boilingfrog
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It’s 11:30am here in Appalachia and I just read that Putin and Zelensky will meet in Minsk to talk.
My biggest fear is President Zelensky will be murdered by someone, and the blame put on Russia.
With all due respect, Mr. Penn is just following the “new and improved scientific method, now with the power of nanotechnology”: state your truth, seek data that supports it, hide data that refutes it.
Stay tuned, next he’ll be off to KSA to document how it really was the personal bodyguard, acting on his own accord, who killed Khashoggi (sp?)
Dr D, your posts are wonderful, to my way of thinking, and challenging my thinking. A delightful dinner guest you be…
Once again I’ll be applying an ‘anecdotal scientific method’ to what I see happening; reading news from all sides, watching actions, and seeing (a) whose predictions were most accurate, (b) which person
/country came closest to matching their ‘talk’ in actions.That’s really an amazing datapoint by Chooch.
And in the ‘sarcasm section’, I wonder if Victoria Nuland will choose to put her GoPro camera on her helmet, or on her rifle, as she live-streams her heroic, on-the-ground defense of Ukraine from the eastern front?
Taibbi’s most recent article knocks it out of the park, making a quilt out of numerous patches.
“When Boring People Turn Dangerous: Canada’s Insane Power Grab: The Canadian government’s decision to freeze bank accounts in the trucker protests is a mad leap toward bureaucratic dystopia”
Includes this:
“Deciding to seize funds is a major leap in the manic progression of a certain type of disordered authoritarian personality who’s suddenly everywhere. They’re coming out of decades-long disguises as milquetoast center-left careerists, and they all seem to believe now that all things on earth happen or don’t because of them. It’s as if Raskolnikov’s madness seized a generation of Western yuppies simultaneously.”Here’s an interesting article, curious for Doc’s R and D to take a look…certainly not what I’ve read previously about this drug.
Don’t forget, Russia was also the country that sent two ‘assets’ to walk in front of cameras and then use a highly toxic, murderous poison to “off” an ex-spy who they’d held in prison for years, and swapped away…/s
I shared the IVM story at U of Minn (appreciated DrD’s comment on timing), and he quickly sent this back. Apparently, a LOT of data, but I’m a carpenter and struggling to make sense – help?
To me it seems it shows kids less likely to get infected from vaccinated parents, but aren’t kids less likely to get infected, period? And the quick ‘efficacy’ fall-off is quite something… Thanks for any assist.
Why bother with numbers, they’re confusing… it’s much more effective to roll with the “Children’s Hospital” and “Anti-Animal Cruelty Society” method. A few words, then sad images.
Who could possibly argue with that? It’s the new “science”/sI can’t find anything to support the Peter Sweden tweet you posted. I find things that support France shortening the time frame TO be boosted…but not shortening the time to the 2nd booster (generally, 4th shot).
A little help? (I know we don’t want bad info here)
I really, really do try to listen to both (or more) sides of an argument.
From The Guardian today, here’s Eric Topol from Scripps leading the quote:
“I think that’s grossly inaccurate,” Topol said. He recently cared for a Covid-positive patient with chronic lung disease who was coded as hospitalized “with”, not “for,” Covid. That’s because the patient needed to be treated for the lung disease – but it had only flared up because of Covid. [So ‘science’ now says, grab the most dramatic, possibly one-off case you can find, and then make the biggest unsubstantiated generalization possible. Dr. Topol, why not go even farther, for example, if the patient was a male, extend your argument to ALL males?]
“We do have 150,000 US hospitalizations with or for Covid, which is well beyond any record and is completely overwhelming health systems,” Topol said. “So, this debate is just nonsensical.” [Really?! THAT’S the part of this you find ‘nonsensical? Really and truly?!! And the context for that big scary numer, 150k, is ?]
There are cases where patients are undergoing surgery or getting treated for accidents when they test positive for Covid incidentally. But that’s not very common, experts said [Again, no data. Listen science-type folks, you can’t consciously choose to NOT collect, or share, the data and then make statements like this and expect people still supporting logic (I know, it’s so antiquated) to believe you]
We have the MVP (Mountain Valley Pipeline) cutting a big swath through our Appalachian Mountains. Right now it seems to be on hold as they fight out “stream crossings” in the courts. The travel trailers from Texas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas have all departed for the winter, the “man-camps” disassembled till Spring.
