May 092021
 
 May 9, 2021  Posted by at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Daniel Garber Buds and Blossoms 1916

 

World’s Most Vaccinated Country Sees Unprecedented Spike In Covid Cases (WaPo)
The Virus Is An Airborne Threat, The CDC Acknowledges (NYT)
Covid-19 Fear Porn Has Cast A Chill Over Love, Sex, And Birthrates (Bridge)
Chelsea Clinton Calls For Global Crackdown On Anti-Vax Social Media Posts (LS)
New York Baseball Stadiums To Separate Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Fans (ET)
Beijing’s Elusive Bid For Pricing Power On Rare Earths (Ma)
Ex-CNN White House Reporter: Journalists Don’t Expect Govt Spying & Lying (RT)
Cyber Attack Shuts Down Top US Fuel Pipeline Network (R.)
NATO Allies Take Over Black Sea for Military Exercise (Antiwar)
US Finally Stops Pretending It Would Risk War With Russia Over Ukraine (RT)

 

 


Up in the Air – “How much does your life weigh?

 

 

 

 

Seychelles.

World’s Most Vaccinated Country Sees Unprecedented Spike In Covid Cases (WaPo)

As the Seychelles began to offer free coronavirus vaccinations early this year, President Wavel Ramkalawan told reporters that the country was planning to reach herd immunity within weeks. It was an ambitious target for a small, geographically isolated island nation in the Indian Ocean. But with its economy heavily reliant on tourism, the country called in favors to attain a vaccine supply from regional allies, including India and the United Arab Emirates. The effort initially seemed to be a success. The Seychelles stands as the most vaccinated nation on Earth, with more than 60% of its population fully vaccinated, more than other vaccine giants such as Israel and Britain, and almost twice the United States’ rate of vaccination.

But that success has been undermined this week as the Seychelles has found itself with its largest number of new coronavirus cases per capita, and has been forced to reinstate a number of restrictions. Though the number of new cases is relatively low – peaking at an average of just over 100 new cases a day – they are a big deal in a country with a population of less than 100,000. On a per capita basis, the Seychelles outbreak is worse than India’s raging surge. In a small country, even a small number of cases can be overwhelming. “A spike in cases places an enormous burden on an already strained public health system,” said Malshini Senaratne, director of Eco-Sol, an environmental consultancy firm in Seychelles.

With the country’s main treatment center for covid-19 patients nearing capacity and doctors and nurses among the sick, the Seychelles announced the return of coronavirus restrictions, school closures and limited opening hours for shops and restaurants. [..] So far, the number of deaths in the Seychelles attributed to the virus is relatively low – 28 out of more than 6,000 cases. But the surge in new cases may also confirm that the vaccines being used in the country have comparatively low effectiveness. Roughly 60% of the doses administered in Seychelles are vaccines made by the Chinese company Sinopharm that were donated to the Seychelles by the United Arab Emirates. The remaining doses are of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and produced by the Serum Institute of India.

In many ways, Seychelles government negotiations for vaccine supplies were savvy and speedy. But the country has ended up using two vaccines that appear to be less effective against symptomatic covid-19. The World Health Organization had recently estimated the efficiency of the Sinopharm vaccine at just over 78% for adults under 60, with little data on its success with older patients. The UAE has asked some who received the Sinopharm vaccine to return for third doses, citing low immune responses, though officials said only a “very small number” need to do so. Meanwhile, U.S. trials of AstraZeneca have found that the vaccine is 79% effective overall. Both vaccines are considerably lower in effectiveness than the vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna, which use mRNA technology and have reported effectiveness rates of around 95%.

Read more …

 

Shouldn’t this be: “The Virus Is An Airborne Threat, The New York Times Acknowledges”?

The Virus Is An Airborne Threat, The CDC Acknowledges (NYT)

Federal health officials on Friday updated public guidance about how the coronavirus spreads, emphasizing that transmission occurs by inhaling very fine respiratory droplets and aerosolized particles, as well as through contact with sprayed droplets or touching contaminated hands to one’s mouth, nose or eyes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now states explicitly — in large, bold lettering — that airborne virus can be inhaled even when one is more than six feet away from an infected individual. The new language, posted online, is a change from the agency’s previous position that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission.”

