Mar 242021
 
 March 24, 2021  Posted by at 9:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Paul Gauguin Farm in Brittany 1894

 

We Are Living Through a Time of Fear (Cook)
Covid: £5,000 Fine For People Going On Holiday Abroad (BBC)
Lockdown One Year On – It Was Never Supposed To Work (OffG)
CoroNaspresso: A Cheap, Rapid and Simple Home Test (chemrxiv)
Every Day We Discuss Closure And Then Decide To Keep Going (MENA)
Top Yale Doctor: ‘Ivermectin Works,’ Including For Long COVID (TSN)
Logic In Lockdown: The German Corona Policy Is In Ruins (NZZ)
US Home Sales Fell Nearly 20% In February (F.)
EU Has ‘Destroyed’ Once Friendly Ties With Russia – Lavrov (RT)
Welcome To ‘Shocked & Awed’ 21st Century Geopolitics (Escobar)
H.R.1 – Is It Really “For the People”? (Farrell)
Leaked Docs Show Obama FTC Gave Google Its Monopoly (Bovard)
Big Oil Backs Carbon Tax (Reason)
Minnesota Police Ready For Pipeline Resistance (IC)

 

 

“One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest”.
– Henry David Thoreau, ‘Civil Disobedience’

 

 

UK politics has gone completely bonkers….

We Are Living Through a Time of Fear (Cook)

Welcome to the age of fear. Nothing is more corrosive of the democratic impulse than fear. Left unaddressed, it festers, eating away at our confidence and empathy. We are now firmly in a time of fear – not only of the virus, but of each other. Fear destroys solidarity. Fear forces us to turn inwards to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Fear refuses to understand or identify with the concerns of others. In fear societies, basic rights become a luxury. They are viewed as a threat, as recklessness, as a distraction that cannot be afforded in this moment of crisis. Once fear takes hold, populations risk agreeing to hand back rights, won over decades or centuries, that were the sole, meagre limit on the power of elites to ransack the common wealth. In calculations based on fear, freedoms must make way for other priorities: being responsible, keeping safe, averting danger.

Worse, rights are surrendered with our consent because we are persuaded that the rights themselves are a threat to social solidarity, to security, to our health. It is therefore far from surprising that the UK’s draconian new Police and Crime Bill – concentrating yet more powers in the police – has arrived at this moment. It means that the police can prevent non-violent protest that is likely to be too noisy or might create “unease” in bystanders. Protesters risk being charged with a crime if they cause “nuisance” or set up protest encampments in public places, as the Occupy movement did a decade ago. And damaging memorials – totems especially prized in a time of fear for their power to ward off danger – could land protesters, like those who toppled a statue to notorious slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol last summer, a 10-year jail sentence.

In other words, this is a bill designed to outlaw the right to conduct any demonstration beyond the most feeble and ineffective kind. It makes permanent current, supposedly extraordinary limitations on protest that were designed, or so it was said, to protect the public from the immediate threat of disease. Protest that demands meaningful change is always noisy and disruptive. Would the suffragettes have won women the vote without causing inconvenience and without offending vested interests that wanted them silent? What constitutes too much noise or public nuisance? In a time of permanent pandemic, it is whatever detracts from the all-consuming effort to extinguish our fear and insecurity. When we are afraid, why should the police not be able to snatch someone off the street for causing “unease”?

The UK bill is far from unusual. Similar legislation – against noisy, inconvenient and disruptive protest – is being passed in states across the United States. Just as free speech is being shut down on the grounds that we must not offend, so protest is being shut down on the grounds that we must not disturb.

Read more …

… and I mean completely.

Covid: £5,000 Fine For People Going On Holiday Abroad (BBC)

A £5,000 fine for anyone in England trying to travel abroad without good reason is due to come into force next week as part of new coronavirus laws. The penalty is included in legislation that will be voted on by MPs on Thursday. Foreign holidays are currently not allowed under the “stay at home” rule which ends on Monday. But then the ban on leaving the UK at this time will become a specific law backed up by the threat of the fine. Under the current plan for easing restrictions, the earliest date people in England could go abroad for a holiday would be 17 May. However, another surge in Covid cases in continental Europe, as well as the slow rollout of vaccines across Europe, has cast doubt on the resumption of foreign travel.


Health Secretary Matt Hancock said restrictions on travelling abroad were necessary to guard against the importation of large numbers of cases and new variants which might put the vaccine rollout at risk. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves told BBC Breakfast that Labour supported measures to keep the UK’s borders secure and avoid the importation of new variants but said the government’s “slowness to react” had contributed to the country’s high death rate. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Monday the UK should be “under no illusion” that it will feel the effects of a rising number of cases on the continent. One of his ministers, Lord Bethell, said England might put “all our European neighbours” on the “red list” of countries. However, Mr Hancock told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were no plans to do this.

Read more …

A two week lockdown can achieve something. A one year lockdown can only achieve something other than the stated intent.

An entire library on lockdown effectiveness is at The Fat Emperor.

Lockdown One Year On – It Was Never Supposed To Work (OffG)

And so we come to March 23rd, and lockdown’s first birthday. Or, as we call it here, the longest two weeks in history. 1 year. 12 calendar months. 365 increasingly gruelling days. It’s a long time since “2 weeks to flatten the curve”, became an obvious lie. Sometime in July it turned into a sick joke. The curve was flattened, the NHS protected and the clapping was hearty and meaningful. …and none of it made any difference. This was not a sacrifice for the “greater good”. It was not a hard decision with arguments on both sides. It was not a risk-benefit scenario. The “risks” were in fact certainties, and the “benefits” entirely fictional.Because Lockdowns don’t work. It’s really important to remember that.


Even if you subscribe to the belief that “Sars-Cov-2” is a unique discrete entity (which is far from proven), or that it is incredibly dangerous (which is demonstrably untrue), the lockdown has not worked to, in any way, limit this supposed threat. Lockdowns. Don’t. Work. They don’t make any difference, the curves don’t flatten and the R0 number doesn’t drop and the lives aren’t saved (quite the opposite, as we’ve all seen). Just look at the graphs. This one, comparing “Covid deaths” in the UK (lockdown) and Sweden (no lockdown):

Or this one, comparing “Covid deaths” in California (lockdown) and Florida (no lockdown):

From Belarus to Sweden to Florida to Nicaragua to Tanzania, the evidence is clear. “Covid”, whatever that means in real terms, is not impacted by lockdowns. Putting the entire population under house arrest doesn’t benefit public health. In fact, it’s (rather predictably) incredibly counter-productive. The damage done by shuttering businesses, limiting access to healthcare, postponing treatments and diagnoses, postponed surgeries, increasing depression, soaring unemployment and mass poverty has been discussed to death. The scale of the impact cannot be overstated.


Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy for Covid-19, said this of lockdowns back in October: “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of the virus[…]just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry…look what’s happening to small-holding farmers[…]it seems we may have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition […] This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe.”

Read more …

Haven’t read the whole document yet, but the picture looks intruiging.

CoroNaspresso: A Cheap, Rapid and Simple Home Test (chemrxiv)

Development of a novel LAMP device which is cheap, reusable, and can be produced in large amounts in a short period of time. The device was designed such not to require chemical exothermic reactions, have limited waste produced and with a minimum cost of the device as a whole. The device was tested for the detection of SARS-CoV2 RNA.

Read more …

In Lebanon, it’s one crisis on top of another crisis on top of another.

Every Day We Discuss Closure And Then Decide To Keep Going (MENA)

Once bustling with life, Beirut’s famed Gemmayze Street is now deserted. Lined with damaged homes, collapsed buildings and closed businesses, the residential and commercial hub was one of the city’s most vibrant destinations – but not any more. “It’s like a nightmare. We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Charbel Bassil, owner of renowned Le Chef restaurant, on the first day of reopening after a nationwide lockdown. One of Beirut’s oldest and most popular restaurants, Le Chef, in in Gemmayze, is one of many businesses struggling to stay afloat under the weight of Lebanon’s compounding crises. The family business reopened its doors on March 22, as per the government’s lockdown strategy, but customers were hardly pouring in.

The modest space, which was often full to the brim for lunchtime, now welcomed only three tables after a full day of work, or about 10 customers. The burst of vigor and energy that characterised the dining experience at Le Chef was replaced by a sense of moping and melancholy. “We’re doing our best to keep going, but everything is a mess,” Mr Bassil told The National. Le Chef , founded in 1967, weathered civil wars and crises, but none harmed trade like Lebanon’s current events. “This is our family business. I’ve been working here since I was a child, but nothing we lived through was as bad as this,” Mr Bassil said. After almost losing the restaurant in the Beirut blast, Le Chef was able to rebuild thanks to donations, $5,000 of which came from the actor Russell Crowe.

But what the port explosion could not destroy, the economic crisis shattered. “We can’t work in this crisis. Suppliers won’t give us goods because of the market rate and we don’t know how to price our dishes,” Mr Bassil told The National. “We’re a restaurant for the people. We want to serve high-quality food for affordable prices.” Lebanon’s currency lost more than 80 per cent of its value since the beginning of the economic crisis, declared one of the worst in the country’s history. In one year, the Lebanese pound, which once traded at 1,500 to the US dollar, slumped to 15,000 on the parallel market. The minimum wage shrank from $450 to an average of $50, leaving people with insufficient salaries to cover rising living costs.

[..] Despite the opportunity to be back in business, Lebanon’s hospitality sector is wary about reopening because operational costs now outweigh profits. Fewer than 1,000 restaurants and cafes are expected to reopen this week, said Aref Saade, treasurer at the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Cafes, Night-Clubs and Pastries. Prior to the crisis, Lebanon had about 8,500 tourist institutions in business. The number decreased to 4,500 when Covid-19 struck, and is anticipated to sink below 1,000 due to the soaring and unstable currency exchange rate. “Businesses are refraining from reopening – it’s just not worth it,” Mr Saade told The National.

Read more …

“If I can save you,” he said referring to his father, “I can tell you, I save anybody.”

Top Yale Doctor: ‘Ivermectin Works,’ Including For Long COVID (TSN)

A Yale University professor and renowned cancer researcher has pored over the COVID-19 literature and treated several dozen patients. He can remain silent no longer. Dr. Alessandro Santin, a practicing oncologist and scientist who runs a large laboratory at Yale, believes firmly that ivermectin could vastly cut suffering from COVID-19. Santin joins a growing group of doctors committed to using the safe, generic drug both as an early home treatment to prevent hospitalization and alongside inpatient treatments like steroids and oxygen. “The bottom line is that ivermectin works. I’ve seen that in my patients as well as treating my own family in Italy,” Santin said in an interview, referring to his father, 88, who recently suffered a serious bout of COVID. “We must find a way to administer it on a large scale to a lot of people.”

Santin’s statements carry the prestige of a leadership position at Yale School of Medicine and the gravitas of a top uterine cancer researcher, who has authored more than 250 science journal articles and pioneered treatment, used worldwide, for the most aggressive form of uterine cancer. At Yale, he is an OB/GYN professor, team leader in gynecologic oncology at the Smilow Comprehensive Cancer Center, and co-chief of gynecologic oncology. When COVID came along, Santin began reading about how best he might help his cancer patients, 10 to 20 percent of whom were coming in infected with COVID. He began using ivermectin after the National Institutes of Health changed its advisory in January to allow the drug’s use outside of COVID trials. Santin’s endorsement is not only important but broad.

He said he has seen ivermectin work at every stage of COVID — preventing it, eliminating early infection, quelling the destructive cytokine storm in late infection, and helping about a dozen patients so far who suffered months after COVID. One of them is an athlete and mother of two, 39, who had been disabled by post-COVID chest pain, shortness of breath and fatigue; she confirmed in an email to me her joy at being able to walk up a hill again and breathing better within 72 hours of her first dose. “When you have people that can’t breathe for five, six, eight, nine months and they tried multiple drugs and supplements with no success, and you give them ivermectin,” Dr. Santin said of long-haul patients, “and you see that they start immediately feeling better, this is not placebo. This is real.”

[..] Beyond his outpatients, Santin has treated family members and friends infected with COVID in both his home community in Connecticut and in his native Italy via telemedicine. There, he prescribed ivermectin to more than 15 families, in which parents, children or others had became infected; the goal was both to treat early and prevent severe COVID, as studies have shown ivermectin does. “I have not a single one that right now had to go to the hospital to receive oxygen,” he said. “I have no doubt ivermectin saved my 88-year-old father’s life.” His father survived COVID despite high blood pressure, cardiac disease that led previously to seven stents and open heart surgery, and lung problems. “If I can save you,” he said referring to his father, “I can tell you, I save anybody.”

Read more …

Google translate.

Logic In Lockdown: The German Corona Policy Is In Ruins (NZZ)

Instead of easing concepts, the Chancellor and Prime Minister present the extension and tightening of the lockdown. The citizens have to pay for what the government has missed for months. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Minister wrestled with each other for twelve hours on Tuesday. Anyone who expected a big hit after this nightly marathon was disappointed: The result of the conference is shameful. Not only that the tentative easing of the corona measures has been discarded. Germany should also go into a tough lockdown at Easter. “We thought again today,” said the Chancellor in the early hours of the morning. In order to “break through” the third corona wave a little bit, April 1st and 3rd at Easter will be “one-off days of rest”, as “extended rest time”.

