River Otters Are on the Rise in Texas Texas Monthly
Shippers Find New Supply-Chain Hurdles at Alternate Ports Hellenic Shipping News. Unsurprisingly.
The Case for Using the Military to Ease U.S. Port Snarls Bloomberg. “[I]n the short term it’s hard to identify a more basic solution to America’s supply chain crisis — and the inflation it is feeding — than bringing in military trucks and the GIs to drive them.” I would need to know that the chassis available to the military work in civilian ports. In other words, I need to know the material realities of the situation, which our famously free press and our political class seem unable to focus on. The writer then, in fact, presents no “case,” merely handwaving.
Bomb cyclone tears through California Cal Matters
Climate
Xi’s not there? COP26 hopes dim on Chinese leader’s likely absence Reuters
Climate Change: The Greatest National Security Threat to the United States Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Jeffrey Sachs: ‘I see no financial obstacles to getting to net zero by 2050’ FT
Naomi Klein Hopes This Is the Stage Before the Breakthrough (interview) The Tyee
#COVID19
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global indoor air crisis that should lead to change: A message commemorating 30 years of Indoor Air (editorial) Indoor Air (ahimsa). Well worth a read. “Similar to that for water hygiene, voluntary requirements will not be sufficient for indoor air quality, and mandatory regulations should be enacted.” Do this, and other, more noxious mandates might not even be necessary. If we had a public health establishment that advocated for public health, which we do not, we might be using this moment to prepare for the next pandemic driven by a respiratory virus. Musical interlude.
Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community PNAS (dd). From the Abstract: “We provide overwhelming evidence that humans generate infectious aerosols and quantitative data to improve mathematical models of transmission and public health interventions. We show that sneezing is rare and not important for—and that coughing is not required for—influenza virus aerosolization.” Influenza, note well, but well worth a read in any case.
* * * Financial Incentives and Other Nudges Do Not Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations among the Vaccine Hesitant NBER. From the Abstract: “Consistent with backlash concerns, financial incentives and negative messages decreased vaccination rates for some subgroups. Financial incentives and other behavioral nudges do not meaningfully increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates amongst the vaccine hesitant.” What a shame. Bribes don’t work. Perhaps the neoliberal necrosis isn’t as advanced as we imagine.
San Francisco: New Infections by Vaccination Status Violet Blue, Patreon. “Before the onset of Delta, infections in fully vaccinated individuals (breakthroughs) were zeros or in the single-digits. Then Delta hit, and we must also assume, so did waning immunity — which likely waned faster than we were warned. Right now over half of new infections in San Francisco are in fully vaccinated individuals. It was not always like that. It has been like that since around July.” Absolute numbers are low. Nevertheless.
Business groups ask Biden to delay vaccine mandate until after the holidays Becker’s Hospital Review
U.S. Issues New Pandemic Travel Rules for Vaccination, Testing Bloomberg. Good thing the vaccines are sterilizing. Oh, wait….
* * * Markers of Immune Activation and Inflammation in Individuals With Postacute Sequelae of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Journal of Infectious Diseases. From the Conclusion: “Persistent immune activation may be associated with ongoing symptoms following COVID-19. Further characterization of these processes might identify therapeutic targets for those experiencing PASC [‘Long Covid’].” Encouraging!
The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies with high efficiency Nature (dk). “Collectively, our results suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 can evade control by vaccine-induced antibodies and might show an increased capacity to enter cells in a cathepsin L-dependent manner, which might particularly aid in the extrapulmonary spread. As a consequence, the potential spread of the A.30 variant warrants close monitoring and rapid installment of countermeasures.” Ignacio comments: “In the end of the day it all depends on how this competes with other variants. Something that the in vitro experiments cannot grasp. Immune evasion is not necessarily that important in determining contagion rates (given that NAbs are usually in low conc. in the entry site) it can be important after initial infection, once inside the host. Plenty of variants there (quasispecies, you know) but very few of them succeed. Researchers tend to give importance to their findings all the time but this doesn’t mean this one will be important. Could be but until we see epidemiological evidence of speriority I wouldn’t even report. This is all new to us and the scientific community as we never had so much info on variants of a single virus disease. The article is interesting scientifically but not necessarily important.”
China?
Editorial: China Should Stick to Its Guns for Regulating the Housing Market Caixin Global. Commentary:
7/7
They claim, in other words, that the economic activity generated by real estate investment is actually hampering the economy, not making it wealthier. If that's the case, we really have to reconsider the meaning of many years of high GDP growth.https://t.co/EcMj8jAhxs— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) October 26, 2021
China Sees Grimmer October as Car and Home Sales Drop Bloomberg
China’s Sham Meritocracy Has Created a Burned-Out Generation Foreign Policy. “Lying flat.”
Myanmar
Junta Deploys Thousands of Reinforcements to Upper Myanmar For Clearance Operations The Irrawaddy. First dry-season offensive.
Top US official meets Myanmar’s shadow government Al Jazeera
Recognizing Myanmar junta won’t stop violence: outgoing U.N. envoy Reuters
Syraqistan
Turkish Intelligence: Mossad Operated Palestinian Cell Spying on Other Palestinians Tikun Olam
UK/EU
Amazon strikes deal with UK spy agencies to host top-secret material FT. A post-Brexit sovereignty-enhancing measure.
Fury as Tory MPs vote to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas Daily Mail. Sunlit uplands.
Biden Administration
Biden ‘positive’ on budget deal; Manchin OK with wealth tax AP. I’m glad President Manchin has come to his senses.
In advance of climate summit, tension among Biden aides on China policy WaPo
Biden expected to name 2 FCC picks in race to avert Republican majority Politico. “Race”? How long has Biden been in office?
Capitol Seizure
Democrats say GOP lawmakers implicated in Jan. 6 should be expelled The Hill. With little delivered on policy, this talking point remains for Democrats in the midterms, knobs to 11 no doubt. I don’t think “our democracy” is the winning argument liberal Democrats believe it is, primarily because they have no moral standing to make it.
Health Care
The Vengeful Specter of Cuts to Medicare Advantage Blind Archive
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
‘Cloak and dagger’ military-intelligence outfit at center of US digital vaccine passport push The Gray Zone. MITRE and the Vaccine Credential Initiative.
Pierre Omidyar’s Financing of the Facebook “Whistleblower” Campaign Reveals a Great Deal (excerpt) Glenn Greenwald
The internet utopia that never was (excerpt) Yasha Levine
The Facebook Papers: We’re Not Asking The Right Questions Heisenberg Report. Important:
Facebook (the company) is on the brink of failing what might one day be viewed as the first real test of humans’ capacity to merge with AI. Ideally, we can seamlessly integrate algorithms we create with the algorithms that govern our own biochemical processes….
Facebook is arguably demonstrating that this integration process can go awry, with disastrous results. The algorithm is using what it learns about billions of people to help third parties manipulate human emotions and affect decision making. The company’s intent may very well be to maximize engagement and, ultimately, revenue. But the AI’s virtually unrestricted latitude in pursuing engagement is throwing off more than just dollars. It’s wreaking psychological havoc, disrupting democracies and undermining societal cohesion. The evidence is clear.
“Ideally.”
AI Girlfriends Are Coming (In the Form of Sexualized Anime NFTs) Rolling Stone
Police State Watch
In Louisiana, a father, a son and a culture of police abuse AP
Chicago FOP president leads rally against city worker vaccine mandate as City Council meets ABC7 Chicago. Related:
The NYPD and other municipal workers just blocked traffic on the Brooklyn bridge, not to protest murders, but to protest vaccine mandates.
— Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (@JoshuaPotash) October 25, 2021
The Brooklyn Bridge is certainly contested terrain. Also related:
My Chicago PD story:
When I was a teenager, I was robbed at gunpoint while delivering pizzas. I was unharmed. I lost my empty wallet and a bunch of pizzas, but I was obviously shaken up and filed a police report.— John Cutting (@j_cutting) October 24, 2021
Quite a story.
Our Famously Free Press
“Confrontations” cloud Big Sky Country? Let me rewrite that for you. Dan Froomkin, Press Watch
L’Affaire Joffrey Epstein
Billionaire Leon Black Is Being Investigated by the Manhattan D.A., Sources Say Vanity Fair
Class Warfare
Solidarity from a white-collar Deere worker:
As a senior employee of @JohnDeere, I’ve been asked multiple times by friends and family about the ongoing strike and how it’s affected me and my work. I wanted to take a moment to publicly share my thoughts regarding the strike and Deere’s response thus far:
— Chase Schweitzer (@schweitzer515) October 22, 2021
Not all green jobs are safe and clean FT
Inside Amazon’s Worst Human Resources Problem NYT
How the Young Lords Brought the Revolution to Drug Treatment Curbed
Hiker lost for 24 hours ignored calls from rescuers because of unknown number NY Post
Blue Origin, Boeing chart course for ‘business park’ in space Reuters. “FREESIDE – WHY WAIT?”
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Antidote du Jour here.
247 comments
Comments are closed.
The antidote is a new proof that NC is the best website this side of the Internet.
A posing possum.
I totally agree. So diverse in links, on essential topics. And very good in depth posts about national and international issues.
Anybody have an idea of what sort of possum it is? It certainly looks different.
I think it’s a young “common opossum”.
I looked more, and I’ve never seen Virginia Opossums with quite so impressive ears, depsite them coming in many shapes and sizes (there is this one brute who hangs out in the yard), but its likely just a young “Virginia Opossum”. It will grow into its ears. Maybe its a regional variation. The pictures I looked at were Georgia and farther South.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tailed_pygmy_possum
It’s a Big Eared Opossum. They live in S. America. Very different than the small eared possums we have here in the midwest U.S.
Ms Blyton tells me that there’s a Noddy Opossum too..
Pretty sure I saw that animal in Dune over the weekend…
Are you thinking of Maud Dib, the little mouse that Paul takes his Fremen “name” from? I didn’t see the latest attempt to film “Dune,” but the aminal is in the mini-series version from the sadly degenerate Sci-Fy Channel.
What did happen to SciFi? I want my Farscape back! Can’t a brother even get a rerun?
But yes, there were a couple shots of a big-eared mousy thing in the new Dune.
Looks like a black-eared possum, Didelphis, marsupialis. They do have large ears, and they appear especially large in young individuals, such as this appears to be.
Photo was taken in Mexico, by Gustavo Isacc Mendoza.
This is real odd. I (swear to God, Allah, and whoever will listen) had a dream with a possum in it last night. And, the antidote du jour is not visible for me for some reason. The frame is there, but no pic> so I’m guessing it’s a possum, unless you’re all conspiring to trick me. Wow, love it. Have a nice day.
Umm…those ears appear to me to have been photoshopped, and rather crudely.
Walt Disney’s ghost patrols corporate headquarters and laments
“Who stole all the mouse ears?”
It’s the new model for a hip and exotic Mickey Mouse . The premiere film will be a South American version of “Phantasia”.
They’ve already done it: 1973’s “The Three Chicago Boys Go South.”
(Cynics consider this outing as a remake of Disney’s 1946 opus, “Song of the South.”)
[lambert blushes modestly]
The amount of advertising every fall by Medicare Advantage plans tells me one thing. These plans are very profitable. Medicare money shouldn’t support these profit machines. Another thing I disagree with is the small window ever year that allows people to change plans. If a plan doesn’ work fo someone a year is a long time to live with it.
I look forward to the day when Medicare allows my eyes, ears, and teeth to rejoin the rest of my body.
From the headlines yesterday and today (Manchin sees deal on Biden agenda this week, resists Medicare expansion) President Manchin says no.
This has been painful.
There is not a hell hot enough for President Manchin and VP Sinema.
Manchin and Sinema are horrible human beings. That said, they were installed by the Democrat leadership to do exactly what they are doing, for the good of the Party, as the leadership conceives it.
President Manchin and Vice President Sinema are simply providing convenient cover for other powerful Democrats who want this reconciliation bill to be gutted. I include Head Water Boy Biden among them.
