May 062021
 
 May 6, 2021  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Edgar Degas Two laundresses 1876

Senior NHS Board Member: Stop The Genocide Or Our Children Are Next (UKC)
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin (AJT)
Did People Or Nature Open Pandora’s Box At Wuhan? (Wade)
mRNA Vaccines Induce Broad CD4+ T Cell Responses
What A Convenient LIE (Denninger)
Crimes of Covid Vaccine Maker Pfizer Documented (M&A)
Stay-at-Home Lockdowns Made No Difference to Covid Deaths in US States (LDS)
US Backs Waiving Patent Protections For Covid Vaccines (CNBC)
Public Officials Turned Covid Celebrities Don’t Want Restrictions To End (RT)
This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship” (Whitney Webb)
CRISPR Madness: Welcome to the Age of Genetic Chaos (CP)
US, NATO Launch Massive Military Exercise Amid Complaints From Russia (JTN)

 

 

 

 

“If you refuse to co-operate in rolling this out, then we’ll remove you.”

Senior NHS Board Member: Stop The Genocide Or Our Children Are Next (UKC)

The transcript below is of a call made to Brian Gerrish on 18 April 2021. The voice of the caller has been changed to protect her identity. The senior NHS Board member warns that the government is now controlling the NHS, and it is the government that is actually dictating what the NHS should do during Covid emergency measures. She states that the result of the government’s enforced Covid and vaccination policies can be described as genocide. [..] Brian Gerrish: I’ve been contacted by an NHS professional who would like to speak to me about things happening in the NHS. So, without any ado, let’s go over to our caller today. Thank you very much for calling me. It’s really been wonderful that you’ve had the confidence to give us a call at the UK Column. I’m going to ask the key question: why have you called me today?

Whistleblower: [..] You know, I just really wanted to share my personal story on what’s happened since last March. [..] I guess when all the Coronavirus started, and when it came into the UK — mainframing kind of March last year — obviously the conversations really were predominantly about measures to stop infection, forecasting, you know, “this is what we’re anticipating will happen”, you know, “how do we manage the services”. Kind of all that was going on, and then as we went through the summer, there started to be a little bit of talk about the vaccine development and potential treatments and things like that. And then the treatments completely went, and the vaccine discussions ramped up, and in November it really started to be predominantly what we talked about.

And, I mean, you can’t call it a vaccine, because it doesn’t meet the definition, so I’m going to refer to it as an injection, but I’m just making sure that everyone’s on the same page with me. So, it became kind of clear to myself, and a few other colleagues that I know on other NHS Boards, in November that we were going to be asked to completely roll this out — and also that there really were some long-term safety issues, and stuff that we just didn’t know. And so it really took us by surprise, the scope and speed at which they were moving. And at the time, we had a lot of discussions, as a Board, as to our concerns around this — and remember that when the NHS is in emergency measures, which it is and has been, then the Government is able to tightly control what the NHS does, and is able to dictate a lot more what the NHS does than it would be able to if it wasn’t in emergency measures.

So, our Chief Executive had discussions about our concerns, and I can say other Boards had the same discussions, and in a nutshell, what we were told in December was, “If you refuse to co-operate in rolling this out, then we’ll remove you.” And it wasn’t said explicitly, and it wasn’t put in e-mails, but it was certainly very indicated that that was the case.

Read more …

American Journal of Therapeutics

Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin (AJT)

Since 2012, a growing number of cellular studies have demonstrated that ivermectin has antiviral properties against an increasing number of RNA viruses, including influenza, Zika, HIV, Dengue, and most importantly, SARS-CoV-2.9–17 Insights into the mechanisms of action by which ivermectin both interferes with the entrance and replication of SARS-CoV-2 within human cells are mounting. Caly et al18 first reported that ivermectin significantly inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication in a cell culture model, observing the near absence of all viral material 48 hours after exposure to ivermectin. However, some questioned whether this observation is generalizable clinically given the inability to achieve similar tissue concentrations used in their experimental model using standard or even massive doses of ivermectin.19,20

It should be noted that the concentrations required for an effect in cell culture models bear little resemblance to human physiology given the absence of an active immune system working synergistically with a therapeutic agent, such as ivermectin. Furthermore, prolonged durations of exposure to a drug likely would require a fraction of the dosing in short-term cell model exposure. Furthermore, multiple coexisting or alternate mechanisms of action likely explain the clinical effects observed, such as the competitive binding of ivermectin with the host receptor-binding region of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, as proposed in 6 molecular modeling studies.21–26 In 4 of the studies, ivermectin was identified as having the highest or among the highest of binding affinities to spike protein S1 binding domains of SARS-CoV-2 among hundreds of molecules collectively examined, with ivermectin not being the particular focus of study in 4 of these studies.27

This is the same mechanism by which viral antibodies, in particular, those generated by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The high binding activity of ivermectin to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could limit binding to either the ACE-2 receptor or sialic acid receptors, respectively, either preventing cellular entry of the virus or preventing hemagglutination, a recently proposed pathologic mechanism in COVID-19.21,22,26–28 Ivermectin has also been shown to bind to or interfere with multiple essential structural and nonstructural proteins required by the virus to replicate.26,29 Finally, ivermectin also binds to the SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), thereby inhibiting viral replication.30

Read more …

Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists

“The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months..”

But after 15 months, we still have no idea about the origin of Sars 2.

Did People Or Nature Open Pandora’s Box At Wuhan? (Wade)

Natural emergence was the media’s preferred theory until around February 2021 and the visit by a World Health Organization (WHO) commission to China. The commission’s composition and access were heavily controlled by the Chinese authorities. Its members, who included the ubiquitous Daszak, kept asserting before, during, and after their visit that lab escape was extremely unlikely. But this was not quite the propaganda victory the Chinese authorities may have been hoping for. What became clear was that the Chinese had no evidence to offer the commission in support of the natural emergence theory. This was surprising because both the SARS1 and MERS viruses had left copious traces in the environment.

The intermediary host species of SARS1 was identified within four months of the epidemic’s outbreak, and the host of MERS within nine months. Yet some 15 months after the SARS2 pandemic began, and after a presumably intensive search, Chinese researchers had failed to find either the original bat population, or the intermediate species to which SARS2 might have jumped, or any serological evidence that any Chinese population, including that of Wuhan, had ever been exposed to the virus prior to December 2019. Natural emergence remained a conjecture which, however plausible to begin with, had gained not a shred of supporting evidence in over a year.

And as long as that remains the case, it’s logical to pay serious attention to the alternative conjecture, that SARS2 escaped from a lab. Why would anyone want to create a novel virus capable of causing a pandemic? Ever since virologists gained the tools for manipulating a virus’s genes, they have argued they could get ahead of a potential pandemic by exploring how close a given animal virus might be to making the jump to humans. And that justified lab experiments in enhancing the ability of dangerous animal viruses to infect people, virologists asserted.

