The Complex Engineering of Underground Ant Cities Interesting Engineering. Next up, robotic mining.
Hurricane Ida strengthens into a ‘dangerous Category 4’ storm overnight; see path Times-Picayune
How US community banks became ‘irreplaceable’ in the pandemic FT
The Gassing Of Satartia HuffPo. CO2 pipelines.
Own a Tesla? You’re probably doing more harm to the environment than if you drove a gas-guzzling SUV Globe and Mail
#COVID19
Twelve-month systemic consequences of COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a prospective cohort study in Wuhan, China (accepted manuscript) Clinical Infectious Diseases. From the Abstract: “Physiological, laboratory, radiological or electrocardiogram abnormalities, particularly those related to renal, cardiovascular, liver functions are common in patients who recovered from COVID-19 up to 12months post-discharge.”
1-year outcomes in hospital survivors with COVID-19: a longitudinal cohort study The Lancet. Also Wuhan. The Interpretation: “Most COVID-19 survivors had a good physical and functional recovery during 1-year follow-up, and had returned to their original work and life. The health status in our cohort of COVID-19 survivors at 12 months was still lower than that in the control population.”
* * * How a cheap antidepressant emerged as a promising Covid-19 treatment Vox. The antidepressant fluvoxamine. I’m for whatever works. At the same time, if fluvoxamine had become popular due to the efforts of marginalized clinicians, you know we’d be hearing jokes about depressed people on late night TV, not “horse paste,” and this Vox article would have been about a previously unheard-of Nobel prize-winning anti-river blindness drug, the acceptable alternative for all good-thinking people.
* * * Americans Are Losing Sight of the Pandemic Endgame The Atlantic. The lead: “Doctors and scientists need to have an honest conversation with the American people about what the goals of COVID-19 vaccination are and how the pandemic will end.” Oh.
10 Images That Illustrate The Shameful Global Vaccine Inequity Nature. This is the most damning. I’ve highlighted the key fact, up top:
Patient says some MaineGeneral staff threatened to not treat her for asking if they were vaccinated Press-Herald
Happy Masks became a COVID must-have. That sparked a back-to-school frenzy LA Times. I’ve been saying since forever that masks need to become a fashion item.
China?
China Takes on Its Tech Leaders War on the Rocks
Fascinating to watch a government that wants, and is able, to govern. Thread:
Most interesting to me: Users must be provided with a convenient way to see and delete the keywords that the algorithm is using to profile them. 2/
— Kendra Schaefer 凯娜 (@kendraschaefer) August 27, 2021
And much more. So why can’t we do this? Not, apparently, because of technical limitations.
Interview with Shu-Ti Chiou about Taiwan Covid Action Group (GM). Important.
China and the American Lake Monthly Review
Myanmar
Seoul Calls for Return to Democracy in Myanmar, Backs Shadow Govt Irrawaddy. And speaking of the NUG:
The @NUGMyanmar Government issued an order on Aug 28 that People's Armed Forces who will stand by the people, must oppose with the orders of the illegal Myanmar Military Terrorist Council (SAC). #Aug29Coup #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/glJRMtDGpI
— Tommie Kaila 🐹 (@11Tommie) August 29, 2021
Myanmar Regional Crime Webs Enjoy Post-Coup Resurgence: The Kokang Story United States Institute for Peace. Hmm.
Myanmar to extend COVID-19 vaccinations to Rohingya minority Reuters
NSW’s ‘degraded’ contact tracing puts Australia’s plan to reopen in jeopardy, experts warn The New Daily
Afghanistan
Henry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan The Economist “By invitation.” The final two paragraphs:
We must recognise that no dramatic strategic move is available in the immediate future to offset this self-inflicted setback, such as by making new formal commitments in other regions. American rashness would compound disappointment among allies, encourage adversaries, and sow confusion among observers.
The Biden administration is still in its early stages. It should have the opportunity to develop and sustain a comprehensive strategy compatible with domestic and international necessities. Democracies evolve in a conflict of factions. They achieve greatness by their reconciliations.
Shorter: Take the L. But speaking of the worst people in the world:
Judith Miller: Biden's Afghan debacle is devastating. It's been made worse because he won't own his mistakes https://t.co/Gp4MLXCgdt #FoxNews
— Judith Miller (@JMfreespeech) August 19, 2021
(For those who came in late: Judy Miller.)
The bloodlust of Joe Biden’s Afghanistan critics The Week. For example:
1. Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, so he's as representative an avatar of the foreign policy establishment as you could want. And the line he's spinning here, which makes no sense, is the Blob's new talking point about Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/BG7uoWRxm6
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 28, 2021
Pentagon identifies 13 US service members killed in Kabul blast The Hill. Friendly fire:
Our report from last night on the awful ISIS attack outside Kabul airport as families still search Kabul's morgues for their loved ones..
Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast pic.twitter.com/ac5nUVeJ4x
— Secunder Kermani (@SecKermani) August 28, 2021
The Afghan refugee crisis is about to get much worse Axios. Wait, a new crisis?
Why the US is parking local Afghan support staff in third countries Deutsche Welle
How the defense industry helped prolong the war in Afghanistan Responsible Statecraft. Past tense?
China Eyes Afghanistan’s $1 Trillion of Minerals With Risky Bet on Taliban Bloomberg
Like Ordering Pizza LRB. Great series of quotes to open.
Nation Stunned That 20-Year Catastrophe Could End So Catastrophically The Onion
UK/EU
Post-Brexit Britain can’t be realistic until it’s truthful Brexit & Beyond
Britain’s Labor Market Paradox Threatens to Choke Its Economy Bloomberg
Britons, Unfazed by High Covid Rates, Weigh Their ‘Price of Freedom’ NYT. Commentary:
Find the resistance to wearing a mask mind-boggling, even given the vax rate there. https://t.co/Sr5Os3ii6F pic.twitter.com/NwajxiDP37
— Stuart MaskDonald (@travelfish) August 28, 2021
There is no “price” not only because there is no transaction, but because no such no transaction is possible.
The Caribbean
Afghan Chaos Hampers Haiti’s Bid to Raise Cash for Quake Victims Bloomberg
Canada’s Conservatives make gains weeks ahead of vote, polls show Al Jazeera
Capitol Seizure
Justified shooting or fair game? Shooter of Ashli Babbitt makes shocking admission Jonathan Turley, The Hill
A Right-Wing Troll Appears To Have Tweeted About An FBI Investigation Into The Michigan Kidnapping Plot Before It Went Public Buzzfeed. A colorful cast of characters indeed!
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The government is going to use facial recognition more. That’s bad. Popular Science (Re Silc).
Groves of Academe
UGA professor resigns mid-class after student refuses to wear mask The Red & Black
Experts warn of dangers from breach of voter system software AP. “U.S. election technology is dominated by just three vendors comprising 90% of the market, meaning election officials cannot easily swap out their existing technology.” There’s a name for that kind of market structure, it’s just on the tip of my tongue…
Democrats in Deshabille
Bernie Sanders sells big government’s virtues in red states AP (Re Silc). Same events, different perspective–
What it’s Like to See Bernie Sanders in 2021 Benjamin Studebaker. Good discussion of the reconcilation bill to come, perhaps. A must-read.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Shot, chaser:
All set to make battleships, can't make masks?
— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) August 29, 2021
With abandon:
The abandoned Birdsboro Steel mill in Birdsboro, PAhttps://t.co/rkYKtsr4ob pic.twitter.com/NWK7RYKxzq
— Abandoned America 🏚️🇺🇲 (@abandonedameric) August 28, 2021
Big D Is a Big Deal City Journal vs. Dallas’ Hidden History of Terror Texas Observer
Class Warfare
New York’s Private Schools Tackle White Privilege. It Has Not Been Easy. NYT. Commentary:
Kids are socially very, very smart. Within a couple days of the first anti-bullying/DEI/Sensitivity programs 5% of kids figured out a new way to dominate other kids *using* that new system. https://t.co/XzmehQfTU8
— Greg Lukianoff (@glukianoff) August 27, 2021
13 important points in the campus & K-12 ‘critical race theory’ debate The FIre
The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms The Markup
Let People Enjoy This Essay Gawker
The Psychology of Online Political Hostility: A Comprehensive, Cross-National Test of the Mismatch Hypothesis (preprint) PsyArXiv. From the Abstract: “[O]nline political hostility reflects the behavior of individuals predisposed to be hostile in all (including offline) contexts.” This is violence.
How Big Can the Quantum World Be? Physicists Probe the Limits. Quanta
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
269 comments
Comments are closed.
Kudos to that UGA professor!
I can understand and sympathize with those people who won’t get vaccinated – after all, people should have the right to say what goes into their bodies – but not wearing a mask around vulnerable people? That is just pure selfishness and a disrespect for the needs of others.
I never stopped wearing masks in enclosed indoor spaces. I’m also inclined to favor them when I’m outdoors and in close proximity to other people, or when I’m doing yard work that kicks up dust, mold, or other nasty things that I’d rather not breathe.
One of my favorite things about masks: They’re an instant disguise. That comes in handy at times.
When I first moved to my new town, there were 0 new cases of Covid and had been for weeks. But in the last two weeks, the count has gone from 0 to 34 new cases per day – and this is a small town, less than 50,000 people, so yes, I am back to wearing masks when I go out and I am avoiding eating out again. I am thinking seriously about going back into personal lockdown. What I’ve noticed is that older people and people working in stores are now wearing masks again but everyone else? Not so much!
A week ago I got a text from a friendly acquaintance ( Along with about 2 dozen others) labeled “Back to Normal!”.
He was at an SF Giants game and the accompanying selfies and pics of the crowd showed a lot of big smiles and no masks.
The stadium was full..
I’ve also noticed similar scenes watching Mariner home games on TV. Overconfidence is going to kill a lot of us.
They’re an instant disguise.
That’s one of the things I find hardest to understand about those who say masks are a police state attack on fundamental freedoms and all that.
Without pointing fingers, I’m getting an impression that some Internet thaumaturges are trying to work up a mass enchantment to kill off everyone their ideology doesn’t like. It might be said they’re spellcasting, not thinking.
I add big sunglasses along with the mask. Traveling incognito is a good way to roll. Foils all the cameras and facial recognition every place we go.
Yes, I was working with rock wool grow cubes for the first time and reading the instructions it said – “Wear a mask” ! No problem nowadays.
Masks remind of intrigue and mystery. People don’t have the same understanding or appreciation of mystery these days.
Quite the brainwash has occured about what is really a one-way “sharing” that enhances the the accounts of few.
People that aren’t even interested in being only have information sold about them. It’s really a crime that ahould have been stopped a long time ago.
I need a pair of sunglasses and mickey mouse ears to complete the disguise :)
That would be alright with me if you did it, but people don’t have much sense of humor either about most things these days
But no one can control what goes into their bodies. Not the air you breath not the water you drink not the food you eat. The administrative state specifies the levels of contaminates permissible in your air, water and food. So it’s a total fallacy to justify vaccine hesitancy in this way. Better to say, I’m being a fool for denying myself access to life saving medicine but that’s my choice.
“But no one can control what goes into their bodies. Not the air you breath not the water you drink not the food you eat. ”
And you think that is a good thing?
Sorry, but I don’t buy your argument. We still should have the right to determine what goes in our bodies. Note, I said should. Read Petal’s post below. I don’t think she is a fool.
By selecting things like location, microclimate, watershed, local wind patterns, and local zoning laws when choosing where to live, individuals can excercise quite a lot of control over the air they breathe and the water they drink.
They can further control these things by planting thoughtfully around their residence, bringing cut flowers or herbs indoors, burning particular substances, or using (de)humidifiers, and acquiring devices that can modify the properties of water.
Control over what goes into our bodies is the only prerequisite for health.
What is rendered impossible by the modern set-up is being able to control what goes into our bodies, and to partake in urban life.
The best way to understand this issue of control is by analogy. Wild sheep go where they like, eat what they like, mate how they like, and take no drugs. Domesticated sheep…
Yes, this is my take also. To be clear, since the vaccine does not prevent transmission, I am totally against mandates. When I was in the Army I got the anthrax vaccine. But I was also exposed to a ton of other chemicals in my eight+ years of service. So be it, no one forced me to join the military. The consequences are mine to deal with. One of the aircraft hangers that I worked at was a notorious reservoir of god only knows what substances and we were warned to have our time assigned there to be documented since the VA doesn’t cover squat unless it’s on your paperwork if you get out before retirement. So I did have issues with pregnancy a few years later. My little bundle of joy didn’t come out with two heads or anything but how on earth would we determine what the cause would have been if she had been born with birth defects or if I get a virulent form of cancer next year and immediately drop dead. For now I am in ideal health for a woman 45+. But for the problems I did have, especially the tumors, how do I know if it was one of the vaccines or any of the myriad of toxins I was exposed to. Also how do I know that it wasn’t the glyphosate or any number of chemicals my parents have been dumping on their corn and soybeans for the past 50 years that I might have been exposed to for the first 18 years of my life including in vitro, or even that may have seeped into the water supply I used to drink as a little tyke. My parents have had health problems and they never got the anthrax vaccine. So vaccine skepticism is, in my opinion, warrented and I won’t be getting a booster, but poorly tested innoculations are only the tip of the toxic iceberg. All I can hope for, echoing previous commentors, is that everyone puts on a damn mask and that we don’t confuse that issue with vaccine hesitancy.