As the pandemic unfolded last year, infectious disease experts warned for months that both the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization were overlooking research that strongly suggested the coronavirus traveled aloft in small, airborne particles. Several scientists on Friday welcomed the agency’s scrapping of the term “close contact,” which they criticized as vague and said did not necessarily capture the nuances of aerosol transmission. “C.D.C. has now caught up to the latest scientific evidence, and they’ve gotten rid of some old problematic terms and thinking about how transmission occurs,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. The new focus underscores the need for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue standards for employers to address potential hazards in the workplace, some experts said.

“They hadn’t talked much about aerosols and were more focused on droplets,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington School of Public Health and head of OSHA in the Obama administration. He and other researchers expressed concern that the C.D.C. has not yet strengthened its recommendations on preventing exposure to aerosolized virus. The new information has significant implications for indoor environments, and workplaces in particular, Dr. Michaels said. Virus-laden particles “maintain their airborne properties for hours, and they accumulate in a room that doesn’t have good ventilation.” “There’s more exposure closer up,” Dr. Michaels said. “But when you’re further away, there’s still a risk, and also these particles stay in the air.”

Donald Milton, an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland, agreed that federal officials should provide better guidelines for keeping workplaces safe. “We need better focus on good respirators for people who have to be close to other people for long periods of time,” Dr. Milton said. “A surgical mask, even if it’s tucked in on the edges, is still not really going to give you enough protection if you’re in a meatpacking plant elbow to elbow all day long with other people.”

Read more …

 

‘Love in the Time of Cholera’

Covid-19 Fear Porn Has Cast A Chill Over Love, Sex, And Birthrates (Bridge)

Throughout history, mankind has been forced to contend with a number of serial diseases, many of which had a far better track record for killing than the current coronavirus strain, which comes with a better than 99 percent survival rate. And our ancestors confronted those invisible enemies with heroism, without feeling the need to sacrifice what made them quintessentially human. In the novel ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, by the late Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the prospect of death and dying during the cholera outbreak of the late 19th century took a deserved back seat to the animated celebration of life and love that leaps from every page. “There were cockfights in the patios, accordion music on the street corners, riders on thoroughbred horses, rockets and bells,” Marquez wrote of his South American town at a time when bubble-wrapping the populace was an unthinkable preventive measure against the pandemic.

“At midnight the visitors left, the public fiesta scattered into smoldering embers…” Despite this lusty, unbridled passion for life, Marquez was careful to point out that the native population was not reckless with its health and safety, but rather took all of the normal – with emphasis on the word ‘normal’ – precautions against the deadly cholera outbreak. In one scene reminiscent of our current imbroglio, a riverboat captain is confronted by an armed patrol assigned to stop any vessel that may be transporting infected passengers. He tells the patrol that he had “only three passengers on board and all of them had cholera… but none of the twenty-seven men of the crew had any contact with them.”

Nevertheless, the commander of the patrol “was not satisfied, and he ordered them to leave the bay and wait in Las Mercedes Marsh… while the forms were prepared for placing the ship in quarantine.” In other words, the people did what they could to prevent unnecessary death, but the great play of life never stopped or hid in the shadows. What will future writers convey about our current battle against Covid-19, which many believe has led humanity to the brink of absolute madness? That far from allowing the human spirit to triumph in the face of adversity, we cowered and hid ourselves in our homes, prevented children from learning and playing together, while letting our small businesses go up in proverbial flames? That is not the way humans over the millennia have responded to crises.

Even during the darkest moments of World War II, when the threat of a Nazi attack hung heavy in the air, the daily business of living did not stop. In similar fashion, people should not let the fear and risk of Covid destroy the essence of what it means to be human. If we stop living as a way to achieve victory over an enemy – be it a foreign adversary or an invisible contagion – then we have already admitted our defeat.

Read more …

A voice of authority.

Chelsea Clinton Calls For Global Crackdown On Anti-Vax Social Media Posts (LS)

Chelsea Clinton has spoken out against freedom of vaccine-critical speech at a Vatican conference dedicated to dialogue. Speaking during a pre-recorded online meeting, Clinton, 41, responded to a question about so-called “vaccine hesitancy” regarding COVID-19 vaccines by saying that there must be a global effort to crack down on vaccine-critical social media posts. “I personally very strongly believe there has to be more intensive and intentional and coordinated global regulation of the content on social media platforms,” she said. “We know that the most popular video across all of Latin America for the last few weeks that now has tens of millions of views is just an anti-vax, anti-science screed that YouTube has just refused to take down.”