I’ve told people for a couple of years that what’s playing out here is international in scope. Our government says they do not want Germany and the test of Europe dependent upon Russia for energy, no, they want to cut swaths through mountains of unstable karst, put in a 42″ high pressure pipe, build LNG ports and ships, and make Germany, et al, dependent upon the good old USA for their energy.
I hope these companies have the younger Mr. B_den on board so he can bring his vast energy experience home to help us out.It seems to me that shifting from an old pipeline through Ukraine to a new one in the ocean is good free-market capitalism – lowering costs by cutting out an (unstable) intermediary. HBR (the Harvard Business Review) should be all over it as a case study in good corporate governance, I would think.
In a side note, I have a 4″ high pressure gasline easement through my property (yet my neighborhood doesn’t have gas from it, go figure…). They used to “bush-hog” the entire thing once a year to keep those pesky trees from rooting down. For the past two years they’ve “saved money” by reducing crews and only cutting a swath, from marking post to marking post. (Am guessing dividends and buy-backs are holding steady, though…)
Love it!
Watching CNN and listening to Judy on NPR as “Emotional Day Care”. Used to see the same behavior in my parents as they worshipped Bill O’Reilly, ‘cuz, “He’s got my back!”
Yep! As long as the check clears, the private jet is fully fueled, he’s surely got your back!When the subject of the ‘vaccines’ arises, which it undoubtedly does, and one attempts to have a logical, adult conversation (you know, data, facts, etc), people figuratively put their fingers in their ears and start making loud, childish playground noises, followed by an equally loud, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!”
I’ve often heard, “Well, I choose to believe in the vaccines” as the terminal statement. “Okay, fine. But you do realize that this belief is, according to you, faith-based, not science, right?” (Usually, I say to myself, as, they’re frustrated enough…)
VP – to piggyback on your anecdotes, a family member works in the trades for a small company. All the employees – vaxxed to a man – are out with the Fauci Flu. He’s unvaxxed, and tested negative, but can’t work during the day (when stores are open) because, he’s unvaxxed and, not safe.
An ER doc friend, fully boosted, along with everyone in her family. All but one tested positive for Fauci Flu. Of course, “The vaccination kept it from being worse!”
How did Josey Wales say it? “Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining!”
One physician friend held out as long as he could from having his individual practice absorbed by the local healthcare system, which he referred to as “the devil”.
It was only when the insurance companies strung his repayments out to months and months – choked off his cash flow, house on the line – that he relinquished. This was years ago and it seemed to break the wave of holdouts…everyone got in line and he was rewarded well for being first in line. The younger physicians nowadays don’t know a different way.
Now office managers knock on the door if they spend too much time with a patient, they earn bonuses for “productivity”, and the corporate focus is “no leaks” to a specialist (for example) from another healthcare system.
Oxy,
Never thought about trees dropping branches for self-preservation. Still dark as I read on the other side of the globe, waiting to let my “chooks” out for the day in the fenced yard. It’s the coyotes that worry me with regard to rhe goats. In the dry they sleep on the roof, but it’s raining… be safe.Really appreciated the Malone interview. My only concern about it – and hopefully someone can straighten this out – was his inability, with all of his contacts, to know what was in the packages sent to the Indian residents of Utter Pradash. I have no contacts and found images of what appeared to be the (yellow) packaging, and it did contain ivermectin.
On the economic front, I have flying analogy I have been using fr years. When the Fed rescued “the system” with more fiat, they flew themselves into the proverbial “box canyon”.
It’s too narrow for turning around, and they don’t have enough power to climb out going forward.
So, options are (a) full power (print! print! print!) and try to climb out, only to hit the end wall at speed, OR (b) slow way, way down by raising rates and stopping QE, etc (risking a stall and spin to the canyon floor) and try a u-turn, only to find it’s to narrow, and you hit the side wall.
Kunstler predicts they’ll attempt (b), and revert to (a). Clearly, we find ourselves in a predicament, not a problem. Timing, as always, the unknown.
Taking today to work in my shop, but the anger boiling below is spoiling it. Sadly.
How many lies has the politician Fauci spoken? Among the big ones – outright, ommission or obfuscation – I can think of…
(1) he was connected with nothing that could be considered GOF (gain-of-function);
(2) he allowed case counts to continue to be bloated when he knew long ago that the (qualitative) PCR test was flawed;
(3) he offered no clarification about the hospital admisssions “WITH” versus hospital admissions “BECAUSE” of covid (till now);
(4) he pretended to know nothing about natural immunity;
(5) he oversaw CDC stop counting “breakthrough” cases;Typical politician… (or university administrator, same thing)
This site, from RIM’s hard work and selection of material, to the commenters, is truly a treasure. Thank you all.
