Aug 182021
 
 August 18, 2021  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,


Salvador Dali Meditative rose 1958

 

Leaky Vaccines, Super-spreads, And Variant Acceleration (Gato Malo)
A Grim Warning From Israel: Vaccination Blunts, But Does Not Defeat Delta (SM)
Delta Spike P681R Mutation Enhances SARS-CoV-2 Fitness Over Alpha Variant (Bx)
Here’s Your (Dead) Canary (Denninger)
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Resigns Amid Skyrocketing COVID-19 Cases
The Authoritarian Takeover of Australia (Spiked)
Growing New Zealand Covid Cluster Linked To Sydney Delta Outbreak (G.)
Vaccine Mandate Protest Letter (Barnes Law)
One Of The Most Dangerous, Unpredictable Times In Modern History (BDW)
My Heart Is Broken by Biden’s Afghanistan Failure (Michael Flynn)
Biden’s Polling Takes Massive Hit Following Collapse Of Afghanistan (JTN)
Kamala Harris Is The Most Unpopular Vice President In 50 Years (DW)
Biden To Increase Food Stamp Benefits By 25%, Largest Hike In History (ZH)
US Gov’t Tells Americans In Afghanistan It ‘Can’t Guarantee’ Their Safety (DW)
Every American Stuck In Afghanistan To Receive A Mail-In Ballot (BBee)

 

 

DATA SHOWS COVID VARIANTS BEGAN AFTER VACCINATIONS STARTED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..you keep its host alive with a vaccine, then it can transmit and spread in the world. So it’s got an evolutionary future, which it didn’t have before.”

Leaky Vaccines, Super-spreads, And Variant Acceleration (Gato Malo)

The rule of evolution is simple: make a copy of me and pass it on. Any species still around to notice is very, very good at this. That’s the test and it’s as simple as it is daunting. This evolutionary selector creates pressures and these pressures shape evolution. Useful traits are conserved, traits that work against replication and propagation are selected against. This creates a simple evolutionary gradient for viruses: become more contagious, spread further, infect more hosts. Many viruses and bacteria are incredibly good at this. The good news is that harming the host is maladaptive. It’s like burning down your own house and your car with it. You soon have nowhere to live and no way to move around easily. So the selection process drives viruses away from being deadly. Ebola is a fearsome virus, but poorly evolved. It kills too quickly and spreads too slowly. That’s why outbreaks are small, rare, and (relatively) easy to manage.


People who feel sick stay home, they stop mingling and carrying the virus to where others are. It’s a built in societal and species level trait to mitigate pandemic. But what if you could break that trait? What if you could prevent a carrier from realizing it was infected? Well, then you’d spread virus far more effectively, wouldn’t you? You could do a lot of damage and the natural brake on the spread, harm, and lethality of a viral evolutionary vector would be removed. You’d supercharge a pandemic. This is a long discussed and hypothesized problem with “leaky” vaccines. A leaky vaccine is one that lacks sterilizing immunity. It prevents severe infection and perhaps death, but it does not stop infection and colonization by virus. So, the vaccinated become a carrier but remain unaware of it. This is a massive accelerator of disease spread and possibly/probably of overall fatality rates. You can see discussion here: (from 2015)

This is another example of “science we tossed out the window this year” and is exactly the sort of thing the fda should have been laser focused on from day one. “But a chicken virus that represents one of the deadliest germs in history breaks from this conventional wisdom, thanks to an inadvertent effect from a vaccine. Chickens vaccinated against Marek’s disease rarely get sick. But the vaccine does not prevent them from spreading Marek’s to unvaccinated birds. “With the hottest strains, every unvaccinated bird dies within 10 days. There is no human virus that is that hot. Ebola, for example, doesn’t kill everything in 10 days. In fact, rather than stop fowl from spreading the virus, the vaccine allows the disease to spread faster and longer than it normally would, a new study finds. The scientists now believe that this vaccine has helped this chicken virus become uniquely virulent.”

Stop for a minute and absorb what this means. By turning the vaccinated into essentially perfect carriers of virus, it transformed them into a set of plague rats to infect the rest. A disease so deadly it would burn itself out rapidly becomes one capable of endemic spread so long at there are more vaccinated carriers around. ““Previously, a hot strain was so nasty, it wiped itself out. Now, you keep its host alive with a vaccine, then it can transmit and spread in the world,” Read said. “So it’s got an evolutionary future, which it didn’t have before.”

Read more …

Even Science Mag. joins in.

“There are so many breakthrough infections that they dominate and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated..”

A Grim Warning From Israel: Vaccination Blunts, But Does Not Defeat Delta (SM)

Israel is being closely watched now because it was one of the first countries out of the gate with vaccinations in December 2020 and quickly achieved a degree of population coverage that was the envy of other nations— for a time. The nation of 9.3 million also has a robust public health infrastructure and a population wholly enrolled in HMOs that track them closely, allowing it to produce high-quality, real-world data on how well vaccines are working.

Israel’s HMOs, led by CHS and Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS), track demographics, comorbidities, and a trove of coronavirus metrics on infections, illnesses, and deaths. “We have rich individual-level data that allows us to provide real-world evidence in near–real time,” Balicer says. [..] Now, the effects of waning immunity may be beginning to show in Israelis vaccinated in early winter; a preprint published last month by scientists at MHS found that protection from COVID-19 infection during June and July dropped in proportion to the length of time since an individual was vaccinated. People vaccinated in January had a 2.26 times greater risk for a breakthrough infection than those vaccinated in April. (Potential confounders include the fact that the very oldest Israelis, with the weakest immune systems, were vaccinated first.)

At the same time, cases in the country, which were scarcely registering at the start of summer, have been doubling every week to 10 days since then, with the Delta variant responsible for most of them. They have now soared to their highest level since mid-February, with hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions beginning to follow. How much of the current surge is due to waning immunity versus the power of the Delta variant to spread like wildfire is uncertain. What is clear is that “breakthrough” cases are not the rare events the term implies. As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated. Of the vaccinated, 87% were 60 or older.

“There are so many breakthrough infections that they dominate and most of the hospitalized patients are actually vaccinated,” says Uri Shalit, a bioinformatician at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) who has consulted on COVID-19 for the government. “One of the big stories from Israel [is]: ‘Vaccines work, but not well enough.’” “The most frightening thing to the government and the Ministry of Health is the burden on hospitals,” says Dror Mevorach, who cares for COVID-19 patients at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem and advises the government. At his hospital, he is lining up anesthesiologists and surgeons to spell his medical staff in case they become overwhelmed by a wave like January’s, when COVID-19 patients filled 200 beds. “The staff is exhausted,” he says, and he has restarted a weekly support group for them “to avoid some kind of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] effect.”