“Ach, ich fühl’s…”
The shooting of Ashli Babbitt was not justified.
The only legal justification for the use of lethal force is
“An IMMINENT threat of death or serious bodily injury to an innocent person”.
Ashli Babbitt did not pose such a threat, which is crystal clear from the video evidence.
Mr Byrd, who shot and killed her is shown in the videos to be waving his pistol around WITH HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER in the minutes preceding the shooting, he is also pointing his weapon at the other people in the room, with his finger on the trigger.
It is not legal to shoot someone who does not pose an imminent threat to “Encourage the others” who might pose a threat.
Mr Byrds gun handling would have got him tossed from any of the self defense classes I have taken.
The “Reasonable Man” test applies here, would a reasonable man who has recieved extensive training have acted as Mr Byrd did?
And the answer is no.
But but, he was standing his ground.,,,
I don’t believe that applies to law enforcement. If it did, we’d have hundreds of dead antifa goons.
Unless, you know, some of those goons *are” law enforcement undercover…
Speaking of those goons, here’s Taibbi’s latest on their adventures in Portland:
“Enough is Enough: Antifa Attacks Reporter in Portland
Antifa’s influence may be exaggerated, but it’s not a mythical Snuffleupagus, either, as they showed in attacking reporter Maranie Staab from our partner News2Share this past weekend. ”
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/enough-is-enough-antifa-attacks-reporter
Why am I not surprised to see Tabbi fall into line with the right in demonizing and otherwise crapping on antifa? I wonder what he means by “enough is enough”? Maybe he would like to see another hard right “law and order” authoritarian crack down like we had last year under Trump.
Antifa is not “progressive”. They are anti fascist. They are there in Portland to counter the fascist and proto-fascist activities that are being brought there from other places.
Proto-fascist activities is a new term. Care to elaborate? What seemingly innocent activities lead to a depraved authoritarian fusion of state and corporate power? I knew I could get a bad case of Bolsheviks if my paper towels weren’t soft enough, but I am really curious to know if BBQs, prayer meetings, and little old ladies crossing the street with a walker will bring about the rise of a new Mussolini.
Bolsheviks were not fascists. You want to call them authoritarians , anti liberal, totalitarian ideologues, fine , whatever. But they were about overthrowing the rule of capital. Fascism , above all , seeks to preserve the political , economic power of their own national capitalists.
Yes, I know. It was a reference to a Scot Tissue ad from the 1930s. You can read more here.
Lol, thanks for the link, have not seen that before.
Proto-fascism describes a network of loosely connected groups and ideologies that are not fascism, yet. But the potential is there. In this and other recent cases in Portland, the proud boys are the main manifestation of what I’m talking about. But other far right groups are converging on that area to demonstrate their force. I.e. they’re driving around shooting people people with paintballs. It’s tactical exercises and intimidation. They are there are to stir up shit and get into street brawls. And antifa, some of them just seem to want conflict and street brawls too. It’s very similar in some ways to pre-Nazi Germany.
These groups are getting ready. They’re organizing. Jan 6th was not an insurrection, but it was a sign. It was feelers being put out about what might be possible. It was a mock insurrection, to be sure, but don’t think that that can’t lead to a real one, and a new uniquely American form of fascism coming to power. We’re really not so far away from it at all. The signs are everywhere.
Did you read the article? Because your summary is a silly misrepresentation of it, and the strawman you present is feeble. I say this as someone who finds Taibbi’s extremely online choice of subject matter of late to be verging on the tedious, but in this instance a colleague of his was attacked for no reason by edgelords who consider themselves above the law (literally; it’s clearly assault and battery). Yet you apparently wish he would react with a shrug of the shoulders and “oh well, you can’t make an anti-fascist omelet without cracking a view journalistic eggs”?
You could, of course, easily take the scare-quoted “progressive” and replace it with ‘”how is attacking a journalist “anti-fascist”?’. One does not have to be anti-fascist, as I consider myself, because no shit, and behave thuggishly and moronically at the slightest non-provocation, as many of these people clearly do. To put it another way, here’s Nabokov when asked his thoughts on the “student-revolution” in an interview:
You can substitute the nouns with the relevant equivalents du jour
I’m not condoning the behavior of that person, but understand that there are a lot of individuals out there with a lot of different ideas, and to take one individual’s behavior as an opportunity to throw shade on antifa is… well it’s not unexpected from Tabbi, who has been cozying up to the hard right in other ways besides this one example. It’s not a good a look for him. Some people seem to be more than willing to overlook it, but I’m not.
Yes, I read the article, and your points are taken.
I’ve watched several videos of Jan 6th, paying particular attention to the violent breaches at doors and windows. I am surprised there weren’t more shootings. Many more. I think the police acted with great restraint on Jan 6th. After all, their duty was to protect the Capitol of the U.S.
Which is what, as Turley notes, makes the “resolution” of this cowardly, spectacularly unprofessional cop’s case all the more galling, contrived and ultimately “lawless.”
How many rioters did you see come into the Capitol waving guns?
There are well established tactics for handling unruly crowds that do not involve lethal force. The fact that the man had his firearm in his hand tells the tale. I was taught to not have a weapon in my hands, at least in public, unless I was prepared to use it. And trigger discipline is key. Running around with your finger on the trigger is asking for trouble. Secondly, the man shot the woman once, and killed her. No “warning shot,” no “shoot ’em in the legs,” no “shoot above their heads.” The situation went straight from stroppy crowd to lethal force.
I would be interested in reading the Capitol Police’s training manual concerning firearms use and then crowd control. The man was supposedly trained by a Federal Agency, and this is the result. If the man had said that he panicked, I could at least accept that. Instead, we have a case of judicial murder tricked out as a case of justifiable homicide.
The Trumpistas have their martyr.
The rest will be history.
When the Trumpistas start giving a damn about police brutality in the outside world, which I doubt because most of the victims don’t look like them, maybe I’ll give a damn about their hand wringing over Babbitt.
Just a little binary thinking there, champ
I’m not excusing the shooting, but the capitol cops were greatly outnumbered and no doubt very nervous as well, never having had to deal with this kind of event before, I’m a little surprised that things didn’t go worse than they did.
I don’t know about the “never having to deal with this kind of event before” meme. The Capitol Police had standard see through shields stored away. Those shields were found to be degraded beyond use when needed. So, someone was planning ahead, and subsequent administrations ‘dropped the ball’ in maintenance.
See: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-riot-security-failures-3309c46a9e0bc21c2b6f3287a2e3b831
That woman’s blood is on Trump’s hands.
We could ‘play’ this as an infinite regression game. We could place the blame on the Democrat Party nomenklatura for advancing an unpopular politica like Madame Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest. That is why we had Trump. Trump, seeing how the Democrat Party had thrown off all restraint in their drive to defeat the progressive wing of their party, might have reasonably imagined that “all bets were off” and American politics was firmly in Wild West mode.
There is more than enough blame to go around, far around.
You’re not wrong. But Trump is the one who… inspired her to take the actions that she did.
> There are well established tactics for handling unruly crowds that do not involve lethal force.
Given the lack of preparation on the part of the Capitol Police they were hardly in a position to employ those tactics on January 6. That’s on the police leadership, not on the officers who were left greatly outnumbered standing between a mob and those they were charged with protecting.
> Running around with your finger on the trigger is asking for trouble
So is joining a mob that is storming the Capitol when both chambers are in session.
You wouldn’t believe the number of people who have accidentally discharged a firearm when running around with a finger on the trigger. Also the number of people who “thought the gun was empty,” and then BOOM!
Secondly, there was a distinct lack of “gravitas” on the part of our elected representatives during the fracas. Hiding under a desk from the people who you were elected to represent is cowardly. If any House member had had the intestinal fortitude to step out and confront the rioters, that person would have had an early start on a campaign for higher office.
When the elected representatives are afraid of the people, something is very wrong.
Yes, it was really impressive the restraint with which they obediently allowed those people to breach the capitol in the first place. True heroes ( ;~;)7
I think the greatest restraint shown by the Police that day, Capital and DC, was in not having properly staffed considering there was a well publicized protest scheduled. This was followed by restraining themselves from using well established crowd control methods to redirect the crowd from approaching the Capital.
If this had really been an insurrection that police officer would be dead. And there would have been many more casualties, sure some “insurrectionists”, but most being Capital police and elected officials. Largely because they wouldn’t have been engaged with until they were upon the Capital. And real insurrectionists would have come armed and with more of a plan.
But god forbid we actually address the fact that there was a Huuuuge failure on the part of law enforcement that day. And investigate if it was deliberate, most likely, or sheer incompetence that should have led to multiple dismissals.
All things considered the rioters were treated with kid gloves throughout that day. If it was BLM storming the Capitol the cops wouldn’t be actively letting them in the building and taking selfies, that’s for sure. Babbitt was at the head of a mob trying to break into a room of evacuating congressmen in the U.S. Capitol building. What did she expect to happen? What further accomodations should have been made for her in that scenario?
Warning shots? Perhaps. For the sake of ideological consistency I’ll admit that. Would the conservative crowd admit the same if 1/6 was a BLM riot? I very much doubt it. They’ve never had a problem with cop’s lack of trigger discipline before, but now that their ilk mobbed the Capitol like a horde of zombies they expect de-escalation tactics? Please.
Babbitt family-blogged around and found out. No sympathy here.
“Babbitt family-blogged around and found out. No sympathy here.”
This makes the case that all rioters deserve death. Quite an extreme and authoritarian position. At root, BLM and 1/6ers are equal. They should get equal treatment. Well, they did get equal treatment. They were “restrained to death.” This tells us that the ruling elites have no compunctions about treating any and all dissidents with lethal force.
We have been warned.
“This makes the case that all rioters deserve death.”
That is not what he/she is saying. If I climb a dangerous mountain and die somewhere on its face it may be a tragedy, but no particular injustice has been done. Not my opinion. I just think that’s what he/she meant by “_’d around and found out.”
A fair enough ‘take’ on the interplay. However, I will note that the resort to lethal force is always a sign of a situation spinning out of control. The choice to shoot or not to shoot is always that of the holder of the firearm. This is where training comes into play. The training in this case was either insufficient, or corrupt, perhaps both.
In both the cases of BLM and the 1/6ers, the individual participants entered the situation without the expectation of personal death. Demonstrating, even “active” demonstrating, is assumed to be a right under the Constitution. Some BLMs are beaten and “over stressed” unto death because they do not recognize the authority of the minions of the elites confronting them. Mz. Bobbitt was shot to death for a similar reason; she did not chose to bow down to authority.
I saw the section of the above comment that says; “…their ilk mobbed the Capitol like a horde of zombies…” That description sets the tone for the response. Zombies are, supposedly, already dead. Thus, anything one does to them is acceptable. No harm, no foul, right?
This dialogue is going to become more important in the future as the threshold for the use of lethal force is lowered.
Now, all dissidents from the status quo are fair game for the “Organs of State Security.” When the normalization of the use of lethal force against the domestic public is completed, we will be entering a very dangerous time in our history. I will add that we are all the domestic public: BLMs, 1/6ers, Greenpeacers, Friends of the Armadillo, and on and on.
Stay safe. Hull down.
Wouldn’t it be something if this went to trial and that cop was found not only found guilty of being reckless with the use of his gun but also of going against all procedure on doing a shoot-to-kill shot on that woman, thus establishing a precedent on the books. And then the next time that a cop shoots a black driver because he reached for his driver’s license when asked, and it goes to trial…..
Under current interpretations of law, property is deemed on par with life. I believe this is the fracture where the psychotic break of Western values happens, where the rubber leaves the road so to speak.
If this is how those trained in firearms act, I am not surprised that Americans fck up everything and everywhere they go. What a joke country.
Hey!! Want to duel?!!
Attempting to over throw the government? Yep, that deserves a shootin.
Some news on the virus. paywall
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-28/antibodies-waning-the-immune-system-has-a-backup-plan-for-that?srnd=premium
From the article:
They’re finding this out NOW? Why wasn’t this studied before the EUA, before the FDA approval?
Seems to me this should have been known a long time ago…but what do I know.
Lordie, this is like an economist’s theory paper.
Memory B and T cells are a secondary line of defense. They are activated after an pathogen has gotten going. They are very helpful in slow-moving infections but the Covid cytokine storm happens quickly and aggressively, and faster with Delta than wild type Covid.