Rethought? With these resolutions, Germany’s government surrenders to the principles of reason. If you wanted to avoid hamster purchases and crowds in supermarkets until now, the opposite is now the case: the closing of supermarkets over Easter is forcing citizens to replenish their supplies. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict the resulting overcrowding of the shops on Holy Saturday. Is that still wanton or already deliberate bad planning? Either way, it lacks any logic. Religious freedom could also be a victim of the comfortably formulated “extended rest period at Easter” – for all those for whom five months of rest are not enough – there should be no Easter services with an audience in attendance, according to the will of the conference.

So while in the past few days 700 Hansa Rostock football fans were allowed to go to the stadium with a negative quick test and 1,000 classical music fans who also tested negative were allowed to go back to the Berlin Philharmonic, is it not possible to organize a gathering of Christians at their highest festival? Not if you leave it to this government, that’s for sure. Local politicians such as Tübingen’s Mayor Boris Palmer show that there is another way. With test stations he enables the citizens of his city to live a little and the business people to survive.

Read more …

“..the lowest reported inventory since the Realtors association began tracking it in 1982..”

US Home Sales Fell Nearly 20% In February (F.)

Single-family home sales dropped 18.2% from January to February, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, even as annualized sales remain much higher than pre-pandemic rates. 775,000 (at a seasonally adjusted annual rate) new single-family homes were sold in Feb. 2021—that’s a large drop from the 958,000 homes sold rate in Jan. 2021. Adjusted home sale rates are still far higher than they were pre-pandemic: 716,000 new single family homes were sold in Feb. 2020. The median price of new homes sold in February was $349,000 and the average sale price was $416,000. The National Association of Realtors said the decline from January was due to “historically-low inventory”, and said home sales are ahead of total 2020 sales. At the end of December 2020, there were just 1.07 million homes for sale—the lowest reported inventory since the Realtors association began tracking it in 1982.

Read more …

“Brussels “has consistently destroyed all mechanisms without exception that existed on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation.”

EU Has ‘Destroyed’ Once Friendly Ties With Russia – Lavrov (RT)

Months of political tension and a wave of new sanctions have severed all links between the EU and Russia, Moscow’s top diplomat has said, adding that his country is ready to resume cooperation if Brussels decides it is interested. Speaking at a press conference alongside his Chinese counterpart on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that currently, “there are no relations with the EU as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made from Brussels.” Some individual European countries, he argued, are still seeking closer ties with Moscow, “guided by their national interests.” However, these are being fast outpaced by growing partnerships with China, Lavrov told journalists.

“If and when Europeans decide to eliminate these anomalies in contacts with their largest neighbor, of course, we will be ready to build up these relations based on equality,” the diplomat confirmed, “while in the East, in my opinion, we have a very intensive agenda, which is becoming more diverse every year.” In February, the foreign minister stated that Moscow’s relations with the bloc had taken a tumble in 2014, after the EU “blamed the Russian Federation for everything that is happening” in Ukraine following the Maidan. Since then, he argued, Brussels “has consistently destroyed all mechanisms without exception that existed on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation.”

As part of a fiery broadcast interview, Lavrov warned that if the bloc’s leadership sought to impose sanctions on Russia that hit sensitive areas of the economy, Moscow could break off diplomatic contact altogether as a last resort. “Of course, we do not want to isolate ourselves from living in the world, but we must be ready for this. If you want peace, prepare for war,” he stressed. Earlier this month, the EU unveiled a new package of sanctions against four Russian officials it claimed were responsible for the detention of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, and “human rights violations” during the policing of subsequent protests held in his support. At the time, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said the bloc had “missed yet another opportunity to review its … approach to relations with Russia.”

Read more …

“The United States is not qualified to talk to China in a condescending manner. The Chinese people will not accept that.”

Welcome To ‘Shocked & Awed’ 21st Century Geopolitics (Escobar)

With a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the hegemon, we now have a brand new geopolitical chessboard… It took 18 years after Shock and Awe unleashed on Iraq for the Hegemon to be mercilessly shocked and awed by a virtually simultaneous, diplomatic Russia-China one-two. How this is a real game-changing moment cannot be emphasized enough; 21st century geopolitics will never be the same again. Yet it was the Hegemon who first crossed the diplomatic Rubicon. The handlers behind hologram Joe “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Nance” Biden had whispered in his earpiece to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin as a soulless “killer” in the middle of a softball interview.

Not even at the height of the Cold War the superpowers resorted to ad hominem attacks. The result of such an astonishing blunder was to regiment virtually the whole Russian population behind Putin – because that was perceived as an attack against the Russian state. Then came Putin’s cool, calm, collected – and quite diplomatic – response, which needs to be carefully pondered. These sharp as a dagger words are arguably the most devastatingly powerful five minutes in the history of post-truth international relations. In For Leviathan, it’s so cold in Alaska, we forecasted what could take place in the US-China 2+2 summit at a shabby hotel in Anchorage, with cheap bowls of instant noodles thrown in as extra bonus.

China’s millennial diplomatic protocol establishes that discussions start around common ground – which are then extolled as being more important than disagreements between negotiating parties. That’s at the heart of the concept of “no loss of face”. Only afterwards the parties discuss their differences. Yet it was totally predictable that a bunch of amateurish, tactless and clueless Americans would smash those basic diplomatic rules to show “strength” to their home crowd, distilling the proverbial litany on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea, “genocide” of Uighurs. Oh dear. There was not a single State Dept. hack with minimal knowledge of East Asia to warn the amateurs you don’t mess with the formidable head of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the CCP’s Central Committee, Yang Jiechi, with impunity.

Visibly startled, but controlling his exasperation, Yang Jiechi struck back. And the rhetorical shots were heard around the whole Global South. They had to include a basic lesson in manners: “If you want to deal with us properly, let’s have some mutual respect and do things the right way”. But what stood out was a stinging, concise diagnostic blending history and politics: “The United States is not qualified to talk to China in a condescending manner. The Chinese people will not accept that. It must be based on mutual respect to deal with China, and history will prove that those who seek to strangle China will suffer in the end.”

Read more …

It is a weird piece of legislation.