Read more …

The picture is getting painfully clear.

Delta Spike P681R Mutation Enhances SARS-CoV-2 Fitness Over Alpha Variant (Bx)

SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant has rapidly replaced the Alpha variant around the world. The mechanism that drives this global replacement has not been defined. Here we report that Delta spike mutation P681R plays a key role in the Alpha-to-Delta variant replacement. In a replication competition assay, Delta SARS-CoV-2 efficiently outcompeted the Alpha variant in human lung epithelial cells and primary human airway tissues. Delta SARS-CoV-2 bearing the Alpha-spike glycoprotein replicated less efficiently than the wild-type Delta variant, suggesting the importance of Delta spike in enhancing viral replication. The Delta spike has accumulated mutation P681R located at a furin cleavage site that separates the spike 1 (S1) and S2 subunits.


Reverting the P681R mutation to wild-type P681 significantly reduced the replication of Delta variant, to a level lower than the Alpha variant. Mechanistically, the Delta P681R mutation enhanced the cleavage of the full-length spike to S1 and S2, leading to increased infection via cell surface entry. In contrast, the Alpha spike also has a mutation at the same amino acid (P681H), but the spike cleavage from purified Alpha virions was reduced compared to the Delta spike. Collectively, our results indicate P681R as a key mutation in enhancing Delta variant replication via increased S1/S2 cleavage. Spike mutations that potentially affect furin cleavage efficiency must be closely monitored for future variant surveillance.


Read more …

Saw the article Karl talks about, on an outlet called Wesh(?!). But “Not available in your region”.

Here’s Your (Dead) Canary (Denninger)

She said, up until two weeks ago, she was able to successfully treat every patient who contracted COVID-19. But, since then, she said seven fully vaccinated patients died from complications, such as pneumonia or stroke, caused by the virus. “They were all fully vaccinated, which was disturbing… For one, I got to the hospital, the initial report, he was doing well. 2 liters of oxygen, sitting up, good saturation rate, crashed in 72 hours and died,” Seemann said. This sort of ridiculous acceleration of disease progression is a screaming safety signal. It strongly implies, but does not prove, that the vaccine turned on the recipient and when later exposed made the progression of disease worse.

This was repeatedly demonstrated in animal testing with the original SARS virus when vaccine development was attempted. It was believed the cause of it was evaded by the current vaccines developed for Covid-19 but the only way to know for sure was to take years of testing to make certain that the ordinary mutational patterns that all viruses undergo did not result in such an outcome down the road. This is one of the many reasons it takes 10+ years to qualify a vaccine; you can’t un-take the shot, and if something like this happens and then you get infected you’re ****ed. She said the vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective and there is a 4 percent chance of failure, but she still recommends it.

She has no evidence to support that these patients had an actual failure to build an effective antibody response. None. Zero. Determining that would require a fairly significant amount of lab and pathology work, which simply can’t be done that fast. These people need to be autopsied and exactly what happened determined. It won’t be done because if it is, and it turns out that they had circulating titers of binding antibodies for Covid in their system then it will be scientifically-irrefutable evidence that there are millions of Americans walking around with ticking bombs in their veins and there is nothing that can be done about it. The reason you don’t short-time vaccine studies, ever, is that THE VIRUS ALWAYS BATS LAST.

Read more …

“..despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June to tackle the crisis..”

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Resigns Amid Skyrocketing COVID-19 Cases

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin resigned less than 18 months into his tenure Monday, becoming the country’s shortest-ruling leader after conceding that he lost majority support to govern. Science Minister Khairy Jamaluddin wrote on Instagram that “the Cabinet has tendered our resignation” to the king, shortly after Muhyiddin left the palace after meeting the monarch. Deputy Sports Minister Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal also thanked Muhyiddin for his service and leadership in a Facebook message. Muhyidddin’s departure will plunge the country into a fresh crisis amid a worsening COVID-19 pandemic. Political leaders have already begun to jostle for the top post, with his deputy Ismail Sabri rallying support to succeed Muhyiddin and keep the government intact.


His resignation comes on the back of mounting public anger over what was widely perceived as his government’s poor handling of the pandemic. Malaysia has one of the world’s highest infection rates and deaths per capita, with daily cases breaching 20,000 this month despite a seven-month state of emergency and a lockdown since June to tackle the crisis. Local media said the national police chief, the Election Commission chairman and the attorney-general were also summoned to the palace Monday before Muhyiddin arrived. Muhyiddin, who chaired a Cabinet meeting at his office earlier Monday, waved at reporters at the palace gate and left 40 minutes later.

Read more …

“Some of us thought: who the bloody hell is this sheila? Not only had I never heard of her, I hadn’t listened to anything anyone like her had said since I’d been kicked out of high school.”

The Authoritarian Takeover of Australia (Spiked)

People who once thought they’d won the lottery of life by being born in Australia now wake in fright every day to the sudden realisation that they are living in a 21st-century penal colony. The country they once loved has been replaced by something they barely recognise. The restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic are just the start of it. People have been confined to their houses, prevented from going to school or work, denied the freedom to cross state borders even to see a dying relative, and coerced to take a vaccine in order hopefully to regain the freedoms that were once their birthright. Worse, these restrictions are being imposed by authoritarians who have seemingly come from nowhere and now dominate all of Australia’s positions of power, from the government to big business.

These people are unlike any ruling elite Australia has ever known. There were, to be sure, harsh authoritarians in middle levels of power during the nation’s initial 19th-century incarnation as a penal colony, especially at Port Arthur and Norfolk Island. But they never actually ran Australia. [..] Australians have, like the original settlers, never felt the need to explain the ideas on which their nation was founded. They have simply believed their version of Enlightenment truths to be self-evident in the standard of living they enjoyed and the audacious disrespect they showed for other, older cultures. I grew up in a country where such confidence was ubiquitous. A lack of academic achievement was never an impediment as long as you worked hard. Obstacles that were insurmountable to people from other countries were mere challenges to us. And we approached it all with a fatalistic humour that seemed all our own.