Read more …

Question is: what else do they do?

mRNA Vaccines Induce Broad CD4+ T Cell Responses (JCI)

Recent studies have shown T cell cross-recognition of SARS-CoV-2 and common cold coronavirus spike proteins. However, the effect of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines on T cell responses to common cold coronaviruses remain unknown. In this study, we analyzed CD4+ T cell responses to spike peptides from SARS-CoV-2 and 3 common cold coronaviruses (HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, and HCoV-OC43) before and after study participants received Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273) mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine recipients made broad T cell responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and we identified 23 distinct targeted peptides in 9 participants including one peptide that was targeted by 6 individuals.


Only 4 out of these 23 targeted peptides would potentially be affected by mutations in the UK (B.1.1.7) and South African (B.1.351) variants and CD4+ T cells from vaccine recipients recognized the 2 variant spike proteins as effectively as the spike protein from the ancestral virus. Interestingly, we saw a 3-fold increase in the CD4+ T cell responses to HCoV-NL63 spike peptides post-vaccination. Our results suggest that T cell responses elicited or enhanced by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines may be able to control SARS-CoV-2 variants and lead to cross-protection from some endemic coronaviruses.

Read more …

“Let me give you a piece of advice: Shoving a gun in anyone’s face, which is what a mandate is, generates no confidence at all. It does, however, generate a whole bunch of other things, including revulsion, hatred or even justified retribution.”

What A Convenient LIE (Denninger)

Oh, look at this: Beyond safety, requiring mandatory vaccinations also allows us to set an example for those who are hesitant to get vaccinated. Leaders at all levels have championed the vaccine and are taking action to educate people who are reluctant to get vaccinated. By mandating vaccines, healthcare institutions will show the world that we trust the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and inspire others to follow. Riiiight. You inspire women to consent to sex by putting a gun in their face and demanding they take off their clothes? Let me give you a piece of advice: Shoving a gun in anyone’s face, which is what a mandate is, generates no confidence at all. It does, however, generate a whole bunch of other things, including revulsion, hatred or even justified retribution.

In addition you’re not immune from lawsuit, nor is your institution. Pfizer is, but you are not. Sucks to be you if and when one of your staff members is badly hurt or killed by taking the shots. Maybe it hasn’t and won’t happen but that liability is open-ended and permanent for both you personally and your institution. Further that liability is civil so no, it doesn’t have to be proved the shot was the cause — just more-likely than not in the opinion of the jury. It’s not like you don’t have a very nice building and institution there that looks like some awfully-deep pockets to go raid if someone dies or perhaps worse, is permanently disabled from taking said shot, right? And it’s not like social media isn’t awash in people who have had that happen already and are all over GoFundMe and elsewhere begging for money as they’ve been hit with half-million dollar medical bills and aren’t done — right?

If that’s a result of an entirely voluntary decision then it’s of course on them no matter how foolish but if it’s a result of a mandate well, who gets to pay for that Marc and how do you think that will end for you and your hospital when, not if, it winds up in court? Because it will end up in court and you will be named as Defendant, both personally and corporately. Perhaps your threat to fire anyone who won’t submit is an empty one. We’ll see. Maybe your legal department has explained all of this to you and you’re waving your arms around making noise, publishing OpEds because you know damn well that you’re so far out on the legal ledge 300′ up that your greatest fear is that someone is going to come along with a chainsaw.

Perhaps the gun you claim to be shoving in people’s faces, in other words, isn’t actually loaded and you know damn well it’s empty. Perhaps the real reason you published the OpEd is that the other medical center across town is not mandating anything, you asked and were told to go to Hell and you’re scared that the best talent will quit and go work there, eviscerating the quality of your services. Is that really what this is about; another illegal, 15 USC Chapter 1 monopolist trick to go along with all the other ones damn near every medical center in the US have gotten away with for the last 30 years?

Read more …

November 18, 2020, from law firm Matthews and Associates.

Crimes of Covid Vaccine Maker Pfizer Documented (M&A)

Here’s a brief glimpse of Pfizer’s track record for safety and ethics. This is a short list, by no means inclusive of the company’s entire rap sheet.

Pfizer received the biggest fine in U.S. history as part of a $2.3 Billion plea deal with federal prosecutors for mis-promoting medicines (Bextra, Celebrex) and paying kickbacks to compliant doctors. Pfizer pleaded guilty to mis-branding the painkiller Bextra by promoting the drug for uses for which it was not approved.

In the 1990s, Pfizer was involved in defective heart valves that lead to the deaths of more than 100 people. Pfizer had deliberately misled regulators about the hazards. The company agreed to pay $10.75 Million to settle justice department charges for misleading regulators.

Pfizer paid more than $60 Million to settle a lawsuit over Rezulin, a diabetes medication that caused patients to die from acute liver failure.

In the UK, Pfizer has been fined nearly €90 Million for overcharging the NHS, the National Health Service. Pfizxer charged the taxpayer an additional €48 Million per year for what should have cost €2 million per year.

Pfizer agreed to pay $430 Million in 2004 to settle criminal charges that it had bribed doctors to prescribe its epilepsy drug Neurontin for indications for which it was not approved.

In 2011, a jury found Pfizer committed racketeering fraud in its marketing of the drug Neurontin. Pfizer agreed to pay $142.1 Million to settle the charges.

Pfizer disclosed that it had paid nearly nearly 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals some $20 Million for speaking on Pfizer’s behalf.

In 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had reached a $45 Million settlement with Pfizer to resolve charges that its subsidiaries had bribed overseas doctors and other healthcare professionals to increase foreign sales.

Pfizer was sued in a U.S. federal court for using Nigerian children as human guinea pigs, without the childrens’ parents’ consent. Pfizer paid $75 Million to settle in Nigerian court for using an experimental antibiotic, Trovan, on the children. The company paid an additional undisclosed amount in the U.S. to settle charges here. Pfizer had violated international law, including the Nuremberg Convention established after WWII, due to Nazi experiments on unwilling prisoners.

Amid widespread criticism of gouging poor countries for drugs, Pfizer pledged to give $50 million for an AIDS drug to South Africa. Later, however, Pfizer failed to honor that promise.

Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is being rolled out with nothing but positive press from every mainstream media outlet in the country. Meanwhile, more than half of Americans surveyed have said they will not take a Covid vaccine. The plain fact is that many questions remain unanswered regarding this, or any other, Covid vaccine’s safety and efficacy.

Read more …

“We were not able to explain the variation of deaths per million in different regions in the world by social isolation..”

