Apr 042021
 


Georgia O’Keeffe New York night 1929

 

We Cannot Afford to Censor Dissenting Voices During a Pandemic (Kulldorff)
Boris Johnson Ditches Plans For Covid Vaccine Passport For Pubs (Sun)
Policymakers Use Panic To Shift Blame For Covid-19 Onto Us, The People (RT)
Do We Now Need Permission To Be Free? (Black)
The Texas Neanderthals Were Right (Spiked)
Rapid Test Result To Be Confirmed With PCR Amid Hunt For New Variants (Ind.)
Persistence Of Covid-19 Antibodies Varies Widely From Person To Person (F.)
JPMorgan Reveals ‘Big’ Bitcoin Price Prediction (F.)
The Crazy Claims Against Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (NYP)
‘Your Life Is Not About Yourself’: Jimmy Lai (HKAD)
Giant Pieces Of Ancient Alien Planet May Be Lodged Under Earth’s Surface (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Epic. This same pastor, Artur Pawlowski in Calgary, was fined $1,200 a year ago for feeding the homeless.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1378506465158303747

 

 

“If the Prime Minister needs the comfort of company with other politicians, get in touch with Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida.”

We Cannot Afford to Censor Dissenting Voices During a Pandemic (Kulldorff)

The media has been very reluctant to report reliable scientific and public health information about the pandemic. Instead they have broadcast unverified information such as the model predictions from Imperial College, they have spread unwarranted fear that undermine people’s trust in public health and they have promoted naïve and inefficient counter measures such as lockdowns, masks and contact tracing. While I wished that neither SAGE nor anyone else would argue against long-standing principles of public health, the media should not censor such information. During a pandemic, it is more important than ever that media can report freely. There are two major reasons for this: (i) While similar to existing coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus that we are constantly learning more about and because of that, it takes time to reach scientific conclusions.

With censorship it takes longer and we cannot afford that during a pandemic. (ii) In order to maintain trust in public health, it is important that any thoughts and ideas about the pandemic can be voiced, debated and either confirmed or debunked. [..] I hope that the UK Government will quickly reverse course to avoid further unnecessary damage from both COVID-19 and the lockdowns. Why the UK Government and SAGE are not looking at public health more broadly is incomprehensible to me. Chris and Patrick got it right in early March 2020, when they argued for focused protection of high-risk older people without a destructive lockdown for children and young adults. Chris, Patrick, take advice from yourself from a little over a year ago.

You can complement that with the extensive knowledge of epidemiology professors such as Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan at Oxford University, Ellen Townsend at the University of Nottingham, Francoix Balloux at University College London and Paul McKeigue at University of Edinburgh. It should now be obvious to everyone that lockdowns, masks and contract tracing failed to protect older high-risk people, as it could not suppress and contain COVID-19, with far too many deaths as a result. Lockdowns are just a dragged out let-it-rip strategy. That was clear to most infectious disease epidemiologists already a year ago. The fatal logical flaw of the lockdowners has been that we must lock down because COVID-19 is dangerous. The opposite is true. Because it is a very dangerous disease among the old, they should have been properly protected through focused protection.

Instead of continuing to take advice from those who were wrong then, Boris should listen to those who were right. In the UK, you have the world’s preeminent infectious disease epidemiologist in professor Sunetra Gupta. She can help implement a focused protection strategy of older high-risk individuals through vaccination and other means, while removing the lockdowns. If the Prime Minister needs the comfort of company with other politicians, get in touch with Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Read more …

Logic is overrated.

Boris Johnson Ditches Plans For Covid Vaccine Passport For Pubs (Sun)

Boris Johnson has ditched plans to force customers to show a vaccine passport every time they go into a pub. In a major boost for the hospitality trade, the PM will exempt bars and restaurants from new Covid safety rules. Only those attending mass gatherings, such as festivals or major sports events, will be required to provide proof of a jab, test or natural immunity. Landlords, who can reopen outdoors-only a week tomorrow in England, will soon be free to admit anyone who follows existing guidelines on social distancing and mask-wearing. Boris’s change of heart came after an angry backlash from 72 MPs who branded the idea “divisive and discriminatory”. But he will tomorrow announce his determination to press ahead with a “vaccine certification” system for larger venues from next month.

NHS chiefs are developing a new app members of the public will have to show to gain access to sports stadiums, theatres, festivals and nightclubs. Those without a smartphone will get a paper certificate. The system will be trialled at nine pilot events over the next few weeks, where experts will also explore how high-tech ventilation and Covid tests on entry are working. Mr Johnson will study the feedback to help decide how to manage other large-scale gatherings as restrictions are lifted. The PM said: “We are doing everything we can to enable the reopening of our country so people can return to the events, travel and other things they love as safely as possible, and these reviews will play an important role in allowing this to happen.”


Liverpool will be a key test centre for the opening up of the rest of the country — with four pilot events being held at a comedy club, a cinema, a nightclub and a business conference arena from next week. And some fans will be allowed at Wembley for the Carabao Cup final on April 25, the FA Cup final on May 15 and a semi-final on April 18. The World Snooker Championship in Sheffield and a mass participation run at Hatfield, Herts, are also involved.

Read more …

Ashley Frawley, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at Swansea University and the author of Semiotics of Happiness: Rhetorical Beginnings of a Public Problem.

Policymakers Use Panic To Shift Blame For Covid-19 Onto Us, The People (RT)

The message is clear: Regardless of who you are, you are at risk. Stay home, clap for the NHS. Or this could be you. This expansion of risk is a common tactic in public health messaging. While risks tend to be patterned, officials find it politically useful to play down patterns and ‘democratise risks’: Take a risk specific to some people and generalise it to everyone so everyone feels equally afraid. This avoids accusations of discrimination against any one group, and officials can never be accused of playing down risks. But it also encourages us to see the world as much riskier and scarier than it is. Is it any wonder that levels of health anxiety have steadily increased, particularly among young people who in many ways have least to fear?

