosystems. There always seem to be three new problems created for every solution we put forth. Almost as if humanity did not have the capacity to understand how nature works. But I’m sure that scientists are working feverishly to come up with another one-size-fits-all solution – a new and more deadly pandemic or thermo-nuclear war for instance.

    —-

    Three cheers for Dr John Day!! I would trust him with my life. Wouldn’t you?

    #69513
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    @John Day

    Thanks for the reply, it’s very encouraging.

    I’ll pass your info on to the medical professionals I know, but I’ll take an umbrella in anticipation of the inevitable sputum-flecked response I will be sure to receive. There’s just no pleasing some people.

    #69514
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #69515
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @ a.g.
    Thanks for posting the vid of the game even I am not particular fan of it, however beautifully done highlights made it palatable. $ 15,000 (bit over $100,000 in today’s $) per player of a winning team – talking about an insult to today’s in the game. What the beautiful time to live in the US. Stadium full of people who had no mortgage, rent or any other financial problems (up to the point, of course). Peace of mind guaranteed as long as one shows up for honest day of work. Speaking of which brings me to Bruce Springsteen. Never liked any singer who would forcibly push the gravel voice (M. Bolton is another case), but in my mind, somehow, he always represented that “all American construction worker” – specie complacently erased from the job sites across the nation. Proud earner of good living is replaced by low pay and on demand legal and illegal imports from the south, working, what appears, all seven days in a week. Speaking of which brings me to demographics. In my circle of friends, an idea of fewer kids is related to ability to provide decent upbringing for them. I had known some couples who were just “one child over”, which meant that for many activities if they could not pay for all nobody goes to.
    Population is swelling from the places and a people who could least afford it. Earth would be helped a lot if, at least, most of sapiens do not leave pile of garbage behind.

    #69516
    John Day
    Participant

    Jeremy, “Germ” sent this: Ivermectin is bad if it’s a competitor to YOUR products.
    FLCCC Alliance Response to Merck’s
    public statements on ivermectin’s
    efficacy in COVID-191
    https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/FLCCC-Alliance-Response-to-Merck-statements-on-ivermectin-in-Covid19-Dec7-2021.pdf

    #69517
    Mr. House
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-begins-recommending-wearing-two-masks

    This is just a tragic comedy at this point. If you want people to take you seriously provide the public N95 masks free of charge.

    #69518
    Mr. House
    Participant

    the yellow king

    #69519
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @Maxwell Quest: “Three cheers for Dr John Day!! I would trust him with my life. Wouldn’t you?”

    I would. He is a treasure. We are fortunate to have him here.

    I take D, K-2, Zinc, Quercetine, C. I have Doxy and horse Iverm**tin (are we allowed to use that word?) in the house. My human Iverm**tin is on it’s way from India, a reliable source Dr John Day recommended.

    I don’t worry about the C word at all, despite being in NY where fear porn is pumped at us all day, every day. If I die from the C word despite these measures, it was my time to die. I’m good with that.

    Thanks also to Raul (the best on the web, in my opinion) and all the other commenters as well. Appreciate y’all more than you realize.

    #69520
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Over time I’ve grown ever more torn and understanding of the bad guy’s take and plan on limiting humans. …Don’t tell.

    Yes, the point is the RICHER we get, the less humans, maybe a strange extension of Jevon’s Paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox However, consumption doesn’t drop. Yet.

    However, my own view is a lot closer to “We have enough for everyone’s need, not enough for everyone’s greed.” Humans? It depends. Do we all live like Al Gore and Bill Gates or like Zen monks and Shaker villages? If Shaker villages, I guarantee we’d have more more resources than we can know what to do with. And we wouldn’t waste any of them either, as is our Christian responsibility in the Millennium age.

    So that’s where they go so badly wrong. A grown-up culture — even like we has as recently as the 1890s — would be lavish and rich, culturally abundant, with space age inventions daily, while using a fraction, a tenth of the resources today, while being infinitely happier doing it. And of course even more mature, like the two religious groups above, allows ever higher states with ever-lower resources.

    While they have the opposite view, of shortage and death, which is fine, but they force it on me and everyone they know making life BOTH more wasteful buy the hundred, AND more miserable by the million. That I can’t allow.

    #69521
    Mr. House
    Participant

    To do as you say Dr. D they would have to be stewards of humanity, that they most certainly are not.

    #69522
    Glennda
    Participant

    @ Mr. House
    “I enjoyed this (lifted from the comments at ecosophia)”

    https://graymirror.substack.com/p/glen-weyl-the-slave-of-history?r=edye1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

    I also enjoyed that link. What a witty writer, with great turns of phrase. I usually can’t read all the comments to JMG’s blog Ecosophia, but this is a keeper. I really like his calling academics, goldfish who think they are whales in our muddy pond of current history. Thanks for sharing that.