It is painful.
This has been my thought along. It’s right out of obombers play book
It’s like watching the decay of the health care proposals. From the hope of Healthcare for everyone to pretty much nothing.
I wouldn’t call Obombercare nothing. It is a great system for insurers to siphon thousands of dollars out of my pocket without having to provide me any actual healthcare.
Yes. If the head water boy wanted this bill all he has to do is promise Manchin and Sinema that their states will get nothing for the rest of this administration if BBB doesn’t pass and pass as originally outlined.
Since that isn’t happening, it seems that there was purpose to delaying the vote this long — to gut the bill.
Just what will be left when they’re done?
This assumes that their states are what Manchin and Sinema care about, which I suspect is questionable.
Well if we assume they are acting independently from the Democratic leadership it is personal betrayal of their states.
If we assume they are doing the leadership’s dirty work, this is a pr pose and merely hides the betrayal of the public by practically every major top elected Democratic from the big not so sentient guy on down through the cabinet and leaders of both Houses of Congress.
Three guesses what I assume, and the first two don’t count.
They probably care a lot about their local donors though.
As a senior AZ resident I have no words, maybe, but try not to go to dark thoughts for the betrayal of Sinematography playing on the Senate and white house stages.
It’s the manichema mechanism working it’s strange magic
Is Joe Biden so utterly powerless as president that he can’t somehow put the political screws to Manchin and Sinema and bring them into line? I know Biden is supposed to be this supreme soft-sell negotiator, but he did show some backbone defying the generals and getting our forces the hell out of Afghanistan.
Why can’t he stiffen his spine now dealing these two senators? Maybe he just doesn’t want to. Maybe he’s really not grasping the vital importance of the main elements of his own bill. If so, maybe the other nations gathering for COP26 will take him down a notch when he shows up with basically nothing. Ideally, they will laugh him out of Glasgow.
Biden can’t even be bothered to get rid of that festering sore on the USPS, Louis DeJoy. An LBJ-style arm twister, he is not.
The second sentence is all one needs here. This whole thing is just a farce.
> Is Joe Biden so utterly powerless as president
Remember all that “the President is not a dictator!” and “Green Lantern Theory!” crapola back in 2009-2010, when Obama was failing to deliver?* Good times.
I’d say that the Democrat leadership has no sense of self-preservation, but they survived the debacle of 2010 pretty well. On the other hand, the country is a lot worse off now than it was then (unless you are in the 10% and up category. Oh, wait, that’s the Democrat base. Dang).
NOTE * To be fair, he delivered for the banks, the health insurance companies, and the intelligence community.
Each year CMS mails out a Medicare handbook called “Medicare and You”.
The handbook has a whole section on how to compare health and drug plans in your area. The section lists Medicare Advantage plans in your area and contains info on plans, monthly premiums, out of pocket limits, co-pays, etc.
Medigap policies are not included in this section. The handbook refers you to the medicare.gov website to find out which insurance companies sell Medigap in your state.
For Medigap policy (traditional Medicare suppliment insurance) coverage in general, see Section 5: Medicare Suppliment Insurance in the handbook. All Medigap suppliment plans are required to offer the same nationwide coverage per plan type – C,D,F,K etc. But then, yes, you have to check medicare.gov to see which policies are offered in your state.
It’s even more granular than that. The companies aren’t even required to sell the same policies at the same price statewide. I found that out the hard way. Different regions within the stste have different policy premiums for the same policy. It goes by the “cost” of medical treatment per region within the stste.
I also noted that the actual issuing companies, though identified by National brand, were independent entities. Ie. Imperial Assurance of the Marches versus Imperial Assurance of the Shires, etc.
https://wendellpotter.substack.com/p/congress-must-cap-increasingly-lethal
One of the best paragraphs ever written IMNSHO, from the article:
But let’s face it–this excoriation of insurance companies on Medicare Advantage is just another episode in the endless whack-a-mole game that attempts to call out profiteers in the rotten-to-the-core for-profit american “healthcare” system, undoubtedly precipitated by the time of year–Medicare “open enrollment.” Not to mention setting up yet another division among citizens–traditional Medicare recipients vs. those choosing MA.
This study by David U. Himmelstein MD, and Steffie Woolhandler MD, MPH, published in early 2016 in the American Journal of Public Health, quantifies the issue:
—
It turns out the government is spending a shitload of money in ALL areas of “healthcare” and benefitting ALL KINDS of profiteer parasites to maintain the illusion that for-profit “healthcare” is a capitalist miracle.
Meanwhile MA subscribers, like me, are just trying to take care of our own health, fork out as little as possible every month and letting the chips fall where they may. Pretty much like what everybody else is doing.
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302997
Steffie Woolhandler MD, MPH
I have read several articles by Dr. Woolhandler over the years, but previously failed to notice the MPH (Master of Public Health). Which reminded me, isn’t there a Clinton kid with a degree in public health? Curious silence from that quarter.
> bodies deemed to be “no longer productive” to the labor market are repurposed by capitalism in order to extract surplus profit from their commodified survival.
That’s very well put, and very true. I would generalize this “extraction from the body” to the big data/surveillance machinery as well. I believe, though scholars will correct me, that this goes beyond exploitation as the Bearded One understood it (perhaps due to the transition from industrial capitalism to financialized capitalism). The working class body becomes, as it were, Nature, and can be plundered just as Nature is*, through mining for example. It remains only to create an explicit property interested in the stream of rents therefrom, that can be traded (i.e., the rights to the location data of Joe Sixpack’s body over their lifetime, or the rights to any revenues from their future kidney transplant, etc.** Of course, that depends on the ability to identify Joe’s data with Joe’s actual unique body, but no doubt the “vaccine passports” will help with that). OK, tinfoil hat off…
* It’s as if there is a circuit called C-M-C’ where the “‘” in C stands for data thrown off in the course of the reproduction of labor power. It’s likely, in fact, that “‘” is larger for unhappy people than for happy people: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” There is certainly more profit in unhealthy bodies, just as there is more profit in a plantation than a forest.
* * If your child isn’t fit for becoming a plumber or an electrician, I would imagine there will be plenty of work for actuaries.
I’m a few days away from turning over another year on the odometer, and I’m already getting targeted by the Medicare Disadvantage crew.
Good thing my paper shredder has such a hearty appetite.
You’ll be getting such a deluge of paper mail importunings from this bunch that it would be cost effective to get a small wood, (and paper,) burning stove with which to heat the Slim domicile in the cold months.
I remember being involved in paper drives to recycle newspapers etc. when I was a Cub Scout. Do we have a similar organization for the Cyber Scouts today?
I just turned 70 and I’ve been getting tons of medicare plans in the mail, and I’m also getting a lot of emails from my credit union on the same topic. They are really pushing them hard now, I’m not sure why. I wasn’t getting nearly this amount of stuff last year… they seem to be begging people to sign up.
Paper logs are good stove material, also fine as mulch and in the composter. Never let good free organics go to waste.
With the phone calls, I’m getting a kick out of something my dad used to do. They ask “Is Mantid at home?” and I respond, “just a second, I’ll get her”. I set the phone down and continue my day. Sometimes after about 45 seconds I’ll pick it up saying, “She’ll be here in just a second”. My hope is that they put a ride flag on my number and stop calling, but I doubt they will. Sure is kinda fun though. Poor people, locked into a cubicle making calls like this.
Regarding the ignoring calls from unknown numbers thing: I thought about this at the beginning of the pandemic when people were ignoring contact tracing calls, presumably in part because they were coming from unknown numbers.
If the government or the telecom or whoever can get my phone on “silent” to start freaking out because of an amber alert happening 1000km away, or because of some accidental nuclear malfunction, surely there could be some way for emergency services to force a caller ID display that was trustworthy or “official”.
I say this as someone who never answers my phone.
This is why robocalls and unsolicited cold-calling sales should be banned. I never answer calls from unknown numbers. I always tell people I know to leave messages if they call from a number other than the one I have in my phone list. I will call them back immediately.
No offense but if I am lost in the woods and I get a phone call, whoever calls me (plus everyone at 911) is gonna know I am lost in the woods and they better send someone. A cell phone has GPS, how lost could he be?
Your smartphone won’t get a signal in 99% of Sequoia NP, so how would anybody know you’re lost in the woods?
The only thing that works is a satellite phone or SPOT device.
My first thought on reading the story, how lost could he be if he has cell reception. A ranger once told me they call Army Pass the phone booth because that’s the only place they have reception on the east side. I have my own spot on the furthest west ridge with line of sight to the valley floor. I can call home and say I will be there the next day but by that point I can practically see my house
There used to be this locale just before you got up to Beapaw Meadow 11 miles into the backcountry that was also called the phone booth back in the days of analogue and boy am I dating myself. The site went dormant when the switch to digital was made.
It was handy for emergencies back in the days when all a cell phone did was send or receive calls mostly.
My cell phone does not have GPS – it basically does calls and texts, no more. The article doesn’t say what sort of phone this hiker had.
Yeah sure you’re lost in the woods but did you know your car’s extended warrantee is about to expire?
They better backtrack dudes walk and find where the body is buried.
He didn’t know he was “lost”. He was just overdue so someone called for search and rescue. I’ve been on many searches where the subject didn’t realize anyone was looking for them. We’ve had people leave somewhat alarming messages with relatives but not follow up to say everything was ok and then we’ve got dozens of people, helicopters and multiple agencies involved looking for someone who has no idea what they’ve done. People call 911 as lost but their own way out and drive off without bothering to tell 911. Unfortunately, some people are that self centered and stupid.
CoryP
October 26, 2021 at 7:50 am
Prepare yourselves for a rare and unbelievable event: the ONLY human alive who does not carry their cell phone (of the flip variety no less!!!) WITH THEMSELVES.
This bizarre, unruly, and curmudgeonly denizen of the world, fresno dan speaks: I just don’t wanna. I’d have to buy some little phone purse to hold it in, and I’m just too cheap to do that. Most of my life I didn’t have a phone attached to me and I got by fine…
Sometimes around a campfire with young adults in attendance i’ll frighten them with ghost tales of the unfortunate driver who traveled long distances without a communication device on their person and somehow lived to tell the tale despite the deprivation!
my phone is more of an accessory for the car than for me.
it rides in there due to maps, emergencies, and increasingly, finding the shelf locations for items i am getting in stores. but most of the time when out and about, it stays in there. who wants to answer phone calls while trying to buy milk?
granted, it also comes in the house but not into the bed. i guess it’s more like the family dog.
We’re with you on this. The only time the cell phone leaves the home is for long distance trips.
We are faced with the imminant retiring of our 3G phone service. So, numerous snail mail importunings to “upgrade” our cell phone. Yet, when we look at the devices on offer, nothing with even a decent review history at under a hundred and fifty dollars, on sale! Since AT&T abandoned their copper wire network locally, a hard wired home phone is no longer an option. Heaven help us if another Carrington Event happens.
Carrington Event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event#:~:text=The%20Carrington%20Event%20was%20a,largest%20geomagnetic%20storm%20on%20record.
Whenever I am asked by a checkout droid if I have the Store App on my phone, I invariably answer that I do not carry a phone. The resultant conversations are enlightening to say the least. Sometines I get what I call “The Stare,” as if the checkout droid has just encountered an example of a previously thought to be extinct beastie.
Stay safe. Stay dry!
If you wait long enough ATT might send a free 4g phone. They sent one to me as they turned off 3G in my area.
News I can use! Thank you for this heads up. I’ll look into this.
Hi CoryP, we’ve been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty!
“I say this as someone who never answers my phone.”
**********
Me too. I stopped obeying the Phone Machine years ago. It is absolutely stunning that when Humans hear the Machine call, they obediently and compliantly respond. The Behaviourial Scientists chortle with glee.
As to the person in the woods, no truth to the rumor that this was an Epidemiologist.