Stay-at-Home Lockdowns Made No Difference to Covid Deaths in US States (LDS)

A new study from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago has analysed the impact of stay-at-home orders on infections and deaths in U.S. states and found they made no difference. The peer-reviewed study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, found stay-at-home orders (also known as shelter-in-place orders or SIPs) were not associated with lower infections or deaths; furthermore, they were actually associated with a slight increase in infections and deaths, although this was not statistically significant.

[..] The authors observe that if stay-at-home orders aren’t affecting mobility, it’s difficult to see how they will affect anything else: “If SIP [shelter-in-place] orders did not have large effects on behaviour, it is hard to imagine how they could have had large effects on COVID-19 cases and deaths.” They add: “The health benefits of SIP orders were likely limited because many people were already social distancing before the introduction of SIP orders.” They suggest that voluntary mobility reduction and social distancing made a difference to outcomes, though do not commit to saying how much. Noting that nationwide there was around a 50% decrease in mobility between February and April 2020, they state: “The nationwide reaction to COVID-19 almost surely decreased the spread of the disease.”

However, their results, they say, “have nothing to say about the health and societal benefits of staying at home and reducing physical contact with others. The model-based studies which claim stay-at-home lockdown orders saved thousands of lives are therefore in error, they argue. “The previously presented evidence on the effectiveness of SIP orders appears to be misleading, and there is currently no compelling evidence to suggest that SIP policies saved a large number of lives or significantly mitigated the spread of COVID-19. However, this does not mean that voluntary social distancing – SIP practice as distinct from policy – was ineffective.”

The study was written and submitted prior to the appearance in Nature this March of the study by R.F. Savaris and colleagues which in effect looked at “SIP practice as distinct from policy”. It found that actually staying at home made little to no difference either: “We were not able to explain the variation of deaths per million in different regions in the world by social isolation, herein analysed as differences in staying at home, compared to baseline. In the restrictive and global comparisons, only 3% and 1.6% of the comparisons were significantly different, respectively.”

Read more …

Long overdue. But far from done.

US Backs Waiving Patent Protections For Covid Vaccines (CNBC)

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in a statement. “As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts — working with the private sector and all possible partners — to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines,” the statement added.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised the U.S. decision as a “monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19” that reflects the “moral leadership” of the White House in the fight to end the pandemic. Stocks of major pharmaceutical companies that have produced vaccines, including Moderna, BioNTech and Pfizer, dropped sharply after news of the potential waivers first broke. Pfizer ended its trading day flat, while Moderna lost 6.1%; Johnson & Johnson shed a modest 0.4%. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America expressed pointed opposition to the Biden administration’s support for waiving IP protections. The trade group’s members include vaccine makers such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

“In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety,” said Stephen J. Ubi, the group’s president and CEO. “This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. ”

Read more …

“..the Faucis and Ferrers of the world feasted well on buckets of media love for some 13+ months, and they’re not ready to go back to a diet of irrelevance.”

Public Officials Turned Covid Celebrities Don’t Want Restrictions To End (RT)

Narcissistic civil servants have turned into pseudo-celebrities thanks to the pandemic and they don’t want to go back to the shadows. Now the only way to stop their endless restrictions is by threatening their public standing. On April 21, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director, settled in before fawning SoCal reporters for the latest in her mind-numbing Möbius strip of press conferences. This grownup with a job she considers essential to her city’s survival proceeded to tell millions of restrictions-weary Angelenos about hungry bunny rabbits. In a failed effort to explain why fully vaccinated men and women who can no longer spread or suffer infection by the coronavirus should go on wearing masks for months to come, Ferrer wove a fable of a garden trying to fend off rabbits that want to eat carrots.

You can hear how proud Ferrer is of this few minutes of “Watership Downer.” She no doubt labored over her infectious fairy tale – this off-off Broadway brand of virus Vaudeville – for hours, confident she’d sway that handful of suckers still bothering to pay any attention. While news reports conveniently glossed over Ferrer’s furry voyage into drivel, I managed to find a recording of her hopping down the bunny trail. As she drones along, it’s clear she’s not educating the public. She’s performing. It’s juvenile, patronizing and ineffective. Still, you must wonder if Ferrer found it to be her finest hour. Ferrer feels comfortable enough to present a bad children’s book as public health data because she has soaked in the spa waters of media adoration and public attention for more than a year. All the while, panic over a serious, but manageable pandemic surged through the easily led, slow-to-question LA populous.

That same panic allowed this woman of some educational achievement to rise to fame from the dark and dusty halls of the public sector. In any normal era, she’s the kind of appointed official who would otherwise toil in anonymity. Fortunately for her, the “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV- 2)” made her a star, albeit a dim one. The slog that was 2020 became a time to glow for the likes of infectious disease personality Dr. Anthony Fauci and for Ferrer, too. And now it’s now well past the hour to turn out the lights on her and her kindred. But sadly, the Faucis and Ferrers of the world feasted well on buckets of media love for some 13+ months, and they’re not ready to go back to a diet of irrelevance.

Read more …

For the longest time, Moderna could not get mRNA approved for anything. Still not for its Covid vaccine either. But they have big plans.

This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship” (Whitney Webb)

Last Wednesday, President Biden was widely praised in mainstream and health-care–focused media for his call to create a “new biomedical research agency” modeled after the US military’s “high-risk, high-reward” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. As touted by the president, the agency would seek to develop “innovative” and “breakthrough” treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes, with a call to “end cancer as we know it.” Far from “ending cancer” in the way most Americans might envision it, the proposed agency would merge “national security” with “health security” in such as way as to use both physical and mental health “warning signs” to prevent outbreaks of disease or violence before they occur.

Such a system is a recipe for a technocratic “pre-crime” organization with the potential to criminalize both mental and physical illness as well as “wrongthink.” The Biden administration has asked Congress for $6.5 billion to fund the agency, which would be largely guided by Biden’s recently confirmed top science adviser, Eric Lander. Lander, formerly the head of the Silicon Valley–dominated Broad Institute, has been controversial for his ties to eugenicist and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his relatively recent praise for James Watson, an overtly racist eugenicist. Despite that, Lander is set to be confirmed by the Senate and Congress and is reportedly significantly enthusiastic about the proposed new “health DARPA.”

This new agency, set to be called ARPA-H or HARPA, would be housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and would raise the NIH budget to over $51 billion. Unlike other agencies at NIH, ARPA-H would differ in that the projects it funds would not be peer reviewed prior to approval; instead hand-picked program managers would make all funding decisions. Funding would also take the form of milestone-driven payments instead of the more traditional multiyear grants. ARPA-H will likely heavily fund and promote mRNA vaccines as one of the “breakthroughs” that will cure cancer. Some of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers that have produced some of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, stated just last month that “cancer is the next problem to tackle with mRNA tech” post-COVID.