New South Wales chief health officer Kerry Chant became world famous recently when a video of her went viral. In it, she said, in the patronising tone of a school matron: ‘It is human nature to engage in conversation with others, to be friendly. Unfortunately, this is not the time to do that. So even if you run into your nextdoor neighbour, in the shopping centre, at Coles, Woolworths or Aldi or any other grocery shop, don’t start up a conversation.’ Some of us thought: who the bloody hell is this sheila? Not only had I never heard of her, I hadn’t listened to anything anyone like her had said since I’d been kicked out of high school. My robust upbringing among ratbags and larrikins in the Australian suburbs had instilled in me an instinctive and entirely rational distrust of anyone who, like her, placed an undue significance on obedience above personal freedom and responsibility. My life has been, and continues to be, all the better for it.

New South Wales residents were surprised to learn they had been paying Chant’s wages since she joined the public service in 1991. Like many of her fellow neo-authoritarians, she had spent her entire career cloistered away from the freely enterprising general population, biding her time until the opportunity arose to exercise the powers none of us knew she had. Now she and her type are all around us, telling us what to do every minute of the day. She is emblematic of Australia’s new elite, from the cops who told me to ‘move on’ when I was enjoying the sunshine by myself at Bondi Beach recently, to prime minister Scott Morrison, who peppers his updates on the latest panicking policies with reminders that ‘we are all in this together’. No, we’re not.

Read more …

Weirdest thing is they stopped vaccinations. Don’t really believe in those, I guess?

But also, what is the idea here? That they can have zero cases? And then? Lock the door?

Growing New Zealand Covid Cluster Linked To Sydney Delta Outbreak (G.)

New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to 10, with genomic sequencing linking it to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, as the country woke up to day one of a snap lockdown stemming from just one case. The prime minister’s office confirmed three new cases on Wednesday evening. The Covid-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins, told broadcaster RNZ “we’re seeing more cases coming through, I don’t have details of those cases. But yes, I can confirm that we have further positive test results since the press conference today.” He expected more cases to emerge overnight. The country went into a snap level four lockdown – the highest level of restrictions – on Tuesday night, after detecting one case with no obvious links to the border.

New Zealand has not had a level four lockdown in more than a year, and the case is the country’s first instance of Delta transmission in the community. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, warned on Wednesday that there would be more cases given the activity of those infected and that a link to the border had yet to be established, adding “there is more to be done to help piece together this puzzle”. “Our ability to narrow down that this is a case that is linked to New South Wales outbreak, gives us a lot of leads to chase down as quickly as we can,” she said. The seven community cases are all linked to the 58-year-old man who tested positive on Tuesday. One person is a fully vaccinated nurse at Auckland city hospital and another is a teacher at an Auckland high school.

[..] The vaccine rollout will also continue from Thursday morning, after momentarily being paused. The country’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout has faced scrutiny. As of Monday, 22.9% of the population had been fully vaccinated, with 40% having had at least one dose. The numbers are lower for fully vaccinated Maori (14%) and Pasifika (20%) populations, and New Zealand has the lowest vaccination rate in the OECD, according to the World Health Organization.

Read more …

Attorney f @barnes_law i has put together a warning letter for people to use (free of charge) when their employers force them into getting the jab.

Vaccine Mandate Protest Letter (Barnes Law)

No authorship claim or copyright asserted…this letter just came to me in a bottle, and I have no idea who might have penned it, nor can I possibly vouch for it, and what you fine folks do with it is entirely in your own hands, as the Gentlemen of the Bar remind me I can proffer no general legal advice in the matter, and must officially disclaim proffering any such advice here…edit and excise as you see fit, amend and append as you desire, and claim authorship or anonymity as may best befit you…as always, as you wish…

Dear Boss,

Compelling any employee to take any current Covid-19 vaccine violates federal and state law, and subjects the employer to substantial liability risk, including liability for any injury the employee may suffer from the vaccine. Many employers have reconsidered issuing such a mandate after more fruitful review with legal counsel, insurance providers, and public opinio n advisors of the desires of employees and the consuming public. Even the Kaiser Foundation warned of the legal risk in this respect. (https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/key-questions-about-covid-19-vaccine-mandates/)

Three key concerns: first, while the vaccine remains unapproved by the FDA and authorized only for emergency use, federal law forbids mandating it, in accordance with the Nuremberg Code of 1947; second, the Americans with Disabilities Act proscribes, punishes and penalizes employers who invasively inquire into their employees’ medical status and then treat those employees differently based on their medical status, as the many AIDS related cases of decades ago fully attest; and third, international law, Constitutional law, specific statutes and the common law of torts all forbid conditioning access to employment upon coerced, invasive medical examinations and treatment, unless the employer can fully provide objective, scientifically validated evidence of the threat from the employee and how no practicable alternative could possible suffice to mitigate such supposed public health threat and still perform the necessary essentials of employment.

At the outset, consider the “problem” being “solved” by vaccination mandates. The previously infected are better protected than the vaccinated, so why aren’t they exempted? Equally, the symptomatic can be self-isolated. Hence, requiring vaccinations only addresses one risk: dangerous or deadly transmission, by the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic employee, in the employment setting. Yet even government official Mr. Fauci admits, as scientific studies affirm, asymptomatic transmission is exceedingly and “very rare.” Indeed, initial data suggests the vaccinated are just as, or even much more, likely to transmit the virus as the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic. Hence, the vaccine solves nothing.

Read more …

Twitter thread. Bryan Dean Wright is a former CIA Ops. officer.

One Of The Most Dangerous, Unpredictable Times In Modern History (BDW)

Former US intelligence colleagues are angry and deeply worried at what has happened in Afghanistan. Here’s what I’m hearing, and why there’s nearly universal belief that America and the world are in for one of the most dangerous, unpredictable times in modern history. Afghanistan has shown the world — enemies & allies alike — that our military & intel assets are largely irrelevant because we can’t deploy them successfully. The blame lays at the feet of multiple Presidents. The Generals. The Spies. The Congress. America’s Elites are trash. China knows it. They will become emboldened, covertly & overtly. War over Taiwan and contested islands in the S. China Sea and E. China Sea is now more likely. Russia will consider similar covert & overt moves, focused on Crimea, & former Soviet satellites. The fear is that China & Russia will act in concert.