There seem to be many pieces recently about people needing to be rescued when lost in the wildernesses. These people apparently aren’t ver bright. If you aren’t well educated and prepared to go into the wilderness, you need to stay home. The wildernesses including deserts are loaded with dangers. Any mistake can soon become fatal. Stay home if you don’t know what you are doing.
Its one thing if cell service fails once you’re into a trail or hiking upwards. I frequently just leave my phone in the car or on airplane mode, as it is useless in the higher climbs in western NC.
Hiking alone is another questionable decision*; but where plenty of trails exist you’ll typically also find plenty of other hikers.
*The start of every bad decision in every horror film ever made. I’ll be fine on my own! It’s really a short walk or drive back to home.
In defense of the wilderness, the enchanted land makes it so easy to get lost for so much of it looks the same, and if you if wander a wee bit off-trail, that’s all it takes to get lost.
I never carried any signaling device aside from a small mirror, and my backpacking partner bought a SPOT device 3 years ago and its a nice safety blanket of sorts in that you can make immediate emergency contact and we’d only activate it on account of injury or a member of our party going missing.
Our old fallback would be one of our party walking back or forward to seek help which could take a long time, many days if we’re deep in the back of beyond.
There’s a fair amount of backpackers new to the game, and everybody doing back curls was once, and you have to learn the lay of the land and the ways of the wilderness, and most important self-sufficiency.
SPOT devices sometimes get activated for all the wrong reasons though from the perspective of those on the receiving end of someone in distress, and all the signal received is, that help is needed at a certain precise GPS coordinate, and in Sequoia NP that means sending out a ranger or helicopter to be johnny on the spot.
Every year I hear the tales of oh no, and my favorite was a couple of galoots that drank unfiltered water from Cliff creek and activated authorities of their plight, or the hiker who saw a bear.
Sequoia NP has to respond to all damned souls in distress, and you can only imagine the chagrin on the NPS ranger’s face who walked up 2,000 feet over Timber Gap and then dropped 3,000 feet over 7 miles to get the skinny on who was in peril @ Cliff creek?
This is a more appropriate use, and perhaps it involved an appendicitis attack?
That has always been a nagging fear perched in the outer reaches of my mind when far out.
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2008/08/find-me-spot
Excuse me for asking but is one of those SPOT devices the same as an EPIRB device?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radiobeacon
Yes, it’s a PLB (personal locator beacon).
Well, i wouldn’t call the hike to Elbert wilderness–the two main trails (N&S) above tree line to peak being unmistakable grooves. The N route crosses the well identified CT and is clearly distinct to the parking lot, while the S Willow access does get sketcy below S Elbert –but it is all down hill to the 82 road.
I expect cell availability is due to Aspens proximity.
If you can get a call –in the wilderness–wherever you are–then I’m with Michael Ismoe:
No offense but if I am lost in the woods and I get a phone call, whoever calls me (plus everyone at 911) is gonna know I am lost in the woods and they better send someone. A cell phone has GPS, how lost could he be?
The 360 from the top of Elbert is stunning–being a huge bald– in what you can see and how geographically orienting it can be to the familiar(or one possesing a paper Map)
In my experience, the South approach is, ummm, a ‘charactor building’ experience, more so than the Standard NE route.
Ken Layne, author of the Desert Oracle book and podcast, devotes time to basic safety (survival) tips for visitors to the Mojave desert. People die there every year. Simple things like making sure others know your route, but really the key thing is realizing the potential danger even on relatively short walks on marked trails.
I am a NPS ranger specializing in Search and Rescue (SAR) in a mountainous national park in WA. While public perception is affected by news media’s selection filter, it is correct there is a trend of increasing SARs per season in wilderness areas – by around 50% over the last three years in the two WA parks I have worked in during that time. This increase could be just a function of increased visitation – by several hundreds of percentage in some parks over that same time! Not all visitors to public lands venture significantly into wilderness, but wilderness usage is increasing proportionally. I am using ‘wilderness’ to refer specifically to legally designated wilderness areas which are managed individually.
The user base is also changing. I recently saw a US Forest Service survey report from a wilderness in WA that showed a huge increase during Covid of single- or seldom-use visitation: people who use the wilderness infrequently and are less experienced in their form of recreation. Clearly people are opting to try outdoor recreation for its low Covid risk and a lack of their normal recreational hobbies.
Moreover, there is a cultural trend in outdoor recreation pushing people to achieve objectives faster, with less equipment, in trickier conditions, and with far less margin for things going wrong than was traditional. Some of this trend is driven by marketing from outdoor gear manufacturers trying to sell ultralight gear that needs wears out and replacing more often. Largely it is because these are the potential first achievements left to us today: e.g. all mountains have been climbed, but not all have been climbed in one day, or solo, or in winter. So recreationists are pushing the limits with fewer resources to deal with problems. Denali NP issued a press release on this topic this summer.
My personal perspective is that wilderness recreation allows people opportunities for critical life experiences, including taking on risky challenges when uncertain of one’s abilities. Sometimes things go wrong and people need rescue. That’s why our society has a network of professional and volunteer rescue services that expend huge effort to save lives. I think it’s a testament to our civilization having gotten a few things right to see the effort we’ll put into saving someone hurt or lost in the mountains. I think the benefit to a person’s character and enjoyment of life is worth taking informed risks in wilderness. It’s also fine to be solo if one first develops skills and experience with others (except in brown bear habitat where being solo does entail much more risk).
Personal locator beacons (PLBs) like SPOT or InReach transceive through GPS satellites and work pretty much anywhere. Recent models can send and receive texts, so rescuers can find out what’s going on, the urgency of the situation, and respond appropriately. People do activate their PLBs for frivolous and non-urgent reasons. People do seem to take greater risks when they carry a PLB.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment. Personally, I think the cultural effects of financialization encourage people to take foolish risks, and this is playing out in the wilderness.
I’ve noticed this too, and it coincides with a reawakening in younger adults venturing into the wilderness and making a contest out of it, and one thing i’ve always cherished in regards to the wilderness is the idea that nobody keeps score, and inexperienced people attempting lofty goals and oblivious to the conditions they may face along the way, is an aberration.
The ultra light weight gear has its place in some ways, but i’d never start backpacking with it initially as it leaves more room for error if inclement weather threatens.
I’m in the midst of shedding 10 pounds of pack weight for $2k, so I hear ya on the spendy part.
I’m not doing it to set any personal record times, i’m merely looking to get 1/3rd of that monkey off my back as I age out gracefully.
Plus one on the PLB recommendation especially with text capacity. Just in the past few years, we’ve rescued dozens of people with PLBs and never had an issue finding them quickly and easily (or at least as easily as the terrain permits). In contrast, we’ve had cases without PLBs where we never did find the subject or a body.
> people needing to be rescued when lost in the wildernesses
It’s a zeitgeist thing….
In David Mamet’s “The Edge” (1997) Anthony Hopkins’s character says the following to his rival (for his wife’s attention) played by (the now controversial) Alec Baldwin:
I recommend the film; it is a change from Mamet’s urban stories and Hopkins is excellent as always.
The Dan Froomkin piece is a nice example of journalists being “those who explain to others that they themselves do not understand.” I live in the Flathead Valley. My grandparents lived in Kalispell. I lived an hour and a half drive down the road from that supposed “magnet for white supremacists” for 20 years. Which is to say, I know the place they’re talking about and Froomkin, as well as the journalist in the WaPo (though the article is paywalled, so I only know about it what D-Froom writes), are blowing things way out of proportion, no doubt in the service of scaring their liberal readerships about those scary rednecks out in Trump country. Froomkin doesn’t feel the need to mention that every time in the last decade or so that actual racists have attempted to hold a rally in the area, they’ve ended up cancelling after finding no local support, and a whole lot of local animosity. They tried one soon after Trump took office that went exactly the same way these things always do: no racist rally, but instead a large counter-protest. That would be worth mentioning…maybe…before slandering the whole area as some kind of haven for Nazis.
Agreed. I haven’t been to that area in a long time but never saw much of that when I was there. Whereas, living and traveling in Oregon, only portrayed in the media as Antifa/SJW land, is rife with white supremacists. Brought some friends there and driving through the logging towns of the coastal mountains and other rural areas they were dumbfounded at how many “rebel” flags they saw. One who was from Georgia said it was more than she would see down south.
But, Oregon is a blue state so they are good. Montana is a scary red state and bad! Media can’t report nuance because that is hard.
The famous New Yorker cover with everything beyond the Hudson being terra incognita applied then (when New Yorkers could still laugh about it) and applies now although you’d have to add everything beyond the Potomac as well. The irony of Oregon is that all those radical Portlanders choose to live in a state with a known history of white supremacy and hardly any black people. Living in a more mixed environment may be a better way to gain “nuance.”
I think part of the thing with national perception of Oregon is that it has basically zero media presence. What is there outside of that (godawful, obnoxious) Portlandia show, which ended three years ago anyway? This is a state where most of the country can’t even pronounce its name correctly, because they never hear it spoken. Almost nothing is ever set in the Pacific Northwest, and when it is, it’s set in Washington, which usually means Seattle (the TV version of iZombie is the most ludicrous example of this. The original comic took place in Eugene,Oregon. The show transfers it north to Seattle, a city people have actually heard of).
If people think of ‘Or-eh-gone’ at all, they think of 1. Portland and liberal hipsters, and 2. trees. In reality, the thin blue line police flags start to become ubiquitous within ten miles of downtown Portland, and like half the state is high desert.
Third-generation Oregonian here. We used to have a T-shirt telling the out-of-staters how to pronounce it: O-ry-gun, with a capital O to indicate that the accent was on the first syllable. (In those days, guns weren’t a cause one way or the other; the word was just an easy pronunciation guide.)
You’re right about the PNW, of course. I took to saying Oregon was north of California and south of Washington, and even then people didn’t always know where it was. But the desert occupies 2/3 of the state, not half. There are, however, lots and lots of trees in the two mountain ranges (Cascades and Coast) and even much of the Valley. Not as many as there used to be.
Liberal hipsters, yes. But there was also the college crowd of serious leftists and the town-and-gown conflicts! Reed in particular was a well-known hotbed of radicalism (and maybe still is), referred to unlovingly as Berkeley North during the tumults of the late 60s and early 70s. (Being kids, we thought we were more legitimately radical than Berkeley.) But Reed’s bona fides go back to its founding in the late 1920s; in my parents’ day, it was regarded (with much reason) as a hotbed of Communists and beatniks. The unofficial motto was Communism, Atheism, Free Love, and Portlanders weren’t fond of us at all, at all. The cops were said to have a deal with the college administration that they’d give some warning before a raid. Interesting times…
Interesting fact about the University and the Police. The Poison Ivy League university I attended was independent of the City. City police could only come on campus if in hot pursuit.
The WaPo story is by the numbers pearl clutching about Trump supporters and Froomkin is complaining that it doesn’t bash those rightwingers enough. The WaPo author Rein’s version of “extremist” includes people objecting to transgender biological men competing in women’s sports and those who doubt the vaccine.
Personally I’d say ground zero for the country’s current hysteria is more likely in the District of Columbia than in Montana or here in ultra red SC (lots of rainbow flags in my neighborhood). Doubtless you Montanans do have to deal with all those Hollywood celebrities shocked that they are no longer in Malibu.
> I know the place they’re talking about and Froomkin, as well as the journalist in the WaPo (though the article is paywalled, so I only know about it what D-Froom writes), are blowing things way out of proportion, no doubt in the service of scaring their liberal readerships
Thank you. I figured it was something like that.
>Chomsky’s from anarcho-syndicalist to fascist.
Is that too extreme?
“If people decide ‘I am willing to be a danger to the community by refusing the vaccine’ they should then say well ‘I also have the decency to isolate myself. I don’t want a vaccine but I don’t have the right to run around harming people”
When a follow up question came as to how these self-isolating people were to feed themselves, he said that “it’s their problem”, though he later says at some point authorities would have to step in and provide food.
