Feb 112021
 
 February 11, 2021  Posted by at 10:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Ansel Adams Evening at McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park 1942

 

AstraZeneca Says Vaccine Against New Covid Variant May Take 6-9 Months (G.)
CDC: Fully Vaccinated People Don’t Need To Quarantine If Exposed To Covid (NBC)
Deaths of Elderly Who Recovered From COVID, but Died After Vaccine (Attkisson)
Dershowitz Destroys Democrats’ Impeachment In Under 2 Minutes (WND)
Dershowitz: Trump Defense Must Avoid ‘Trap’ Of Debating Election Fraud (JTN)
‘Feel Our Pain,’ Politicians Demand (Tracey)
The Disarticulation of Pandemic War Propaganda (MPN)
New US Military Base in Northeast Syria Latest of Biden’s Warlike Moves (MPN)
Facebook New Algorithm Will ‘Reduce Political Content’ On News Feeds (JTN)
Former Republican Officials In Talks To Form Anti-Trump Third Party (R.)
Will Corporation-Owned Smart Cities Come To Nevada? (AN)
Yellen Eyes Innovation To Battle Misuse Of Cryptocurrencies (R.)
Assange Prosecution Will Continue Under Biden (Gosztola)
In Mail-In Impeachment Vote, Senate Convicts Trump 8275 To 3 (BBee)

 

 

 

 

COVID numbers in the UK and US crashed at the exact same moment. How is that possible?

 

 

“About Thatcher’s death: Let’s privatise her funeral. Put it out on competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. That’s what she would have wanted.”
– Ken Loach

 

 

What are your plans until 2022? Forget them.

AstraZeneca Says Vaccine Against New Covid Variant May Take 6-9 Months (G.)

AstraZeneca has said that it could take between six and nine months to produce Covid-19 vaccines that are effective against new variants of the coronavirus. The company’s vaccine, developed jointly with scientists at the University of Oxford, remains effective on at least one variant of the virus first discovered in Kent, England, but preliminary findings in a small-scale trial prompted South Africa to limit its use while it ascertains its efficacy. However, a six-month turnaround for an updated vaccine would represent a vast improvement over traditional vaccine development timelines. The vaccine is particularly important for poorer countries, because the company – unlike some of its rivals such as Pfizer – has pledged to sell it at cost price.


The vaccine also does not require very low temperatures during transport, making it cheaper to deliver. Announcing its financial results for 2020 on Thursday, AstraZeneca said: “In collaboration with the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca is focused on adapting C19VAZ to new disease strains if required and hopes to reduce the time needed to reach production at scale to between six to nine months, by utilising existing clinical data and optimising its established supply chain.” AstraZeneca will not incorporate revenues from the vaccine into its financial results, but it said that 2020 performance in its main profit-making business remained strong.

Read more …

Pfizer says they don’t know if their vaccine protects you from infections, or those around you. But the CDC now knows better? Or is this true only when wearing 3 masks?

CDC: Fully Vaccinated People Don’t Need To Quarantine If Exposed To Covid (NBC)

People who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to quarantine if they are exposed to the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday in updated guidance on its website. Quarantine is typically recommended for healthy people who have been exposed to the virus. During quarantine, people are asked to isolate from others for one to two weeks to see whether they develop symptoms of Covid-19. By not exposing others, quarantining can help stop the spread of the disease. In the updated guidance, the CDC said such quarantining is not necessary for fully vaccinated people within three months of having received their last doses as long as they do not develop any symptoms.

“Fully vaccinated” means that at least two weeks have passed since a person has received the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or one dose of a single-dose vaccine. Other recommendations remain in place for fully vaccinated people. They include wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. The guidance says the risk that fully vaccinated people could spread the coronavirus, to others is “still uncertain.” However, “vaccination has been demonstrated to prevent symptomatic Covid-19; symptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission is thought to have a greater role in transmission than purely asymptomatic transmission,” according to the CDC.

The CDC already recommends that people who have had Covid-19 and recovered do not need to quarantine for 90 days after the illness, if newly exposed to someone who is infected; the new guidance for vaccinated people aligns with the earlier recommendations. The guidance “makes sense,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, although he said he was curious about what evidence the CDC was using. Early data from AstraZeneca and Moderna’s Phase 3 clinical trials have suggested that vaccines may slow transmission of the virus, although more work is needed to confirm the findings.

Read more …

2 days after 14 infections among fully vaccinated in pensioners’ home in Germany.

Deaths of Elderly Who Recovered From COVID, but Died After Vaccine (Attkisson)

Two small clusters of deaths after COVID-19 vaccination have been reported among nursing homes in Kentucky and Arkansas. In Kentucky, four seniors died the same day of their vaccination on Dec. 30, 2020. Three of the four who passed away reportedly already had had coronavirus prior to getting vaccinated. In Arkansas, four seniors died at a long term care facility about a week after their vaccination. All tested positive for COVID-19 after vaccination. The deaths are reported in a federal database called VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Deaths after vaccination don’t necessarily mean the vaccine is to blame. Of those receiving coronavirus vaccines, many are elderly and frail, or already suffering from serious illnesses. That makes it difficult to know whether there’s a connection.

According to VAERS reports, the Kentucky deaths occurred on Dec. 30 after vaccinations with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. An ill 88-year-old woman who was “14 + days post covid” was given the Pfizer-BioNTech shot while she was “unresponsive in [her] room.” She died within an hour and a half (914961-1). An 88-year-old who was “15 days post covid” got the shot, was monitored for 15 minutes afterward, and passed away within 90 minutes (914994-1). A third report says an 88-year-old woman who was “14 + days post covid” vomited four minutes after receiving her shot, became short of breath, and passed away that night (915562-1). And an 85-year-old woman vaccinated at 5 p.m. was “found unresponsive” less than two hours later and died shortly after (915682-1). In response to questions about the Kentucky cluster, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said its experts noted “no pattern … among the [Kentucky] cases that would indicate a concern for the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Scientists differ on whether people who have had coronavirus, like the Kentucky patients, should receive the COVID-19 vaccination at all. The CDC insists it’s safe for people who have recovered from COVID-19 to get vaccinated and that there’s no minimum interval recommended between infection and vaccination. “Vaccination should be offered to persons regardless of history of prior symptomatic or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID-19] infection,” it states. But other scientists say vaccinating people who are already considered immune after a natural COVID-19 infection wastes valuable doses of vaccines when there are shortages. And neither Pfizer’s nor Moderna’s studies showed any benefit to vaccinating previously infected patients.