BioNTech has been developing mRNA gene therapies for cancer for years and is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create mRNA-based treatments for tuberculosis and HIV. Other “innovative” technologies that will be a focus of this agency are less well known to the public and arguably more concerning.

Read more …

“..left the door open to future manipulation of humans.”

CRISPR Madness: Welcome to the Age of Genetic Chaos (CP)

The Nobel prize in chemistry awarded last year to the biochemists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for the genetic modification technique called CRISPR cemented the popular idea that a new era of precision manipulation of hereditary material had arrived. The award came on the heels of the unauthorized use of the technique by the scientist He Jiankui in 2018 in China in an effort to produce individuals (twin girls in this case) resistant to HIV, and a flurry of studies in early 2020 showing that accuracy in altering DNA in a test tube or bacteria in a culture dish, did not hold up when applied to animal embryos. Attempts to modify single genes in human embryos (not intended to be brought to full-term) in fact led to “large-scale, unintended DNA deletions and rearrangements in the areas surrounding the targeted sequence,” aka “genetic chaos.”


Dr. He was imprisoned, fined, and fired from his academic position in China for his actions, although it is still not clear to what extent the higher-ups at his institute were aware of them. At a small meeting that I attended in Berkeley in early 2017 where He spoke, he unambiguously stated that “these things are thought of differently in China than in the U.S.” The U.S. scientific establishment uniformly condemned He’s experiments, but when questioned, most scientists, including Doudna herself, and bioethicists (a profession dedicated, with a few exceptions, to getting the public used to what the scientists and bioentrepreneurs have in store for it), left the door open to future manipulation of humans.

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The Pantagon touting its transparency. Onion material.

US, NATO Launch Massive Military Exercise Amid Complaints From Russia (JTN)

Following complaints from Russia that it was being cast as a mock NATO enemy, the United States and allies on Tuesday launched a long-planned military exercise in Europe involving more than 28,000 troops from 26 nations training across the continent. The exercise, Defender-Europe 21, commenced following opening ceremonies in Albania, and comes in the wake of Russian troop movements along the border with Ukraine. Amid speculation last month that Russia aimed to invade or intimidate Ukraine, Moscow charged that the current NATO exercise was designed with a Russian enemy in mind. The U.S. and its allies routinely conduct exercises “with a clear anti-Russian orientation,” Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said in an April videoconference with other military leaders.

Noting that Defender Europe 21 is is the largest NATO exercise in 30 years, Shoygo couched the training as a threat to Russia. According to the Pentagon, Defender Europe is meant to build readiness within the NATO alliance. “It’s defensive in nature, focused on deterring aggression, while preparing our forces to respond to crisis and conduct large-scale combat operations if necessary,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said this week. In a remark aimed at Moscow’s long silence on why 100,000 Russian troops had been sent to the Ukraine border, Kirby highlighted the openness surrounding Defender Europe.

“We actually come to the podium and tell you about it,” Kirby told reporters on Monday. “I told you how many troops. I told you how many nations. I talked about specifics in terms of what they’re going to be exercising … and we’re not getting that out of Moscow, and we haven’t. So that’s a big difference right there.” The Pentagon began moving troops and equipment to Europe for the exercise in March, and in April moved prepositioned military stocks from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The training will focus on defending the western Balkans and Black Sea regions, and also will rehearse defense operations elsewhere in Europe and Ukraine, according to the Pentagon. Events will include live fire training, medical exercises, and mock evacuations.

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 6 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 81 total)
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  • #74543

    Edgar Degas Two laundresses 1876 • Senior NHS Board Member: Stop The Genocide Or Our Children Are Next (UKC) • Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonst
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 6 2021]

    #74544
    Germ
    Participant
    #74545
    Germ
    Participant

    Think the Vaccine Passport is just for Covid? Think again!

    ” …smart vaccination certificate to support vaccine(s) against COVID-19 and other immunizations.”

    ” … global vaccine certificate architecture with digital solutions that support the COVID-19 vaccine use case and establish foundational services for other health services.”

    https://www.who.int/groups/smart-vaccination-certificate-working-group

    #74546
    Germ
    Participant
    #74548
    Germ
    Participant

    This is what will get linked to your Vaccine Passport by bluetooth..

    https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/national-security/2021/may/defense-dept-develops-next-gen-sensor-to-implant-under-human-skin-like-a-check-engine-light

    Don’t think for a minute that I won’t.

    #74549
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Here is a different take on the screen shot posted today about the head of Pfizer research and female sterility:
    The ex-Pfizer scientist who became an anti-vax hero

    I realize both pieces have objectives. But I don’t think Mike Yeadon would be the only one sounding an alarm if it were even somewhat likely that the sterilization claim were true. In any case, there needs to be more evidence before it can be taken seriously.

    This goes back to my complaint that by bringing in this kind of stuff, it only serves to dilute anything nearby. Not that every piece has to be some gold standard, but then there is the Denninger lawyer guy. He uses the word “bombastic” to describe something, but that is exactly what his writing is all about. It’s a style that makes me feel the guy is yelling in my face, and I would not have a prayer of getting in a word edgewise.

    This matters to me, because I am still looking for solid, trustworthy ammunition when friends question my decision not to be vaccinated. There is no way pointing them to TAE will help my cause, between links like the above and some of the posted comments and links.

    Obviously TAE does not exist to help me make my case or give me confidence in my decision, and I do not expect that. But being a little more selective might be worthwhile.

    Maybe I am just feeling vulnerable after a long phone call with an old friend who I consider smart and thoughtful and shares much of my general view of the state of things. He got very angry about my mild questioning of the policy of vaccinating everyone (I did not even directly say I was not vaccinated). Part of his argument was, they are effective, there is no downside, this is the way the world operates. He gave examples: seatbelts, the need to be vaccinated when going to certain countries, kids required to be vaccinated to attend schools, etc. He has no issue with the concept of a vaccine passport. I think he is in the “morally wrong not to get vaccinated” camp.

    I was shocked a bit–not necessarily at his position, but that he was so vehement. He did not really want to hear about the issues that go along with it–security state, removal of free speech–saying that was a different subject.

    Again, my hesitancy is not strongly based on a fear that the vaccine is harmful. The reports of problems are often presented in ways that try to magnify the issue and create alarm, the same way covid deaths and younger people dying, etc. are portrayed. It is designed to create maximum fear, or maximum doubt.

    Since most of us have experienced this pandemic through our computers and phones, and that is where virtually all of our information comes from, we need to weigh the sources and try to make some kind of assessment for ourselves. There is little connection to reality, with exceptions like John Day, who certainly sees a slice in his practice.

