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I just made a rather long post which disappeared. Let’s try a much shorter one.
Thsi morning I made a comment to an article in The Conversation talking about how alarmist reporting on covid will only heighten anxieties and drive vaccine hesitancy. I cited McCullough and wondered how someone like me can know what is credible and what isn’t. I got a reply from another commentator, not the author of the article.
It cited Reuters Factcheck citing the CDC which says there is no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths. (https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaers-deaths-idUSL1N2LV0NY)
Also cited the Wikipedia entry demonising Robert F. Kennedy.
Also cited a Guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/22/melbourne-doctors-under-review-for-promoting-discredited-covid-treatment) saying that McCullough peer reviewed his own article, and his views don’t reflect those of Baylor Scott and White Health.After 12 months of reading and trying to analyse what is going on, my suspicious little mind has become very wary of the CDC and the Guardian and Wikipedia (and all the rest of them). No wonder the general public go along with the authorised and official opinions. They may not have the time or the interest in investigating, and neither would I if it weren’t for sites like TAE.
So, India is deploying the Sputnik vaccine. Here’s what the ABC, the Australian public broadcaster (but very much MSM) has to say about Sputnik:
“For example, numerous unverified accounts presenting themselves as news sources or health specialists reported the unveiling of the Russian vaccine ‘Sputnik V’ in an uncritically positive and largely decontextualized manner,” First Draft found.
“These reports failed to highlight the fact that the vaccine was approved before it had gone through large-scale Phase 3 trials, which provoked widespread concern and objections from the scientific community.”
SourceI see. Sputnik is no good because it hasn’t gone through the Phase 3 trials.
But Pfizer and AZ et al. are safe because they haven’t gone through the Phase 3 trials.At last I understand.
Re the safety or otherwise of the various vaccines, the message in Oz is that the people jabbed number in the millions while the casualties number in the few hundreds at most and we can’t be sure that any vaccine is causally related to the injuries anyway, hence the odds of someone suffering adverse effects are 99.999% against. So stop worrying and learn to love the gift of health and safety.
Only time will tell — provided the results are reported fairly.
Pearce’s painting is atmospheric all right, but I do wonder at the complexions of the two models: oh so pale and pasty, tragedy or no. Or did ancient Egyptian nobility have the same attitude towards darker skin that have been around for millennia, i.e. darker skin = outdoor work = lower social status?
A quick comment on an article from yesterday about Australia’s borders possibly being shut until late next year. Raúl asked, “How is that not a prison?”
It is and it isn’t.
There is more than a little unhappiness and anger here about the sudden banning of travellers returning from India, backed up with threats of fines and imprisonment. To abandon our own citizens like this is appalling, cynical, heartless treatment. Australian citizenship evidently means little to those who exercise the dominion over us.
Our foremost citizenship law expert thinks that the measures go beyond the law and are unconstitutional. The Feds are now rapidly backtracking, saying that they will not levy fines nor imprison anybody. At the same time they excuse themselves by insisting that our protection and safety is paramount and aren’t we so kind and loving? Part of the problems arises from the fact that the Feds have had an entire year to set up adequate quarantine facilities and have failed to do so. The why is anyone’s guess. Money? Neoliberal-inspired shrinkage of government? Just plain stupidity?
At the same time, the closed borders have had good effects. They have kept away the worst of the Plague. They have slowed down our ravenous resource extraction economy and brought to a halt the bulk importation of people needed to keep the growthist Ponzi scheme alive. We are starting to discover that our economy is based on wrong ideas and unrealistic expectations. Another possible benefit is that the Feds are starting to move away from neoliberalism: they’re actually preparing to spend big in next Tuesday’s budget, up-ending 40 years of ideology.
It doesn’t feel like a prison — yet! Internally we can move around with increasing freedom. Theatres, cinemas and shops are re-opening. A popular criticism of the Feds is that they have botched the vaccine rollout and should be doing more. Oh dear, how long until they copy everyone else and set up our very own Vaccine Apartheid system? Then maybe life in Oz could feel like a prison, except that to leave these shores will not easily take one to a less oppressive place.
I think we all have to settle down for the long run.
Interesting watching the debate in today’s comment stream about referring people to TAE website or not.
