Nov 152021
 
 November 15, 2021  Posted by at 9:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,


Francisco Goya Fire at night 1793-94

 

Is Vaccine Efficacy A Statistical Illusion? (Fenton)
What They Didn’t Tell You (Denninger)
New Pfizer Drug and Ivermectin (Campbell)
COVID-19 Vaccine-Myocarditis Paper To Be Permanently Removed: Elsevier (RW)
Delta Variant Displays Moderate Resistance To Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)
Patient Trajectories Among Hospitalised Covid-19 Patients (medRxiv)
The Media’s Epic Fail On The Steele Dossier (Axios)
Alan Dershowitz: Kyle Rittenhouse ‘Should Be Acquitted’ And Sue Media (JTN)
Was Rittenhouse’s Possession of the AR-15 Unlawful? (Turley)

 

 

The 1905 SCOTUS case Jacobson v Massachusetts held that mandates can only be considered to “prevent the spread of contagious disease.”


As all studies show the shots don’t stop transmission, Covid mandates are obviously illegal.

 

 

The Miracle Vaccine Nobody Will Talk About: Covax-19

 

 

 

 

Can’t catch it well in this format, do read it. He shifts reporting of deaths by just a week, and the world looks entirely different.

Norman Fenton is Professor in Risk Information Management

@profnfenton: “Turns out that, simply by delayed reporting of deaths by 1 week, it’s inevitable a placebo will appear to reduce mortality in those who receive it compared to those who don’t..”

Is Vaccine Efficacy A Statistical Illusion? (Fenton)

Suppose we want to examine and compare the mortality rates of the unvaccinated and vaccinated cohorts based on the data in Table 2. Figure 1 shows this comparison, and we can see that the mortality rate is consistently lower for the vaccinated than that for the unvaccinated throughout the roll out of the vaccination programme and it reduces as soon as vaccination nears population saturation at close to 100%.


Figure 1 Reported weekly mortality rates vaccinated against unvaccinated

We might conclude that those who remain unvaccinated look to be suffering much higher levels of mortality than the vaccinated. The reporting delay therefore creates a completely artificial impression that the vaccine must be highly effective. In fact, it looks like a magic ‘cure all’ wonder drug! The fact that the mortality rate of the unvaccinated peaks when the percentage of those vaccinated peaks should ring some alarm bells that something strange is going on (unless there is independent evidence that the virus was peaking at the same time).


While the placebo vaccine example was purely hypothetical, Figure 2 shows the vaccinated against unvaccinated mortality using the data in the latest ONS report mortality in England by Covid-19 vaccination status (weeks 1 to 38)[1], complemented by NIMS vaccination survey data (up to week 27 only). Here we show other-than covid mortality to remove the virus signal.


Figure 2 Reported weekly other-than covid mortality rates for vaccinated versus unvaccinated for 60-69 age group for weeks 1-38 2021

Note that we see the same features as the shifted graph in Figure 1. In other words, a perfectly reasonable explanation for what is observed here could be that there is no difference in mortality rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated and the mortality differences are simply a result of a delay in death reporting. Moreover, given we have removed covid deaths (which were only a small percentage of all-cause deaths in the reported data) we get a near identical result for non-covid mortality to that which would result if the vaccine were a placebo! Thus, we appear to have created a statistical illusion of vaccine efficacy.

If this is not a statistical illusion how is it possible that the unvaccinated are dying from non-covid causes at a higher rate than vaccinated? Also how is it possible that, at the time vaccination rates are ramped up to nearly 100% of the population, the nonvaccinated are dying from non-covid deaths at almost twice the rate of those who are vaccinated?

These same patterns are also observable in the 70-79 and 80+ age groups (with the mortality peaks for the unvaccinated appearing at different weeks because these age groups received vaccinations earlier). This strongly suggests that what we are observing is a genuine statistical illusion unexplainable by any real impact of the vaccine on mortality rates. There could, of course, be reasons other than just delays in death reporting or misclassification. For example, any systematic underestimation of the actual proportion who remain unvaccinated would lead to a higher mortality rate for unvaccinated higher than that for the vaccinated, even if the mortality rates were equal in each category.

Read more …

“It can’t happen if there are no susceptible people. But it is. So there are susceptible people. How did they become susceptible when they weren’t before in any material size? We jabbed them.”

What They Didn’t Tell You (Denninger)

This study is a bit dense — but has been peer-reviewed, and makes clear that indeed, what I hypothesized was true — and had to be, given the circumstances with Diamond Princess and elsewhere, in fact validates by scientific fact. “In summary, RTC regions like polymerase, expressed in the first stage of the viral life cycle, are highly conserved among HCoV and are preferentially targeted by T-cells in pre-pandemic and SN-HCW samples. A subset of T-cells from donors able to abort infection could cross-recognise SARS-CoV-2 and HCoV sequences at individual RTC epitopes, pointing to prior infection with HCoV as one source of pre-existing cross-reactive T-cells. ” “SN-HCW” are health-care workers who were repeatedly exposed and while they did not get sick or seroconvert “(SeroNegative)” showed very rapid response to Covid-19 from cross-reaction as a result of other coronavirus exposures.

Remember that Diamond Princess only had about 20% of the population on board that got sick despite all of them being confined together over an extended period, and even more-telling, there were multiple instances where one member of a cabin pair (husband and wife, usually) got seriously ill while the other did not only not get ill they did not test positive either. This also occurred among a couple I know early in the pandemic; one (the husband) was killed by the virus, the other (the wife) never got sick. What’s even more damning is that by May of this year about 20% of the population, according to a NEJM study that I wrote on, had seroconverted. This strongly implies that statistically everyone who could get Covid-19 and have a serious problem with already had done so.

So how is that we had a “surge” this summer and continue to see infections this fall? It can’t happen if there are no susceptible people. But it is. So there are susceptible people. How did they become susceptible when they weren’t before in any material size? We jabbed them. The CDC and hospitals do not count someone who gets Covid before 2 weeks after their last jab as “vaccinated.” So if you have a cycle of 28 days from first to second from the first jab to a period of time six weeks later if you get Covid-19 you’re considered “unvaccinated.” Every place where we’ve had very high vaccination uptake as the uptake occurred we have seen material spikes in infection contemporary with the jabs, even out of regular season with normal respiratory viral patterns.

Why? The reasonable hypothesis is that the jabs are destroying pre-existing resistance that formerly was sufficient to prevent significant, seroconverting infections in about 8 out of 10 people, but post-jab that resistance is suppressed either temporarily or permanently and thus they are able to get significantly infected.

Read more …

‘No one’s saying that the information [about ivermectin’s efficacy] has been deliberately hidden away while millions of people have died’

New Pfizer Drug and Ivermectin (Campbell)

Read more …

Lots of Pfizer ads? How many millions on a yearly basis?

COVID-19 Vaccine-Myocarditis Paper To Be Permanently Removed: Elsevier (RW)

A paper claiming that cases of myocarditis spiked after teenagers began receiving COVID-19 vaccines that earned a “temporary removal” earlier this month will be permanently removed, according to a publisher at Elsevier. As we reported last week, the article, “A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products,” was published in Current Problems in Cardiology on October 1. Sometime between then and October 17, the article was stamped “TEMPORARY REMOVAL” without explanation other than Elsevier’s boilerplate notice in such cases:


“The Publisher regrets that this article has been temporarily removed. A replacement will appear as soon as possible in which the reason for the removal of the article will be specified, or the article will be reinstated. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.” In an email to co-author Peter McCullough, Elsevier publisher Diana Goetz said that “the journal is not willing to publish the paper.” Here’s the entire email:

Goetz did not respond to requests for comment from Retraction Watch about whether a retraction notice explaining the move would appear. Elsevier’s policy on such matters has changed slightly over the years, but the central lack of transparency on their “withdrawals” has been the subject of our coverage since 2013. Jessica Rose, the other author of the paper, told Retraction Watch: “We are very motivated to get the information in our paper to the public: pediatricians, parents and policy-makers alike. This is why we decided to publish in the first place. It is extremely frustrating for us to face such censorship when professionals are in need of scientific data and discourse on the subject of myocarditis in children in these very strange times.” Rose’s affiliation on the removed version of the paper is the Institute of Pure and Applied Knowledge’s Public Health Policy Initiative, and McCullough’s is the Truth for Health Foundation in Tucson.


