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The Warmhearted Women Who Raise Orphaned Baby Wombats Until They’re Can Be Released Into the Wild Laughing Squid
Bubblicious: Crypto Euphoria’s Emerging Impact on Housing John Burns Real Estate Consulting (Re Silc).
Sometimes it just doesn’t work: Why Apple is finally letting its customers fix their iPhones Protocol
Climate
Trillions in Assets May Be Left Stranded as Companies Address Climate Change WSJ
Without Coal, What Happens to Cement, Steel, Iron — and Asia’s Path to Development? The Diplomat
World Fish Stocks Are in Worse State Than Expected, Study Shows Bloomberg
Fear not, pancake lovers: OPEC of maple syrup taps sticky reserve Al Jazeera
#COVID19
ACS Risk Biomarkers Significantly Increase After mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Cardiology Advisor (MV). “The risk of developing acute coronary syndrome (ACS) significantly increased in patients after receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to a report presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2021, held from November 13 to 15, 2021. The study included 566 men and women (1:1) aged 28-97 years, who were patients in a preventive cardiology practice.” From the session Abstract: “We conclude that the mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.”
The impact of public health interventions in the Nordic countries during the first year of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and evolution EuroSurveillance. From the Abstract: “Sweden constituted an epidemiological and evolutionary refugium that enabled the virus to maintain active transmission and spread to other geographical locations. Our analysis reveals the utility of genomic surveillance where monitoring of active transmission chains is a key metric.”
* * * How Covid-19 spreads: narratives, counter-narratives and social dramas (preprint) Trisha Greenhalgh et al., Authorea. “In this paper, we contrast inside-track narratives of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from the World Health Organisation, UK government and their official scientific advisers with outside-track counter-narratives offered by aerosol scientists. We examine related events that unfolded as social dramas — hand-cleansing rituals, care home deaths, public masking and occupational health and safety.”
What’s behind the rapid disappearance of the delta variant in Japan? It could be self-extinction. Japan Times
Revealed: The Secret Covid Outbreak That Shot Fear Through the NBA Finals Rolling Stone
* * * Pfizer Will Allow Its Covid Pill to Be Made and Sold Cheaply in Poor Countries NYT
China?
Chinese hypersonic weapon fired missile over South China Sea FT
Xi tells Southeast Asian leaders China does not seek ‘hegemony’ Reuters
Myanmar
As Soldiers Abandon Notorious Myanmar Army, a Morale Crisis Looms NYT
China-ASEAN summit begins without a Myanmar representative Al Jazeera. A Zoom summit, with no feed from Myanmar.
Singapore’s tech-utopia dream is turning into a surveillance state nightmare Rest of World
India
The India Fix: Despite being India’s most powerful PM in decades, why did Modi fail on farm laws? Scroll
India’s coal demand likely to grow in absolute terms, phasing out difficult Hellenic Shipping News
New Zealand to adopt new system of living with Covid-19 from Dec 3 Straits Times
Syraqistan
U.S., Israeli officials air public disagreements over upcoming nuclear talks with Iran Axios
Beer’s Future Is in Africa. The Same Should Be True of Work Bloomberg
Colonial accountability in transition Africa Is a Country
Sudan military to reinstate PM Hamdok in new deal: Mediators Al Jazeera
New Cold War
The U.S. Approach to Ukraine’s Border War Isn’t Working. Here’s What Biden Should Do Instead The Politico
U.S. Intel Shows Russia Plans for Potential Ukraine Invasion Bloomberg. Headline should be “Shows Russian Plans,” like the URL.
Conservative Kast leads in first round of Chile election FT
Venezuela’s Socialists Campaign as Reformists as Support Slips Bloomberg
Biden Administration
Big Business Declares War on Lina Khan Matt Stoller, BIG (GF). A must-read (and especially insightful on factional conflict in the Republican Party).
Inflation fears hang over Biden’s social spending plans FT. Totally organic narrative….
Biden Just Nominated Joe Manchin-Lite Daily Poster
How Hunter Biden’s Firm Helped Secure Cobalt for the Chinese and A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution NYT (Re Silc).
Supply Chain
Supply-Chain Problems Show Signs of Easing WSJ. “Shipping and retail executives say they expect the U.S. port backlogs to clear in early 2022, after the holiday shopping season and when Lunar New Year shuts many factories for a week in February, slowing output.” Nothing will fundamentally change.
Canada faces grain backlog with freight halted through B.C. after flooding Globe and Mail (IM).
Zeitgeist Watch
California police seek 80 suspects in flash-mob department store robbery Reuters. As above, so below.
Health Care
Explained: Why It Took 54 Years For A Malaria Vaccine India Spend
Rittenhouse
Rittenhouse’s Winning Strategy Rested on Tear-Filled Testimony Bloomberg
Our Famously Free Press
The 1619 Project started as history. Now it’s also a political program. WaPo. No it didn’t, and yes, it always was.
Heritage Foundation paging Sir Halford John Mackinder:
The Ganja Gap. Probably one of the most important transit corridors in the world. 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/0j7ohryXLN
— Luke Coffey (@LukeDCoffey) November 21, 2021
Readers?
Imperial Collapse Watch
Lessons from the Littoral Combat Ship War on the Rocks
As US Troops and Families Go Hungry, They Don’t Trust the Pentagon for Help Military.com
Class Warfare
The week in US unions, November 13-20 Who Gets the Bird? With the Deere contract and the Teamsters election, a big week.
Destroying Democracy Is Central to the Privatization of Public Goods Jacobin
Untimely Futures Places Journal
Are You My Mother Tongue? Lapham’s Quarterly
After a Pandemic Failure, the U.S. Needs a New Public Spirit Zeynep Tufecki, NYT. “The pandemic has proved to be a nearly two-year stress test that the United States flunked.” And: “We need a new public spirit: more people willing to recognize things aren’t going to get better unless we fight for it.” I’m not sure the issue is lack of “fight,” but incommensurable definitions of “better.”
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
197 comments
Comments are closed.
“Beer’s Future Is in Africa. The Same Should Be True of Work Bloomberg”
Can’t we just export our globalist colonialists to Africa?
I think the general hope is they join Bezos, Thiel, Musk, et al, on an inhospitable location for humans like Mars. My suspicion is they land somewhere more comfortable, such as the above-earth paradise depicted on the film Elysium.
“What’s behind the rapid disappearance of the delta variant in Japan? It could be self-extinction.”
A fascinating story this and one for the medical history books. Probably find though that with the influx of tourists and business travelers, it is only a matter of time until a new variant is introduced into Japan starting of a whole new wave of infections. If Japan was smart, they should use the present hiatus to make their preparations now for the next wave-
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/
It has an Uttar Pradesh feel about it & as usual it largely depends on who you believe or trust.
https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/breaking-japanese-medical-association-chairman-tells-doctors-to-prescribe-ivermectin-for-covid/
for god’s sake, the ‘Tokyo Medical Association’ meme has recurred off and on in comments since August, and I always feel obliged to point out: The Tokyo Medical Association is a loose association of doctors based in the Japanese capital, it is not a government body and it has policymaking authority. This story tells us precisely nothing about actual irl Ivermectin usage in Tokyo, let alone Japan, which is information that I would actually really and sincerely like to know. The ~Tokyo Medical Association~ story was first shared in August. It was an interesting and encouraging story, which I noted, suggesting as it did a certain broad-mindedness on the part of medical professionals in Japan (and have a look at the example of some of the early public health messaging put out by Japan in early 2020, which you can see in the Greenhalgh et al paper linked today – it is deeply impressive stuff). Three months have elapsed in which to get a picture of Ivermectin usage in Japan. Let’s see some data. Let’s see some good quality journalism on the Ivermectin situation in Japan. If this data or reporting doesn’t exist or it is not dispositive in favour of Ivermectin, I never want to hear about the effing ‘Tokyo Medical Association’ ever again unless and until they release such data themselves. Ditto Uttar Pradesh. Let’s see some meaningful Ivermectin usage data from clinicians, or public health bodies, if they’re brave enough to undertake such research. Let’s not see case numbers and make the ridiculous assumption that one single drug is exclusively responsible for the current low case case rate. I hope it is, but I’m not in a million years going to make such a breathtakingly arrogant assumption. Let’s see some actual, pertinent data, not a covid case number graph. Such jazzy interpretation and reasoning might be adequate for mainstream macroeconomists but I’m not going to allow myself to be persuaded by it for one second and no one else should either – even if in the fullness of time the conclusion does turn out to be correct – that Ivermectin is literally a miracle drug wrought by the hands of Jesus Christ himself and gifted to us via Merck to put a stop to the pandemic. – The Japan and Uttar Pradesh case number data combined with an article about the Tokyo Medical Association or a testimonial from an Indian doctor do not prove this.
I for the life of me will never understand why some people seem to think it’s more important to be pro- or anti- ivermectin, or pro- or anti-vaccine, than anti-covid. Let’s keep our eye on the ball and do away with this daft tribalism.
> Let’s see some good quality journalism on the Ivermectin situation in Japan. If this data or reporting doesn’t exist or it is not dispositive in favour of Ivermectin, I never want to hear about the effing ‘Tokyo Medical Association’ ever again unless and until they release such data themselves.
Yep. See my comment immediately below,
You will never find it. Too few gaiin who read Japanese and spend enough time in Japan to have the foggiest idea what is happening.
When I was doing business in Japan, and Japan was hot (as in a near constant topic in the US business press), the gap between what was going on in Japan and what was understood in the West was staggering.
Two examples: Everyone who was anyone knew that the Japanese Big Four securities firms were bribing politicians through Stock of the Week. Every week, the firms would flog some pet stock, which would of course go up. Diet members were told in advance and would front run the trades.
I as just a gaiin but consulting to a Japanese bank knew about this in 1985. The first time I saw the Western press report on this in their predictable shocked manner was well after the bust, sometime in the early 1990s. And mind you, the practice was long-standing when I heard about it.
Another was the best-selling book, A Japan that Can Say No by revered businessman and former Sony chairman Akio Morita and Shintaro Ishihara, then Transport Minister, later Tokyo governor. The book created a huge stir in the US too.
Ishihara published a follow on, “Why I still say no” which also became a bestseller in Japan and was more strident. I never saw any mention of it in the Western press.