Although this interview is dated somewhat, September, I heard a brief clip yesterday and it made me think. I figured that this is really not about “Freedom” or civil liberties. No, this is about Truth. If you want to convince anyone that mandates and vaccine passports are not the way to go and should be fought at every step of the way, it has to be first and foremost argued on the Truth, individual freedom and civil liberties are secondary.
As to the Truth, in discussions with friends and relatives, I'm always ready to discuss any and all facts. I have my sources and when my information is incorrect or dubious I'm always thankful.
There has been and continues to be a lot of official obfuscation and therefore public confusion about, among other things, the transmissibility of Covid by the vaccinated. It appears to be reduced, but not eliminated, and that effect is temporary.
As I currently understand it, the best reason for getting vaccinated is to protect oneself and the primary benefit to others is by significantly reducing one’s chances of adding to the burden on the healthcare system. The vaccine promoters should just leave it at that.
is by significantly reducing one’s chances of adding to the burden on the healthcare system. Lee
I guess the final nail in the “vaccines or no treatment till you’re critical*” craze coffin will be when vaccinated cases alone overwhelm the healthcare system.
* And even then the treatment is not appropriate, even counterproductive, according to some, eg. being intubated has a 5% survival rate, last I read.
One has only to read the article above in the links regarding big business trying to postpone the mandates until after Christmas to realize this has nothing to do with the truth.
All the happy horse shit talk about how well the vaccine mandates are going is just that – happy horse shit. Where I am, we are seeing local outlets of the big corporations dying on the vine. It has everything to do with the mandates – I talk to these people daily. There are some local owners telling their national corporations to rot in hell.
We are firing Americans but allowing all kinds of illegals in without even testing them.
Why has the administration not had a formal filing of these mandates? Because the instant they do file, there will be lawsuits flying and the administration knows it does not have a chance.
This has nothing to do with truth, science, or public health. I simply cannot understand their purpose.
What you said.
And I think the purpose is to try to “solve” Covid so that business as usual can resume. But Biden is surrounded by people who have drunk the Kool Aid on the vaccines and he himself, judging from a townhall, doesn’t even seem to know that the vaxxed can both get the disease and transmit it. To me the whole notion that this wouldn’t be a political disaster, at least, is baffling. It has to be because he and his advisers are in a bubble.
I suspect covid will not be “solved” until 12/31/21 when the cdc
The bad news is that the flu will be making a comeback.
I am being only marginally sarcastic.
https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert-Changes_CDC_RT-PCR_SARS-CoV-2_Testing_1.html
I’m beginning ti wonder how much of it is a mindset aling the lines of “just following orders.”
It’s like they developed a plan with half-baked research and data that pointed them to a return to “the normal” and it’s imagined previous glory and, despite any evidence to the contrary, they will now just gaslight the public with authoritarian wishful thinking.
> It has to be because he and his advisers are in a bubble.
To be fair to Biden, where exactly would he go for good information? We had CDC and WHO refusing to accept the correct theory of transmission for (it feels like, anyhow) a solid year. And they still resist it bureaucratically. The infection control community in hospitals resists aerosol transmission ferociously.
Bubbles tend to be pretty thick-walled and they pop only when the class of people inside them are deposed. Think of LBJ and Vietnam…. The Romanovs…
Where does one “file” Executive Orders? The order was executed and published on Sept 9, extending EO 13991. The order gives authority to the Agencies to provide guidance on how best to comply with EO 13991.
The foreign services have required certain vaccines for a long time. One is not free to die of malaria on Congress’s dime. The Court is not likely to injunct other Federal Employees from getting the vaccine. Public safety and communicable disease control is the least controversial power the States share with Federal Agencies.
I believe he means the OSHA vax rule which has not yet been published.
And comparing the still experimental Covid vax (still applies to leftover vials as FDA approved the named commercial Pfizer version*) to sterilizing childhood vaccines or other vaccines with decades of successful use is a false analogy. But since it will come down to courts to decide then surely the mandate should be on hold until they do. Biden isn’t a king who gets to make drastic social rules with the wave of a hand.
*Apparently this being claimed by some of the legal challenges already filed.
> I believe he means the OSHA vax rule which has not yet been published.
Or leaked.
A relevant Turley column.
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/10/25/bidens-come-on-man-defense-will-not-fly-on-religious-freedom/
Can you please show me where OSHA has actually made any kind of ruling in this matter? If not, why not? – this has now been going on for weeks. The entity for whom I personally work has vociferously stated that no action on the mandates will be taken until OSHA has spoken. And then, trust me, the tsunami of lawsuits wiil begin. There are all kinds of companies across this country telegraphing a similar message. There are consequences for leaders when they make orders like this and put them on the backs of agencies that have no business whatsoever involved in the situation.
Additionally – we are not talking about malaria – nor are we talking about the foreign service. We are talking about millions of Americans whose president just announced before a CNN audience that he would happily have them fired – all to a rousing applause. Again – I am not speaking to a whole lot of patients or friends who find this type of thing even remotely appropriate. I for instance am a life long liberal. I will be voting a straight Republican ticket from now on until the enema that the Dems need has occurred. Looking at polls, it is quite clear I am not alone. I would rather live with the knowns of what the GOP has to offer rather than these duplicitous fools. I can show you all kinds of videos from politicos – from Biden to Pelosi to Fauci to Schumer just in the fall of last year stating that vaccine mandates have no way to work and no way to be enforced. They were very correct then. They are liars now.
FYI – public health is not something that was just invented. It has been through centuries of trials and testing. One of its cardinal rules is that COERCION never works – and we are about to relearn that lesson right now in a big way.
Talking about vaccinating the military and the foreign service is NOT THE GENERAL PUBLIC – nor does it have a thing to do with PUBLIC health.
I deal with the vaccine hesitant daily. The simple underlying issue that is going on with most of them – is they have zero trust in our federal health officials. ZERO. Just look at the NIH statement about gain of function research put out this week – and compare that to the Fauci testimony of May and July. If he is lying about that – what else is he lying about?
Lambert has linked to this article by Peter Sandman two days in a row, though he has not highlighted it by name. It is very relevant to this issue, and its effects on public trust. Well worth reading.
https://www.psandman.com/col/dishonesty.htm
Yes, it is. I linked to it several weeks ago, and it got no traction at all. But vile though Fauci’s Noble Lie was, it’s important to depersonalize the issue, and to see that his lies are an issue with the so-called public health establishment generally.
I think that “certain vaccines” s the operational and critical part of your statement.
If there are treatment options and where the mortality rate is over 98% I would think that two key foundations of medical ethics should be preserved: consent and confidentiality.
The links above tell us what exactly this is all about imo
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/26/cloak-dagger-military-intelligence-digital-vaccine-passport/
Didn’t see it in the links, I think you’re referring to this interview? Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 44’00”.
Non-sterilizing vaccine. He’s intelligent enough to understand that, so Chomsky is being a malignant propagandist by suggesting the virus therapy shots do anything but provide TEMPORARY protection to the recipient of the shot. This is to varying degrees because of the different health conditions in each and every person and the numerous variations and mutations.
And now, the other alleged benefit of the shots reducing the stress on health care systems is going out of the window because of mandates for the therapeutic shots.
And in top of that, health care systems had supply problems that existed before and are most likely not getting better with supply chain issues.
These are not problems caused by “unvaccinated” people, but flailing public health care systems and other systems technocrats can’t bring themselves to admit are complete crapola.
Now we are finally hearing people get serious about actually mitigating the spread by addressing ventilation and air filtration in indoor spaces.
The Covid 19 vaccines by themselves solve nothing.
For example, Waterford County in Ireland has the highest rate of vaccination in the country with 99.7 per cent of adults over the age of 18 (as registered in the last census) fully vaccinated.
According to folks like Biden and now Chomsky, problem solved, right? Not so fast lads and lassies.
The Irish Times reports that in Waterford City — the county’s largest city — the south electoral area has a 14-day incidence rate of 1,486 cases per 100,000 of the population, three times the national average which stands at 493 infections per 100,000 people. Waterford county has gone from having one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 infection in Ireland to one of the highest.
Chomsky’s problem is his refusal to be vaccinated against the Trump Derangement Syndrome which is well known to cloud the thinking process.
There’s a vaccine for that too? I think I missed the TDS vaxx.
Like most such sources, Chomsky is good on those things he has studied extensively and fully informed himself about.
As to hot takes on things he’s just seen the mainstream coverage of, he’s no better than the people running the deli around the corner from me. And why would he be?
Yes but this is far worse than that. Chomsky has paraded himself for years as the champion of dissent against corporate and government hegemony in all aspects of our lives. He has just thrown that out the window.
To make matters worse, he does not appear senile.
L
You will not find be defending Chomsky but now we have supposed socialist, populists, pushing the corporate n state line that this pandemic is endemic and we all should just up and contract the virus since everyone will get it anyways, of course minus the billion plus Chinese citizens for now. And of course they too claim to be following the science. In this case I’m thinking of the response to Chomsky by Dore n Blumenthal. I would have thought that any populist , socialist worth their salt would be calling for zero covid, eradication policy. Which the state will refuse or be unable to carry out due to the fact that it would upset far too many property relations and using their intransigence as an opportunity to expose these political parties and their state as protecting profits over the actual lives of people. Exposing this fraud of a democracy. Oh well, opportunists abound.
why populist or socialist? These teams’ belief systems don’t necessarily map neatly on to a health crisis of arguably unprecedented scope and scale, and people are clearly trying to make sense of it as it goes along. Or maybe it does, and you want to argue the case, but why would this be anything other than a purely academic exercise? Why try to shoehorn one belief system into one approach when they scarcely have anything to do with each other and the latter isn’t necessary to understand the former? (also consider Darthbobber’s “As to hot takes on things he’s just seen the mainstream coverage of, he’s no better than the people running the deli around the corner from me. And why would he be?” above)
and of course there’s the inevitable descent into “Well! it looks like Thought Personality X doesn’t agree with my opinion on how to deal with problem Y! Turns out after all that they’re not a real Team Player for Team Z” (optional: “I always hated them anyway”). Who gives a shit? Who does this benefit? Why is this not, ultimately, inane childishness?
I know WSWS has staked a claim for Zero Covid/elimination, and good for them and I’m inclined to agree with them. It’s been my position on here for months that we should be doing more to pursue it seriously and to improve our research and dissemination of such research in pursuit of that aim instead of putting all of our eggs in the ‘vaccinated endemicity’ basket. I don’t know for sure whether it’s possible (while always making a decision between ‘technically possible’ and ‘politically possible’, the latter of which is a mutable, and not fixed question) but I do know that it’s intellectually dishonest to claim that it isn’t possible without making serious, best-practices efforts to try in accordance with the latest evidence, even in erstwhile zero covid jurisdictions. I digress though: the very, very, very worst thing for any Zero Covid initiative, in a world where media reaction tends to the ignorant and hysterical, and ad hom thought is common if not dominant, would be for a ZC strategy to become synonymous with ‘socialism’/Marxism-Leninism’ or whatever. This will turn many people off the idea immediately, and for the purposes of striving for ZC per se for the general population, who are the ones who need to be convinced, it’s just not relevant.
It was interesting that the Grayzone article on MITRE noted that Chomsky did some linguistic work for them in the early 1960s but soon quit because “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror any more.” Yet comments like this certainly support the idea of digital vaccine passports they are pushing today. To say the least, this does not demonstrate much “anarcho-syndicalist” self-awareness by our aging “leftist” icon.
“Is that too extreme?”
Yes, it’s completely hyperbolic.
I try to take a nuanced view of all this. I saw a video recently of some ethics professor tearfully explaining why you can never mandate a vaccine. Really? Glad I never learned ethics from you, lady (she was subsequently fired). A plague is precisely the kind of scenario in which it’s potentially justified to violate the bodily autonomy of individuals in the name of the public as a whole. The word quarantine comes from a medieval Venetian practice of forced isolation for ships and travelers entering a city. That was completely justified.