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“No. 1 they have no jurisdiction. No.2 it’s a bill of attainder, No. 3 they’re impeaching him for constitutionally protected speech..”

Dershowitz Destroys Democrats’ Impeachment In Under 2 Minutes (WND)

Famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz was on President Trump’ defense team during the first impeachment trial one year ago. And while he’s not a member of the team this time, he’s offering a quick, two-minute argument he says should close the case. “You don’t have to listen to me. Listen to James Madison, who’s the father of the Constitution,” Dershowitz said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast. “He said that impeachment is only for somebody who’s still sitting in office. He said it quite clearly in the Federalist Papers,” Dershowitz said of Madison. “There’s no way around that.” The Harvard professor insisted the text of the Constitution is clear as well.

“It says impeachment is for purposes of removing a president. Once a president is removed you can also vote to disqualify him but disqualification doesn’t stand alone as a remedy,” he said. “If it did, then the Congress would have a roving commission to go through the entire United States and decide who to impeach and who not to impeach, and who to prevent from running for office,” said Dershowitz. “Say the Republicans come up with a young vibrant candidate to run against Biden four years from now. All the Democrats would have to do is impeach him, even though he’s never held office, and just disqualify him from running for office. Or find someone … who had a smaller officer earlier, and they can impeach him,” Dershowitz said.

“That’s not what the Framers had in mind. What the Framers had in mind is not allowing the Senate to put people on trial. That’s called a bill of attainder and a bill of attainder is specifically prohibited by the Constitution.” Dershowitz said there are “so many things wrong with this impeachment.” “No. 1 they have no jurisdiction. No.2 it’s a bill of attainder, No. 3 they’re impeaching him for constitutionally protected speech,” he said. Dershowitz said the impeachment itself “is doing a tremendous amount of damage to our Constitution.”

Read more …

“This is not the forum in which any evidence of election fraud is going to be seriously considered,” Kline said. “They have no interest in it…”

Dershowitz: Trump Defense Must Avoid ‘Trap’ Of Debating Election Fraud (JTN)

Key legal allies of former President Trump say his defense team must avoid the “trap” of debating election fraud during his Senate impeachment trial. House impeachment managers Tuesday cited Trump statements challenging the integrity of the 2020 election in arguing that the former president engaged in a “months-long effort to incite” an “insurrection” which culminated on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob forced its way past police lines into the U.S. Capitol. House Democrats’ move to frame Trump’s electoral fraud claims as incitement in their impeachment narrative created an opening for Trump’s defense to, in effect, put the 2020 election itself on trial before a nationwide viewing audience, as many of his supporters have urged.

Some Trump allies say his electoral fraud case has never received a full public airing due to legal challenges being tossed out on grounds of standing, timeliness and other technical issues rather than on merit. But former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who helped lead the successful defense that gained Trump’s acquittal in the 2020 impeachment trial, said this move would be “a terrible mistake” for Trump. “It’s a trap that the Democrats are trying to set for the Trump lawyers,” Dershowitz told Just the News in an interview Wednesday. “It’s a trap to have them talk about electoral fraud, because if they do, they’ll lose [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and other senators.” The “absolute trap,” Dershowitz said, “was being set by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is leading the Democrats’ impeachment case. Raskin studied law under Dershowitz, who called his former student “a smart guy.”

[..] Attorney Phill Kline, a Trump supporter and director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, has litigated many cases involving claims of electoral fraud during the 2020 election. He told Just the News that while he thinks a national conversation about electoral fraud should continue, he doesn’t believe that the impeachment forum is ideal. “This is not the forum in which any evidence of election fraud is going to be seriously considered,” Kline said. “They have no interest in it. They refuse to acknowledge clear facts. And so it’s the wrong audience and the wrong time.” Kline said the Trump defense team should focus on the former president’s First Amendment right to speak openly and raise questions about election fraud. “They have been trying to criminalize thought for some time now,” Kline said. “This is just the fruit of their belief that if you do not think as they do, you’re a threat to the nation.”

Read more …

It’s become quite theatrical.

‘Feel Our Pain,’ Politicians Demand (Tracey)

Congress is increasingly not a place where the average member partakes in what’s generally understood as legislative activity, but rather engages in a variety of elaborate self-promotional exercises. The diminishment in the power of average House Members (as opposed to Party leaders who run their respective caucuses like fiefdoms) has been amply documented. One consequence of this trend is that “comms” has become far more of an all-consuming focus for a certain type of Member, particularly those who are most adept at social media. One “comms” strategy that appears highly effective at the moment in generating outsized public attention is extreme, heavily-personalized emotional exuberance.

With the “trauma” of the MAGA goofball mob intrusion still apparently dominating their psyches, members of Congress have taken it as a solemn duty to claim “space” for the “sharing” of their “lived experience” relating to this event. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a true pioneer in importing the rhetoric of therapeutic trauma jargon, already the lingua franca of an ascendant activism-minded cultural and media cohort, into the mainstream of the Democratic Party. At her direction, it will only become more ubiquitous. And given that such rhetoric deliberately inverts the normal epistemology of contested political claims — it’s deemed incumbent on the listener not to critically evaluate the veracity of such claims, but instead uncritically believe them — the new mode of public argument she’s popularizing is likely to prove highly effective, as it inherently forecloses the prospect of any argument at all.

Per this framework, arguments are replaced with subjective assertions that must be presumptively accepted, lest one be guilty of “minimizing” or “belittling” the elected official’s experiences and thus compounding their trauma. Jamie Raskin, the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, took a page from this playbook during the opening presentation of Donald Trump’s trial Monday, breaking down in tears at one point as he wove a narrative about the terror of January 6 with his own personal turmoil. Raskin’s son died on December 31, and the pain he felt from that experience was integrated seamlessly with the pain that he posited all members of Congress must have felt during the goofball riot.

Of course, everyone who’s not a psychopath would sympathize with Raskin for having lost a son to suicide. But to invoke this tragedy in the context of an impeachment trial has an obvious political intent. The intent was to heighten the emotional resonance of the prosecution’s case for convicting Trump, as according to Raskin, he feared that his daughter might also face untimely death because she happened to be in the Capitol with him on January 6. The more intense the “pain” that can be conveyed to the juror-senators, the more likely they are to vote to convict Trump — or so the calculation seemingly goes.