Clinton added that anti-vaccine content created in the United States “flourishes” across the world by way of social media platforms. Her attempts to convince the managers of these sites to remove the material has not worked, she said. “We know that — because I have tried — that appealing to the leadership of these companies to do the right thing has just not worked, and so we need regulation.” Clinton is the Vice President of the Clinton Foundation and the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Like her parents, she is an outspoken advocate for abortion. She appeared alongside Dr. Paul Farmer of Harvard Medical School and Dr. Walter Ricciardi, the Italian president of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, at a pre-recorded online meeting forming part of the Fifth International Vatican “Unite to Prevent & Unite to Cure” conference. Their meeting was first aired today.

Clinton said that the Clinton Foundation has been doing what it can to convince the “vaccine hesitant” and the “vaccine refusers” to take doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. She believes it is important to differentiate between people who are “hesitant” and those in the “refusal group.” The “hesitant” have questions that she can answer, for instance regarding the speed at which the vaccines were developed, their ingredients, and “conspiracies about microchips.” The people in the “refusal group,” “often young people, don’t think they need the experimental vaccine or would prefer to wait a few years before taking it, Clinton added. They also include people in communities who “have been maltreated” by the American “health system for generations.”=

Read more …

“Cuomo insisted the new plan is legal. ”

New York Baseball Stadiums To Separate Vaccinated And Unvaccinated Fans (ET)

People who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine will be seated separately from those who have in two major baseball stadiums in New York, officials announced this week. The segregation will be enforced at Fans at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, home to Major League Baseball’s New York Mets and New York Yankees. “There are going to be separate sections for those who are vaccinated,” Randy Levine, president of the Yankees, told a May 5 briefing he joined with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “As we sell tickets on an individual basis, they will go into one of those two areas, either unvaccinated or vaccinated because we will have some inventory in both types of location,” added Sandy Alderson, the president of the Mets.

The details of how the new policy will be enforced are still being developed. Sections with people who are vaccinated against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, can be full, with no capacity restrictions. But in sections with unvaccinated people, fans will need to be spaced apart six feet. All fans, regardless of their status, must wear a mask, even though the games are played outdoors. “For baseball reopening, May 19th. Two different categories. Not Yankees/Mets. Vaccinated/Unvaccinated,” Cuomo, a Democrat who has refused calls to resign over sexual assault allegations and his administration hiding the number of elderly New Yorkers who died from COVID-19, told the briefing.

“I want to thank the Mets and the Yankees from the bottom of my heart. It’s a pain in the neck for them to operate this vaccinated and unvaccinated. The gentlemen who run the stadiums are here. It’s not easy to do this. Nobody’s done this before. Nobody’s done any of this before, let’s be honest,” he added. Cuomo insisted the new plan is legal.

Read more …

“Selling gold for the price of radishes”

Beijing’s Elusive Bid For Pricing Power On Rare Earths (Ma)

From ventilator and chip shortages to what kind of ships traverses through which canals, the linkages and nodes of the global economy have rarely been in the spotlight as much as they have over the last 12 months. Many of these disruptions are short-term ones, but they have also brought attention to longstanding challenges of supply chain resilience and dependence. One of those challenges is that of China’s grip on rare earth elements (REEs), a key input in permanent magnets that are in everything from smart phones and wind turbines to electric vehicles and missile guidance systems. This is not the first time these 17 elements that sit at the bottom of the periodic table have raised alarm from Tokyo to Washington. Back in 2010, Beijing was roundly accused of embargoing REE exports to Japan as Sino-Japan relations soured.

At the time, China was responsible for some 90%-plus of REE supplies globally, even though its estimated reserves are around just 25%-33% of the global total. Given the wide belief in Japan and the United States—which also happen to be the largest importers of REEs—that China could weaponize this resource, its supply monopoly raised hackles and intensified calls for diversification. A decade since, has much changed? I had trekked to Inner Mongolia’s Baotou Rare Earth Hi-Tech Zone back in 2010 to gain more insight into China’s designs on the REE industry and how that affected the global market. It’s worth revisiting this industry now to understand how its dynamics shaped Beijing’s thinking and intent on managing this resource.

