Mar 222021
 
 March 22, 2021  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Paul Gauguin Tahitian village 1892

 

3 Fully Vaccinated People Catch Covid-19 Coronavirus in Hawaii (Forbes)
Travel Changes For Those Who Are Fully Vaccinated (Forbes)
European Trust In AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Plunges (R.)
Ivermectin: Game changer vs Covid-19? What’s the Controversy? (Manila Times)
Greece Mobilizes Private Doctors to Cope With Surging Covid Infections (GR)
Growing Rebellion Against Draconian Covid Restrictions By Canadians (RT)
V. Putin Ain’t No Corn Pop (Kunstler)
Welcome To The Age Of Modern Monetary Theory (Kodrik)
Next Round Of Us Fiscal Legislation Could Reach $4 Trillion – Goldman (FXS)
Media Pseudo-Debates and the Silence of Leftist Critics (Curtin)
Biden Pushes Colombia to Restart Glyphosate Spraying Program
Bipartisan Australian MPs Meet With US Embassy About Julian Assange (SMH)

 

 

“It is spring again.
The earth is like
a child that knows
poems by heart.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

 

 

 

 

This from Forbes is actually part of the sales job. It’s “only” 3 people. And:

“just because you catch the virus after getting fully vaccinated doesn’t mean that the vaccine didn’t help you. You don’t know how much worse the infection could have been without the vaccine”

3 Fully Vaccinated People Catch Covid-19 Coronavirus in Hawaii (F.)

While the Covid-19 vaccines may protect you against Covid-19, their protection is not perfect. Even after getting vaccinated , you can still catch the virus. You can still get Covid-19. Case in point. Or rather three cases in point. According to the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH), three people in Hawaii who had received both doses of either the Moderna or the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine subsequently tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus. Additionally, a fourth person who had received the first of two doses of the vaccine ended up catching the B.1.1.7 variant of the severe acute respiratory respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2). That be a more contagious version of the SARS-CoV2.

Don’t press the panic button just because you saw this news though. In general, pressing a button labeled “Panic” is a bad idea. Plus, three people catching the Covid-19 coronavirus does not mean that the Covid-19 vaccines do not work. Getting the vaccine does not mean that a giant six-feet thick concrete condom forms around your body. The vaccine does not serve as a solid 100% effective barrier to the virus. Even though the vaccines may be quite effective at preventing more severe Covid-19, you still have a chance of getting Covid-19 after being fully vaccinated. And there is still a chance that this Covid-19 can be severe. It’s just that your chances after vaccination may be significantly lower.

Ultimately, three people is not that many people. It’s not even enough to form a four-person bobsled team or a typical boy band or a combination of the two. And it’s only a tiny fraction of the people who have been fully vaccinated to date. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker, over 35 million people have gotten both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna Covid-19 vaccines. [..] just because you catch the virus after getting fully vaccinated doesn’t mean that the vaccine didn’t help you. You don’t know how much worse the infection could have been without the vaccine, unless you’ve somehow mastered time travel.

Read more …

Sales job continued:

“A rebound in travel and day-to-day life most likely won’t be complete until after a vaccine for children becomes available..”

Travel Changes For Those Who Are Fully Vaccinated (F.)

The coronavirus vaccine is becoming available to more people across the United States and the world. Given the uptick in travel, it seems that more people are becoming confident to travel once they become fully vaccinated. Here are some travel changes to know about for those who have been (or will soon be) vaccinated. What Does “Fully Vaccinated” Mean? Your body must develop antibodies after receiving the recommended coronavirus vaccine dosage before you are “fully vaccinated.” The waiting period is 14 days after receiving your final dose. The 14-day period starts after receiving your second dose if you receive the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. The Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine only requires one dose.

If you want to travel after getting the vaccine, your travel dates should start 14 days after receiving the second dose. As always, you should stay home if you’re showing potential signs and symptoms. People can still contract the coronavirus after being fully vaccinated. Vaccines For Children Are Coming A rebound in travel and day-to-day life most likely won’t be complete until after a vaccine for children becomes available. Moderna is currently testing a children’s vaccine for recipients between ages 6 months and 12 years. For now, fully vaccinated adults have fewer social distancing restrictions. Current social distancing guidelines remain in place for unvaccinated households and travelers.

Being fully vaccinated isn’t a free pass to unrestricted travel as it was before the pandemic. The CDC interim guidelines do not expressly state that those who are fully vaccinated should avoid non-essential travel. However, the vaccinated must limit their exposure to the unvaccinated, who can be at more risk of getting the virus in close contact. The fully vaccinated can visit these people without masks or social distancing: • Other fully vaccinated persons (in small groups only) • Visit with unvaccinated people from a single household if they are “low-risk”.

Read more …

“EMA did not rule out a possible link, however..”

European Trust In AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Plunges (R.)

Confidence in the safety of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine has taken a big hit in Spain, Germany, France and Italy as reports of rare blood clots have been linked to it and many countries briefly stopped using it, poll data showed on Monday. The polling firm YouGov said it had already found in late February that Europeans were more hesitant about the AstraZeneca vaccine than about those from Pfizer Inc/BioNTech and Moderna Inc, and that the clot concerns had further damaged public perceptions of the AstraZeneca shot’s safety. At least 13 European countries in the past two weeks stopped administering the AstraZeneca shot, co-developed with scientists at Oxford University, after reports of a small number of blood disorders.

Many resumed its use on Friday after the European Medicines Agency regulator said in a preliminary safety review on Thursday that the vaccine was safe and effective and not linked with a rise in the overall risk of blood clots. EMA did not rule out a possible link, however, with rare cases of blood clots in the brain known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST). YouGov’s poll – which covered about 8,000 people in seven European countries between March 12 and 18 – found that in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, people were now more likely to see the AstraZeneca vaccine as unsafe than as safe. Some 55% of Germans say it is unsafe, while less than a third think it is safe, the poll showed. In France, where AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine was already unpopular, 61% of people polled say they now see it as unsafe.

In Italy and Spain, most people previously felt the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe – at 54% and 59% respectively – but those rates have fallen to 36% and 38% respectively, in the latest poll. The survey showed that only in Britain, where the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been used in a national rollout since January, have the blood clot concerns had little to no impact on public confidence. The majority of people polled in the UK – 77% – still say the shot is safe. Their trust in it is on a par with Pfizer’s 79% perceived safety rating.