Fellow impeachment manager David Cicilline charged that every single member of Congress nearly avoided being slaughtered in a mass execution-style attack that day — “They could have killed all of us,” he said — although no real evidence has ever been presented to substantiate this dramatic theory, which seems only to be professed by partisan Democrats. A number of basic facts stemming from the Capitol intrusion which could provide clarity are still mysteriously absent from the public record, such as whether any of the rioters brandished or discharged firearms. You’d think this would be helpful information to know before proclaiming, as Cicilline did, that what occurred was an “armed insurrection.” It would be a very curious “armed insurrection” for no firearms to have been deployed over the course of the “insurrection.”

Read more …

“The study Fauci funded at the WIV in 2014 was done so in contravention to the [Obama] moratorium then in effect.”

The Disarticulation of Pandemic War Propaganda (MPN)

A now-deleted fact sheet published by the U.S. State Department on January 15, 2021, claimed that for over a year, “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin.” The official release of that fact sheet focuses on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV); a controversial research lab in the Hubei province of China which has been the target of well-earned suspicions over its work on bat-borne zoonotic diseases like SARS-CoV-2, better known as the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Missing from the State Department’s missive is the intimate bond that this particular laboratory has to American scientific institutions and to a tight-knit group of individuals with direct links to the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the biodefense establishment. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci’s funding of gain-of-function (GoF) research in 2014 at the Chinese lab is just one example. The highly polarizing GoF studies, which entail turbo-charging a pathogen’s virulence through the “generation of viruses with properties that do not exist in nature” present considerable biosafety hazards, which led the Obama administration to issue a federal moratorium on GoF research. The study Fauci funded at the WIV in 2014 was done so in contravention to the moratorium then in effect.

Deeper and more disturbing ties to outfits like USAID-funded Ecohealth Alliance have been covered by independent journalists like Same Husseini and others, revealing the WIV’s close relationship to people like David R. Franz – former commander of Fort Detrick, the pre-eminent biowarfare and biodefense facility in the U.S. and the source of the anthrax spores used in the infamous 2001 anthrax attacks. In July 2020, this author carried out an investigation into the nexus between the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), USAID and zoonotic disease research in Asia.

Recently, some of these facts have seeped into mainstream news outlets as the “lab-leak” hypothesis, which suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen escaped from a laboratory in China. Careful to avoid drawing attention to links between American scientific institutions and their Chinese counterparts, a narrative is gathering momentum as the idea of a ‘cover-up’ by Chinese authorities is promulgated on prime time television news magazine shows like “60 Minutes,” which ran an expose the promoted the idea that China is “weaponizing” the pandemic. The narrative is not new and has been lingering in the background since the pandemic was declared.

Read more …

“this new center [is being built] with the aim of observing Russian forces..”

New US Military Base in Northeast Syria Latest of Biden’s Warlike Moves (MPN)

The U.S.-government funded outlet Voice of America has confirmed rumors that a new military base is being built in northeastern Syria. A convoy of 40 troop carriers and other vehicles arrived and began setting up shop in the city of Hasakah near the Turkish and Iraqi borders over the weekend. “The U.S. flag is now raised over a building,” said journalist Jindar Berekat, a native of the city, “it is not clear how many American soldiers will be stationed at this location, but their armored military vehicles are here and it looks like they are still constructing parts of it.”

“Many here believe that the building of a U.S. base inside Hasakah could be a response to the growing Russian presence in the city,” a local reporter told Voice of America, “this new center [is being built] with the aim of observing Russian forces in Hasakah.” Russian military units have been present in Syria since 2015, intervening on behalf of the government of Bashar al-Assad. The two foreign superpowers have come close to armed confrontation in Syria many times, including in 2017, when President Trump ordered the bombing of a Russian airbase near the Lebanese border. Already, the American presence has prevented the Russian military from carrying out patrols in northeastern Syria.

While the United States has presented its role in Syria as a counter terrorism operation, Assad’s government has accused it of plundering its resources, “condemn[ing] in the strongest terms the agreement signed between al-Qasd militia (SDF) and an American oil company to steal Syria’s oil under the sponsorship and support of the American administration.” Around 500 American troops have been guarding the country’s oilfields for months, and last summer, Senator Lindsay Graham confirmed that the U.S. had indeed signed a deal with the SDF to “modernize” the country’s oil industry. Damascus considers the agreement “null and void.”

The new base at Hasakah is the latest in a string of actions that suggest the United States wishes to bolster or expand its presence in the war-torn country. Last month, American forces reinforced another base along the M4 highway, which runs from the city of Aleppo through the north of the country and towards the Iraqi border in the east. At the same time, its ally Israel was conducting a series of major airstrikes across the east of the country, reportedly targeting Iranian or pro-Iranian forces.

Read more …

Only the good stuff?!

Facebook New Algorithm Will ‘Reduce Political Content’ On News Feeds (JTN)

Facebook announced on Wednesday the social media platform will in the coming weeks start limiting the amount of political content viewers see on their news feeds. The company is aware that “people don’t want political content to take over their News Feed,” Product Management Director Aastha Gupta wrote in a blog post on the site. The change will begin with Facebook temporarily reduce the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week. Gupta said the process will begin in the U.S. in the coming weeks.


The initial rollout will allow the company to explore different methods of ranking political content prior to its deciding on a permanent solution. Facebook has in recent months and years attempted to reducing political content, include no new political ads in the final week of the 2020 presidential campaign. However, the company and other social media giants have meanwhile faced growing scrutiny of what third-party content they choose to censure or block. “Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to find and interact with political content on Facebook, while respecting each person’s appetite for it at the top of their News Feed,” Gupta said.

Read more …

They’ve lost their party. Might as well start another one.

Former Republican Officials In Talks To Form Anti-Trump Third Party (R.)

Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters. The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say. More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of “principled conservatism,” including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law – ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say. Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken. [..] Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress – eight senators and 139 House representatives – voted to block certification of Biden’s election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.

Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this week’s Senate impeachment trial. “Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”

Read more …

Why is the idea of surrendering control of parts of the US to Facebook, Google etc. not shot down on sight?

Will Corporation-Owned Smart Cities Come To Nevada? (AN)

With plans reportedly still moving forward for Blockchains, LLC, to break ground on a Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (EYRC)-designed smart city in Nevada in 2022, Governor Steve Sisolak is looking to give it, and similar developments across the state, the power to form their own governments. According to documents acquired by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sisolak has floated a draft proposal to create “Innovation Zones” across the state in a bid to draw technology companies, and giving them the power to set up their own governments. In exchange for this autonomy, the Nevada state government would forgo the tax abatement or incentive packages typically used to encourage big businesses to relocate.