But for policymakers, anxiety is useful. Ideally, citizens imagine any risk, no matter how small, as quite likely to happen and act accordingly. Indeed, a level of crippling anxiety that means you cannot leave the house is the goal. But as we have seen with overblown risks regarding, for example, child abduction, this level of fear cannot simply be switched off. The profound effects on society long outlive the initial panic – which is why children’s unsupervised play has dwindled. Yet as audiences, we knew that in the balance of probabilities, the cropped-headed patient on the gurney would not be us. For all the attempts by government officials to claim that ‘the virus does not discriminate’, it was difficult to deny that, in terms of deaths, it clearly did.

But behavioural scientists viewed people’s level-headed appraisals of risks as another problem to be overcome. In a report by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (with the fittingly dystopian acronym ‘SPI-B’), the authors bemoaned the fact that people were comforted by low death rates in their own age groups. “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened,” they lamented. In response, they advised governments to ramp up fears. To accomplish this, a different approach was needed. In a series of posters released weeks later, a yellow and red filtered NHS worker in full PPE looks at audiences with a slightly cocked head and serious eyes. Her surgical mask looks more like a gas mask than a protective covering. This grainy, dystopian aesthetic was beamed out on social media with the message:

‘IF YOU GO OUT, YOU CAN SPREAD IT. PEOPLE WILL DIE.’ It is this emphasis on threats to others that became the dominant tactic of the campaign. You are at risk. But more importantly, you are A risk. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in the ‘look into my eyes’ campaign, where extreme close ups of coronavirus patients in oxygen masks accompanied by messages like, ‘Look him in the eyes. And tell him you always keep a safe distance.’ If things have gone wrong, it is not because of government failures to, for example, protect care homes or stop the virus leaking out of hospitals. No, it must be you.

Read more …

“You might be wondering why the government has been using the Public Health Act, rather than including a general lockdown clause in the Coronavirus Act, or even using the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which was designed precisely for an emergency such as Covid-19. The reason is simple: to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.”

Do We Now Need Permission To Be Free? (Black)

As Britain was heading into lockdown on 23 March 2020, UK health secretary Matt Hancock was busy introducing the accompanying legislation in parliament. ‘To defeat [Covid-19]’, he said, ‘we are proposing extraordinary measures of a kind never seen before in peacetime’. He was underselling them. In their repressiveness, their illiberalism and often their sheer arbitrariness, the ‘extraordinary measures’ the government was then about to impose on British society had never been seen before in wartime, either. They exceeded powers granted by the Defence of the Realm Act 1914. And they went beyond those of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. These were draconian pieces of legislation, placing people and property at the service of the state. But they certainly didn’t authorise the de facto imprisonment of every single citizen in his or her home.

Because that is what Hancock’s ‘extraordinary measures’ amounted to: the quarantining of everybody, regardless of health. As Lord Justice Hickinbottom described it, the government’s response to Covid represented ‘possibly the most restrictive regime on the public life of persons and businesses ever’. Take the Coronavirus Act itself. This hulking 348-page document, rushed through parliament in just four days, was focused mainly on marshalling the nation’s medical resources and authorising the massive public expenditure that was to come. But it still found room to stamp all over civil liberties. It granted the state unprecedented powers of detention, allowing police, public-health officials and immigration officers to detain for up to 14 days those whom they have ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect of being ‘potentially infectious’.

Which gave them the power to detain, well, anyone. The act also invested the government with the powers to close premises, cancel events, prohibit gatherings and ban protests. That act is now halfway through its two-year lifespan, but, troublingly, it can be extended if the government decides ‘it is prudent to do so’. Not that it seems to need the Coronavirus Act to deprive us of our most basic freedoms. No, for this the government has principally used the Public Health Act 1984 (as amended in 2008). This authorises it to create a regulatory regime ‘for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling or providing a public-health response to the incidence or spread of infection or contamination’.

Indeed, it was on the basis of the Public Health Act that the government first created the regulations that, in steadily expanding form, have dominated and restricted our lives for a year, from closing all businesses to confining people to their homes unless they had a ‘reasonable excuse’. You might be wondering why the government has been using the Public Health Act, rather than including a general lockdown clause in the Coronavirus Act, or even using the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which was designed precisely for an emergency such as Covid-19. The reason is simple: to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. General lockdown measures in the Coronavirus Act would have rightly demanded a lot more interrogation. And, under the conditions of the Civil Contingencies Act, regulations have to be put before parliament in draft form before they are issued. And even if approved, they will lapse within 30 days.

Read more …

Yes, but stop the “vaccine” propaganda.

The Texas Neanderthals Were Right (Spiked)

In early March, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced he was ending the state’s mandate for people to wear masks, and reopening businesses at full capacity. Media outlets went into overdrive to denounce him and predict catastrophe. CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza called Abbott’s decision ‘head-scratching, anti-science’. ‘Model projections for Texas show worst-case scenario without mask mandate’, warned an ABC TV station in Houston. Abbott’s move was part of a ‘bold plan to kill another 500,000 Americans’, screamed Vanity Fair. Politicians also rushed to criticise Abbott. Former representative and failed presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke called his decision a ‘death warrant for Texans’. California governor Gavin Newsom said Texas was ‘absolutely reckless’ for lifting its Covid rules.

No less than President Joe Biden felt obliged to speak out and condemn Abbott. ‘The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine – take off your mask, forget it. It still matters.’ Well, it appears the Neanderthals in Texas got it right, and Biden is the one whose thinking is caveman-like. Now, three weeks after Abbott’s order to lift the mask mandate went into effect, the Covid situation has improved in Texas. New cases are down, to their lowest level since June. Hospitalisations have fallen to their lowest level since autumn. Death rates have plummeted. Furthermore, the outlook for vaccinations in the state appears bright, with a record daily number of people receiving shots. Adults of all ages are now eligible for a vaccine jab, a faster pace than many other states.