I’ve often found that following Gaijin in Japan on social media (or just talking to them in bars) is one of the very worst ways to be informed about whats going on in Japan. Sometimes those with N5 are the worst as they overestimate their ability to interpret the subtleties of ‘official’ written Japanese. Noah Smith is a very good example of someone who has lived there and understands Japanese and yet shows not the tiniest sign of understanding anything about Japan (not that I know much, but I know enough to recognise gaijin BS when I see it).
I’ve tried to find out about IVM use in Japan, but it really is difficult, made even worse by the culture in Japan of doctors not telling patients much about their conditions. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve talked about IVM with Japanese friends here and they’ve said they never heard of it – it just doesn’t seem a topic of conversation among Japanese people, even though they are well aware of the drug as the scientist (Sotoshi Omura) who won the Nobel for it is quite famous. I’m pretty certain though that it is not being widely used as a prophyactic.
Its still not unknown in Japan for doctors not to tell their patients they have cancer if they think its not in their interest to know. And most (older) Japanese are absolutely fine about this. Pico Iyers has written about how his Japanese wifes friends all just quietly assumed she had ovarian cancer when she had regular hospital visits for a gyn problem, on no evidence whatever.
> Ditto Uttar Pradesh
On Uttar Pradesh, I did some Googling about, and found a couple of sources (neither of which have anything to do with the Gateway Pundit).
“Uttar Pradesh has changed. Uttar Pradesh is much more efficient, and has a good accountability system”: Jai Pratap Singh, Health Minister, Uttar Pradesh Health Analytics Asia:
There is no mention of Ivermectin (but there is no mention of any other medicine or vaccine either). The entire summit is on video; perhaps somebody was time to listen to it.
I think this is the key place to dig:
We need to know what those “sufficient medicines” were. And from The Indian Express, May 12, 2021:
(This was picked up by MSN, and a couple of readers linked to it. It took me forever to defeat Google’s censorship; the MSN link never showed up, and the original was like four pages into the results.)
I think a truly definitive answer would take reporting from Indian Newspapers not in English….
…and the only side-effect was that many ended up a little ho(a)rse./sarc
Thank you; I should have clarified, the final third of the video I linked at “makes the ridiculous assumption…” features an Indian doctor expounding on the covid situation there (I described the video in a bit more detail in a long rant in links yesterday). The first two thirds cover Australia and Taiwan. Any of these are worth a watch if you can spare the time. The Indian gentleman doesn’t mention Ivermectin either. Whether this is because of an Imertà or because it’s not considered a significant factor, I don’t know.
I would also add: yes we do need to know what sufficient medicines are, but also, just after that:
I mean, can you bloody imagine? That is absolutely fantastic. Proper grown-up stuff. We have much to learn in the pastier parts of the anglosphere.
Lambert’s comments are good and he implies how hard it was to find very specific information, or even information at all. So, you comment “as usual it largely depends on who you believe or trust.” Well, think of it from another prospective. Who do you (or anyone) “not” trust? I do not trust: MSM, google’s censorship; youtube’s censorship, f’book’s censorship, etc. Just the fact that so many “corporate owned” outlets will not allow discussion of Ivermectin is a good indicator of it’s efficacy. Also, why do you think IM Doc is keeping us in the loop regarding Covid, vaccines, off label treatments (such as Ivermectin) – anonymously? Because he knows his job would be on the line. He, as many doctors have been, could be easily attacked by the groups we are told to trust: MSM, google, f’book, Faucci, AMA, CDC, the list goes on.
You will not find many people or organizations you can trust. So, actions speak louder than words. Mexico, Uttar Pradesh, most of central Africa – places using Ivermectin. Cases, deaths, Covid drop. Don’t look to modern Pravdas for “answers”.
To clarify, that was not my comment (your reply is nested below mine so I’m assuming you’re replying to me). I think that is an extremely limited if not deeply flawed hermeneutic, in and of itself. Ditto your suggested inversion of the question.
I ‘trust’ NC not because of its conclusions – which are frequently, as Yves likes to say, early and accurate – but because of their methods, which far surpass anything the ivermectin monomaniacals (or the vaccine monomaniacals in what we like to call the Mainstream Media, for that matter) – have had to offer so far. Or, to put it another way
No!! This is insanely bad reasoning!! It is completely illogical. The former proposition has absolutely no bearing on the latter question.
I do not dispute this. That fact alone proves nothing about Ivermectin, the vaccines, or anything else. It indicates, paraphrasing IMD’s comments of a few days ago, that we live in a corrupt and unserious society. Recall also in IMD’s comments of a few days ago – for which I expressed my sincere gratitude – that he expressed frustration of his own in sorting the wheat from the chaff as far as reliable Ivermectin information goes, including from its zealous advocates. Luckily, he is in a position to be able to make his own clinical observations from using the drug. That he chooses to share them with us is an extremely valuable service to the readership for which, I reiterate, I am immensely grateful. I also think that it’s extremely important to point out that this relationship wouldn’t work if I/we also didn’t trust Yves et al to do their due diligence on the sources of their information, and check their bona fides. Once upon a time, this used to be called journalism.
I’m not sure if this remark was addressing me directly, but anyone who has been regularly reading NC comments over the past two years and has even a passing familiarity with my comments would presumably find the notion that I do anything of the sort with regards to Covid-19 as preposterous as I do. You can’t look to modern Pravdas for automatic, readymade answers to difficult and complex questions, no. By exactly the same token, you can’t look to modern counter-Pravdas for automatic, readymade answers to difficult and complex questions, either. Knowledge is harder than that. I would also add that the fact that I spend much of my comment-writing time both defending and attacking Ivermectin (or, more accurately, the Ivermectin Monomaniacals) gives me considerable encouragement, as far as my own personal theory of knowledge goes.
I do not understand how you can say this, with the apparent underlying assumption that it bears conclusive weight, and expect to be taken seriously. Again, complex systems are complex. Again, even if Ivermectin has permanently “defeated” covid in mexico, uttar pradesh, and central Africa (which I find an extremely dubious and hubristic proposition but let’s roll with it) – your observation does not prove it. It does not come close to proving it, by any standard. To claim that it does, as I said above, is thinking worthy of a mainstream macroeconomist. What such a correlation suggests is a worthwhile line of inquiry and investigation, and nothing more. That such lines of inquiry and investigation are stymied and stigmatised is further evidence of that aforementioned corrupt and unserious society, but it is not evidence, one way or the other, about Ivermectin.
A shorter version of Basil Pesto’s reasoning (although I very much appreciate the patience and detail of the comment) is that relying on the source as the basis for legitimacy (or presumed inaccuracy) is a a fundamentally flawed method. That is why both ad hominem and argument from authority are deemed to be invalid methods of argumentation. Otherwise you are operating as a mirror image of those who see, say, Fox or MSNBC as gospel.
Thanks for expressing this so well. Interpreting data (and interpreting the interpretations of data) is very, very difficult, especially when there are so many bad faith actors involved. Covid is a perfect storm for bad interpretations.
And I feel the frustration especially as someone with no scientific expertise, background or acumen. I find it… challenging? frustrating? to have to be so reliant on other people, intellectually. You really run the risk of driving yourself into cul-de-sacs of confirmation bias and probably other kinds of bias too, I think. That reliance means trust is important, yes, but to reiterate: the trust always has to be in the methods of the speaker rather than the identity of the speaker.
Obviously I meant to write “and it has no policymaking authority” asdhfjjshfhdh
> It has an Uttar Pradesh feel about it & as usual it largely depends on who you believe or trust.
Or the research you are willing to do. For (I think) the third time:
It may indeed be that IVM use is widespread in Japan. But a recommendation for off-label use under battlefield conditions does not support that claim.
FWIW, the translation of both the headline and the quoted paragraph look pretty good to me — and I’ve got a bit of experience to back me up. Two years teaching English in Japan, then six or so translating modest technical documents for a Japanese auto-parts maker’s US factory, and 5+ years of my fourth career as an attorney doing Japanese-language document review. . . .
if i recall correctly, Japan currently has a daily cap of 5,000 inbound travellers…for a nation of 1xx million.
Until the West sends over a new Admiral Perry.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition
People over “here” might like to think that Japan is a “Western” power, but it is significantly different still.
Technology is fungible.The differing cultures adapt it to their needs and desires.
It isn’t an independent power, it’s a subservient client state of the US.
Its a fascinating theory. I’ve been mystified by the sudden drop in Japan and I’ve seen no other convincing explanation – while the Japanese are good with masking, as the photo in the article indicates, there is plenty of high risk behaviour in Japan as anyone who’s been to a few Izakaya can testify.
The Japanese have recently relaxed their quarantine requirements – I know two people flying to Japan this month, one Japanese, one Jet (teaching English). So far as I’ve heard, the quarantine has not been particularly strict, certainly not by Chinese or Vietnamese standards. So I hope that they don’t end up accidentally introducing some non-kamikaze delta varients.
>Vaccine Mandates
“Several European countries saw angry protests against tougher restrictions turn violent over the weekend” Though you wouldn’t know it by reading the news this morning.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59369488
>Disney World puts pause on COVID vaccine mandate, cast member tells FOX 35
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/source-disney-world-puts-pause-on-covid-vaccine-mandate
What is your take on this article? Something to it or just Glenn Beck freewheeling associations?
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/11/19/did-klaus-schwab-create-army-davos-yes-men-facilitate-his-great-reset/
Articles that deal with Klaus Schwab always throw me into an endless loop: His connection with Kissinger, his family pedigree, his creation of the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow School” mentioned in the article you linked to, etc…T
I always wonder which of the posters on here also post on The Automatic Earth. I am sure I can recognize a couple!
This interview from a local Dutch newspaper highlights some of the underlying issues studiously avoided by both the media and the political/managerial class. The gist of it is that the chairman of the police union in response to the Rotterdam riots referred to in the BBC article says “we have been warning of radicalization of the protest for years.” He continues by laying the blame squarely on the (political) managers who he accuses of approaching any crisis with platitudes and additional bureaucracy in the form of unsustainable and unenforceable rules. He adds this is not a CV-19 emergent phenomenon, but something that is rooted in the austerity measures imposed around 2014. (As an aside, this is not exclusively a police issue, but something ubiquitous in all the social services like health, welfare and education, and, though he does not mention it, was accompanied by large-scale privatisation. Surprise!)