And (I know I’m a broken record.) the virus’s structure, its behavior in cell culture, postmortem evidence and public health statistics from around the world all strongly, in fact overwhelmingly indicate it can beat immune memory. This was always to be anticipated, but with Delta there shouldn’t be any question in anybody’s mind.
Yes. This is why ultimately vaccination with the types of vaccines we currently use will not be enough. Vaccination is helpful, but will not solve the problem.
The problem with this kind of paper is answered by a simple question—-
DOES THIS COMPORT WITH WHAT WE ARE SEEING IN REAL LIFE ON THE GROUND?
I believe the answer unfortunately has to be a big NO.
Way too many breakthrough infections, way too many of them getting fairly ill and even dying. This is not what one would expect if the conclusions in that research were correct…..
I have not had time to look at the paper – but just right off the bat something appears to be wrong with the conclusions.
Pfizer ran a phase I/II study in April – May 2020 with 60 participants given 5 different vaccine doses (12 participants/dose). They measured antibody, CD4, and CD8 responses. From the abstract:
“Two doses of 1–50 μg of BNT162b1 elicited robust CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses and strong antibody responses, with RBD-binding IgG concentrations clearly above those seen in serum from a cohort of individuals who had recovered from COVID-19.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2814-7
This is something people have been talking about for a while, and the science behind it is complicated and largely beyind my paygrade. But I can say this based on discussions with people who make vaccines, my prior coursework in molecular biology, and talking shop with virologists – accurately testing T cell and B cell response in non-homogeneous populations is very hard. It’s much easier to do studies that focus on antibodies. So while it is absolutely true that the immune system is more than antibody response and waning antibodies are something that humans have been dealing with for millions of years, it’s problematic from the perspective of getting data that you can build public policy around.
There’s one study I’m currently aware of that deals with monkeys who were infected with SARS-2 after antibodies had been drained for them (post vaccination) to test T cell response. And that said the monkeys’ immune response killed the virus in a few days post infection. Buyer beware when it comes to how that applies to a human population though.
the key takeaway message should be: we dont and cant know what these cell counts mean without good RCT data. Sure it makes sense. So did a lot of things we were wrong about.
and Good RCTs are not being done are they?
Some new on the fire near Lake Tahoe. The spoke person miles to short and should have been longer.
https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/caldor-active-on-eastern-edge-fire-at-about-150k-acres-19-contained/
“13 important points in the campus & K-12 ‘critical race theory’ debate”
Wanting to influence a generation of children to hold the same beliefs that you do is one thing. Teaching them that they are eternally damned because of their skin colour or such factors only serves to mess up the minds of those young children and will have an effect on them that they will carry for the rest of their lives. It’s like how children that were born in earlier times “on the wrong side of the blanket” were forever treated different by their peers and which was enshrined in law. This is unforgivable and I can sympathize with the push-back by some States. So how about I let the Babylon Bee give a short video on this topic-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btnwqDerWzw (4:03 mins)
Thank you for that. Now I finally understand crt. (Seriously!)
Man! The entire Babylon Bee racist series is great. Take any argument to it’s extreme and score! That’s the lesson I gleaned from this animated series. Extremism has taken the field.
We could run the holograws of Abbott and Costello for public office and prevail. “Who’s on First? Rank choice voting for the win!”
Gassing of Satartia–
That was a very sobering read for me this morning. The facts of that situation were:
The cause of this terror was the rupture of a carbon dioxide pipeline carrying CO2 for tertiary oil recovery.
Nearly 40 years ago, three landowners represented by the same attorney were trying to stop another carbon dioxide pipeline–the first one ever proposed–that would travel through their quiet, rural valley north of Albuquerque. Shell Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of the American subsidiary of the Dutch Shell Group, had already filed condemnation suits against each of them, and their lawyer’s motion to dismiss the suit had been denied. The landowners’ next move was to generate public pressure against the line, and they succeeded in calling a public meeting held at a local school with several hundred in attendance.
The hearing went on for two days with the landowners and a professor from the local university testifying about the dangers of the line countered by an army of Shell engineers and consultants from Walnut Creek who all declared that fears of a leak layering the valley with CO2 were completely impossible and contrary to The Science. By the end of those two days, public concern was quieted, and the condemnation suits proceeded until the landowners were willing to settle for cash, and the pipeline was built.
I was the ringmaster for that army of Shell engineers and outside consultants.
Reading today about a place where such a leak took place and nearly suffocated an entire town is cause for a great deal of self-reflection for me today.
One set of questions is how did I end up there representing Shell when a few years before I had turned down summer clerkship offers from some of the most famous law firms in the country to work for a labor union. The answer at the time were the exigencies of having a young family for which I was the primary provider, but that’s everybody’s excuse, and those excuses multiplied millions of times have brought us to where we are today. Excuses nearly suffocated those people in Mississippi.
Another line of inquiry is what about all those people that I worked over the course of several years in a sort of traveling road show. Were they as sure of their testimony as they seemed? Were they as competent as they seemed? It’s true that this pipeline, built in ’82, is still operating without incident, but the broad and unqualified declarations made in that meeting and under oath in courtrooms across New Mexico were obviously wrong. A disaster could happen.
Finally, what about the flow of the universe? This CO2 line was the first built. It remains the largest and longest. A year before that public hearing, the project was under real threat in a courtroom in the bleak rural town of Estancia. The line passed through a large ranch whose owner could afford an Albuquerque law firm even larger than our Santa Fe firm. The lead attorney for the rancher was a Yale Law grad who held the reputation as the best lawyer in the state, and he was challenging Shell’s right to condemn at all. It was a close case because New Mexico, at least at the time, was a narrow “public use” jurisdiction that required that the proposed project actually be open to use by the public. Shell had cleverly evaded any federal regulation by arguing the CO2 was a gas, therefore not subject to ICC jurisdiction which was limited to liquids. And it argued before FERC that it was not a hydrocarbon and not under its purview. We could show no regulator that could guarantee a public’s right to use it, and our parading a few owners of small CO2 deposits along the pipeline’s path, even when combined with Shell’s earnest promises to hook them up, couldn’t change that. In the end, I resorted to the history of the Interstate Commerce Act and its roots in the common law, to claim that the common law of common carriers would provide relief to any potential shippers stiffed by Shell.
It was a legally valid argument and won the day, saving the project from cancellation according to the Shell VP who was in charge of things on the client end. And if we had failed, would any CO2 pipelines have been built? Most of them pass through New Mexico on their way headed to the Permian Basin.
Now CO2 pipelines are being proposed again. Massive “carbon recapture” projects that remove CO2 from power plants and other large emitters would be gathered and again piped to old oil fields for tertiary recovery. No doubt ambitious young lawyers, or maybe just lawyers trying to pay a mortgage, will be ready to develop clever arguments and organize more expert road shows to get those pipelines built so we can pump more oil to burn more oil to create more emissions to capture CO2 to inject it into more oil wells to pump more oil.
I am sorry for the role I have played in all this. We must break the cycle.
“Doctors and scientists need to have an honest conversation with the American people about what the goals of COVID-19 vaccination are and how the pandemic will end.”
‘Oh’, indeed. When all else fails, honesty is usually a good course to pursue. Can you imagine where we’d be if we had started with an honest assessment back in early 2020?
Perhaps the author of that article should start with some ‘honesty’ herself.
“No fully vaccinated person died from COVID-19. ” Really? A quick search brought this up:
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/100-fully-vaccinated-people-have-died-from-covid-in-mass/2463080/
I think it is too late for ‘honesty’. When a person has been feed BS for the last two years by ‘experts’, how would they even know what ‘honesty’ is?
Doonesbury is repeating the “no vaccinated person died” in WaPo. Must be the message-of-the-day.
When that fails, they’ll fall back to yelling about how vaccinated people are still more likely to die of covid than the vaccine itself.
It’s such an urgent, desperate lie. My speculation:
What’s the expiration date on those batches of vaxes still out there?
Batch number expiration date on my card shows that batch has expired this month.
Or the NBC networks’ message. My bro who glues his eyeballs to those made almost the identical word by word claim yesterday.
All deaths are due to horse paste!
When our science reporting comes from the likes of Doonesbury, “The Atlantic” or “New York Magazine” we are doomed.
Remaking the world in G-d’s image is a common mandate of every religion, including bourgeois liberalism. Commitment to “higher” authorities is almost never not a scam.
It appears that she may have been discussing only the Provincetown outbreak when stating no deaths.
Yea, after rereading, I think you are right. But she is using Provincetown as an example when it may have been just luck that no one died. Apparently that ‘luck’ hasn’t held for the rest of Massachusetts.
An interesting stat about the Provincetown outbreak is that of the 346 COVID positive who were fully vaccinated, 4 were hospitalized–or 1.2% of that population. Of the 123 COVID positive who were not fully vaccinated, only 1 was hospitalized (based on the CDC paper) or or 0.8%.
Due to more widespread data available, I definitely believe that vaccination is helping reduce hospitalizations, but to use Provincetown as an “everything’s going to be alright” endorsement of a vaccination/booster only strategy has always seemed odd and disturbing.
It could also be that Provincetown was a lucky accident because it was earlier in the year, and closer to when those infected had been vaccinated, so their systems were better able to fight off the virus.
For those who came in late, Zeynep has been doing some of the best reporting on the pandemic (as more generally has the Atlantic, which mobilized to provide data early on when they discovered the CDC wasn’t doing it) and has been linked many many times at NC. She has been hammering on the aerosol and quality of mask issues for over a year.
Nor does she come late to the critique of communications and lack of transparency.
Of those 100+ the article says two thirds had underlying conditions and the mean (or average, sorry I know they’re not the same but I forget) age was 82.
Question: when is the vaccine not effective at preventing death?
Answer: when you’re already sick and old and it’s been over 8 months since your last jab.
Sorry, I seem to be the one who missed the boat. Thought y’all were talking about the Zeynep article that ran yesterday. Though this one I think is valuable for the distinction it makes between infection and disease. Not the same thing, and many of the comments here seem to confuse the two.
Can you imagine where we’d be if we had started with governments that were responsible enough to shut down global travel for 4-6 weeks, starting in January or even February 2020?
Can you imagine where we’d be if we (1) shut down travel for 4-6 weeks (2) admitted that it was airborne (3) told people to wear masks to protect themselves from getting sick. It’s almost September of 2021 and we still haven’t done (2), and given the initial screw-up, (3) is likely not possible.
Can you imagine where we’d be if money-grubbing patent ghouls with god complexes like fauci and daszak had not decided to go around the “ban” on gain of function research, and narcissistic megalomaniacs like obama had not let them get away with it?
I find it hard to fathom an article talking about the lack of honesty when in the article is the statement that no vaccinated patients have died of COVID. I think the author may be referring just to the Provincetown outbreak, but the wording is such that it could be easily misconstrued. However, the sentiment remains.
We have already had 2 vaccinated COVID deaths, multiple dozens of vaccinated hospital admissions, and literally hundreds of breakthrough cases, many quite ill, in my small community. Maybe we are being punished by the gods and this is the only place in the world this is happening. I do somewhat doubt that however.
DO THESE PEOPLE EVER EVEN BOTHER TO LISTEN TO THE LIES THEY ARE TELLING THEMSELVES?
Politicians know that if they repeat a lie enough times even they’ll start to believe it!
Yes, so we are dealing with people who have made an internal fun house of reality who first lied to protect themselves and manipulate others, but now are impervious to reality?
Sounds kind of like this guy who I talk to on another board. They are all in on the vax as the end all cure and anyone not vaxed and masked are the problem. His words, not mine;
And this guy claims to be a scientist.
The man could be a great scientist.
All scientists are human like anyone else, and like anyone else they can fall to groupthink, hysteria, wishful thinking, and plain foolishness.
People want this to be over. We are all tired of being isolated, confined, or frighten and here is the solution to it all. A vaccine. Haven’t vaccines stopped the great infectious slaughterers of mankind? Of course, these vaccines must be the answer.
It does not help that the anti-vaxxer movement is a thing as it allows those who “know” about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines to ignore the potential dangers and weaknesses of the current Covid vaccines; anyone who questions these truths must be yet another Luddite anti-vaxxer. Anyone who suggests treatments other than the ones currently approved must be quacks. Trust in the CDC! Trust in the Science!
I could easily be one of them. A True Believer. I could be making jokes about horsey paste and those people. Those stoopid people.
I am not only because of my awareness of our crumbling institutions. It was the thread that got me to look a few sites like this. Otherwise…
Read Laboratory Life. It describes how some of these problems can come about in science.
They’ve been taught to interpret logit and probit models a particular way. I should have spotted earlier why their default interpretation was fundamentally wrong but get it now. Thus I can give them the benefit of the doubt regarding the data collected (i.e. It is correct) but they don’t realise that the fundamental assumption in limited dependent variable models is that variability is means – a sterilising vaccine.