China has long viewed REEs as a strategic resource, with the industry’s development spurred by a quip supposedly attributed to Deng Xiaoping: “The Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths.” Yet as China became the dominant supplier of REEs over subsequent decades, it saw the price of REEs plummet, hardly the price-setting influence that an OPEC exerted on oil prices. That frustrated the economic nationalists in Beijing, grumbling that China was essentially “selling gold at the price of radishes.” Much of that frustration stemmed from the government’s inability to regulate a wild industry that was rife with smuggling. At one point in 2011, it was estimated that there was a gap of 120% between REE volumes that China officially exported and what other countries imported.

Meanwhile, REE mining was also exacting a hefty environmental toll. The Chinese government decided it needed to consolidate the REE industry. Beijing thought it could clean up the illegal business, while also receiving some of that price-setting power that has long eluded it. What’s more, the move also dovetailed with rolling out the original “strategic emerging industries” initiative, the start of China’s effort to indigenize supply chains and move up the value chain. In other words, why export this resource for pennies when China should keep more of it for its own tech industries of the future?


Global Share of REE Production (in tons)

Read more …

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Ex-CNN White House Reporter: Journalists Don’t Expect Govt Spying & Lying (RT)

American whistleblower Edward Snowden and many others mocked a former CNN White House correspondent for insinuating that US government lies and spying were unique to the Trump administration and reporters don’t expect it. Michelle Kosinski, who worked as CNN’s White House correspondent between 2014 and 2019, claimed on Saturday that “as an American journalist, you never expect” your “own govt to lie to you,” “hide information the public has a right to know,” and “spy on your communications.” “Trump’s unAmerican regime did all of these. No one should accept this,” she concluded. Kosinski was quickly ridiculed, both for suggesting that American journalists were so naive and for making government surveillance and disinformation appear exclusive to former President Donald Trump’s brief administration.


Whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden – who leaked information about the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program on civilians and had to flee the US – told Kosinski, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” “You are hideously unqualified to be a journalist if you think this, good lord,” tweeted another person, while journalist Alan MacLeod called Kosinski’s thought process “the level of naive state worship required to get a top job in the media.” Despite the heavy criticism, Kosinski stood by her post, claiming Trump’s “tens of thousands of outright lies, treasonous allegiances, and attacks on democracy” weren’t “equivalent” to the mass surveillance and disinformation campaigns from previous administrations.

Read more …

A curious detail: ..a group dubbed “DarkSide,” known for deploying ransomware and extorting victims while avoiding targets in post-Soviet states ..

Cyber Attack Shuts Down Top US Fuel Pipeline Network (R.)

Top U.S. fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline has shut its entire network, the source of nearly half of the U.S. East Coast’s fuel supply, after a cyber attack that the company said was caused by ransomware. The incident is one of the most disruptive digital ransom operations ever reported and has drawn attention to how critical U.S. energy infrastructure is vulnerable to hackers. The shutdown has raised fears of a price spike at gasoline pumps ahead of peak summer driving season if it persists. Colonial transports 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products through 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of pipelines linking refiners on the Gulf Coast to the eastern and southern United States. Colonial said it shut down systems to contain the threat after learning of the attack on Friday.


That action also temporarily halted operations and affected some of its IT systems, the company said. While the U.S. government investigation is in early stages, one former official and two industry sources said the hackers are likely a professional cybercriminal group. The former official said investigators are looking at a group dubbed “DarkSide,” known for deploying ransomware and extorting victim swhile avoiding targets in post-Soviet states. Colonial said the incident involved the use of ransomware, a type of malware designed to lock down systems by encrypting data and demanding payment to regain access. Colonial has engaged a cybersecurity firm to launch an investigation and contacted law enforcement and federal agencies, it said.

Read more …

Just dumb stuff.

NATO Allies Take Over Black Sea for Military Exercise (Antiwar)

The Pentagon’s Special Operations Command Europe kicked off the Trojan Footprint 21 exercise on May 3; what is identified as its premier special operations forces drills. The war games will be held until May 14 in five Black Sea and Balkans nations: Bulgaria, Georgia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Romania. Special forces from the U.S. – all branches of the armed forces including Green Berets – the five host nations, Britain, Germany, Spain and Ukraine are involved. With the exception of Turkey, all Black Sea littoral states but Russia are participating.


The exercise is designed for “enhancing interoperability between NATO allies” to prepare for “counter[ing] myriad threats.” Though there aren’t a thousand, only one, threat. Russia. Just as it is all-service so it is “all-domain” with air, land and sea forces engaged in combating an unnamed adversary in the Black Sea. One which has a fleet based in Sevastopol in Crimea. Trojan Footprint 21 is occurring simultaneously with the massive DEFENDER-Europe 21 war games in the same area and ahead of the Steadfast Defender exercise, also to be held in the Black Sea region.