Although online translators usually do an adequate job, the dripping sarcasm and exasperation of the criticism may be lost.
Green Pass and COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shots in Israel – A More ‘Realistic’ Empirical Assessment Analyzing the National Airport Data.
” Israel national airport is a unique setting, where the Vaccinated and Unvaccinated individuals all have to test, which allows a more objective assessment of both the booster and Green Pass efficacy in preventing infections. The analysis suggests that the positivity rate (number of cases divided by number of tests) among the Vaccinated cohort throughout August-October is only 1.54-fold smaller than the one among the Unvaccinated cohort (about 35% relative protection). More specifically, compared to the Unvaccinated group, the Vaccinated group has a significantly higher positivity rate during the month of August, then in September it shows a 3.45-fold smaller positivity rate (71% relative protection), and this protection decreases to 2.66-fold (62% protection) during October. The analysis suggests that the relative protection of the booster shot against infection is likely to be significantly smaller than the initial estimates of 10-11-fold (over 90%) reported by the MOH, probably around 60% at best. This also implies that the absolute number of infected individuals in the Vaccinated group is likely to be at least as high as in the Unvaccinated, raising serious concerns that the new Green Pass is inefficient in preventing infection spread, and could expose high risk individuals to risk.
href=”https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3963606″>
>Massive demonstration against “green passports” in Rome this past weekend.
https://youtu.be/qocFjwgvhew
I’ve been wanting to show off this piece by Transit Policy Guru Alon Levy here:
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/11/20/institutional-issues-transparency/
re : Pfizer Will Allow Its Covid Pill to Be Made and Sold Cheaply in Poor Countries
Per Dr. John Campbell, Ivermectin blocks the same part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the Pfizer anti-viral does PLUS five other parts of the virus.
I know which one I’d choose, even if the Pfizer anti-viral was FREE.
Interesting times …
Its almost as if Pfizer investigated why the-drug-which-shall-not-be-named was so effective and, having found out why, worked on a substitute which would do the same job – but at a premium price.
While leaving a few opportunities for additional drugs to “supplement” the first.
If I understand things correctly, Pfizer is not willing to allow low-income countries to cheaply produce their own vaccines, but they are willing to let them cheaply produced their treatment pill. It seems to me that their main goal here is to compete against Ivermectin, and has nothing to do with global health or equality of healthcare access.
Ivermectin must be destroyed. In 2017 Ivermectin was being discussed as a wonder drug for many many different Medical ailments, which would therefore threaten profits across a range of diseases including cancer and alcoholism:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
I can’t quote it all here, but there is a lot in the article and there are footnotes galore to the studies. Remember this article was written before covid-19 ever showed up. Anyway, look at the article and read about the antiviral possibilities again HIV, Encephalitis, Dengue and more, and the antibacterial research against tuberculosis. Then there’s a very long section about cancer-fighting properties.
So again, Ivermectin is the drug that must be destroyed for pharmaceutical profits across many diseases. It is not limited to just covid-19 treatment.
If I understand things correctly, Pfizer is not willing to allow low-income countries to cheaply produce their own vaccines, but they are willing to let them cheaply produced their treatment pill. It seems to me that their main goal here is to compete against the drug that cannot be named, and has nothing to do with global health or equality of healthcare access.
The drug that cannot be named must be destroyed. In 2017 it was being discussed as a wonder drug for many many different Medical ailments, which would therefore threaten profits across a range of diseases including cancer and alcoholism:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
There is a lot in the article and there are footnotes galore to the studies. Remember this article was written before covid-19 ever showed up. Anyway, look at the article and read about the antiviral possibilities again HIV, Encephalitis, Dengue and more, and the antibacterial research against tuberculosis. Then there’s a very long section about cancer-fighting properties.
Fun fact: the mosquitoes that carry malaria die after biting someone who has been dosed by this mysterious drug that cannot be named!!
So again, this drug must be destroyed for pharmaceutical profits across many diseases. It is not limited to just covid-19 treatment.
Its important to note that Ivermectin produces only a “partial” blocking. I think its too early to say definitively the Pfizer drug is just ivermectin rebranded. If the drug is able to more thoroughly block the Covid activity it could be much more effective than Ivermectin is
Or it could not be the case and they just ripped off a generic drug. I’ll wait for more data
That’s not the case, as Campbell’s video explains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufy2AweXRkc.
Structurally / chemically the Pfizer drug is very different from Ivermectin.
I want to know how well tolerated the Pfizer drug is in the human body. We have heaps of pharmacological data on Ivermectin, literally decades of use and record keeping. When we look at the recent reports of the mRNA vaccines causing cardiac inflammation markers to rise, it is a good reminder that it takes a long time to work out all the quirks of novel drugs. For the vaccines there was a plausible excuse that the extreme need meant that the normal long term studies could be put aside for the moment. In terms of a treatment drug, that is a harder argument to sustain.
In the US context, I see another big problem with the $800 ‘treatment pill’ — will you need a doctor to sign off on it if insurance is going to cover it? If this is the case, the sheer logistics of getting seen by an already-overwhelmed health system to get a prescription will cause a time-lag which will reduce effectiveness, as the more you let a virus entrench itself the harder it is to dig out.
> Per Dr. John Campbell, Ivermectin blocks the same part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the Pfizer anti-viral does PLUS five other parts of the virus.
I’d like a little more back-up on this; it’s obviously a key point. Readers?
I believe this was Campbell’s source.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/
Well he’s got links to all the papers in his Vid. I don’t think he’s making this up. He admits the Pfizer drugs may attack these issues, as well, but so far only the one method of action has been disclosed by Pfizer.
True that. Yes, he always supplies links. Also, take note. As Lambert described earlier, many links seem to disappear or get put many pages back in searches. I have bookmarked some that in fact are gone now. Again, actoins speak louder than words. If Pfizer, CDC, MSM, powerful search engines (Bing, google, safari) and other “in the corporate club” organizations are against it, I’m for it.
Caylan Ford: Like COVID-19, digital passports could be with us forever
Once we go down this road, we may ruefully discover that there is no off-ramp
https://thehub.ca/2021-11-19/caylan-ford-like-covid-digital-passports-could-be-with-us-forever/
And a majority of the population now has to choose between admitting they were conned with “safe and effective” covid shots or just accepting another click of the authoritarian ratchet. I am not optimistic about which way it’s gonna go.
From the article:
…like so many emergency or war-times measures of times past, we can expect these new mechanisms of surveillance and control to remain with us in the post-pandemic era, repurposed for new ends.
Which made me think of the QR code:
The QR code was invented in Japan by a development team led by Masahiro Hara for the company Denso Wave…the task was to create a barcode that could easily track automobiles and automobile parts during manufacturing…They did not expect it to be used outside of the automotive industry.
https://www.sproutqr.com/blog/qr-code-history
I also see that since it’s original development in 1990’s, the technology has now improved to include “microQR” codes. There are also color coded ones with multiple dimension layered data encoding.
Yes indeed there is cause for concern when a technology invented for auto parts management turns into a technology to manage you and me.
on that Greenhalgh et al article, earlier today I stumbled upon this fascinating twitter thread responding to it, which draws on the work of 20th C microbiologist and epistemologist, Ludwik Fleck. His plato.stanford page is very interesting. Consider this quoted part:
[background: esoteric and exoteric circles, described a few paragraphs before, speak to the following – the esoteric circle is made up of those thinkers and researchers on the vanguard doing the work, and the exoteric circle is the group of “supporters”
aware of and admiring of them. So “the medical establishment”, which we discussed the other day might be one esoteric circle, and people with Fauci action figures might be its accompanying esoteric circle. Similarly, covid eliminationists and Zero Coviders – OzSage, Yaneer Bar Yam and his colleagues, someone like GM on NC are another esoteric circle, and someone like me with no scientific expertise but with a general scientific interest and sympathetic to their research and analysis forms part of that exoteric circle. Hopefully I have that right.]
Interesting little Monday night rabbit hole I’ve found myself in! Haven’t wrapped my head around these concepts by any means yet, but wanted to share them here before I forgot.
Thanks for this comment. The “fascinating twitter thread” you link is an excellent read.
I should also add, the Greenhalgh et al paper it comments on and which is linked to today is a must read, and probably has a place in my own personal listicle of The Top 6 Papers of the Covid Pandemic ?
Its a fantastic paper. Its ironic though that Greenhalgh herself joined in the ‘horse paste’ narrative over the drug that shall not be mentioned. It shows the power of groupthink, whether esoteric or exoteric (I do like that distinction, I’ll try to annoy people by introducing it into arguments with the medics in my family).
It is. a cautionary tale of intellectual blind-spots, and disappointing behaviour that one can only hope she reflects upon later in a self-critical moment. Her politics seem to lean generic contemporary liberal – fair enough, nobody’s perfect – but upon discovering that, it did seem clear to me what was driving her horse paste venomousness. It seems part of the overriding tendency to condemn anyone who’s unvaccinated or not vaccination obsessed as ‘anti-vax’, as though this relatively tiny movement of fringe simpletons (pre-covid anti-vaxxers) could possibly expand, what, 100,000-fold overnight with absolutely no other plausible or legitimate explanation for the large numbers of unvaccinated? Yikes. Do me a favour.
Take into account the fact that science, once a tool and mode of epistemological inquiry was during WW2 absorbed by the state/corporate nexus in all the great powers. There’s no democratizing anything. Research is conducted in shiny and expensive corporate labs or state funded universities. Information is doled out on a ‘need to know’ basis to friendly press and narratives formed that solidify and enhance the power of the esoteric circles.
This isn’t the world of Tesla, Edison and Ben Franklin anymore. It’s Pfizer, Raytheon and Con-Agra. And ultimately, they are the state.
Alexander Fleming was made the hero of penicillin, whereas in truth he only stumbled on the mould in an unwashed petri dish by pure accident & did very little with it. He did however have friends in high places such as Churchill & Lord Beaverbrook – an advantage lacking for the Australian scientist Howard Flory who fought like hell to get it out there in time for D-Day. After reading about the hellish state of what were called sceptic wards in which you could find yourself by simply scratching your finger, I’m sure as hell glad that he did & ironically if he had not Fleming would very likely not have become famous & got the Nobel prize which he shared with Florey & an Austrian scientist named Ernst Chain who have both been largely forgotten.
Chain wanted to patent it & it would have made the team very rich, but as it was in the Britain of that time it was considered unethical to patent medical discoveries they decided not to.