H.R.1 – Is It Really “For the People”? (Farrell)

A lot has been written about H.R.1 — the so-called “For the People Act of 2021.” Former Vice President Mike Pence has opined on the bill. The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal sounded the alarm back in January. The editors of National Review come right out and call it a “partisan assault on American democracy.” H.R.1 purports to, “expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes.” The Bill is 791 pages long. Here are just a few of the more egregious federal power grabs in H.R.1 concocted against the 50 states that run elections under the U.S. Constitution:

• Ban voter ID laws and allow ballot harvesting; • Expand Election Day to “election season” by mandating mail-in ballots be counted 10 days after the election would normally be over; • Automatic voter registration of people who apply for unemployment, Medicaid, Obamacare and college, or who are coming out of prison. There is a lot more, and it gets worse. Substantially worse. There are First Amendment restrictions on political speech and on the support or opposition of a bill and/or a candidate. Remember: This is supposed to be “fortifying our democracy.” If you are interested in a “through the looking glass” annotated analysis of H.R.1 — then head over to the Brennan Center for Justice. They are happy to explain how those pesky constitutional rights can be whittled down to something more “fair” for everyone.

For example, the Brennan Center analysis confidently assures readers about how H.R.1 “affirms Congress’ power to protect the right to vote, regulate federal elections, and defend the democratic process in the United States.” It seeks to airbrush Article I, Section 4 — The Elections Clause — from history and practice. The Clause directs and empowers states to determine the “Times, Places, and Manner” of congressional elections. H.R.1 would federally strangle the Elections Clause. In order to find our way out, it is helpful to know how we got into this terrible predicament. The foundation for the madness of H.R.1 is legal positivism, a thesis, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which states “that the existence and content of law depends on social facts and not on its merits.” H.R.1 is nearly 800 pages of meritless, militant, social engineering targeting the foundations of the U.S. Constitution, voting rights and political free speech — all dressed-up as being “for the people.”

Read more …

Too late now.

Leaked Docs Show Obama FTC Gave Google Its Monopoly (Bovard)

Eight years ago, the Federal Trade Commission had the chance to face down Google — the giant of Silicon Valley whose power now alters the free flow of information at a global scale, distorts market access for businesses large and small, and changes the nature of independent thought in ways the world has never experienced. Instead, the FTC blinked — and blinked hard, choosing to close the investigation in early 2013. A remarkable leak to Politico of agency documents about the 2012 Google investigation reveals that, despite ample evidence of market distortions and threats to competition presented by the agency’s lawyers, the five commissioners of the FTC deferred instead to speculative claims by their economists.

Records and reporting about the 2012 investigation suggest the FTC did so while bending to political pressure from the Obama White House — which was, in turn, bending to political pressure from Google. William Kovacic, a former FTC chair under President George W. Bush, reviewed the more than 300 pages of documents leaked to Politico and concluded the agency overlooked “what many experts and regulators would consider clear antitrust violations,” calling the specificity of issues outlined “breathtaking.” In short, where we find ourselves today — with Google as the primary filter of the world’s information, engaging in a network of exclusionary contracts and anti-competitive conduct, and subject to an antitrust lawsuit led by the Department of Justice and joined by 48 state attorneys general — could have, and should have, been avoided.

That it wasn’t, however, provides key takeaways about where we are now with Big Tech, and, in particular, the method of enforcement of our antitrust laws, whose application has become too tightly wrapped around the axle of price, and captured by the speculative science of economic forecasting. It also reveals just how politicized antitrust enforcement has become — influenced by the siren song of internet exceptionalism and the powerful tug of Google, one of the world’s richest companies. Perhaps the most stunning takeaway in the 2012 documents is the extent to which the recommendations of the FTC’s lawyers sharply differed from those of the agency’s economists, on whose judgment the FTC commissioners ultimately relied in their decision to drop the investigation into Google.

The FTC’s antitrust attorneys concluded that Google was breaking the law by “banishing potential competitors” with a series of exclusionary contracts on mobile phones — much of which forms the basis for the lawsuit brought nearly a decade later by the Trump Department of Justice. The FTC’s economists, however, demurred, insisting that claims of Google’s market dominance were unfounded and would soon give way to competition. This required a markedly un-curious treatment of key facts.

Read more …

Whatever Big Oil backs can never be good.

Big Oil Backs Carbon Tax (Reason)

Executives from leading oil companies, including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute (API), met virtually with Biden administration officials to discuss policies aimed at addressing the problem of man-made climate change. The Wall Street Journal reported that company leaders said that “they wanted to work with the administration and pledged support for policies that would make it more expensive to emit the gases that contribute to climate change.” In a statement issued after the virtual meeting, API CEO Mike Sommers declared, “We are committed to working with the White House to develop effective government policies that help meet the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and support a cleaner future.” The API is rumored to be considering coming out in support of carbon emissions pricing.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips previously endorsed the bipartisan Climate Leadership Council’s (CLC) revenue neutral carbon tax and dividend proposal in which escalating taxes collected on oil and natural gas at the wellhead and on coal at the minehead would be entirely rebated in equal sums to each American as an annual payment. The CLC cites a 2018 study that finds that 70 percent of American households would receive more in dividend payments then they would pay in increased energy prices. Once the CLC’s carbon tax plan is adopted, all other regulations and subsidies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, such as automobile fuel efficiency and renewable portfolio standards, are supposed to be permanently repealed.

However, lots of climate activists oppose carbon taxes. Why? InsideClimateNews offered the example of Matto Mildenberger, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who has argued that carbon taxes make climate action unpopular because they front load the costs immediately onto consumers while the eventual benefits of lower temperatures, less fierce storms, and lower sea levels stretch into the future. As InsideClimateNews explained: “In the view of Mildenberger and others who’ve studied climate politics around the world, subsidies, regulation, and other policies that provide more immediate and visible benefits—like jobs creation—are a better way to jump-start climate policy, even if they cost more in the short run. That’s because they stimulate investment to help lower the cost of alternative energy, and at the same time help broaden political support for stronger climate policy. New actors with real investments they want to protect and advance will want more aggressive action, and politicians will respond.”

Read more …

Drilling under the Mississippi. Leave it be.

Minnesota Police Ready For Pipeline Resistance (IC)

As you drive toward the Mississippi River’s headwaters from the east, the lakes that open up on either side of the highway are still white-blue with ice. The Mississippi River, however, is flowing. The open water — a trickle compared to the expanse it will become farther south — is a hopeful sign of the end of another long Minnesota winter, but it also has opponents of pipeline construction in the area on edge. Enbridge, the Canadian energy-transport firm, is planning to route its Line 3 pipeline under the Mississippi, near where it crosses Highway 40. In winter, a pollution-control rule bars drilling under the frozen waters. As the ice melts away, so do the restrictions. Those organizing against the project worry that Enbridge could begin tunneling under the Mississippi and other local rivers any day — and the pipeline-resistance movement is getting ready for it.