Have Biden and the media apologised for slandering Texas? And have they learned that lifting mandates on mask-wearing and removing other restrictions does not lead to Covid-spreading? Of course not. Instead, Biden cited an uptick in new cases nationally to bang on again about masks. ‘I’m reiterating my call for every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate’, he said earlier this week. ‘Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down.’ Biden’s plea came on the same day that CDC director Rochelle Walensky warned of ‘impending doom’. Holding back tears, she said: ‘Right now, I am scared.’

Overwrought emotionalism from the head of the CDC is not helpful, to put it mildly. Nor is a president insisting on state-mandated mask-wearing. Biden’s message implied that the latest increase in cases was down to states like Texas that have loosened restrictions on activity, but that is not true. In fact, the national increase was driven mainly by New York, New Jersey and Michigan – states that have imposed the most onerous of restrictions. As it happens, there is no need for alarm in the US. Yes, new cases are up in some states, but far below the January peak. The levels are much too low to talk about a ‘fourth wave’.

With the rollout of vaccines in progress, it is important for any discussion of Covid’s spread to break down findings by age group. And here we find encouraging developments. Nearly three-quarters of those aged 65 and older have been vaccinated, a group that has accounted for about 80 per cent of all Covid-related deaths. Accordingly, hospitalisations and deaths among seniors have been reduced dramatically. The latest increase in new cases is concentrated among younger people. This spread from older to younger was seen in Israel as vaccines were implemented there, but proved to be a temporary phenomenon. Also, we know that younger people are much less likely to be hospitalised or die from Covid. That’s why it is unlikely the latest increase in cases will lead to a corresponding increase in deaths.

Read more …

Self testing is all the rage suddenly.

Rapid Test Result To Be Confirmed With PCR Amid Hunt For New Variants (Ind.)

The government is to use standard PCR testing to confirm positive Covid-19 results returned via rapid, on-the-spot tests which are now being used by millions of people every day across the UK. This comes as part of efforts to quickly detect new and emerging “variants of concern”, some of which are partially capable of evading immunity triggered by infection or vaccination. For those people who test positive via a lateral flow device (LFD), which is capable of returning a result in 30 minutes, the result will then be cross-checked using a PCR test. These are more accurate than the LFDs and also make use of new technology, known as genotype assay testing, which could halve the time it takes to identify if a positive Covid test is caused by a variant of concern.

This will allow positive cases to be traced sooner and stop the spread of variants on UK soil, the government has said. Genotype assay testing is compatible only with PCR tests and not LFDs, meaning the latter is unable to detect or trace the spread of variants. The UK has bought millions of LFD tests as part of plans to reopen society. Teachers, schoolchildren and their families without any symptoms are being asked to test themselves using the kits twice a week. Contact tracing will continue to be implemented in the eventuality of a positive LFD result, but will be stopped automatically after receipt of a negative confirmatory PCR test.

NHS Test and Trace has introduced new features that will automatically inform anyone self-isolating from a positive LFD, along with their contacts, to stop isolating if the confirmatory PCR is taken within two days and is negative. Jon Deeks, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, said the new policy was “very welcome”. “This will ensure that the risk that individuals are unnecessarily isolated through false positives is reduced,” he told The Independent. “It is only a shame that it has taken so many weeks for concerns raised by the Royal Statistical Society and others to be addressed, with many children unnecessarily missing school as a result.”

Read more …

Curious pattern.

Persistence Of Covid-19 Antibodies Varies Widely From Person To Person (F.)

One of the greatest unsolved mysteries of Covid-19 is why the neutralizing antibodies our bodies generate in response to the virus tend to dwindle in number so quickly. A small minority of studies, including one completed in Iceland last summer, have observed lengthier periods of persistence in their participants, but the vast majority—spanning a wide breadth of people and places, from specialized Covid-19 hospitals in China to healthcare workers in Tennessee—concluded that anti-Covid-19 antibodies were fast to fade, so much so that some patients didn’t even appear to develop any, at least not at levels that could be detected by researchers. Another way of interpreting this array of data, however, is that antibody persistence varies from person to person—meaning people with longer-lasting antibodies wouldn’t be outliers, but just one clause of a general rule.

This is the argument made by a new study published in The Lancet last week, which sorted participants into five different categories based on the titer and duration of their neutralizing antibody response. While distribution between them was by no means equal, it ranged enough to beg the question of whether current conceptions of immunity from Covid-19, which influence everything from nationwide vaccine strategies to our individual choices and behaviors, require revision. The subjects of the study were 164 Covid-19 patients living in Singapore. Researchers collected data on these patients using both neutralizing and binding assays over a period of 180 days, then plugged that data into an algorithmic model to predict how long their antibodies would last in the years and even decades following initial infection.

Based on the longevity of their antibody responses, patients were sorted into one of five groups: the negative group, or patients whose antibodies never reached detectable levels; the rapid waning group, or patients whose antibody levels were detectable within 20 days of infection, but dropped in less than 180 days; the slow waning group, or patients who still tested antibody-positive 180 days after infection; the persistent group, or patients whose antibody levels, over many months, showed little to no signs of decay; and the delayed response group, or patients who, against all odds, had a late surge in antibody levels later in their recovery as opposed to after infection.

Earlier immunological research on Covid-19 placed most patients in one of the first two categories—negative or rapid waning. But this study found that the spread between the rapid waning, slow waning, and persistent groups was as close to even as it gets, with about 29.8 percent of participants falling in the rapid waning group, 29 percent in the slow waning group, and 31.7 percent in the persistent group. Just below 12 percent landed in the negative group, with a small sliver—just 1.8 percent—rounding out the curve in the delayed response group.


Table 1. A table based on data from the persistent antibody study. “DYNAMICS OF SARS-COV-2 NEUTRALISING ANTIBODY RESPONSES AND DURATION OF IMMUNITY: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY” HTTPS://WWW.THELANCET.COM/JOURNALS/LANMIC/ARTICLE/PIIS2666-5247(21)00025-2/FULLTEXT

Read more …

Any self-interest?

JPMorgan Reveals ‘Big’ Bitcoin Price Prediction (F.)