Florey is not forgotten down here, in fact he is a bit of a folk hero where I’m from as he comes from my home city city, and was an alma mater of my high school and university, so we are very happy to chauvinistically gloat about his accomplishments, an attitude which was inculcated from a young age ;)
the BBC put out a decent little edutainment biopic on Florey & Chain a while back. Watching McNulty have a crack at a half-Adelaide/half-Pommy accent in particular was a special treat.
rather, my high school and university were his alma maters I should have said, oops. Anyway, should maybe give that movie another watch given how obsessed I’ve become with public health in the last couple of years.
Thank you. The thinker/writer who interests me the most, Philip Mirowski, is very influenced by Fleck and apparently won a Fleck Prize. Mirowski’s concept of a Neoliberal Thought Collective builds on Fleck. It really puts a light bulb on for me when someone tries to delineate that there are intermediate forms of organization that don’t leap all the way to unrealistic, undifferentiated lockstep like a conspiracy, at one end, or a genius at the other. When an interviewer tries to say conspiracy to Mirowski, he says, please pay attention to Fleck and a thought collective. There is something else. Any time I’ve come across “social epistemology,” it seems incredibly fascinating and worthwhile.
Thanks you as well, perhaps I should pay closer attention to Mirowski’s work. Any good starting points to recommend?
Nathan Tankus interviewed him here on NC, and they mention Fleck quite a bit even:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/fixing-old-markets-with-new-markets-the-origins-and-practice-of-neoliberalism.html
And Yves ran this:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/philip-mirowski-this-is-water-or-is-it-the-neoliberal-thought-collective.html
Somebody pulled together several online talks into a youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIzLJvIwikVwjUbp5GkSXw
Try one of the two with “science” in the title, for instance. There’s a lot about the IP regime, relevant to the vaccines.
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re: Rittenhouse’s Winning Strategy Rested on Tear-Filled Testimony – Bloomberg
It’s odd the legal experts in the article don’t mention one large mistake, imo, the prosecution made when trying to discredit the self-defense argument: The prosecutor pointed an AR-15 at the jury for effect.
Why was that a mistake? Because, if I’d been on the jury my first emotion/though would be to duck or run away. In all the videos Rittenhouse is seen running away from people chasing him. The prosecution unintentionally made the defense case, imo.
edit: working link to image:
https://thesource.com/2021/11/16/prosecutor-points-ar-15-rifle-at-jury-during-kyle-rittenhouse-murder-trial/
Haven’t commented on Rittenhouse before, mostly because my dislike of him as he apparently has no self-awareness nor empathy for other people. He’d be great in politics. Anyway, Rittenhouse maintained that he was at that event to render first-aid which is a fair excuse. But did he even have a bag full of medical supplies with him at all? From the film clip I saw of him a coupla weeks ago, I saw no sign of a medical bag that you would expect a ‘medic’ to carry. Or did I miss it?
You missed it. It’s the bag he was wearing on a cross-body strap.
This 13minute video has been linked 2 or 3 times already on NC. There’s a brief clip starting at the 3:40 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkTnQfjRvk0
Thanks flora for that.
You’re welcome Rev.
An interesting contrast in the chaser/chased category is a trial happening in Georgia. Three men who chased down one man because they thought he’d done something wrong and ended up shooting him are now claiming self-defense.
Jonathan Turley’s column on the Arbery trial:
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/21/arbery-trial-judge-delivers-massive-blow-to-the-defense-on-the-eve-of-closing-statements/
The prosecutor’s job was to prove to the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rittenhouse COULD NOT HAVE BEEN in fear for his life when he shot those men. Watching the videos, it’s impossible to believe that that standard could ever have been met.
From the article:
From the git go, national grandstanders sought to make this case about their pet causes–gun control and “racism.” That includes, by the way, Rittenhouse’s first lawyer, lin wood, who runs some sort of 2nd Amendment advocacy group. (It was this group that helped raise Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail and now wants the dough back.)
According to a post-verdict interview, the lawyer who won the case, Mark Richards, said that when he was offered the case he told Kyle that he didn’t “do causes.” His only concern was WI law as written which was as it should be.
National bloviators like bloomberg continue to try to make this case about something it never was to serve national political interests. It’s what they do. They don’t give two shits about Kyle Rittenhouse or the people he shot.
My grandfather was a medic in WWI. I never met him, as he died shortly after his two chlidren were born. My grandmother briefly related how when he treated men who had inhaled mustard gas, he breathed the toxic gas in as he ripped their clothing off to treat them. He suffered lung damage and died of Tuberculosis. His young daughter caught it and was ill for almost two years before she recovered. Another child, who had a “spot” on her lung worked as a nurse in a Tuberculosis rehabilitation center in a sunshine state. This child never became ill. I find it insulting that Rittenhouse calls himself a “medic”. Carrying a medical bag with his AR-15 is no excuse for his purposefully walking into a conflict situation carrying an obvious lethal weapon. If citizens continue to carry gunz into any protest or uprising of other citizens , acting as “enforcers of law” or order, then it is vigilantism. Even if men with a skateboard or a chain chased him, with the result of his shooting them, it still was precipitated with his bringing a gun into the situation. That he received no consequences, on any charges against him, signals it is OK to be a vigilante in the country. Divide and conquer is going as some plan.
My great uncle died of mustard gas attack in the trenches in France in WWI. I’m not offended by this young man. (So much for the argument from authority as if “authority” is monolithic.) Potato – potatoe, I guess. We are quibbling around the edges of the law of this particular case, imo.
The salient point of my comment, and therefore my opinion, is that “the young man” was acting as a vigilante in the situation. Of course, you have your’s. My comment was more nuanced then my offence of his calling himself a medic.
My point is on what basis we will make those judgements. I guess we will agree ( I hope) to disagree on that point.
Right on, agree to that.
We do.
The salient point is that you’re basically engaging in a ‘he was asking for it’ style argument. Figured in the era of #metoo we would be past that sort of thing.
The video I watched (a part of a slick U tube propoganda production) evem showed him shooting someone who was trying to kick the gun out of his hand at close range and shoot another person on his arm at close range. The earlier part of the view stated that he was defending the used car dealership. Was he the security guard? It didn’t say so. Why was it his business to defend the place?
I believe relatives owned it. And used car dealers down here don’t have guards. They have alarms and maybe a dog or two.
the late Christopher Hitchens on events of 22 November 1963, without paywall
https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v13/n21/christopher-hitchens/on-the-imagining-of-conspiracy
god, he was so damn good when he was in the mood. ‘No One Left To Lie To’ is an essential polemic imo, and as necessary a companion to understanding modern liberalism, albeit in a very different way, as ‘Listen, Liberal’.
“U.S., Israeli officials air public disagreements over upcoming nuclear talks with Iran”
The basic disagreement is that Israel wants the United States to attack Iran for it but the US has a lot bigger fish to fry in the far east. It may be that it has dawned with a lot of people in Washington that if they had stuck with the Iran nuclear deal back in 2016, that to a large extent the whole region could have been de-prioritized as things settled down and a lot of lucrative markets could have opened up for it in Iran, especially airliners. And Iran would have no breakout capacity which was mostly the point of all those sanctions. And that would mean that a lot of assets, particularly military ones, could have been allocated to the Pacific where they may be needed more. But for Israel, the priority is for the US to keep all those assets in the middle east to threaten Iran with and that may be why they helped Trump renege on that Iran nuclear deal. Be interesting to see who gets their way.
It wouldn’t be a surprise. With recent moves by China (I know it’s the US at fault but bear with me), the US is moving into a place it hasn’t been in since the Cold War. We aren’t looking at foreign policy to maximize profits but actual national security concerns (still about profits but much more reasonable).
Israel was a fine little dog one could always scoop up and bring inside if it barked too much in 70’s and 80’s and could be ignored or coddled, but it offers nothing now. East v West…yawn. And with increased SCO cooperation, not too long ago a joke, Iran is a huge forward base in any conflict with China, and China wouldn’t even need to send resources. We know the results of war games, and realistically, Disney World won’t be closed due to Iranian action. We couldn’t wear masks. Americans won’t do anything extra.
Then there is the cost of war issues. We aren’t spending 700 billion on defense. We are ensuring profits for investors.
Cold War is the health of the state? Or is it part of Biden’s ongoing drive to get his approval rating down to zero?
One suspects though that all the saber rattling is just trash talk because even if Israel did get the US to bomb, highly accurate Iranians missiles would rain down on Tel Aviv. Or so I read.
Apparently Iran has developed highly accurate guided missiles and used them against one of our bases in Iraq as a warning (nobody was killed). And also apparently they have distributed these to their allies in Lebanon. If Israel starts openly bombing Iran there will be consequences for them that no Iron Dome will prevent.
Which is to say nobody wants a real, all out, war against Iran. It’s all likely posturing.
IMO, Israel on the current trajectory will find, on day, it has no friends to call on anymore.
And that, at least some of its neighbors, have moved past when Israel could run circles around them.
It’s not going to like that waking up, but that’s what it’s heading towards.
Israel had a few waves of immigrants from the US who brought a certain amount of cachet in the US and then went full on with the evangelicals, but the Evangelicals aren’t the power they once were even within the GOP. They had to attach themselves to Trump.
The last big rush was after 1973. That was a long time ago. Between that, the assimilation of Jews worldwide into local populations as opposed to the separate pops in Europe and the distance from World War II, there is no way they garner enough support.
I think the clear alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel is they both recognize their similarities.
Military industrial complex and the littoral combat ship. That is a good refresh to the topic frequently discussed here, and the American military choices (such as the F35) on spending programs to support our finest contractors. In this instance, no one really comes out looking great.
Are those ships in place or still in use, I have to wonder. Surely the US Navy gained something out of the expense of time / money.
No, unless the US it fighting developing world countries.
the US Navy is/will be sitting ducks to current and future missile tech.
Ironically/paradoxically, PRC or Russia being able to sink every US carrier west of Guam (east of Ireland) might add stability as any sane, competent advisor will tell the White House that any war against PRC or Russia will see daily casualty rates not seen since the Korean War or 1945.