As we noted in our previous post, IPAK is “..a group that has been critical of vaccines and of the response to COVID-19 and has funded one study that was retracted earlier this year… Last month, Baylor Scott & White obtained a restraining order against McCullough — whom Medscape says “has promoted the use of therapies seen as unproven for the treatment of COVID-19 and has questioned the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines” — for continuing to refer to an affiliation with the health care institution despite a separation agreement. “Since the Baylor suit, the Texas A&M College of Medicine, and the Texas Christian University (TCU) and University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) School of Medicine have both removed McCullough from their faculties,” Medscape reported at the time.”

Read more …

Variants of variants.

Delta Variant Displays Moderate Resistance To Neutralizing Antibodies (bioRxiv)

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617 lineage variants, Kappa (B.1.617.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2, AY) emerged during the second wave of infections in India, but the Delta variants have become dominant worldwide and continue to evolve. The spike proteins of B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2, and AY.1 variants have several substitutions in the receptor binding domain (RBD), including L452R+E484Q, L452R+T478K, and K417N+L452R+T478K, respectively, that could potentially reduce effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies and current vaccines. Here we compared B.1.617 variants, and their single and double RBD substitutions for resistance to neutralization by convalescent sera, mRNA vaccine-elicited sera, and therapeutic neutralizing antibodies using a pseudovirus neutralization assay.

Pseudoviruses with the B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2, and AY.1 spike showed a modest 1.5 to 4.4-fold reduction in neutralization titer by convalescent sera and vaccine-elicited sera. In comparison, similar modest reductions were also observed for pseudoviruses with C.37, P.1, R.1, and B.1.526 spikes, but seven- and sixteen-fold reduction for vaccine-elicited and convalescent sera, respectively, was seen for pseudoviruses with the B.1.351 spike. Four of twenty-three therapeutic neutralizing antibodies showed either complete or partial loss of neutralization against B.1.617.2 pseudoviruses due to the L452R substitution, whereas six of twenty-three therapeutic neutralizing antibodies showed either complete or partial loss of neutralization against B.1.617.1 pseudoviruses due to either the E484Q or L452R substitution.

Against AY.1 pseudoviruses, the L452R and K417N substitutions accounted for the loss of neutralization by four antibodies and one antibody, respectively, whereas one antibody lost potency that could not be fully accounted for by a single RBD substitution. The modest resistance of B.1.617 variants to vaccine-elicited sera suggest that current mRNA-based vaccines will likely remain effective in protecting against B.1.617 variants, but the therapeutic antibodies need to be carefully selected based on their resistance profiles. Finally, the spike proteins of B.1.617 variants are more efficiently cleaved due to the P681R substitution, and the spike of Delta variants exhibited greater sensitivity to soluble ACE2 neutralization, as well as fusogenic activity, which may contribute to enhanced spread of Delta variants.

Read more …

Hard to speak in clear terms when you’re scientists, but:

“We observed no difference in [..] odds of in-hospital death between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.”

Dr Anthony Hinton: “Norway Study Finds ZERO Vaccine Effectiveness Against Death for Covid Hospital Patients. The Pfizer trial never made this claim they only claimed symptom reduction.”

Patient Trajectories Among Hospitalised Covid-19 Patients (medRxiv)

Objectives With most of the Norwegian population vaccinated against COVID-19, an increasing number and proportion of COVID-19 related hospitalisations are occurring among vaccinated patients. To support patient management and capacity planning in hospitals, we estimated the length of stay (LoS) in hospital and odds of intensive care (ICU) admission and in-hospital mortality among COVID-19 patients ≥18 years who had been vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine, compared to unvaccinated patients.

Methods Using national registry data, we conducted a cohort study on SARS-CoV-2 positive patients hospitalised in Norway between 1 February and 30 September 2021, with COVID-19 as the main cause of hospitalisation. We used a Cox proportional hazards model to examine the association between vaccination status and LoS. We used logistic regression to examine the association between vaccination status and ICU admission and in-hospital mortality.

Results We included 2,361 patients, including 70 (3%) partially vaccinated and 183 (8%) fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated patients 18–79 years had a shorter LoS in hospital overall (adjusted hazard ratio for discharge: 1.35, 95%CI: 1.07–1.72), and lower odds of ICU admission (adjusted odds ratio: 0.57, 95%CI: 0.33–0.96). Similar estimates were observed when collectively analysing partially and fully vaccinated patients. We observed no difference in the LoS for patients not admitted to ICU, nor odds of in-hospital death between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.

Conclusions Vaccinated patients hospitalised with COVID-19 in Norway have a shorter LoS and lower odds of ICU admission than unvaccinated patients. These findings can support patient management and ongoing capacity planning in hospitals.

Read more …

Axios: “A reckoning is hitting news organizations for years-old coverage of the 2017 Steele dossier, after the document’s primary source was charged with lying to the FBI.”

The Media’s Epic Fail On The Steele Dossier (Axios)

A reckoning is hitting news organizations for years-old coverage of the 2017 Steele dossier, after the document’s primary source was charged with lying to the FBI. Why it matters: It’s one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history, and the media’s response to its own mistakes has so far been tepid. Outsized coverage of the unvetted document drove a media frenzy at the start of Donald Trump’s presidency that helped drive a narrative of collusion between former President Trump and Russia. It also helped drive an even bigger wedge between former President Trump and the press at the very beginning of his presidency.

Driving the news: In wake of the key source’s arrest and further reporting on the situation, The Washington Post on Friday corrected and removed large portions of two articles. To The Post’s credit, its media critic, Erik Wemple, has written at length about the mistakes made by The Post and other media outlets in their coverage of the dossier. BuzzFeed News, which made waves in 2017 by publishing the entire dossier, says it has no plans to take the document down. It’s still online, accompanied by a note that says “The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.” Ben Smith, who was BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief at the time and is now a media columnist at The New York Times, told Axios, “My view on the logic of publishing hasn’t changed.”

BuzzFeed defended the decision in a 2018 lawsuit by arguing that because the FBI opened an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, the dossier itself was newsworthy, whatever the merits of its contents turned out to be. It won that case. Other outlets that gave the document outsized coverage have so far been less forthcoming. CNN and MSNBC did not respond to requests for comment about whether they planned to revisit or correct any of their coverage around the dossier. Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn began reporting about the dossier prior to the 2016 election. Asked by Wemple whether he planned to correct the record, Corn said,” My priority has been to deal with the much larger topic of Russia’s undisputed attack and Trump’s undisputed collaboration with Moscow’s cover-up.”

The Wall Street Journal told Axios, “We’re aware of the serious questions raised by the allegations and continue to report and to follow the investigation closely.” Axios was among the outlets that did not publish the dossier or original reporting based on its contents. What to watch: The Steele screwup will undoubtedly cause an even bigger rift in trust between Democrats and Republicans.

Read more …

“It’s CNN who is involved in vigilante justice. It’s The New Yorker that’s guilty of vigilante justice.”

Alan Dershowitz: Kyle Rittenhouse ‘Should Be Acquitted’ And Sue Media (JTN)

Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard law professor emeritus, said Kyle Rittenhouse “should be acquitted” of injuring a man and killing two others in Kenosha, Wis., and sue media outlets that are claiming he’s guilty of vigilante justice. “If I were a juror, I would vote that there was reasonable doubt [and] that he did act in self-defense,” Dershowitz told Newsmax on Saturday.”Then he’ll bring lawsuits, and that’s the way to answer… vigilante justice is what CNN is doing, not what a 17-year-old kid under pressure may have done right or wrong. It’s CNN who is involved in vigilante justice. It’s The New Yorker that’s guilty of vigilante justice.”


Dershowitz referenced then-Kentucky high school student Nicholas Sandmann and how he sued and settled with CNN and The Washington Post for defamation as they accused him of being racist following viral videos of an encounter he had with a Native American activist in Washington, D.C. “The idea is to make the media accountable for deliberate and willful lies,” he said. Dershowitz added that “the left-wing media … is attacking this judge for trying to be fair. They want an outcome. They want a result and if they don’t get their results and you know this seeps through to the jury, and I worry that the jury could be influenced by the fear that if they vote to acquit, they’ll be called racist and they’ll be attacked.”

Read more …

Judge: “I have been wrestling with this statute with, I’d hate to count the hours I’ve put into it, I’m still trying to figure out what it says, what’s prohibited. I have a legal education.”