Sisolak first mentioned the idea during his January 19 State of the State address but later confirmed that a draft bill was in the works on February 4 via Twitter. According to the text reviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal (subject to change before a final bill is submitted), such an “alternative form of local government” is needed to entice big tech companies, and that over time, the administration of those zones would gradually take over governmental duties from their respective counties. Each zone would be overseen by a three-person board of supervisors, with the company behind the development having the majority of the say in who gets appointed.

It should be noted that the governor’s proposal only extends to companies doing “innovative” work; relating to blockchains, healthcare, robotics, renewable energy research, biometrics, autonomous vehicles, and similar cutting-edge research. Any company applying to set up an Innovation Zone through the Governor’s Office of Economic Development would need to own and be intent on developing at least 50,000 acres not already part of a city or town, $250 million on hand, and a plan to invest at least $1 billion in the area over the next 10 years.


Tom Wiscombe Architecture and EYRC revealed their design for the Blockchains city in 2018, and now the project’s developer may get the power to form its own government there. (Courtesy EYRC Architects and Tom Wiscombe Architecture)

Read more …

No. What Yellen eyes is control.

Yellen Eyes Innovation To Battle Misuse Of Cryptocurrencies (R.)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned about an “explosion of risk” from digital markets, including the misuse of cryptocurrencies, but said new financial technologies could also help fight crime and reduce inequality. In remarks to a financial sector innovation roundtable, Yellen said such technologies could be used to stem the flow of dark money from organized crime and fight back against hackers, but also to reduce digital gaps in the United States. She said passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act in December would allow the Treasury Department to rework a framework for combating illicit finance that has been largely unchanged since the 1970s.


“The update couldn’t have come at a better time,” Yellen told policymakers, regulators and private sector experts. “We’re living amidst an explosion of risk related to fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, and data privacy.” The COVID-19 pandemic had triggered more – and more sophisticated – cyberattacks aimed at hospitals, schools, banks, and the government itself, she said. Cryptocurrencies and virtual assets offered promise, but they had also been used to launder the profits of online drug traffickers and to finance terrorism. Innovation in the sector could help address these problems while giving millions of people access to the financial system, she said.

Read more …

“..the Biden Justice Department is effectively signaling his administration is not all that serious about press freedom..”

Assange Prosecution Will Continue Under Biden (Gosztola)

The Justice Department under President Joe Biden plans to continue the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that was launched under President Donald Trump. “We continue to seek his extradition,” Justice Department spokesperson Marc Raimondi told Reuters, days before February 12, the deadline for the United States government to submit its “grounds for appeal.” The statement represents a departure from President Barack Obama’s administration, which declined to prosecute Assange. Justice Department officials were reportedly concerned about the threat it would pose to press freedom.

On January 4, British district judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected the U.S. government’s extradition request and concluded Assange’s mental condition was “such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.” She accepted that Assange would likely be imprisoned at a supermax prison in the U.S. under special administrative measures (SAMs) and would find a way to commit suicide. “I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the ‘single minded determination’ of his autism spectrum disorder.” However, the Biden Justice Department plans to contest the judge’s conclusion that Assange should not be extradited because he would likely commit suicide.

[..] During Biden’s first foreign policy speech on February 4, he proclaimed, “We believe a free press isn’t an adversary; rather, it’s essential. A free press is essential to the health of a democracy.” However, in Trump’s last year in office, he signed a counterintelligence strategy document that lumped in “leaktivists” and “public disclosure organizations,” like WikiLeaks, with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and terrorist groups, which U.S. security agencies view as “significant threats.” That strategy document, which covers 2020-2022, sharply conflicts with Biden’s assertion that the U.S. government believes the free press is not an adversary. Indeed, it shows U.S. security agencies believe they should monitor, neutralize, and even target dissident media organizations that may employ practices pioneered by WikiLeaks.

While the tone of the new administration may sound more polite toward elite journalists, by refusing to abandon this dangerous political case, the Biden Justice Department is effectively signaling his administration is not all that serious about press freedom and what officials have to say are empty platitudes that should not pacify people aware of what is at stake if Assange is brought to the U.S. and put on trial.

Read more …

“The Senate then moved on to other business, passing universal healthcare by a margin of 320,000 to 4.”

In Mail-In Impeachment Vote, Senate Convicts Trump 8275 To 3 (BBee)

In a historic move, the U.S. Senate decided to switch to voting by mail for Trump’s second impeachment trial. After all the votes were counted by an intern in a back room with no cameras, the Senate ruled to convict President Trump of incitement to violence by a vote of 8275 to 3. “Our holy democracy has spoken,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. “Do not ask any questions or you are a blasphemer against the sacred sacredness of our vote. Everyone can go home now!” A couple of troublemaking Senators attempted to overthrow the Constitution by bringing up the point that there are only 100 Senators, making it impossible to arrive at a tally of 8275 to 3, but they were quickly removed from the Senate Chambers and condemned for “attempting to suppress the votes of people of color.” The Senate then moved on to other business, passing universal healthcare by a margin of 320,000 to 4.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 11 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 42 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #69542

    Ansel Adams Evening at McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park 1942   • AstraZeneca Says Vaccine Against New Covid Variant May Take 6-9 Months (G.)
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 11 2021]

    #69543
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Ansel Adams Evening at McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park 1942

    That’s quite a photograph; I don’t feel qualified to critique it, but the depth of field must have been huge…

    #69545
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @V. Arnold, from yesterday: thank you for the J.T. Gatto book recommendation. I’ve already placed a hold on it at my local library.

    #69546
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @V. Arnold, from yesterday: thank you for the J.T. Gatto book recommendation. I’ve already placed a hold on it at my local library.

    Great! It’s one of my best reads in the last 10 years…
    I’d be interested to hear your opinion when you’ve read it…

    #69547
    Basseterre Kitona
    Participant

    COVID numbers in the UK and US crashed at the exact same moment. How is that possible?

    It is possible because Trump has left Wash DC and the virus was always more of a political issue than a medical issue.

    Why is the idea of surrendering control of parts of the US to Facebook, Google etc. not shot down on sight?