“They got a lot of money, they got a lot of equipment, but we got a lot of people,” said Anishinaabe water protector Winona LaDuke at an event last week with actor and activist Jane Fonda, which took place in front of the flowing Crow Wing River, not far from where Enbridge seeks to drill under its shores. “Spring is coming. Let’s be outdoorsy.” Enbridge’s Line 3 project began construction four months ago. It was designed to replace a decaying pipeline of the same name; however, a large portion of its 338-mile Minnesota section, which makes up most of the U.S. route, plows through new land and waters. The project would double Line 3’s capacity for carrying tar sands oil, one of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels in the world, at a moment when a rapid shift away from fossil fuels has become critical to address the climate crisis.

The delicate waterway ecosystems through which the pipeline passes have become the central organizing point of the anti-pipeline, or water protector, movement. Hundreds of rivers, streams, and wetlands face the specter of a tar sands leak after the replacement Line 3 begins operating. And the particularly intensive form of drilling required to tunnel the pipeline under rivers holds its own set of risks during construction.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 24 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 53 total)
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  • #71671

    Paul Gauguin Farm in Brittany 1894   • We Are Living Through a Time of Fear (Cook) • Covid: £5,000 Fine For People Going On Holiday Abroad (BBC)
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 24 2021]

    #71672
    a kullervo
    Participant

    You were born a slave,
    Slave to the preservation instinct.
    Arguably, slavery entails a life which can be long,
    And that much sought after peaceful end.
    You can only escape slavery through madness.
    Madness is most likely conducive to a brief life
    (not to mention a gruesome death.)
    Are you willing to pay the price?

    (Heaven)

    #71673
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Paul Gauguin Farm in Brittany 1894

    …uhm, it’s too dark…what is the point?
    I do not enjoy it…
    It escapes me completely…
    …as does most of the bullshit going on in the USA……………………..

    #71674
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    151 Elderly Cyclist Beaten By Dutch Police

    It seems the EU is joining the U.S. in it’s brutal treatment of it citizens for just speaking up about unjust police tactics…

    #71676
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    So Ivermectin works for long Covid (which is the main thing that demonstrates that this is seriously not “just the flu, bro”), too? That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at. Nonetheless, I’m sure the mainstream media paid lapdogs are getting their boxes of kleenex ready as we speak.

    #71679
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest”. – Henry David Thoreau, ‘Civil Disobedience’

    This if from yesterday, where if you spend 100% of the planet’s oil and electric to lie and deny physics, reality, then when you blink, it’s over. Bye-bye.

    Fear, the opposite to fear? Religion. Basically, a spiritual life beyond this one. That’s why atheism is a must-have element and religious groups are put to genocide, like Falan Gong, Uighers, Christians, and Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Christians in California. People who can’t be bullied with fear are dangerous. Their sole threat.

    ‘They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.’ — Mahatma Gandhi

    The rest of you want to stay here in h–l instead of going to heaven for some reason.

    Covid: £5,000 Fine for People Going on Holiday Abroad (BBC)”

    Freedom only for rich people. Like Biden’s gun tax. Like maskless 1st class flying. Like owning a palatial estate where “lockdown” means nothing to your private cook, living in his own horse stable.

    “Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Prime Minister wrestled with each other for twelve hours”

    Easting 5-star meals and not wearing masks like John Kerry on public flights or Pelosi in hair salon. Why? BECAUSE THEY DON’T BELIEVE IT. They’ve seen the science, h—l YOU’VE seen the science, that’s why they know it’s b——t. They are locking YOU down. They’re flying maskless, eating maskless, living it up on $15 T-R-L-L-I-O-N in new corporate fascist profits, and it will NEVER EVER END until you make it. Give up the fear of a 99.997% survival rate, learn some math – it’s not hard – and tell the truth for just once this year.

    Magic 8-Ball say: “Outlook not so Good”

    “US Home Sales Fell Nearly 20% In February (F.)”

    Opposite of what’s reported elsewhere but I can’t get a handle on it. Suspect the few with money (that own stocks) are fixing their prison cells houses with the free, unearned money, while people without are stuck.

    EU Has ‘Destroyed’ Once Friendly Ties With Russia – Lavrov (RT)”

    Can’t follow this either, but suspect that he’s destroying the EU as an overlord and re-focusing on individual nations which will continue to exist. The EU is about to stop existing, but like here the devolution is slow and won’t be admitted.

    H.R.1 – Is It Really “For the People”? (Farrell)”

    Legislation hasn’t been for the people in 50 years. Look at Carter and what was it, Oxford’s? study that the people’s will has exactly –zero—effect on U.S. legislation. So whose does?

    BTW, it’s also completely, transparently unconstitutional. Election laws are the purview of the represented state’s legislatures, another thing completely un-presented in any court despite attempts nationwide. The 2nd assistant judge in Wilkes-Barre doesn’t create federal election law and neither does the country executive in Ann Arbor. Laws are passed by the LEGISLATURE. But that’s so last century: we now dictate, executive order unlimited martial law, rendition, indefinite detention, civil forfeiture, over top of any law passed, any case precedent, any Supreme Court in Michigan. “’Cause we said so.” Or else what? Or else they’ll politely ask the executive in Maracopa county to not break the law a Second Time.

    So passing laws, not passing them? Really passe’ at this point. “The Law is in my mouth.” And selective enforcement is all.

    “Leaked Docs Show Obama FTC Gave Google Its Monopoly (Bovard)”

    Since Google is essentially the CIA, what did you expect? The CIA essentially installed Obama via his handler Brennan, and the CIA did what the CIA wanted? What are the odds?

    “Minnesota Police Ready for Pipeline Resistance (IC)”

    Great! Clearly the answer is living in caves or sending each barrel in a railroad car that’s hundreds of times more accident prone. We’re doing both, so, #Winning.

    If there’s an unscientific, un-engineering, wasteful, counter-productive idea anywhere, we’re on it like rice. If you could make hot water at home and plant a tree, we outlaw it.

    #71680
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Mister Roboto wrote: “So Ivermectin works for long Covid (which is the main thing that demonstrates that this is seriously not “just the flu, bro”)...”

    From the CDC website:

    Most people who get flu will recover in a few days to less than two weeks, but some people will develop complications (such as pneumonia) as a result of flu, some of which can be life-threatening and result in death….
    serious complications triggered by flu can include inflammation of the heart (myocarditis), brain (encephalitis) or muscle (myositis, rhabdomyolysis) tissues, and multi-organ failure (for example, respiratory and kidney failure).