Was Rittenhouse’s Possession of the AR-15 Unlawful? (Turley)

In covering the motions hearing last week in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, I noted a surprising comment from Judge Bruce Schroeder that he had “spent hours” with the Wisconsin gun law and could not state with certainty what it means in this case. The statement could effectively knock out the misdemeanor gun possession count — the one count that could still be in play for the jury after the prosecution’s case on the more serious offense appeared to collapse in court. A close examination of that provision reveals ample reason to question not just its meaning but its application to this case. The unlawful possession of the gun has been a prominent fact cited not only by the prosecutors but the press. At trial, however, prosecutor Thomas Binger at points seemed to be learning the governing law from Rittenhouse.

For example, he pressed Rittenhouse on why he did not just purchase a handgun rather than an AR-15. Rittenhouse replied he could not possess a hand gun at his age. Binger then asked in apparent disbelief that the law allowed him to have an AR-15 but not a handgun and Rittenhouse said yes. Binger then moved on after seemingly drawing out a point for the defenseThe exchange was all the more baffling because it drew attention to the fact that one of Binger’s alleged “victims” was an adult named Gaige Grosskreutz who also decided to bring a handgun to the protests and pointed his .40 caliber Glock at the head of Rittenhouse when he was shot in the arm. However, the most damaging moment came outside of the presence of the jury when the judge drilled down on the law.

He told the prosecutors “I have been wrestling with this statute with, I’d hate to count the hours I’ve put into it, I’m still trying to figure out what it says, what’s prohibited. I have a legal education.” He added that he failed to understand how an “ordinary citizen” could understand what is illegal. It is hard to understand how the count could be given to the jury without a clear understanding of what it means. It is also hard to instruct a jury on an ambiguous statute. Criminal laws are supposed to be interpreted narrowly. It is called the “rule of lenity” and has been around in the English system for centuries. For example, in 1547, the court was faced with a law making it a felony to steal “Horses, Geldings or Mares.” Given the use of plural nouns, the court ruled that it did not apply to stealing just one horse.

The problem with the Wisconsin statute is not a problem of pluralization but definition. It is not clear that the statute actually bars possession by Rittenhouse. Indeed, it may come down to the length of Rittenhouse’s weapon and the prosecutors never bothered to measure it and place it into evidence. In Wisconsin, minors cannot possess short-barreled rifles under Section 941.28. Putting aside the failure to put evidence into the record to claim such a short length, it does not appear to be the case here. Rittenhouse used a Smith & Wesson MP-15 with an advertised barrel length of 16 inches and the overall length is 36.9 inches. That is not a short barrel.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 15 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 85 total)
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  • #92435

    Francisco Goya Fire at night 1793-94   • Is Vaccine Efficacy A Statistical Illusion? (Fenton) • What They Didn’t Tell You (Denninger) • New Pfize
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 15 2021]

    #92437
    Veracious Poet
    Participant



    #92438
    Veracious Poet
    Participant
    #92439
    Germ
    Participant
    #92440
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “A reckoning is hitting news organizations for years-old coverage of the 2017 Steele dossier,”

    Doubt it. They’re long since paid for and do nothing but print FBI/Government press releases. As proven daily. The only reckoning is when the money is shut off and the Hyperinflation Bill just made sure the Spice Will Flow.

    Did they pull all their Pullitzers? No? Case closed.

    Hey, does anyone remember when NONE of the outlets would publish such obvious tripe and left it to…I think Buzzfeed to start it? Yeah those were the good old days before the NY Times proved it was a worse, less-credible paper than Buzzfeed and Yahoo Generic NewsFeed.

    “ Alan Dershowitz: Kyle Rittenhouse ‘Should Be Acquitted’ And Sue Media (JTN)”

    Dershowitz, the Clintons’ right hand man. Clearly Alt-Right. As he worked for America’s first black president: Bill Clinton. I can only wish I was kidding that they didn’t claim this.

    Anyway, yes, and also sue Kenosha for malicious prosecution as the Prosecution’s own evidence and witnesses say that the charges should not have been filed.

    …And then use the money to sue Kenosha for ordering all police to stand down, incite to riot, and cause the whole situation to begin with.

    “Was Rittenhouse’s Possession of the AR-15 Unlawful? (Turley)”

    That was stupidly written, but it’s not all that hard. The idea was young people shouldn’t own rifles: it was a right for adults and citizens. Fine. But then the Legislature are like, “Hey, what if a kid is out on the farm with his father? Should it be illegal then?” No. So they wrote an exception. What if it’s self-defense? Well that’s ALWAYS legal. What if…? And so on. Not a very good sign that the Judge can’t figure this out, and yes Turley is correct that the charge cannot legally be brought since the statute was not violated to begin with.

    Although I wouldn’t do it, I’m fine with presenting a badly-written law to the Jury. The Legislature should fix and clarify it though it’s actually not a mystery to begin with.

    We have the larger problem that the Prosecution should be tossed out with prejudice for:

    A) introducing evidence the Court already prohibited. That’s an open slap in the face, intentional as bending the Judge over the bench.
    B) Bringing charges that are not legal or possible.
    C) Bringing charges and prosecution when their own witnesses refute them. That means the Prosecution KNEW ALL ALONG and were just trying to convict an innocent man but bringing spurious charges on some guy, just ‘cause they didn’t like him. Not as clear, but still true.
    D) Placing words into witnesses’ mouths and having witnesses openly avow they were coached and bullied by the Prosecution, which is illegal. They claimed this under oath, so it’s a crime that instantly needs to be followed and charged.
    E) NOT charging an illegal weapons charge that IS true on the aggressor. That would need to be proven in court, but it CLEARLY demonstrates open prejudice and favoritism. And
    F) When the victim admits he drew, aimed, and advanced, and had NO legitimate reason to do so, he was admitting to a clear and serious felony, probably attempted murder. The prosecutors are now aware of TWO serious felonies by their own witness and have done nothing to pursue them. That could also be perceived as buying testimony, ANOTHER felony.

    …I’m only getting started. Usually these major felonies discover some ancillary crimes like “False statements” , “Obstructing Justice” to add on. And that’s by the FELON witness, AND the Prosecution, from the D.A. to his entire team.

    But if they did to probably correct and legal thing — punish the Prosecution for grave abuse of authority — they would immediately declare the trial faulted, the Judge crooked, and start the Civil War.

    But of course they did. This is America. You’re more likely to get a fair conviction from a monkey and a dartboard. Like all other Adults in America from Sea to Shining Sea, they just “Make s—t up” and have not the slightest concern if it’s true or not unless you’re very lucky.

    “To a cop, the explanation is never that complicated. It’s always simple. There’s no mystery, no arch criminal behind it all. If you got a dead body and you think his brother did it, you’re gonna find out you’re right.” – The Usual Suspects

    He’s going to make that guy guilty did it whether he did it or not. It’s so much easier that way.

    The FBI provides the fake testimony and 10 years of fake Lab results from Connecticut that they will make any way you want them to be. This is true of State police caught doing this all over, every year.

    The Press, which as Jimmy Dore and former real reporters used to assume the government’s every word was a lie and it was their job to figure out WHAT lie they were telling; now, as above, they simply publish government press releases in a merger of corporations, press, and State. Now although it’s obvious to the shallow reading of the case what happened, the Press colludes and is complicit in the Felony crime the Prosecution is attempting. Just ‘cause. No reason. We always align with power, instinctively, and could care less of the Truth. They’re not even PAID, or not that well, to do it. They do it because of who they ARE: constitutionally pro-power, spineless, weaselly suck-ups, and voraciously anti-Truth on contact. Also violently illogical as a) facts and evidence b) there’s no reason for them to do so, they’re not hardly paid or empowered by their lies c) they are themselves regularly thrown under the bus for giggles d) this will degrade and make more dangerous the city, state, country they live in, while they also are at risk for a society enamored with exclusive non-truths.

    But it’s their religion, so there is no logic and they don’t care. Weird that way. I’d be worried if the Officials in Kenosha did this to him, they’d do it to me and my family tomorrow. …And generally do, if news around here is anything to be believed. If I were CNN and puffing a mob for no basis, tomorrow I’d fall out of favor, be cut out of Stalin’s photos, and the NEW anchorman would rouse a mob on me. …You know, like happened to Cuomo x2, etc. …But they don’t, which is astonishing.

    I guess if you’re willing to scrape the bottom of the human barrel long enough you can find a few of these guys. I mean, they found Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.