None of the vaccines are sterilising. So their particular interpretation of the statistical model must be biased. I just can’t say by how much but merely make waffly statements like “IM Doc’s observations merely prove that the eggheads’ interpretation of the data is wrong”. Keep up the good work. Eventually the eggheads will HAVE to read the relevant literature and admit they’ve been misinterpreting the data. Otherwise confidence in science will collapse entirely.
Sharing because brief summaries of logit vs. probit modeling are hard to come by.
Have you received any information about vaccines and their effectiveness as the lot expiration date grows closer?
That data is not out there and that it GM’s and KLG’s category.
Thank you, IM Doc
I recently listened to two front line Docs from my jurisdiction. Thankfully there are still contrarian media outlets. Both have been disciplined for speaking out about Covid. They said a lot of very disturbing things. Notably, one Doc said that traditional medical principles have been discarded. The second Doc said that he had requested information about PCR testing and been stonewalled.
In addition, our Dear Medical Leader provides no information on which one can make an informed decision.
The lack of transparency alone is enough evidence to refuse the recommendations of these Big Pharma shills. A used car salesperson or a Wall Street MBS pusher would give one more information.
It was hard to pick a favorite line in that truly nauseating piece but this was at the top of my list:
“As a society, Americans have shown that we are willing to live with 12,000 to 60,000 deaths from influenza each year. COVID-19 is more dangerous than the flu. Approximately 630,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus to date. But if we could cut the death rate by 90 percent or more, it would be on par with what we see in a bad flu season.”
Who’s “we” Kemosabe?
> Who’s “we” Kemosabe?
People who have health insurance and work from home?
Everyone who isn’t in the trenches for single payer, of course.
That’d be me, but class traitor that I am, no.
Of course if those deaths came primarily from the PMC, they would be unacceptable.
Did they fool with that stunning wasted doses graphic after publication? Because what’s up there now walks it back from 9.5 billion doses to “as many as 3.8 billion” wasted. Huh.
“NSW’s ‘degraded’ contact tracing puts Australia’s plan to reopen in jeopardy, experts warn”
This article is already out of date unfortunately as that report at the end of the article saying that the Delta variant slowing down is false. The daily count today shot up from 1,000 new cases a day to 1,200 today. Contact tracing has broken down under the weight of the numbers and only a hard lock-down would give them a chance to catch up. I think that they are capable of only doing 200 traces a day. Unfortunately, NSW is getting ready to open up again shortly. Why? Because they are going totally in on the number of vaccinations so when it hits 70%, bingo! They will open up again. No other factor is being considered. It is ALL about the vaccinations and the NSW Premier is demanding that the other States open up to her when they hit that 70% rate. Ron DeSantis has got nothing on her. And I should note that the Doherty report which is being used here in Oz now was working on a figure of about only 30 cases a day, not 1,200 a day. But to people like Doherty professors, we will get to zero cases when the vaccination rate is in the 80% range. Yeah, they actually believe that.
‘More Americans Are Finally Coming Around to Accepting The Science of Evolution’ (not in Links)
By 2016, that percentage had, at last, become a majority, reaching 54 percent.
Last year, Pew conducted a more global survey that showed a slightly higher acceptance of evolution in the US at around 64 percent.
https://www.sciencealert.com/more-americans-are-finally-coming-around-to-the-idea-that-life-really-does-evolve
tropical tidbits one of the best overviews
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/
“Why the US is parking local Afghan support staff in third countries”
Not just the US. Don’t know how many other countries are doing it as well but I saw a report that Afghan support people for the Australian mission were being flown from Afghanistan to Germany and from there to Uganda. Why? Don’t know. Is that a halfway stop for them before going on to Oz or are we just paying Uganda money to keep them for good. I suspect that a lot of those Afghans evacuated from Kabul are going to find themselves in all sorts of exotic locations before they know it.
The article says half the reason is it’s easier to send them back from Albania or Kosovo than the US. A bit like why War of Terror prisoners were often interrogated in countries with fewer scruples about human rights.
“But there are also practical considerations, he [Alex Nowrasteh, a migration expert at The Cato Institute] says, in that it is easier to deport rejected applicants to Afghanistan if they are not in the United States, where they have more rights than in Uganda, for example.”
At least on this little sourthern corner of Europe, the afghans who worked with the portuguese armed forces, are being flown from Kabul directly to Lisbon.
They and their families. As of sunday, about 60 afghans.
I believe they’re being given the legal status of refugees.
FWIW, they even had a thank you and welcome speech by the foreign affairs minister right there at the airport…
(Sorry, but the link is in portuguese…)
A friend with more patience than I emailed me the good news that the Pfizer vaccine prevents covid19 infections.
It says so in the FDA letter granting full approval of the Pfizer Vaccine, it has been approved “To prevent Covid-19”.
We can relax, it’s contained, it’s under control, the experts have spoken!
I’m so happy I ordered a dozen votive candles featuring the new St Anthony, Anthony Fauci.
Does he want to understand what “non-sterilizing” means?
And that wording by the FDA is shameful.
There is such desperation in air about this. Doesn’t bode well.
Polls in Canada are controlled by the Conservatives and are, therefore, worth diddly-squat. No need to get your knickers in a twist.
I predict a Liberal majority.
Hope you’re right – not that Liberals are great — but I’m worried. Canada seems to have shifted hard right in the last 20 years
Yves, Lambert, et al:
I keep closing Naked Capitalism when I close an article linked to from the comments because the article doesn’t open in a new tab the same way that Links articles do. Can you please add “target=blank” to the comment links?
Best,
Amos
I just use “Open link in new tab.”
Doesn’t your browser offer you an “Open link in new tab” option when you right-click on a link? Chrome and Firefox do.
windows does to
So does Firefox.
Hard disagree. The user has the ability to control where their own new tabs open. Try holding Shift or Control while clicking the link.
You can copy the link address and open it in a separate tab OR browser window yourself.
> Can you please add “target=blank” to the comment links?
Not without changing our workflow or finding a plugin which we would then have to maintain.
On the Mac in Opera, I command-click links to create a new tab. I assume your browser/OS has similar functionality (useful for all sites, not just NC).
Lambert if I may ask what makes you still use Opera? AFAIK it has been bought by some investment fund many years ago, staff replaced and hasn’t had much in common with the original Norwegian product mostly since.
Original creator von Tetzchner has been working on a new browser Vivaldi for many years. I have been using it for a few, it’s all right. It even got a Mail client a couple of months back (in beta but functional). If you are Opera oldtimer (I have been using it since version 8) I recommend you try it.
I’m also an Opera old timer (since about 2001 or before). I tried Vivaldi recently and didn’t like it. Seems a bit old style nowadays. I’m sure there is a better browser out there but I haven’t found it yet.
> Lambert if I may ask what makes you still use Opera?
The built in VPN. Plus inertia. My fingers are used to it at this point.
Or you can edit the link and add “target=blank” yourself. That’s what I do.
What is up with the American people right now? In Sonoma county I’ve seen mask discipline drop noticeably in the last week. The air is visibly filled with smoke and the taste is disgusting but so many people are driving around with their windows down or are outside without N95’s. I know many people in New Orleans who have the ability to evacuate but are sheltering in place as a strong cat 4 hurricane hits. We’re sending our kids back into poorly prepared schools as the pandemic turns its blood thirsty eyes on children.
I feel like the American self destructive death drive has reached a new level. Though I guess those of us with a will to survive are at an advantage…
Sonoma adjacent:
Unvaccinated, unmasked teacher spreads Covid-19 to elementary school students, CDC reports NBC News
The Marin school teacher infected half of her 24 students. Some of these kids then infected four parents, three of whom were vaccinated, as well as other children outside their class. I don’t know the rate at which the vaccinated and then infected can transmit Covid but it’s greater than zero, so I assume we’ll soon be seeing Covid on the rise among the population of unvaccinated kids attending in-person classes and then others with whom they come in contact.
Here in Alameda, it’s coming up on two weeks since our Moderna vaccinated 34 year old friend came down with Covid. He weathered the storm at home and says he now feels more or less fully recovered. There’s still the possibility of long Covid so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
Stay safe out there and protect yourself at all times.
Nice. The county is still generally masked. So people are both masked and vaccinated, and there was, or is, still a large cluster. What that says about the rest of just the state, forget about the rest of the country, is really troubling.
It’s interesting how they didn’t release the name of the elementary school. There has to be around a dozen or so in a county of 250 thousand. However, it’s just an unnamed elementary school. Privacy laws or not. The local schools, outside of the one(s) on the “wrong” side of town in east San Rafael, Mill Valley/Sausalito, and perhaps Novato, all have parents with pull. Perhaps strong enough to get the name redacted. However, I am sure that the parental and staff grapevine has already spread the name of the school and the teacher around.
I wonder about San Francisco Unified, which to me, had been thoroughly neoliberalized over two decades ago. Complete with buzz words, image control, and multiple five year plans proposed and run by consultants that last three years, being the thing, not teaching. The City also has a much greater population density along with a great population (or at less concealed) of poor and/or homeless population. I’m guessing, and this is only a guess, that SFUSD is going to have an absolutely fabulous COVID season.
I guess that I am zooming all my classes again when I return this winter. And I hate Zoom.
Good choice. And if not exactly “good”, certainly the least worst. The preprint article discussed in the Dr. Campbell video linked in my comment below:
Impacts of K-12 school reopening on the COVID-19 epidemic in Indiana, USA
There’s a good discussion of this Marin event and its broader implications in a video by Dr. Campbell. I like this guy’s presentations. They’re more accessible that let’s say TWIV, with none of the hauteur and mockery prevalent in the latter. Also, and I really like this feature, his visual aids consist mostly of paper and ink. His printed sheets highlighting important points with his supplemental scribbles work really well for me.
Regarding NOLA, having lived there for a spell, it is not unusual for people to hunker down for a hurricane, even a cat five. Ditto for the rest of hurricane. Some of it is protecting your property, other is the cluster that evac’ing is. Contra flow is a complete failure, and if you dont leave well before the officials call it, IMHO, you better off sheltering in place.
I haven’t read anyone mentioning the dangers the the levees in and around New Orleans from this hurricane. Do people really think they’re fixed and safe now? I’m kind of surprised the White House doesn’t seem more concerned. If NOLA floods again, it will make a bad week for Biden all the worse.
The eye is coming onshore to the west of the city. Katrina made landfall at the Mississippi border, east of the city. The strongest prevailing winds at landfall will be from the south, and will push water north onto the Northshore of Lake Ponchartrain and up the Pearl River delta. St. Tammany Parish will be heavily flooded, but the city and Jefferson Parish are likely in less danger this time.
There may be levee or canal wall failures. But my money is on most of the flood damage being north of the lake, on the Northshore.
The New Orleans sheriff’s office said today that they were more worried about heavy rainfall (3″ per hour!) than they were about the levees failing. A big worry is losing power to the pumps that get rid of the water but they do have a bunch of emergency generators lined up. I love that city and I hope everyone will be OK.
“Contra flow is a complete failure”
Support this assertion. I drove two elderly parents and a 5 year old child out of Mandeville through the contraflow system in southbound I-59 Sunday morning, August 2005, before Katrina hit. My average speed was about 35 mph until Jackson, MS, but I feel it worked like a charm. The poor fools who ended up parked on the main, designated hurricane evacuation route, hwy 190, had a harder time evacuating than I did, but they made it out before the winds reached even tropical storm force.
An evacuation system that gets the bulk of the people out of harms way before the storm isn’t a “complete failure”. Even if tens of thousands of self-indulgent suburban twerps have to wait in line for 7 hours*. I know, most white suburbanites and semi-ruralites in de facto suburbs aren’t used to such third world conditions in their daily lives, but a long wait still does not constitute “failure”.
Not everyone can leave. You need a half decent ride and at least a little money. And if you have too many animals you tend to want to ride it out. That’s how my cousin’s mother-in-law died in 10’ of water in Chalmette in 2005. She stayed for her dogs. They all died.
*(7 hours was the time it took my remaining closest family in Slidell to make it to Orange Beach, FL yesterday. They mostly drove old highway 90, rather than the I-10 parking lot, to make the trip.)
Best of luck in the coming storm (a wish with some generality…).
I thank you for them. The youngest pair of evacuees have breakthrough Covid and she’s in her second trimester. They seem to be faring well however.
I’m still flooded only in smoke here in Reno. Left Louisiana nearly 14 years ago.
Absolute best of luck everyone there.
The question of whether or not to evacuate oneself from New Orleans as this huge storm bears down is, incredibly, very much a judgement call.
The states in the region are all already exporting icu cases. In Wuhan the case fatality rate was something like 12% before the mass mobilization of medical resources took effect. Do we even have any capacity left to mobilize?