Read more …

A lot of material here. Good for the Philippines.

Ivermectin: Game changer vs Covid-19? What’s the Controversy? (Manila Times)

Desperation time is arriving at our door. Our infection rates are reaching all-time highs, hospitals are full, people are unnerved already and the Philippines is far behind other countries in the recovery. Most of us will survive, but many will die unnecessarily; millions of jobs are lost.Real tests are needed, not speeches. Let’s not kid ourselves that survival is proof of resilience and innovativeness; we must improve all performance indicators, including time to adopt the best practical practices. Can we improve this reality test of our nation’s ability to anticipate, select talent, plan and execute by turning around the Covid health and economic situation quicker? When do we kick out demagogues and incompetents?

One potentially very powerful decision that is simple to execute can bypass the costs, vaccine availability and logistics issues we have (but not the pharma politics and traditional medical bureaucracy?) is the properly managed use of ivermectin.Game changer? Worldwide cases on ivermectin have been accumulating since the middle of 2020. Many highly competent doctors and research institutions are asserting that it can massively decrease infection rates, periods, and severity, at low risk, even prior to the arrival and use of vaccines. What are the arguments for or against ivermectin use for Covid control and treatment? The National Institute of Health (NIH) of the US in January 2021 had upgraded their recommendation on ivermectin, from “against” to “neither for nor against,” making it an option for use against Covid-19.

With the All-Indian Institute of Medical Sciences of Bhubaneswar, India’s Dr. Batmanabane says of his experience: “Earlier, at least 20 to 25 health care workers were getting infected with the virus daily. After the workers started taking Ivermectin, the number of infections has come down to one or two per day.” Their study indicates an over 70 percent overall improvement. While ivermectin is associated at times with some nausea or dizziness or other mild reactions, there have not been serious cases. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) notes that of 49 ivermectin studies, all show favorable results. Patients are dying, while over a billion doses have been used since the 1980s of this “very safe drug”. “Perhaps with this change, patients won’t need a court order to get a lifesaving drug,” according to AAPS executive director Dr. Jane Orient.

Read more …

“Greece will start offering Covid-19 self-testing kits next month to the entire population of the country.” “Greece will be the first EU member-state to offer these tests to the entire population free-of-charge.”

Greece Mobilizes Private Doctors to Cope With Surging Covid Infections (GR)

Greece announced on Monday it is mobilizing private doctors in an effort to contain the pressure on public hospitals struggling to cope with surging Covid-19 infections.Minister of Health, Vassilis Kikilias, said that despite an appeal for volunteers in the last few weeks “very few doctors came forward.” Of about 200 doctors requested by the government to assist their colleagues in the public sector, just 50 have come forward. Worse yet, attempts over the weekend to woo them with bonus fees failed. “Taking into account the emergency conditions and the urgent need for treatment of our fellow human beings, the Ministry of Health is mobilizing the services of Pathologists, Pulmonologists and General Practitioners in Attica,” Kikilias announced.

Doctors associations say the government should first recruit residents at state hospitals and other medical staff waiting to be hired before proceeding with the order, which they describe as absolutely extreme. On Sunday, Greece recorded another 1,514 new Covid-19 cases and the country broke yet another grim record, as a total of 674 people are now intubated in ICU units.The situation in Greece’s hospitals remains critical, with the capacity of many of them in Athens and other large cities being almost overwhelmed. Kikilias confirmed last week that Greece is “at the toughest point of the pandemic’s development.”He added that public hospitals are “on high emergency mode.”

Greece will start offering Covid-19 self-testing kits next month to the entire population of the country, the government said on Saturday.This comes as the latest addition to a series of measures that aim to curve the rising coronavirus infections in the country.Information and details on the new self-tests were announced by the Greek authorities, who claim that Greece will be the first EU member-state to offer these tests to the entire population free-of-charge.

Read more …

“The government’s response has lacked a risk variant analysis on all our populations.”

Growing Rebellion Against Draconian Covid Restrictions By Canadians (RT)

Some Canadians, armed with knowledge of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, aren’t complying with the draconian and absurd measures, and instead are walking out of airports instead of being incarcerated in quarantine hotels. In March, nurse Jessica Faraone made headlines for doing just that and walking out of Toronto’s Pearson airport instead of subjecting herself to a costly $2,000-plus quarantine hotel stay. In a later interview, Faraone said a border guard had attempted to intimidate and shut her up, but she knew her rights. She added: “I have worked in the hospitals and more than ever I’m seeing suicide, depression, strokes, heart attacks, addiction issues. Masking people and children, oppressing health-care workers’ opinions that go against the grain, socially isolating people, and instilling fear into Canadians… is not how we solve this problem.”

And it’s not just well-informed individuals who are contesting the drastic measures. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has been active in challenging the government both on quarantine hotels and on tickets issued to citizens for alleged violations of public health orders. The centre is also disseminating resources for Canadians to know their rights regarding Covid measures. Liberty Coalition Canada was formed after Covid restrictions were brought in. The coalition is a “national network of clergymen, elected officials, small business owners, legal experts and other concerned citizens” that now has a number of sub-groups addressing specific aspects of the measures Canada has taken. These include the social media campaign Save Our Youth, Reopen Ontario Churches, and the End the Lockdowns Caucus.

The latter comprises a number of current and former elected representatives who came together in February “resolved to ensure there is open, honest, and public debate regarding the Covid government response.” This body espouses what many ordinary Canadians have been feeling: “After careful examination and scrutiny of mitigation measures undertaken by all levels of government, it is now evident that the lockdowns cause more harm than the virus and must be brought to an end.” Likewise, the newly-formed Professionals Against Lockdowns – already listing over 100 professionals, including doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals, legal experts, police and teachers – aims to provide “evidence-based, scientific research that will educate and empower the public.”

Noting the widespread censorship of any dissenting voices on issues Covid, its statement reads: “It is our professional duty to protect the public, our communities, and our children. We will advocate for what is right and speak up against harm. Together, we will continue to be the voice for the voiceless to ensure that the truth about these lockdowns is heard. “The government’s response has lacked a risk variant analysis on all our populations. We are seeing the harm being done first-hand. We know lockdowns, isolation of healthy individuals, and the violation of our rights are causing more harm than good.”

Read more …

“They’re strangely compelled to seek every possible opportunity to insult the public’s intelligence while destroying what’s left of American culture..”