    My take so far:
    It is a serious illness.
    Our response was an over-reaction.
    There appear to be medicines that can greatly reduce the severity of the symptoms.
    There seems to be an effort to discredit these medicines.
    The vaccines appear to keep most people from dying from Covid.
    There is confusion as to whether they can help stop the spread.
    We do not know the long-term effects of the vaccines, if any. There are reports of adverse reactions, but it is difficult to determine how serious of an issue it is, and does the treatment really do more harm than the disease?
    It does not seem like a good idea to require very low risk people such as children to be vaccinated against Covid, due to the treatment vs. disease issue.
    It is going to be a problem when you have a mixed population of vaxxed and unvaxxed–mostly a political problem, but tempers are high.
    They do not take Paypay in India, so I still do not have Ivermectin on hand. I do take Vitamin D (should I keep taking it even in the summer?) What about combining Ivermectin with Doxy-something, as suggested the other day? Is that also available via Indai?

    Ivan Illich is one of my favorite thinkers. I have well-worn print editions of Tools for Conviviality and Energy and Equity. I will sometimes google his other papers. On one of these searches a few months ago I came across the blog of theCanadian writer David Cayley, who knew Illich well and was something of an acolyte. I am ordering his book , Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (he could use help with that title).

    He wrote a post about the Pandemic in April of 2020 as filtered through Illich: Questions About the Current Pandemic From the Point of View of Ivan Illich

    He wrote a follow-up in December, still too early to talk about the vaccine, though I will be interested to read his take on it: Pandemic Revelations

    #74550
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Interesting how yesterday’s Degas was evocative of painters like Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, while today’s reminds me more of Paul Gauguin, albeit with a more subdued palette.

    #74551
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    One of our commenters responded to something I said in the previous thread by showing me this link from The Atlantic magazine. What I find somewhat disturbing about this article is that our society’s “cool kids” seem to be constructing a mental pseudo-reality in which these vaccines inhibit transmission of the virus, which in fact they do not. Perhaps the author was just rephrasing the “we need to use vaccines to reach herd immunity” argument, but I guess the wording to me sounded as though he is making himself believe that this new and untested style of vaccination stops transmission. I guess every reader of the article will have to judge that for themselves.

    #74552

    absolute galore:

    There is no way pointing them to TAE will help my cause, between links like the above and some of the posted comments and links. Obviously TAE does not exist to help me make my case or give me confidence in my decision, and I do not expect that. But being a little more selective might be worthwhile.

    Let’s not forget that the MSM is a major part of the vaccine porn business, in cahoots with politics, which is how most people get their “news”. They are very selective, and at the same time not selective at all: they represent just one viewpoint.

    Sure, guys like Denninger ruffle some wrong feathers, but if you can’t look past those, you risk losing the valuable points he makes. I can’t tailor the articles here towards (the majority of) people who are fed selected nonsense 24/7.

    And anyway, the main stories in today’s Rattle are from respected scientific journals, the American Journal of Therapeutics and the Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists. How much more selective can I be? That these reports contradict the MSM, should speak in their favor for anyone with a working brain.

    The issue is not that we know the damage the untested substances will do, or are doing, the issue is that we are witnessing the by far largest medical experiment in the history of mankind, and we have no way of knowing the damage that will be done.

    Asking for proof of damage is a completely wrong question in this scenario. We must ask for evidence that no damage is being done.

    #74553
    John Day
    Participant

    Drs. Marik and Kory are authors of that ivermectin paper, which is absolutely excellent and broadly inclusive.

    #74554
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Hey Absolute Galore and Raul – I really enjoyed your conversation. I think the points raised are both solid. I admit I am here because I know finding out alternative info to the narrative is hard and Raul’s tireless work saves us precious time, but critical thinking of all the stuff coming at us is so important.

    No way I’m getting that jab yet though. I didn’t spend my whole life looking after my health (mostly) to hand it over to lab coats. I’m with Dr. D – sometimes you have to person up and just grow a pair of ovaries and go all Verdana Shiva on Bill Gates’ arse and just resist!
    Love you my comrades. All of you here and you have my gratitude deep.
    Oh and it’s nice to have 2 shades of Rockstar on the forum Dr. D and Madamski – it’s like red and green or blue and orange or Beer and Wine. Go you good things.

    #74555
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Also I frikken love Denninger. A well researched rant is not quite an opinion piece and that is what matters.

    Also Western journos got the weird guilts shoved down inside – “I better grab another scotch” moment when Assange was laid before their feet again. I blame central banks for making them pay enormous mortgages because they have to live near the power centres where their masters are and also where all this money funnelled into – stinky pooey asset class housing along way from fly-over zones. They don’t get to talk truth no more or else they got no job. So they write what the boss tells em – something distracting about someone getting offended by their feelings about how they feel about their sexual identity or some other boring power play for little people.
    Hey I sound grumpy but I’m not – I think I have been reading from the sidelines too long.

    #74556
    John Day
    Participant

    @Absolute Galore: Madamski seems pretty subtle in diplomacy, but your entry to the mind of a defensive friend may be hard to find.
    One opening may be that Pfizer will apparently release this early treatment pill, which appears to be viral-protease inhibitor, as used for HIV and Hepatitis-C, in the fall.
    Pfizer is trying to get everybody “vaccinated” with their current product, but already has the successor in line, after killing hundreds of thousands by suppressing early treatment with (politically murdered) hydroxychloroquine, and (tried to smother in the crib but failed) ivermectin.
    That financial angle may be a way in.
    Swords are drawn in this societal schism, already.
    Try to avoid the beheading reflex. Discuss from a different angle, which will probably have to keep changing weekly.
    Do take vitamin-D this summer. It is pretty rare to go a little high, and I have never, ever seen anybody toxic. You can get either “horse paste” ivermectin or the “pig injection” liquid version. Both can safely be taken orally, based on body weight. 1 mg per 11# body weight on days 1, 2, 4 and 6, is how I dose, but some dose days 1-4 and some 1-5. Don’t try to get doxycycline, a tetracycline antibiotic, at this point. That is something that even ER docs have started prescribing whenever they see a chest x-ray that looks like COVID, which is common.
    (Thanks for the kind mention.)

    #74557
    zerosum
    Participant

    Executive summary:
    Experts do not want any questioning of what they do by the experimental subjects

    “Asking for proof of damage is a completely wrong question in this scenario. We must ask for evidence that no damage is being done.”

    effective, no downside

    create maximum fear, maximum doubt

    Individuals, will see what they want to see. Hear what they want to hear. Believe what they want to believe. -“Pandemic Monkeys”

    Time to make a wish, or to make a prayer.