Why? America was whipped by a tiny rebel force and couldn’t even retreat properly. Meanwhile, the American people are angry, COVID weary, & divided. If there were ever a time to push American hegemony aside, this is it. If Cold War III grows hot, America will need to quickly build up & work with foreign counterparts. But who will trust America after Afghanistan? Who believes we have the leadership to use our military might well? Who will trust us when we say “We Will Stand With You”? Beyond China/Russia, others will take gambles too. Terror orgs like al-Qa’ida & ISIS are degraded but not dead. Their ideology is very much alive. Iran’s Hizballah — with terror cells throughout the US — may see an opening to create chaos too. Meanwhile, the disaster inside Afghanistan is only just beginning.

The Taliban will launch a terror campaign against American collaborators. The pictures will shock the conscience of the world, further degrading American moral authority. Biden & Co will struggle to respond. There’s also the nightmare of tactical weaponry now awash in Afghanistan, in the hands of the Taliban and — soon — on the global black market. These arms will fuel chaos around the world for decades. The Pentagon has no idea where this stuff is and no plans to destroy it. Finally, if Afghani refugees pour into the US, there are profound implications for security, culture, the economy, & politics. Are they properly vetted? Do they hold Western / tolerant values re: women, gays? Do they bring skills / education? Which party will they support?

The existential problem is that America needs good leadership to right its ship but there is none. Our federal bench is weak. Biden is a corrupt old man. Impeachment is a long shot; VP Harris is an unpopular paperweight. The Legislature is a feckless cabal of empty suits. Leadership could come from a state Governor, it’s true, but not soon enough. The above threats by China, Russia, & Co will metastasize well before the 2024 elections, and even a heroic new President will need years to clean things up. Again, our enemies and allies know this. Upshot: There is fear and outrage streaming through former intel officers over the Afghanistan debacle. America is rudderless. And the world now knows it. Grave dangers lie ahead, some predictable, others unimaginable. Keep your loved ones tight. Pray. And vote for change.

Read more …

The military comes to resent Biden, because he squandered all their efforts, and also to avoid being thrown under the bus.

My Heart Is Broken by Biden’s Afghanistan Failure (Michael Flynn)

My heart breaks as I see the Afghan people flood the Kabul airport in the hope of escaping the Taliban. President Biden’s assurances — supposedly based on what he was told by his intelligence community — that the Afghan Armed Forces were fully able to defeat the Taliban proved to be colossally wrong. Americans want to know whether President Biden and Defense Secretary Austin’s military-wide “stand-down” order to root out insufficiently woke “extremists” in the armed forces has caused our Defense Department to ignore what is unfolding in Afghanistan, as well as other real threats to our nation. After Afghanistan, I believe we can no longer rely on neocon senior military leaders, talking heads and politicians.

We have allowed military and civilian lawyers (read: rules of engagement restrictions) to become all-powerful, and many of our generals have been so indecisive and risk-averse that they are acting as little more than career-seeking politicians. We have been trained at participating in wars but untrained at winning wars since WWII. Afganistan is a tragic situation, much like the Kurds in Iraq, but at least President Trump drove up our respect internationally, which proves that being tough and smart is better than being tough and stupid. Today I don’t believe America is respected the way we were only a few short months ago. More countries visit China these days than come to the U.S., and China is prepped to recognize the Taliban once they declare the Islamic State — if only to embarrass us.

Seeing our defeat, my sense is Taiwan is having some incredibly uncomfortable internal discussions — as are a lot of U.S. allies in Europe. I also believe China is doing a lot of wargaming of costs and benefits with respect to future moves in the South China Sea and Europe. America is now in a fully engaged information war. Soon it may be worse. I pray our senior military leadership is intensely planning all options; the best plan offers the most options at the last possible moment. Trust me, our enemies are not waiting. They plan and they don’t care about stupid mask policies or fake insurrection show trials. Our enemies will be working on the next three vulnerabilities we haven’t even thought about. I believe Russia and China have a clear-eyed understanding of our corrupt political leadership that they and many other nations no longer respect or fear. America will come back soon, but it will come at a cost.

Read more …

46% approve? Of what?

Biden’s Polling Takes Massive Hit Following Collapse Of Afghanistan (JTN)

According to several new polls, President Biden is in trouble following the collapse of the Afghan government as U.S. and western troops withdrew from the troubled country after 20 years. A Rasmussen Reports poll illustrates the president’s approval index is currently 17 points down from where he started in January – the lowest it’s been since he took office. A total of 46% of Americans approve of Biden’s performance while 53% disapprove – also the highest that number has been. A new report from Convention of States Action in conjunction with the Trafalgar group shows that 69.3% of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of military operations – a supermajority of the population. Just 23.1% approve, and 7.5% have no opinion.


Even among Democrats, 48.2% disapprove, compared to just 39.8% who approve of Biden’s Afghan strategy. Among GOP voters a stunning majority at 88.8% disapprove, while just 7.1% of Biden’s actions. Numbers for political independents tilt closer to GOP figures, with a total of 74.8% disapproving of the handling of military operations, and 19.8% giving a nod of approval. Democrats in Congress are speaking out against the actions of the president, and though National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is set to brief the press corp today alongside Jen Psaki, none of Biden’s military leaders appeared alongside the Commander-in-Chief yesterday, as he deflected blame for the Afghan collapse during a brief speech.

Read more …

I had to look this up, but sure, maybe Spiro Agnew was at one point less popular than Kamala. Close call no doubt.

Kamala Harris Is The Most Unpopular Vice President In 50 Years (DW)

Vice President Kamala Harris has only been in office for six months, but she is already the most unpopular vice president since at least the 1970s, according to recent polls. The Los Angeles Times on Monday reported that as of July 27, “45% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of Harris and 48% had an unfavorable opinion — a net rating of -3 percentage points, according to a Times average.” The most recent YouGov tracking poll shows that Harris’ unfavorability rating has hit 49%, while her favorability rating sits at just 45%. Harris’ unpopularity is worse than former Vice President Mike Pence’s was six months into his tenure, according to The Telegraph.


The outlet reported that around this same time in 2017, Pence’s unfavorability rating sat at 41.9%, while his favorability rating was 42.1%. Pence may have been helped by a massive media focus on then-President Donald Trump and false accusations that he was a Russian agent who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. During the Biden administration, much more focus has been on Harris since she’s the first black female vice president. President Joe Biden, however, has put her in charge of some nearly impossible tasks, including handling the situation on the southern border. As the Times reported, Harris’ approval ratings started to decline after she was assigned the task, though Biden also received a small decline in job approval.