V. Putin Ain’t No Corn Pop (Kunstler)

Pretty soon, the president’s handlers will have to forbid him to open his pie-hole in public altogether. No more one-on-one interviews even with slow-pitch party shills like Mr. Stephanopoulos. They’ll just wheel him into the rose garden periodically like a cigar store Indian for proof-of-life demonstrations and leave the management of the nation… to others.

And how’s that going after a couple of months? Apparently, economic collapse is not enough for the party in charge of things now. They’re strangely compelled to seek every possible opportunity to insult the public’s intelligence while destroying what’s left of American culture. Case in point out of Nancy Pelosi’s Congress: HR1, the so-called “For the People Act,” institutionalizing ballot fraud in US elections. The law would make permanent the Covid-19 emergency mail-in voting system, over-riding whatever each state’s election law says — which makes the act appear patently unconstitutional — plus permitting same-day motor-voter registration of any live body, citizen or not, plus removing all voter ID requirements, and much more to ensure the country is never again threatened by a fair election.

Next up: HR5, the so-called “Equality Act,” institutionalizing the notion that categories of “male” and “female” are mere cultural constructs and must in no way be allowed to order any cultural activity from school to work to leisure. The bill was initially conceived to harden into law President Obama’s EO expanding the Department of Education’s Title IX rules on school sports — which eventuated in “trans women” disrupting girls’ sports. Now, men pretending to be women (and vice-versa) will be allowed to disrupt everything else in American life, especially the civil courts, with frivolous lawsuits.

Also in the pipeline: HR6, the so-called “American Dream and Promise Act,” and its Senate companion, S264, the plain “Dream Act,” that will grant permanent residency and then citizenship to currently “undocumented” people who snuck into the USA as children. The dreams and promises have already been delivered, even before the final passage of any new act, with an unprecedented flood of unaccompanied migrant children crashing the border, as well as a surge of adults fleeing Mexico and Central America. Apparently, the thinking in Washington these days is that we don’t have enough poor people in America, that their lives are not difficult enough. The message couldn’t be clearer to millions outside the United States: by all means, cross the border and we will do nothing about it.

Read more …

“When overspending does cause inflation, the MMT remedy is to remove money from circulation through progressive taxation, rather than by reducing spending and sacrificing the poor to unemployment.”

Welcome To The Age Of Modern Monetary Theory (Kodrik)

Congress has authorized $6 trillion in deficit spending to defeat the coronavirus. That’s more than the United States spent fighting World War II, when $4 trillion of government spending released the country from the clutches of the Great Depression. Naturally, politicians and pundits debate whether the amount is excessive. But implicit in their seemingly routine deficit debate is a remarkable shift: Inflation has replaced debt — the old stalking horse for defeating progressive legislation — as the primary concern with deficit spending. It’s a subtle change, with profound consequences. And it augurs the rise of a revolutionary approach to political economy, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), as the dominant paradigm in the politics of money.

Like Keynesians of yesteryear, Modern Monetary Theorists urge government to achieve full employment through fiscal policy, even when it requires deficit spending. Their comfort with large deficits emerges from an understanding that an obsession with national debt is a relic of another time, the age of gold standards and fixed currency arrangements. Today, in the age of national monetary sovereignty and free-floating currencies, countries like the United States can fulfill all financial obligations with a simple keystroke. Still, MMT economists don’t exactly scoff at deficits. Their point is that inflation, rather than rising national debt, is the best indicator of whether deficits are too large.

Short of extreme inflation, MMT encourages policymakers to juice the economy through government spending. Seen through MMT goggles, a tenet of economic orthodoxy is flipped on its head: Deficits appear as virtuous public investments, while surpluses become scourges, condemned for sucking money out of the economy. In this brave new world, the refusal of monetary sovereigns to run substantial deficits seems cruel and inefficient. According to MMT economist Stephanie Kelton, deficit spending can and should continue while additional spending can be absorbed by an economy’s productive resources. When overspending does cause inflation, the MMT remedy is to remove money from circulation through progressive taxation, rather than by reducing spending and sacrificing the poor to unemployment.

Read more …

We are all MMT now.

Next Round Of Us Fiscal Legislation Could Reach $4 Trillion – Goldman (FXS)

Analysts at Goldman Sachs eye another US fiscal stimulus, ranging to as high as $4.00 trillion, in their latest note published recently. The US bank suggests a minimum of $2.00 trillion of the infrastructure spending package, which could go to $4.00 trillion if including health care, education, and child care initiatives, in the next round of relief from US President Joe Biden. It should be noted that the bank anticipates higher taxes as a resource for paying the fiscal relief bill. “The tax plan proposed by President Biden in his election campaign would raise the statutory corporate tax rate on domestic income from 21% to 28%, partially reversing the cut from a rate of 35% passed in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The plan would also raise the tax rate on foreign income (also called the “GILTI” tax) and institute a minimum corporate tax rate,” said the note further.

Read more …

Edward Curtin starts out alright, but then…

Media Pseudo-Debates and the Silence of Leftist Critics (Curtin)

You’ve heard of them, no doubt, the U.S. rulers who can’t rule too well and are always getting surprised by events or fed bad advice by their underlings. Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence. They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the elites whom allegedly they oppose while ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail. They never see the storm coming, even as they create it. Their incompetence is the retort to all those nut cases who conjure up conspiracy theories to explain their actions or lack thereof. They are innocent. Always innocent.

They and their media mouthpieces offer Americans, who are most eager to accept, what Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed at age thirty-nine by Hitler, called cheap grace: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance…” These incompetents are, in the immortal words of the New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Except they could and can. They’ve actually shot a lot of people, here and abroad. It’s one of their specialities. But they mean well. They screw up sometimes, but they mean well. They care, even while they kill millions with their guns and bombs. But they have their followers.

As another dissident thirty-nine-year-old pastor, executed by the American state, Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” The US rulers have their defenders. Most are corporate mainstream journalists whose jobs are to defend the ruling elites of both political parties. They will criticize across the political divides depending on their organizations’ political leanings at the moment. But they will never attack the fundamentals of the oligarchic war system since they are part of it. Their jobs depend on it. So CNN and The New York Times will obsessively attack Trump while Fox News will do the same to Obama or Biden. This is a game.

These days such massive media conglomerates are seemingly starkly divided and basically serve as adjuncts of one political party or the other. They are essentially political propagandists for either the Democrats or the Republicans and have abandoned any pretense to be anything else. They speak to their respective audiences in self-enclosed vacuums. They promote the divide that runs down the middle of the USA, a divide they helped to create.