Bitcoin has won its fair share of Wall Street supporters this year amid a bull run that’s seen it soar around 500%. The bitcoin price hit highs of just over $60,000 per bitcoin last month before falling back slightly but has since made up lost ground. Meanwhile, the broader cryptocurrency market has surged to almost $2 trillion—boosted by decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens. Now, analysts at Wall Street banking giant and former bitcoin skeptic JPMorgan have said bitcoin could climb as high as $130,000 in the long-term if it continues to see its volatility converge with that of gold’s. “Considering how big the financial investment into gold is, any such crowding out of gold as an ‘alternative’ currency implies big upside for bitcoin over the long term,” JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a note to clients this week.


The bank found that a six-month measure of bitcoin volatility appeared to be stabilizing around the 73% mark—suggesting “tentative signs of bitcoin volatility normalization” that could help to “reinvigorate” interest from institutional investors. High volatility “acts as a headwind towards further institutional adoption,” according to JPMorgan. The bitcoin price has soared as institutional investors including London-based asset manager Ruffer and insurance giant MassMutual have bought into bitcoin—with Elon Musk’s Tesla topping off a series of high-profile bitcoin bets. The bitcoin price has climbed from around $10,000 per bitcoin to around $60,000 as a result, but JPMorgan thinks it could still have some way to run. “Mechanically, the bitcoin price would have to rise [to] $130,000, to match the total private sector investment in gold,” JPMorgan analysts wrote.

Read more …

Quite the story. Stay tuned.

The Crazy Claims Against Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (NYP)

An alleged orgy with prostitutes. Accusations of sex with an underage girl. A trophy photo of a woman wearing only a hula hoop. And a convoluted extortion plot involving a likely dead American hostage in Iran. Even by Florida standards, the Matt Gaetz saga is downright bizarre – and getting weirder by the day. Before this week, the young Sunshine State congressman and ally of former President Donald Trump was best known, like his mentor, for his ambitious conservatism and promontory coiffure. But this week, the Republican has faced a daily flurry of scandalous ≠headlines. Most seriously, he is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old girl, and for paying for her to travel with him across state lines, potentially violating federal sex-trafficking laws.

Gaetz denies the allegations – but not the fact of the investigation. Then, on Thursday, CNN alleged that he had shown fellow lawmakers nude photos of women he said he’d slept with, including one photographed wearing a hula hoop, and nothing else. There have also been claims by two of Gaetz’s enemies that the FBI has photos of him in a “sexual orgy with underage prostitutes.” It’s all enough to make his penchant for posing on Instagram without pants, as he did in a July posting he captioned, “Covid work!” seem tame by comparison. This is how the latest Gaetz drama has played out so far: News of the sex-trafficking investigation, launched in the final months of the last administration, broke Tuesday in The New York Times.

The Pensacola bachelor, 38 — whose engagement to Harvard business school student Ginger Luckey, 26, was announced on Twitter by Fox’s Jeanine Pirro in December — immediately denied he had sex with a minor or transported one across state lines. “In the strongest possible terms. I deny that I have ever been with someone underage,” he told The Post on Tuesday. “That is false,” he insisted. [..] Then there’s the Iranian hostage angle. McGee and ex-Air Force intelligence officer Bob Kent didn’t want the money for themselves, necessarily, Gaetz is alleging. They wanted to use the money to free Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent taken hostage by Iran in 2007, and declared dead by his family last year. McGee, meanwhile, has denied Gaetz’s hostage-extortion plot allegations, calling them “a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that he’s under investigation for sex trafficking of minors,” as he told The Washington Post. And McGee is fighting Gaetz with banner-headline dirt of his own.

Read more …

Jimmy Lai was just convicted, with 6 others, for organizing a protest. He faces years in prison.

‘Your Life Is Not About Yourself’: Jimmy Lai (HKAD)

Lai was born in 1948 in Guangzhou to a family of wealthy landowners, who saw their properties confiscated by the Chinese Communist Party. His father fled to Hong Kong amid political persecution, while his mother was taken to labor camps. As a child, Lai scavenged and sold illegal cigarettes to feed his sisters. When the country was hit by famine in the late 1950s, he escaped to Hong Kong as a stowaway at the age of 12 with only a dollar in his pocket. On the second day of his arrival, he got a job at a glove factory on Fuk Wing Street, beginning his career in manufacturing and working his way up from an apprentice to a manager. In 1975, the 26-year-old set out as an entrepreneur and established his own textile factory along with two partners.

Six years later, he began his foray in the retail industry and founded the Hong Kong clothing brand, Giordano, which rapidly expanded into a chain after a drastic reform. Lai could have retired in his 40s, but the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 set his life on a different trajectory. You must live remembering the shame of June Fourth. Even as the country celebrates its prosperity, you must hold on to this torch in a dark corner, Lai wrote to his children on the 20th anniversary of the event. A year after the bloody crackdown in Beijing, Lai founded Next Magazine in Hong Kong and withdrew his business from China. Because of his belief that a free flow of information would push China towards democracy, Lai started Apple Daily, a newspaper that stands firm on the universal values of democracy and freedom.

The paper remains fiercely critical of the authorities, even as other media outlets in Hong Kong are gradually undermined and bought up by Chinese corporations. Advertising revenues plummeted amid the political pressure and the newsroom was raided by nearly 200 police officers in August 2020, a month after Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong. I will stay and fight till the last day, Lai pledged, even as he was taken away in handcuffs. “If we give up on the fight for freedom and justice, we also surrender our dignity as humans,” he wrote on the 20th anniversary of Apple Daily in 2015. “Your life is not about yourself.” And six years on, the rebel tycoon still holds fast to his belief and remains defiant against oppression, even at the price of his own freedom.

Read more …

Theia.

Giant Pieces Of Ancient Alien Planet May Be Lodged Under Earth’s Surface (JTN)

Scientists seeking to explain a series of seemingly inexplicable formations deep within the Earth’s surface may have found an explanation: They came from outer space. Researchers with Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration said in a recently published paper that the “continent-sized Large Low Shear Velocity provinces” identified in Earth’s mantle—essentially giant formations of rock the origins of which scientists have struggled for decades to explain—may have been formed by Theia, the proto-planet thought to have slammed into the ancient Earth billions of years ago.