    (Uncontrolled space rockets debris hurling towards earth.
    genetic modification technique called CRISPR)

    #74559
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I appreciate the way Raul provides us with an array of links that we can decide for ourselves according to our own criteria which are worth paying attention to. And there are quite a few of those links that, after mentally processing the daily selection, quietly and unceremoniously end up on my “trash” pile. My criteria for so consigning them may seem arbitrary and informed by the bias of the blue-state big-city bubble in which I have lived most of my life, but there is so much nonsense floating around out there right now, that I think that it behooves one to thicken one’s filters in deciding what information one finds valid and valuable.

    What I am having an increasingly difficult time respecting is “Big Tech” censoring anything they don’t want the rabble to be exposed to. Yes, there is a lot of crazy nonsense being said by fringe people right now, but responding to such people by censoring them has its own backfire handily and sturdily built right into it. And such censorship inevitably develops nakedly ideological motivations, as we saw when the Hunter Biden laptop story was blatantly censored by Twitter. (Hello-o, Barbara Streisand Effect, anybody?)

    And as for getting the jab, I really do hope that it won’t be a problem for the vast majority of people who get it because I don’t want to see people getting badly hurt just so I can be “right” in my contrarian and countercultural predispositions. But it really sounds like when these new “vaccines” actually do go bad on somebody, they go very bad. So I’ll pass on the vaccine because there are just some areas where I really don’t like to press my luck. Besides, I like my cellular biology just the way it is, thank you very much, namely mostly not egregiously hurting me.

    #74560
    John Day
    Participant

    This article says there is a fair amount of cross reactivity between endemic coronavirus response and vaccine coronavirus response, in BOTH directions, but not the same amount for each endemic coronavirus. In this study the “vaccine” prompted more memory-triggering response to HCoV-NL63.
    “Interestingly, we saw a 3-fold increase in the CD4+ T cell responses to HCoV-NL63 spike peptides post-vaccination.”
    • mRNA Vaccines Induce Broad CD4+ T Cell Responses (JCI)

    So we know that 81% of us (I think I’m in there and my school librarian wife, too) have enough T-cell memory to endemic coronaviruses to handle this one on a good day, too.
    Take vitamin-D 5000 units. (Notice how that is about the average dose used by signers of the petition Germ posted a couple of days ago?)
    The question of whether the “vaccines” might help us with the common-cold coronaviruses is not a very important question, considering “vaccine” side effects. The answer is, “yeah, probably a little help”.
    We do not yet know if the antibodies attacking human placental protein syncytin (similar to spike protein in some segments) will cause a lot of spontaneous abortions.
    Nobody ever does studies like this on pregnant women, nobody. Never.
    There do seem to be a lot of spontaneous abortions, even near-term or at term following “vacines”.
    It’s a good thing that it’s nobody’s fault, isn’t it? It’s almost impossible and quite intimidating to report a vaccine adverse response, as we learned yesterday, and as I have experienced, myself.

    The CDC’s VAERS and Vaccine Complications: The System is Broken

    #74561
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    “..the Faucis and Ferrers of the world feasted well on buckets of media love for some 13+ months, and they’re not ready to go back to a diet of irrelevance.”

    I think this is a major factor in understanding the phenomenon. Profits and ego.

    #74562
    John Day
    Participant

    Armenia-Assange: Right On!

    BOOM!

    #74563
    absolute galore
    Participant

    I would like to clarify that I am not trying to throw sour grapes here. I would not have made my comments if TAE was not an important resource for my understanding of what is going on, and I deeply appreciate Raul’s efforts (and show what I can when I can financially). I just meant to say IATMO*, some things are far enough out there that they might be better left alone, to give what is here all the more weight.
    *According To My Opinion

    Speaking of weight, I looked up the horse paste. It’s apple flavored! First three comments under reviews of product:

    Does exactly what it’s supposed to and more… excellent anti-inflammatory as well *****

    Excellent product overall. Doesn’t taste too bad either *****

    Great for what Ivermectin is supposed to be for. Just a reminder for all those who are using this paste.. This is 6 grams for a 1250 lb horse. That would be .0048 grams/lb. IF you had a 170lb horse, you would give that stud .816 grams of this paste.*****

    Question for John D: Do you think the paste is finely tuned enough to knock down a dose like this, from 6 grams to .816 grams? In other words, are the manufacturing standards for non-prescription animal medicine high enough to be fairly sure the smaller dosage will be equally distributed in this apple-flavored horse paste? (If nothing else, I am going to buy it while I figure out how to get some pills from India without Paypal.)

    To add: I find this comment section also very helpful, and I appreciate the range of opinions, some of which I agree with and some not as much. The tone is almost always helpful and convivial, if sometimes a tad alarmist or conspiratorial. I also enjoy the personalities, even the ones that make me roll my eyes sometimes. (I’m sure I induce some ocular rotation in the orbits now and then as well–Miley C., anyone?;^)

    #74564
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Meanwhile in Europe, the latest data on excess mortality, published today for Week 17, shows the total deaths (all reporting countries combined) are below the baseline (no excess) for all the age groups.

    However, Israel’s excess deaths are above the baseline for all age groups. There is a spike in deaths for the 15-44 age group, above the “significant increase” level.

    https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#

    #74565
    absolute galore
    Participant

    John Day wrote: So we know that 81% of us (I think I’m in there and my school librarian wife, too) have enough T-cell memory to endemic coronaviruses to handle this one on a good day, too.

    So if I am in the 19%, what then? Obviously not going to just keel over and die (now that would be a pandemic, 20% fatality rate) but I will have a harder time fighting it off, and likely to have more serious symptoms, higher risk of death, long covid? How does this affect my 99.4% chance of not dying as a 60-65 yo male?

    #74566
    absolute galore
    Participant

    And I realized too, with the horse paste math, the dosage for human weight might be different? Or did that reviewer have the correct info? I am 170lbs and I seem to remember calculating that I would just get the 18mg pills, since a bit more is apparently not a problem, and JD upped the dosage in his last report on this.

    #74567
    zerosum
    Participant

    TAE brings us a daily menu of “Crystal Ball Gazers” for us to evaluate
    (a person with unusual powers of foresight · oracle · an authoritative person who divines the future)

    #74568
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Sorry for the multiple posts, but I will feel more comfortable with my decision with some Ivermectin in the cupboard.

    forgot to link to the horse paste:

    https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/durvet-ivermectin-paste-187-608-g

    The blurb says Treat your animals with this Durvet Ivermectin 1.87% Horse Wormer Paste.

    Does that mean it is 1.87% Ivermectin? It also says Primary Ingredient(s) Ivermectin
    Obviously there are some apples in there, too.