Read more …

Buying votes.

Biden To Increase Food Stamp Benefits By 25%, Largest Hike In History (ZH)

Having solved domestic problems like inflation and foreign problems like the complete and total collapse of Afghanistan in minutes after the U.S. withdrew from the country, President Biden is now focused on offering the largest long-term increase in food stamp benefits in the program’s history. The program adds “billions of dollars in costs” to the government, Bloomberg noted in a writeup this weekend. But, in Biden’s defense, what are dollars anymore, after all? Benefits are set to rise more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels for some 42 million people enrolled in the program. Average monthly benefits will rise $36 per person, from $121, according to the report.


Yet despite the rise, there are still “anti-hunger advocates” that believe it isn’t enough. The Agriculture Department is responsible for the hike in benefits – which can be done without congressional approval – but adjusting the estimated costs of food. The USDA makes a “shopping list” to determine benefits which, when updated, can adjust the amount of benefits issued to recipients. The basket of food items used for the list was started in 1961 and then updated in 1975. Its latest review was in 2006. Benefits were set to drop prior to the planned update as a result of a September 30 expiration of a 15% boost in pandemic relief. Even with the boost, the USDA budget for a family of four amounts to about $22 in food per day. As Bloomberg notes, food stamps used to be bipartisan common ground, but have since “evolved into a partisan flashpoint”. Biden’s plans stand at odds with how President Trump attempted to limit eligibility for the aid. Trump’s attempts were overturned by courts.

Read more …

Most popular president.

US Gov’t Tells Americans In Afghanistan It ‘Can’t Guarantee’ Their Safety (DW)

President Joe Biden’s administration told American citizens trapped in Afghanistan that the administration cannot guarantee their safety if they travel to the airport in Kabul to be evacuated. The news comes as thousands of American citizens remained trapped as Taliban terrorists have now taken control of the country. The Biden administration sent the following message to Americans trapped in Afghanistan: “To American Citizens, Thank you for registering your request to be evacuated from Afghanistan. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has confirmed that an undefined number of U.S. government provided flights will begin soon. Please make your way to Hamid Karzai International Airport at this time. PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SECURITY AS YOU MAKE THIS TRIP.”

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“The Air Force will conduct a daring airdrop at night to deliver hundreds of pallets of paper ballots..”

Every American Stuck In Afghanistan To Receive A Mail-In Ballot (BBee)

Congress passed emergency legislation today to address the thousands of U.S. citizens still trapped in Afghanistan. The new legislation will mobilize the Air Force to drop much-needed absentee ballots for Americans eager to vote in the 2022 election. “Our heart goes out to the helpless Americans still stuck in Taliban-controlled Kabul,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. “We know they are eager to vote for us in the upcoming elections, and we will not rest until they receive the ballots they deserve. To our American friends overseas, help—in the form of easy-to-fill-out ballots—is on the way!” The Air Force will conduct a daring airdrop at night to deliver hundreds of pallets of paper ballots into the waiting hands of American citizens, eager to vote for their favorite Democrat politicians. To make things easy, Democrats have ensured all the ballots will be pre-marked for Democrats.

Read more …

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle August 18 2021

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  • #84326

    Salvador Dali Meditative rose 1958   • Leaky Vaccines, Super-spreads, And Variant Acceleration (Gato Malo) • A Grim Warning From Israel: Vaccinat
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle August 18 2021]

    #84328
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “Stop for a minute and absorb what this means. By turning the vaccinated into essentially perfect carriers of virus, it transformed them into a set of plague rats to infect the rest. A disease so deadly it would burn itself out rapidly becomes one capable of endemic spread so long at there are more vaccinated carriers around. ”

    Perhaps this was known, and done on purpose. Think about it, if everyone is jabbed this could go on forever and ever and ever. The great reset……..and unending medical tyranny and discrimination.

    #84329
    Mr. House
    Participant

    also i don’t condone the usage of the word plague rats, for jabbed or unjabbed.

    #84330

    What, you look at Afghanistan and you STILL think they’re capable of executing some grand plan?

    #84331
    chooch
    Participant

    Holy Crap. Thanks Raul

    #84332
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    also i don’t condone the usage of the word plague rats, for jabbed or unjabbed.

    I do…

    #84333
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “What, you look at Afghanistan and you STILL think they’re capable of executing some grand plan?”

    Doesn’t mean they won’t try. Desperation makes people do many stupid things.

    #84336
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Good V. Arnold, your hatred gives you focus 😉

    #84337
    oxymoron
    Participant

    The Taliban (Pashtuns?) have won by being hardened, having little luxury and strong beliefs and ‘tight-as’ accountability. We don’t have that in Australia so I feel the members of the ruling class will have a little more of their way with us – at least in the short term and particularly through force.
    It is quite the show, this first large and noticeable step down the energy/collapse ladder.

    Being able to pivot seems essential – even over what once were solid strategies like gold, permaculture, skills.

    I am coming around to the early primers from TAE and one big take away sticking with me is to be of your word and be of use/value – whatever that is. Be reliable, trustworthy, flexible, understanding and honest. It is going to go a long way going forward.

    Oh and D Benton – loved your musings from yesterday!

    #84338
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Also while we are wrapping our heads around Afghanistan it is worth revisiting Orlov’s post from a short while back. A great pan-back perspective on elements of the shit show.

    https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-case-study-in-national-shame.html

    #84339
    those darned kids
    Participant

    WESH, NBC, Orlando, Daytona Beach:

    7 fully vaccinated COVID-19 patients die in what doctors say is extremely rare situation

    She says up until two weeks ago, she was able to successfully treat every patient who contracted COVID-19, but since then, she says seven fully vaccinated patients died from complications, like pneumonia or stroke, caused by the virus

    OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. —
    Patricia Seemann runs her own medical practice, providing health care services to homebound patients.

    She said, up until two weeks ago, she was able to successfully treat every patient who contracted COVID-19. But, since then, she said seven fully vaccinated patients died from complications, such as pneumonia or stroke, caused by the virus.

    “They were all fully vaccinated, which was disturbing… For one, I got to the hospital, the initial report, he was doing well. 2 liters of oxygen, sitting up, good saturation rate, crashed in 72 hours and died,” Seemann said.

    She said the vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective and there is a 4 percent chance of failure, but she still recommends it.