The air here in Davis, while not as bad as last year while Fairfield was burning, is very challenging to live with. We got to the eye-watering level a couple times yesterday. I saw people out running in it.
Our school district, confronted with the fact that they have a Covid problem, have decided that it’s okay to weaken the measures they had in place to deal with any such problem. My daughter-in-law is positive, grandkid has symptoms, but it was probably community transmission – which would mean the little one likely transmitted while at school. But not officially!
‘Richard N. Haass
@RichardHaass
The alternative to withdrawal from Afghanistan was not “endless occupation” but open-ended presence. Occupation is imposed, presence invited. Unless you think we are occupying Japan, Germany, & South Korea. And yes, withdrawal was the problem.’
So if I read this right, Richard Haass is worried about premature withdrawal. Yes, I suppose for men his age this can be a bit of a worry. And trying to hand wave and call an occupation an invited presence only works in Washington. To those people in places like Afghanistan, they still remain enemy forces occupying their own country which must be continuously attacked. And Haass may think that the US is not occupying Japan, Germany, & South Korea but the people living there have their own ideas. For Japan, ask the people of Okinawa. And I knew a middle class family in Germany that regard the US forces as occupation troops and this was in the 80s. And I doubt that the people of South Korea are happy that it is an American commander in charge of their armed forces in case of trouble. But people like Haass will always get an outlet for their views with friendly reporters. Has Judith Miller interviewed him yet?
Caitlin Johnstone has some choice words for the likes of Haass. “Moron” is her one word summary of his nonsense.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/08/29/warmongers-keep-raging-about-the-phrase-ending-the-forever-wars-and-we-should-laugh-at-them/
I don’t believe that US bases are in Japan, S. Korea and Germany because they were invited there. Haass needs to respell his name without the Ha.
In another lifetime Mr Haas could have been a televangelist.
We are called to be in Afghanistan! Can you not hear the people begging us to stay? Our mission is not war, but peace. Not coercion but freedom. To leave now only condemns us and the Afghan people to the wilderness. Pleas3 reach into your pockets and get out your phones, and your wallets. Call your representatives and beg them to reject this refutation of freedom and American exceptionalism. Tell them to send our troops back to Afghanistan, to free the airport, to free Kabul, and to free all of the country from the infidels. And let them know you want your tax dollars to fuel this god given enterprise that you will pay more if necessary. And send funds directly to us here at __cement cathedral___. Let us pray.
There are pharmaceutical aids available. Or so I’ve heard (!)…\,sarc
Not sarcasm. I doubt the pre-revolutionary Boston citizens regarded the British troops and General Gage as invited presence necessarily. Clearly a few locals at the time disagreed!
The stupid of this leadership class just burns.
I suspect that the leadership class is not truly moronic or stupid.
It is far worse than that.
As a class, they view that enough of the distracted US population can be pushed to agree with their views initially.
The leadership class then gets their wars.
The more liberal media organs that advocated for war ( see NY Times) later have a retrospective on “how they got it wrong”.
The rabid supporters continue on at think tanks and cable news appearances.
I believe the leadership class knows that their brand of democracy needs a stable middle class and sufficient per capita GDP to have a hope for “democracy’s” long term survival when pushed on a foreign country.
Afghanistan’s per capita GDP is about $507 while the USA’s is $65,297 or about 128x.
And the USA’s democracy is having issues..
If a foreign occupation organization spends 20 years “building” a governmental structure and when the occupying force leaves, the structure collapses quickly, it appears that a house of cards was all that was constructed.
Conscript all these thought leaders into a military platoon, give them some training, some rifles and send them over to fight for their favorite causes.
“Unless you think we are occupying Japan, Germany, & South Korea.”
We are. Particularly the first two, which were both defeated nations. Later they ‘voluntarily’ signed ‘security treaties’ with the US. Japan at least managed to gradually get their American garrisons mostly moved to Okinawa, which is a kind of Japanese internal colony. There the bases take up a bunch of the best farming land, and Marines occasionally rape an Okinawan girl but hey, that’s their problem. Having the bases there outsources the embarrassment away from the mainland Japanese.
All three of the mentioned countries are protectorates of the United States. Just because we call them ‘allies’ and pretend to deal with them on equal terms doesn’t change this fact.
Re: “horse paste”
I received the following in email from a relative:
“CDC warns against use of anti-parasitic drug ivermectin for Covid-19, as calls to poison control centers increase – CNN”
This was my reply:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210803/p2a/00m/0op/013000c
Ivermectin is off-patent and a very cheap and SAFE drug when properly prescribed for human beings. It has been demonstrated to have significant anti-viral properties. It has saved tens of millions of people from river blindness globally with very few, if any, side-effects. The developers won the Nobel Prize for medicine.
Big Pharma in the U.S. and Europe is just god-damned if they’re going to let a cheap treatment for Covid-19 go global.
Big Pharma controls the CDC, the FDA and WHO. Oh– and also the U.S. Congress, President Biden and most of the federal judiciary. They are all captured and do Big Pharma’s bidding every. Single. Day.
Oh, I forgot to mention the media. Also captured because corporate, you know.
If I sound like a conspiracy theorist, so be it. I’m telling you the truth as I have been able to discern it from published evidence over the last 15 months or so.
Love,
C.
P.S. If we had a functioning government, Pfizer’s and Moderna’s patents would have been broken long ago so that poorer countries could produce their own vaccines which they would have done in very short order. That’s one course of action that MIGHT have protected the health and well-being of people in rich countries in the long run. But no, because all of the above.
P.P.S. Pandemics are very democratic. Nobody’s safe until everybody’s safe. Our misleadership class finds this incomprehensible.
***
I now wish I had written: “Our misleadership class finds this either incomprehensible or irrelevant.”
They are also almost certainly talking about ER calls made by individuals using animal invermectin and either getting the dose translation wrong or getting other substance in the animal version that don’t sit well with humans. In other words, this is the result of the aggressive campaign not to have MDs prescribe it.
It’s like the war on drugs in that respect. The fact that the drugs are illegal makes them more dangerous.
Forcing the desperate, the sick, and possibly the dying to use inappropriate medicine. Of course, it is for “our” own good. Somehow.
During Prohibition, the Federal government denatured or spiked alcohol (made it poisonous) being used in industry to discourage it being diverted and illegally used in drinks. Of course, one can’t always tell if the alcohol is bad especially in Cocktails. Cocktails were originally made to hide the bad quality of smuggled or poorly made alcoholic drinks. Between the unscrupulous, and the misinformed or hoodwinked, alcohol sellers thousands were poisoned. People lost their eyesight, their health, and often their lives.
Tokyo’s Medical Assoc. Chairman holds press conference recommending Ivermectin to all COVID patients
Aug 26, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkWOpFk1GGk&t=1s
No doubt Fauci issued the “narrative” for mainstream outlet’s scripted escalated attacks on Ivermectin this week like a choir repeating “quack” “horse-paste” those stoopid banjo-players are putting horse-paste on crackers….
The propaganda against effective treatment and prevention is criminal.
https://trialsitenews.com/federal-judge-allows-nih-ivermectin-deception-case-to-proceed/
The National Institute of Health is misnamed. It does not promote “health” , rather it is merely the funding mechanism for the bio-medical research profit-centered juggernaut that relentlessly advances drugs and genetic intervention as “health”. As example, NIH has never addressed obesity as a primary Covid co-morbidity or vaping (how did that clear the FDA??).
With suppression of effective inexpensive repurposed drugs and prevention protocols, the word “treatment” is rarely heard on MSM. It’s criminal and good the Ivermectin deception case is advancing.
“China Takes on Its Tech Leaders”
Wait – can you do that? Will they let you? I’ve heard that when you become a billionaire you drop about 10 IQ points or more and I have not seen anything to discredit this notion. In China, the deal is simple. You can make as much money as you want, but you stay out of politics and not try to run the country. Not a hard idea to get your brain around. So what did Jack Ma do? Told the government where to get off and said that he was in charge of things now. Next thing you know he is MIA for a coupla weeks.
Why would the CCP do such stuff as crack down on them, even though they need them? Because they see what is happening in places like the US where the tech billionaires are running riot over the government while being paid tens of billions of dollars by them. When a person become a tech billionaire, they want to treat their staff like slaves and their customers as something to be abused (see Silicon Valley for examples). If China has a different idea on how they should behave and can enforce it, then I say good luck to them.
The Chinese state is seen as the protector of the people, ruling “benevolently” (this is not just a CCP thing, goes back a couple of millennia with the adoption of Confucianism and the Mandate of Heaven). Xi really seems to be taking action after the growing inequality and private power of the 2000-2010 rapid growth period. He has already made great strides in dealing with what was horrendous visible/smellable air pollution, CCP corruption, and now reducing private power and stopping predatory lending. He has also publicly focused on reducing wealth inequality. Harvard measured the domestic approval of the CCP at over 80%, seems that they are doing things that the general populace people want them to do – so different to our “democracies” in the West.
Roger that.
> in the West
I dunno. Maybe we should try this “democracy” thing. Oligarchy doesn’t seem to be working out for us. Or most of us.
Demoncracy deserves to be a word.
80 percent approval is certainly nice, but perpetratng genocides against some of that remaining 20 percent really needs to weighed when eveluating the government
If someone didn’t want to be genocided, why did they become terrorists and fight in Syria or any other project of the bourgeois Western elites? Serious question.
There is no genocide. Stop reading sources that take their hyperbolic narratives from a much disputed and debunked German evangelist who’s working with a well known anti-CPC cult.
They don’t need them, at all. They do not seem to value ideas or systems as absolute private property, unlike zero-sum dignity cultures like the West’s whose gentry scream like entitled children to mommy that their little brothers are mimicking or mocking them. Entrepreneurs are therefore simply engineers of systems, and are as fungible as any other engineer over the course of an endeavor.
It’s even beyond “making as much money as you want, but you stay out of politics”. They understand that money isn’t capital, but rather a concentration of political power; there is no staying out of politics if you have astronomical amounts of money.
I imagine if COVID wasn’t raging you’d see more HNW Chinese leaving the PRC and taking their dollar accounts. I don’t think the CPC would care, after all those dollars don’t make anything. They would simply be re-exporting inflation back to the US.
It is interesting how the CPC upholds the totality of their vision for socialist statehood. There is this antagonism towards billionaires, easily identifiable across all communist thought from primitive to Marxist. Yet this antagonism doesn’t sidetrack it from its upholding China’s sovereignty and the rights of its citizens. They protect the rights of Meng Wanzhou, as a Chinese citizen in her seizure in Canada. Some may read this as a few billionaires finding a concordat with the the State, like some oligarchs did with Putin some decades back. Although Huawei is important to the Chinese state; I think this is the CPC demonstrating its legitimacy by protecting China’s national and commercial interests as embodied by the safety of its citizens abroad.
Regarding the fluvoxamine Vox article, the one thing the marginalized clinicians have promoted is fluvoxamine for brain inflammation, especially long haul. Fluvoxamine’s mechanism has been identified (suppression of s1 subunit). It is good for long haul because it penetrates the blood brain barrier. IVM doesn’t get into the brain too well, and when it does it can cause big problems (say in patients with blood brain barrier issues like patients with MS). It is rare but the one big contraindication to IVM. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5929173/ If fluvoxamine works to treat lung effects that is a big big bonus!
Lonng term (emphasis on long term) use of any antidepressant would actually make me depressed. To me just would seem like an additioanl way of taking my mind away.
The FLCCC fluvoxamine protocol is 2 weeks 50mg twice a day for long haul so it is short term. But you are right there are risks including suicidal ideation, it is not as safe as IVM.
Serious question: if avoiding brain inflammation is the goal, what about THC? I spoke with a scientist years ago who told me THC is a powerful anti-inflammatory and this backs that up:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10863546/
I consume massive quantities of pot. I don’t think THC has a problem penetrating my brain barrier. I do think more research is needed. Be right back.
https://www.studyfinds.org/cbd-covid-19-prevent-lung-damage/
Please no medical advice.
Sorry, course corrected!
Surely it was recreational advice, only for use in those states where it is so authorized.
I got a prescription on the basis of OCD.
Maybe something to think about before the FDA attacks it…. (I wouldn’t try to get Ivermectin now that people are associating it with Fox News and horse paste.)
I have taken SSRI’s in the past (when severely depressed), which over time helped lift the depression. I decided to see how I tolerate fluvoxamine, and have been taking 50 mg. each evening for a couple of weeks. Effects are quite subtle, not “fog” inducing at all. I feel a slight lessening of anxiety about the current events we all are enduring. If you look up the reason there is a caution regarding suicidal ideation, you might see that there’s not much to it.
In other words, I’m finding this SSRI to be wholly benign, for me, personally.
Re: Owning A Tesla.