Read more …

Round-Up used to destroy entire crops. Anything else you wish to know?

Biden Pushes Colombia to Restart Glyphosate Spraying Program

After a six-year halt, Colombia plans to restart the toxic aerial spraying of glyphosate on coca crops as early as next month—drawing “most welcome” support from U.S. President Joe Biden and sharp criticism from 150 regional experts who wrote to Biden, “your administration is implicitly endorsing former President Trump’s damaging legacy in Colombia.” On March 2nd, the Biden administration welcomed Colombia’s decision to restart its aerial coca eradication program in Biden’s first annual 2021 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: “The government of Colombia has committed to re-starting its aerial coca eradication program, which would be a most welcome development.”

Colombia halted the controversial spraying program in 2015. In 2018, Colombia’s then-new President Ivan Duque vowed to resume the program but has yet to restart the aerial spraying The country faced increasing pressure from the United States to restart the program. “You’re going to have to spray,” former US President Donald Trump told Duque at the White House during a March 2, 2020 meeting. Aerial fumigation had been a central component of Plan Colombia, the 2005 multi-billion dollar U.S. program to finance the Colombian government war on coca cultivation and their war on FARC, which was Colombia’s largest rebel group before being disbanded in 2017.

But in 2015, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled that the spraying must end if the spraying of glyphosate was creating health problems. Also, in 2015, the World Health Organization found that glyphosate—also known as “Roundup”—was harmful to the environment and health, potentially causing cancer. In 2014, ending aerial fumigation was central to peace negotiations with FARC, with the Colombian government agreeing with FARC negotiators that it would transition away from aerial spraying. The Colombian government was also facing significant pressure from the rural poor, who were organizing national protests against aerial fumigation and other forms of forced eradication.

Read more …

Hmmm. Sounds pretty weak.

Bipartisan Australian MPs Meet With US Embassy About Julian Assange (SMH)

A cross-party delegation of Australian MPs has met with Washington’s top envoy in Canberra in their continued attempts to encourage the United States to drop its extradition attempts against the WikiLeaks founder. Nationals MP George Christensen, Independent Andrew Wilkie and Labor’s Julian Hill lobbied the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, Michael Goldman, on Monday morning, arguing the Australian citizen should be allowed to return home. The US Justice Department has appealed a British judge’s ruling that prevents Mr Assange from being extradited from London to face espionage charges. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled last month that while the case against the Australian was sound, his fragile mental health put him at “substantial risk” of taking his own life in prison.

Supporters of Mr Assange had hoped that new US President Joe Biden’s administration would opt to drop the case, which the Obama administration had declined to charge over concerns that doing so would put press freedoms at risk. He is accused of helping former army private Chelsea Manning obtain and leak classified information on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr Wilkie, a whistleblowing intelligence officer-turned-MP, said the delegation raised numerous issues with Mr Goldman, including the increasing cross-party and public support for the US extradition of Mr Assange from the UK to be dropped. The trio argued the US was at risk of “reputational damage” over the inconsistency that WikiLeaks source, Chelsea Manning, had her sentence commuted while WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, was still being pursued.

[..] “It was heartening that Mr Goldman agreed to the meeting and gave us a fair hearing,” Mr Wilkie said. “Hopefully our representations this morning impressed upon him the broad concern in Australia, and indeed right around the world, at the shocking injustice being meted out to Julian Assange. The US’s pursuit of Mr Assange is obviously not in the public interest and must be dropped.”

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.

 

 


If the Queen moves four squares forward the Bishop can take her.

 

 

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

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle March 22 2021

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #71553

    Paul Gauguin Tahitian village 1892   • 3 Fully Vaccinated People Catch Covid-19 Coronavirus in Hawaii (Forbes) • Travel Changes For Those Who Are
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 22 2021]

    #71554
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Paul Gauguin Tahitian village 1892

    …would’ve been nice to be there then…maybe even before…much before…

    Must be daylight savings time over there…
    Thank the gods’ we don’t have it…

    #71557
    oxymoron
    Participant

    When you have commercial grown, edible hybrid plants as crops for human consumption you are selecting for market not for environmental fitness or even vigour. Eventually you get to a point where you need countless iterations of externally applied defence mechanisms to keep the vulnerable and weak organism growing. Then further down the track the business model starts to revolve around keeping the plants consuming more inputs as a debt model – roundup ready soy needs the spray the tilling the machines the fertilisers etc.. The EROEI is based on using fossil fuel units and pushing the debt forward not current solar units.
    It feels more and more like Corona is the same model applied to human ‘crops’. The human hybrid is getting weaker with shit food and zoom meetings and the genes are a bit crap from plastics and chemicals in the environment. We need inputs in the form of protective vaccines, masks etc. to keep the crops ‘healthy’. A social debt model pushing the payment forward on to the weaker and more heavily vaccinated next generation.
    Am I making sense or is my head up my arse.
    I am reminded of the loss of the American Chestnut. A little blight came in from an Asian Chestnut and rather than let the fungal network and the trees work it out the learned scientists and businessmen of the day thought they had the answers.
    No more native Chestnut trees on the eastern half. 4 billion chances at genetic mutation.

    #71558

    And if the Bishop took her, what would he do with her?

    Relstive Risk Reduction vs Absolute Risk Reduction:
    BROWN: Yes, reporting relative risk outcomes, without absolute risk outcomes, has been a huge problem in research for decades. Notice that the ARR numbers are close to zero. The vaccines have almost no effect at all! In fact, the numbers are so low compared to the RRRs that I had to use a special percentage scale on the left of the figure that increases by ten times for each interval, otherwise the figure would be many times larger to span the enormous gap between the ARR levels and RRR levels.

    MANLEY: Shouldn’t this be illegal? Or, at least, fall under the category of misleading advertising?

    BROWN: The FDA guidelines say to report both RRRs and ARRs to the public, but the FDA advisory committees ignored the guidelines when they authorized the COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, and they left out the ARRs. The New England Journal of Medicine also did not include ARRs when it published the clinical trial data for the vaccines. I agree with you that the people responsible for this misleading information should be held accountable. Check out the article’s reference to the roster members of the FDA advisory committee.
    From “MuchAdoAboutCorona” website ([dot]ca), “covid-19-vaccines”

    oxymoron: I think you nailed it.