Be safe.I was being pressured to be boosted by well-meaning friends, so I responded with data from the CDC’s website on this very issue: cancellation of PCR tests.
Appreciate Doc Rob’s clarification that we’ll still have PCR tests, but tests that are more accurate. I’m glad we seem to be learning and putting said learning to practical use.
However, it logically then follows that previous numbers, determined by the “outdated” PCR were inflated. Clearly. Logic doesn’t allow for another option, it seems to me.
So my friend’s grandfather who died last year of a heart attack, while (old) PCR test positive for covid, might actually have died of a heart attack WITH influenza, not necessarily WITH covid.
Certainly no expert on the Second Great Awakening (which I believe birthed new religions such as Mormonism and the Seventh Day Adventists, among others), but curious if any parallels can be drawn to the scientism of today.
In that time period, and focused in the Burned Over District of New York, there certainly were many people ready to accept some new faiths.If memory serves, a wise person once wrote: “we learn through analogy”, or something similar.
The analogy I wanted to tentatively put out there is this: “What if continuing to get the shots is like running your engine on ether starting fluid”.
I said this analogy to a mechanic friend last night and he just laughed out loud because, instantly, he could “see” (in his mind’s eye) the damage done to the engine by such behavior. Are “two shots, no, three, no once a year, no, once a month…” any different?
In our small little town we’ve been referring to the University, and especially The Foundation wing of the university as a legal mafia, busy with legal grifting.
Owning the fast food franchises on campus (so students don’t leak to town and spend their money), while paying little or no taxes; buying state-of-the-art food trucks for those areas farther away from dining rooms (no leaks!); “bookstores” in town that mainly sell perfumes and make-up (better margins for the managers, lower taxes, too); expensive golf courses designed by expensive ex-PGA pros, “because we have to be competitive with other schools”; and now construction of big buildings just off campus that will house upscale bars and restaurants (no/lower food taxes!) and office space they’ll rent back to the university (this is part of the great economy of ZIRP, they have few productive investments left).
Election time rolls around and the bigshots have huge signs out front for (it’s a small town for a $1.8B university!) the judges and prosecutors…plus the wonderful dinners for local and statewide representatives.
When the university big boys “retire”, the ones “in the club” get an office and secretary, etc, in a local public/private building, and a group of “fellows” (students) to do their tasks… as well as a stipend out of a Foundation slush fund.
Internal auditors? On the staff, so don’t worry about it! New Executive Vice-President hired from the Gates Foundation – who do you want to talk to?
It really is quite a slick operation! They make Capone look like a bit player! Scale is the only difference with BlackRock…
Three and a half hours till the solstice…can’t come too soon. It will be nice to watch the expanding daylight, as we head inyo this season of death and misery (from the Fauci Flu, it seems).
I was talking to a client yesterday, a Harvard grad, of all things, as I tiled his bathroom floor. We were both so sad to find out they don’t do science there…)
We were discussing why nobody was hearing from the head of Ecohealth Alliance in all the talk of “what to do, what’s going on”, regarding Covid . It seems pretty clear that there is probably no person on the planet who knows more about what is going on than him, as this has been his life’s purpose. (Daschak certainly knows more than Fauci and Collins, because they didn’t get to read the reports he didn’t submit, contrary to his grant contract, as they say).
The Jessica Rose piece is a gem! I passed it along to molecular biologist friend whole parroting and paraphrasing Greer: “Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking”. Her ability to take something so complex and communicate it so clearly points to a mastery of subject, in my book.
While tiling a shower pan this morning I listened to NPR’s (National Public Radio, here in the states) while they recapped the week’s news. They religiously toed the “unvaccinated are the problem” line, even after playing a clip of St. Fauci saying, “The two course regimen is not working so well against Omicron, so you need to get the booster!”
Absolute insanity…all discussions seemed to lead to the same village: vaccination.
Deflationista, your tempering comments, especially with data, are valuable – thank you.
It’s SO easy to build a silo around ourselves. If shots at you start with ad hominem attacks or strawmen, please move along…(I know I do). I look forward to your comments nearly as much as I do Dr. D’s.
I don’t subscribe to be in an echo chamber
Just got this message from a friend, and I think most of us can relate to it:
“Hi y’all, I just wanted to share something that I observed yesterday.