The collision between Earth and Theia is hypothesized to have ejected a significant portion of Earth into outer space; those fragments would have eventually coalesced under Earth’s gravity to form the Moon. In the paper, the Arizona State researchers argue that “the left-over Theia mantle materials may [have sunk] to the bottom of Earth’s mantle and cause[d] the LLSVPs.” Theia’s geological mantle, they argue, may have been “several percent intrinsically denser than Earth’s mantle,” leading it to sink down through the Earth and form the mysterious provinces. The Theia impact theory is widely regarded as the prevailing explanation for the Moon’s origin.

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle April 4 2021

Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)
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  • #72410

    Georgia O’Keeffe New York night 1929   • We Cannot Afford to Censor Dissenting Voices During a Pandemic (Kulldorff) • Boris Johnson Ditches Plans
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle April 4 2021]

    #72411

    cloudhidden

    From yesterday’s thread: contact them here: shayamsolutions@gmail.com.

    Can’t find them at Indiamart now, which is odd, because that is where I initially found them 3 months ago.

    #72412
    Germ
    Participant

    Vaccine passports have arrived in the UK:
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/03/boris-johnson-to-give-go-ahead-for-trials-of-covid-passports

    It’s a digital app:
    https://commonpass.org/

    Headed by somebody with deep roots to the CCP:
    https://thecommonsproject.org/leadership

    Look at the Executive Chair of the Commons Project:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Zhu_Scott

    In effect, this is where the west is heading, and soon.
    So very sad. What a tragedy,

    #72413
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Self tests are just another money spinner for pharmaceutical companies.

    #72414

    Self tests are just another money spinner for pharmaceutical companies.

    Everything about this whole thing is. But it’s important that people get the responsibility for their own lives back.

    #72415
    scraplet
    Participant

    Hey Germ, and any other UK-based Ivermectin importers: has anyone had problems getting delivery from abroad? I’ve not ordered, because I assumed that prescription-only medicine from another country would not easily make its way through customs! However, judging by comments over the last few days, perhaps that is not the case. Is it sent stealth, without a proper customs declaration or something?

    #72416
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Are we posting 95 theses today?

    Ah what can do to get a CDC director or Congresswoman to cry today?

    Turn over all the tables in the temple then advise people to invest heavily in assault weapons. Like my saviour, the Prince of Peace on this day, many years ago.

    Iowa did. They just undid all the state rules on gun control, but at least didn’t go so far as to defy the Federal yet. So at least one politician is literate and knows the law. Don’t like it? There’s a legal process for that: follow it. It’s called an “Amendment,” you might have heard. Failing that, Every. Single. Thing. they do is illegal.

    Why do I bring this up? One, shows the tide, although slow, continues to shift regardless of the protestations of King Canute. Two, it is EXACTLY the same as all the totally illegal, unconstitutional, classist, violent human rights abuses worldwide. You ALSO had the right to assemble and have a pint. You ALSO got to gripe about it over that pint. You ALSO had the right to church on Easter Sunday. I won’t repeat what you have the right to do to them if they won’t let you.

    They have STOLEN all those things from you, violently, with a gun, and are now selling your own freedom back to you. You dummies. Like a thousand times before when you were “tolerant.” Don’t let it happen. Be violently intolerant of their oppression and intolerance. They sure the heck are intolerant of you. “By any means necessary.” Meaning Lie. Cheat. Steal. Burn. Murder. Perjure. Railroad. The reason for power is power. You can pass a law to remove your rights – thankfully, they couldn’t be arsed to do even that – but it will take more than a vote to get your freedoms back. A lot more.

    What do you think they’re going to do to that church now? Like any Staasi, now a lifelong campaign of organized, illegal harassment. Why? “I am the law”. “By any means necessary.” “Mommy is only here to help.” “The joy of power is POWER.”

    Did they care about the law? Not a whit. Before, during, or after. What they CARED about was that they were not getting their POWER over the pastor, because he wouldn’t cower and give it to them. Therefore, there was no joy to be had that day. No free tears to lick off the congregant’s eyes. They didn’t come because of the law. They didn’t leave because of the law, or they wouldn’t have been milling about like idiots. But THEY weren’t able to drink POWER, as the pastor took it instead. So they left, to press power on someone else.

    But they’ll be back. That nation is filled with people who live only to express power, and not feel helpless and small for just a little while. Don’t be one of them. Leave me alone.

    “Persistence of Covid-19 Antibodies Varies Widely from Person to Person (F.)”

    There could hardly be a clearer expression of “these guys don’t know what they’re talking about.” I’m not picking on them, except that they CLAIM to know ALL about disease, immunity, response, and can tell with a few seconds whether something is transmissible before 9:59pm, or after 10:01.

    You don’t know. And this clearly tells me you don’t actually know how the body make immunity or retains it. At all. Sure, you’ve got some theories that are mostly true in a limited range. But I can have an accurate map of Calais, but it doesn’t mean I know a thing about Marseilles. Or Peking. You get the point.

    How much more when this is the medicine that discovered cholesterol wasn’t the cause of heart disease in the 50s and just kept pushing it, with deadly statin drugs, for 60 years? Billions were made. Like uncaring for Type II, millions died as well, WAAAAAY more than Covid. And I’m supposed to listen to these people? As yesterday, you could fill encyclopedias with these stories and the lives they ruined.

    Immunity? They don’t have the fainest idea why the body heals itself, or what the template is it follows to make it do so.