    • Will Corporation-Owned Smart Cities Come To Nevada? (AN)

    Not shot on sight because it is not really so new? Disney set up shop in central Florida because they got a sweet deal from government there to pretty much rule as they please. It is just that there isn’t really any resident “citizens” living there.

    Also, some of the big state universities in America are pretty much autonomous too with there own police forces and un-constitutional Student Conduct Codes (i.e., laws).

    With precedents like those, Facebook Town and Googleville are probably inevitable.

    #69548
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    COVID numbers in the UK and US crashed at the exact same moment. How is that possible?

    On the Dutch news last night they were waxing effusive about how the case and death numbers were dropping away spectacularly thanks to the massive immunization programme. So I looked up Israel on Worldometers to see this for myself and found that the signal, if there even is one, is very much lost in the noise. They’re certainly doing no better than many countries like USA, UK, NL or (dare I say it?) Sweden.

    #69549
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    First sentence should read …dropping away spectacularly in Israel

    #69550
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Finally read https://graymirror.substack.com/p/glen-weyl-the-slave-of-history

    “Imagine a universal ocean of scholarship, in which a mighty whale like Weyl, with the logo of every prestigious institution of learning east of the Mississippi branded on his barnacled flank, and the trillion-dollar muscle of Microsoft powering his epic flukes, makes schoolboy errors like this—which leave him inventing his own excuse for genocide.”

    We have tried and failed to take this text seriously. Its metadata indicates reliably that it is the product of a thoughtful and scholarly person. When we process it as thought or scholarship, however, we are aghast at its loose, shallow, and superficial quality.

    We must therefore conclude that the text before us is not thought; that it cannot be read as the sincere perspective of a serious person; and that, since it was nonetheless generated by a palpably serious person, it must have some other serious function.
    The slave of history is always convinced that he has transcended naivete, just as the slave of a drug is convinced that he has transcended ennui. The drug of history is power; the slave of history is an addict who says whatever will help him get his junk.

    [quoting Weyl’s careless, tossed-off, and consensus-wrong view of multi-million deaths in Holodormor as a footnote ‘accident’]

    Does it help his argument to let Stalin off the hook? Then Stalin is off the hook. Any feather weighs more than the opinion of a junkie. A junkie will cheerfully put links in his text that contradict the text—no one will click—and what would they do anyway?
    We simply have to understand that we are watching a different sport. When the last century put scholars in power—the system Weyl affects to deplore, though he is its very cynosure—scholarship became something other than scholarship; it became a ritual of performative importance—a game.

      La règle du jeu

    This ritual, like any ritual, has its private rules. Certain moves seem like fouls, but are fair play; other plays look fair, but are foul.
    For example, just as we saw Weyl’s amazing carelessness with history—in the age of the “1619 Project,” this level of looseness is state of the art, like Kobe Bryant taking an extra step or palming the ball—here is another little exaggeration that no one in the professor trade would blow the whistle on.

    …this is not just the portrait of one egotistical, self-aggrandizing narcissist. It is the portrait of our narcissistic ruling class—which, like Hitler at the end of Downfall, was issuing complex, detailed battle orders to an army which did not even exist. It really is worth skimming the whitepaper to see the spectacular level of delusion involved.

    …the last author on the list is so proud of this it keeps burbling forth from his lips—he can barely be stopped, it seems, from rattling off some version of his CV. One wonders what his SAT scores were. Could they have been good? Top, even?

    …Such is the performative quality of our ruling class—whose main purpose is not to rule, in a way that actually works—but to be seen to rule. To be seen to matter. These people are serious about that—which, sadly, prevents them from being serious about reality. And rather than being embarrassed by it—they brag about it.

    This of course is why they are so mad at deplorables who won’t DO WHAT THEY’RE TOLD, i.e. everybody. And have trouble with i.e. everything; reality itself, which is their sole enemy. This is true of all such technocracies, socialist or otherwise. Since the people are the ones not perfectly conforming to my perfect plans, anyone who doesn’t DO WHAT THEY’RE TOLD must be murdered for the greater good. I.e. everybody. And so the camps roll out until they run out of bullets, to 300M in the 20th century. Because of their La règle du jeu who must be IMPORTANT, to emotionally matter, to be SEEN TO RULE. (i.e. Ego)

    [But] There is actually yet another way to deconstruct Weyl’s essay. We can parse it as an ad.

    The modern academic is a professional conformist, and his goal—ideally during his 20s, when he still has a bit of youthful creativity left—is to come up with the one big idea that will have a deep, significant impact. He will spend the rest of his career on marketing, exploring, extending, and teaching this big idea.

    I actually think I know what “technocracy” means. This is a familiar advertising trick: a label for the absence of your product.
    “Technocracy,” to Weyl (obviously others have used the label) is simply the absence of his one Big Idea.”

    That is, not the idea that will WORK, it’s the one he can SELL. To buy IMPORTANCE, or meaning, if you will, from others, to feed ego.

    It’s kind of worth understanding this excerpt because we are all badly subjected to, and endure immense suffering in service of the egos of a few autistic, un-selfaware Harvard nitwits like Weyl, not to pick on him personally, for he was bred to be this useless, violent way and his name is “Legion.” But if you understand a thing better, you respond better. …And endure better, which may be the case here. Until they are defenestrated and turned back into the rail station janitors they ought to be, the rest of us cannot ordain ENGINEERS to come up with plans that DO work. And have both work/no work metrics and paths of consequence for failure.

    I’d rather have an uneducated, unexposed Ishi run the world than these guys because at least a loincloth bushman has done one useful thing in his life. He knows which way the wind blows, and can come in out of the rain. Not so Harvard and Yale. They’ll believe anything that can be written on paper, and that’s a lot.

    All these “Technocrats”, all these “experts”, are just more advertising. That is: L I E S. Lies from liars protecting more lies, like the medical industry, which ‘cause it’s an odd-numbered day, now says two masks. In the last 5 days we’ve already gone from none to four to none again, but it’s Thursday, so the Science-forecast-today is “Two”.

    From the “Experts”, the “Technocrats” whose sole purpose is self-importance, whose language is disconnected ego and narcissism, and whose language is sales and advertising. Will you buy it? After they’ve sold you a defective, harmful product every day for a year running? Apparently yes.

    #69551
    Dr. D
    Participant

    [Madison] said that impeachment is only for somebody who’s still sitting in office.”