    #71559
    zerosum
    Participant

    Blood clot concerns?

    http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/surgical-thrombectomy

    Surgical thrombectomy is a type of surgery to remove a blood clot from inside an artery or vein.
    Why might I need surgical thrombectomy?
    You might need surgical thrombectomy if you have a blood clot in an artery or vein. This surgery is often needed for a blood clot in an arm or leg. In some cases, it may also be needed for a blood clot in an organ or other part of the body.

    A blood clot can lead to many possible problems, such as:

    Swelling, pain, numbness, or tingling in an arm or leg
    A cold feeling in the area
    Muscle pain in the area
    Enlarged veins (postthrombotic syndrome)
    Death of tissue
    Loss of function of an organ
    Blood clot moving to the lung that causes breathing trouble and risk of death (pulmonary embolism)
    Your doctor might advise surgical thrombectomy if you have a very large clot. Or, he or she may advise surgery if your blood clot is causing severe tissue injury. Surgery is not the only kind of treatment for a blood clot. Most people with blood clots are treated with medicines called blood thinners. These are given as an injection or through an IV. They can prevent a blood clot from getting larger.

    ———
    clotconnect.wpcomstaging.com/2020/12/29/covid-19-vaccination-while-on-a-blood-thinner/

    COVID-19 VACCINATION WHILE ON A BLOOD THINNER
    There is no reason to believe that the vaccine would increase the risk for blood clots. Patients should NOT avoid the COVID vaccination because they are on a blood thinner.

    ———

    Ivermectin or vaccines

    While the Covid-19 vaccines may protect you against Covid-19, their protection is not perfect. Even after getting vaccinated , you can still catch the virus. You can still get Covid-19.
    Being fully vaccinated isn’t a free pass to unrestricted travel as it was before the pandemic.
    People can still contract the coronavirus after being fully vaccinated.

    The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) notes that of 49 ivermectin studies, all show favorable results. Patients are dying, while over a billion doses have been used since the 1980s of this “very safe drug”.

    http://www.rxlist.com/consumer_stromectol_ivermectin/drugs-condition.htm

    Ivermectin (Stromectol)
    Basics, Side Effects, Reviews & More
    The strength of ivermectin (Stromectol) depends on your weight. Take all the tablets prescribed to you by mouth on an empty stomach all at the same time.
    15-24 kg: 3 mg orally once
    25-35 kg: 6 mg orally once
    36-50 kg: 9 mg orally once
    51-65 kg: 12 mg orally once
    66-79 kg: 15 mg orally once
    Over 80 kg: 200 mcg/kg orally once

    Head Lice (Pediculosis capitis; Off-label)

    200 mcg/kg orally once; may require 1-2 additional doses repeated after 7 days

    Ivermectin has no known severe interactions with other drugs.

    #71560
    Dr. D
    Participant

    If they’re going to protest multi-nationally, I’ll have to withdraw my complaint about human rights. However, they are still a minority compared to people who follow non-scientific non-laws rather than saying “make me.”

    A positive step. I’d say “except here” but people DGAF in Miami is how it’s done, and how it’s spun. Oh noes! Americans drinking and going to the beach! Send in the riot squad! Since their right to “Peaceably assemble shall not be infringed” by, you know, curfews and riot squads, not even during a smallpox epidemic.

    Next up, their “Right to own warships” (as John Hancock did), “shall not be infringed” because it scares the h—l out of government and helps keeps them in line. If we had as many “collateral damage” “accidents” as they did, against D.C. and Langley, would they tell us to calm down, it’s no big deal like they do to 16-year-old U.S. citizens blown up with the whole cafe in Yemen? Sounds legit. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if Hancock’s brass cannon leveled Chris Wray’s Beemer. Accidents happen!

    “3 Fully Vaccinated People Catch Covid-19 Coronavirus in Hawaii (F.)”

    Yes but they weren’t going to die anyway. As illustrated by 99.97% over 80 with three comorbidities. So as far as I can tell, the vaccine is just the disease in a bottle. Same effect so far. People take it with instant death. Most take it, it doesn’t protect them from (re)infection. But since we don’t Science anymore, no one notices. Apparently the whole country did Common Core.

    Travel Changes for Those Who Are Fully Vaccinated (F.)”

    Vaccine passports are a crazy conspiracy theory. I’m shocked and offended you would repeat obvious misinformation and QAnon talking points. Oh and that’s because if you’re vaccinated, you aren’t protected, so clearly having a vaccine passport is like having a concert hand stamp. The only scientific difference is pretty colors.

    The CDC interim guidelines do not expressly state”

    The CDC guidelines from their research on the 11th said masks don’t work. 1%. And lockdowns don’t work. So I wouldn’t put much in guidelines that flatly contradict their research. …As is has continually since we started 15 months ago.

    “You cannot lockdown if disease exceeds 1% of the population”
    “Masks don’t work against viruses. Didn’t in 1917, didn’t in 1993 in surgery.”

    “European Trust in AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Plunges (R.)”

    Just ‘cause it killed 30 people at a pop in Europe and has been banned by whole nations doesn’t mean it’s not perfectly safe. C’mon people. All safe things kill people by the hundredweight.

    Next up: giving it to people who are in ZERO danger: children. Zero. With them the vaccine is definitely more dangerous than the disease, which is why we do it, ha ha! Because if there’s an opposite anti-logic we shoot for it like a guided missile.

    “millions of jobs are lost.”

    Why are jobs lost? Voluntarily. Unscientifically. Wealth-transferally.

    “Greece will start offering Covid-19 self-testing kits next month”

    I assume the tests that don’t work in the first place. Or that’s wrong: rather they ALWAYS work, on goats, motor oil, papayas, if never swabbed…

    But the motivation? So…Joe’s bombing Syria again, and those bombs are pretty expensive for a guy that owes me $2,000. Same with Greece. So let me get this straight: they bought new NATO subs and savaged the hospitals and NOW you want doctors to “pitch in” and “help a pal?” Your doctors are in d—n Australia you idiots, making a living and sending money home. Same here. So…let me get this straight: we’re in the greatest health crisis in human history ‘cause we’ve never shut down the economy on purpose before, and you have 1) no masks or mask machines 2) No gloves or glove machines 3) no working tests 4) no money 5) no training, 6) no sanitorium overflow hospitals. Zero. Like Obamacare, you did exactly NOTHING. Trained NO ONE. Every administrator and insurance adjuster is still employed safely at home, and the only budgets we increased were for anyone who got it totally, catastrophically WRONG, like the CDC.