I imagine any war that doesn’t go nuclear would be relatively quick with a surge in casualties before supply lines are disrupted and the US fails to gain total air superiority in the first two weeks (our planes basically need their engines to be rebuilt after two weeks of heavy use). We will be forced into a cease fire where we withdraw in organized waves. The locals who supply bases are like mercenaries in times past. Is the paycheck worth getting killed? We don’t have a proper surface fleet to resupply, and look how upset people over Christmas shopping. We aren’t pulling a draft for a merchant marine Corp.
Drone footage of sailors we can’t rescue will be widely disseminated. Unlike Iraq, our potential adversaries can out an end to necessary buildups even if we have sufficient forces.
Conversely, the same problems that apply to us, apply to any potential adversary. They won’t be taking too much real estate. Paris and Berlin aren’t that far apart, so if the French army mucks up early, whoops. It’s not like the Chinese will be landing in Korea or Japan, or Russian tanks roll into Berlin anytime soon. There is plenty of room to come down.
I figure nukes and cruise missiles being lobbed at PRC headquarters are our best “defense” in any potential conflict. The Navy is a sitting duck, but oh well, it’s not the Hamptons. My gut is the spectre of CNN running videos sinking navy ships we can’t rescue because of missiles scared Obama in Syria more than anything.
Aw c’mon man (woman or other), how could we possibly go to war with a country that makes all our Christmas toys? Who in their right mind would pick a fight with Santa Claus? Think of the children!
We’re taught to believe in the impossible, in that 1 man delivers the goods to every person in the world as long as they believe, and then there’s also Santa Claus who does a similar service.
We all know Santa is bullshit by the time we’re 10, but faith in Jesus never goes away for far too many.
But, but he did rise from the dead, didn’t he?
jesus?…oh…I thought you meant bezos, my bad
> Paris and Berlin aren’t that far apart …
Thank you, NotTim. Facts such as this need to be constantly brought before the geographically-challenged of this world, of which there are alas more than a few.
Paris and Berlin in fact are closer to each other than are, for example, Atlanta and Miami.
“our planes basically need their engines to be rebuilt after two weeks of heavy use”
Where did you hear that?
“Surely the US Navy gained something out of the expense of time / money.”
Why ‘yes’, yes they did. Navy leadership gained lucrative post-retirement gigs at MIC companies & think tanks (cf the SEC, the FED, the FDA, the EPA, etc.).
Some lucky few landed gigs on CNN and other
outletscommodes, where they could be trotted out to opine along the narrative line.“…along the narrative line.” Or, as it is most truthfully called in Kashmir, “The Line of Control.”
They are still being built, even as relatively new ones are decommissioned. They’ll be quietly killed off – when a project like this is curtailed, the cost of maintenance tends to rocket as they run out of spare parts. Its the same with the Zumwalt destroyer, which was even more disastrous, but seems to avoided too much attention.
Various thoughts . . .
For Lambert and the gang, here it is once again;
https://nypost.com/2021/11/19/snow-leopard-perfectly-camouflaged-in-mountain-terrain-baffles-the-internet/
Re: IM Doc’s comments about a greater incidence of folks coming in sicker with a host of things post mRNA vaccines (November 19, 2021 at 7:04 pm) well, if I die sooner of heart attack or cancer, too bad for me, but if I get a chance to fight these off, it’s a fight I’ll gladly undertake because being asthmatic and overweight, it strikes me COVID19 would have likely taken me anyway. Put another way, yes it sucks, but what were we going to do, anyway? Just accept COVID19 was killing us?
Today’s report; increased risk of ACS biomarkers author’s conclusion: “mRNA [vaccines] dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.” – totally sucks.
The Russians and Donbas . . . our tacit support of Ukraine thumbing its nose at a deal signed under duress has repercussions. Surprised? Yeah, like my 5 y/o grandson protesting his time out punishment (after three prior warnings). Or more like, please, give me a break!
I saw it immediately this time. I don’t know why. It is “directly under” that part of the snow at the top of the picture which is shaped like the point of a spear pointing down. It is laid out “facing to the right” and it is looking straight at us.
Reading Politico on Ukraine and Russia you’d never guess that the whole crisis started in 2014 when the US spent billions on regime change in Ukraine with the goal of integration with NATO if not outright membership. Ever since the periodic complaints about Russian troop buildups boil down to “how dare you move your country next to our would be NATO border.” The article never explains why relations between Ukraine and Russia are any business at all of a United States that is thousands of miles away.
In short it is an appeal for deescalation based on the opposite world premise that the Russians have been the ones doing all the escalating.
The background to Russia’s decision to reunify with Crimea began at least as far back as 2013, when the Kremlin got wind of an Obama plan to take over Russia’s warm water port at Sevastopol.
Here is an article by Eric Zuesse:
https://www.europereloaded.com/the-obama-regimes-plan-to-seize-the-russian-naval-base-in-crimea/
And here is what looks like a RFI, which seems to be a preliminary to a RFP, or an offer to bid for a contract with the government:
https://govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportunity/renovation-of-sevastopol-school-5-ukraine-n3319113r1240-1
I’m surprised this is still on the internet.
Imagine what would have happened had this wild plan been initiated.
Re that heart study:
This comment from reddit sums up the issues pretty well:
I’d add that just from a quick glance he gives some kind of risk score as a main result, but attaches no errors. So quite absent the question of whether those markers are actually predictive of anything, we also don’t know if the results are significant (as the text claims). And the only source is the abstract for a poster presentation, which makes this basically hear-say.
FWIW, Dr. John Campbell posits that the cardiac events associated with the vaccine may be the result of now common practice of not aspirating the needle to insure the vaccine is not delivered into a blood vessel.
For more than you ever wanted to know about this here’s a study providing an equivocal conclusion:
Aspiration in injections: should we continue or abandon the practice?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333604/
Thank you for that link. One limitation I see with the paper is that when it discusses the injection of vaccines it is obviously written with traditional vaccines in mind. The new vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, AZ) are non-traditional and therefore arguably have risks attached to them which traditional vaccines perhaps do not.
FWIW, Dr. John Campbell based his positing on a study done on 6 (count ’em, six) mice, that were given massive doses of vaccine intravenously. Vaccines in humans are intermuscular. Also, 6 mice. Campbell is probably not the guy to go to for information on vaccines or anything else, imnsho.
It appears you have not watched Dr. Campbell’s presentations on aspiration. You place the burden of proof for his alleged “positing” entirely on the mouse study. Dr. Campbell did not, does not.
You exaggerate and mischaracterize his presentations.
Dr. Campbell has supplied much more data on failure to aspirate in many other YouTube videos than you appear to have watched. He is very careful about how much each study says and doesn’t say. He clearly identifies each study and encourages you to read every study he discusses. He encourages viewers to double check him. They do. He quickly corrects the (very few) mistakes his viewers catch, usually in his next-day video.
You assume all Covid vaccine injections are delivered into muscles. They’re supposed to be. But, in the real world, mistakes are made. Dr. Campbell has provided examples.
I appreciate how much Dr. Campbell strives to be very diligent and precise about what he offers. I appreciate how careful he is to separate his opinions from the conclusions in the studies he cites.
I won’t offer an opinion on the value, or lack of it, of your not-so-humble opinion.
You really should check out more of Dr. Campbell’s videos before making such a broad condemnation of his presentations. I think they will lead you to revise your opinion.
I can only imagine the paper was vetted and passed by the American Heart Association for good reason. They, unlike the Reddit thread author, would be cardiologists, no?
As generic’s comment states, this is not a paper -it’s an abstract. In fact, it’s an abstract for an eposter talk (not sure what an eposter is) given Nov. 13 at an AHA conference. I don’t know about within the medical field, but it’s my experience that pretty much anyone can give a poster presentation at a conference without the results being passed on by anyone. Gundry’s results may very well be valid, but I’d like something more substantive than a one paragraph abstract from an eposter session.
I mean my field isn’t medicine, but in physics I really wouldn’t claim that conference abstracts are vetted in any meaningful way. The way this works is that you send the abstract to the conference and some stressed post doc or sometimes even a professor who may or may not be close to your field reads it and concludes that it isn’t obviously a scam and that the university that you claim to be associated with exists. if you claim to have held some kind of ceramic in a neutron beam, measured the activation and then further claimed that it confirmed your ligma model the chances are very low that anyone is going to ask you what ligma is.
Physics conferences, and I would assume, most scientific conferences are structured in a tier system: Plenary talks give results of general interest. Getting a plenary talk in a major conference is something you can put on your CV. Then there are the normal presentations in smaller groups and finally posters. Posters can have pretty great stuff, but it’s also where you’d put graduate students who maybe could publish something after another three years of work, but who can only get the conference fee refunded from their university if they have a presentation. Basically if you have measured anything at all you can probably show a poster.
Now, after the conference there should be a published version of conference proceedings. The caveats of stressed postdocs who get nothing for any work they put in and have to publish their own stuff if they want to survive still applies, but at least someone somewhere will have judged the claims to be not entirely nonsense. If we had proceedings instead of only the abstract that would be a place to start at least.
Gundry has a history of putting up results as abstracts at poster sessions. If you go to the actual abstract for his result and click on his name, you go to AHA/ASA Journals and a list of 14 results for Gundry. Only one is a paper published in 2002. The rest are all abstracts at poster sessions or two are abstracts at “meeting report”.
I knew I’d seen his name before associated with poster sessions. In a critical review of Gundry’s book “The Plant Paradox”, T. Colin Campbell said the following of Gundry:
“His first big claim (pg xv) is that his findings are published in peer-reviewed medical journals. His “peer-reviewed” medical publication cited is an abstract published in the journal supplement for a poster presentation. Making a poster to display at a conference is nice, but this is a world apart from publishing actual clinical trial results in a peer reviewed journal. In other words, there is no detailed publication of his methods, his subjects, his results, or his intervention as would be commonly expected in a normal publication. His glowing description of this abstract is misleading, to put it mildly.”
Very interesting that the American Heart Association is straying off the BP Covid Reservation. They may actually think that their constituency getting heart damage and attacks from BP may not be in their best interest.
As we move along, more and more organizations will see that their interests do not align with those of BP/WHO/CDC, etc.
The John Burris article about the Crypto Bubble affecting the Housing Bubble makes a good point.
Real Estate is priced at the margin, a couple of high sales prices for a class of properties brings up the price of all the properties in that class while a couple of sales at lower prices brings them down.
FOR THAT CLASS.