    Yes, but that’s law and truth and we don’t use that. It literally doesn’t matter when dealing with crazy people viz, above.

    “Congress would have a roving commission to go through the entire United States and decide … who to prevent from running for office,”

    Bingo. Dorsey and Zuck were not adequate to go full uni-party, CCP-style, so this is literally underway, practically complete at this point.

    Opinions are treason, death penalty for anyone who does not buy my sales pitch and become adequately identical to my ego.

    “Dershowitz: Trump Defense Must Avoid ‘Trap’ of Debating Election Fraud (JTN)”

    Why? Isn’t this the perfect venue to discuss what has until now been refused to be discussed and debated at all?

    Trump will “lose” McConnell? Are you all high? McConnell, and the uniparty RINOs already showed their interest in the continued existence of the GOP. That is to say: none. Donations, which had been riding high, instantly collapsed, as McConnell had the narcissistic fantasy that he was important and every Republican hasn’t long wished for his removal. They are now discovering they were not leading the parade. There is no parade. They’re alone. Exposed. So, Al, a day after McConnell stabbed Trump in the back more publicly than anyone since Marcus Junius Brutus, you’re worried about the possibility of McConnell possibly stabbing Trump in the back? I mean, this wasn’t a surprise to anyone – maybe the higher % of stabbers was – but it’s a thing that people can’t seem to get through their thick heads without going through the motions and acting out the play emotionally, a source of constant frustration to me.

    Probably in a lifetime of nothing but lies, words mean nothing, so thoughts mean nothing. So when you “understand” and “know” something, like that all politicians, including McConnell are back-stabbing, self-serving liars, it somehow isn’t real to them. To them, and not me, they have to actually SEE the stabbing and FEEL the betrayal, the disappointment, for the real to become real. #@$&% And so everything takes decades instead of weeks. Like really? It took you guys 20 years to realize Fox was blowing smoke up you guys and lying? Whisky Tango.

    But that’s how it is, and I THINK once you sap language of all meaning and therefore men of all truth. Instead of pistols at dawn for lying, you can lie about anything, any time, no matter how obvious, no matter how many are killed, and … nothing. And if you don’t stand for anything…

    “Feel Our Pain,’ Politicians Demand (Tracey)”

    They all look like hysterical babies and sissies in need of vagina cream. They are not exactly encouraging the fear of the masses to their brutal, overarching power of the Uni-State. More like if you used a naughty word – like the new all-ban-able, never-forgiven “N” word: — no, not “Fredo” — the summa cum laude of all bad words word “Retard”, which like “autist” people, chat boards use for THEMSELVES, the very pressure of this word on their delicate eardrums politicians would wither like the wicked witch, clutch their pearls in their pink angora sweater, and melt in a puddle of Ru Paul tears. For loggers and moonshiners from Central Kentucky, terrifying. We all better obey their fabricated fears RIGHT NOW, because someone once toured the Capitol and weren’t near polite enough I reckon.

    ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

    Oh no. Please keep going. Don’t let me stop you Mr. Raskin. You’re doing more harm to Joe Biden and the central power of the Federal Government than any of us could dream of. There’s nothing I could add.

    These guys actually think – when the whole United States is dying out here – that CRYING would be the secret power-move to control us? That we would FEEL BAD for them, like our cracked-out, junkie whore ex-girlfriend? Tut tut my dove, but of course I’ll marry you NOW, Mr. Raskin. I can’t bear to see you and AOC fake-cry about a fake-visitation that was fake-dangerous, after a fake story from fake miles-away.

    Their power comes from our consent. Any questions?

    #69553
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Came across this yesterday after mentioning the ad. Story gets stranger and stranger.

    https://www.app.com/story/news/local/courts/2021/02/10/springsteen-blew-0-02-quarter-legal-limit-source-says/6712582002/

    #69554
    kultsommer
    Participant

    So many cementers on various blogs, admirers of Thatcher in orgasmic parroting of her “Other people’s money” quote could never have reached to Ken Leach’s conclusion by themselves, or even when reading it they are still blind to the irony.

    When “The Babylon bee” can hardly be read as a satire any longer.

    Or snippet of reason by the host, preceding each article, like torn flag in the wind.

    #69555
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #69556
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “This new system of government works extremely well, because the new ruling class is extremely well-selected. It consists of people who were ready to sacrifice everything to preserve both their sanity and their dignity. Such types make the best statesmen—and the ideas of the Mundanan dissident, we know, are evolved for nothing but cold truth.”

    #69558
    zerosum
    Participant

    Words
    Today, again, I’ve noticed the dividing line between the intellectual individual, and the “doer”.
    (a person who acts rather than merely talking or thinking.)

    A polar vortex
    Today, its freezing in Vancouver. (-8C)
    People, wearing shorts, are freezing.
    My garlic bulbs will survive.
    ——
    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/number-americans-jobless-benefits-surges-back-above-20-million
    Number Of Americans On Jobless Benefits Surges Back Above 20 Million

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-grind-higher-after-powell-vows-keep-punchbowl-spiked-years
    Futures Grind Higher After Powell Vows To Keep The Punchbowl Spiked For Years

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-holds-first-phone-call-xi-both-sides-offer-vastly-different-accounts-what-was-said
    Biden Holds First Phone Call With Xi, Both Sides Offer Vastly Different Accounts Of What Was Said

    #69559
    Mr. House
    Participant

    @zerozum

    The pen is mightier then the sword? 😉

    #69560
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Dr D

    Awesome posts, great information, learned a lot from reading them. Nothing to add at the moment except to recommend we all read ’em again in the hope that some of that truth sticks.

    #69561
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #69562
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Perhaps she should point out its sexist?

    #69563
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/02/enemy-of-life.html
    Thank you all for the positive response to Treat Your Own COVID, and for sharing it around to friends and colleagues.
    I have had somewhat less time to blog recently, due to having a lot of gardening and “prepping” work to do and arrange, at gardens in Austin and at the homestead in Yoakum.
    This has been a big 2 years of work on the homestead project, now in its third winter, which has been mild and somewhat dry until now, so I got a lot of work done while the sun shined.
    Now the “big chill” is here for a week. We are expected to have cold into the low teens in Austin and mid teens in Yoakum next Monday.
    That will be a severe test to all of the Mexican avocado trees. Some varieties probably won’t survive.
    Occasional big things happen in life, completely changing plans and forcing revisions to work already done.
    We will bring the Mexican avocado seedlings in from the patio in Austin for the hard freeze..