I want to thank Raúl for his extraordinary and enduring work in running TAE and in providing a wonderful and most useful range of articles for our consideration. I for one have benefited immensely from this, and feel that I have received quite an education over the many years that I’ve been a reader.
naturally, I don’t latch on to every and anything without doing some due diligence. My strategy with any news or information source is to go right back to the primary source if possible, and refer people to that. Sometimes I reckon the primary source is sensationalised or lurid, lacking a foundation of sober science or clear reporting. In this case it can often be possible to continue searching based on the contents of the lurid article and find a reputable data and information source, not necessarily directly related to the contents of the lurid article. Then I refer people to that.
This procedure is all a bit academic, but in this era of fake this and fake that and fake the other thing, I have to tread carefully. If ever I have to present a case in some tribunal or similar arena, one of my best allies will be a sound, sober basis of facts and reporting.
One of my other news & info sources is The Conversation. I don’t know how many of you subscribe to this. In their own words, “We launched The Conversation in 2011 as an antidote to a news ecosystem that gives too much oxygen to misinformation and leans toward the shrill over the sober. We do this by working with academics to produce news and analysis based on the latest facts, figures and research.”
Yes, but I find that these academics are of course just as subject to error and bias as anyone else. It’s interesting to note the almost 100% pro-vaccine stance of published articles. Criticisms and caveats are few. As we all know, academics and medical professionals are not gods, just flawed and fallible human beings like everyone else.
Raúl wrote, ” They all say the same thing: people can not be coerced, let alone mandated, into being part of a medical experiment. It’s highly illegal.”
Maybe so, but TPTB would surely claim that even if an experiment is taking place, it has been made necessary by the grave emergency and the damage to the world economy and the risks to public health, etc etc. Everything seems just fine at the moment: millions have been jabbed and the collateral damage is small. QED.
Any claim I might make to immunity from vaccination — THIS vaccination, I have safely had others — would turn on the argument whether or not an experiment is taking place. It seems clear that TPTB will simply say that they know better and we the people know nothing. They will remain deaf and blind to contrary arguments and overrule objections. They’re surfing a dictatorial wave now and will not be deflected. Too much at stake.
And what happens IF these vaccines turn out to be another thalidomide? I expect the deafness and blindness to continue. Sorry to be gloomy, but these are gloomy times.
Dexamethasone again? Hmmm. I’m on dexamethasone eyedrops right now, following an eye operation. Be nice to think that I may be unCovidable.
If Shanna Swan’s findings are correct (and I do find them a bit hard to accept) then sperm counts drop to zero by 2045 give or take a few years. We’ve had a 60% drop since 1973 so far. Posited causes include plastic pollution, such as phthalates and bisphenol-A which do not break down in the environment and which are to be found everywhere on the planet now.
So where are all these babies to come from? Or is China not greatly affectedl?
The GM takeover has already happened in Australia. A year or two ago the (Federal) Senate voted against opposing deregulation, even after a campaign mounted by several NGOs, mine included. Indeed, most of the senators didn’t even bother turning up to vote on the day. Now GM stuff can be freely sold and not identified as such.
More than ever I and mine source our food as carefully and organically, or at least non-GMO, as possible. We are blessed not to live in a food desert.
John Day wrote, “I would not take more than about 25 mg of zinc once per day long term, since it interferes with absorption of copper, which is a thing we need a little of.”
Thanks for that information. I use zinc supplement tabs whose contents are shown as “Zinc Gluconate 105mg (15 mg Zinc) per tablet.” To limit my daily intake to 25mg, I take 15/25 or 0.6 of a tablet daily. In the past I’ve had up to 75mg as a bolus dose with no apparent effects on my stomach. But I won’t push the boundaries.
Regarding copper intake, I’m a bit surprised that it’s hard to find recommendations for a daily Cu intake. However, it appears that the amount needed is small and best obtained in my diet. So I eat my way to health!
As to vaccines, I’m one of many people who prefer to wait and see what happens before giving informed consent. There’s lots of reassuring messages in the media here, and so far the failure rate has indeed been very low.
But then we were being told that the AstraZenaca was perfectly safe — until discovering that it wasn’t. OK, so now it’s almost perfectly safe. Pfizer is now the gold standard and we’re constantly reassured that it is perfectly safe. What might we discover 6 months from now with both vaccines? As far as I know the EUA didn’t terminate the Phase 3 Clinical trials.
The Federal government’s vaccine rollout campaign has been a shambles. Plenty in the media here if you’ve an interest in learning about it.