I’m seeing serious weakness in the price of properties priced at less than $1MM, Zillow’s sale of “Investment” homes is an indicator.
I predict that the low end will see a serious correction by August 2022, the high end not much or not at all.
The Market has Bifurcated on the basis of wealth and class and I expect that trend to accelerate.
I’m enjoying my last dawn on this deck, the crows are yelling at me for breakfast and it’s time to share the last of my bread.
Whole grain wheat, if it matters.
But in my town, the high end people have bought up all the low end housing, so they can rent it to the rest of the people for profit.
Certainly, there’s not the same impetus in less popular locales, but has the price of real estate escalated as much in those areas?
One unintended consequence of the “the Rich buy up everything” idea is that those actually living in those properties lose any sense of responsibility to maintain the property. Slums are the end result. The Rich can rationalize this as being the “natural” result of renting to the “Deplorables.” However, as history shows, eventually, those “deplorables” will start preying on the Rich and their hangers on. They will be “where the money is.” Slowly but surely, the society will collapse.
One of the great policy decisions of the last century was the establishment of the GI Bill. Formerly lower class soldiers were given a chance to prosper within the existing system. This included housing. A major impetus towards the political radicalization of the “lower classes” was removed. Today’s elites have forgotten that lesson in Political Economy. Relearning this lesson will be very painful, even terminal, for many at the top.
The American Rachmans do try to keep their names out of the papers.
However, as history shows, eventually, those “deplorables” will start preying on the Rich and their hangers on. They will be “where the money is.” Slowly but surely, the society will collapse
I think we’ve passed the point where the deplorables can have an impact due to the surveillance state et al. The rich are currently enjoying their thelma and louise moment…brace for impact….
It is more than just the deplorable renting and there uncaring, but more that the extreme cost of renting takes so much of the time and money of the renters that they do not have enough left.
As an earlier example, one of the reasons Blacks acquired a bad reputation was because of them being redlined by the banks and refused housing by landlords, which forced them into overcrowded housing especially in cities like Chicago.
During the Great Migration of the mid twentieth century those cities’ ghettos remained the same size, or nearly so, despite the increasing number of people being forced to live there. Then add the contract system, where you bought you house on contract, not with a mortgaged due to them being denied mortgages. The desperate dreamers would sign a contract with the owner of the house, often corrupt, usually White, always vampiric.
Vastly overpriced houses, often in poor condition, that required extremely large monthly payments and being merely late by one day on payment would mean forfeiting all the money that had been paid, even if it was over decades, and possibly eviction. You could miss the date of the last payment needed to own your house and the owner could just evict you.
The brutal conditions forced on the contract holders forced them to be brutal to anyone renting from them as well plus working insane hours to keep making the payments. This also meant they had no money to maintain the usually dilapidated house.
The property owners and developers, often the same thing, used the poor conditions of the Black ghettos to make more money by using desperate Black families as block busters. Before a Black family moved in, the developers would put up fliers and start whisper campaigns to whip up fear of the dreaded Negros coming in and ruining the locals’ property values. Even on the chance of the locals being okay with the new family at first, by the end of the developer’s propaganda blitz, they would be very fearful.
The often violent protests and attempts to drive out the newcomers worked for the developer. His goal was to force property values down, buy all the local White housing on the cheap, and well, have more contract sales with the Blacks. Blacks looking for a place to live and Whites just wanting to live where they already were, sometimes after decades of paying a mortgage. Both would lose money and be forced either to live in an area where all the residents were becoming poor or leave their homes and everything they had put into them.
Since the wealthy developers in these cities had contacts with and gave “donations” to the city and county governments, the local police, the judges, and the local news media, they could ensure that the renters and owners would receive no help. Rather like California today, or the nation after 2008.
If White homeowners were to have a psychological revolution whereby they decided that a house was a place to live inside of and not a place to invest in for reselling at a markup, they would be less vulnerable to the fear of “falling property values”.
I used to joke that if I ever actually bought a house, I would put a car up on blocks in the front yard and put some fake cracks in the visible windows in order to keep property values from going too high in my neighborhood.
Cryptos are a commodity whose primary properties are fraud, extortion and speculation. It would be too much to expect an elite that is heavily engaged in similar activities to ban the production and ownership of these things. An interesting letter in today’s FT suggested that governments should treat cryptos the same way they treat gambling. Now there is something to think about.
I wonder if Zillow was secretly working for Black Rock the whole time and that selling thousands of houses to Black Rock in order to prevent real people from buying them was the whole secret-agenda point of the excercise.
Re: Stoller on Khan
Am I the only one confused by references to the “antitrust bar” when it’s composed of lawyers in the pro M&A camp? Shouldn’t it be called the “trust bar”?
That’s what I thought reading Stoller’s piece. I think it means the set of lawyers that work on antitrust issues from either side, but maybe its misleading due to the way he uses it.
You’ve got it. A parallel is how many (actually, I’d guess a significant majority) of attorneys practicing “labor law” are not on the side of labor.
antitrust bar = monopolist’s venal lawyers
Military Families are going hungry.
Allowing that to happen is beyond stupid, it is suicidal for elites to starve their enforcers.
It struck me that Donald Trump showed more good sense and more empathy for the common people during his last year in office than the Biden Administration has shown during its first year in charge.
Welcome to Bizzaro World.
“Three hots and a cot.” are part of the deal you make when you enlist. You do what they say and they provide a minimum of support. The lower ranks of the military were always mistreated but familial hunger and deprivation are a different thing.
Not intended as a boost to Biden, his renomination of Powell to chair the Fed proves (again) that “nothing will fundamentally change,” but I find it impossible to believe that trump has ever shown empathy to anyone, or thing, but trump. How many hundreds of thousands of americans died from covid in trump’s last year? How many who suffered with the virus are now scarred and debilitated? I recall trump calling the virus a “democratic hoax,” politicizing the crisis nearly from the first. And trump, the prototypical American capitalist, was chomping at the bit to get every american back to work as early as possible, hoping to open it all up on Easter, in April 2020, the public good be damned. Who would have suffered from that? Dying from covid? Didn’t trump say, it is what it is? Not much empathy there. His own re-election was his only concern, and his empathy stopped there. Remember, the elected class answers only to their masters, the capitalist money interests; and I ain’t that.
Not defending Biden but curious where you’re getting the idea that Trump showed empathy for common people. He may have “spoke” about it but his actions were the opposite. The most obvious are the numerous phony “veteran charity events” he fundraiser for and then pocketed the cash. Even being ordered to pay a $2M fine for one brazen case.
“Perhaps unbeknownst to his supporters and eager donors who ventured to his event last night, Donald Trump’s charity has donated virtually nothing to veterans’ charities.”
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/did-trump-exploit-veterans-again-in-event-to-draw-supporters-candidates-away-from-gop-debate/
Again, not defending Biden – or any other past president since none of them have any concern for the commoners beyond an occasional photo-op and rhetoric. Just curious why Trump, the most overtly elitist and lifelong conman, is the one presumed to be the most empathetic?
what odds do you put on biden ever sending out stimulus checks? (he still owes lambert 600 bucks last I heard…the 1400 came from trump, biden pocketed 600 after he got his…)
Yeah Democrats put more conditions on the not $2000 check. They never miss a chance to add a complicated means test.
Trump was not really empathetic in the same way that Obama was not really Black.
Trump knew how to play empathetic on TV just as Obama knew how to play Black on TV.
American Black Americans will never confess openly to having been fooled by Obama’s ” I am Black” schtick but they give backhanded evidence of being silently aware of if by their coming up with the new acronym ADOS for American Descendants Of Slavery, which Obama never was and never will be.
Or Kamala Harris either, unless we consider her descent from a slave-owning member of the Master Class to be a kind of “descent of slavery”. Which she will certainly invite us to do.
>Documents show Bill Gates has given $319 million to media outlets to promote his global agenda – Grayzone
The original MintPress report was in NC links not long ago. The Grayzone adds some additional color. Very important that this is more widely disseminated and digested.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/21/bill-gates-million-media-outlets-global-agenda/
Yes and thank you. Perfectly related to the earlier discussion about how hard it is to find any information on Ivermectin in large news outlets or from gvt. entities – they don’t want to upset Gates and their other Gatesesque funders and contributors.
Finally, QE for the masses…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/drivers-on-southern-california-highway-scramble-as-cash-falls-from-armoured-truck/UXAJKGEPOPAUE6BAOW6C2TSERE/
But it’s not the Ben Bernanke plan! You know the one, let’s drop money from a helicopter.
From a legal standpoint, one wonders. Is that stealing, or do we presume situational ethics ala George Costanza. “Jerry it’s not a lie if you believe it”.
RE: ACS Risk Biomarkers Significantly Increase After mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Cardiology Advisor (MV). “The risk of developing acute coronary syndrome (ACS) significantly increased in patients after receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to a report presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2021, held from November 13 to 15, 2021. The study included 566 men and women (1:1) aged 28-97 years, who were patients in a preventive cardiology practice.” From the session Abstract: “We conclude that the mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.”
Gundry seems like a weird actor at this point and time. He’s a former Heart Surgeon but now is doing media and supplement sales online and corporate sales for health products. The PR around the findings. released from his conference speech is odd to me as well.
First, the findings seem to imply to me (a novice) that VITT (vaccine induced thrombosis) from mRNA vaccines cause or contribute to endothelial inflammation and other complications related to the heart or clotting (paraphrasing here). This reminded me of the reports of many of the first people to die from CoVid and their symptoms (embolism, clotting in different parts of body, systemic inflammation etc..) Seems weird to suggest that the virus and the vaccine seem to be causing similar phenomena in the body.
Second, is this now the state of research in medicine that the actual research study or publication comes after the conference findings PR release?
Happy to be sorted out on either criticism – seems a bit off, but would actually like to read the study itself. Ben Goldacre’s book comes to mind – Bad Science, but I’ll withhold judgment until more information is known.
It is possible that the similarities between vaccine side effects and COVID symptoms regarding the heart inflammation etc. has to do with the vaccine encoding one of the active and damaging COVID proteins, the spike protein, which interacts with the ACE-2 receptor.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7541099/
A new vaccine encoding a different COVID protein might help this. I also expect that people who had a nasty reaction to the vaccine also likely would have had a bad reaction to a COVID infection as well.