    #92441
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “You’re more likely to get a fair conviction from a monkey and a dartboard.”

    Now that’s my kind of trope.

    #92442
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Greta Is a tool of the “Global Citizens” and a spoiled brat. She speaks with a forked tongue, “carbon for me, but none for thee””

    We too are spoiled brats. Our lifestyles speak with forked tongues: more resources for us who don’t produce them, less for those (mostly foreigners in foreign lands) who do produce them. Euromericans are overall professionally spoiled brats.

    Being raised on media more than physical reality, we’re trained to focus on media celebrities and either fawn on them or kick them around… virtually, of course.

    As the saying goes: Knock (y)ourselves out:

    bag

    #92443
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Coal export protesters blasted by Barnaby Joyce with claims of $60 million lost in exports in past 10 days

    My reading of history tells me that we are incapable of adequate reform to a serious problem. When things get serious, some kind of destructive revolution must occur. We seem compelled to destroy what is — be it necessary or useful or not — before building anew. It’s like hobos burning the dumpster that feeds them.

    What once was sociopolitical bedrock is now quickly being reduced to rubble.

    Old Man Orlov’s wicked sarcasm nails this particularly well:

    Reverse Cargo Cultism

    “I couldn’t help but notice a most curious phenomenon that has recently gripped Western Europe, which very much looks like a cargo cult, but in reverse.

    “In a classic cargo cult, native tribes that have become inured to the indignity of regular airlifts providing them with humanitarian relief in the form of, say, beer and pizza, when deprived of this affront to their native dignity, take to building fake airstrips with fake control towers and bonfires for runway lights in the hopes of luring more transport planes laden with aforementioned beer and pizza.

    “In a reverse cargo cult, native tribes, that have become inured to the indignity of regular airlifts providing humanitarian relief in the form of, say, beer and pizza, having suddenly become cognizant of the deleterious effect of beer and pizza on public health, Arctic permafrost or planetary alignment, take to barricading the landing strips and dismantling the control towers in the hopes of preventing the landing of more transport planes laden with aforementioned beer and pizza. The natives then remain hungry and sober until sanity returns and air traffic is restored.

    “The latter scenario is what seems to be unfolding in the European Union of late, where the native tribes have made strenuous efforts to limit their access to Russian-supplied beer and pizza, instead switching to eating grass and drinking swamp water—figuratively speaking: by beer and pizza I mean natural gas and coal and by grass and swamp water I mean wind turbines and solar panels. And by blocking runways and dismantling control towers I mean blocking or delaying the construction of South Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, gambling with their own energy security by tying the pricing of long-term natural gas contracts to casino-like futures markets, and playing political games with pipelines that run through Poland and the Ukraine. Lastly, the assumed deleterious effect of beer and pizza on public health, Arctic permafrost or planetary alignment is analogous to the assumed planet-destroying effects of CO2 emissions from burning hydrocarbons.

    “If you find such analogies outlandish, please let me explain.”

    Some will, I assume, claim that these protestors are obviously astroturfed minions of Soros-ian NGOs and such. Could be. But not all ground level grass is fake even in today’s cloneware suburban gated communities. There were eco-activists before TPTB figured out that if you can’t beat them, “join” them: fund them, subvert them, and direct their momentum away to help build the next pyramid scheme.

    Problem with that is that so many minions don’t know they’re minions or never were in the first place. Many of them are sincere (if often mis/under-informed) activists. Next thing you know they’re exacerbating an already runaway energy crisis, and nobody seems to know what to do about it, not the cops, the politicks, the corporations.

    Revolutions are like that: all your worst enemies AND your best friends tearing dopwn everything useful in the cause of an allegedly better world to come.

    And here’s a headline shared just because I love the desert’s name:

    Perth family surrounded by flooded roads now facing extreme heat in Simpson Desert

    In the center of which is a land-locked salt lake called Homer Pond.

    #92444
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Some historical context on how a scientific theory became a cause celebre’:

    Thatcher & Global Warming: From Alarmist to Skeptic

    Maggoe Thatcher used anthropogenic global climate change theory (AGCCT) as a cudgel to bash striking coal mine workers. But, since the theory had been around for decades and its claims were steadily manifesting in physical reality, the thing grew legs and ran away from her et al.

    Next thing you know it’s not a sane valid theory but a political juggernaut that rammed in both directions at once, as seems the usual case for these commandeering misapporpriations of valid concerns.

    The result: the science of AGCCT became a political football roughly divided into leftwing yeasayers and rightwing naysayers, which is ironic, because the original AGCCT conspiracy was decidedly rightwing in origin.

    Result of the result: the populace is taught top believe that there is more than enough readily available energy for everyone to live in mobile self-driving McMansions if we just move away from nasty fossil fuels and embrace science fiction. Someone cue Elon Musk, pls? And make sure he sticks to the script this time.

    #92446
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Oh, the music is great imo, but I share this for the opening exhortations by Peter Green to photographers to respect the performers — and the audience — just a little bit. Peter was a major mensch, imo. The flashes from the cameras were disruptive to the performers, and photogs had a tendency to crowd out the view that others had paid tickets to see.

    Media: we subsidize it; it cannibalizes us.

    Black Magic Woman at Chalk Farm

    “Break out my magic stick”: ah, we men and our favorite things. 😉

    #92447
    absolute galore
    Participant

    My son turns 12 this week. His mother is planning to get him vaxxed on his birthday. Phoenixvoice has been very helpful in providing links to try to get her to at least postpone. However, she is not only completely under the spell of mass formation hypnosis, she also has an intractable and narcissistic personality. Even though I have joint custody, NYS custody law designates one parent the “custodial” parent” who makes all final decisions and 95% of the time it is the mother. Here is the email she sent me recently after I requested a dialogue.

    XXX will be 12 on November xxth, and in accordance with FDA and CDC recommendations I intend to have him vaccinated against Covid-19.

    Per CDC:
    Although children are at a lower risk of becoming severely ill with COVID-19 compared with adults, children can:
    -Be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19
    -Get very sick from COVID-19
    -Have both short and long-term health complications from COVID-19
    -Spread COVID-19 to others

    Vaccinating children can help protect family members who are not eligible for vaccination.
    Vaccination can also help keep children from getting seriously sick even if they do get COVID-19.
    Vaccinating children ages 5 years and older can help keep them in school and help them safely participate in sports, public, and other normal group activities, for example, continued participation at the {fancy sports Foundation where my son trains], which requires children 12 and above to be vaccinated.

    I understand you are concerned about the risk of myocarditis.

    According to the American Heart Association, it’s true that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported after Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination of children ages 12–17 years. However, the rare side effect of myocarditis is less in comparison to the potential risks of COVID-19 infection. Serious health events after COVID-19 vaccination are rare.

    As he is under 18, there is only one vaccine available to him and that is Pfizer.

    I’ve consulted with his pediatrician and guidance from the CDC and AHA in formulating my proposed determination on this medical issue. You are welcome to respond in writing (only) to communicate your concerns and alternate proposals, including any supplemental material for my consideration.

    If anyone has any additional compelling links (again thank you pv!) that are as “mainstream” as possible, ie, no McCoullough,Denninger, Epoch News, RT, etc.) it would be appreciated, even if a lost cause at this point.

    #92448
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The money quote about media is AFTER the song, begins around 8:50.

    #92449
    those darned kids
    Participant

    vp: stars, oh stars…

    from the “us” link: Bob Odenkirk

    “Kaboom! Moderna booster,” the Better Call Saul actor tweeted in November 2021 alongside a photo of him getting an additional third shot. “F Covid!”

    •••••••

    Posted: Mar 27, 2021 / 05:24 PM MDT / Updated: Jul 28, 2021 / 07:38 AM MDT

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Some familiar faces were among the hundreds of people getting their COVID vaccine Saturday in southwest Albuquerque. Actors Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn got their first shot Saturday afternoon at the National Hispanic Cultural Center near Fourth and Bridge.

    •••••••

    “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk assured he’s “going to be OK” after being hospitalized following a scary collapse on the show’s New Mexico set Tuesday.

    The 58-year-old actor confirmed on Twitter Friday that he suffered a “small heart attack.” Despite his hospitalization, Odenkirk said he didn’t have to undergo any procedures.

    ••••••••

    has injection, has heart attack, goes for third..