    “We explain when I give the vaccine, ‘Look, this is not 100%, but in life, you have to give yourself the best possible odds,” Seemann said.

    •••• there’s more, but it’s just mask/all in this together boilerplate.

    #84341
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #84342
    John Day
    Participant

    Bluebird noticed my blog disappeared yesterday. It did that after I posted and went to work, so I didn;t notice, but Google sent us a notice that our Google service had been suspended. No reason.
    “Try to log back on”. Look at all of the possible reasons it might have happened at these links. Everything imaginable.
    No clues, but it happened a few hours after I posted the blog, then un-happened.
    Maybe I said something wrong on the blog, or in the bcc email version of it that I send at the same time.
    “Self Criticize!” was the command in the Cultural Revolution era, I think.

    @Phoenix Voice: When does social distancing become ostracizing?
    My Clinic is moving in that direction, with a timeline, which appears to be some time in the second half of September at this point, but not yet announced.
    Our virtual leper colony may go “poof”…
    Meditate and worship.
    ;-}

    #84343
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    This afternoon the Dutch parliament will discuss how far the solidarity of the vaxxed should extend to those who refuse to “protect” themselves. This makes me almost speechless with rage. Parliament seems to be woefully badly informed, they apparently know next to nothing about the mountain of adverse reactions and deaths, and know even less about ADE, micro clots, breakthrough viruses, prion disease, natural immunity, prophylactic treatments etc, etc.

    How can we be governed by people who haven’t a clue?

    #84344
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Right after my previous post I saw this:

    “Banks block accounts of ‘conspiracy thinkers’ & ‘anti-vaxers’: ‘This is what the Netherlands have become’
    Several banks have blocked accounts of organizations that they believe are spreading ‘fake news’ about corona and vaccinations. NRC writes that at least eight channels have been put on hold or have been closed from their bank account or payment service, including Viruswaarheid and De Blauwe Tijger.

    Rabobank writes in an internal message: “Rabobank does not facilitate initiatives that actively spread conspiracy theories and other proven disinformation.” Triodos Bank refuses to be a customer, according to NRC Viruswaarheid. According to the bank, Virus Truth has “called for confrontations that are at odds with our values.”

    In April, payment service Mollie banned the YouTube channel Café Weltschmerz. Bunq bank no longer wanted Doctors for Truth as a customer.

    The message led to many critical reactions. “Censorship has many faces,” writes program maker Flavio Pasquino of BLCKBX.

    Journalist Eric van de Beek adds: “This is what my country has become. Dissidents who are cut off from the payment system. I propose: blacklist for banks that are most often guilty of this. We say our bank accounts on that.”

    “Interesting. The three largest banks in the Netherlands (ING, Rabo and ABN Amro) are already ‘partners’ of the WEF. Others would like to become one,” comments Member of Parliament Gideon van Meijeren (FVD). “When they say ‘incompatible with the bank’s mission,’ do they mean Klaus Schwab’s mission?”

    General practitioner Els van Veen responds: “There is a media offensive/information war going on against ‘fake news’. And fake is, of course, anything that does not fit into the government’s corona narrative.”

    https://www.ninefornews.nl/banken-blokkeren-rekeningen-van-complotdenkers-antivaxers-dit-is-er-geworden-van-nederland/

    #84345
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    #84346
    those darned kids
    Participant

    “How can we be governed by people who haven’t a clue?”

    it has always been this way. any government, regardless of ideology, will be populated by sociopaths because these are the people that really, really, really want the job.

    just think of your political system. have you ever met a politician personally? ew (most of the time). usually, the ones me meet are just local politicians, and they generally seem slimy. imagine how ruthless someone has to be in order to slime up that mudhill to become #1.

    these people are really good at using tidbits of semi-fact – often things they don’t really understand – to manipulate “normal” people into doing all sorts of horrible and/or ridiculous things.

    they have many clues, but they are all used personal gain.

    the scum rises to the top.

    #84347
    deflationista
    Participant

    The Israel story could be a real world example of Simpson’s Paradox with very important consequences.

    #84348
    absolute galore
    Participant

    ADE = the vaxxed are flucked.

    Marek’s = the unvaxxed are double flucked.

    Both = uh oh.

    I am heading to Restaurant Depot with a friend’s card to pick up some supplies for a 3-4 week “empty shelf” scenario. Someone mentioned a tasty brand of powdered milk? Also curious what others might be doing in terms of preparation for a month or so of limited availability of essentials. I know some are better set up than others, but curious given the looming possibility of another domestic crisis or two landing on top of the pandemic thing–an attack on the financial system, a terrorist event–that could disrupt important supply chains, what kind of basic supplies are folks are salting away for, say, a month of no shopping available.

    While I have been following the collapse scene for well over a decade, with a divorce and other life circumstances I have not been able to “set myself up.” In any case, the more you think about it, the less feasible most “solutions” become. The basic idea as stated above, be forthright, be helpful, be in good standing and with friends in your community. And have a good supply of oatmeal, beans, Vitamin D, coffee beans.

    #84349
    absolute galore
    Participant

    If local authorities can’t get something jumpstarted within a month or so to keep people fed, that’s a scenario you can’t really plan for anyway. Or bother dwelling on.

    #84350
    absolute galore
    Participant

    deflationista writes: The Israel story could be a real world example of Simpson’s Paradox with very important consequences.

    Damn, I thought I was going to see another episode of Homer, Marge, Bart.

    So it’s just a weird statistical abberation thing. So deflat, if you’re vaxxed, you are good to go. But please, explain what are the very important consequences you refer to?

    #84351
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    absolute: canned foods, dehydrated foods, rice/pasta/etc., candles, batteries, have had a berkey water filter for years.

    You’re correct about how bad things would get if supply lines were disrupted for very long (way shorter than one month and we’d be in deep doo doo!). Hoping that never happens. However, I’d not be surprised if I’m not allowed to grocery shop in the near future due to vaxx pass needed to enter store. I’m preparing for that.

    #84352
    oxymoron
    Participant

    As far as I am concerned the subscription model being fostered by politicians, corporations and the medical establishment fits too nicely into the rentier feudal system for this anarcho-syndicalist (or whatever the hell I am). Regular shots in the arm, like taxes are to be dodged and avoided where ever possible. Fair share is another thing all together.

    My favourite thinker at the moment – Tyson Yunkaporta has a saying I like very much that pertains to the dissipation of US hegemonic power and it goes a little something like this.
    Mother Earth’s view on the second law of thermodynamics is that entropy is just someone else’s lunch.
    Life just goes on and on.