    One big, yet basic lesson we have been learning in Yoakum is that it is really hard to get things done, to get basic work done, in a rural setting, when you are not from there. We have engaged as many “bad” contractors (thieves) as good ones at this point.
    It seems like local law enforcement doesn’t actually investigate things under $3000, involving contractors.
    I did not know that before. They likely did.
    Sometimes it’s a mixed bag, a guy who wants to be good, but has drug and alcohol problems.
    Contractors seem to have meth and alcohol problems, for some reason.

    Since fall of 2018 it seems like the economy and people everywhere have gotten shakier and less certain.
    If one is getting a homestead in a rural area now, it’s good to get one that really does not need any work done, that you can tell. It’s good to get the names of contractors who already did work on it in recent years. We just don’t know what the progression of economic, financial and societal dysfunctions will be this year, next year, or the years ahead. I expect the current arrangements to keep degrading until they are just not the arrangements anymore. I can’t be more specific. History keeps rhyming on this.
    The Great Depression and WW-2, the USSR break-up, and Chinese Cultural Revolution are all recent examples of this kind of degrading of an economic order until something new can be formed by the participants. That’s us. Start working or keep working. That’s all I can see.

    RFK, Jr. Interviews Vandana Shiva: The Gates Empire ‘Will Own Everything’​ , Thanks Bill​ , transcript, too​…
    ​ This is my meditation for today. This is life wisdom.
    “New Feudalism” is the aggressor. It will own all life. Life will die without chemical inputs. We are made weak, sick and dependent.
    Vaccines-only for COVID, ignoring ivermectin and vitamin-D benefits, are the Gates/WHO gameplan to own our living bodies…
    In an interview with CHD Chairman RFK, Jr., Vandana Shiva warns listeners that if we don’t fight back against Gates and his empire,
    “They will own everything. You will own nothing … no commons, no public good, no shared values.”
    ​ ​Vandana Shiva discusses how Bill Gates, along with Big Ag, Big Chemical, Big Food, Big Tech and Big Pharma are destroying Earth’s ecosystem and with it, our health.
    ​ ​Shiva, who has a Ph.D. in quantum physics, is founder of Navdanya International, an organization dedicated to protecting seed and food sovereignty, and small farmers around the world.
    ​ ​Bobby, I wasn’t a leader. I was a student, and I was volunteering, and the leaders were the women and they were my professors. I always say, I went to University of Western Ontario for my Ph.D. to figure out quantum theory better, but I went to the Chipko University to figure out biodiversity. And Bobby, just the other day, the mafia has taken hold of David Attenborough to launch portfolio management on biodiversity, like portfolios on land ownership, as if value to biodiversity was not recognized by the Chipko women. I think that is the clash we are living through. The billionaires wanting to turn everything into their portfolio, and the ordinary people saying, “No, we want to protect our land.” Our farmers have been protesting now for six months for the land. That’s what they’re saying.​..​
    ​”We are fighting for the soul and soil of India.”​

    RFK, Jr. Interviews Vandana Shiva: The Gates Empire ‘Will Own Everything’

    ​ ​A​ ​now-deleted fact sheet published by the U.S. State Department on January 15, 2021, claimed that for over a year, “the Chinese Communist ​ ​Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin.” The official release of that fact sheet focuses on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV); a controversial research lab in the Hubei province of China which has been the target of well-earned suspicions over its work on bat-borne zoonotic diseases like SARS-CoV-2, better known as the COVID-19 coronavirus.
    ​ ​Missing from the State Department’s missive is the intimate bond that this particular laboratory has to American scientific institutions and to a tight-knit group of individuals with direct links to the U.S. intelligence apparatus and the biodefense establishment. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci’s funding of gain-of-function (GoF) research in 2014 at the Chinese lab is just one example. The highly polarizing GoF studies, which entail turbo-charging a pathogen’s virulence through the “generation of viruses with properties that do not exist in nature” present considerable biosafety hazards, which led the Obama administration to issue a federal moratorium on GoF research. The study Fauci funded at the WIV in 2014 was done so in contravention to the moratorium then in effect.
    ​ ​Deeper and more disturbing ties to outfits like USAID-funded Ecohealth Alliance have been covered by independent journalists like Same Husseini and others, revealing the WIV’s close relationship to people like David R. Franz – former commander of Fort Detrick, the pre-eminent biowarfare and biodefense facility in the U.S. and the source of the anthrax spores used in the infamous 2001 anthrax attacks. In July 2020, this author carried out an investigation into the nexus between the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), USAID and zoonotic disease research in Asia.

    The Disarticulation of Pandemic War Propaganda

    ​Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World, Where Energy Modeling Goes Wrong
    Summary: The economy is approaching near-term collapse, not peak oil. The result is quite different.
    ​ ​The modeling that comes closest to being correct is that which underlies the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows and others. This modeling was based on physical quantities of resources, with no financial system whatsoever. The base model, shown here, indicates that limits would be reached a few years later than we actually seem to be reaching them. The dotted black line in Figure 1 indicates where I saw the world economy to be in January 2019, based on the limits we already seemed to be reaching at that time.​
    (I think that line is ​drawn ​at 2010, myself.)

    Where Energy Modeling Goes Wrong

    #69564
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    When contemplating what lies ahead, an honest look back always informs. Going beyond RED/BLUE, LEFT/RIGHT we see THEM.

    This recap of Koch Industries “involvement” over 40 years speaks for itself. It is a roadmap into how we are undermined at every step.

    Are We Watching the Trial of Trump or the Invisible Hand of the Koch Machine?

    #69565
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    @Zerosum: RE: Words…Today, again, I’ve noticed the dividing line between the intellectual individual, and the “doer” (a person who acts rather than merely talking or thinking.)

    You might want to take a look at the Enneagram which essentially identifies three centers of intelligence that TOGETHER form our individual “operating system”. The Centers are identified as: Thinking (Head), Feeling (Heart), and Doing (Hands). The theory is that we all have a dominant and secondary center. The lagging center and or an overactive dominant center keeps us from being our best self. We need to access the intelligence of ALL centers to be in full alignment with our potentiality.

    NOTE: the words above barely begin to explain the Ennegram.

    #69566
    Susmarie108
    Participant

    Thank you John Day – the article on COLLAPSE is revealing. THEY know what is coming.

    Reread and then reread the summary: The economy is approaching near-term collapse, not peak oil. The result is quite different.