    Flu virus infection of the respiratory tract can trigger an extreme inflammatory response in the body and can lead to sepsis, the body’s life-threatening response to infection. Flu also can make chronic medical problems worse. For example, people with asthma may experience asthma attacks while they have flu, and people with chronic heart disease may experience a worsening of this condition triggered by flu.

    Have to admit, it does sound familiar.

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/symptoms.htm

    #71681
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Lied about dot com boom
    Lied about 9/11
    Lied about Iraq war
    Lied about gfc
    Same people in charge for all, no one resigns or gets fired, but this time they’re telling the truth

    #71682
    Bill7
    Participant

    ‘One Year to Flatten Life as we Knew it’, by Rob Slane:

    “It is a year since we embarked on an untried, untested, unscientific, draconian and frankly mad medical, social, economic and psychological experiment on millions of people. On the day we were thrust into this folly I wrote, “So that seems to be that. The end of Britain as we knew it.” All that has taken place since has, I believe, confirmed that, and my only surprise is that millions of people still cling to the bizarre idea that Lockdowns were based on science, that they were necessary, that they have been effective, and that we have a benevolent Government whose aim has been to keep us all safe. None of these things are true.
    A Brief Recap of What Has Taken Place

    You will search in vain for pre-2020 medical and scientific literature advocating the mass quarantining of healthy people as an appropriate response to a pandemic. In fact, after a panicked Mexican Government flirted with the idea for five whole days during the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak (ending it once it was realised how devastating it would be), the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the time, Dr Margaret Chan, explicitly warned against such destructive measures being used:

    “In this regard, let me make a strong plea to countries to refrain from introducing measures that are economically and socially disruptive, yet have no scientific justification and bring no clear public health benefit.”..”

    One Year to Flatten Life as we Knew it

    Who could have ever known?

    #71683
    zerosum
    Participant

    Life is a Casino
    Place your bets.
    Red/Black, Happiness/sadness, knowledge/ignorance, truth/lies, right/wrong, confusion/clarity, action/apathy, fear/confidence/doubt

    #71684
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    ‘…just a wicked nasty flu…’ is both truie and false.

    If covid gets a sufficient viral load of the right strain into a person, it’s majorly serious business, more than just a nasty wicked flu. While there are obviously solid reliable cures available, I’ll ignore that and focus on prevention, which is where covid is indeed just another lousy flu: if you keep youor immune system healthy and your general bodily health reasonably strong, take a sniffle or cough seriously rather than ignore it with some OTC cold medicine like we usually do, take extra precautions in powerfully infectious environments (closed air space, heavy AC) to keep your front line defense (hydration especially of the sinuses), your body will get a chance to ID covid for immunity purposes while easily fighting it off with your general immune system.

    Covid, like all life, is a process, one with a life cycle. Nip it in the bud, which is easily done for us wealthy westerners, and it’s a nasty-ass hyper-“flu” you avoided by taking diligent consistent precautions.

    ^&*

    Lawsuits were mentioned yesterday. While the driver of masked lockdown resistence will be ad hoc/actual rather than legal/abstract, lawsuits will help signal the fools in charge that this particular game is over. Particularly, I imagine lawsuits based on how UNHEALTHY prolonged maskwear and social distancing is to both individuals and groups.

    $%^

    @ a kullervo

    Nice music. Genius lyrics.

    “You can only escape slavery through madness.
    Madness is most likely conducive to a brief life”

    Depends on which flavor of madness one picks. Ther are many many ways to turn oneself inside out. Depends, I suppose, on where and when you first begin pulling. I chose madness as a teenager and I’m still around, more scarred than most but also stronger within, faster than a receding mullet, stronger than a loco motive, able to leap small geldings with a single bound.

    Why yes, it’s numerously a miracle that I survived, but then, it’s a miracle I survived my birth, which almost killed me and my mother while saving her from until then undiagnosed rampant ovarian cancer. It’s a miracle I was born. Best I can tell, it’s a miracle anyone is born.

    &*(

    “Elderly Cyclist Beaten By Dutch Police”

    Those tables will turn, and more fiercely than the police can imagine much less deal with. Sociopaths have insufficient fear emotions. Their imagination of negative consequences suffers. If I were a cop, I’d be looking for other work.

    %^&

    @ Dr. D

    “Fear, the opposite to fear? Religion. Basically, a spiritual life beyond this one. That’s why atheism is a must-have element and religious groups are put to genocide, like Falan Gong, Uighers, Christians, and Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Christians in California. People who can’t be bullied with fear are dangerous. Their sole threat.”

    Hmmm… it’s interesting. Both camps — deist versus atheist — blame the other’s chosen cosmic outlook as the cause of insane and destructive socieities. I think both are right as far as they go, which is of course not far enough. (Groups don’t travel as fast as individuals.)

    However, religion is the superior option, I feel, because it offers a singular target (god/heavern/etc.) in a nice single location (your deathbed) whil;e the target itself is widely open to interpretatin that accommodates groups as well as individuals. It can span generations with ease.

    Atheism requires a personality cult of leadership to be strong. (I’ll note that the Church always has a Pope.) This makes transition over generatins more difficult. God emperor dynasties have a few hundred years at most. Religions last millennia. (Putin strongly supports the Russian Orthodox church: he will die and his successor will probably be an ass. The church is a hedge against depravity.)

    I find it easier to take comfort and courage from God, however nebulously unproven that God is, than from Chairman Mao or President Biden. SInce the likes of Mao and Biden are worse than we imagine, I prefer a God Who is better and even more real than I can imagine. More bang for my buck.

    ^&*

    @ Dr. D

    “Legislation hasn’t been for the people in 50 years. Look at Carter and what was it, Oxford’s? study that the people’s will has exactly –zero—effect on U.S. legislation. So whose does? BTW, it’s also completely, transparently unconstitutional. ”

    Constitutions are meant to be violated, that’s why we have dictators. You have to kill or exile dictators. Constitutions you merely alter.

    #71685
    madamski cafone
    Participant
    #71686
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Gaugin: love the comnpression of light. Creats what I’ll call ‘virtual iridescence’.

    Also, the suggested illusion of a woman on the right (blue torso, black hair).