Read more …

“..revising a section in an official transcript to play down the prospect of Ukraine joining the NATO military bloc..”

US Finally Stops Pretending It Would Risk War With Russia Over Ukraine (RT)

Would the US go to war with Russia over Ukraine? As tensions escalate between Moscow and Kiev, some have warned that the latter’s ‘alliance’ with Washington could spiral into a conflict between the two main nuclear superpowers. Except, of course, there is no alliance between the US and Ukraine. This week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken effectively ended the notion that Ukraine has Western backers ready to step in at a moment’s notice if it finds itself under attack. Pressed on whether American forces could be sent into battle against Russian troops to support Kiev in the event of war in an interview with MSNBC, he answered only that Washington is committed to “helping Ukraine defend itself.”

In other words, no. Indeed, with these words, Blinken backed up suspicions in Moscow that Washington stands ready to fight Moscow down to the very last Ukrainian, but would never risk its own troops. It is difficult to overstate the importance of the secretary of state’s response, which has effectively ended a calculated policy of strategic ambiguity over Ukraine. For years, the State Department has been reluctant to be drawn on just how far it would go for the Eastern European nation, and whether it would send its own soldiers into battle for its supposed ally.

The fact that mask has slipped now fundamentally changes the nature of the situation. It comes as the White House has also seemingly pivoted its foreign policy in the region by revising a section in an official transcript to play down the prospect of Ukraine joining the NATO military bloc. After turning to the West following the 2014 Maidan, Kiev has played up its credentials with the EU and US, emphasizing the importance of its ‘alliances’ and its role as a vanguard against supposed Russian aggression towards Central Europe. That argument is now based on less and less evidence.

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 9 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 55 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #74847

    Daniel Garber Buds and Blossoms 1916   • World’s Most Vaccinated Country Sees Unprecedented Spike In Covid Cases (WaPo) • The Virus Is An Airborn
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 9 2021]

    #74848
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Daniel Garber Buds and Blossoms 1916

    Wow! Love that painting; never heard of Garber…but wow…

    #74849
    Django
    Participant

    First Hillary mouthing off about misinformation on the net and now Chelsea. Could the love of censorship be genetic?

    Why is she pointing at Sugar Mountain? Curiouser and curiouser. Back down my rabbithole.

    #74850
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    To continue with the topic I started at the end of the previous thread: In the case of the US, it’s pretty clear that the reason we are so fragile here right now, is that our post-2008 “recovery” was based heavily on intensive shale-oil fracking driven by printed money. Fracking never really generates enough of a net-energy gain to be sustainable, and this is especially true once all the “sweet-spots” have been thoroughly exploited. I have read speculation that we reached that point in late 2018/ early 2019.

    #74851
    Django
    Participant

    Stock up on petrol for your chainsaw. Another dark winter is forecast.

    #74852
    Germ
    Participant

    Retired UK Consultant Pathologist Dr. John Lee explains how they got it all wrong with Covid.

    A good interview that confirms most of what we here already know.

    https://tinyurl.com/4hudnxs

    #74853
    Germ
    Participant

    @Mr Robo – enjoy Dmitri Orlov giving his take on the energy complex and the virus.

    He’s always entertaining!

    Episode_6_Part_3_1080p_FINAL from Domination State on Vimeo.

    #74854
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Thanks, Germ, but as is par for the course for me these days, good old obsolete XP won’t let me play the video. 🙂

    #74855
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Madamski just knowing that the cognoscenti are still alive and chatting has my spirits high.

    We need some brain in the mother-stuffing game.

    #74856
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Man Chelsea seems the bossy controlling type. She may need a neck rub or a glass of wine or something. All that certainty must wear you out by the end of the day. I felt exhausted just reading her mouth-words from this computer thing.
    Speaking of which – they really are tricky to make

    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-chip-production-why-hard-to-make-semiconductors/?srnd=premium&fbclid=IwAR3g9WSyiOEdCsiJ0OJuAD8PytqudSXFhLS6VMdwhroJhfaHDzoPdG6YEyk

    #74857
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Man Chelsea seems the bossy controlling type.