    #92450
    those darned kids
    Participant

    absolute: as awful as it is, send her the videos of maddie de garay, the 12 year-old girl who volunteered for the pfizer trial, and whose life has been turned upside down.

    let her know that this poor girl was completely abandoned by pfizer..

    let her see the testimony of her mother at senator johnson’s hearing.

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=maddie+de+garay&t=ffab&ia=web

    #92452
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    oops. posted this on yesterday’s stream:

    absolute galore: fwiw, which is probably hardly anything if at all, here’s what I would convey to your ex:

    I have spent at least dozens of hours researching this issue, including consulting with numerous doctors around the globe. I am as certain about the dangerous risk that this phony vaccine poses to our son as I am that we are divorced.

    With luck, the danger posed by this fraudulent vaccinne will not manifest in our son, and this exchange will just be another unpleasant convsersation of no real importance. However, if the vaccine does cause harm to our son, know that I will hold the mirror of your shame in your face — including at his funeral, if things turn that bad.

    I assure you that it will be an awkward silence standing over his grave and I will not be holding your hand to comfort you but will be holding that mirror of shame up for you — and everyone else — to see.

    Since all statistics show that covid-19 has virtually no risk to a healthy 12-year old boy, I suggest that you reconsider your position on this matter.
    <end>

    I’ve dealt with toxic narcissists. One must threaten to take a baseball bat to their public ego to get their attention, in my experience.

    Anyway, best of luck. I thought it was bad when, long long ago, the mother of my firstborn maliciously and deceitfully told everyone that I was a child molestor. I thought that was bad. But this is worse.

    My deepest sympathy, bosco

    Stop Making Me Nervous…

    boogynoise to placate nervous autobots

    #92453
    boscohorowitz
    Participant
    #92454
    Germ
    Participant

    A treasure trove of articles and docs. relating to all this:

    https://www.mediafire.com/folder/t92cs972ihpb7/Covid

    #92455
    WES
    Participant

    This morning I looked out a window from my cave in Toronto to see that Old Man Winter has finally arrived! Yes, a fresh blanket of snow covers everything, hiding all the fallen leaves of fall. Summer is now but a distanced faded memory. Now there is only hopes of a new spring to get me through another long cold Canadian winter.

    Where is Al Gore when you need him (to shovel the driveway)?

    #92456
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    One frustrating part about voting, dems vs. repubs is that I don’t “win” by voting 3rd party, voting write-in, or abstaining from voting either. A system is rigged or non-sensical when all options are “fails.”

    Something of note: I have a friend who uses cannabis. (No, it isn’t me. I can’t stand the smell of the stuff. I sing and won’t smoke anything because it would mess with my voice.). Cannabis was finally legalized in AZ. Dispensaries have been popping up. Of course, they are cash-only businesses. Of course, you have to show ID for age verification. No biggie. Recently (as in, starting in the past 3 months) some/many/most of the dispensaries have begun RECORDING the ID information of those who purchase. (No idea yet how many do this — my friend went to more than one, trying to evade the requirement.). State law does not require this. Eh, this is widely problematic for data security purposes, especially when most everyone stores their data in the cloud, where the feds can easily snoop.

    #92457
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #92458
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “The Media’s Epic Fail On The Steele Dossier (Axios)”

    From the article:

    Why it matters: It’s one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history, and the media’s response to its own mistakes has so far been tepid.

    I always get a kick out of headlines like this, essentially giving the impression that the media really dropped the ball on this one. Oopsie Daisy! Journalistic “errors”, “mistakes”, give me a break. Why not just get right to the point, instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt? Maybe because calling it like it is could boomerang on Axios itself, including all journalism? That would certainly be bad for business.

    In other words, why call it a “Fail” when media’s primary job is to hide the truth from the public. I would call that a “Success”. Whenever they do tell the truth about something, that when I become suspicious. But that’s just me.

    #92459
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #92460
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “…Toronto…another long cold Canadian winter.”

    Funny. I’d assumed that Toronto was way north but it’s 43.6 degrees longitude. Where I lived before, Spokane, was 47.6 degees longitude. My new residence, Portland, is 45.5 d.l.

    Looking it up, I see that Toronto is also very COLD (no real mountains between it and the Arctic) and cloudy 70% or so of the time.

    Winter Sky

    ***

    pheonix voice: funny thing about cannbis is that it always improives my singing dramatically, even with the smoke factor. But you don’t have to smoke. Edible cannabis does this too. It does something to throat phlegm that is almost like drinking tea with lemon and honey (some add a bit of vinegar too, I’m told). Also, it relly feels to me like it tightens the link between throat and ear: intonation and timbral control become much easier.

    I have to croak through all the phlegm and dried blood (and coconut oil that I use to reduce my nose bleeds) in order to sing despite once having a decent voice timbrally and above average intonation. Cannabis kicks in, and it always improves it.

    fwiw. YMMV (your mileage may vary)

    ***
    “Recently (as in, starting in the past 3 months) some/many/most of the dispensaries have begun RECORDING the ID information of those who purchase.”

    The local minimart started doing this around last spring. I don’t know if it’ their insurance companies or state law. I rarely drink alcohol (formy alky, I am) so I haven’t bought any at any other store but it appears to be not government but store policy. After all, the insurance companies own everything (even the FED? 😉 )

    Researching Oregon state law reveals no state ID scan policy, Entities like DoorDash can deliver alcohol, so I’m sure it’s just insurance companies and data miners behind this particular policy.

    #92461
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Why it matters: It’s one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history, and the media’s response to its own mistakes has so far been tepid.”

    Funny. I thought selling WMDs in Iraq, justifying a vicious bombing campaign and wicked occupatioon, might vie for “most egregious”.

    They speak of the “banality of evil”. I find that vapidity usually leads evil around by the nose.

    #92462
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #92463
    those darned kids
    Participant

    bosco: my papá lives at 53º in ireland (at sea level). a cold day in winter is -3ºC. it’s all in the ocean.

    #92464
    Dora
    Participant

    “Robert Kennedy Jr. nails it – fact check him…”

    #92465
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    NPR, Greta
    The principles she speaks from are not incorrect, however, she (like so many others, including many who are dear to me) has bad data regarding vaccine safety and efficacy.

    #92466

    Absolute- I humbly submit this:
    In this negotiation, what you really want is to get her to give you something- a six month wait (or three, or one), say. If she is willing to do that, she has invested in your concerns and it is good leverage.

    Other things she could “give” you- you get to go with her, and get her to promise she will read the package insert. (!). Let her allow you to ask the doctor what would he/she would do in the case of an adverse event. Ask the doctor if he/she knows how insurance would cover such an event if it were to occur.

    #92467

    Absolute- another thing- did her mother have to ask her mother the DES question?
    (Diethylstilbestrol caused cancer in daughters of its recipients.)
    I might also look into how to deal with cult members.
    Good luck.

    #92468
    Noirette
    Participant

    COP 26. Imho, until recently global warming was underestimated re. its: magnitude, future projection (“models” thus questionable, >? feedback loops), present and future effects.

    Ex. drought played a big role in the ‘war’ in Syria (independently of whom one singles out for blame). Farmers could no longer produce, families started to go hungry, schools closed – i.e. Gvmt. personnel left…All these ppl upped and left and settled in town outskirts putting pressure on towns…Article looks OK, gives a map.

    https://www.dw.com/en/how-climate-change-paved-the-way-to-war-in-syria/a-56711650

    Today ‘climate change’ has become more ‘popular’, more important. Hyped.

    One can speculate that de-funding and de-subisidising fossil fuels is a way of obscuring the growing energy problems (peak oil, shale not profitable about to crash, prices haywire, etc.) Naturally opportunists, wind, nuclear, industries, as well as various grifters push this agenda forward. Those hankering for Kontrol are also keen: digital superinfo ID, no more travel, no more meat for the plebs, all that to save the planet, humankind, polar bears, coral reefs, and so on.

    Anyway, to get to the point, I regularly, once a year or so, check the general Fed. info (CH) on warming. Always underestimated (but correct in its calcs.) 18 or so months ago > a temp. rise of 2.1 degrees Celsius. After some time this was changed to “slightly over 2 degrees.” Way above the present ‘world’ goal of 1.5. Most (?) other countries report in the same range because all of them use the 30 year comparison, see link, i.e. in the case of CH, the base for comparison is temps. 1961-1990.

    That seems to be over, finito. Look at the chart CH now publishes.

    https://bit.ly/3cdmiK2

    The rise is 3.4 C. using 1871-1900 as a baseline.