That’s why Webster’s changed its definition of vaccine recently: these aren’t traditional vaccines and are really a mass experiment on humanity using failed mrna technology. Big pharma suppresses cheap cures and forces dangerous drugs on us. As these vaccines continue to fail the fact may become so unavoidable that perhaps we can break up these massive pharma companies and criminally prosecute their executives.
> That’s why Webster’s changed its definition of vaccine recently
Showing that Webster’s is not a serious dictionary.
I saw that the CDC changed their description of vaccines too. Wonder which changed their definition first? This MRA catalyst system used to be called gene therapy but people got a bit scared by that term, ergo, now that platform is called a vaccine.
Are there any English Language dictionaries which have not changed their definition of vaccine? The Oxford English? Others? ( Or more specifically Medical Dictionaries)?
If so, those would still be serious dictionaries, by that measure. It would be good to know which ones they are.
If enough tens of millions of people started calling them para vaccinoids, would that new word make it into the Webster’s Dictionary?
Appreciate the insight ghost. Hadn’t thought about it like that.
I also expect that people who had a nasty reaction to the vaccine also likely would have had a bad reaction to a COVID infection as well.
Except the virus is inhaled, not injected (in some cases, per poor technique, directly into a blood vessel).
> is this now the state of research in medicine that the actual research study or publication comes after the conference findings PR release?
If so, it’s with the approval of the American Heart Association, which presumably vetted the paper.
I told my friend who was asking about that, the same thing (as national conferences are properly vetted at the submission deadline). But the weird thing for me is if you google the author – you get someone who appears to be in the business of health and his website seemed far too entrepreneurial for my liking. I guess I am conditioned to think of 4 regional health centers come together with a leading expert to present clinical data like the abstract claimed to have found at a national conference.
Again, I am happy to be wrong if this person is a rigorous researcher who happens to be so outstanding at Heart Surgery, Selling Supplements and general health during a pandemic – but it would be nice to have the actual study.
I don’t think this is as damning as you do. Plenty of MDs have left practicing conventional medicine for health and longevity businesses because they can make much more money with less hassle, most of all not being an employee in a accredited health care organization and being pressured to do things you don’t like, like getting people in low cardiac risk categories to take an EKG every year and foisting statins on everyone with slightly elevated cholesterol. Plus no more dealing with insurance.
Two of my former endocrinologists have converted their practices totally to “anti-aging”.
Most derms were already there, probably 80% of what they do is cosmetic, only 20% teenagers with acne, removing bad cysts, etc.
My GP has remained in private practice as a GP by turning what I estimate is 60% of her practice over to non-reimbursed services like Botox. She makes enough on that to be able to do some GPing.
“Canada faces grain backlog with freight halted through B.C. after flooding Globe and Mail (IM).”
Update on flooding and landslides in southwestern BC: Drivers limited to 30 liters (6.6 Imperial gallons or 7.9 US) per fill-up—on the honor system—until the end of the month. Some highways one-lane alternating traffic, essential vehicles only.
No limits on food, but the provincial government is daily exhorting people to “avoid hoarding”.
This could be the costliest disaster in Canadian history.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8388250/bc-floods-damage-cost-repairs-insurance-most-expensive-natural-disaster-canadian-history/
I wonder if the insurance companies will be able to withstand the hit (even though many people were uninsured for flooding due to being in “high-risk areas”). One of the perverse effects of central banks’ low-interest policy is that insurers earn little or nothing on their reserves, which of course reduces the amount they can afford to pay out.
The cynic in me expects many refusals to honor insurance, convenient company bankruptcies, and much passing-of-the-buck to the government. (See: Hurricane Katrina 2005)
I had heard months ago that an ill-advised back-burn had done much damage to the largest grove of Sequoias, when it was lit just before 50 mph winds came calling, and the photos of the Redwood Mountain Grove in the link tell the tale unfortunately.
1 in 5 of the largest Sequoia trees are dead now that were very much alive, in 2020 hindsight. These all would’ve been trees where many predated Jesus and most were saplings during the Roman Empire, all lost on our watch. Shame on us.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-wildfires-sequoia-tree-population-year-20211120-ztmmjrbhzvg7di2k4czmilqnza-story.html
“Big Business Declares War on Lina Khan Matt Stoller, BIG (GF). A must-read (and especially insightful on factional conflict in the Republican Party).”
This resonated with an extended interview of Yuen Yuen Ang, on the question: Is the U.S. really less corrupt than China? While not typically a fan of Freakonomics Radio, I found this broadcast thought provoking.
She posits a taxonomy of various types of corruption and their consequences, which have proven to be usually but not in all instances bad in terms of fostering economic development. In contrasting the main types of corruption extant in China, currently being subject to reforms, with that of the U.S. she sees the type of corruption dominant here as having become largely financialized, institutionalized and opaque, and/or legalized, and therefore accepted as business as usual.
If concentrated corporate power can be regarded as an embodiment and agent of systemic corruption that has long enjoyed varying degrees of bipartisan support then the shift on populist the right against it, as described by Stoller, raises some intriguing possibilities.
i guess that means if obama had sent one bankster to jail he would have condemned the entire industry, no?
Taking any meeting abstract seriously is a neon strobe of danger.
As any experienced scientific journal editor knows, the sexiest talks in conferences invariably end up containing either embarrassing misinterpretation or jaw-dropping methodological flaws once the manuscript is written up and submitted for peer review. The reddit thread referenced above is pretty damning…but there’s probably a Hindawi journal with an impact factor of 0.00001 that will publish it.
Beware (pseudo-) science by press release.
> As any experienced scientific journal editor knows, the sexiest talks in conferences invariably end up containing either embarrassing misinterpretation or jaw-dropping methodological flaws once the manuscript is written up and submitted for peer review
I have in fact edited conference papers on technical matters that were the basis of talks (not posters). Just saying.
“The Ganja Gap”
I thought “ganja” was a euphemism for marijuana; maybe I’m getting old, or maybe Luke Coffey has smoked too much of it. Back in Cold War 1, it was all about the Fulda Gap. Now we’ve got the Suwalki Gap up north and the Ganja Gap down south. Can’t keep up with all these gaps; does this imply a Gap Gap as a replacement for the Missile Gap?
In all seriousness, this guy is a nutter. As contrast, here’s a realistic take re current affairs on NATO’s eastern border. Weichert is usually pretty neocon (regular contributor to the Washington Times, yikes), but he’s sensible on this one:
https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/is-russia-about-to-checkmate-us-in-europe/
> In all seriousness, this guy is a nutter.
Well, I did say he was from the Heritage Foundation. But even a loony can get a map right. Is the map right?
The map is accurate. Of course Armenia is more or less a Russian protectorate (the Russians have a military base there), so I think the gap is even narrower than he thinks.
The map does not consider the fact that Armenia has an extremity on the Iranian border and in north borders Russia. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia could be used as transit routes.
Let’s not forget the dire threat of this kind of gap!
Just back from a sweet kayak trip on the Colorado River on the Black Canyon stretch that starts just below Hoover Dam, hadn’t been on the river since Covid, and was glad to be back…
The birdlife was sublime, lots of Grebes, Canadian Geese and many others sometimes in groups of a hundred flying fast a few inches above the water, like so many sly scrapers.
We use an outfitter and i’ll give you an idea of how Vegas is faring vis a vis my conversation with the drivers that took us to the put-in spot and picked us up @ the put-out spot, both fine fellows.
The first one was a chef @ the Bellagio for 20 years when his job was axed on account of the pandemic and the second one had 30 years in working for Miller beer in LV, when he told me anybody with 20 or more years was let go on account of lack of John Barleycorn in the casinos.
Both emphasized how dramatic the Covid effect was for Pavlovegas, it’s ‘roll model’ being the glomming together of complete strangers too close to one another inside in one of the last places in the country where cigarette smoking isn’t frowned upon.
You get the idea Vegas is done for, the 1-2 punch of climate change in the guise of the Colorado River being more like a creek on account of prolonged drought and Covid not going away anytime soon.
I and a friend went to Vegas once for the annual meeting of his salt-water fish-keeping hobby group. He attended all the talks, I attended a few. I also tried going around Vegas a little bit to see some of it.
This was in High Summer and on one of those days, the actual temperature was 107 degrees. I had to do less walking in that heat than I intended. I saw a mockingbird clearly suffering, perched on a branch with wings drooping and mouth gaping open. There was also some kind of grackle that appeared perfectly happy. They had legs so long that they really did recall the dinosaurian ancestry of birds. Little birdosauruses hopping from table to table.
I went to a couple of grand buffets in a couple of the grand middle-class casino hotels. That was fun.
The massed roomfuls of machine-gamblers was just depressing, and the lights and sounds were severely overstimulating and overloading.
I would like to go back in winter some time when walking around is possible. it would be sad if America’s temple city of the Fun Gods ends up going extinct.
My Keven (he’s been my Kevin since 2007, sadly) went on an 8 1/2 hour rant about nothing into the wee hours Friday, and Kev’s not the sharpest blade so dull wasn’t unexpected of him.
You get the idea the main focus was setting a new record of blathering, beating the old length of 8 hours by Pelosi a few years ago, so technically it was a win going over the line, but mark it zero.
What effect will the Rittenhouse verdict have on the multitudes of Walter Mitty Sobchaks who have itchy trigger fingers and just got the go ahead to be the judge in Kangaroo Court?
“Public spirit” — I thought nationalism was a no-no word? — Oh, it’s an opinion piece about “mistrust, paranoia and exhaustion” in the New York Times no less.
https://news.yahoo.com/us-troops-families-hungry-don-184544805.html Isn’t this a national security issue in addition to a national shame?
“Let your own troops starve to build their morale and loyalty”, Sun Tzu.
I’ve always felt that George C. Marshall could have given Sun Tzu a swirly based on experience and troops commanded.
Isn’t that what Chiang Kai-Shek did with his own troops? Did it build their morale and loyalty?
Regarding the Politico article on Russian built up at the border.
One cannot give any credibility to the article when it has lies in it:
i.e.”But the bargain has never been realized on the ground. Ukraine has resisted entreaties to implement the political provisions of Minsk II. For example, rather than adopt a new constitution codifying new powers for Russia’s Donbas allies, the Ukrainian parliament passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the strategic goal of NATO and EU membership. Russia has taken advantage of Ukraine’s foot-dragging to justify its ongoing refusal to fulfill its side of the bargain.”