    Here’s a good example: there’s a fever – measles, I think – that wipes your immune system. That is, once you survive it, you discover you RE-infect with the colds and fevers you were immune to just a few weeks ago. Wow. But, but, I thought you were immune — yeah, like useless economists, “all things being equal”. That is, IF nothing else happens, IF you’re the middle of the bell curve, IF you don’t have some strange reaction, IF, IF IF. Doctors spend all night giving medication that SHOULD B52 knock someone out, SHOULD have an effect, only to find for no discernible reason it doesn’t on this person in this case. Bap Nada. It’s impossible. Happening in every ward in every hospital on every day of every year. Here’s another one: German studies showed that getting measles made you IMMUNE to a handful of further diseases, including some forms of cancer, if I remember correctly. So in that sense, it’s a BENEFIT, you should TRY to get it, as it statistically makes you and your immune system stronger. Hey, is that what humans did for 1,000 years?

    Any discussions of this? Breeding ever-weaker, more fragile, chronically ill people? Nope. Do what you’re told. Submit or die. I don’t care what medical studies say you may live longer and better by taking a front side risk of measles, I’m going to decide that FOR you. Mommy dearest knows best. You can live that long, long life in prison for avoiding school vaccinations, because I Love You. It’s because I care I have to beat you. Joy and Tolerance. …Since, as has long been true, no one is at the slightest risk, everybody else is immune to measles, having chosen to take the vaccine. That doesn’t work. As the 2016 mumps outbreak in Harvard showed. And as the open border shows they DEFINITELY, MEDICALLY DO NOT CARE about. Not one bit. The purpose of power is power. Power over you. Do what you’re told.

    Even if it’s wrong, wrong, wrong, totally illegal, and opposed by half the medical community.

    ‘Cause it ain’t about medicine, honey – and you’re so cute when you cry – it’s about POWER. They drink your lovely tears and crying only excites them. Shout them out of the room and cut off their supply.

    Morgan shilled for Bitcoin? Ruh-roh. Sounds like they’re planning a raid.

    I thought they’d go $100k (OBVIOUSLY can’t pass $100k on the first try), then rig it back to $49k. But it’s not rising, so they might try it from here instead.

    including one photographed wearing a hula hoop, and nothing else.”

    That sounds great, where do I sign up? Wait, this is a crime? What are the Left now repressive, sactimonous church ladies or what? These are the people defending YouTube and Facebook being top sources for child porn on the internet. It’s only natural. You can’t judge me. They sounds like the full-hour Nightline smear of smear of Kim.Com back in the day, where his real crime was to own power yachts and enjoy his money and his life too much by schmoozing up bikini babes. For dried up loveless scolds, lemon-sucking ladies of the church of WOK, maybe they don’t understand Americans very well. Clearly they don’t because they’re losing. Losing Losers and the losses they lose. Ask the NBA how losing feels, because the MLB is right behind them

    Anyway, Gaetz? Guilty? Sure, why not? But all I see at this point is a lot of very-weird allegations on both sides and no courtrooms. Since the FBI and DoJ have been serial liars for most of my life at this point, blackmail everybody, make up lab results, and imprison the innocent so often and so egregiously they pay multi-millions every other year, (HereLetMeGoogle”NewYorkTimes”ForYou.com) I’ll reserve judgment until there’s some of the thing called “evidence.” The whack outlines, like fabricating an Iranian release story as plausible cause to “donate” $25M — man that sure sounds like a con and a shakedown to me. Classic like: “I get my brains from HBO, TV-reality” knowing Americans, having not encountered reality or anything but lies since birth, will just eat it up and believe it. The real world isn’t nearly as exciting and lies neglected in the gutter.

    #72417
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Everything about this whole thing is. But it’s important that people get the responsibility for their own lives back.

    Well, you’re doing a damn fine job of showing them how…

    #72419
    absolute galore
    Participant

    The fear-mongering continues. From today’s NYT:

    Virus Variants Threaten to Draw Out the Pandemic, Scientists Say

    Declining infection rates overall are masking a rise in more contagious forms of the virus, including some mutations that are more deadly.

    “The best way to think about B.1.1.7 and other variants is to treat them as separate epidemics,” said Sebastian Funk, a professor of infectious disease dynamics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “We’re really kind of obscuring the view by adding them all up to give an overall number of cases.”

    The authors claim this is worrisome because it makes the vaccines less effective, yet in another paragraph they claim it’s not really a problem. Fauci even says that a booster with the current vaccines is fine, rather than trying to “play whack-a-mole” with each new variant.

    In terms of more deadly, they don’t really go into that, other than a link to another NYT article claiming the UK variant is 67% more deadly.

    And of course at the end of the article there is a link to the obligatory young person who succumbed to “Covid 19 complications” –this time a basketball “super fan” (whatever that is), age 23.

    #72420
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    • Policymakers Use Panic To Shift Blame For Covid-19 Onto Us, The People

    An easy out for policymakers: blame failures on the people who don’t follow the policy. There will always be some non-compliers who can be scapegoated. Don’t question the policy.

    Coming up: if the Covid vaccine policies don’t work, blame the people who didn’t get vaccinated.

    #72422
    Germ
    Participant

    No problem with customs in UK.
    IVM was delivered directly to my house.
    Appropriate customs form was on outside of package.

    Very good service from Kachhela.

    #72423
    zerosum
    Participant

    Why are the enablers clamoring, shouting, and strutting, peacocking, parading, flouncing, flaunting to get the attention of the rifraf, irrelevant, people that have no power and no wealth?

    Those that have the power and the wealth have the enablers to make the laws, rules, and regulations that make the social order as they decree, announce, direct, instruct, proclaim, rule.

    Since when have those with power and wealth obeyed Moses and the 10 commandments?

    There is no proof of wrong doing – Biden
    “It could be …..” – Hunter

    #72430
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Covid passports in UK

    It’s the frog in the boiling water.

    Vaccine passports for ALL pubs and restaurants is making the water too hot, too quickly, hunh?
    Okay! No problem!
    We’ll just roll them out for larger venues.
    (That way we can work out the kinks, make it more convenient, get the masses to accept this as “normal.” Oh, and don’t worry — we won’t let the passports expire in two years. Or, we only will if there is enormous public pressure. But that public pressure is unlikely to materialize. And it doesn’t matter…because by then we’ll know how to implement these passports EVERYWHERE. When the next crisis hits, we’ll expand the program.)