You may already know this, but I found it quite interesting.I went out to dinner last night at a VERY top shelf restaurant for a
company Christmas dinner. While we were there eating I noticed that
there were no masks, no sanitizer bottles, no social distancing, and
frankly no evidence at all that covid even existed. On the way home I
stopped at Chick-fil-a for [wife’s name] and then at TJ Max, and of course
they’re all masked up with plexi-glass dividers, etc. The contrast was
so stark that it gave me pause.”More and more corporate money influencing the universities and their research. State money decreasing but the administration’s “lust for growth” is not diminished.
Back in December of 2017 The Roanoke Times outed a professor who didn’t disclose a personal revenue stream. Headline:
“A highly touted Virginia Tech expert speaking out against net neutrality was paid by AT&T to argue the same position….Electrical and computer engineering professor Jeffrey Reed said he has worked as a consultant for the telecommunications giant. He added that the views he’s expressing now [on net neutrality] are his own and have nothing to do with the times he was paid to formulate arguments at AT&T’s behest.”
Big surprise. To nobody. Having acquaintances and family in the upper administrative levels of higher ed and health care, it’s a toss-up who are the bigger prostitutes. The rationalization is easy: “We can’t perform our essential service without the lucre!”
Thats it’s happening in the pharmaceutical industry, where they add another few zeroes on the amount line of the check…shocking! Just shocking! /s
From the Judicial Watch piece:
“These records are proof positive that US tax dollars were dishonestly used by Fauci’s agency to fund ‘gain of function’ coronavirus research,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
I am continuing to hold the (for simplicity’s sake) “two sides” of this debate in mind without having a mental crack-up [or no worse than normal 🙂 ], with much gratitude to Raul and this group.
Living inside the geographical bubble of a large land-grant university, I am surrounded and often work for, many highly educated folks. Professors and the like… But I find that they, for the most part, do not read widely outside their silos of knowledge (Ph.D’s: “know everything about nothing”, as opposed to knowing a little bit about a wide range of subjects).
The display of logical fallacies is absolutely breathtaking: appeal to experts; building up strawmen to tear down; sunk cost fallacy, etc. Simply amazing.
Dr.D – was it you who spoke (long ago) about how if they had let the airlines (for example) go bankrupt and the investors take the hit, the assets would not have sat around long before a new group of managers would have picked them up and re-organized. Analogous to a large oak falling the the forest to clear the canopy and fertilize the new seedlings? [So a political cartoon of QE would be tge Federal Reserve cutting down all the other saplings around to try and brace up an oak whose time had run out, yes?]
That concept is upon my mind as I watch this progression of insanity roll along… if so, thank you sir, mam, they, whomever…
To my way of thinking it’s important to dig up and examine, on occasion, the “turtles” your world stands upon. These presuppositions and “accepted facts” are strong anchors below the surface.
At a slightly shallower level we might “anchor” ourselves to faith in a particular political party, come hell or high water, or a particular “news/entertainment” personality and their take on the world.
We’d become paralyzed and exhausted if we had to examine and re-examine each and every decision anew, so compromise and faith it is… This site and its commenters can be challenging, and I thank you all for that, especially when it’s data driven, not name calling (even Deflationista is appreciated).
Now, time to tend my garden…
Just finishing Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book “Braiding Sweetgrass” and she expounds greatly on the different views the indigenous have of “land”, compared to “westerners”. Night and day. Our societies treat it as a “thing” to own, trade, dominate and use (up).
Lately been struggling with family on the whole vax issue, and they think I’ve fallen into a cult of sorts, an illogical, selfish cult that is agains the vaccine. I’m sure many others experience this, too, and to much greater extents.
Yesterday it occurred to me that the old adage about not talking about “politics or religion” has now extended to “healthcare”. The common thread (at least from what I see) is they have all become “faith-based”, and faith-based issues do not dwell in the land of logic and rational thinking.
Not to drag Theranos failure into the conversation, but simply to point out that the “It’s a small club and you ain’t in it!” adage is alive and well:
[From Yahoo News] “During his cross-examination, Leach pressed Holmes on her efforts to kill a 2015 investigative report in the Wall Street Journal by John Carreyrou that exposed Theranos’ flawed technology…Holmes, in turn, admitted to making a direct appeal to Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Journal’s publisher, who had invested $125 million in Theranos.”
“When none of the tactics against the Journal succeeded, Leach aimed to show that Holmes tried to intimidate former Theranos employees Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz, who reported concerns to government regulators and informed the Journal’s investigation. Shultz — grandson of former Secretary of State and Theranos board member George Shultz — also escalated concerns internally.”