    #71687
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Bill7

    Rob Slane writes some interesting books on the secular/Xtian divide. But his remarks here are shit:

    “You will search in vain for pre-2020 medical and scientific literature advocating the mass quarantining of healthy people as an appropriate response to a pandemic. In fact, after a panicked Mexican Government flirted with the idea for five whole days during the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak (ending it once it was realised how devastating it would be), the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the time, Dr Margaret Chan, explicitly warned against such destructive measures being used”

    Quarantine is not synonymous with lockdown. Quarantine always relates to boundaries and known contagion vectors. Also, “mass quarantine” is not synonymous with “universal population quarantine”, which concepts so many covid ranters interchange at will. Basically, Rob Slane is lying here, albeit not necressarily wittingly. Everyone has their blind spots. Mass quarantine is well documented in pre-2020, even ancient times. Period. Bullshit is bullshit regardless the source.

    Yes, telling people to stay indoors with their windows closed is insane, which is what one should expect from modern politicians: insane advice to a culturally insane populace. But even insanity can work: China did an extreme mass lockdown on city/region-wide bases; and it appears to be well ahead of the rest of us in getting beyond covid (while preparing its population repeatedly for effective action should, say, a severe bioweapon be spread massively over their mainland).

    Yes, covid is being used to serve power not people. Like every other problem and resource humanity encounters on a group level. That’s no reason to lose your head over it and spout jive in opposition to jive.

    But yes, the UK is toast. T

    #71688
    Noirette
    Participant

    While the int’l news has focussed on:

    The Blinken – China diplomatic disaster in Anchorage. Vid. of locale shows desperately ugly place, already an insult… (link 1)

    (Recall, the Chinese speak and understand English, the trans. are for the public and for the Americans.. Note there are cuts.. this is when the US asked for reporters to leave the room, afaik…an epic watch..)

    and … Biden’s response on a US TV show that Yes, Putin is a killer!

    The EU reaction has been abysmal. EU politics has gone bonkers.

    Putin phoned Charles Michel, Pres. of the EU Council, on 22 March, before the session of the EU council that is to discuss relations with Russia, on 25 – 26 March.

    While the F MSM hasn’t reported on this at all, except with vague condemnations of whatever Russian thingie, and I can’t find a transcript of the call, the EU site offers a run-around, a PDF with no content, this article in Eng. gives some pointers, from RadioFreeEurope. (link 2)

    What Charles Michel demanded (!) according to Russian sources, and some F ones, and in line with link 2:

    > Russia must implement Minsk accords. (The problems with this accord are endless and merely denoucing Russia is ridiculous.)

    > Russia must give up hybrid war and its cyber-attacks

    > Russia must respect human rights

    (see for ex. link 3)

    links below

    #71689
    Noirette
    Participant

    link 1 – vid, anchorage meet, 1 hr 11 mins, in eng, chinese

    https://bit.ly/3sk9isK

    link 2 – radio free Europe, print, eng

    https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-denounces-eu-confrontational-stance/31163983.html

    link 3 – F blogger in Moscow, print, french

    http://russiepolitics.blogspot.com/2021/03/conversation-poutine-michel-lue-veut.html#more

    #71690
    John Day
    Participant

    @Dr.D and Madamski: Buddhism is the atheistic religion, which is why some Muslims only kill Buddhists and not Christians or Jews.

    Capital Controls?
    • Covid: £5,000 Fine For People Going On Holiday Abroad (BBC)

    #71691
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Noirette

    “> Russia must implement Minsk accords. (The problems with this accord are endless and merely denoucing Russia is ridiculous.)
    > Russia must give up hybrid war and its cyber-attacks
    > Russia must respect human rights”

    Thanx for the research effort. It cinches in my mind the prospect that our government will do as the late Roman governments did: pretend they’re still might and make belligerent destructive lunatic asses of themselves until Russia has no choice but to put us out of our misery before we do any more damage.

    “…give up hybrid was and cyber-attacks?”

    That is the Congolese calling a Caucasian in white-face black.

    #71692
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ John Day

    “@Dr.D and Madamski: Buddhism is the atheistic religion, which is why some Muslims only kill Buddhists and not Christians or Jews.”

    I think atheistic is far too strong a term for Buddhism. Agnostic fits better, I feel. Buddhism evolved quickly to incoprporate the average person’s desire for gods, demiurges, angels, ghosts, afterlives, forelives, alternate universes, u name it…

    Buddhist deities

    #71693
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Gun industry prepares for a surge in demand after back-to-back mass shootings

    After mass shootings in Boulder and Atlanta that killed 18 people in the span of a single week, lawmakers are once again calling for stricter gun regulation in America. The gun industry is already preparing for a surge of sales.

    “When you hear more calls for firearm restrictions, we have observed gun sale increases primarily from people buying before they’re not able to,” said Rob Southwick, founder of the market research firm Southwick Associates.It’s too soon to know how the back-to-back shootings will affect sales of firearms, industry experts say. Reliable figures from federal background checks won’t be released until next month. But if history is any guide, gun dealers and manufacturers can expect a surge in demand.”

    Also, the look in Biden’s eyes in the image. He’s lost, trapped, caught in some devil’s bargain. He chose poorly, as the knight defending the Golden Chalice said of Indy Jones’ opponent.

    #71694
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ Dr D:

    Theists often fail to realize that one can be spiritual and moral without belief in a deity.

    And religion has very often been used as a tool to put “the fear of God” into folks so that they are easier to control.

    For this reason I don’t find the divisions of theist/atheist and religious/irreligious to be so helpful.

    In order to build a better world we do need hope and vision and community and quality communication. We need critical thinking and patience and slowness to jump to conclusions. We need faith in ourselves, in other humans, in the potential of attaining a better world — we can describe this better world in the language of Christianity or Buddha or of the Deist Founding Fathers of the USA, with the myths of many cultures, or in the words of Thoreau, etc., or through the media of poetry, visual art, music, dance, and theatre.

    If I’m remembering my theology correctly, the Universalists were seeking to create “heaven on earth” rather than waiting until the afterlife or “millennium with Christ” (as described in Revelations). I have always liked this tenet. Let’s work together to create “heaven” today, here, now.

    Regarding pipeline activists…
    When one’s homestead is rendered unlivable due to pipeline leaks…
    Oil is a finite resource, if all we do is pump ever larger quantities from the ground, eventually we run against a brick wall. (I.e. run out.) Living organisms that last must achieve a “steady state” with their environment — must achieve homeostasis. Living organisms die when they can no longer achieve homeostasis. (Don’t I know. I lost my plucky little six year old black frizzle bantam hen 4 days ago — she succumbed to entropy and died.). If we want a better life for all the humans on this planet, then we need to figure out how to achieve homeostasis with the planet and each other as well.

    Human creativity flourishes best with limits, not when there are no limits.

    #71695
    Susan C
    Participant

    I case anyone else is interested in using an other than google translator I’ve found Deep-L to be superior.