    And you want DOCTORS AND NURSES to pitch in? Suck an egg, I hope you all die strangled on your own sputum, you ignorant, self-serving —ks.

    Apparently people in several nations agree with me.

    Canadians, armed with knowledge of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms”

    Hahahaha, they’re so cute. And when they say NO to your stupid paper with paper words on it? What are you going to do? Ask politely again?

    Same here. We have the same words they ignore. And that’s why the government IS the people, and WE have complete pre-eminence, nullification, and right to take up arms. We haven’t yet, because you wouldn’t believe the damage we’d make if we get started.

    remove money from circulation through progressive taxation,”

    Good point that they fine-tune hyperinflation with taxation, but it’s “Regressive” taxation since 1913. Clearly. Poor people pay thousands of taxes they never paid back then, and rich people’s tax rate is lower than ever.

    “economic orthodoxy is flipped on its head:”

    Yes, they live in #OppositeLand. Once you start with a lie anywhere, it goes everywhere, killing everything.

    Next Round of US Fiscal Legislation Could Reach $4 Trillion – Goldman (FXS)”

    What about the month after that? Markets already say it isn’t enough. And the tax is interesting: so we put in $4 Trillion to then collect $4 Trillion in taxes and…pay ourselves back? Since GE and Amazon pay ZERO taxes, I assume it’s a way to tax me and small business and transfer the wealth to Bezos and Zuck and their footmen like Pelosi and Schiff. Easy call since everything else the last 20 years has been nothing but that.

    “Biden Pushes Colombia to Restart Glyphosate Spraying Program”

    It’s specifically directed never to be used in this way. If it gets into open water it kills everything particularly amphibians, frogs, and Christopher Robins playing downstream in the drinking water.

    I assume that means they’ll double-dose it. Then claim “health emergency”, cancer, defects, who knows, while slashing health care and asking doctors to double-shift it. That’s what we’ve done for 100 years and why stop now? Those kids aren’t going to murder themselves you know. It takes adults to do that. Schmartz ones. The dumb ones can still distinguish poison drinking water from clean water. It takes a degree from Yale to no longer know the difference. But if they cared about their kids they wouldn’t send to Yale, would they? Certainly not with a BMW and a free credit card.

    Bipartisan Australian MPs Meet With US Embassy About Julian Assange (SMH)”

    Thankfully they just noticed there’s an “Assange” somebody, doing something-something, bored already, can we drone somebody now?

    #71561
    Dr. D
    Participant

    UglyStick

    #71562
    zerosum
    Participant

    No Masks. No distances. Close contacts. No Ivermectin
    Spring break Miami – Watch! Will there be an outbreak of covid19?

    #71563
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Here’s another troubling issue about the Covid vaccine trials for infants and children…

    Such clinical trials, if they don’t give the desired results, tend to get dropped and the results aren’t made public. This is problematic for a bunch of reasons.

    Children enrolled in these studies are subjected to risks. If the results are kept secret by the drug companies, then the risks aren’t really being imposed for the advancement of science, they are being imposed on children to merely determine whether a certain treatment could be profitable for the drug companies.

    The withholding of negative results is also problematic because this “tends to distort the entire medical literature to make a given intervention [like vaccination] look more effective than it really is.”


    Nearly a Third of Medical Studies Involving Children Are Never Published

    The study authors combed through two years’ worth of pediatric trials registered on clinicialtrials.gov, a national registry run by the U.S. government. They found that 19 percent of these trials ended early, and 30 percent of completed trials were never published. That means that [during two years] more than 77,000 children were enrolled in trials that went nowhere..

    Testing new drugs in children is fraught with issues of consent, safety, and profit

    Sometimes scientists are reluctant to publish data for trials where results were neutral or negative. Science has a history of favoring studies that show what does work and ignoring studies that show what doesn’t work. But both results are equally important, says Jones.

    “Because ‘negative’ trials are generally less likely to be published than ‘positive’ trials, nonpublication tends to distort the entire medical literature to make a given intervention look more effective than it really is,” he said.

    http://www.healthline.com/health-news/many-medical-studies-involving-children-never-finished

    #71565
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Any article that speaks of the Pfizer therapy as a vaccine and not a “vaccine” is DOA.

    @#$

    @ oxymoron

    I really like your analogy. I think it is both an apt metaphor and literally accurate.

    #71566
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Next week, there is expected to be some movement with the Julian Assange case. The High Court hasn’t yet decided whether to allow the US to proceed with its appeal of the ruling that denied extradition.

    “I want to remind everyone it’s been 2 years since Julian Assange has been [locked away] in a high security prison. He faces 175 years in prison for the same reason he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
    —@suigenerisjen

    “Assange was still locked up even though he had never been convicted of any crime.”

    itwire.com/strategy/labor-mp-hill-calls-for-government-to-step-up-and-bring-assange-home.html

    Stella Moris #DropTheCharges @StellaMoris1
    ·Feb 18
    New: The Court has now granted Julian’s team an extension until March 29th to reply to the US appeal grounds/cross-appeal. The High Court will decide whether it will allow the US permission to appeal after March 29th.

    #71567
    Germ
    Participant

    @ Zerosum – My wife and I have been taking IVM prophylactically since Oct ’20 (15mg every three weeks). Most of my friends locally (about 25 people aged 12-80) were all mild to moderately sick at some point over the past nine months and tested Covid positive.

    I (and my wife) had nothing – although we never got tested.
    Have just stopped taking IVM as it seems like a seasonal condition and spring has finally arrived in the UK.

    For anybody who hasn’t read Kunstler – this week’s is right on target:

    In the Shadows of Shadowland

    #71568
    zerosum
    Participant

    Here is what I read.
    Read and decide

    https://ivmmeta.com/
    Ivermectin is effective for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 46 studies
    Covid Analysis, Nov 26, 2020 (Version 47, Mar 17, 2021)

    Prophylaxis refers to regularly taking medication before becoming sick, in order to prevent or minimize infection.
    Early Treatment refers to treatment immediately or soon after symptoms appear, while Late Treatment refers to more delayed treatment.