    (Kind of like how we got everyone to accept the TSA stuff in the US as “normal.” )

    I remember meeting my father as he got off the plane for his once a year business trip when I was a child. I remember when I flew home for a break from college and one of my parents meeting me at the gate. I remember bidding someone farewell as they boarded a plane. I remember….
    But that has been taken from us. After nearly 20 years, will it ever be returned to us? Is anyone even bothering to clamor for it?

    In 20 years when Google and the government know our every move, every location, will we see that as “normal,” shrug it off, and think nothing of it? Like the serfs of old, many of whom never thought to question their place in life?

    #72434
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Regarding my comment yesterday

    I’m aware that mrsa came about through overuse of antibiotics.
    I only referred to “pharma” and didn’t throw “medical” in there because what I was responding to only encompassed “pharma” and I didn’t want to generalize.
    I’m aware that brief uses of pharmaceuticals is very different from long-term use.
    (There is a reason why I refused to medicate my son, accurately diagnosed with ADHD, ODD, DMDD, and Anxiety. I know that my decision was seen as odd by multiple medical and behavioral health and school professionals.)
    I wish my father didn’t use statins, but he trusts his doctor over all of his adult female family members.
    However…
    I also acknowledge that there are many individuals with chronic conditions that are alive only because of maintenance medicines or whose lives are greatly improved through use of maintenance medicines.
    There are no simple answers.

    Or, for me, there are *some* simple answers:
    The profit motive. The profit motive is generally incompatible with the Hippocratic Oath.
    The desire for “power over” others. “Power over” implies controlling access to information and resources, and is incompatible with the Hippocratic Oath.

    We live in a world where “profit is king,” and that corrupts our medicine. We live in a world where “democracy” has been subverted to mean “behavioral control” of the masses by an elite group, which corrupts our medical science. Sure, those are both over-simplifications, but as generalizations they are largely accurate.

    #72436
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ phoenixvoice

    Regarding your comment starting “Covid passports in UK”, it kind of wowed me thinking why had not seen that from the over time perspective. So true

    #72440
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Show me a warrant or get out/off my property / I will not talk to you is a lesson many should learn

    #72441
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ madamski

    Thank you

    #72443
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Don’t question little sheeple when we lead you into the gas chambers

    #72444
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    My last comment was not fully formed and I am not referring to the people here. I am thinking of my parents and my 95 year old grandmother who will likely get the vaccine.

    #72445
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    My 95 year old grandmother is so full of life that she acts like a teenager at times. The last time she really hurt herself was when she needed something out of the top cupboard. She is short around 5 feet and thankfully I am not but unfortunately I was not around when she placed a chair in front of the cupboard and then on top of the chair she placed a 5 gallon bucket and then she climbed up on top of the mess because she felt like she was 16. No lie. It resulted in pain

    #72448
    WES
    Participant

    That Pastor sure gave the 6 police quite a sermon! Nice strong clear words too!

    At all times he remained in full control of the situation.

    I especially liked that he knew better than to try and engaged in a conversation with these idiots, otherwise they would have dragged the Pastor down to their idiot level and then beat him with experience!

    #72449
    cloudhidden
    Participant
    #72450
    WES
    Participant

    Michael Reid:

    I am glad to hear you can still party! That is one of the things I can not really do anymore. I need good light and quiet to converse these days.

    Just curious. In the past, I have often wanted to talk to someone off the grid about their experiences. Your electrical background is a nice asset to have when dealing with an off the grid power system.

    About 20 years ago I considered whether I could take my cottage off the grid or not. At the time solar panels in Canada were still too expensive, like maybe $8 to $10 per watt. Today it is maybe about $2 to $3 a watt for solar panels. Then there was the issue of storage batteries. Since we don’t use the cottage during the winter, I would have had to remove the heavy batteries and store them inside the house on trickle charge to keep them from freezing and being damaged. Also with a wife and 2 young kids who were not into using less energy, I dropped the idea. It was probably the right decision. Now I am too old to reconsider the idea.

    Are you off the grid because you are too remote?
    Or is it just a personal choice?
    Do you adjust the angle of the solar panels between winter and summer seasons?
    How many batteries are you using?
    Any idea how long these batteries last or may last?
    Any idea of what your capital costs are per year to keep your power system operating plus replace any failing batteries?
    Any critter issues?

    I think it costs me about $800 or more for hydro for the cottage each year. I should probably check again since they are always jacking up the costs every year!

    I am sure there were some unexpected maintenance issues that have popped up from time to time. You mentioned cutting back busher/branches around the solar panels, probably not a big issue.

    #72451
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @WES

    I texted that video to most of my family and friends. No response. I suggested if you want to have a party and the police show up this is how to handle the situation and persevere your rights. Still feeling different from the majority as always. Anyway people must be free to live how they feel no matter where it leads.

    #72453
    WES
    Participant

    Matt Gaetz is merely under going the Uniparty’s trial by media fire to get rid of anybody related to President Trump. Jim Jordon is suffering the same treatment. The uniparty is just trying to purge itself of anything to do with Trump. Perfectly normal swamp behavior! Corruption’s sewers must flow unimpeded!

    Basically the uniparty crooks are not content to have driven the only honest man out of town. They need to drive out any other honest men. If you just stole the election from an honest man, you now need to totally destroy the honest man whom you just drove out of town, in order to feel more secure!

    President Trump has been permanently banned from all of big techs media platforms. Unfortunately for the crooks the honest man, run out of town, has set up his own independent media platform.

    Clearly the crooks still fear that honest man. They tried multiple times to JFK him but he has his own security detail so they have failed so far. They wire tapped the White House. They tried multiple times to use the FBI and DofJ to drum up fake crimes to impeach him. In NYC they are still trying to find a crime to convict him and make him ineligible to run in 2024! They are granting immunity to any criminal they can find to take down President Trump.

    It seems the crook’s “Woke Cancel Culture” (WCC) managed to get MLB to cancel their all-star game in Atlanta.

    Now the non-wokes are going to boycott MLB, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS, and Merck for supporting WCC!