    #71696
    zerosum
    Participant

    Peer pressure won …. I have an appointment for tomorrow for the vaccine.
    Does that mean that my vitamines C and D,and Zinc will no longer be required?

    #71697
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ pheonixvoice

    “Theists often fail to realize that one can be spiritual and moral without belief in a deity. And religion has very often been used as a tool to put “the fear of God” into folks so that they are easier to control. For this reason I don’t find the divisions of theist/atheist and religious/irreligious to be so helpful.”

    True enough but there is another aspect, one so old and well-known it’s almost been forgotten: deisms like Xitanity and it Abrahamist family don’t believe that humanity by itself has any reason to hope for any kind of stable reliable peace and plenty. Hence the Universalist alternative coming online in synch with the Enlightenment and its secular humanism.

    Dr. D has little hope for humanity on its own, I perceive, but am perhaps only projecting my own pessimism on the matter.

    “Human creativity flourishes best with limits, not when there are no limits.”

    This is also a tenet of religiously conservative thinking, which is why it bases itself on obedience to higher law before submitting to human utopian notions for a better world, the idea being that we can’t begin to direct our own moral compass and are therefore wise to go in circles around God as we understand and/or dogmatically codify HIr/Hem/It in our hypocriticaly disobedient ways. It helps keep us from following too far the destructively linear trajectories of human governance. (After every political revolution comes a resurgence of religion unless that revolution is against religious authority, and even then, it’s almost always a switch from one religious code to another a la Catholicism/Protestantism.)

    If the two camps weren’t perpetually at war with each other, tribalism being the primal imprint of our social DNA, they might learn something from each other. In fact, it happens… but not so’s you’d notice. 😉

    Meanwhile, if you have some honey, tell hem/hir what they mean to you:

    You

    If it isn’t true, tell ’em anyway. Practice makes perfect.

    #71698
    zerosum
    Participant

    We have “Universal Basic Income” (UBI), full of holes.

    eg. Taxation, corporate welfare, pensions, social services, wages for pretend work, income without work, wasteful and useless work.

    Also, covid has demonstrated the many non-essential activities.

    #71699
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ madamski

    With regards to COVID-19, all one should look at is the population death rate. Insignificant. People got to die my dear. That is how life works.

    Seems like we learned how to treat the flu with this yearlong exercise.

    #71700
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    As a nurse I have seen a lot of death. I am of the opinion that when death is coming to you perhaps it’s best to embrace it like the first time you had pleasurable sex.

    #71701
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Good luck with your gene therapy zerozum

    #71702
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ MIchael Reid

    I’m excited to die.

    “Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”― Vladimir Nabokov

    But other people want me to stick around so I stay.

    #71703
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ pheonixvoice

    Let’s work together to create “heaven” today, here, now.

    Words I live by

    #71704
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Michael Reid

    The narrative of covid is too wide and multi-faceted, alas, for the simple death rate to offer meaningful comfort or explanatory power to most people, even me. Not that I’m scared of covid but that “covid” is more than one thing. OUr responses to it are turning it into many things, some of them able to significantly increase the death rate, at which point the people who want me to stay around will experience much cognitive dissonance and probably physicalo deprivation or worse.

    Me, I’m just a dry leaf in God’s wind.

    #71705
    zerosum
    Participant

    Due to my age, my upcoming gene therapy will not be passed on to future generation.

    #71706
    Oroboros
    Participant

    When asked if she had any pass times or hobbies, she replied,

    “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

    ― Emily Dickinson

    Emily

    #71707
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ madamski

    I love your mind. I hope you stick around to express it, as you so feel, for as long as you are capable

    #71708
    WES
    Participant

    Dr. CD. has much in common with Mr. Murphy!
    Contrary to popular opinion, Murphy was an optimist!
    Murphy knew his law worked!
    Just ask the Suez Canal!

    HR1 is just congress legalizing their new methods for stealing federal elections.
    Of course state rights need to be abolished to make Congress’s laws work!

    Being male, the closest thing to “heaven on earth” that I know of, is being inside my Wife!

    #71709
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ Wes YES

    @ madamski

    No. You are not any kind of dry leaf. And I thank you for sharing your soul

    #71710
    WES
    Participant

    After kamala canceled installing a chair lift on the ramp to Air Force One yesterday, as a waste of taxpayer money, today joe has retaliated by putting kamala in charge of the southern border claiming this problem started under Trump. Apparently 42 million South Americans want to come to the US. This should tie up kamala welcoming them for quite some length of time!

    I wonder how long a line of 42 million people would be. I could easily answer my own question but a too lazy to exercise my brain’s math circuits!

    #71711
    zerosum
    Participant

    Get the facts on voting – HR1
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage
    Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, political stance, or any other restriction, subject only to relatively minor exceptions.[1][2] In its original 19th-century usage by reformers in Britain, universal suffrage was understood to mean only universal manhood suffrage; the vote was extended to women later, during the women’s suffrage movement.[3][4]

    A Short History of Voting in the Ancient World


    A Short History of Voting in the Ancient World
    Ancient Greece and voting
    All voting was in public and there was no secret ballot. It should be remembered that immigrants, women, and the many slaves could not vote. Athenian democracy has been categorized as a form of radical democracy.
    Voting in the Roman World
    However, most people could not vote due to rules on property. Rome developed a very complex voting system, and it was both a direct and an indirect form of democracy. They also were the first to introduce the secret ballot, now considered essential to free and fair elections.
    All voting was in public and there was no secret ballot. It should be remembered that immigrants, women, and the many slaves could not vote. Athenian democracy has been categorized as a form of radical democracy.

    #71712
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    When my father was dying, I remained at his bedside for his final days. The last few days he was primarily in a coma from which he would rouse himself from time to time. . . . I would hold his hand and say my prepared speech: “Go to the light,” and “Now is your chance to get out of this body.” I’m pleased that I did that; those are all the right things to say when someone is dying. (“You’ve done a good job in this lifetime.” “Everybody loved you.” “It’s time to move on. . . .”). . . . Very near the end, he began a siege of apnea, and I leaped to my feet, beginning my talk about “Go to the light.He opened his eyes, and he looked at me and said quite clearly, “You know, it’s not that big of a deal.”

    From the book It’s Easier Than You Think, by Sylvia Boorstein

    A quote from the Dalai Lama:
    My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

    #71713
    Bill7
    Participant

    >When asked if she had any pass times or hobbies, she replied,
    “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”

    ― Emily Dickinson <

    Oroboros: thanks for that Emily Dickinson quote. So many of her poems- as with John Donne!- just pierce the heart. One called ‘In Vain’ especially, here..

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