    Prophylaxis 89% improvement
    Early treatment 79% improvement
    Late treatment 52% improvement

    #71569
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://vdmeta.com/
    Vitamin D is effective for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 61 studies
    Covid Analysis, Dec 17, 2020 (Version 35, Mar 22, 2021)
    Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) refers to regularly taking vitamin D before being infected. Early Treatment refers to treatment immediately or soon after symptoms appear, while Late Treatment refers to more delayed treatment.
    Pre‑Exposure Prophylaxis 42% improvement
    Early treatment 90% improvement
    Late treatment 58% improvement

    #71570
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://c19zinc.com/
    7 covid19 studies
    All studies 40% improvement

    #71571
    island raider
    Participant

    The link from ‘my parents said know’ is pretty amazing. The link is an article, where epidemiologist, Ronald Brown, is being interviewed about his journal article, “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials”. He reports there that the Pfizer and and Moderna both report the Relative Risk Reductions from their trials (95.1% and 94.1%, respectively), but fail to report the Absolute Risk Reductions, which are 0.7% and 1.1% respectively. That is, for every 100 people treated with the Moderna vaccine, essentially 1 (1.1) person will be prevented from getting the infection. Looked at another way, they need to vaccinate about 91 people to prevent a single infection. Marketing Madness. Journal article is here:
    https://www.mdpi.com/1648-9144/57/3/199/htm

    #71572
    Dr. D
    Participant

    They have to stop this thing in Miami, when nothing happens it’s going to be super embarrassing.

    ‘Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.’ — Winston S. Churchill

    Speaking of, Maddow has picked up RussiaRussiaRussia coverage, all day every day, guess what? The U.S. Covid response was run by Russia. Who knew? Just an example of how no level of truth will ever occur, no matter how unfounded, how insane, how discredited, or how long it lasts.

    “if they don’t give the desired results, tend to get dropped.” This is the opposite of Science. Anyone who does this should be considered a flat cheese earther who believes there are tiny elves in your cells that make them go, and you have to shake rattles and make pancakes for them to keep them happy.

    #71573
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    From today’s Kuntsler article:

    “Pretty soon, the game will be up. The election fraud story won’t go away against all efforts to suppress it. The shadow government will get outed as the nation sinks deeper into economic and civil disorder, and some people will have to do something.”

    Why he keeps selling that hope-for-change snake oil is beyond me, other than that it probably appeals to many of his readers.

    Meanwhile, int today’s Of Two Minds, Charles Hugh Smith displays his favorite weak spot:

    “Those who expect a decline in energy availability to immediately lead to civilization-ending chaos overlook how similar life was in 1906 San Francisco, when hydrocarbons generated (by today’s standards) modest amounts of power and biofuel transportation (i.e. horses) were the common form of drayage.”

    First, what does he think the civilization-ending chaos we’re in IS? A bit of turbulence as we climb through the cloud layer?

    Secondly, he damn well knows that things like major system collapse have a systempunkt, that we’ve already met ours (more or less covid as catalysts). and tsunamis are very slow and gradual… until they hit the shoreline.

    Thirdly, he knows it will take at least a generation to create a hybrid energy deconomy like we had in 1906, and that the rate of deprivation and major social disintegration will happen much faster than this.

    It’s like even those who face the facts are afraid to feel them, and without emotional logic, logic is useless in understanding human events. He knows that the tide of this harbor rolls out very much faster than it rolls in.

    Dr. D, dammit, beat me to the Churchill quote about humans and truth, so I’m stuck saying ‘Amen’. Dirty little shiksa. 😉

    #71574
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Retraction: KUntsler only says “some people will have to do something”, and that’s true. I don’t read as well when I have my head up my ass. Being near-sighted is bad enough, but being rear-sighted is both blinding and stinks.

    #71578
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Something I shared with my e-postal friends:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/03/22/australia-floods-thousands-flee-record-rains-swamp-new-south-wales/4799040001/

    “Around 18,000 people had been evacuated from flooding in New South Wales.”

    “This is nothing like we’ve seen since the 1960s.”
    “Communities who were battered by the bushfires a year ago are now being battered by the floods.”

    One can safely say that at this point, New South Wales people are saying, fuck the masks, fuck social distancing, and fuck our leaders.

    At this point, any natural disaster will politically overturn the community it happens to. Almost everywhere, covid and the general state of affairs, period, has stretched the political community fabric too thin to tolerate any more disappointment or hardship.

    New South Wales will come out of this flood as an example of post-covid life: majorly eroded trust in not just politicians but also their expert technocrats, especially the science experts. When the mostly liberal crowd, which has so zealously adopted these insanely inept and corrupt covid measures, realizes who badly it has been duped, the conservatives will grow strong overnight as the Biden administration implodes and communities go New South Wales around the states, as we see in places like Florida and all around the world.

    Quoth Raul Ilargi, an online raven:

    “I’ve seen huge amounts of riot police in many cities this weekend, in Holland, Germany, UK, Sweden, Canada, Florida and money more places (Miami Beach declared a state of emergency), using water cannons, horses, dogs, in some cases tear gas, to disperse relatively small and peaceful crowds. These things are normally used in case of serious rioting. But now the “justification” is that people are standing and walking too close together, and not obeying the “measures” and restrictions.

    “But that is exactly what they’re protesting. If you protest the measures, and they say you can only do that if you comply with those same measures, which includes asking permission beforehand, that is not a protest, that is theater. And the right to protest is not something that can just arbitrarily be taken away in a democratic country. Until now. Until Covid came along.Here’s a clip of 14 countries with protests. They don’t include the water cannons etc. footage, which is fine by me.”

    #71579
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    cntd…

    If folks are thinking we’re headed for fascism via the GOP, this will be their chance to be right, although the GOP will only get this honor because the Democratic party is, as Hitler once said about liberals (paraphrase alert), “Useless. They cannot come together enough to win because they’re all going in different directions.” Celebrating diversity and a thousand shades of identity politics and saving the planet in a dozen superficial and mostly futile ways at once. Mostly nice intentions but they’re as soft-headed as those conservatives they think are so stupid while not as stubborn and willing to form ranks and fight as those conservative retards. (If anyone thinks I’m ignoring the BLMatter riots, I’m not. Two things: a) it’s pretty obvious at this point that there’s a lot of astroturfing going on there, sort of America’s own “color revolution”, nicely themed on, waddyaknow, color. How thematic!, and b) fighting a buncha dumbass police goons and corporate mall ninjas is not the only form of fighting attendant to major political disturbance, civil war, and revolution… there’s the fighting we do amongst ourselves as we form new power blocs to fill the void left as the old guard disintegrates magically like Biden’s dandruff on TV.)