    Anybody remember what happened to football attendance and TV ratings, a few years ago, after the non-wokes boycotted the NFL? The NFL numbers are still falling to this day!

    Interesting times in corrupt land!

    #72454
    WES
    Participant

    The ivermectin supplier in India informed me last night that PayPal has suspended it’s service with him because they suspect he is selling medicines.

    Right now I have no way to pay him. My bank td won’t let me pay him in anything but Indian currency. My son has a PayPal account but we couldn’t find anyway to pay. Now I know why.

    Right now I am stuck. I might have to try and set up a new account with a PayPal competitor?

    I had hope to be able to pay with Master Card but that doesn’t seem possible either.

    Any suggestions?

    #72455
    WES
    Participant

    There are still a few who value their freedom over death.

    Me, I still need to be careful but respect different points of view.

    Clearly governments everywhere have gone too far in allowing health laws to over ride common law.

    #72456
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ WES

    If you have a grid connection possibility I recommend to use that.

    If you are concerned with the reliability of the grid get a fine generator and stabilized fuel as a backup.

    The off grid system I have costs around $100000

    The only reason to do that is because there is no grid connection. Lacking knowledge I was under the impression that the solar system was the best for the environment but I was wrong. If you watch the documentary “Planet of the humans” you will understand.

    The best value would be to have massive fuel storage, a fine generator and an identical one for backup

    #72457
    WES
    Participant

    Michael Reid:

    That is one hell of a lot of money for power!

    I agree a grid connection is the best and probably the best for the environment too since power is generated in just a few places allowing pollution controls to be done at a few power plants rather than trying to do so individually. Like ICE cars. Even if coal is used to power EVs, at least better pollution controls only need to be implemented at one spot, not on a million plus cars.

    I did build a 400 watt wind turbines at the cottage one summer from scratch. I attached it to a floating dock steel post. I had no load attached which would have limited it’s top speed and prevent runaway speeds. Well in a moderate wind the dam thing started spinning pretty fast! It roared so much, I can still remember seeing the whites of my kids eyes as they stopped playing on the trampoline and turned around to watch! It was like a helicopter taking off! I had to wait until the wind died down a little bit before I could safely grab the blades and stop them from spinning.

    Later I put it on one of the trampoline posts with a load on it and ran it in a light wind producing up to 30 vdc. I concluded my neighbors would run me off the island if I ever tried to set it up! It now sits, minus blades, in the steel jaws of my boathouse work bench vice collecting dust!

    These days I view these green toxic things as something where you have to put in more energy than you will ever get out! Only rich countries can afford such nonsense!

    Funny my son works as a GE turbine maintenance tech. (Millwright journeyman) just north of Orangeville.. After 2 years, I think he is finding it rather boring and may quit.

    #72459
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ WES

    Yes solar is the best choice based on remote location.

    If I remember correctly I paid around $0.75 per watt.

    The best battery bank is a single string of deep cycle flooded lead acid batteries. Rolls Surette batteries made in Nova Scotia were my choice. The ones I chose have maybe 4 inches of electrolyte reserve where one adds deionized water which gets consumed by the charge cycles. No need to worry about freezing if loads are disconnected and the solar is keeping the batteries fully charged. Using all the water/electrolyte and drying out the cell causes major battery damage so be sure to sure to top with water at least monthly if in use.

    For an off grid year round home like mine I built the arrays at the angle that provides maximum power for the shortest day of the year. Every other day has the potential to yield more.

    I have a 24 volt battery bank. It consists of six 4 volt batteries with each battery weighing 340 pounds.

    The battery bank should last me the rest of my life if properly watered. Very heavily built quality batteries and a daily depth of discharge of 10 to 20 percent. I ran the calculations but don’t recall exactly. I tried to design for 10 percent daily depth of discharge. The deeper you discharge the battery the less charge cycles for the battery life.

    The major consumable is deionized water. I recently purchased the necessary filtration to produce deionized water myself.

    Most of the work occurs in the winter when I have to shovel snow away from the arrays and clean snow off the panels.

    #72460
    WES
    Participant

    phoenixvoice:

    I remember those days of airplane travel too! Now sadly few know they ever existed!

    Then the world changed and not for the better.

    When I travelled to Yugoslavia in 1978 from Brussels, the JAL airplane sat all by itself. There were 6 heavily armed (submachine guns) troops surrounding the plane on the tramac. They let us passengers out from the heavily guarded terminal, only 2 at a time. Our suitcases were sitting on the tarmac. We would indicate which ones were ours and they were then put on the baggage cart. Any not selected got left behind.

    When I landed in Belgrade all of our suitcases were run through x-ray scanners. I had 3 bags. The first went through. It had a cassette/radio. The second bag went through. It had 2 electronic meters. The third bag went through. It had a big loud mechanical Old Ben windup alarm clock that I needed to wake me up in the morning!

    Well guess what! They had had enough of my bags! Everything just calmly seem to stop! Then the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up! Then I knew something was very wrong! Turning around slowly I saw 2 heavily armed soldiers nervously pointing their sub machine guns at me!

    They nervously motioned to me to unlock and open each bag, one at a time. I removed the cassette/radio and carefully handed it to the x-ray operator. She seemed satisfied it was real before tossing it to the soldiers to check. Everyone seemed happy it was real and not a bomb. Then I opened the second suitcase and removed the 2 meters. Same thing. Everybody happy they were real meters. Power on/off.

    Then I opened the third suitcase. This obviously contained the no-no item! I pulled out the Old Ben alarm clock and handed it to the x-ray operator. She satisfied herself that it was real and it worked. She tossed it to the 2 soldiers who proceeded to satisfy themselves that yes it was just an ordinary alarm clock and not wired to a bomb!

    Now the soldiers relaxed and started to smile! I explained to the x-ray operator I was hard of hearing so I needed such a big loud alarm clock so I could hear it! She was now happy and we all smiled and joked about the rather big alarm clock! Everything was now back to being friendly!

    P.S. When I went to leave the country I had to go through this process again!

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