“That’s because while the typical pickup driver has an income that hovers around the median, the typical Tesla owner has an income twice the average – and the strongest predictor of a person’s carbon emissions isn’t what he buys, but what he spends.”
…so this is not really about Tesla cars. It’s about being rich.
I don’t understand the writer’s assesment of the drivers:
“…Well, let’s picture the stereotypical Tesla buyer, he of the marketing literature: a virtuous and healthful middle-aged man who scoffs at the climate destruction wrought by the ignorant, climate-denying Trump voter, the sort of voter who’ll drive a gas-guzzling pickup to a rally to hear the former president mock global warming…”
I could easily see Trump supporters in a Tesla. The real Tesla fanboys have qualities that remind me of Trump supporters – the wealthy entrapreneur worship and all it’s accompanying ideologies.
But he could have made the main point of the article with none of this side show speculation.
Yes and no. The average US family with a median household income can no longer reasonably afford to buy and own the average car with a relatively cheap internal combustion engine, let alone a Tesla. So Tesla owners pretty much have to be rich. And being rich, it’s almost certain that they’re downing the metaphorical dozen donuts (injecting mass quantities of lifestyle CO2 into the atmosphere) before washing them down with a Diet Coke (puttering about in a Tesla).
In 2020 avg light vehicle price reached 40k (CNET), Tesla model 3 recently reduced to 37k, no subsidy.
Cost of EV drive train expected to go below IC version in 2023.
If infra bill passed as written Tesla would get 7k/car subsidy, might see under 30k price, 10k under avg of IC vehicles.
modular Yes, Tesla buyers in my town run the gamut. Some buy the Model X (Dual motor) others the lesser Model 3. Any EV is fun to drive (as long as it’s mostly local) and the mechanical complexity of the vehicle is much less than ICE’s. The price of all EV’s should be dropping as VW AG (and others) ramp up modular production, and charging stations increase.
The point of the article (for me) was that owning a Tesla (or any new energy efficient technology)also requires CO2 reduction (conservation). Likely radical.
Less than a century of liveable air remaining. We have decided to burn it up, the faster the better. I don’t have children, so can those that do please be kind and give them the message?
The Tesla comparison is a ruse to get one to read the article, but entirely beside the point of the article, unless one can make the connection that the last person to adobt a minimalist way of living would be a Tesla owner.
I would love to see a list of the top 10 amazon delivery zip codes by both price and volume and say over 10 years. I think it would be revealing. Every once in a while, including today, I ask the all seeing eye to give me this info but of course amazon has bought the first 5 pages at least of search results so good luck finding it. I speculate that it tracks tesla ownership pretty well.
Purchasing a brand-new car is bad, whether it’s a Tesla or an Escalade. It takes a huge amount of resources to make a new car, so buying a new Prius, Tesla etc is probably more damaging to the environment than driving a 1975 Cadillac.
Nice complementary articles on Tesla and evacuating from a storm. Did the rich get a full charge the night before?
I wonder how many Teslas are second – or third – cars, another status symbol for impressing a different crowd.
It’s my impression that fluvoxamine’s potential as a medical intervention in Covid was championed by marginalized clinicians, some of them the same people urging study of ivermectin.
I recall a gastroenterologist, Farid Jalali, and a psychiatrist, Angela Reierson pointing out a theoretical rationale for its efficacy, and being subjected to pretty much the same sort of character assassination as ivermectin advocates.
It has been very striking the extent to which advocating even the study of any currently approved medicine has made doctors targets for personal abuse. This even happened to those exploring corticosteroid use – in patients who were almost certain to die unless some way of reducing the inflammation in their lungs could be found.
I think the difference really is that the propagandists targetting vaxxholes and MAGAlomaniacs didn’t bother trying to sell them on an antidepressant.
> It has been very striking the extent to which advocating even the study of any currently approved medicine has made doctors targets for personal abuse
It’s very difficult to convince me those aren’t the interests of James Smith, who has fingers in big pharma, international news, neoconservatism, and Internet censorship, and is in a unique position to exercise power across institutions for personal benefit. Ethical hackers would probably find some very interesting emails going to and from him and his retinue.
Dr Been (who would qualify as a marginalized doc even though he doesn’t treat people in the US he has interviewed all of the marginalized clinicians on his channel) has been getting death threats and legal issues-he discussed it in his last video. If you want to scare off docs from going anywhere near the marginalized clinicians ideas/strategies, threatening them with jail time is definitely the way to do it. It is going beyond personal abuse into the realm of destroying them.
>Patient says some MaineGeneral staff threatened to not treat her for asking if they were vaccinated
Sounds like staff were just abiding by her wish not to be treated.. not sure what she was expecting to happen when she told them she didn’t want to be treated by them if they didn’t answer her questions.
That Judith Miller tweet. Wow! just wow!
reads like a troll parody tweet…even the handle. War is Peace.
As a Professor of Medicine – most specifically Internal Medicine and Medical History, this is the time of the year that I am preparing for a new group of students, 2 of whom will be starting with me next week. Because I have left the big city, I am no longer in front of lecture halls, but I am responsible for teaching these young kids what it is like to be a physician on the front lines.
Always looking for new material, I found a most amazing book. I would like to share it with you all.
Published in 2019, right before COVID, it is called THE PANDEMIC CENTURY and was written by Mark Honigsbaum. It is a detailed look at 9 different major infectious disease crises of the 20th century. I would quibble about calling some of them pandemics – for example The Parrot Fever Scare of 1930 – but the common threads to all of these events are hauntingly familiar to what we are seeing now. One of the great comforts of reading history is the famous throwaway line – “This has all happened before, and will all happen again.” And we survived each and every time.
There are things described in almost every one of these events that we are dealing with at this very minute –
1). The complete inability of the medical profession to realize something new was going on, to change course, and to admit mistakes – In the Parrot Fever event of 1930, medical science had thought it had already determined the cause of psittacosis and despite all evidence to the contrary that they were wrong in every way, continued to act on wrong foundations until finally the medical scientists themselves started dying because they were allowing themselves to be infected out of ignorance. In the 1918 Spanish flu it took TWO WHOLE YEARS before medical science admitted it was completely wrong and that the cause of the flu was not a bacteria known as Bacillus.
2). Bungling and misdirection at the beginning in almost every case led to critical months being wasted. This was largely the fault of the public health authorities and their entrenched bureaucracy.
3). The complete disaster of research done early on and the insistence on pristine research and pristine conclusions led to multiple horrific treatment and pathogen identification problems. For example, multiple papers about EBOLA in 2014-2015 were completely dismissed because the peers would just submit to the journals “There is no Ebola in West Africa. These people do not know what they are talking about.” These were papers about the large numbers of antibody positive patients for Ebola in West Africa. And we all know what happened in the West African countries of Liberia and Nigeria and how that reached out to touch the USA just months after these “experts” dispatched these papers.
4) In almost every case, the public health officials in the USA tasked with telling the truth and being a calming influence did the exact opposite. It is way more common than not for complete panic to rule rather than calm and cool responses. Visible panic and emotionalism was often seen in these leaders during many of these events.
5) The people at the very top of the public health and federal health agencies during many of these epidemics were shown eventually to be complete political hacks.
6) Pushing miracle cures and magic bullets during the heat of the moment ON EVERY SINGLE OCCASION led to tears. This is true of even the polio vaccine which was consumed in disaster right out of the gate. Those in the federal health apparatus that figured out BEFOREHAND what was going to happen were subjected to howls of derision. But happen it did.
7). The miracle of antibiotics and vaccines has led to very elevated expectations among the population. These expectations are completely unachievable with novel agents and new organisms. Once this is exposed, the loss of trust, anger, and feeling of betrayal can set back the pandemic efforts for years.
8). Polio is the one disease that was likely handled the best. But even the 1950s vaccination effort was beset with multiple disasters. And it took 27 entire years for the USA to be cleared of the virus.
I just thought some would be interested. This book will be required reading for my students this year. History is very important to teach us lessons about where we are now.
Thank you IM Doc.
IM Doc, so glad to see you come up for air! Sounds like just the book to curl up with on a chilly gray day in these parts. Off to pick up a copy momentarily!
I think “In the 1918 Spanish flu it took TWO WHOLE YEARS before medical science admitted it was completely wrong and that the cause of the flu was not a bacteria known as Bacillus” is a little misleading. It was quite a bit longer before bacteria were definitely ruled out as the cause of ‘flu, and even then they may have been at least partly responsible for many of the deaths.
The cause of influenza would not be definitively resolved until the 1930s, with the isolation of swine influenza virus by Shope9 and the subsequent isolation of human influenza virus by Smith, Andrewes, and Laidlaw.10 Whereas Pfeiffer’s hypothesis regarding the bacterial cause of influenza was ultimately proven incorrect, it was generally agreed then, as now, that most of the deaths from the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic were due to secondary bacterial infections11—and that some of the early vaccines could have, in fact, prevented the rate of bacterial pneumonia and death from the disease.12
https://www.aai.org/AAISite/media/About/History/Articles/AAI_History_007-(1).pdf
For some reason I can’t fathom, that link doesn’t seem to work. Try a Google search for “spanish flu due to bacillus” – it was the top result for me, The 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic – Influenza,” The Journal of Immunology vol 4 (1919): 167–187. 6. C.W. Duval and W.H. Harris, “The Antigenic Property of the Pfeiffer Bacillus As. Related to Its …
corrected link
URL was missing the .pdf at the end
Thank you!
Or copy the whole thing, including the .pdf (don’t know why it’s come out separate and in black), and paste that into a browser – that works!
Agree completely. It took much longer and John M. Barry tells this story well, IMHO, and in great detail in his book “The Great Influenza” which came out in 2005. It’s one of the best history of science books I’ve read and is about much more than the 1918 pandemic. Well worth the time.
Yes
Either I am getting too old to proofread or a spellcheck event occurred
That line should have been TWENTY WHOLE YEARS.
Sorry all.
Thank you. And good grief! I’m adding that book to my reading list. And I suggest that this post be hoisted from comments. From this and Afghanistan I surmise that nothing is more predictable in the course of human affairs than the willful refusal to learn from past screwups.
Thanks IM Doc….yes I developed an enduring love of history as both escape reading but also for the very thing you mention— that it’s relieving to know that our own time is not uniquely messed up. At least, I developed that AFTER high school, where history was mostly just a succession of battles and their dates.
I will look for this at our library!
I believe some commenters were recommending this book early last year, unless I’m thinking of another one. But still, maybe time to take another look, now that we’re a bit further along.
Certainly, I would say for my part that one of the key takeaways I’ve had from your posts in the last however-long-it’s-been is the salience of the lessons that medical history has to offer us, whether it’s about pandemics in general, or countering the arrogance of the ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ dogmatists.
Thanks, very interesting.
Thanks, as always, Doc.
Almost 4 decades now:
HIV – Fauci and Redfield.
Covid – Fauci and Redfield.
How did they keep their jobs?
Thank you. Yesterday I read an article about the Polio vaccine and it said even the successful sugar cube version–which we tykes lined up for in the high school gym–was claimed by some to have a possible cancer causing agent although this was never proven. However the Salk vaccine definitely gave some people Polio due to early manufacturing problems.
Everything that is happening with this current pandemic is supposed to be about the “precautionary principle”–except when it’s not. I’d blame it on the current media’s obsession with politics and desertion of minimal concern for accuracy in favor of Facebooking the news. I always loved the good gray Times of yore because those unsexy front pages seemed to proclaim they were at least serious about the news if not always truthful.
https://www.aier.org/article/fauci-was-duplicitous-on-the-aids-epidemic-too/
Fauci Was Duplicitous on the AIDS Epidemic Too
“Note the recurring characteristics of his public communications that have become hallmarks of Fauci’s style. Whether it’s the coronavirus of 2020-21 or the AIDS crisis of 1983, he routinely stakes out public positions that rely upon unwarranted speculation about scientific matters in the absence of evidence. His scientific statements carry an air of authority, and are certainly repeated as such by an adoring press – including in ways that mislead the public and even cause harm to our ability to address and combat an emerging disease. Yet if one reads his statements carefully, they also contain enough weasel words – “might,” “may,” “could” – to facilitate a convenient political pivot at a later date, shirking all responsibility for the harm caused in the process. And in the instances where a complete contradiction occurs, he takes refuge in duplicity for a “noble” purpose, which the press is all too happy to excuse away.”
weasel words
Words like might, may and could are often far more appropriate than is or will, being widely used to reflect scientific uncertainty. That said, I don’t know exactly which of Fauci’s pronouncements you’re referring to; he may (pardon the weaselling!) have just been covering his behind.
There is an updated version of the book: The Pandemic Century: A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19.
Excellent IM Doc, it’s at my local library here in Melbourne, I just reserved it, I’m next in the queue.