    @ John Day – thank you for being the light of clarity and reason about treatments for covid. You have a voice I can trust.

    @ Ilargi – thank you for this blog. It makes my morning coffee much more eye opening.

    #69523
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    I don’t blame only the wealthy, Mr. House. We all have a responsibility in what has gone wrong here. Ultimately no one is our personal “steward” but ourselves.

    Dr D: I hear you and understand where you’re coming from. Isn’t the problem actually just that? We are human. Evolution is not linear and we are not evolving to some mythical higher place that enhances our desirable traits. Technology is destroying us as it provides access to wealth we don’t even begin to need in order to live. Whether uber wealthy or simply sort of middle class, we are flat out spoiled. The more we have, the more we want. (please no one jump in to tell me that he/she personally isn’t like that. It’s on a spectrum. I get that).

    I like dogs. Have had dogs for 30+ years. They’re awesome companions. But as companions (ok, pets) they have no “job” that they understand. So they’re able to be puppies until the day they die. Spoiled, pampered, demanding. They wind up with odd behavioral issues no self-respecting wolf or wild dog would ever have.

    I think it’s like that. It’s all too easy for humans now (not every human, obviously, but definitely the ones controlling the flow of the overall gig, and that is not JUST the people “in power”). We’re in some ways perpetual children at this point, and technology has accelerated that phenomenon over the past few decades especially.

    Dr D, you are also a treasure, although I suspect not everyone would agree. 😉

    #69524
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    PS … the spectrum is a typical bell curve. Dr John Day is on the far left side, under the very low tail, as he bikes around, donates to people in need, grows food, works at a public health clinic, and freely sharing his knowledge and resources with anyone and everyone. Jeff Bezos is on the far [far] left side, way out under that opposite low tail.

    #69525
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    Bezos is on the far [far] RIGHT side. Duh. Long day. Tired.

    #69526
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    We’re in some ways perpetual children at this point, and technology has accelerated that phenomenon over the past few decades especially.

    Our infantilization started with forced education around 1853. A fascinating read is The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto.
    I cannot recommend this book too highly…

    #69527
    WES
    Participant

    So just as I expected obiden is aggressively pursuing Julian. It wasn’t very hard to figure this out. All I had to do is look at who has the motive. The same folks who own the RussiaRussiaRussia narrative!
    Have you noticed how the RussiaRussiaRussia narrative is be amplified since joe arrived.

    #69528
    WES
    Participant

    Another way of looking at falling birth rates.

    In today’s social welfare state, an individual is already burdened by pre-existing state (public) family obligations via income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc.

    Then should this individual decide with another individual to bring a child into this world, they have to take into consideration the ability to take on the double burdens of a state (public) family plus their own private family.

    Do they have enough financial resources, and personal energy left to support both? Can they do it well or just poorly?

    Further if they do decide to start a private family, do they still have enough financial resources left if one of the two individuals has to reduce their financial resources to start a private family since the burden of supporting the public family never goes away?

    Obviously, the falling birth rate answers these questions.

    #69529
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Ultimately no one is our personal “steward” but ourselves.”

    I don’t disagree, and i mind my own business. I’m not the one running up the debt and dictating to others. I live in a small two room apartment, and kept my rent at under 700 dollars since i started renting. You end up having to move alot to make it work, but its doable. I avoid debt like the real plague and save as much as i can because thats the only freedom you have in america. But i do not condone the strong preying on the weak, which is what 90% of our economy is, along with .gov.

    #69530
    WES
    Participant

    Another way to look at the blue and red world map is to realize how rich small Bangladesh is in it’s ability to support human life, compared to most of the land mass in the rest of the world!

    Clearly Bangladesh produces more food than Canada, Russia, and Australia put together!

    #69531
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Trump was an abomination as President; how is it that under Biden I find myself thinking back to trump as maybe not so abominable…….. 😉

    #69532
    John Day
    Participant

    @Maxwell Quest: Thank You.

    @UpstateNYer
    : Thank You, too.

    @Glennda
    : You’re Good, too.
    @Dr.D: Where does that involuntary population control by elites lead?
    I think it is what they do when we start to outgrow our resources.
    I think it is the use they provide to the gene pool.
    I think we can be much better stewards than that. We know how.
    How do we get there from here?
    It’s a though problem that requires action, but you just have to keep working it until you start to make progress.
    We’re working on it.

    #69533
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ John Day

    How are your banana’s doing? Did they survive the freeze?
    Keep on keeping on good doctor…

    #69534

    Off topic: If time travel exists, it has always existed.
    On topic: I thought this was a particularly decent board today. Thanks, all you wonderful, digital folks.
    John Day- If by some chance I think I require Ivermectin, how much will I regret losing my little parasitic friends? What percent of us rent space to helminths?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.