    ————————————

    https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/updated-30-year-reference-period-reflects-changing-climate

    Note: CH is a ‘hot spot’: Northern Hemisphere, landlocked, elevated, lotsa ice -> melting fast!

    #92469
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #92470
    Dora
    Participant

    @ Absolute Galore

    I don’t have info that might change your ex’s mind about vaxing your child. This info is for you directly. Sometime the vax goes wrong, as we all know by now, and can lead to enormous crushing medical costs. Who pays those costs? Insurance companies? Not pharma, not the US gov so far? That leave the cost burden entirely on the parents, imo. How do you protect yourself and your family from financial destruction if things go wrong? That’s a question worth asking. Maybe a lawyer has the answer. Will your ex sign a paper releasing you from all medical costs associated with an adverse event if she’s determined to have your child vaxed over your objections? Something else to think about, I guess.

    #92471
    John Day
    Participant

    @Absolute Galore: I’ve gotta’ agree with the video of the injured-and-shunned 12 year old girl, Maddie Gray.
    Keep it short, directly threatening, compassionately-concerned, and with emotional impact.
    Vitamin-D 5000 units/d and 81 mg baby aspirin per day if she won’t relent… Start early.

    Boscohorowitz said: “My reading of history tells me that we are incapable of adequate reform to a serious problem. When things get serious, some kind of destructive revolution must occur. We seem compelled to destroy what is — be it necessary or useful or not — before building anew.”

    I think it’s the only way. As long as an economy is meeting needs, it can’t be replaced. There are vested interests who must capitulate. They would rather kill any number of proles than capitulate, so that usually happens. War is too destructive this time, at least for now, but there are always fearful fingers twitching near the red buttons.
    Any real change has to come from people who have arranged a bit of food security and community outside of the failing economy.
    That COULD be some of us…

    RFK for POTUS, with Tulsi Gabbard for VP!
    (In an alternate universe, of course. they would “die funny” in this world)

    @Phoenix Voice et al: Hmm, back in the old days people always just paid cash for pot through “informal” economic channels. I guess that went away…

    WES: Thanks, Jenny is resting well and doing better at home than she did at the compliance-dense hospital. Here she gets actual personalized care, good, fresh vegetables, and no checklist rundowns.

    #92472
    John Day
    Participant

    The Red Quen would be jealous of this prosecution…
    In Shock Closing Statement, Rittenhouse Prosecutor Claims Teen ‘Lost The Right To Self-Defense’ By Carrying Gun https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/judge-drops-rittenhouse-gun-charge-finds-he-legally-carried-ar-15-kenosha

    #92473
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “bosco: my papá lives at 53º in ireland (at sea level). a cold day in winter is -3ºC. it’s all in the ocean.”

    Aye. Arctic Ocean velly cold. Irish Sea not: love that North Atlantic current. Wonder how much longer it will warm the Isles:

    Atlantic Ocean currents weaken, signalling big weather changes – study August 5, 2021

    Study: Major Atlantic current showing signs it may shut down. Not all scientists agree.August 10 2001

    Way back in the mid-80s, I discussed this stuff with the smartest person I knew at the time. Geologist. He explained how one aspect of the theory was how increased glacial melt would decrease salinity, changing water density, and how enough of this would change major ocean current like the N Atlantic current, making major weather changes.

    North Atlantic Is Getting Less Salty, But It’s Too Soon to Blame Climate Change 2018

    Concern grows over Atlantic Ocean ‘conveyor belt’ shutdown 12 Nov 2021

    Global temperature changes mapped across the past 24,000 years 10 November 2021 :

    “Climate changes across the past 24,000 years provide key insights into Earth system responses to external forcing. Climate model simulations1,2 and proxy data3,4,5,6,7,8 have independently allowed for study of this crucial interval; however, they have at times yielded disparate conclusions. Here, we leverage both types of information using paleoclimate data assimilation9,10 to produce the first proxy-constrained, full-field reanalysis of surface temperature change spanning the Last Glacial Maximum to present at 200-year resolution. We demonstrate that temperature variability across the past 24 thousand years was linked to two primary climatic mechanisms: radiative forcing from ice sheets and greenhouse gases; and a superposition of changes in the ocean overturning circulation and seasonal insolation. In contrast with previous proxy-based reconstructions6,7 our results show that global mean temperature has slightly but steadily warmed, by ~0.5 °C, since the early Holocene (around 9 thousand years ago). When compared with recent temperature changes11, our reanalysis indicates that both the rate and magnitude of modern warming are unusual relative to the changes of the past 24 thousand years.”

    Again, YMMV.

    Regarding longitudes and such, from something I wrote… 24 years ago:

    Tracing the blond roots of my Anglo-Saxon heritage to their roots in the geographical scalp, I find that all of we from the British Isles lived above the 50th parallel, sort of along the globe’s eyebrow ridge below the arctic hairline of the polar cap (which lies at 66 degrees latitude). The Scots, of which I am one, lived above the 55th parallel. Our Norwegian compatriots, such as my wife’s ancestors, lived from the 58th parallel to well above the Arctic Circle. My ancestors’ immigration to America bequeathed to me a distinct solar advantage, that of growing up in Chicago at roughly 42 degrees latitude, where the winter nights aren’t nearly so long as those of my Scotch and Norse kin.

    Pause to do the numbers: according to The Old Farmers Almanac, December 26th is the last of the Dark Days of winter solstice. In Chicago, December 26th’s daylight will last 9 hours. Locations at 55 degrees latitude receive 7 hours & 10 minutes. Those living above 61 degrees shiver by on a sliver of sunlight lasting 5 hours & 28 minutes, while folks above 64 degrees barely adjust their eyes to the light before their 3 hours-&-46-minutes-long sun squint leaves them again in the dark basin of cold.

    My Scottish forebears, located between the 55th and 61st parallels, survived on 5 & 1/2 to 7 hours’ solar nourishment during the Dark Days. These rations of light and warmth were served in a climate known for its dense and unrelenting fogs. Nights lasted 18 hours. My wife’s ancestors above the 58th parallel were geographically insane, victims of a frigid sensory-deprivation chamber known as Norse winter. Their necessary ingredients for a happy (or at least survivable) holiday were logs, lard, lager, lullabies, and liturgies along with lust, lasciviousness, licentiousness, lassitude and languor. Fa-la-la-la-la — la-la-la-la. These days were hellaciously holy long before Santa deposed St. Nicholas, Jesus deposed Mithras, Mithras deposed Ba’al, or Uranus lost His euphemisms.

    Rome, great-grandparent of what we call Western civilization, is located along the 42nd parallel, about the same as Erie, PA (dismal name), Kalamazoo, MI (sounds like a wizard’s sneeze), and my hometown, Chicago, (located at the frostbit extremity of Lake Michigan’s icy Xmas stocking). In ancient and superstitious Rome, Saturnalia took place on days and nights respectively lasting 9 and 15 hours. They, too, felt the black pinch and were quite ready, come mid-December, to drink, dine and dance the nights away.

    #92474
    John Day
    Participant

    …the Pentagon has reactivated a nuclear unit, based in Mainz-Kastel, western Germany, that will soon be able to launch 4,000 mph hypersonic weapons aimed at Moscow, according to The Sun.

    For the first time in decades, the 56th Artillery Command is armed with “Dark Eagle” long-range hypersonic missiles that can strike Moscow in 21 minutes and 30 seconds. The last time the command was fully operational was in 1991, right before the Soviet Union collapsed.

    “From a blank piece of paper in March 2019, we, along with our industry partners and joint services, delivered this hardware in just over two years. Now, Soldiers can begin training,”
    https://www.zerohedge.com/military/us-nuclear-unit-germany-reactivates-dark-eagle-hypersonic-missiles

    #92475
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The Pentagon’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon Test Failed. Here’s What We Know

    There’s a bit of ambiguity about just what system was tested, but this is the Pentagon we’re tal;king about: can’t tel the truth; can’t make a decent defense weapon since, what, night vision goggles?
    I think these reports are Potemkin villages for public consumption.

    #92476
    Germ
    Participant
    #92477
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    a) “My reading of history tells me that we are incapable of adequate reform to a serious problem. When things get serious, some kind of destructive revolution must occur. We seem compelled to destroy what is — be it necessary or useful or not — before building anew.”

    b) “They would rather kill any number of proles than capitulate, so that usually happens. War is too destructive this time, at least for now, but there are always fearful fingers twitching near the red buttons.”