Forgot to add that we can do postal votes quite easily; they’ve been available for decades and are uncontroversial.
Further, if for some reason you can’t go to a polling place on polling day, then you can vote early. The procedure is the same: turn up, recite name & address, be crossed off, go and fill out your ballot.
The only non-Australian citizens who are eligible to vote are British subjects who were on the Commonwealth electoral roll immediately before 26 January 1984, at which time the eligibility requirements were altered.
What the libertarians don’t like is that voting is compulsory. It’s not a big deal. If you fail to vote then you will be sent a please explain letter. If your grounds are deemed unsatisfactory, you will be fined in the order of AUD$20, hardly crippling. They’re fairly flexible when it comes to valid reasons.
The Australian Electoral Commission has a solid reputation domestically and worldwide.
Voter ID in Australia? Huh? I live and vote there.
Last time I voted I turned up at the polling station, told them my name & address, was crossed off the list, and then I voted. No ID expected or shown. No changes to this system in the wind.
Am I missing something here?
By the way, we have a choice of electronic or paper ballots. I always choose paper.
I get so weary of trying to sort out the ping-pong of vaccine claims and counter-claims. What seems clear to me is that by accident or design, a kind of vaccination dictatorship with attendant vaccination apartheid is being set up, and at great speed. Almost as if there’s something heading our way and TPTB need a system in place to meet it.
In Australia the general mood is clear: vaccines are good for us and are the only way for us to be released us from captivity. The messaging is loud and clear and persistent and pervasive. Never mind that compared to other countries our yoke has been light and our burden small. Gotta get the economy moving again! It is also clear that the federal government really doesn’t know what to do about any of this, and seems to be making things up as it goes along.
Yes, vaccine adverse events are reported, but are so few in number that they are acceptable for the greater good. A statistician remarked to me some time back that there is an error rate associated with everything that we do. Medicine is no exception.
Thus far vaccination is not mandatory here, the number of people jabbed is not large compared to the total population, and there seem to be quite a few refuseniks. I won’t be surprised if in time one of our governments gets out the big stick and demands that everyone submit, er, accept. Yes, there is unhappiness here at the dictatorial nature of the whole exercise, but how that will affect polity remains to be seen.
Thus far Australia has not descended into the neofascism that now imprisons the UK. By the way, I can’t help remarking that the British are now experiencing what they have let be done to Julian Assange: confinement, helplessness, hopelessness. A dose of their own medicine!
But if Shanna Swan’s research findings are correct and human sperm counts reach zero by 2045, what does any of this matter? If the decline is at least partly due to “forever chemicals” (non-degradable) in the environment, what remedies do we have for that? Would it end up that the only way to reproduce is via in vitro technology? And who can afford that? The sterile elites?
Can it really be possible that Homo sapiens is poisoning itself out of existence? Really?
Hmmm. 2045. I may possibly live long enough to see that year arrive, although I rather hope not.
I read Zerohedge but grow weary of its tendencies towards strident alarmism. “Protesters in London, Germany, France, Sweden, The Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Japan, Vienna and elsewhere came out for the Worldwide Rally for Freedom.”
Australia? I live there. Saturday protests? Which? When? Where? Nothing happened that I saw.
Quite a few years ago the BBC made a drama series about the consequences of a fascist government in Britain having been freely voted into office by a populace fed up with the chaos and confusion of democratic politics. I forget what it was called; I think it was released towards the end of the Thatcher era.
Looks like a fascist government is well on the rise in Britain today, freely accepted by if not specifically voted in by a populace confused and frightened by the chaos and confusion wrought by this virus.
madamski wrote, “btw, this is not a covid site altho covid has become the predominant topic.”
Agreed, it’s not. If you want something else to talk about, start here:
Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation?If the current trend continue, sperm counts reach zero by 2045. We go extinct.
Germ wrote, “Choose your vaccination carefully.”
Not possible in Australia, where thou shalt choose between Pfizer and AstraZenaca only. At least it’s not (yet) mandatory to make a choice.
The narrative in Australia can be read here:
Your COVID-19 vaccine safety questions, answered by expertsI recommended reading it. There’s a lot in it to dissect and analyse, and as I am no medico I would find it a hard slog. And I would be easily howled down.