    #84353
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Supplies. Soap, white Jasmine rice, salt, sugar, dried beans, a bit of cash, couple of containers of fuel, tinned tomatoes (a box), olive oil, canned fish, coffee, long life or canned milk, vitamin c or heaps of sauerkraut (better), Oilves, pickles, fast growing leafy green seeds like alfalfa etc for jars or standards for outside gardens, some alcohol (or lots!), plenty of pain meds and bandaids, toilet paper (or soap). Also the yummy sauces for making food interesting (they last years because basically sugar).
    That should be plenty to just hang in there.

    My list would have 30 kilos of chocolate for the first 2 weeks.

    #84354
    zerosum
    Participant

    Nightmare #1
    +90%, then only 42%, then Lamda then millions of Americans walking around with ticking bombs in their veins and there is nothing that can be done about it.

    Indeed, initial data suggests the vaccinated are just as, or even much more, likely to transmit the virus as the asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic. Hence, the vaccine solves nothing.</strong

    ———–
    Nightmare #2

    Not enough food for everybody.
    (Training School – Evacuate thousand of people from Kabul)

    #84355

    Imagine living in a society where you have to fact check things like this:

    Fact check: CNN chyron praising Taliban for wearing face masks originated as satire
    USA TODAY

    Claim that CNN praised Taliban’s masks came from satire site
    AFP Factcheck

    #84357

    Forgot to include this about that painting Monday, The Song of the Lark:

    Bill Murray shares how a painting prevented him from committing suicide

    #84358
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Here in Portland’s West Slope apartmant complex rent plantations, the developers took down the wild 1/4 acre next to our complex.

    In a few hours, two dozen large timbers were felled, the brush whacked and razed… and god only knows how many birds and rodents and snakes and insects cast out of their homes or buried alive or…

    They left a yard-wide row of blackberry brambles between us and the devastation. The little brown-grey bunnies, who frolicked by the parking lot as my wife drove to work in the mornings, are now competing with other critters for a place to stay and something to eat. We’ll buy a sack of critter feed and spread it along the stretch I call Rodent Row. The birds will fare better, I suppose, being so mobile.

    I think it’s fine to be vegan for reasons of one’s personal spiritual growth or at least retention of sanity. EVen so, it’s easy to forget that everything we do for us comes at the expense of others. PIty the poor rodent who wants to eat some industrially grown corn: insecticide kills more than bugs. Not to mention that bugs are some kind of alive too.

    No Man’s Land

    bunny

    Call me sick but a part of me roots for covid to win… which it probably will. JUst be grateful no one satrafed your home with bullets or pesticides, or bulldozed it while you were sleeping or out browsing for food at Safeway or your local garden patch.

    #84359
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Everyone’s a plague rat. That’s why plagues spread.

    ^&*

    I thank deflationista for bringing Simpson’s paradox to my attention. Nifty datum.

    #84360
    absolute galore
    Participant

    cafone wrote: Here in Portland’s West Slope apartmant complex rent plantations, the developers took down the wild 1/4 acre next to our complex.

    That’s pretty atrocious. Even when one old tree goes missing, it’s a noticeable loss to one’s sensory perception of the space.

    Here where I live a developer recently cleared a large swath of trees and undergrowth along the creek in preparation for building a required emergency vehicle access road. Just found out that, due to a change in the railroad track status that locks in the 64-unit development between creek and rail, the road will not be necessary. People at the planning board want to make sure the developer keeps the shrubbery low, because they now like the view of the mountain with all the trees missing. Hey, bunnies don’t vote.

    #84361
    John Day
    Participant

    Simpson’s paradox basically says that lumped data, which statistically “proves” one trend, might actually “prove” the opposite when it is appropriately separated into similarly grouped sets.
    Sometimes a scatterplot helps the eye pick that out.
    Wickipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

    So, we might take Deflationista to be telling the rest of us groupthinkers that we could be exactly-wrong, but without explaining. That’s sort of a fire-and-forget round.
    Maybe Deflationista has a lot of blogs to tend… Piecework rates may apply.

    #84362
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So…China port closed as embargo to attack the U.S. However, Long Beach claims they are backlogged and can’t unload. So China isn’t shipping anything but still Long Beach can’t keep up? Explain? Then last week, rails said they were also backlogged, so as a solution they would run fewer trains. Explain?

    Not really a debate on Xtians, but the leader is Christ, and you’re right, he DID kill his own leader, himself, essentially. I don’t think that’s the logic you had in mind though, and it makes no sense. John killed him? Peter? I do remember those Celts, Tribes, etc being as cruel as any Roman and killing Xtians in like kind tit-for-tat and being proud of it. But they are all innocents now and never did nuffin’. Etc. The moral superiority is all on the anti-Xtain side. Everybody BUT them deserves a break instead of thinking, “Huh, humans gonna human, anywhere you go.” Japanese, genocide. Chinese, genocide. Native Americans, slavery, human sacrifice, genocide. Vikings, rape, conquest, genocide. Africans, slavery, conquest, genocide. Hmmm, I detect a trend.

    But you see, that never happened now. Only Europeans do bad things. You know, the ones that outlawed slavery and turned a page in the inalienable Rights of Man, then died by hundred thousands to make sure those ideas won as they finally attempted to live up to their own beliefs, or rather, aspirations. But they fell short, while other nations, whole continents continued to trample man, so they’re contemptible, and the slavers and genociders of today are given a free pass. Go Apple! Buy Nike for the NBA! Keep that organ harvesting humming. Why do you think they want to come here, to the whisp and mere residue of what was once Xtian values? For the wonderful Minnesota weather?

    “you look at Afghanistan and you STILL think they’re capable of executing some grand plan?”

    What, that Joe delayed so he could sell F-Stan to China, then take all the weapons, not evacuate them, give them to the Taliban, and have them pop-up, allegedly, on any terrorism from now til forever? What’s not to like? The whole POINT was to crush the U.S. and have China take the baton, that’s what the last 30 years were for. So how on earth does this not help that? It’s awesome with a double awesome-sauce, and all we have to do is say “Oops: Joe” who nobody likes anyway.

    Here’s the problem: it’s not going to work out the way they planned. US$ going down, NO baton, they do not get a free pass on the new pirate ship “SS China” US$ go poof, D.C. can’t pay anyone and is vacant, nation devolves to local level along with the world.