    Funny how so often when I say “we” it becomes translated as “they”, usually meaning TPTB. Let me clarify via Cozma Shalizi quoting Hans Magnus Enzensberger (emphases mine):

    Molecular Civil War
    by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

    “We look at a map of the world. We pinpoint wars in distant lands, preferably in the Third World. We talk of underdevelopment, differences in cultural maturity, fundamentalism. We tell ourselves that this unintelligible struggle is happening far away. But we are deluding ourselves when we reason that we are at peace simply because we can still collect our bread from the bakers without being blown away by sniper fire. The reality is that civil war has long since moved into the metropolis. Its mutations are part of everyday life in our cities, not just in Lima and in Johannesburg, in Bombay and in Rio, but in Paris and Berlin, in Detroit and Birmingham, in Milan and Hamburg. The combatants are no longer just terrorists and secret police, Mafiosi and skinheads, drug dealers and death squads, neo-Nazis and cowboy security guards. Even ordinary members of the public are transformed overnight into hooligans, arsonists, rioters and serial killers. And as in the African wars, the combatants are becoming younger by the day.

    “Civil war isn’t something we’ve imported from abroad. It’s not some virus we have allowed to infect us. It comes from within, and it always starts with a minority: It is probably enough if one person in every hundred wants to make civilized coexistence impossible. In the industrialized countries the overwhelming majority still prefer peace. Civil wars have not yet infected the mass of the population; they are still molecular. But, as events in Los Angeles show, they can escalate at any time to epidemic proportions.

    The beginning is bloodless, the evidence circumstantial. Molecular civil war starts unnoticed; there is no general mobilization. The amount of rubbish on the side of the streets increases gradually. Piles of syringes and broken bottles appear in the park. Monotonous graffiti is daubed on the walls, its only message one of autism. Classroom furniture is smashed up, front gardens stink of shit and urine–tiny, muted declarations of war which any experienced city-dweller can interpret. Soon the signs become clearer. Tires are slashed, emergency telephones have their cables cut, cars are set on fire. In one spontaneous incident after another, rage is vented on anything undamaged, hate turns on anything that works, and forms an insoluble amalgam with self-hate.

    “Youth is the vanguard of civil war. The reasons for this lie not only in the normal pent- up physical and emotional energies of adolescence, but in the incomprehensible legacy young people inherit: the irreconcilable problem of wealth that brings no joy. But everything they get up to has its origins, albeit in latent form, in their parents, a destructive mania that dares not express itself except in socially tolerated forms–an obsession with cars, with work and with gluttony, alcoholism, greed, litigiousness, racism and violence in the home.

    “It is difficult to say which party in this cauldron of aggression is most dangerous. One’s perception changes. A man who doesn’t drive a car tells his story: This is what happens when I catch the late evening train home. The carriage is almost empty and badly lit. An old man is sleeping in a corner; two fellows who have had a few drinks are talking at the other end of the compartment. The pair next to me have probably just finished their overtime. The train stops and four guys in their twenties get in, wearing the usual leather jackets and boots. They’re making quite a lot of noise and talking in a language I don’t understand, Arabic perhaps. Their behavior seems provocative, and, as they move through the carriage, they appear to be looking for someone to pick on. They come closer and I immediately feel threatened. They stare at me. I sense I’m going to be attacked. Then they move on and my gaze falls on the other passengers. Their faces are embittered, seething, distorted with a peculiarly ugly rage. The phrases they spit out I recognize only too well. Even the old man has woken up and murmurs something about hanging them up and shooting them down. And now it’s not the foreigners I’m afraid of, but my own people.”

    ” “My daughter’s school trip has had to be canceled,” says another, because there are three Turkish girls in her class; the other parents won’t let their children go because they think it would be taking too big a risk.” This proves that certain public spaces are simply off limits; you can’t go there without endangering yourself. This is not new. Years ago the Kreuzberg district of Berlin was ruled by 200 people who called themselves autonoms, which in this context meant: Human society does not exist for us. Their aim was to silence the rest of the population, and they were at the time generally successful in this. They created an area in which there were no rights, and where censorship, fear and blackmail ruled. The institutions retreated; what was left of the civilian population was gradually driven out.

    “There are similar areas in Eastern Europe and in what used to be East Germany. Isn’t it ironic that what was once the Zone has in this way become a Zone again? Might rules in many parts of the cities. The police feel outnumbered and are scared to go in, so becoming silent accomplices. There is talk of “liberated” areas, as the perpetrators succeed in liberating themselves from civilization and its burdens.

    “These circumstances lead to a double migration: on one side, the immigration of gangs of thugs in neo-Nazi costume and, on the other, the flight of those they threaten, in the first instance foreigners and ideological opponents, but, in the end, anyone who refuses to submit to the state. The outlook for the future is the complete disintegration of territory. As we have seen in the United States, de-industrialization is a significant factor in this process. Normal living conditions dissolve, to be replaced either by protected residential areas with their own security guards, or by slums and ghettos. The mandate of authority, police patrols and the court of law does not hold in the parts of the cities surrendered to the mobs. They become uncontrollable.

    “The border zones also play by their own turbulent rules. Smuggling, trafficking and criminality have radically altered the standards of these neighborhoods. The illegal immigrants don’t help matters; in most cases they are accustomed to different social norms and can summon up the enthusiasm for the traditional way of doing things. But even among the locals, standards of civilized behavior fall off sharply. They are replaced by the elementary rules of force. Just as Saddam Hussein revoked the rights of the Iraqi people, here all internal commitments, written and unwritten, are being extinguished. In the end only a gun counts for anything.

    “Those who are threatened have only two options: flight or self-defense. A privileged minority finds its own form of escape; it can retreat to a hideaway in the sun, take cover in asecond, or retirement, home, start a commune in the country, or join some remote sect. For the penniless millions, escape takes the miserable form of forced emigration and asylum-seeking.

    “Those who don’t flee wall themselves in. Everywhere in the world international frontiers are being fortified to keep the barbarians out. But even in the inner cities archipelagos of safety are being constructed, and these will be defended to the last. There have long been bunkers for the fortunate in the great cities of America, Africa and Asia, guarded by high walls topped with barbed wire. Sometimes whole city districts can only be entered with a special pass. Barriers, electronic cameras and trained dogs control access, machine-gun installations on watch-towers secure the surroundings. The parallel with the concentration camp is obvious, only here it is the outside world that is regarded by the inmates as a potential extermination zone. The privileged few pay a high price for the luxury of total isolation: They have become prisoners of their own safety.

    “More and more people are beginning to arm themselves in the vicious circle that is part of the dynamic of civil war. Where the state can no longer enforce its monopoly on violence then everyone must defend himself. Even Hobbes, who concedes almost unlimited executive authority to the state, says of this situation that: “The subject’s duty toward their sovereign lasts only as long as he is able to protect them through his power. Man’s natural right to protect himself when no one else is in a position to do so cannot be withheld by any treaty.” The reasons behind the retreat of the state vary enormously. In the beginning it is often out of cowardice or some tactical calculation, as in the Weimar Republic and latterly in the reunited Germany. At a more advanced stage of the molecular civil war it might be because the police and judiciary are no longer masters of the situation; the overfilled prisons have become training camps for the combatants. In other cases it is because the state has lost all legitimacy, as in the former Soviet Union. One step further—viz the former Yugoslavia—and it is the regime itself that is organizing the armed bands.

    “Those who can will waste no time in hiring mercenaries to take the place of the police. A sign of this is the growth of the so-called security industry. The bodyguard has become a status symbol. Security firms are even hired by state-owned concerns to protect the infrastructure. Wherever the local citizenry are unable to pay for hired guards they form neighborhood watch or vigilante groups. Where this isn’t possible, people will sooner or later buy themselves handguns; this is already evident in the US, where an individual’s right to carry arms has become a national ideology.

    “Civil wars, from the molecular to the full scale, are infectious. As the number of people untouched by war steadily falls, because they have died or fled or attached themselves to one side or the other, the participants become more and more difficult to tell apart. They begin to resemble each other both in their behavior and in their moral attitudes. In the war zones of the cities, the police and the army act like any other armed gang. Antiterrorist units operate preventative shoot-to-kill policies, and drug addicts and small-time criminals find themselves facing death squads who are the mirror image of their supposed opponents. The lumpenproletariat gives rise to a corresponding lumpenbourgeoisie, which in its choice of means copies its enemy. It is the same with the epidemic of wars. Aggression and defense become indistinguishable. The mechanism resembles that of the blood feud. More and more people are pulled into the whirlpool of fear and hate until the situation becomes quintessentially antisocial.