If there is one thing that we have got right locally it is our suburban library service. Nine local libraries all on the one system, putting a book on hold will put the hold across all nine libraries, popular books have multiple copies, free access to computer resources, and courses etc as well. And can suggest books/publications for purchase, up to 10 per month, I usually request about one a month, very rarely get turned down, only if an extremely narrow readership ie just me, or more than 2 years since published.
All free, paid for by local council rates, I think its the best government service provided here by far. I have heard in some Sydney councils they now charge $2 to reserve a book. If they do that here I would be finished as almost all the books I look for I get after putting on hold.
Thanks Doc
Speaking of your mentioning sources, thank you for bringing in Marcia Angell a while ago. I watched one of her talks on pharma’s conflicts of interest and how they spend their budgets. I wouldn’t have known about her otherwise.
Thanks, IM Doc. Regarding Ebola in West Africa, Paul Farmer’s Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History is a good read. He makes the same point you just made.
Regarding the lack of recognition of novel pathogens, there are some reports that China did recognize fairly early that it was dealing with a novel coronavirus outbreak, although they may have initially thought it as SARS-CoV-1. The knowledge the international community had acquired about SARS-CoV-1 was important. For example, SARS-CoV-1 was associated with a number of superspreading events, and it was obviously highly contagious since it spread across multiple floors in a stack at the Amoy Gardens apartment building in Hong Kong. On the other hand, probably no one knew initially that SARS-CoV-2 could be transmitted asymptomatically, which was a crucial piece of missing information. But one piece of known information trumps all of the others. The international community knew that SARS-CoV-1 was barely prevented from becoming endemic. Therefore, the need to act immediately to contain the number of cases should have been paramount if China indeed knew that it was dealing with a novel coronavirus.
This does not seem to be what happened. The initial outbreaks seem to have been covered up. So maybe even when a virus is recognized as novel, politics can obscure the epidemiological information and result in so much foot-dragging that a novel virus can’t always be contained.
Re the Goverment and more facial recognition article, the sophistication of facial recognition and its integration with the “noncooperative human identification” ecosystem is extremely impressive and already available off the shelf for Government and select private entities. It seems that every 6-12 months, in terms of limitations, the next generation bears little resemblance to its predecessor. If you wonder just how well this technology works, consider how many shootings or other high press profile acts of violence perpetrated by masked individuals in NYC, DC, LA, and other large cities have been apprehended within days or hours. Keep in mind that in order to make this happen so quickly, the police must not only identify the masked perpetrator, they also must specifically locate where that person is in order to apprehend them.
Re: “Most interesting to me: Users must be provided with a convenient way to see and delete the keywords that the algorithm is using to profile them.”
Nice move China.
Even if the state still surveils, at least all the bad actors with info are kept in one place and not all over the place.
Reduced annoyance on the people even if not a total elimination.
Quanta. How Big Can the Quantum World Be? In the variety of superpositions we might manufacture, that is. I think it would be safe to assume that the wave function and its collapse are constantly creating a balance. So be careful what you wish for. Before we study how big the superposition of things can be we might want to study how deep and infinitesimal the quantum world really is. Just the fact that there is a wave function, a harmony of smaller energies, that can be used with extreme accuracy to predict what a particle will do, implies that we have just scratched the surface of Quantum. That the wave is composed of much smaller units of energy still. Maybe we should build a giant particle accelerator on the moon – just build a big tube that goes around the moon – and see what it can discover. Might be safer than boldly going where no sane person has gone before; into creating a synthetic coherence freak show that might take on a gravity of its own and go off like an horrendous quantum bomb imploding into an eternal black hole. And etc.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Saudi Arabia signs military cooperation deal with Russia
Deputy minister of defence Khalid bin Salman announces agreement on Twitter
https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/saudi-arabia-signs-military-cooperation-deal-with-russia-1.1629762335445
From The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms
>In every case, the prospective borrowers of color looked almost exactly the same on paper as the White applicants, except for their race
Since underwriters dont actually meet home buyers to see their race, just check the box on your application saying you’d prefer not to indicate your race?.. unless the problem is really borrowers with unique/”non-white” names are less likely to receive loans–which, while equally newsworthy, probably requires different measures to eliminate (and would also be relevent to people of all races when considering names)
An interesting experiment would be to proffer two identical loan applications, except for the names. One will be Mustapha X and the other will be Algernon Y. Let the games commence!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/03/05/does-black-name-hurt-your-loan-chances/80860816/
Guess what – it does.
Which is just another reason to remove all government privileges, explicit and implicit, for banks so they can’t violate equal protection under the law.
And note that even if all racial, gender, age, etc. discrimination were eliminated, the banks would STILL discriminate in favor of the richer at the expense, one way or another, of the poorer.
There’s just NO WAY that government privileges for banks don’t violate equal protection under the law.
This article presents the experiences of a white guy named Jamaal. “Randomly selected for extra airport screening” and the like.
https://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is-jamaal-im-white
Re: Canada’s Conservatives make gains weeks ahead of vote, polls show
The Conservatives have adopted what we call the Red Conservative view; i.e., they have adopted some liberal principles (universal health care) somewhat like the Mulroney government did in the past. I think we will get a minority government of either Liberals or Conservatives with the NDP becoming the support (or not) of whichever party wins. That would be really interesting and a lot will probably get done (such as pharmacare for everyone). Interesting times.
Hearsay: Supposedly Brazil’s leader is going to have a right-wing coup when he looses the next, imminent election next month. This would make sense as he’s spent the past year giving out guns to supporters, instructing police to selectively enforce gun laws, and organizing truckers into convoys that will shut down roadways preventing a counter-military response when the coup occurs.
If such rumors prove true, one wonders how prepared the Brazilian left is for a fight. I mean a real fight – a fight with guns, with artillery, and with death. Biden will have no problem recognizing a new military junta, as they’d happily trade away cobalt, nickel and lithium for US support. Biden also needs a strong, stable, and completely willing ally against FARC, Maduro and (of course) Russia’s presence in nearby Venezuela. This would be the start of a new cold war especially if Brazil decides to manufacture stories about how Russia is still secretly communist or something silly like that. And then the whole Amazon is burned down, causing a catastrophe for the entire planet.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/27/braz-a27.html
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210810-brazil-s-bolsonaro-flexes-muscles-with-military-parade
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/08/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-law-and-order-far-right-politics
(but again, mere rumors and hearsay)
I hope that Greenwald and his family are making plans for this contingency.
This makes sense of that article I saw the other day where Bolsonaro told his supporters ‘Everybody has to buy a rifle, damn it!’
https://www.rt.com/news/533329-bolsonaro-brazil-guns-coronavirus/
Some people improve this world best by leaving it.
I had a brief friendship with someone once, years ago before DEI was a thing, that was very effective at shocking people by taking umbrage at “offensive” remarks. His delivery was so emphatic, it was hard to realize he was joking, which he’d claim after it was clear he’d made you embarrassed and uncomfortable. But I realize now his aim was different. It was social domination. He was also an unapologetic narcissist. (This was a Fox news watching late 20s white male with a fervent disgust for Obama and anyone that might be a liberal Democrat.)
Reading Matt’s post from yesterday, and he left out China. The Chinese kept the Japanese pinned in mainland China, according to “Forgotten Ally”, which I picked up at a bookstore in DC a few years ago now. Nonetheless the US managed an amazing logistical feat in WW2. Today, we can’t even make PPE and send it to every citizen apparently, assuming anyone cared to try.
Since my doctors were ignoring my contact requests about an exemption, and I need my job-to support myself and because I live in housing owned by my employer that requires I be a FT employee, I broke down and got vaccinated yesterday as the deadline is Sept 1st or else I’d be banned from my workplace until fully vaccinated. I called around to every pharmacy in the area and ended up driving 45 miles each way in my 23 year old car to a tiny town in a neighbouring state to get J&J(nobody around has them, even though the CDC web site says they do-CDC is not fit for purpose!), hoping it would have less of an affect on my autoimmune diseases and because it’s one and done so I can continue to work. Nope. Passed a horrible, scary night, and now having a violent flare-up of one of my diseases. I have a high pain tolerance and am willing to ride stuff out, but this scared the heck out of me and I almost broke down and went to the hospital during the middle of the night due to high fever and side effects. Haven’t been this sick from the one disease since before the surgery for it 20 years ago. If I can’t get this under control I’ll have to go back on medication, which I haven’t had to do in ~15 years. They can take their vaccines and vaccine mandates and shove them up their behinds. Never again.
Wow! I’ve been reading your comments for a while about this. I can only image what you are feeling. Best wishes and please keep us posted. You seem like a true Sweeheart (hope that doesn’t offend you) and I wish you the best.
This is an example that really ticks me off. Again, I can’t ever find the words because I’m a numbers guy, not English and grammar, so I struggle. Anyway, plenty of people are skeptical of taking these vaccines for various reasons, and good ones IMO. I will never treat or talk bad to anyone who feels this way.
But why did we have to put EVERYTHING on the jabs? Why does that have to be the magic bullet? What about better tracking, tracing, targeted lock downs, targeted travel, and even alternative meds?
Then to, what I think was political pressure to the FDA, to approve the vaccine (which really doesn’t sound like historical approvals) and try to force them via mandates in every way possible. I think that is wrong and a very bad way of handling this.
Only to be already outdone by the ridiculous “get the stab, take off your mask” garbage that a two year old kid could see would do nothing but allow the un-vaxxed to become vaxxed by lying.
The entire pandemic has been handled horribly, by everyone calling the shots from the very beginning.
And then it comes to this for people like petal. I could be in the same boat at some point, and I’m not sure what I will do. It all makes me furious.
Again, best of luck petal, and keep us posted.
Screwball, thank you, and best of luck to you as well. You are so right about this entire thing being handled horribly from the very beginning. It’s like people have lost their minds.
I am so sorry and hope you are better soon.
I am sad to say I have heard this same kind of story so many times in the past 8 months.
Take care
IM Doc, thank you so much for taking time out of your precious Sunday to reply. Have been praying for you every night. I can feel my old resection area throbbing. It came on last night shortly after the high fever started(just so there’s another observation/data point noted somewhere). My researched concerns were brushed off by both a GI and Rheumatologist here, and I was talked down to and they intimated I was a)a stupid uneducated deplorable, and b) making things up; and that this affect was not happening literally anywhere. I kept the emails. Sending best wishes to you.
This is truly horrible. You are probably smarter than most of the credentialled fools “talking down” to you.
Keep the records and back them up. This vaccine imbroglio looks like it will drag on for years, and eventually end up in the courts. (Think negligence and peculation in a class action suit.) Since this is a mandated vaccination, there is also the possibility of the side effects being an “on the job accident” sort of beastie.
Perhaps an “incognito” website expose is in order. No perhaps about it. I’m just worrying about backlash against the ‘vaccine whistleblowers.’ Our PMC class has shown itself to have the ethics of the Dreaded Tankies of days of yore.
Please get better. From the Mississippi Bobbsey Twins.
Thank you, ambrit! My best to you and Phyl, and I hope you are being missed by the hurricane.
Definitely keeping records and emails just in case. You are spot on about this dragging out for years, and potential lawsuits. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, yes? PMC class has no qualms about destroying people that question them. They are betting the farm on this and so won’t give an inch. Too much at stake for them. They’ll ride it to the end no matter what.
Petal I am so sorry to hear that you also had an adverse reaction.
One of the most galling things I have had to deal with is from people either strongly implying or outright saying that I was making things up.
Sorry that should be “GE and Rheumatologist”. I’m tired. Don’t know why I wrote GI.
Here petal, something to help make you feel better about people-
https://twitter.com/profcurestress/status/1432021533359284232
Petal, I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s not without risk, but you might consider contacting the ID doc who is co-chairing the task force and ask to share your experience. She’s been advocating for a softer touch on mandates and more restrictions than are currently put in place. Medical exemptions aren’t worth crap if no one will grant them.
Jen, thank you. I will seriously consider it-there must be others this is happening to, and what happens if they start requiring boosters of everyone? The MDs I interacted with were/are proud of refusing any exemption requests. They are completely shutting down anyone that asks. I have that in emails.
So sorry to hear about this, petal. You definitely do not deserve this happening to you. I hope that you get on the rebound pretty quick.
Thank you so much, Rev Kev. Going to take some time off to try to get things under control. Thankfully, boss is being very supportive about it.
Petal, I am so sorry our misleadership class has mandated this without concerns and protections for you and others like you.
I will be sending good thoughts to you and prayers for your relief.
Thank you so much, Pat-knowing people care makes such a big difference and is really appreciated.
Petal – I’m so sorry that you had a terrible experience with the vaccine. I hope you feel better and don’t have any more issues from the vaccine. Take care of yourself. .
So so sorry to hear this, petal. We’re all pulling for you!
Me too, all pulling on the rope together for you Petal, hope things improve soon
I’m so sorry to hear this petal, I too am avoiding the boosters due to an immune system issue but nothing like this. Good thoughts coming at you.