    A real chip off the old block, it would appear. 😉

    #74858
    zerosum
    Participant

    Face the facts/reality
    The deciders are the enablers and your not one of them

    War games always result in wasting and destroying resources that could have been used/needed for important activities.
    (like a real war)

    Energy consumption will be rationed and delivered to critical and essential activities as determined by the deciders.

    sameold, sameold

    #74859
    zerosum
    Participant

    Early Sunday it’s been confirmed that China’s huge Long March 5B rocket made its out-of-control entry and plunged into the Indian Ocean Saturday night near the Maldives.

    #74860
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    • World’s Most Vaccinated Country Sees Unprecedented Spike In Covid Cases (WaPo)

    It’s interesting that among its warnings about the Covid vaccines, the Swiss Policy Research site says the spike in the Seychelles is most likely “a combination of the vaccination campaign spreading the virus (even into high risk groups), and people exposing themselves to higher risks prior to full protection.”

    Covid Vaccines: The Tip of the Iceberg

    On another page, Swiss Policy Research says that “the process of mass vaccination – with millions of high-risk people visiting vaccination centers, or being visited by mobile vaccination teams, e.g. in nursing homes – might accelerate infections, and ultimately deaths, in high-risk groups, before full vaccine protection becomes effective.”

    #74861
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    WRT the RT article about fear porn: I would guess that these other times in history the author of piece is discussing referred to a rather less fragile, rather less neurotic, rather less overpopulated world. As I surmised previously, it’s not so much about Covid but rather the kind of world that Covid inflicted itself upon. It certainly didn’t help that here in “the West”, we haven’t had a major war, famine, plague, or economic collapse (though 2008 came damn close) for an awfully long time, an era one might also characterize as one of hyper-abundance compared to most human history before it. So our social, political, and economic world wasn’t just fragile and neurotic when Covid happened along, but we had also “gone soft” to a very large extent.

    #74862
    zerosum
    Participant

    Stops on The Reality Road

    1. The working middle class are making ends meet by shopping at Walmart and Costco.

    2. Also, an increasingly larger population of working poor Americans use “dollar stores” across the country.

    3. Millions of folks, in a pre-Covid world, who shopped at middle to upper-class shops, who can no longer afford to continue pretending that they are well-to-do, are hiding their identity by wearing face masks, and are doing their shopping at second hand stores, (Salvation Army), for survival.

    4. Next stop: An affordable home. A mobile home for new grads and retires
    5. Next stop: Group homes. Refugee camps.
    6. Next stop: ????

    You said: Not in my back yard. Therefore, its not true/real.

    #74863
    Antidote
    Participant
    #74865
    Noirette
    Participant

    I tried to post a long thingie about the origins of sarscov2, but as happens often, my post doesn’t show – too many links, link shorteners, whatever.

    so here is just one link,

    Yuri Deigin

    https://bit.ly/3vRqCqj

    which is a first must read on this question.

    #74866
    Noirette
    Participant

    Another link I posted in the piece that didn’g go thru.

    A 2020 article about the 6 Chinese miners who fell ill, strange pneumonia, 3 died, in 2012, there is a link to the original masters thesis in it, which I posted long ago.

    The ‘origins’ stretch back that far.

    Lethal Pneumonia Cases in Mojiang Miners (2012) and the Mineshaft Could Provide Important Clues to the Origin of SARS-CoV-2

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7606707/

    #74867
    Noirette
    Participant

    The last parag of my failed post.

    The sarscov2 virus has been around for quite some time, since July 2019 at least (various analyses from EU) … a spike of serious cases in / around Wuhan alerted the docs there (they were at first ignored, then repressed) to a ‘novel virus’.

    So the ‘origins’ as in ppl falling seriously sick, first in Wuhan, leading to the speculation of the virus coming from the Wuhan lab (in any case nothing to do with the wet market) is questionable. Many labs were doing Gain of Function Research, it is whole globalised circuit, intricate, and quite secret, i.e. not openly reported on. The China vs. West narrative is kinda soothing, standard, and serves to distract, send ppl to sleep. If the virus ‘escaped’ from a lab (i.e. was deliberately created, which I consider v. likely) it could be from many places, or in a very much more complex scenario than the simple ‘created in Wuhan’ story-board.