Here’s but one excerpt:
In Australia, our vaccines have had the full approval process, not emergency authorisation like in some countries. That means every bit of data that was required for approval has been provided, whereas with emergency approval they don’t require quite so much data. The regulators who sit on those approval panels would’ve been working around the clock to scrutinise that data. In that sense there would’ve been a bureaucratic layer stripped away as they were able to focus on this approval, not other work.
So, the Australian medical system was able to do what the US system was not, i.e. demonstrate safety and effectiveness in an exceptionally short time. Impressive. I think.
Basseterre Kitona wrote, “That’s convenient because maybe it is time that the rest of the world refuses to accept the US’s annexation of Hawaii.”
Brilliant! Hawaii was annexed in 1898, in spite of public opposition. Would the US ever give up Hawaii? Of course not, it’s too strategically valuable.
My reading indicates that Crimea freely voted to return to Russia. Would Russia ever give up Crimea? Of course not, it’s too strategically valuable.
madamski wrote, “I wonder if covid will prove to be the straw that fully breaks public confidence and support of government.”
Not in Australia, or at least not yet. The public mood here is almost euphoric as the wonderful vaccines have at last arrived to liberate us from our captivity. The mainstream media and mainstream medicine are all praise and optimism. Recently I heard two radio commentators excited at the prospect of the vaccine’s arrival. The view of the government is that the public are NOT guinea pigs.
All dissent is ignored. A few weeks ago the ABC ran a nasty article by a medical doctor implying that anyone who doubts is morally and ethically deficient.
Und so weiter…
One concession: it’s not mandatory. Not yet. While I have any choice in the matter I will wait until the Phase 3 clinical trial period has ended, and then hope for honest reporting of the results.
Re the Ted Cruz tweet, Reuters say it’s a fabrication.
I could fact check the fact checkers if I could be bothered, but I’m not.
John Day said, ‘I “Hope” Australia outlasts Facebook, on principle.’
So do I (an Antipodean resident). Our federal government has reacted strongly against Farcebook’s exercise of power, and good on them, but this is also a government which has far too many failings and weaknesses in far too many areas. How long their nerve will hold remains to be seen.
If you want to get an idea of what’s going on here, visit https://www.abc.net.au/
I don’t use any social media at all, so to an extent I am insulated against all of this.
Texas is freezing. Questions from an outsider: when was the last time that Texas had it this cold for this long? Any ideas how long until the next big freeze?
In Australia’s south-east, we get red-hot summers about every 8 years, but their frequency is increasing. This summer has been cool and mild, great for personal comfort but not good for ripening fruits and vegetables.
It all comes under the heading of Instability. Hard to prepare for or against.
Talking of nasal sprays, I have an article saying that a 1.5% povidone-iodine spray deactivates the virus within 20 seconds. Some time ago this strength was available OTC under a well-known label (Vicks? don’t remember). So I bought a 7.5% OTC solution (Betadine) but now need to dilute it before trying it. Problem: sterility. I don’t know if the solution would be self-sterilising or if I need some more elaborate procedure.
Anyway, the virus is scarce in my part of the world, so I haven’t pursued this treatment.
To rely on electricity alone is to invite system failure. We need alternative and backup sources of energy, such as natural gas or even biomass (wood). Problem is that under present arrangements all of these contribute to climate change.
In Australia the political scene is controlled by a surprisingly small number of people who are obsessed with digging up and selling fossil fuels — coal and gas. They deny climate change. The environmental damage to our country caused by fossil fuel extraction is large and growing, but such considerations are irrelevant to development.
Were places like Texas less well-endowed with fossil fuel reserves, opening up a wonderful export market for Australia, then the damage here would be just appalling. In the absence of a fundamental change in how we think and act, it seems to be a lose-lose situation.
More than ever I’m convinced that the total amount of intelligence in the world is fixed but the population keeps growing.
In Australia the ABC is telling us “how an armed mob forced its way into one of Washington DC’s buildings.” As we would expect, my reading on this site and other non-MSM sources sorta contradicts that.
People here who rely on the MSM for their ideas, values and opinions seem to end up regarding Trump as only evil continually, a treasonous psychopath who is best erased from history.
By the way, the US and modern France were set up as countries of The Enlightenment. God was part of the arrangement but mainly in an Epicurean sense, i.e. very far away and not playing all that much part in worldly systems. “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.” I suggest we are seeing the long-term results of those experiments in society and governance.
It’d be nice to Make America Great, oops, GOOD Again (MAGA) but at the moment it looks more like Got America Griping Again, or GAGA. So sad.