    Clearly EVERYTHING else is a diversion, a cover-up – to keep us from responding to the only issue – COLLAPSE.

    #69567
    Arttua
    Participant

    V Arnols,”That’s quite a photograph; I don’t feel qualified to critique it, but the depth of field must have been huge…” He shot with large format cameras. and had a f64 club. smaller format cameras couldn’t come close to f64
    lake george thanksgiving 2020

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    #69569
    zerosum
    Participant

    “It seems like local law enforcement doesn’t actually investigate things under $3000,”
    Here, the amount is $5,000.

    “… have meth and alcohol problems,”
    BC sets record for most overdose deaths in single year
    British Columbia’s chief coroner says the province recorded the most deaths ever in a single year due to an unnatural cause, with 1,716 lives lost to illicit drug overdoses in 2020. (covid deaths 1,269 to date)

    ” hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin ”
    I checked with the pharmacist and he doesn’t believe that any dr. would prescribe due to concerns for liability.
    I would have to convince my dr. that I have the following condition or traveling to a malaria infested area.

    ivermectin — the drug licensed for use against strongyloides and other parasites, and probably best known to primary providers for its off-label use for scabies and head lice, and for pet owners as a common de-worming agent.
    Hydroxychloroquine – is a medication used to prevent and treat malaria in areas where malaria remains sensitive to chloroquine. Other uses include treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and porphyria cutanea tarda.

    #69570
    zerosum
    Participant

    “You might want to take a look at the Enneagram “
    I did.
    I found a test which might have been more relevant/accurate at describing what I was when I was younger. (7w6)

    #69571
    Mr. House
    Participant

    RFK was just blocked from facebook.

    #69572
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Arttua
    He shot with large format cameras. and had a f64 club. smaller format cameras couldn’t come close to f64
    lake george thanksgiving 2020

    So happy you’re back, missed your presence…
    Yes, I figured it was large format to get that depth of field; f64, wow.
    Stick around Arttua; don’t let bullies and trolls get the better of you; if it happens again I’ll scream bloody murder…
    Cheers

    #69573
    WES
    Participant

    Arthur & V. Arnold:

    In a former life, I did some industrial photography using a Hasselblad camera which is a 6 x 9 cm or 2-1/4″ x 3-1/2″ negative sized camera which is smaller than the large format cameras used by the f64 photographers. I used this camera until digital cameras came which completely changed things.

    None-the-less it was amazing what shots one could do compared to a 35 mm camera. Dept of field is where it shines. Sadly it also dates me!

    #69574
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Yes, Hasselblad is called a medium format camera. I could not afford them, even used, so I bought Olympus bodies (2) and lenses, all used.
    I spent a few years doing some serious photography in Oregon and Washington and then; life chose a new direction…and here I am………….. 😉

    #69575
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    John Day I can totally relate to your experience trying to develop a rural property. Finding good contractors is incredibly tough and most good ones are already snatched up by a general contractor, so a package deal or nothing. Then they charge you a “big city tax”. We would have preferred to hire people for some work but ended up doing it ourselves due to lack of reliable labourers. It really has an impact on what you can accomplish. Then there are the mistakes we make as we learn — like for example that, contrary to the sales pitch, peaches are not hardy enough for our zone!
    Because locals have been here forever, they don’t hide their disdain for us. We try hard to be generous, but we know that, in the final analysis, we will always be the folks at the old O’Connors place.

    #69576
    WES
    Participant

    Carol:

    I am surprised with all the money Justin has spent on global warming that you can’t grow peaches!

    #69577
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #69578
    WES
    Participant

    It looks like joebama is planning to punish Florida for refusing to implement massive lockdowns by banning all travel to Florida! But only Florida.

    My brother from Michigan is currently working from home down in Florida.

    #69579
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Look at that link with regards to cuomo and NY. Those types of people wouldn’t commit election fraud and kill elderly people on purpose would they? Who’s the murderers? They are sick people and should be quarantined from the rest of society. This isn’t play time anymore people. They’ve gone all in and you can’t believe a single thing they say anymore. Didn’t i say some time around May it was a win win? You get old people off medicaid, blame it all on trump. Look how they’ve escalated since then, all conservatives are enemies of the state. Zerozum, what would you suggest? More words?

    #69580
    WES
    Participant

    Mr. House:

    If you kill one person you get jailed. If you commit mass murder then all is good!

    The head of the WHO is another mass murderer! And that was before he was appointed head of the WHO!o

    #69581
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ Mr. House
    This isn’t play time anymore people. They’ve gone all in and you can’t believe a single thing they say anymore.

    Where in heaven’s name have you been?
    This has been true since 09.11.2001…black sites around the world, secret renditions, Guantanamo, etc., etc., etc……
    Covid is just the same old by other name and means………

    #69582
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Thanks V. Arnold, i suppose i’ll just sit and wait until i’m rounded up then for having “bad” thoughts.

    #69583
    cloudhidden
    Participant

    @ John Day & Sumac.Carol
    You may be relative rural newbies, but hang in there. Nearly 40 years ago, I was a city boy but thought re: the then current political, environmental, and economic situation “this cannot continue”. Moved to a rural area (island actually) We were younger then and had no money, but a lot of energy to clear land, make mistakes, and build our own house. There weren’t any contractors then, but there were books, We learned. About 10 years ago, an old timer here called me an old timer…..I knew i had arrived……..finally. It’s Canada, but we do grow peaches. Carol, maybe you can try Red Haven.

    #69584
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Thanks V. Arnold, i suppose i’ll just sit and wait until i’m rounded up then for having “bad” thoughts.

    Hmmm, don’t quite know how to respond to that…sarc?
    Why would you just sit around waiting?
    I certainly wasn’t recommending that…
    I didn’t wait…
    Best decision I ever made…

    #69585
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    @Arttua, re: Adams

    V Arnols,”That’s quite a photograph; I don’t feel qualified to critique it, but the depth of field must have been huge…” He shot with large format cameras. and had a f64 club. smaller format cameras couldn’t come close to f64

    He carried that camera on his back in the Sierra Nevada following Brower and Norman Clyde. That’s 30kg of kit that is only useful for the art, on top of his bedroll, etc. He worked in a period in which he could perfect long-exposure shots, which are now impossible due to jet contrails. This nighttime shot in New Mexico is certainly now impossible.

    I am in awe of the masters of film, both still and motion. It’s such a surfer’s realm.

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