Of course, Holmes’ father was also a senior executive at Enron, so, well, draw your own conclusions on her values system. Lots and lots of high-dollar connections.
And some folks wonder why there is so much questioning of authority and the media (“Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, the judge that will soon decide Julian Assange’s fate, is a close personal friend of Sir Alan Duncan, who as foreign minister arranged Assange’s eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy. The two have known each other since their student days at Oxford in the 1970s, when Duncan called Burnett “the Judge”. )
(Regarding Fauci’s latest… does anybody recall that old aphorism along the lines of: “Once you make colonel you’re no longer a soldier, you’re a politician”.
That transition happened for ‘St. Tony’ so many decades ago I’m sure the good doctor doesn’t remember, nor did he notice at the time). Of course, a good manager is training potential replacements, and steps aside when the time is right…Cruz’s 4 points are about as clear and straight forward as it gets, bumper-sticker simple… and it doesn’t even matter in this world anymore. Aw hell, it’s too early to even start down that road this morning, but I’m glad some folks are holding on to “logic”, that great gift of the Greeks (clearly long lost at ASU).
Rollo May: “Pain is the only motivator”.
Deflationista,
Thank you for bird-dogging that information on SCA. To my way of thinking that is the kind of baseline data we must have in order to rationally view this matter.Of course we don’t have all the data, we don’t see the full picture, because all the data is not being collected…and/or publicized. As I type that I realize we may not even be able to identify “all the data”.
Doc Robinson, yes, thank you, too, for that complexly-named database. More baseline data that may help give solid footing for rational thinking.
I know we have an international crew of commentors here, but I’m curious to know if (we) Americans are seeing a similar spike in public sports collapses…football, basketball, hockey… I have not heard anything here in Virginia, nor are any friends in my circle (the sports-junky ones).
In the past the rare times when a high school or college athlete collapses and dies “on the pitch” are big news events. Dramatic when a physically fit person collapses in the peak of their active life – and it always seems to be a genetic cause.
Changing subject, my favorite phrase for electric vehicles (EV’s), is EC’s… externalized cost vehicles. But since this business model-business plan has been taught in the business schools for 25 years, there’s no surprise, is there? Privatize profits, socialize costs, use other peoples (preferably the govt’s money!)
But D’s right, why bother, no one changes their beliefs or behavior for something so silly as “facts” and “logic”.
That’s why, when my professor friends say “education is the answer!” I say, “Really? What comfortable behavior have you changed based upon knowledge?”
(I think I cribbed that from one of Eric Greitens’ books, and he’s a good example).Well, one doctor friend now unemployed, and another got a religious exemption waiver for within his system that’ll last till February. Three close vaxxed friends are now Covid positive, one a very nervouse teacher who is perpetually masked. One very athletic 50 y.o. cousin has “the tingles” (his description) in his nerves since second shot.
The shot promised to keep a person from getting Covid. Check.
The shot promised to keep you out of the hospital if you got Covid. Check.
The shot is safe for all.The athletes crashing on the field (and off) is both terrifying and gripping. By its very nature It is the kind of public event that cannot be “hidden”, nor “should” it be happening to this subset, at least in quantity.
Here in these divided United States I am not hearing much about similar local events. Is anyone aware of aa list of college and professional athletes having cardiac emergencies this fall? I’m not, and if that’s the case with others, I’d find the lack thereof very odd. No generalizations being made, just a search for data points. Thanks
“Addendum;
I would exclude Dr. D
I’ve come to respect what he does…”I’m with V.A. on DD… even his “Totally pointless post that goes on far too long. So, same as usual” stretch my thinking. It’s like reading Jonathon Turley (but different!).
Denninger says: “UM (Ann Arbor) is reporting a wildly-virulent outbreak of “the worst flu ever” but the testing for Covid is coming back negative. They’re claiming its a strain of flu but that’s even worse because that strongly implies that the immune damage isn’t Covid-19 specific.”
Operative word most often seen in MSM: “claiming”.
https://www.health.com/condition/flu/university-of-michigan-flu-outbreak-influenza-a: says “”We quickly identified these cases as influenza A(H3N2) virus infections,” Lindsey Mortenson, University Health Services medical director, said in the November 15 news release. “Partnering with the CDC will accelerate our understanding of how this flu season may unfold regionally and nationally in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
And they then go on to discuss the family tree of flu viruses, symptoms, etc.