$2,000 cheques
I find it very hard to understand why so many of the US ruling classes seem so keen on starving the poor. But then, In this country (Oz), the neoliberal ruling classes have the same instincts: the poor are weak, lazy, unmeritorious, and don’t deserve help.This isn’t governance or government, it’s Applied Psychopathy. Honestly, at times I feel that little people like me are simply baggage not wanted on the elites’ voyage and can be jettisoned.
Never mind. If the climate change scientists are correct, then our goose is cooked about 2050. I’ll be safely dead by then and the elites can spend the rest of their lives as some kind of troglodytes hiding from the heat.
Vaccination Dictatorship
Vaccination passports are nothing new. I had one early on in life. Many decades ago when my parents brought me from India to Oz, I needed vaccinations for Yellow Fever and Cholera. Proof of these was noted in a yellow-covered WHO-issued passport-sized booklet which had to be shown on arrival. I may still have it buried somewhere in my archives.Of course, back then it wasn’t tied to every other aspect of life. Subsequent vaccinations (chiefly polio and tetanus) were not recorded in the booklet. I think I may have needed to show it to one medico but never again. This vaccination dictatorship that is now being speedily and eagerly set up is possible only in our electronically interconnected world.
John Day wrote, “better soil than most of Australia.” Sadly true, although we do have large areas of amazingly good, productive soil — which our fossil-fuel obsessed state and local governments are happy to damage with open-cut coal mines. Good soils are irrelevant to development.
Prior to the European invasion — it WAS an invasion and the general public increasingly is seeing it as such — the indigenous peoples had been maintaining the entire continent almost as the world’s largest estate. In some areas the tilth came up to the chests of the Europeans’ horses. And then it was destroyed by sheep and wheat. So sad.
One way to reduce birth rates is to give women BOTH an education AND a measure of prosperity, i.e. SHARE the good things in life. Birth rates then seem to decline quite readily. Ages ago when I was a relatively new environmentalist I read or heard a report from Mali, where a woman was asked how many children she wanted. Her answer was eight. I thought this was a ridiculous ambition, that Mali couldn’t possibly support that many people. But later and upon reflection it struck me that her ambition was, for her society and her times, entirely reasonable. Eight children would provide a workforce for the farm and retirement security for the aged parents.
The World Bank website has data showing global GDP as having grown on average at 3% per annum since 1970. This means a doubling every 23 or 24 years. Growthism is built into the structure of the elites’ thinking; indeed, the neoliberal system needs constant growth or it will collapse and die. It cannot survive on non-growth.
Think about it: doubling every 23 years. Double the mining. Double the soil deplection. Double the wastes and run-off. Double the waste heat. And the politicians and economists will expect another doubling over the succeeding 23 years. Preferably a doubling over the succeeding 5 years.
How long can this go on?
Forever, because technology will always save us and outer space is chock full of stuff!
It’s all very well sourcing articles from RT, but how much credence would we in the Glorious West give them? Some such articles have links to “reputable” western-origin sources which can be cited, but in today’s political climate I would never cite RT directly.
So sad.
I see what looks like another predetermined outcome. Today the ABC (Australian) offers a “Coronacast” introduced thus:
Is the Oxford vaccine worse than the other ones?
On Coronacast with Dr Norman Swan
All of a sudden, the world has three strong vaccine options to fight coronavirus. There’s the Moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine and now the Oxford vaccine.
But while Moderna and Pfizer both reported they were more than 90 per cent effective, the press release for Oxford said it was only 70 per cent effective on average.
Australia has a deal to get access to the Oxford vaccine if it’s approved, but is it as good?
This ignores the rest of the Oxford press release which states:
• In the two different dose regimens vaccine efficacy was 90% in one and 62% in the other
• Higher efficacy regimen used a halved first dose and standard second doseSo yes, while the average of 90 and 62 is 76%, the issue is that the better results came with the second does, which the ABC seems to have ignored. I wonder why.
John Day wrote, “I took a political self analysis test online a few years ago; I’m not sure how to find it again. A friend sent it. I came out as “Left Libertarian” on left-right, libertarian-authoritarian axes.”
Go to politicalcompass.org
Some of the questions are defective IMO, but overall they’re quite good. In spite of the instructions, don’t rush to answer. Think a little.
BTW, I’m in the same quadrant as you are.