    So, you New Yorkers: DeBlasio has lost his ever-loving mind, what are you going to do?

    ….I heard 100% have to get stuck, even chemo, lupus, MS patients. …But not baseball and guitar players. “Everyone is hereby in the band“?

    Polder: has to happen or people won’t get off these criminal platforms with their social-credit ways. And on to a BTC debit card or something. Back to cash. Go in-person, and off Google for blogs, and on to… and so on.

    Israel: so it’s all a dream. Great! You’re safe. Don’t mind us chickens! And these other “variants”?

    Yes, they don’t exist yet and probably won’t. They’ve been saying “X is going to mutate and kill everyone” not just my life, but for 100 years. Turns out it doesn’t: it takes Dr. Fauci to pay for the research that MAKES it happen, and even then barely, barely works. (0.03%) The REAL attack was to remove all beds and drive out all nurses the last 20 years. I mean, duh. What did you think Obamacare was, adding 300,000 and zero practitioners. If not for that attacked of constant hollowing — even now with no $$, no nat’l Guard, no sanatoriums — we could respond just fine like usual.

    Subjected to more articles about what we’ll do when the seas rise (they haven’t), the Gulf Stream stops (it hasn’t) we get more hurricanes (we haven’t), coal dust blots out the sky (it hasn’t), Antarctica melts (it hasn’t) or the world is overpopulated and can’t feed itself (it hasn’t, population may be declining). But after a lifetime of scares and lies not one of which happened except government declaring worldwide martial law and killing everyone, I believe them about this virus that also hasn’t happened, this time.

    And there we have it. Top anti-nature, anti-environmental right there in your city, because there was one tree. Portland, isn’t it? Hater of every tree, destroyer of primeval forests?

    #84363

    Who first phrased “Jalalabad Joe?”. Not Kunstler I think.
    The way it rolls of the tongue makes it feel like a keeper.

    #84364
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    “But you see, that never happened now. Only Europeans do bad things. You know, the ones that outlawed slavery and turned a page in the inalienable Rights of Man, then died by hundred thousands to make sure those ideas won as they finally attempted to live up to their own beliefs, or rather, aspirations.”

    I too read big books, including tomes on history. True facts can be used to form fairy tales. All it takes is a few logical fallacies, deftly placed or not. (That was in my passive-aggressive voice.) All that happened solely because science/wood/fossil fuels (and major windpower in The Netherlands) rendered human/animal slaves inefficient for a few centuries. That’s it.

    Onward Xtian soldier and all that. Go rescue the poor spiritually ignorant bastards. Take up that white man’s burden. Me, I have to laugh. And then go into my closet and pray, in secret, to God as I understand It. For me, that sock puppet wears a Jesus face cuz i was raised on it and I just like that phony Hollywood Caucasian iconography:

    roxy's

    The Hip Nazz

    “Here’s the problem: it’s not going to work out the way they planned. US$ going down, NO baton, they do not get a free pass on the new pirate ship “SS China” US$ go poof, D.C. can’t pay anyone and is vacant, nation devolves to local level along with the world.”

    That’s exactly what Raul is saying.

    I too talk to myself. A lot. An awful lot. Too much. Sometimes I have to remind myself that others are listening too.

    I too could waste a vast fortune (had I inherited one like 20th century Uncle Sam did) to blow up said estate in some clusterfucked fever dream. I’m human, which makes it easy to be dangerously foolish.

    #84365
    those darned kids
    Participant

    kamala kandahar?

    #84366
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    cam

    It’s spelled Camela Kandahar.

    #84367
    deflationista
    Participant
    #84368
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Famous, landmark ACLU case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie

    Hey, whut dat? America’s LIBERALS, American Civil LIBERTIES Union defending Nazis? For FREE? In a landmark case widely considered to be not only the height of American free speech, but the height and foundation of Liberal values?

    “I hate what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” Where did that go? Where is yon Left of yesterday that believed in defending minority groups’ right to exist AGAINST an overreaching government, wanting people to be left alone and chill, man?

    Naturally the Right was no better at this, but at least right now they’re defending it, so it’s hard to drag up a past now 50 years gone to criticize them. The Right said Jesus would bomb Baghdad, but what did they DO about it? Write mean things about the Dixie Chicks? Out their own CIA in Africa?

    Cancel your phone line?
    Erase your bank account?
    Shut off your mail?
    Arrest reporters?
    Round up protesters and hold them in solitary, perhaps forever?

    No, no, no, no, and no. It takes ANTI Fascists to join with government, applaud corporations and oligarchs, stop free speech, cancel points of view, arrest dissidents, wiretap and jail reporters, and do it all without trial, procedure, or rule of law. AntiFascists are always merged with corporations and the secret state in the service of war and larger, more overreaching government, that’s just common sense.

    Because the monopoly merger of corporations and government would never lead you wrong, I believe everything Pfizer and the CDC says, especially if it’s against privacy and “my body, my choice.” Duh. Today Fascists are people who don’t trust the government and want it divorced from corporations and too small to harm anyone.

    I guess I’ve run out of satire. The nation is now hermetically-sealed, satire-proof. But I’ve not run out of defense for freedom, sovereignty or free speech, and trust I never will. Speak on! I find it endlessly entertaining and in fact quite easy to let other people be.

    #84369
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    from yesterday:

    “It may have seemed ridiculous to those whose countries have a more lax approach, with perhaps predictable results. NZ has been lucky but it most certainly is a success story because of its approach. Going hard and early is in sharp contrast to New South Wales in Australia, which dithered and dallied and which now has daily cases up to nearly 700. The lockdown in NZ may have seemed over-reaction but the single case has already grown to about 10, with perhaps another 50-100 expected. The rapid lockdown may not seem so stupid in hindsight. NZ’s strategy has seen most residents able to live their lives normally and has seen the economy rebound strongly with an effective full employment situation (4% unemployment is often considered the minimum level, given the usual churn).”

    I have to agree. I forget if NZ is pushing shitty vakzines or not, but the way to get results from a lockdown is to lock down hard and FAST. Other factors (like the vakzines) alter the results for sure, but the basic strategy is historically proven effective, if done fast, throughly, and only for awhile. Especially if you’re a small island nation and can shut down without excessive disruption.

    #84370
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    sim

    I suggest an application of Simpson’s paradox to the above alleged fact.

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