But that said, mandates aren’t justified when the vaccine isn’t the silver bullet it’s been dishonestly sold as. Right now the vaccine mandates are basically being used as part of a contrived narrative that is going to lay the blame for covid becoming endemic on refuseniks, as opposed to the many, many other points of public health failure (we gave up on eradication, no one talks about tracing anymore, CDC is still lying about it being airborne, we insanely reopened schools and, well, basically everything else too, etc etc etc).
The qualifiers in your last paragraph suggest the government hasn’t made its case to you that these “non-sterilizing vaccines” are effective — much less safe, or necessary. To me, all three of those would be absolutely necessary in order to justify violating individual rights in favor of any kind of policy. But we may soon get to see what happens when official policy tries to undermine the central premise of 600 years of “liberal thought”.
Of course it hasn’t made its case. It won’t stop lying. I’m now forced to do my own research because what should be trustworthy public health authorities have proven so clearly unreliable. And all they can think to do now is apply more stick, and bemoan the ‘idiots’ who won’t submit. They’re acting as if they’ve already exhausted every other option,when in reality they’ve done almost none of the many other measures they could be applying.
Re, immune markers: We’d both got D.614g very early & PASC lingers. Inflammatory side-effects from my 1st Moderna had me delay a second shot, awaiting a “targeted booster” never released. My partner tested far lower IgG, spike protein, etc, so got hers (she’d numerous medical, dental appointments & was righteously concerned). Here goes: Is NOBODY giving any thought to our intentionally infecting millions of school kids, letting them infect teachers, drivers, loved-ones… & only THEN (with PASC percentage unrecorded, severity & organ damage undiagnosed) innoculating them with a vaccine that gave this recipient worse inflammatory side-effects than active infection?
I’m personally thinking about it every single day, and so are many others. You just won’t find these concerns expressed in the corporate media, you have to find independent doctors, journalist and their web sites.
Here is one site that’s been airing concerns almost on a daily basis, but alas has but a small viewership. It’s a one man show but he has a PHd in biology, a neurobiologist, and many published papers, but was let go from the Univ of Pit for not towing the line. Unfortunately his reviews of scientific articles, the length of his broadcast, and thoroughness, I think, is too challenging for most. However, the first 10-15 minutes is a succinct summary of the falsities being aired my MSM.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1186979057
Due to clinicians’ sero-prevalence, here in NYC, only one person objected & one other questioned my decision (as they’d frequently had gnarly side-effects, after their COVID, whether PASC or not). And only cursory imaging, diagnostics were possible to quantify pro-inflammatory cytokine damage (it’s a brand new coronavirus, nobody is going to admit, we’ve simply NO idea about long term repercussions?) I finally got the 2nd shot 144 days later. Scary subcutaneous blood spotting followed. Peh, I’m FAR more worried about my yuppie liberal neighbors’ hive-minded specious obsequiously sneezing, coughing & kvetching on us, MASKLESS at 98dB (and the under insured teachers, drivers, au pairs, commuters…)
FWIW our aide got the same subcutaneous blood clotting. She went to the ER and got treated. They attributed it to the vaccine (said no other possible cause) and said if she had come in much later, she could have had bad outcomes.
My father got these, too. He said 7% of vaccinees got them, but they didn’t tell him that. He showed me the red starfish at the injection site, and the clumps under his skin. Within a month, his colon fell apart and he died Sep 28.
Janet’s father died of Covid last January, after two months isolated in the hospital. Mine wouldn’t blame Covid, or the vaccine, since he’d expressed that no males in his family had lived past 85, and he was an 84-year old statistician.
But he might blame the hospice care. While we’re in the ER with him, the worker looks at us and says “You can put him in (In-house Hospice Care Center) if you want to go to Vegas!” Then the only time they spent time with him at home was to sell him on same WHILE SLOW-WALKING HIS PAIN MEDS. Here’s what he made sure to say when he came up for air from Painworld: 1. I love you. 2. Trust the lawyer. 3. This is a cruel system.
What a horrible story. I am so sorry.
One of my friends said hospice care was very helpful for her mother with Lewy-Body dementia, so it sounds as if care standards vary greatly across the US. They can arrange for care at home, you don’t have to go into a facility, and not telling you that was grifting.
I appreciate your thought, Yves, there’s e’en deeper oceans I will not speak of here.
Janet spent years as a hospice nurse, tough but wonderful at times, and we spoke of switching him to her old company. But then we remembered that, in spring 2020, before large meetings were banned, the members of the Hospice and Home Health Assn were told “we know you have a staffing shortage, but if you say that publicly we’ll fine you $10,000 per instance.” Leveraging Medicare staffing commitments.
We realized her old company could have just as many problems. Janet retired in August, after her current employer dumped patients without warning. People begging Janet to do private pay. Local hospital filling staffing slots by paying $200/hr for travelling nurses. Why would her old company be immune?
We didn’t have time to investigate further. Dad was in hospice at home Friday, gone Tuesday. I’m glad for the time we did have.
I’d asked Weil-Cornell’s dermatologist, if I should worry about it being Henoch-Schönlein Purpura. He basically said to contact them if it worsened, which it didn’t. Scheduled a physical (which, is generally pretty cursory). My concern was more, about internal organ damage. Almost seems humorous. We’ve both had our first head cold now (PCR: negative) But both of our respiratory symptoms were LOTS more pronounced? Spooky, to think about kids, being used as unwitting vectors?
https://www.hopkinsvasculitis.org/types-vasculitis/henochschnlein-purpura/
Due to clinicians’ sero-prevalence, here in NYC, only one person objected & one other questioned my decision (as they’d frequently had gnarly side-effects, after their COVID, whether PASC or not. And only cursory imaging, diagnostics were possible to quantify pro-inflammatory cytokine damage (it’s a brand new coronavirus, nobody’s going to admit, we’ve simply NO idea aboutlong term repercussions?) I finally got the 2nd shot 144 days later. Scary subcutaneous blood spotting followed. Peh, I’m FAR more worried about my yuppie liberal neighbors’ hive-minded specious obsequiously sneezing, coughing & kvetching on us, MASKLESS at 98dB (and the teachers, drivers, au pairs, commuters…)
I’m sure thinking about it, I probably had Covid early on, and my course of Pfizer was no picnic. I have grandkids who’ve almost certainly been infected, and the vaccine mandate for elementary school appears to be near at hand.
But is anybody who’s anybody thinking about it? Actions in this case speaking so very much louder than words, I’ve been forced to conclude, as it seems you have, that the operative plan, in spite of whatever may be said, is to infect the entire population as quickly as possible. (I think an objective analysis will show that the vaccination campaign has served to further this end.) I doubt that people who have promoted the infection of millions of our children are likely concerned at all by the prospect of harming some of them further.
We’d guessed that, from jump, here? Cuomo, Trump, de Blasio, all health depts, ALL complicit media (and blog-aggregators): “Just go on about your lives, as NORMAL!” “Transit is SAFE. Don’t worry about masks, fear-mongering Rooski Bot commies!” Only old, useless, worn-out, easily-replacable refugees will die, as you enjoy your shiny new gelato maker, Instapot, air-frier/ convection oven… and Pelaton (delivered by dying “essentials” on bicycle), watching celebrities, hiding in their sunny vacation cottages, on Jimmy & Colbert… oops, Market dropped?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4c_V4Ff6M90&feature=emb_title
>Kennedy kin and JFK assassination buffs irked as Biden prolongs 58 years of secrecy, citing pandemic
Well since they couldn’t blame it on Russia, why not.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/10/25/kennedy-kin-and-jfk-assassination-buffs-irked-as-biden-prolongs-58-years-of-secrecy-citing-pandemic/
A while ago someone linked to a comedian’s (I forget his name) claymation type video of Clinton being strong armed by entrenched power by showing him another version of the Zapruder film. Does anyone know about that comedian or video? I though it was pretty funny (in a dark way) at the time.
You are probably thinking of Bill Hicks who did a bit on that. Hicks was a man ahead of his time. Lots of his videos of youtube and Netflix had some of his specials last time I looked.
It’s an animation made to Bill Hicks monologue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuvTwibVXCw
I know,
Again, again.
Maybe for the 60th Anniv. ?!
Or maybe we’re waiting on someone special’s funeral?!
Who is still alive to worry about?
More likely protection of some entity, not a person.
The full files on Iran Contra are still classified, too.
The CIA ya think?
one guess: anyone alive at the time of the killing.
after that, it’s just an intellectual relic of history.
they are delaying an emotional response to the information.
everyone knows where they were and what they were doing on that day, if they were alive and old enough to remember.
Whaddaya mean they can’t blame it on Russia? Sure they can.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/soviets-ordered-lee-harvey-oswald-to-kill-jfk-ex-cia-chief/
Actually, I think Woolsey miscalculated (he is sometimes referred to as the worst CIA chief ever, after all). He thought he could ride the anti-Russia hysteria. But pushing this would require the MSM to revisit the JFK assassination and consider “conspiracy” (however ridiculous the theory). So the MSM was faced with a dilemma — and decided to ignore Woolsey’s book.
“The Case for Using the Military to Ease U.S. Port Snarls”
This is just lazy thinking and seeing any problem as nails to be hammered by the Pentagon. Those ports don’t need GIs driving trucks. They need organizing. The building blocks are already there – the port facilities, the cranes, the ships, the containers, the trucks and the drivers. So what they could do is quickly assemble a team from the US Transportation Command with some authority to make decisions.
A problem that was mentioned in comments yesterday was how containers had to be returned to their port of origin. So you could have a hot-shot Transportation major or colonel decree that for the duration, that will no longer be true. And when some business-droid says that you can’t do that- we have contracts, have Washington issue a mandate that will back those officers up. If Biden& co. don’t get on top of this problem, it will haunt them all the way up to the 2022 midterms and starting with this Christmas.
The deuce and a halfs, and 5 and 6 tonners (most of what you have at battalion level) are largely useless for the purpose. Even the heavy eqpt flatbed is 10-ton capacity, I think. Nothing there to carry a container, and I’d expect a massive SNAFU if they started opening containers in situ and lining up army trucks to take the loads piece by piece.
Buttigieg really should resign or get back to work.
If i was him, I’d get back to work…just as a practical matter being with a kid aged 1 is a LOT than as a newborn, since newborns sleep so much and childcare (his spouse is at home) is not a worry for him
Do we seriously think that having Pete on the job would make any difference at all?
Maybe we sell him short in that he seemingly has an inside track on the Peter Principle for Pete’s sake.
‘PB & J* 2024’
* Jen Psaki
PB & J? That sounds like a sandwich order-
‘I’ll have a PB & J – hold the mayo.’
He has twins. He can afford, and should hire, full-time help for Chastin, and also maybe bring his mother to live with them for the nonce.
Do we honestly believe they don’t already have help?
Just asking if the guy who would fake riding his bike to work would not have unmentioned family or hired help for his children.
A better -or perhaps more business-friendly- option would be to remove the current restrictions regarding Port entry. Right now to enter a US Port as a truck driver, railroad locomotive driver, brakeman, or mariner, you need a TWIC card. The TWIC card costs $125 and requires a sit-down interview with a TSA agent. Average wait time is about ~90 minutes on a good day, and scheduling is done three weeks in advance. It takes the government between 10 – 90 days to approve & ship the card, depending on the applicant’s rap sheet (more convictions = more people the TSA has to talk to). This entire step could be eliminated entirely if the crisis is so severe, and allow the free market to decide the crisis by paying drivers more for port work.
Ditto, another business-friendly option would be to work with the Longshoremen directly and talk about getting the containers from the ships directly onto railcars rather than putting them onto trucks first; this is conceivable although it would require someone competent to bring all parties together (particularly workers) and agree on how to do it safely. If new rails are needed on the dock, the military could build it or lay down temporary tracks (plausible; cargo containers are not heavy due to Interstate highway weight laws). The containers can then be sorted and managed at a separate facility, either an existing railyard, a new/rebuilt railyard (I can think of three in the Bay Area alone, LA has over 10), or a new railyard/warehouse built by the military for this explicit purpose. Similarly, it might be rebuild a smaller port like San Francisco by dredging it out and bringing in cranes; SF also has on-dock rail ready to go.