    #74868
    zerosum
    Participant

    Gain of Function Research
    Wiki has intro info.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research
    In virology, gain-of-function research is employed to better understand current and future pandemics.[1] In vaccine development, gain-of-function research is conducted to gain a head start on a virus and to develop a vaccine or therapeutic before it emerges.[1]

    #74869
    Noirette
    Participant

    thx zero sum

    #74870
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    “..a group dubbed “DarkSide,” known for deploying ransomware and extorting victims while avoiding targets in post-Soviet states ..”

    cuz they’ll be tracked down and tossed into a sealed sewer? The post-Soviet states already went through their crash, their period when the MAfia was the only sane economic system/governance around, and surviving whatever half-assed gubmint arose from the mess. I doubt they deal lightly with that kind of crime in their front yard.

    #74871
    Germ
    Participant

    Here’s a paper from the Wuhan institute of virology detailing adding HIV sequences to SARS. This is from 2008.
    Interestingly many scientists claim SARS-CoV-2 has HIV sequences in its genome.
    They’ve all been discredited of course. /sarc

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2258702/

    #74872
    Germ
    Participant

    Sky News host Sharri Markson has assessed “chilling” details from a document produced by Chinese military scientists, in which they discussed weaponising SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
    The documents describe SARS coronaviruses as heralding a “new era of genetic weapons” and said they can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human – disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before”.
    The Chinese-language paper is called ‘The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons’.
    “The document also talks about the psychological terror that bioweapons can cause, it’s chilling,” Ms Markson said.

    #74873
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Hmmm. If Covid was designed to be deliberately released on the world, I would tend to see it more as a “disruption” attempt (which clearly succeeded) than as a bio-weapon. You would think a bio-weapon would be made to be good at killing or at least disabling healthy, military-age people.

    #74874
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ Mr Roboto

    You are using WinXP and having trouble playing video files. Have you tried using a “video downloader” website? There are websites where you can paste in the URL of a video and the downloader will convert it to a video file, which you can then download and play.

    Of course, then there the issues of having a player to play the file, and the ability to play the provided file is probably not native to XP. VLC is a good open source player, although you would likely need a version that is a decade old. There are websites that archive old installation files, if you need an older video player. And in XP you may need codecs…although a good video player will attempt to find the codecs automatically.

    Then I wonder at the reason for continuing to utilize a WinXP computer. Personally, I utilize one “virtual” XP system because I use QuickBooks 2004 to do the accounting for my business. I never did see the value in paying for “upgraded” software when the version I had did everything that I need. (And by running it on a virtual system, the hardware can’t break.).

    If the reason is to avoid the big corporations, avoid snooping, and you are a little tech savvy — or have time and patience available — you may want to explore the open-source GUI versions of Linux (Ubuntu, Lindows, etc.) which will give you access to “modern” web browsers and a system with more memory and processing power.

    #74875
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I have frequently wondered about how damned odd it was that it Covid started hitting the world outside China just exactly when the 2020 election season was starting up.

    #74876
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I actually do have a computer that is advanced enough that it could probably be upgraded to Windows 10, it just had XP installed into it when it was new. I’m not at all tech-savy, and upgrading from a very old version of Windows to 10 is something that’s out of my league. My concern about getting help from any computer-shop people out there is that they would be bound and determined to con me into buying a new computer from them when I don’t need a new computer.

    #74877
    absolute galore
    Participant

    Happy Mother’s Day to those of TAE commentariat who identify as Mom.

    #74878
    Germ
    Participant

    Sars-Cov-2:

    – NIH-funded,
    – unique, man-made, furin-like cleavage site (FCS) in the spike protein (S), which is absent in other lineage B βCoVs, such as SARS-CoV, is responsible for its high infectivity and transmissibility (gain of function),
    – escaped Wuhan accidentally mid-2019.

    Synthetic RNA-codon for the S-1 spike protein used in mRNA and DNA vaccines was provided to the US and others by Wuhan Institute of Virology.
    Bad idea – spikes induce platelet clotting.

    Chinese vaccines (Sinopharm and Sinovac) use deactivated whole virus and do not turn the human body into spike factories.

    Smart Chinese.

    #74879
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    Re: silicon chips
    @ Oxymoron — thx, enjoyed the article.

    Since it is so complicated and resource intensive to make these chips you would think that humans would put them in things that are designed to last. You would think that humans would put them in things that really provide an added benefit by having these chips in them. You would think that humans would design their software to promote these chips being used over a long period of time.

    Nope.

    Our phones and tablets are fragile. When they crack the cell phone provider wants to get us to purchase a new one to prolong our contract. Small electronics are often of shoddy construction, and break in less than a year. (For one of my 14 year old sons, no pair of headphones has ever lasted even a year.)