Russia has nothing to fulfill. Russia is not considered in the international documents as a party to the conflict, which is considered by the UN an internal conflict.
The point of the Minsk and UNSC resolution (which are publicly available and verifiable) is that after the Kyiv regime fulfills all the obligations it signed on, then the control of the border btw Donbas and Russia is reverted to Ukraine. Nothing for Russia to fulfill.
As such, with such gross and blatant lies, the entire article can be dismiss as trash. And the grinding sound of teeth at mentioning of needed compromise from the US in dealing with Russia on the issue…
It gets tedious doesn’t it?
The propaganda has vast payrolls behind it and has grown glaringly, exhaustingly obvious to anyone who follows any implicated event relatively closely and actually has a functional memory.
But there are so many polluted narratives, in fact just about every story in the front SECTION of the Times, WSJ or FT is implicated in at least one such polluted narrative. It would take a newsroom 10 times the size of the Times just to accurately keep up with the disinformation: it’s much easier to scramble information to support a view than it is to unscramble it to sort out truth.
Or it would take NC links and Water Cooler to keep facts in evidence!
Fear not, pancake lovers: OPEC of maple syrup taps sticky reserve Al Jazeera
*********
Better check if the stuff is actually there!
“Five years ago in Quebec, 3,000 tons of maple syrup were stolen from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup. At $2,000 per barrel (around 13 times the price of crude oil), it was a significant theft. The total stolen volume was estimated at $18.7 million, and much of it was never recovered. Here’s what went down.”
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/canada/quebec/articles/the-unusual-story-behind-the-great-canadian-maple-syrup-heist/
Maritimer
Gulp! lol
Re: 1619 Project.
I’m amazed at the word-splitting going on with all this. Whether or not slavery is the foundation of the U.S., whether or not prominent Virginians were the authors of the strike for independence (Constitution), whether or not plantation accounting is the source of Capitalism, misses the preponderant arc of American culture.
Since its beginning the US government was slow to protect it’s new (Black) citizens after the War (Reconstruction); white supremacy is an ongoing feature (See: slavery, native America extermination, mistreatment of the Chinese railway workers, or the Mexican laborers (Bracero’s) that maintained the agriculture industry during WWII, and Trump.); and the US has only a very brief interval of growing a Middle Class (while excluding non-whites).
The history projected by the 1619 project is no worse than the one most kids learned in primary school; it may even be more honest (even with its nitpicks).
I’m afraid that the 1619 project is much, much worse. It’s a psyops by the political establishment and endorsed by mobs like the New York Times. Let’s get honest about things. Right now there is a class war and the 1% have sucked up the bulk majority of the money to the point that what we call the middle-class is being eradicated by impoverishment. The majority of American are living in precarity while the 10% of the population who are the enablers of the 1% are also stressed just trying to keep their place. For the 1% things have never been better. For the 99%, not so much.
There are plenty of solutions such as bringing back Nixon-er taxes on the wealthy and ending the trillions given to them. You read that right. Trillions. Remember the CARES Act? That was several trillion dollars being given by the government to the wealthiest individuals & corporations in the country – for free. So what do we have? We have the 1619 project which deliberately seeks to divide people on the issue of race and embed it it the minds of people through the education system so that poor whites, blacks, Hispanics, etc never come together to fight the real enemy – the 1% – and demand economic & social justice. And Critical Race Theory is just part of this psyops to divide people as well. Note though that other people’s mileage may vary on this topic.
And something the Leftard Wokenazis want to trick us into overlooking is that the New York Times deliberately on purpose rolled out the 1619 Project to divert attention away from the developing Occupy Wall Street movement.
And Hannah-Jones was Satan’s little helper in this project of Class Privilege Preservation diversion.
Is a different telling of this nations history that does not extol Anglo virtue deliberately seek to divide people on race? No. I do not see the education system exploiting historical viewpoints to divide poor whites, Blacks, Hispanics. In many cases the divergent history presented in the 1619 project appears to have enlivened the discussion and increased awareness/cooperation of many. To demand economic and social justice for ALL, not the few. (Am I not to believe my eyes when I see thousands of white, Black, and Chicano’s in the street demanding justice for Floyd?)
The division in the US emanates from cultural selfishness, not some retelling of US history.
This has been linked to at NC a number of times to address the left political implications of the 1619 Project.
And in summary, this:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html.
“While the 1619 Project and its stable of well-to-do authors find in the labor exploitation of slavery a talisman to explain all of history, they pass over in deafening silence the exploitation inherent in wage labor.”
This simply substitutes a new political lie for that of “The Lost Cause”, trading heroes and villains and pointedly ignoring the underlying system, Capitalism, still doing what it can to destroy life for profit.
Its not a lie if they actually passed over it. If they actually passed over it, its an Inconvenient Truth.
And since when would the World Socialist Website tell lies to excuse and obscure Capitalism?
Inconvenient for whom?
The 1619 Project.
And, why?
Because it demonstrates class solidarity outside of race that could legitimately threaten the Oligarchy who is pushing the 1619 Project to defeat this possibility.
I’m mystified by your last question. To whom is it addressed, and, again why?
“Not extol Anglo virtue” is not a problem.
Lying about the actual facts of history in order to serve the Upper Class agenda is a problem.
The Coal Shovelers for Satan who staffed the 1619 project to further the New York Time’s agenda of getting Occupy Wall Street off the pages and out of the news are a problem.
Huh? Occupy Wall Street precedes the 1619 Project by almost 10 years? Was there a resurgence of OWS that I’m not aware of?
Good question. When did the New York Times make the decision to be the Big Loud Platform for the 1619 Project?
Till I know that, I will have to provisionally back off of that particular assumption.
If the NyTimes decided to catapult the 1619 propaganda years before OWS even happened, that doesn’t change the NyTimes’s basic motive . . . . to put the spotlight on “race formation” in order to get the cameras off of “class formation”.
No doubt, but I still don’t get why you’ve brought OWS into it. There’s no reason to think the two are related in any respect. OWS was shut down in Nov 2011. 1619 Project was first published in August 2019. The quality of the latter (the ‘systematicity of its research’, if you will) is apparently so shabby that the idea that it took nearly 8 years of work and research from the efflorescence of OWS to publication seems rather silly.
If the time difference between the two is that great, then the idea is probably as silly as it seems.
My brain probably got caught in a warp of time expanding and collapsing and I lost track of the chronology of events. I will try being more careful.
all good, sorry if it seemed like I was jumping down your throat.
Well, sometimes it has to be done.
It isn’t honest when it misinforms about the facts and according to actual historians it does. And your notion that the Revolution came out of the South is an example. Actually it was New England. To be sure New England later became quite active in the slave trade once the previous primary source–Great Britain–banned it. But that wasn’t until the 19th century.
It’s this whole assertion by the NYT and 1619 that facts don’t matter that turns journalism into propaganda and we are swimming in it these days. The reason for studying and remembering our history is so that we can learn from it. Yes public education has always pushed other myths in the name of socialization. But two wrongs don’t make a right although that seems to be the mantra of our ruling elite and certain countries with their own all too aggressive foreign policies. I don’t think you can at all assume that the White Supremacy push is being made in good faith. Given the source–the MSM and the ruling class–it may be more about divide and conquer.
The Constitution was not the strike for independence. The Declaration of Independence was that. The pre-Constitution United States had over a decade of existence under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution was even written.
To say the Constitution was the strike for independence is yet another Ruling ClassNazi lie.
White Privilege . . . White Privilege . . . . hmmm . . . . . . .
Here’s a funny little “murderedbywords” subreddit about that . . .
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/qzk21j/but_what_if_he_was_black/
” Without coal, what happens to cement, steel, iron, and Asia’s path to development?” . . .
I am on the tiniest little break right now, so I will assume this is referring to metallurgical coal, which is a better higher grade of coal than thermal power coal. I thought that when people said ” no more coal”, they were referring to thermal power coal for electricity. If they think they are going to include metallurgical coal for literally making things with, then Asia won’t give that up and neither will Russia or Europe or North America.
Ever.
Ever.
So people had better get clear on what they mean when they say “coal”. Just thermal? Or thermal and metallurgical/ cementical as well?
The only way to reDUCE the amount of metallurgical and cementical coal used is to make iron, steel and cement ( and the things made out of them) to last for the ages, for centuries. Not for 5 or 10 years till the next teardown or the next rust-out or the next throwaway. The longer someone uses the same piece of steel or iron or cement, the longer they can go till they need the next one. And therefor the less metallurgical/cementical coal they have to burn. Because people will have their iron, steel and cement. And that means they will burn metallurgical coal till there is no metallurgical coal left to burn.
Greta Thunberg disapproves? Too bad, so sad.
>Are You My Mother Tongue? Lapham’s Quarterly
This is a fun piece that shows have even just a hundred years ago complete nonsense could pass as serious academic inquiry (things probably still haven’t changed as much as we’d like to imagine). Also yet another example of how Romanticism and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Cohen gets something wrong though. Eskimo is not a ‘wrong’ word. It’s an Anglicization of a French rendering of an Innu-aimun word that was used by natives themselves for group identification. Most of the time it’s suggested that the ‘right’ term is Inuit, but…not all of the native arctic peoples are Inuit.
I remember reading somewhere that the word “Eskimo” was an anglicization of a frenchicization of a far-northern woodland Indian Nation word for the “Eskimo” meaning ” eaters of raw fish”.
The closest I can come to finding an explanation in line with what I read so long ago is this link by a “don’t call us ‘Eskimo’ ” woman from one of the High Arctic nations. Here is the link.
https://www.usaonrace.com/stereotypes-labels/810/don%E2%80%99t-call-me-eskimo-ethnic-origins-of-word-symbolizes-painful-past.html
Here is an interesting picture of a Black father-and-daughter team open-carrying firearms to deter any would-be perpetrators of violence against a left wing march.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/qzzon6/father_and_daughter_duo_open_carry_to_protect/
It just goes to show that some people have decided that ” Black guns matter ” , at least in some contexts.
As the noted comedian Fox Jeffworthy might would have said . . . . ” If you are triggered by this photograph, you just might be a White liberal.”
Here is some video showing the Capitol Police trying to protect a closing door against the violent Trumpanon mob. Do equivalent videos exist about the occupiers of the Wisconsin Capitol building?
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/qzytlp/video_court_exhibit_released_by_us_justice_dept/