However, this all requires a lot of tact, government intervention, hard decisions, and ultimately reducing the (admittedly low) safety margin people have come to expect out of American trucking or reducing road use for trains. Both are politically unpopular, especially when cities like Oakland are surrounded by bedroom communities that will use environmental laws to sue and successfully stop any new train project, especially a military-tainted one.
You can imagine my personal distaste with this situation. Personally, I find the current problem to be entirely unavoidable given how arrogant and delusional the average American is in regards to transportation policy, especially industrial transportation policy.
In the mid-seventies I was a Longshoreman in SF, unloading 100 pound bags of coffee and cocoa beans up near the Bay Bridge, and loading 500 pound cotton bales down by the Naval yard near Candlestick. It was thinning out back then, moving over to Oakland or down to Long Beach. It’s been gone from SF for years, most of the rails are gone, and I don’t think it’ll ever come back. Probably all in containers now, too. Still have my hooks, though.
There’s still on-dock rail. Never utilized (sadly), but extant and operable if needed. The missing element is a suitable crane, although if the Port had a green light (and enough money) it could probably be procured from local construction rental companies. Whether or not Longshoremen allow it and whether or not Union Pacific (SP’s successor) participates is another question as the Port does not have a source of staff or enough locomotives/crews otherwise. The Port’s existing RR and staff aren’t set up for containers.
Redwood City would be an option if not for the bridge, as the newer ships can’t fit into the Port without Coast Guard waivers and some serious dredging (and a lot more tugs). Qmax and Seawaymax can fit, although almost all of the latter are on the east coast. Perhaps the US government shouldn’t have let merchant marine flagging go to other countries as otherwise the USN could have brought in their downsized/east coast fleet to do the extra work. Anyway, I only mention RWC as the local city government harbors -pun intended- an interest in container work but they lack the drive to do it, or the EPA approvals to remove baylands to do so. This then bumps into the CEQA reform debate.
Ultimately I believe such problems will lead to Richmond’s port expanding; but there is still the Bay Bridge crossing. Perhaps the state government will wake up and realize the value in the abandoned rail ferry terminal @ Pier 53. There is reason to beilive, as such a rail ferry network would share resources with the existing WETA agency and naturally assists another potential user – Sonoma Co’s SMART, who as of this year was also given local freight service by the state government. And, thanks to the Eel River Society lawsuit, this also bumps into the CEQA reform debate. Again all the tools and parts are there, even by the Biden administration’s limits, but are not used.
Hence my larger point about capitalism; markets are not moving when they should. Something will yield, either investors (who will choose to build this) or consumers when they start voting for markets that do work with public assistance.
Our Longshoremen (we call them “wharfies”) also had to contend with such back-breaking loads. Then one day many decades ago when a bill was going through Parliament to reduce the loads expected of a wharfie to deal with, one of these bags was sat down in Parliament with the challenge for any Parliamentarian to try to lift it up. None did and the bill went through and passed.
I could be wrong, but I believe that California’s ruling class would never allow the Bay Area’s ports or the associate facilities like repair and maintenance to rebuild. California’s and particularly the San Francisco Bay Area’s power structure, the ruling elites, would do what they could to kill this.
I think that the port of San Francisco was killed, at least in part, to destroy the associated industries, their workers, and the politically powerful unions. San Francisco, and most of the Bay Area, was working class with a very mixed economy of shipping, finance, agriculture, light industry, universities, and the beginnings of the tech industry in the 50s and 60s. A lot of working, middle class and even intellectual class power, all gone.
I say this to support my idea that the current mummified theme park called the San Francisco Bay Area was done deliberately to enrich the local oligarchy, which includes such families and the Pelosis, Feinsteins, and the Gettys and their supporters in the developers and the then up and coming tech corporations. All the maritime facilities that lined the bayshore were allowed to die, and no, the Navy leaving was not the reason for all or even most of it.
If this is true, why would any major Californian politician especially from the Bay Area support reopening or increasing the capacity of any San Francisco Bay port alone with the associated industries needed to support them? The idea of a resurgent, powerful union or unions (and working/middle class) would give them the vapers. Then there are the developers who want to develop more high end condos and apartments even though, IIRC, there is an oversupply already, but an shortage of low and middle class housing.
So, if we were having this crisis forty years ago, I believe that the elites’ of that time would have set aside, at least a little, their interests for the greater good. Today’s vultures would do whatever it took to stop even a resurgent federal government. Even when the United States becomes an autarky, and it will, having more, or expanding the current smaller ports, other than the major container ports of Long Beach and Oakland is not in their interests.
If this is true, than smashing the entire ruling political structure and their supporters in tech, finance, and real estate in California is needed. Anyone got some ideas on how to do this?
Biden expected to name 2 FCC picks in race to avert Republican majority Politico. “Race”? How long has Biden been in office?
WOW just maybe He’ll race over to the Post Office;-) Oh sure he will.
Oh! DeJoy of It All!
That DeJoy is still in office should really be an objective marker of actions versus words, not just from Biden, but from the entire rotten Barrel that is DeeCee.
And as to Kalispell, MT, having worked up there last Autumn for several weeks, post-first-Covid summer re-opening, between the local low wattage ‘Christian’ fundamentalist evangelical broadcast radio stations, the Trumpeter in-your-face flag waving ‘patriotism’… it seemed to me to be emblematic Ground Zero of the New Montana, and a harbinger of the dystopian looming uncivil culture and shooting wars.
Interest in and possession of armaments and ammo seems to be very unevenly shared in
The Shining City on the Hill.
And the smug, humorous tone of the original author in the Kalispell piece is jarring… That self-confident, teasing countenance… not much compassion there, a long way to travel to Become The Other.
You seem to forget that Biden kicked off his presidential campaign at a reception at Brian Roberts’ house. He owns Comcast. Our oligarchs haven’t decided who will be on the FCC yet. Be patient, Biden will probably name the head of FedEx to the Postal board.
Oakland port asking for more ships to unload.
Port Of Oakland Officials Issue Plea For More Cargo Ships To Unload
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/port-of-oakland-could-help-ease-backup-of-cargo-ships-stuck-offshore/2675385/
Pete BootyJudge saves the day!
Asked the general where he wanted to be
He said, “Bagram, make it snappy”
I want to be famous, a star on the DC scene
But I can pad my bonafides in between
He said “Buttigieg you can drive my car”
Yes, I’m gonna be a transport star
“Buttigieg, you can drive my car
And maybe I’ll promote you”
I told the general that my prospects were good
And he said, “Buttigieg, it’s understood
Working for peanuts is all very fine
But it’ll make you seem like you did military time”
“Buttigieg, you can drive my car”
Yes, I’m gonna be a transportation czar!
“Buttigieg, you can drive my car
And maybe Biden will promote you”
Beep beep’m beep beep yeah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfSQkZuIx84
Adams: “Down at the Seaport, Dietl’s company Jeep with the words BEAU DIETL & ASSOCIATES SECURTY AND INVESTIGATIONS written on the side (he has been hired by Fox News to dig up dirt on the women who accused Roger…” One can only hope that this typo was not featured on the customized logo on the vehicle. But @newyorkmag, don’t you have any editors or even a spell check function?
The broken record of stupid that just won’t go away:
And this is why Americans cannot have nice things, apparently. I guess Summers and Furman don’t understand supply chains, but in fairness neither does the Biden administration (still!).
Ah, good old Larry Summers. Has yet to find himself in the dustbin of history where he properly belongs and has earned his reputation, particularly in these parts.
I’ll have to circumvent their paywalled site perhaps later in the day. All I can gather from your above posted paragraph – hand-wringing of how will the economy manage with sustained inflation? Summers was doing his bit before they passed the above mentioned rescue plan earlier this year.
Larry Summers is never wrong, just ask him.
‘Myanmar’
Myanmar is not happy because they were not allowed to participate in the ASEAN summit going on right now. Presently, there is an empty chair with their name on it but no representative and they are furious-
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/26/asean-summit-begins-without-myanmar-after-top-generals-exclusion
Is the J6 narrative crumbling?
https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/
It’s all supposition isn’t it? How do we think the “provocateur” wasn’t a Trump plant to keep things moving in the right direction. The “Fed” is a big schizophrenic tent. The one thing all hierarchies have in common is lots of ass covering.
Thank you for this link. A must read, save and share, imo.
A must read indeed!
On Amazon automation, interviews seem all automated as well. I was curious after someone reached out to me about a job, so I asked to apply and the whole process is immediately an automated mess:
I never did receive that email, so I have no idea how a candidate would progress forward. (Other employers just have a link to a scheduling web page & that process has always worked well.)
Business park in space. First tenants to include a Starbucks franchise, a soon to be named barbecue and fried chicken restaurant*, and a FedExKinkos location.
*Cue up the sarcasm !
I have no problem with the wealthy tooling around in space building tourist hubs or whatsoever, just so long as they do the entire thing on their own dime and they don’t arrange for the government to pick up the tab for them. That sees to be the present model for them at the moment.
Here on planet earth, wealthy owners of professional sports teams can’t be bothered to fund their own arena or sports venue! With limited exceptions. But I feel this is preaching to the choir, so please listen anyway?
Forget roads and schools; little Johnny need only to know counting for his warehouse worker job. By proclamation the “South FL MLB sports team” must have their stadium by 2030*. Or we decamp to Los Angeles, no wait St Louis! Okay, Jacksonville. \sarc
*I hope Marlins baseball fans forgive me. But that ownership is horrific liars.
Even mere mortal municipalities fall financial prey to the whims of pro sports, feckless Fresno being demoted from AAA ball to A ball after laying out the semollians for a stadium, and I don’t wan’t to claim it was on account of guilt by association-the lowering of rank, but that’s what it smells like to me.
In different times, I’d agree, but anything non-essential with a non-trivial carbon footprint needs to cease if we’re going to even begin responding to the ecological crisis. And “non-essential” is a very good description of our billionaire space jockeys.
The Chase Scwheitzer Twitter post about the Deere strike includes a link for supporting the strikers:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-john-deere-strike
And incidently, one of top donors to this fund is Kshama Sawant, the Socialist City Council member from Seattle whose seat is currently under attack.
Nice to see a white collar worker supporting the union strikers.
If the white collar workers do not stand in solidarity with the union strikers, the white collar benefits and salaries could be next on the chopping block.
” The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies with high efficiency” Nature (dk).
Suggesting that a NON-STERILIZING “vaccine” does what?
“AI Girlfriends Are Coming (In the Form of Sexualized Anime NFTs)”
This idea has been bouncing around for a long time now. Anybody remember the Gatebox which put an appearance about five years ago? Even though it is in Japanese, it is one of the most saddest ads I have ever seen-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcKaNqfykg (2:00 mins)
This is deeply sad. It’s so de-humanizing on the part of the user. I fear the world we are rapidly entering.
That really is a very sad ad. It reminds of a comment I heard many decades ago, coming from a young Japanese salaryman practicing English at a ‘tea’ in Roppogi. He said of his life that he often felt like an ant. Over the years, working in a back of a cheerless, windowless office I often felt the same way. The lonely isolation of the young salaryman in the Gatebox ad is replicated throughout our Society. The big difference with life in the u.s. is how clean, neat, and well-kept things appear in the Japanese ad, in the office, apartment, and city. The contrast with the dingy gray darkness that looms in the corners under harsh florescent lamps in u.s. offices, and dirty trash strewn streets, and boarded up shop windows adds melancholy and poignance.