    ” “We don’t know what has happened to us.” That is the most common phrase we hear from the survivors of Sarajevo. When all other explanations fail, self-experimentation presents one of the few remaining possibilities of getting to the bottom of the matter—Bill Buford, an American writer, thought he would try it out. In his book Among the Thugs he tells how he became part of the mob. This is a report from the latency phase of the civil war. It is set in a football stadium:

    ” “While I couldn’t say that I have developed a rapport with any one of `them’ yet, I did find that I was developing a taste for the game… It was, I see now on reflection, not unlike alcohol or tobacco: disgusting, at first; pleasurable, with effort; addictive, over time. And perhaps, in the end, a little self-destroying.”

    “In the following scene, the accommodation with violence reaches its climax:

    ” “There were now six of them, and they all started kicking the boy on the ground. The boy covered his face. I was surprised that I could tell, from the sound, when someone’s shoe missed, or when it struck the fingers and not the forehead or the nose. I was transfixed. I suppose, thinking about this incident now, I was close enough to have stopped the kicking… But I didn’t. I don’t think the thought occurred to me. It was as if time had dramatically slowed down, and each second had a distinct beginning and end, like asequence of images on a roll of film, and I was mesmerized by each image I saw.
    With that first exchange, some kind of threshold had been crossed, some notional boundary; on one side of that boundary had been a sense of limits, an ordinary understanding–even among this lot–of what you didn’t do; we were now someplace where there would be few limits, where the sense that there were things you didn’t do had ceased to exist… It was an excitement that verged on being something greater, an emotion more transcendent than joy at the very least, but more like ecstasy. There was an immense energy about it; it was impossible not to feel some of the thrill. Somebody near me said that he was happy, very happy, that he could not ever remember being so happy.”

    “Molecular and regional civil wars have more than just the combatants’ autism in common. Their participants must also be selfless. In 1951, Hannah Arendt wrote:

    ” “I suspect there has never been a shortage of hate in the world; but…[by now] it had grown to become a deciding political factor in all public affairs…. This hate could not be targeted at any one person or thing. No one could be made responsible–neither the government, nor the bourgeoisie, nor the foreign powers of the time. And so it seeped into the pores of everyday life and spread out in all directions, taking on the most fantastical, unimaginable forms…. Here it was everyone against everyone else, and above all against his neighbor….

    ” “What distinguishes the masses today from the mob is their selflessness, their complete disinterest in their own well-being…. Selflessness not as a positive attribute, but as a lack: the feeling that you yourself are not affected by events, that you can be replaced at any time, anywhere, by someone else…. This phenomenon of a radical loss of self, this cynical or bored indifference with which the masses approached their own destruction, was completely unexpected… People were beginning to lose their normal common sense and their powers of discrimination, and at the same time were suffering from a no less radical failure of the most elementary survival instinct.”

    “Arendt was writing of the period between the two world wars, describing the situation which led to the establishment of the totalitarian regimes. The relevance of her analysis to today’s situation is plain. But in contrast to the 1930s, today’s protagonists have no need for rituals, marches and uniforms, nor for agendas and oaths of loyalty. They can survive without a Fuehrer. Hatred on its own is enough. If in those days terror was the monopoly of totalitarian regimes, today it has reappeared in de-nationalized form. The Gestapo and the OGPU are superfluous when their infantile clones can do their work for them. Every car on the subway can become a miniature Bosnia. You don’t need Jews to have a pogrom; counter-revolutionaries aren’t the only elements that need cleansing. It’s enough to know that someone supports a different football club; that his greengrocer’s shop is doing better than the one next door; that he dresses differently; that he speaks a different language; that he wears a headscarf or needs a wheelchair. Not to conform is to risk death.

    “Their aggression is not directed only at others, but at themselves. It is as if it were all the same to them not only whether they live or die, but whether they had ever been born, or had never seen the light of day. However huge the genetic pool of stupidity might be, it is not big enough to explain this urge to violent self-destructiveness. And the nexus of cause and effect is so obvious that any child could understand it.

    “Howls of protest at the loss of jobs are accompanied by pogroms which make it obvious to any thinking capitalist that it would be senseless to invest in a place where people go in fear of their lives. The most idiotic Serbian president knows as well as the most idiotic Rambo that his civil war will turn his country into an economic wasteland. The only conclusion one can draw is that this collective self-mutilation is not simply a side-effect of the conflict, a risk the protagonists are prepared to run, it is what they are actually aiming to achieve.

    “The fighters know very well that there will be no victory. They know that, eventually, they will lose. And yet they do everything in their power to up the stakes. Their aim is to debase everybody–not only their opponents, but also themselves. A French social worker reports from a housing estate in the suburbs of Paris:

    ” “They have destroyed everything: letter-boxes, doors, stairways. The health center, where their younger brothers and sisters receive free medical treatment, has been demolished and looted. They recognize no rules of any sort. They smash doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries to pieces and tear down their schools. When they are given a new football pitch, they saw down the goalposts.”

    “This picture of molecular civil war resembles the full-scale event down to the last detail. A reporter tells how he witnessed an armed band smashing up a hospital in Mogadishu. This was no military operation. No one was threatening the men, and no shots had been heard in the city. The hospital was already badly damaged, equipped only with the bare essentials. The perpetrators went about their business with a fierce thoroughness. Beds were slit open, bottles containing blood serum and medicine were shattered. Then the men, in torn and dirty camouflage uniform, set about destroying the few remaining pieces of apparatus. They did not leave until they had made sure that the single X-ray machine, the sterilizer and the oxygen generator were no longer usable. Each one of these zombies knew that there was no end to the war in sight. They all realized that within hours their lives might depend on whether there was a doctor around to patch them up. And still their obvious intent was to eliminate even the smallest chance of survival.

    “One is tempted to call this the reductio ad insanitatem. In the collective running amok, the concept of “future” disappears. Only the present matters. Consequences do not exist. The instinct for self-preservation, with the restraining influence it brings to bear, is knocked out of action.

    “One is reminded of Freud, who after much speculation felt he had no alternative but to postulate the existence of a death drive, whose primary goal was the destruction of the individual’s own life, with the destruction of the lives of others as a secondary aim. His hypothesis could never be tested empirically and has remained vague. But even the concept of the survival instinct is problematic, even naive. It might govern the behavior of bacteria and plants, but it fails in the higher animals, and there isn’t a lot in history to support it. After all, millions have died as saints and martyrs, heroes and fanatics, ignoring the dictates of self-preservation. Pessimistic thinkers like de Maistre have always recognized the central significance of sacrifice, and made a virtue of repression. It is possible that all religions have their origins in personal sacrifice; ever since the gods were banished from the world, men have never been short of some higher purpose in whose name they would kill and die. We might even wonder whether “culture” is dependent on this ability to put causes before ourselves.

    “There are still people around who, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, act selflessly: Aid workers who take personal risks; opponents of regimes, such as Jan Palach, or the nameless Buddhist monks of Indochina, who burned themselves alive for their convictions; but also cult leaders and fanatical priests who believe they will be rewarded in heaven for the extinction of their own lives.

    “In war, however, the reins are held not by these few, but by those who have lost everything they might have had to sacrifice. What gives today’s civil wars a new and terrifying slant is the fact that they are waged without stakes on either side, that they are wars about nothing at all. This gives them the characteristics of a political retrovirus. We have always regarded politics as a struggle between opposing interests, not only for power, for resources and for better opportunities, but also in pursuit of wishes, plans and ideas. And although this power play invariably results in bloodshed and is often unpredictable, at least the intentions of those involved are usually obvious. But where no value is attributed to life–either to one’s own life or to the lives of one’s opponents–this becomes impossible, and all political thought, from Aristotle and Machiavelli to Marx and Weber, is turned upside down. All that remains is the Hobbesian ur-myth of the war of everyone against everyone else.” [This is an adaptation from his latest book, Civil Wars: From LA to Bosnia, which appeared in New Perspectives Quarterly (12:1). The book is one of the most unsettling I know; I recommend it highly. — CRShalizi]

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