    We put silicone chips in battery testers, in doorbells, in washing machines, etc. — in devices that don’t require silicone chips to work and for which the addition of a silicone chip offers marginal utility. In most applications do I really need a thermometer that sends alerts to my cellphone about the current interior temperature of my home? If someone is home, they can adjust the thermostat or open/close the window. In most cases, if no one is home the temperature is not terribly important — it can vary by as much as 20 degrees with few adverse effects. (Okay…the houseplants might not fare well.)

    And we create software that forces people to upgrade our devices, throwing away older devices that work perfectly well. Apple is worse at this than Microsoft — going so far as pushing out updates designed to slow down older devices and batteries that cannot be easily changed by the device owner. (One of the reasons for bloat in Microsoft operating systems are redundancies to ensure backwards compatibility with older hardware and software.) A few years back I ended up purchasing a newer Android device because my bank did a software upgrade that was incompatible with my then Android phone and I could no longer deposit checks using my smartphone. Websites today are triply optimized to display well for computers, tablets, and smartphones. They could be optimized for display on older computers/devices/web browsers as well, to avoid folks feeling compelled to upgrade — but that is not done.

    Most of this waste is completely unnecessary. Yet, there we go, extracting and refining ever more silicone chips in billion dollar facilities run by mega-corporations…the rulers of the earth, creating the products that we all go out and buy and use, continuing their dominance.

    #74880
    Germ
    Participant

    Indian doctor using anti-coagulant before vaccinating to prevent death by vaccination!

    https://tinyurl.com/2dhxu4av

    Why these vaccines haven’t been pulled yet is astounding.

    #74881
    BoomerDoomer2
    Participant

    Mister Roboto said: “A real chip off the old block, it would appear.”

    In the middle of last night I came up with a new saying: “It takes a war criminal to raze a country.”

    Society will only turn a corner when the Clintons and those like them are no longer covered by any media.

    #74882
    island raider
    Participant

    Yesterday, I tried to post a link about a very positive article on ivermectin, but ended up in some kind of spammers prison. Trying again today:
    Ivermectin article
    And here is Dr. Peter McCullough being interviewed on fairly mainstream media about actually treating the virus (instead of simply sending people home & telling them to come back to the hospital when they are having trouble breathing. Located this on rumble. Searched youtube & could not find. Link:
    Peter McCullough interview

    #74883
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    @ mr Roboto

    If you look for a refurbished computer that already has Win10 installed, it will likely cost you less than having you WinXP computer upgraded — there is no direct upgrade path from WinXP or WinVista to Win10. It would be a new installation and migrating in your old data. Alternatively, you could probably find a refurbished Win10 computer for about $300 on eBay with some patience and time looking.

    If you go this route, be mindful of the connection to the monitor. XP usually used VGA (analog, 15 pin plug secured with screws) or DVI (digital, multiple pin combinations possibly with a bar or two, secured with screws). The current standards are HDMI and Display Port (both digital.). Many monitors and computers have a variety of these ports on them, and there are adapters to go between them, but it is helpful to check out the monitor ports before making a purchase so that you know what to expect.

    If you want to consider upgrading what you have, let me know how much memory you have and the processor model — I can tell you whether or not it is likely to run Win10 well. I’d suggest swapping out your hard drive (which is hopefully SATA and not IDE) with an SSD — they are now inexpensive and much faster than any hard drive from an XP computer (costing around $100, depending on size). Then you could keep your current hard drive as a secondary drive, with access to your current data.

    (Did I mention? My primary means of making a living is through my own computer service company.)

    #74884
    WES
    Participant

    Greco:

    I replied to you on 3rd page yesterday! Yes I worked as a field engineer for BE 1976 to 1984.

    #74885
    WES
    Participant

    Mister Roboto:

    Instead of messing with a new computer or upgrading software just buy a cheap $100 tablet to surf the internet with!. It comes with software. That is how I solved your situation while controlling the costs. The tablet is all I ever use these days. If I need a real computer my two kids have computers.

    The hardest part was learning how to use an on screen keyboard but this old dog did learn! My one finger typing is pretty fast now!

    #74886
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski:

    Darkside probably don’t bother with post-Soviet countries because first they have no money and second they probably don’t have much in the way of computer systems to hack! I notice darkside don’t bother 3rd world countries either probably for the same reason! Nothing to ransom!

    #74887
    Michael Reid
    Participant
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