    I’m confused how I should calculate my dose. Does .866 grams sound about right? I’m assuming 1 gram would be fine in that case?

    #74569
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    absolute galore: “How does this affect my 99.4% chance of not dying as a 60-65 yo male?”

    That’s the average “chance of not dying” for somebody in that age group. People with existing T-cell responses against the Covid virus will have an above-average “chance of not dying”, while those without will have a below-average chance.

    Without knowing whether you have, or don’t have, an existing T-cell response, you can just consider the average.

    #74570
    John Day
    Participant

    @Absolute Galore: By this time I have had a number of people tell me about their experience taking horse paste, giving it to various animals, down to rabbit-size, and finding the taste fairly pleasant.
    The weight based dose is the same for humans as for the other animals. 0.2 mg/kg, or 1 mg/11#.
    I am told that there is a convenient measuring device that goes by weight.
    Instead of one dose, COVID treatment is more like 2-5 doses, in general.
    The dosing range for humans, now with a lot of experience, can safely move up, so erring a little to the high side is fine. Just a little. The upper dosing is 0.3 mg/kg, currently, though there is no particular fatal-dose clearly identified.
    Also, zinc gluconate 50 mg is readily available. This has efficacy against coronaviruses by itself, an can be taken 3-4 times per day when treating active disease.
    I recommend keeping routine daily dose to 25 mg or less, since it can interfere with copper absorption at higher doses.
    a male 60-63 is what I am, too.
    Get on with life. Our life force is in decline. Do some good.

    #74571
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, “A male 60-65…”

    #74572
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ John Day & absolute galore (ag)

    ag’s remarks about what I’ll oversimplify as “bombastic” exposes are, imo, finely accurate. Much of what we read as “alternative” “truth-telling” is, imo, diversionary “limited hangouts” by those who would prefer we not traffic in actual truth, and are willing to tell some truth so long as it is sullied by association with crackpotism and such.

    THAT said, much of it is probably unwitting or at worst self-serving exploitation of an information ecology/economy by which the likes of, for example, Alex Jones makes some money while in the process trashing the public perception of the alternative news, investigative journalism, truth-telling, etc. that they claim to be and revere.

    As for Raul’s remarks, I’ll point out that ag is not dismissing the informative value of pieces by persons like Denningner; she is bemoaning their too-often hysterical tonality which indeed puts many people off. Blogs with titles like A Nation of Sheeple automatically alienate a great many people. I don’t think they shouldn’t be posted. They’re usually informative and more accurate than not. But they are not unproblematic.

    I don’t think ag intended to be dismissive of TAE as a viable info source; she just pointed out certain problems with some of the kinds of journalism we have to rely on at this point.

    It could be possible to categorize a day’s news aggregation along caveat emptor lines, probably along a spectrum: caveat emptor MSM for one set of reasons (institutional corruption); caveat emptor Denninger or Geert Vanden Bossche for another (assertions that tend to sound hysterical); sites like Russia Observer for another (extreely reliable and expertly informative). ‘Color-coded for your convenience!’

    Remarks like this: “How much more selective can I be? That these reports contradict the MSM, should speak in their favor for anyone with a working brain” work against the goal of increasing public awareness and are an example, btw, of the things I perceive ag being concerned about: dismissing potential readers as being somehow too stupid to grasp what is being conveyed. That’s “A Nation of Sheeple” alienator right there. It’s elitist, arrogant, and insulting.

    %^&

    @ absolute galore

    “He got very angry about my mild questioning of the policy of vaccinating everyone (I did not even directly say I was not vaccinated). ”

    Denial is a powerful thing. The majority are extremely ADDICTED to their trust in the authorities. They will react VICIOUSLY when cornered. That is why I recommend “leading with the chin” by basing one’s challenges to the mainstream kovid narrative on opening premises like “I am very concerned about the negative health aspects of the vaccine to myself and my loved ones”. This steals their sense of exclusive monopoly on self-protection and sense of vunerability. This sets it up so that when they bluster against one’s position, one can respond with the same bullets they employ: “Apparently, you don’t care if I get sick. You’re entitled to your opinion as I am to mine, but you’re not entitled to dictate how I preserve my health. If you trust Pfizer, that’s your decision. I don’t, and that’s mine.”

    Leading with the chin is foolish in a fight unless one is doing so to invite a predictable strike one can then counter-attack. But a) this isn’t a fight, it’s an exchange of ideas, and b) insomuch as they insist on making it a fight rather than a fair exchange, you’ve now set them up to be hoist be their own petard.

    But also, underlying all of this, is learning to recognize what angers you, seeing it as a fear-based involuntary reflex, and learning to replace that anger reflex with the opposite. Usualy, you won’t win that specific battle, at least not as it happens, but the damage to their self-protective shell of denial will persist and take effect over time. Meanwhile, as you get better at it, you’ll grow ninja skills that in time will indeed let you win the “battle” there and then, decisively.

    The number one key is not to let their antagonism bring out your anger. Their anger is based on raw terror weay down inside, and it is foolish to antagonize the terrified. They double-down both in retreat or attack. Instead, present yourself as a victim similar to their sense of victimhood, in the process prompting not their fear-based defensiveness but rather their sense of compassion, even if the path to that sense of compassion initially follows their sense of guilt and the denialism that guilt inspires.

    Fauci does this all the time, btw: “I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to help you!” It’s easy for him because he has a vast media platform backing him up, but the tactic is crudely the essential same: kill ’em with kindness.

    Sample in simplified form:

    you: I disagree.
    them: you’re an idiot fool.
    you: it’s my personal safety not yours. I’d be a foolish idiot to trust my personal safety to the opinions of others when it’s my responsibility to take care of myself, not theirs.

    I recommend focusing on your breathing. Srsly. Take a deep breath and count to whatever. Tonality is 90% of communication. Trump won the prsidency despite being a glaring lunatic because he projected and appealed to a certain angry disgusted mistrustful tonality oin the plebiscite. Fauci has gone as far as he has with his shit-charade by projecting a certain tonality. I never fell for it, not for a second, because I’ve dealt with too many Faucis in my personal, yea, intimate personal life.

    But most people eat that stuff up because most people have never taken the risk required to be a free individual in a society driven by mass hypnosis. Don’t fight the Fauci: BE the Fauci.

    P.S. You’ve seen me tear a few new ones with this or that person here. Sometimes, as my granny used to say, you have to talk to a jackass on their behind with a stick. 😉

    #74573
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ absolute galore

    “(I’m sure I induce some ocular rotation in the orbits now and then as well–Miley C., anyone?;^)”

    I thought your point about Miley was spot on. The girl can sure sang, y’all. It’s just the material she rode to fame on, the mega-media production values that were so abhorrent to me. My eyes didn’t roll; they opened. I like having them opened.