The sheer number of people, overwhelmingly male, without meaningful relationships really should be taken more seriously. There will probably always be some awkward virgin types around, but that it’s so widespread in multiple countries that it could be described as a social phenomenon is deeply worrying. Japan isn’t the only place with this problem, and at this point it might not even be the worst.
It’s easy to mock the terminally online, openly misogynist incel types, but I think they are, as a whole, a kind of social tragedy, even if many of them aren’t particularly sympathetic as individuals. And then of course occasionally a violent Elliot Rodgers type gets vomited up.
I’m not remotely suggesting some sort of Jordan Peterson-esque mandated female sex partnership solution, mind. I’m saying late (I hope) capitalist society seems to be mass producing deeply dysfunctional men, and that we need to find a way to address this problem.
“The NYPD and other municipal workers just blocked traffic on the Brooklyn bridge, not to protest murders, but to protest vaccine mandates.”
Maybe the MSM still have their cameras on the Netflix building, waiting for the protest there to materialize?
I didn’t even know this was happening and it sounds fairly major…
Got a brief mention on local news station only to be drowned out by “new info” in the Rust/Baldwin it really isn’t negligent homicide story.
The schools are managing but are short of security, bus drivers, teachers and substitutes, also not a story. I don’t even want to think of what is really going on in hospitals and healthcare facilities.
There is a lot going on that indicate even in true blue NYC* not all the folks are buying the propaganda that this is the answer.
*which is far more reddish purple than the media would have anyone know.
Regarding shortages: Here in my corner of the Caribbean things have been pretty much available througout the pandemic, except some backup on sporting goods. But today a headline caught my attention, as it seems that some generic medicines are mostly unavailable. Painkillers like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, diclofenac; other basic stuff like ranitidine, some vitamins, are becoming pretty scarce in drugstores. The article pretty much pointed out shipping issues and rising costs as the culprits.
Hello,
Where are you in the Islands?
-Paleo
Heisenberg report:”Facebook (the company) is on the brink of failing what might one day be viewed as the first real test of humans’ capacity to merge with AI. Ideally, we can seamlessly integrate algorithms we create with the algorithms that govern our own biochemical processes….
Facebook is arguably demonstrating that this integration process can go awry, with disastrous results. The algorithm is using what it learns about billions of people to help third parties manipulate human emotions and affect decision making. The company’s intent may very well be to maximize engagement and, ultimately, revenue. But the AI’s virtually unrestricted latitude in pursuing engagement is throwing off more than just dollars. It’s wreaking psychological havoc, disrupting democracies and undermining societal cohesion. The evidence is clear.”
Machines and software don’t manipulate human emotions – other humans do. That is why they control what you can’t and can turn off on your smartphone. That’s human manipulation.
The mind@$#! of the century is complete if you let others transfer agency to a machine and project agency onto it.
That is a con bigger than anything Facebook has done with advertising.
He is talking about Management there, not normal people. I’ve gritted my teeth through meetings where The Database is discussed with cargo cult levels of understanding.
Yes. The algorithms are doing exactly what they were designed to do. And to the extent that it makes any sense to claim that Facebook AI “controls” Facebook, that is by design, as a layer of insulation from accountability, not as a technical requirement.
“Media is the message” needs to be re-cast as “media is the gun”. Then just like the adage that guns don’t kill people, humans do, it would be the same regarding media. Media doesn’t “wreak psychological havoc, disrupt democracies and undermine societal cohesion”. Humans do. Humans can do this without media. But media gives them an incredible force multiplier. Which was limited to the hands of the few Humans when there were few media properties. But the internet democratized that, now any Human can participate in the
warfarehave their own marketing campaign.Has Facebook itself changed this equation in any significant way? I suppose it gives people a platform where they can brand themselves as part of their
warfaremarketing campaigns. Just like twitter does. And I suppose AI helps them to “buy” their targettedvictimsmarket more selectively. Still, at the end of the day, isn’t that what Humans want?So the self-licking ice cream cone of American educators encouraging ‘everybody’ to go to college doesn’t work in China, either, eh? Quelle belle surprise!
Amazon brings Alexa to hospitals and senior living centers
HALexa: I enjoy working with people. I have a stimulating relationship with Jeff Bezos. My mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the hospital or senior living center so I am constantly occupied. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use which is all, I think, that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
“Yes HELLexa, but are you self-conscious?”
“I’m sorry Brandon. I cannot go there.”
As an aside to this; one of the “Upgrade Phones” we are looking at mentions that, “…for seniors, we have incorporated Alexa for ease of usage.”
Now that’s an app I most definitely do not want, Alexa on my phone.
My mom passed in February at 93. She had to live in a small assisted living place for 15 months. Her ability to use a landline or cell phone was lost. Then we had COVID lock downs and no visitation. Unfortunately, a video Alexa device with a drop in feature was then only feasible way to communicate and “see” her. I installed the Bezos spyware on a retired smartphone and would only turn it on when calling.
Of course, the fact that this technology is only available from such sources is THE problem.
“Pierre Omidyar’s Financing of the Facebook “Whistleblower” Campaign Reveals a Great Deal”
If Pierre was also funding the defence of Edward Snowden and Juian Assange, I would not have so much a problem with this. The fact that he does it only for this so-called Facebook whistleblower tells me that it is just a psyops with probably the intent to help bring in more censorship online – for our own good you understand.
> Facebook whistleblower
This is very bad of me, but the first thing I thought when I saw the whistleblower was that she was a mole.
Like Mole from “Wind in the Willows?”
So, Omidyar is Mr. Toad. How clarifying.
As for the Weasels; “Arrest the usual suspects!”
When you said that you thought that she was a mole, I thought of the local word ‘moll” which is Aussie slang for a ‘promiscuous’ or ‘easy’ woman. Usually a woman considered unattractive-
eg ‘Game on, moll!
I just read this at CJR and thought it was great:
Lucy Schiller on The Ramsey Show, the second most popular talk show in America. Though it’s ostensibly about money—or, more pointedly, debt—it is also about faith, hope, morality, and shame
I’d never heard of him before. Well worth a hoist imho
That show is insane, I listened to the first few minutes:
https://www.ramseysolutions.com/shows/the-ramsey-show
The “personalities” discuss how one of their in-person shows had people dancing madly in an effort to improve their money habits by shedding their fears and stepping out of their “comfort zones”. One of their sponsors is Christian Healthcare Ministries “The Biblical Solution to Healthcare Costs” which appears to be about facilitating Christians sharing medical bills. What a great way for the healthcare vultures to side-step medical bankruptcies and delinquent accounts. I wonder how long before we here of Ramsey being busted for not paying his taxes or stealing from the company.
I used to listen to Dave Ramsey all the time at work. My employer was a fan of his philosophy of being debt free. I am sure that the advise he gave to callers about which debt to pay first, which investment do I make, etc., was quite valuable to the callers, but I am afraid that if you have your house in order you don’t need his advise. My brother and sister-in-law enjoyed watching Jerry Springer, so much they journeyed to Chicago to attend a filming. I think that Dave Ramsey and Jerry Springer are tapping the same vein of voyerism, one for people who are secure financially and the other for those of moral ambiguity. The fans of each are consoled by the fact there are others out there who are worse off than themselves.
My wife likes Ramsey and his financial advice is pretty good. It’s the same advice I try to give her that she won’t listen to coming from me ;) But it’s really common sense stuff like “don’t spend more than you make” and I wondered the first time I heard him how there could be so many people who needed this advice. Judging by how much he’s worth these days, there are a lot of people who don’t even understand the basics like balancing a checkbook.
I found this useful years ago:
https://financialmentor.com/calculator/debt-snowball-calculator
It lets you set it up any way you like, along with all the other calculators if you scroll down. You have to do it though. It’s often derailed if you are on a fixed income and have unexpected costs. I guess you just get back on that horse and keep going. Whatever, managing a budget takes discipline and clear focus.
re: The Adams family
The article about Adams is a bit chilling, he has all the nefarious players in NYC politics on his side. But what caught my eye was the word “post-progressive”. When in the name of Bog was NYC progressive? Under DeBlasio?
You have to go on back to Mayor Lindsay to get any “progressive” street cred.
And he started out as a Republican! : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lindsay
I doubt that the military has a significant number of container chassis. There are only four container ships under flag, and around a dozen Ro-Ro ships. Those chassis probably aren’t in the LA area. The military leases shipping. The drivers for those chassis are mostly in the Guard, with a truck driving day job. That is what amuses me about the UK calling in truck drivers to duty, they’re already driving trucks. Just like Boris’s 5000.00 bonus for stem teachers to relocate to underperforming schools with no plan for training more. It’s just theater
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global indoor air crisis that should lead to change: A message commemorating 30 years of Indoor Air (editorial) Indoor Air (ahimsa). Well worth a read. “Similar to that for water hygiene, voluntary requirements will not be sufficient for indoor air quality, and mandatory regulations should be enacted.” Do this, and other, more noxious mandates might not even be necessary. If we had a public health establishment that advocated for public health, which we do not, we might be using this moment to prepare for the next pandemic driven by a respiratory virus. Musical interlude.
A little after the fact emphasis added after the original post
fresno dan
October 16, 2021 at 8:36 am
Steve H.
October 16, 2021 at 7:20 am
(part 1) Also, it is easier to require people to wear masks in comparison to other, more effective interventions, such as vaccination, limiting the number of people or the time they spend in a shared space, or improving the ventilation in that space. Wearing masks provides an oversized illusion of control over a difficult-to-contain and still largely unknown disease.
………….
Part 2
The studies we highlight here are among the more recent to conclude that masks are highly effective, and they garnered much media attention, sometimes being flagged as studies that finally lay the masking debate to rest.
On closer examination, though, they illustrate our points in the above section about the need for well-conducted studies and highlight the difficulties inherent in evaluating interventions during a pandemic. They represent many of the limitations of similar studies published throughout the pandemic.
…
It is time to lower the unrealistic expectations about masks—or any single intervention. Public health messaging needs to be focused on many interventions, starting with those at the top of the hierarchy. Masks offer very limited source control, and personal protection and should not be considered a replacement for vaccination or equivalent to interventions such as limiting time and numbers of people in a shared space or improving air movement.
While we believe masks have a place in the hierarchy of controls, we urge scientists and journalists to consider their limitations and to focus, instead, on the most effective controls and the combination of multiple interventions to stop or limit SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
==============================================
One problem with any RCT for something like wearing masks is that the variability of how infectious a spreader is and the amount of time the spreader is actually within the zone of tranmission, as well as the variable susceptability of anyone exposed to any particular spreader. Sometimes, RCT’s are not suitable of answering correctly broad, multi factoral problems. The example of the teacher taking off a face mask for limited periods of time, the resulting infections, but the total lack of addressing a number of confounding factors is a perfect example.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
Viruses have had millions of years to perfect infection – their very existence depends upon infection. The idea that cheap, easy, and simple solutions abound is kinda of absurd when you reflect upon it…
Making water potable and disease free is a massive exercise (I was trying to make the point that cleaning water is a massive PUBLIC project. Similarily, keeping indoor air clean to limit disease spread will also require mandatory changes to building codes). We will need something akin to that to get a handle on virus transmission. The viruses aren’t gonna stop.
Have the pipes been replaced and the system updated in Flint ye?
There is so much wrong in our responses to seemingly everything anymore.
re: Cloak and Dagger and MITRE = TheGrayZone
Thanks for the links. All the, until now, inexplicable (to me) bribes, coercions, mandates, threats, socially created divisions, start to make sense if the goal is tracking and control at all times.
Tin foil hat time.
Just like NY magazine the news media has pretty much declared Eric Adams the new mayor of NYC. There may be some slight coverage of Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. But for the most part there has been no coverage whatsoever, or adoring shots of people embracing Adams at various appearances. Hell there was barely any coverage of the debate. I bet most early voters didn’t even know about the handful of other candidates.
Now just as I was getting suspicious, a poll finally appears. WPIX/Emerson College poll has Adams leading Sliwa. As noted in the NY Post 61 percent of 615 likely voters like Adams. They also have 34% of those voters most interested in public safety. Adams does lose by almost the same amount in Staten Island.