I hope you are feeling better. I know exactly what you are trying to navigate. I’ve got 2 auto-immune “markers” I’ve been told, one is Hashimoto’s and the other is undiagnosed. So I was leery of the vaxx too. Before I got it I got a blood serum antibody test to see if I already had antibodies from what I am sure was intestinal Covid in early 2019. The test was negative, so I relaxed a tad about getting a cytokine storm; so I took the J & J. And I got a pretty hefty reaction: migraine level headache for almost 24 hours, extreme fatigue, flu like discomfort. My adult kids didn’t get a reaction at all. But, for me, it was expected as I react to the yearly flu shot in much the same way. Rest and water.
Petal, I am SO sorry this has happened to you.
And please don’t be silent. Raise a [family blogging] ruckus wherever you go.
Regarding the NY Times article on wokeness at pricey NY private schools:
No, the takeaway is not that teenagers will use whatever tools are at hand for hierarchy and ostracism. Rather, the bottom line is that, with the left (whatever that means these days) not defending its core principles against pseudo social justice authoritarianism, dissenters have no place to go but the right. If you can’t take the craziness and want to join with others to be a counterforce, those are the only options you have. Seriously, what genuinely progressive groups are in a position to provide meaningful support (legal, financial, platform) to progressives getting stomped on in the name of antiracism? Vacuums don’t last long in politics.
Of course, the overriding irony is that all this is happening at institutions whose very raison d’etre is acquisition and perpetuation of class privilege. (This is pointed out early in the article but not brought up again.)
> No, the takeaway is not that teenagers will use whatever tools are at hand for hierarchy and ostracism. Rather, the bottom line is that, with the left (whatever that means these days) not defending its core principles against pseudo social justice authoritarianism, dissenters have no place to go but the right.
Surely both can be true…
Progressives aren’t leftists. They’re scientific managerialists and they’re quite dedicated to the bourgeois capitalism of whom they are a creature. In that light, woke discourse is progressive, not leftist.
Also, the entire spectrum of American political establishment is firmly right-authoritarian and should not be taken as anything but a branding exercise.
> Hurricane Ida strengthens into a ‘dangerous Category 4’ storm overnight; see path Times-Picayune
This is going to be a nightmare. They can’t evacuate hospitals because there is no spare capacity anywhere in the US.
Also: ‘Ticking Time Bombs’: Residents Kept In The Dark About Risks To La.’s Chemical Plants During Storms [WWNO]
From Pearl Harbor Day, 2020, still germane.
During Katrina, we had just such a spill at the Dupont paint factory in Delisle, MS, at the head of the Bay of Saint Louis. The toxic plume covered about a quarter of the bay.
Such “accidents” will become common as sea level rise proceeds.
Don’t even get me going about the dilute sulphuric acid dust we had in Pearlington after the hurricane. It came from the dregs at the bottom of the navigation canal at the Port Bienville Industrial Park stirred up by Katrina’s tidal surge.
Thanks IM Doc – I must say your students are fortunate to have you as their teacher. You are a person of great integrity, knowledge and compassion -qualities missing in our medical industrial complex.. Thank you for recommending “The Pabdemic Century,: I’ll look for it.
Statement from the American Board of Emergency Medicine
ABEM Statement about ABEM-Certified Physicians Providing Misleading and Inaccurate Information to the Public
https://www.abem.org/public/news-events/news/2021/08/27/abem-statement-about-abem-certified-physicians-providing-misleading-and-inaccurate-information-to-the-public
—–
Providing misleading and inaccurate information to the public can be sufficiently egregious and inconsistent with the ethical behavior of a physician who is expected to do no harm .
ABEM recognizes that there are numerous medical issues on which physicians will have legitimate differences of opinions – and that ABEM-certified physicians have every right to express their opinions on those issues. However, making public statements that are directly contrary to prevailing medical evidence can constitute unprofessional conduct and may be subject to review by ABEM.
Should ABEM determine that a physician is promulgating inaccurate information that is contrary to the interests of patients and that adversely impacts public safety, ABEM may withdraw or deny certification for that physician.
—–
The gloves are coming off. The PMC is getting desperate. Once reason fails to achieve one’s objectives, the next step is threats. (Implying that medical professionals who do not toe the line of the “official narrative” could lose their license is definitely a threat.) After threats comes force. One could make the argument that mandating vaccinations is a resort to force.
This is looking very much like a system in the process of collapsing.
We will never see the like again.
Lee Scratch Perry of inspired lunacy has now left the building aged 85.
Back when he was 72, but why invite international bankers ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwEOv1QRk8
The guy actually burned down his own recording studio saying it had been taken over by the devil, or some such. Most reggae lovers would view this as an entirely rational act…accounting for the mystic beauty of the genre. It seems like my go-to reggae station is playing tributes to some newly dead rasta-head every other Sunday. A sad state of affairs indeed. RIP Scratch.
Good to hear that you have a reggae station – I first experienced him alongside people like King Tubby, Dr. Alimantado, Augustus Pablo & much more at the end of the 70’s, while staying with my bad influence older cousin in Southall, London. I didn’t know it at the time as I couldn’t make head nor tail of the DJ’s patois in a room where I became as one with the bass.
I chanced on this IMO cool vid bio a little while back featuring the history of reggae from Scratch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG-FNwBCvO8
Oh no, the Chinese government is doing more governing: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/08/27/china-clamps-down-on-large-companies-excessive-996-work-culture-and-powerful-business-people-to-keep-control/?sh=2f11a6d0f500
Shocking.
Sport desk commentary from the cheap seats. The coming weeks will prove how far we’ve come or more likely how much further to go.
Tennis, the US Open begins today / this week. A number of the top talents are injured… Williams both, Federer, Nadal too I think.
Football, College is starting and a full slate begins. Does Bama toll on, does the khaki* pants beat OSU at last, can anyone in my ACC country beat Clemson?
Granted there are pressing matters. *I recall one commenter is a Michigan grad, so the Harbaugh reference is for you!
The anecdote at the start of the post on economic modeling blind spots had Queen Elizabeth asking how everyone missed the economic crash until it happened. I love people asking the logical question. She didn’t get an answer, and I would bet that part of the reason was no one figured they would need to address their failure. This is typical, because more and more we do not require experts, those in charge, or even the pontificating media to address their assumptions and their failures.
We have so many examples of this currently it is almost nauseating. The storylines have been written. No matter what failures either occur or become obvious we must stick the course and never admit it is wrong, failing or sometimes that the failure was baked into the situation and tearing off the bandaid only revealed the gangrene.
So we have those who have some power and/ or expertise lying about tenant protections, pharmaceutical effectiveness, foreign policy, economic policies, climate. And no one they can hear or respond to ask the logical questions about these lies, failures, disasters. All by design.
It is disrespectful, it is insulting, it is damaging. It can make you depressed or even insane. I’ve thought for years the rebellion was coming, but I am amazed at the form it seems to be taking. People are attacking each other protecting their own vision of the norm. And everyone pulling the strings, and their leading puppets just keep failing upwards and pointing the finger in the direction of the public.
I don’t know that we can change anything fundamentally for the better anymore.
Musical Interlude
The less well known Venetian Baroque composer Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)
https://youtu.be/leCZMdmVmpQ
A more restrained hand on the keyboard, here organ and harpsicord, to my ear. Reminds me a bit of German Baroque, just a bit, with it’s more formal sound as compared to contemporary Italian composers.
Here is Muzio Clementi, (1752-1832) another lesser known Baroque composer born in Rome but who moved to England in his teens:
https://youtu.be/mEHlmhONRrw
His piano is delicate without being flowery, quicksilver, and a lot of fun.
Finally, Peter Pasqualini de Marzi († 1766): 6 Sonatas for Cetra or Kitara:
https://youtu.be/Y0SI0D57lS0
Cetra’s were a cheap and popular lute adjacent instrument. The warmth of a lute with a guitar’s freshness, I think.
very fine selections. thanks.
What MN governor Walz is doing is totally disgraceful.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/29/nearly-70-people-arrested-resisting-line-3-rally-outside-minnesota-governors-mansion
Should I report Anthony Fauci to ABEM?
He has clearly violated their code of ethics…
yes
No doubt Fauci issued the “narrative” for mainstream outlet’s scripted escalated attacks on Ivermectin this week like a choir repeating “quack” “horse-paste” those stoopid banjo-players are putting horse-paste on crackers….
Bravo for litigation rebuttal!
https://trialsitenews.com/federal-judge-allows-nih-ivermectin-deception-case-to-proceed/
The National Institute of Health is misnamed. It does not promote “health” , rather it is merely the funding mechanism for the bio-medical research profit-centered juggernaut that relentlessly advances drugs and genetic intervention as “health” and funds dangerous gain-of-function experiments along with research killing and torturing millions of animals. NIH has never addressed obesity as a primary Covid co-morbidity or vaping (how did that clear the FDA??).
With suppression of effective inexpensive repurposed drugs and prevention protocols, the word “treatment” is rarely heard on NIH directed MSM. Linked above the Ivermectin deception case is advancing.
Petal,
I also was pressured into vax and opted for J&J that caused debilitating neural and neural-muscular inflammation as previously fit and healthy person except for a minor vascular condition that also flared.
I asked my PC Dr. to file a VAERS with permanent report number (the VAERS report I personally filed was never given a permanent report number despite several inquiries) and my symptoms prompted a brain MRI that did not show abnormality. It took some back and forth with documentation, and my PC finally wrote a Letter of Medical Exemption should boosters or annuals be required in the future.
Here Dr. Poland vaccinologist and director of vaccine research group Mayo Clinic describes developing severe tinnitus (a form of neural inflammation) after mrna vax that I provided my doctor who perhaps needed “cover” to provide the letter. According to the VAERS home page, medical professionals are required or strongly encouraged to file reports of Adverse Reaction so it is a duty.
https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20210603/qa-link-between-covid19-vaccination-tinnitus-worth-looking-into Dr. Poland also stated in a video chat that if your doctor doesn’t believe you, get a new doctor.
I empathize with your experience. I did a great deal of research for countermeasures and now 6 months later my symptoms are minor or residual. Just in time for the booster push! Despite it all, I shudder to think of the havoc of 2 mrna jabs.
Best wishes.
Richard N. Haass is the prototype revolving door professional starting at the Pentagon in 1979 and going on to State Department, Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, and finally President of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2003. He is delusional thinking that the NATO invasion and takeover of Afghanistan is the same as occupying Germany and Japan after WWII. The fall of Kabul is proof of false beliefs.
The Western Empire has fallen. Saudi Arabia has signed a Military Cooperation Agreement with Russia. In all of the forever wars, the USA has not had a mass army capable of killing every military age male nor the expertise to use the existing political cultural elite/minorities to run the colonial occupations. Not to mention, Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires and the over 1000 years of Holy Wars between and within the Abrahamic religions.
His status, his soul is dependent on him believing corporate/state propaganda. If not, his grants dry up.
For those following the Civil War podcast, the latest episode describe how Lee has decided on what came to be know as “Picket’s Charge” at Gettysburg-
https://civilwarpodcast.libsyn.com/363-battle-of-gettysburg-part-the-forty-ninth
This was depicted in the following scene from the 1993 film “Gettysburg”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GOhMhedJbA (2:40 mins)
Spoiler alert! Union General Meade, figuring that Lee would try to pull a stunt like this, heavily reinforces the center and awaits Lee’s attack.
I am feeling an enormous amount of slow-building schadenfreude as I contemplate Bobby Lee getting whipped by a better general and a better army. (Also, if one wishes to reinforce any part of the line, it’s convenient to have interior lines of communication, as Meade did throughout.)
In one of the early Gettysburg episodes, we see that the first thing Meade did when he arrived was to take a staff ride round the battlefield and make a map (copies being delivered, IIRC, to his commanders). Maybe if Lee had done that, he wouldn’t have had to whinge so much about Jeb Stuart’s missing cavalry (which was Lee’s fault anyhow, for being a ditz whose command style didn’t include clear orders).
Don’t forget Longstreet arguing against the battle at Gettysburg from the beginning. He was a more “modern” oriented commander. He wanted to side step Gettysburg and push on towards Washington and or Baltimore. That would have forced Meade to move in pursuit. Then Lee could have maneuvered it so that Meade would attack the Confederates on ground of their (Confederates) own choosing. Poor Lee. He would have made an excellent Napoleonic era general.
It is reported that Longstreet was vilified by Confederate ‘Bitter Enders’ ever after for having the temerity to have been right where Lee had been wrong.
>>>It is reported that Longstreet was vilified by Confederate ‘Bitter Enders’ ever after for having the temerity to have been right where Lee had been wrong.
I don’t about the temerity, but odd it is that Longstreet was about the only Confederate generals vilified by Southerners after the war. All he did was be a good, conscientious officer.
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/