    #74574
    John Day
    Participant

    @Absolute Galore: “IATMO”?
    IATMO stands for International Academy of Tumor Marker Oncology (cancer study)

    #74575
    Germ
    Participant

    Dr. Martin Feeley served as Clinical Director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group until September 2020, when he resigned after the HSE said his criticisms of lockdown made his position “untenable”. In this piece, he sets out his views on the Government’s Covid Vaccination strategy, and asks whether universal vaccination for Covid is appropriate, when compared with the focused vaccination strategy used to control influenza.

    #74576
    John Day
    Participant

    It looks like the Taliban in Afghanistan are holding Biden to Trump’s Mayday withdrawal commitment.
    Moon of Alabama: “That 200 government police and troops laid down their weapons – other reports even say they changed sides – points to the immense fragility of the Afghan forces. Nearly twenty years of U.S. ‘training’ has had little effect.

    Ghazni, south of Kabul, is also under attack and may soon fall to the Taliban.

    Yesterday the U.S. launched airstrikes on the southern province Helmand where the Taliban are besieging the province capital Lashkar Gah”
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/afghanistan-taliban-capture-baghlan.html#comments

    I’m sure this has no bearing at all upon the biggest-ever NATO military games on Rusia’s borderlands, none at all. NATOUS can fight 3 full scale wars at once.
    Right?

    #74577
    Germ
    Participant

    I’m no fan of Tucker – but interestingly, on many issues, he does talk alot of sense.

    “TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: How many Americans have died after taking the COVID vaccines?”

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/05/06/tucker_carlson_media_treated_joe_rogan_like_a_war_criminal_for_asking_if_young_people_should_get_vaccine.html?

    #74578
    John Day
    Participant

    “You can’t fire me, I Quit!”
    RUSSIA IS PREPARED TO DISCONNECT FROM SWIFT PAYMENT SYSTEM: FOREIGN MINISTRY

    Russia Is Prepared To Disconnect From SWIFT Payment System: Foreign Ministry

    “Heh, heh, heh…” , Bevis.

    #74579
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ John Day

    “I’m sure this has no bearing at all upon the biggest-ever NATO military games on Rusia’s borderlands, none at all. NATOUS can fight 3 full scale wars at once. Right?”

    While it technically is related, it is related in the way that a paranoid schizophrenic’s belief she is Napoleon is related to Napoleonic history. They simply won’t face reality and have no other tricks up their sleeves but the same old ones that never did work except to wreck and plunder the weakest among us. Facing a genuinely capable adversary, they evaporate as we see happening.

    Why, having made themselves fantastically wealthy, they are now steadfastly destroying both the money that contains their wealth and the things that wealth can buy.

    #74580
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Excerpt from an article in today’s NYT. There is also an article about giving people $100 to get vaccinated, but I could not access. Note that the hesitancy is definitely being linked to failure to reach “herd immunity.”

    Poll Shows Parents Are Reluctant to Get Their Children Vaccinated for Covid-19

    The new survey also found only 9 percent of adult respondents hadn’t gotten the shot but planned to do so, suggesting the country is nearing the limit of people planning to get immunized.

    The American public’s willingness to get a Covid vaccine is reaching a saturation point, a new national poll suggests,

      one more indication that achieving widespread immunity in the United States is becoming increasingly challenging

    .

    Only 9 percent of respondents said they hadn’t yet gotten the shot but intended to do so, according to the survey, published in the April edition of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor. And with federal authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents ages 12 through 15 expected imminently, the eagerness of parents to let their children be vaccinated is also limited, the poll found.

    Overall, slightly more than half of those surveyed said they had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, a finding that matches data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “We’re in a new stage of talking about vaccine demand,” said Mollyann Brodie, executive vice president of Kaiser’s Public Opinion and Survey Research Program. “There’s not going to be a single strategy to increase demand across everyone who is left. There will be have to be a lot of individually targeted efforts. The people still on the fence have logistical barriers, information needs, and lots don’t yet know they are eligible. Each strategy might move a small number of people to get vaccinated, but all together, that could matter a lot…


    The Pfizer vaccine is expected to be authorized for children ages 12 through 15 within days. Among parents who were surveyed, three in 10 said they would get their children vaccinated right away, and 26 percent said they wanted to wait to see how the vaccine was working. …

    The responses from parents may well change over time, experts say. Just as adults were far more reluctant last summer when the vaccine was still a concept, parents surveyed several weeks ago, when imminent authorization for children under 16 had not been widely discussed, might also have been reacting to a hypothetical situation rather than a reality.

    But pediatricians and others who are seen as trusted sources of information are already aware that they have considerable work to do to instill vaccine confidence in this latest cohort.

    Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatrician in Denver who is vice chairman of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, predicted that just as adults had swarmed Covid vaccine providers during the initial weeks of distribution, parents and pent-up young teenagers would rush for it at the start, too.

    But Dr. O’Leary, who often gives talks to pediatricians about how to motivate patients to accept vaccinations, worries that a slowdown will inevitably follow. To persuade hesitant parents, he said, “we have to make the vaccine available in as many places as possible.”

    He added, “If parents and patients are in the pediatrician’s office and the doctor can say, ‘Hey, I’ve got it,’ that may be enough of a nudge for them to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and do this.’”

    #74581
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Left out the paragraph about herd immunity:

    With a growing number of scientists and public health experts concluding that it is unlikely that the country will reach the threshold of herd immunity, the Biden administration has stepped up efforts to reach those who are still hesitant. On Tuesday, the administration announced steps to encourage more pop-up and mobile vaccine clinics and to distribute shots to primary care doctors and pediatricians as well as local pharmacies.

    #74582
    absolute galore
    Participant

    @John Day: That was a typo. ATMO According to My Opinion. This was an early acronym created by a well-known bicycle frame builder back in the day that he used/uses on various bike forums.

    #74583
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Van Morrison: Latest Record Project Volume 1 review – depressing rants by tinfoil milliner

    People love Van way more than the government or the fox-guarding-the-henhouse Guardian. So very desperate, they are.

    #74584
    absolute galore
    Participant

    @madamski, thank you for your response and suggestions, much appreciated. And yes, that is essentially my beef with some of the writing, but I understand it is mostly up to us to sift through it.

    The funny thing about my conversation with my friend, who is no dummy, was that he was very agitated, while I was extremely calm, even, admittedly, unusually calm during our discussion. He kept saying that people who choose to pick a fight with the vaccines are actually angry about something else, and should look to identify what that might be. In other words, that this idea of freedom of one’s choice was merely an acting out based on some other grievance.

    BTW, I “identify” as a he/man. Not that I don’t appreciate my feminine side.

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