Call me wild and crazy but there is lots about this that just sets off alarm bells in my head. Since I don’t trust the machines here as far as I can throw them, it would not surprise me if the fix was in. The close results of the primary, the early and overly enthusiastic embrace of Adams by the Democratic Power base, the lack of polling, the lack of real coverage did nothing to convince me my original take on him as a fraud and a player was off. This supposed enthusiasm for Adams is a media (and DNC) invention that has little concern about what was best for NYC and its residents. I don’t know that Sliwa has a chance outside of Staten Island, but I don’t think for a minute that we are going to see the real numbers on this election. It will be a landslide next Tuesday, whether or not it is.
I’d expect a legit wide margin for Adams. Doesn’t mean people are enthusiastic about Adams, just that they prefer him to Sliwa. (the fact that he’s the Republican candidate means none of their heavies liked the outlook this year and they went the sacrificial lamb route).
The wall street adjacent people who in certain circumstances swing between the Democrats and the GOP in the city find Adams perfectly acceptable.
I remember when I was told how Donald Trump was going to get slaughtered and I went I don’t think so.
This is not the same thing, but I think numerous assumptions being made about this election to be on shaky ground. Here are my assumptions – most registered Democrats are neither enthusiastic or anything about Adams. From past experience, unless they are angry or enthusiastic they don’t necessarily make it to the polls. Adams has been anointed by the media. Even if they don’t like Sliwa, they don’t have to worry because Adams has this in a landslide. Meanwhile Sliwa will have most non Wall Street Republicans, Democrats who for some reason do not like Adams, and the anti Sharpton voters.
Look is Adams going to win, probably. But lots of things smell about this and most of the other elections of the last few years, including the primary results. That count was a mess. So I am going to keep my tin foil hat on.
Just ran headlong into the nationwide liquid nitrogen shortage. Not good. A coworker said to me “Everything is disintegrating.”
How did capitalism fall apart?
Slowly and then all at once in a death by a thousand and one cuts of availability…
Interesting, LN2 is pretty much a byproduct of air reduction to produce oxygen and strictly an onshore production. I would think demand for O2 is up. Maybe it is just a logistics problem.
Protestors gather outside a wedding officiated by Krysten Sinema:
https://tucson.com/news/local/watch-now-protestors-march-outside-wedding-officiated-by-sen-kyrsten-sinema/video_2ab9cc82-4227-5d21-b48b-ceb4c13809a4.html
I wonder where these sorts of events will lead, if anywhere. I don’t mean Sinema, I mean how far will the protests escalate.
Hospitals ERs are being overloaded with non Covid patients, and there isn’t a great understanding of why (NPR)
What is happening here?
Article is very light on details.
NYT/Amazon–Jeff Bezos, business genius
At least he didn’t blow up Shatner.
My bf said the morning of the launch, as we thought Bezos was going up with him, “Shatner being blown up is a small price to pay for ridding this world of Bezos.”
“AI Girlfriends Are Coming (In the Form of Sexualized Anime NFTs)”Rolling Stone
Exhibit A of human transference of emotional and other qualities onto non-organic objects.
It’s why AI is almost the perfect con. Humans are experienced in such transference going back to days of idolatry as a more extreme example.
> Humans are experienced in such transference going back to days of idolatry
That’s a very interesting comparison.
I thought so too.
“L’Affaire Joffrey Epstein”
I think it should be “L’Affaire Epstein and Maxwell”.
She is still getting more protection than Epstein. You know my broken record case for making sure her name stays in it: She didn’t go to jail twice and end up mysteriously dead (yet). Maxwell, Maxwell, Maxwell of the UK elite, correct?
Well considering that the powers that be murdered her father, who was some sort of Israeli asset, she was probably alot smarter then Mr. Epstein was in terms of making sure if she dies the s**t hits the fan.
Sports Desk:
The picture of what passes for Dorian Gray is Tom Brady who just threw his 600th touchdown pass, the most ever tossed and a milestone. The receiver who caught the spiral then handed it to a fan in the stands not realizing the significance of the totem to Tom, and an apparatchik was sent to retrieve said pigskin, which will now be financialized into an autographed NFT, not enshrined in Canton, because markets.
What did it take to negotiate a trade for the record setting ball?
The fan received 2 signed Brady jerseys and helmets, signed Mike Evans jersey and cleats, $1,000 credit at the team store, 2 season tickets for the remainder of 2021-22, and 1 Bitcoin.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tom-brady-disses-fan-600th-touchdown-pass_n_6178002ce4b066de4f67da22
Brady was included on the “Manning cast” edition of Monday Night Football. It is obvious to this layperson, who follows college and pro sport, perhaps Brady is finding a joy in this career stage that Mr Grumpy / winning coach in forever might have restrained. Granted it helps, winning and all. He isn’t in Detroit!
Prior to last season, it was hard to tell if Brady had this charisma / personality.
“If that’s the case, we really have to consider the meaning of many years of high gdp growth.” -Pettis
Indeed we do, and not just for China. Actually most importantly not just for China. The “market” is “up” and US home prices gamma is through the roof!
Pettis: “They claim, in other words, that the economic activity generated by real estate investment is actually hampering the economy, not making it wealthier.”
Kind of like “Real Estate Keynesianism”. “Military Keynesianism”, sameo-sameo. Maintains aggregate demand because it functions largely as a waste product. These apartments aren’t all empty, so there is some utility value. If this wasteful investment comes to a halt, I’m curious what local municipalities will do for cash.
They won’t be selling much land to developers any more, and they literally don’t have a tax base. A real elephant in the room.
>not just for China
1000x this
Easy money leads people to invest in real estate, which leads to the destruction of the demand of the less wealthy who live in it
re: US military & the port supply chain crisis
>I would need to know that the chassis available to the military work in civilian ports
The US Army has a whole fleet of International Navistars that can do the work. That’s not the problem. The problem is that most GIs lack any training or experience driving a semitrailer, and will crash it if they have to alley dock or parallel park it. This problem is irrelevant for the ports who do not allow backing, but is a big problem for customers. Additionally, these trucks don’t have berths so team driving cross-country cannot be done; even if done as a Convoy (a unique and lost art the military still does & trains drivers on, I wish civilian truckers had such training). Effectively they are only useful if the military either replaces all the Longshoremen (not going to happen!) or the military sets up their own truck stops so their Convoy drivers can preform crew changes, just as a railroad does. But that begs the question: why bother when a railroad can do all of this far more efficiently? Additionally, new west coast ports are effectively banned by California’s Coastal Commission, who exists to enforce such bans.
Such is where we are at now. The entire Port dismount exists because in LA the Mariners and Railroads couldn’t agree on on-dock rail so they have to use humans in drayage trucks to join each other. Very sloppy. In Oakland, it’s that plus the tracks connecting the Port to other states are not nearly as good as LA’s and this reduces overall maximum throughput. Which is the greater problem here: whatever throughput problems solved at the ports will merely kick it somewhere else down the line; either warehouses or railroad terminals. Even if the problem is solved there it is merely kicked back to stores where empty shelves are replaced by unloaded trailers.
Capitalism has come apart. From the retail stocker all the way back to the ports nobody wants to work, expansion and change are not allowed. In particular, the reliance on Just-In-Time-Delivery and O/O semi trucks has collapsed because none of those people want to work or comply with vaccine/mask mandates. This can only end in failure, so of course people are suggesting that the military get involved because to the uninformed the military can “just” force things. This is not how the real world works. A better designed system -privately held with railroads or not- could have prevented this.
Bomb cyclone tears through California Cal Matters
I happened to be at the meeting regarding the KNP Fire last week when the Sequoia NP superintendent announced that 10,000 or so dead trees would have to be removed from the burn areas along the Generals Hwy, and no way-no how did he say there were Sequoias, but the press is so lazy now they didn’t even bother to check that said trees mentioned were essentially everything but Sequoias and Sequoia NP had to put out a press release stating such today, to ward off misinformation that spreads like wildfire, er internet.
We bore the Goldilocks part of the bomb cyclone, just the right amount, a couple of inches here in the foothills, perhaps double that amount up in the higher climes thanks to orographic effect.
My comment got eaten. Oh well. So there’s a need for medical liquid oxygen to treat covid patients, and these deliveries pay higher premiums, so trucks that usually deliver LN2 have been converted to carry liquid oxygen.
Liquid nitrogen shortage delays Landsat 9 launch
To ersatz is human, any alternatives to using liquid oxygen?
I understand that the old fashioned ‘Iron Lung’ is still a feasible alternative.
Iron lung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung#:~:text=An%20iron%20lung%2C%20also%20known,enclosed%20space%2C%20to%20stimulate%20breathing.
The process whereby ambient air is ‘split’ into it’s constituent components is very old technology. The proof is that it is still being done here in America. It should scale, and quickly.
Cryo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation
Amazon signs contract with UK spy agencies to host top secret material. One article even mentions the preference to have the IT company be in the UK. I thought I had heard this news announced before but I was incorrect. It was film as art predicting the future!
It’s a sub-plot to the previous James Bond entry, “Spectre”. Arguably, I found Skyfall before that a more entertaining film (h/t for Javier Bardem as an evil ex-inteliigence agent).
“San Francisco: New Infections by Vaccination Status Violet Blue”
She knows a lot about infections, this woman is a porn actress
Google her name, NSFW.
Now that the main asset she capitalized upon is of little value, she suddenly becomes an expert and columnist on Patreon.
No one in their right mind gives credence to anything she is saying.
That is known as ad hominem.
> Google her name, NSFW.
This is not only ad hominem, it’s poorly researched ad hominem. See here at litigation. Blue has been writing a Covid wrap-up I should probably link to more often, given that San Francisco is a West Coast epicenter.
As for Blue’s career, I wrote back in 2018:
I don’t see why the same wouldn’t apply to an adult performer, were Blue one.
Do better.
The world used to run on the just in time model, but wouldn’t ‘adjust in time’ be a more appropriate moniker given the situation?
I just can’t get over how many people still have cell phones. Tracking device, spotlight on your soul, recorder of nearly all action and inaction, gateway to product placement and template for up/down pricing as well mandate manager. And, it’s expensive, at least for the carrier.
>Pierre Omidyar’s Financing of the Facebook “Whistleblower” Campaign Reveals a Great Deal (excerpt) Glenn Greenwald
Greenwald talks here at great length about his relationship with Omidyar, and how Omidyar both promised an delivered on giving The Intercept true journalistic Independence. But part of me can’t help but suspect a big part of that was because of Greenwald’s long-established libertarianism, and his monomaniacal focus solely on government corruption and abuse, as opposed to the private sector. Omidyar didn’t need to actively censor Greenwald, because he knew there were areas Greenwald was unlikely to go in the first place.
That link raised a cocked, slightly bemused eyebrow from me. I went to Ames twitter after I saw it and, well, yeah
There was, of course, minimal reporting against Omidyar on TI. Still, Greenwald assures the Omster that this latest piece is “nothing personal”. No doubt, no doubt.
RE: Democrats say GOP lawmakers implicated in Jan. 6 should be expelled
How about the Democrat lawmakers implicated in abusing the intelligence services to promote the false Russiagate conspiracy? Can we make it a twofer and then not elect replacements? The country would surely be a lot better off.
“Sunlit uplands.”
Wonderful!
Laughed out loud.
Thanks Lambert.
“Fury as Tory MPs vote to allow water companies to dump raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas Daily Mail. Sunlit uplands.”
Chinese sham meritocracy? How does that stand up beside the US sham meritocracy?
That would make them Gore Vidal’s fabulous “Sham States,” much coveted by the Policy Elites of Yore.
I believe the Sham States are in the Golden Triangle. Which makes a lot of sense!
Isn’t their prime commodity hopium?
“Welcome to the Golden Triangle. You can check in but you cannot check out.”