    Meanwhile, we are increasingly having to finance our debt by selling IOUs to ourself…

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-securities/u-s-treasuries-saw-record-foreign-selling-in-march-data-idUSKBN22R359

    …while we live almost entirely on debt these days in the USA. I don’t mean domestic consumer debt, although that’s true too. I mean foreign debt. Our dollar buys from foreign nations way more stuff than we produce in exchange. We’ve turned into a financial parasite and the global hosts are increasingly shaking us off like a dog shaking off ticks after rolling in the mud (they let go cuz they can’t breathe).

    There. I got my Jeremiah itch scratched. I want a Nudie Cohn C&W outfit with the phrase: Don’t say I didn’t warn you written all over it like a doomsday newspaper.

    I’m feeling much better these days, health much improved, finally adjusted to old age enough to get on with certain things. How, she politely asked politely, are the rest of yez?

    #71580
    madamski cafone
    Participant
    #71581
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Yesterday’s RUssian Observer is a treat:

    “One is reminded of Napoleon’s delusion that Russia’s nobles could be wedged away from Alexander and the undying conviction that one more targetted sanction will make Putin’s henchmen kick him out. But, enough of Anonymous’ fancies – they have no base in reality: the USA out-sourced its manufacturing to China long ago and won’t be getting it back, wokeism is killing its education system, its politics are broken, its military is losing everywhere and doesn’t realise it, a tsunami of debt has built up. Most absurd of all, after years of needless hostility to Russia, Washington has no hope of separating Moscow from Beijing. And Xi Jinpeng is not some rogue who seized control – he is the top of a robust pyramid.”

    The Great American Delusion

    #71582
    John Day
    Participant

    Last Friday Madamski said:
    “As for Gospodin Putin: I see him as someone who developed a logical psychopathic shell to preserve a decently beating feeling loving heart. One hates to break it to the hypnotized, but part of being a leader of a nation state is deciding who to kill. It’s their reasons for doing so and how they go about it that can wildly differ.
    I have a simple word for Putin: a man. A “real man” even.”

    Admiring John: You’re real insightful, old girl. I like your style, too.

    #71583
    John Day
    Participant

    @Madamski: Charles Hugh Smith knows all of that, and he grows vegetables, and he used to build houses. He is pretty well prepared. He has moved back to Hawaii, near Hilo, Big Island, where his wife is from. He went to high school and worked for decades in Hawaii.
    Charles is going-to-ground.

    #71584
    newsteve
    Participant

    I’m confused by the Hawaii story:
    If you have been vaccinated, are you not completely exposed and invaded by the virus’s active spike mechanism?

    Are you not filled with antibodies and antigen that say I AM POSITIVE FOR COVID 19 and I fight them off?

    #71587
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ John Day

    “Charles is going-to-ground.”

    I understand that. I’m talking about his communication to others in his blog. Butg I’m persnickety. Glad you like my style, JD. It’s the only one I have. 😉

    #71589
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ madamski

    I have noticed that you are feeling better. I have been enjoying your comments

    #71590
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    The Hawaii story (of fully vaccinated people still being infected) is happening in other states, too, every other state. They are being called “breakthrough cases.” The vaccines never were 100% effective, so that leaves a certain percentage right off the bat for whom the vaccines will be ineffective. Plus, the ever-mutating and evolving variants of the virus can have a spike that’s different from what the vaccine targets, different enough to evade whatever defenses the body made in response to the vaccine.

    #71591
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski

    I worked for a year in Singleton, in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, about an hours drive inland from New Castle, and a couple hours drive north of Sydney, Australia.

    The first hotel that I stayed at was in town right beside the river that ran parallel to the main street. What was interesting was that the town had built up earthworks about 25 feet high all along the river bank. There were white markers along the inside facing the river, indicating each year’s high water marks for any exceptional high water level years.

    While I was there the so called river more resembled a small creek that a small child could get their ankles wet in. In other words calling it a creek insults any self respecting creek!

    The problem is the land suffers droughts that makes the earth surface rock hard like pottery unable to soak up a sudden heavy rain shower. So when it rains, the water quickly flows into all the low points creating flash floods everywhere.

    When I worked in the Congo I experienced their rainy season. Again the hot sun baked the earth so hard that rain water quickly created flash floods because it couldn’t easily soak into the ground.

    There was a small office bungalow beside where I was building a mining machine. Just before 10 AM and 2 PM, like clockwork, all the office’s outside doors were opened and held open with rocks. Then the same office’s inside doors facing into the central hallway received the same treatment. All the offices on the other side of the hallway had their 2 doors similarly opened.

    Then we all gathered in one of the offices, sat in chairs with our feet up on the desk and read a magazine. Then right on time, the heavens would open up and then it would rain cats and dogs for 10 to 20 minutes.

    The amazing part of this ritual was as the rains started, ⁷the muddy water would enter the office from the other offices across the central hallway and flow into our office. Slowly at first but then suddenly the muddy water would rise to about 10 inches high until we had a river flowing in and out of the office!

    Then as suddenly as the rain came it would stop and the sun would come out and quickly dry the earth and we would go back to work as if nothing had happened!

    You can imagine what it was like for me on my first day at work there! They motioned to me to come into the office, then motioned to me to grab a magazine, sit in a chair, and then put my boots up on top of the desk! Everybody else did the same! Everybody was non-plus busy reading! Nobody explained anything of what was about to happen!

    I am like what the hell is going on here! Why is everybody just sitting there so relaxed? Well my eyes grew plenty wide as events quickly unfolded before my very eyes! What really got me was how uninterested everybody else was about all this muddy water flowing through the office! I couldn’t quite believed this could be happening!

    Anyways, after the muddy waters stopped flowing, the janitors came in with rubber floor scrapers, quickly removing any residual mud and water, just like a window washer cleans windows. Man they were good and fast! Of course they got lots of practice!

    #71594
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ MIchael Reid

    “I have been enjoying your comments”

    There’s medicine for that, I think. 😉

    @ WES

    The song fits you.
    Everywhere

    #71595
    John Day
    Participant

    @WES: I think you win whatever it is today.
    Great travel tale!

    #71596
    John Day
    Participant

    Oh,MAN!,
    What a song!
    He never messed up once. How could he sing all those thousand places so fast and get them all right, and right on time?
    Johnny Cash, what a wonder of the world…

Viewing 33 posts - 1 through 33 (of 33 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.