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comments, ephemera, speculation, etc. (protected political speech and personal opinion) - If this is your 1st visit to this page, please start at the bottom - 2020- 2020-08-31 d THE COVID-CON The Devil in The CDC Details:
Only 6% of So-Called COVID Deaths Are Caused By
COVID Alone
We haven’t been getting the truth. 168,864. According to the CDC, that’s the number of “COVID-19-related deaths” in the United States as of August 31. Of course, on the surface, nearly 170,000 deaths — especially with three months left in 2020 — is frightening to say the least. But, as usual, the devil is in the details. You see, of the 168,864 reported deaths, only 6% of them had COVID-19 listed as the ONLY cause of death. The other 94% had, on average, 2.6 additional causes listed — per death. “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” – CDC Website In short, according to official data from the CDC, roughly 10,000 of the 168,864 “COVID-19 related deaths” can be attributed to COVID-19 alone. 10,000 — less than the average number of flu deaths per year in the United State. So why are politicians — along with their pals in the fake news media — calling for more economy-destroying lockdowns and closings? (read more) 2020-08-31 c Society for the Elimination of Risk - for Bedwetters, Covidiots, Democrats, Safety Fetishists, and Assorted Wusses A newsletter from the Society
for the Elimination of Risk
‘If you must swim, always wear a life vest, face mask and snorkel’ Our Director, Eustace Stockstill, introduces the Fall issue. Dear fellow Soterians, I have tremendous news to share with you. Our membership drive during the last six months has been successful beyond our most imprudent hopes! Even now we can hardly believe it. The number of our members has increased by a power of seven! That’s a power, not a multiplier: we have doubled our membership seven times since March! I’m sure old members will remember the hurtful article a year ago in the Daily Gaslighter that dismissed us as cranks, mocking us as nothing but a tiny group of English eccentrics. Now we are having the laugh on them! Now we have 10 times more members than they have subscribers, and our influence is growing daily. Of course we’ve been given a tremendous boost by the Great COVID Plague. But I can report without undue modesty that we in the Society’s leadership have taken full advantage of this gift from our tutelary deity, Hygeia. The avalanche of new membership fees has allowed us greatly to expand our media and political activities and to conduct, for the first time, scientific surveys of public opinion on risk avoidance. As Bill Matrix reports elsewhere in this issue, our new survey, Public Risk Sensitivity (PRS), has shown immense improvement in public awareness of risk in the last six months. For our new members, let me explain that the ‘old normal,’ pre-COVID risk sensitivity indicated that most people, upwards of 90 percent, would only alter their behavior if their risk of an adverse outcome rose into the range of 1/1000 to 1/100 per year. We call that millenary risk sensitivity. The survey of 4,500 adults conducted on July 27-31 by Bill’s team showed that fully two-thirds of the population — and the most highly-educated portion at that — now falls into the decemillenary (1/1000-10,000) range. Fully half again of the decemillenaries are also centemillenaries (1/10,000-1/100,000). Lockdown is working on the mind as well as the body! Furthermore, our survey shows that, thanks to responsible selection of data by the press, the number of people who can distinguish absolute from relative risk has actually declined! Our efforts to raise awareness have led the British to believe that 7 percent of Britons have died from coronavirus. Americans are even more aware, estimating that the virus has killed 9 percent of their compatriots. Even if these judgments are faulty in a merely arithmetical sense, they surely serve the higher truth to which our Society is dedicated, that no risk is really tolerable. Our Society can congratulate itself for its part in creating this new and better form of rational ignorance. From now on, we and our cooperating scientists will get to decide what it is rational not to know. Who says that innumeracy can’t benefit society? In ‘Keeping up Appearances: A Report from our Media Department’, Wilma Keening describes how lockdowns in the USA have been sustained by the political situation during this election year. We have encouraged our media partners to believe that rigorous measures will undermine the re-election prospects of Donald Trump. That phrase ‘Trump’s Katrina’ has worked magic! ‘A Catch-22 in COVID-19’ by Vilfredo Vigliacco discusses the worrying tendency of risk-sensitivity to decrease as economic life contracts. The sacrifices necessary for risk-free life have the unfortunate effect of reducing quality of life and personal income, especially at the bottom of society. Poverty and unemployment, in turn, have the unfortunate effect of making the working classes less risk-sensitive. Fortunately, the indigent don’t make the decisions in our societies, but they do vote. Vilfredo offers some strategies for keeping the newly impoverished from losing their commitment to lockdowns. In ‘The costs of risk-free life,’ Wilbur Boltlatch describes the enormous success our political action group has had in transferring the costs of risk-free life to the government. As all economists know, if you subsidize something, you get more of it, and we can’t have too little risk-avoidance. Finally, a response to you, dear readers! Many of our new members have expressed surprise and delight at the extraordinary array of resources SER offers to the risk-sensitive community. At the same time, many say they are intimidated by the enormous length and technical detail of our reports. So beginning with this newsletter, I will be including at the end of my letter a few simple FAQs for those of you too busy Zooming to study the full reports. It should be a sobering thought for Society members that all of the activities described below carry more risk of death for school-age children than COVID-19. Be well, and keep your distance! [signed in his absence] Eustace Stockstill Director and Supreme Soterian 2020-08-31 b Latest Election Odds Kolanovic Says Trump
Re-Election Odds Are Soaring, Prompting Nate Silver
To Melt Down On Twitter
On Saturday, we showed that Trump had received a healthy boost in support following the Republican National Convention (and just around the time of the latest rioting in Kenosha and elsewhere) while enthusiasm for Joe Biden has slipped, according to a new poll by Morning Consult. We also showed that a far more dramatic race was reflected in Real Clear Politics' betting average between Trump and Biden, using data from oddsmakers Betfair, Bovada, Bwin, Matchbook, Smarkets and SpreadEx. This morning, in his latest note, JPMorgan's Marko Kolanovic laid out "what is next for markets" and his contention was that as the data we showed over the weekend reveal, "investors should position for rising odds of Trump re-election" as "Trump’s re-election chances are rising and are already higher than currently reflected in investment styles." This matters because "the impact on sectors and factors (momentum vs value, cyclicals vs tech, ESG) could be dramatic and investment portfolios should adjust for a potential Trump re-election." "Over the past few days, Trump’s betting odds are rapidly increasing" Kolanovic said, stating that he analyzed and quantified "2 effects that we believe are driving this shift and may significantly impact the election outcome." The JPM quant then explained that "Trump’s betting odds started plummeting with the onset of large protests in early June. During the month of August, Trump was as much as 25 points behind and investors took Biden’s election for granted (we cautioned this may be premature). However, during the month of August, Trump’s betting odds started improving, with the largest increase happening over the past week. Currently, betting odds have Trump virtually tied with Biden." Kolanovic then asks what caused this initial collapse and then full recovery of Trump’s odds. His response: "we believe it is largely due to two effects: 1) the impact of the degree of violence in protests on public opinion and voting patterns and 2) a bias in polls due to Trump voters being more likely to decline or mislead polls", both factors we discussed extensively over the past week (here and here). (read more) 2020-08-31 a “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.” Étienne de La Boétie, 1576 2020-08-30 d THE COVID-CON - III (Unlearned Lessons from Influenza) Disease mitigation measures in
the control of pandemic influenza
In brief, models can play a contributory role in thinking through possible mitigation measures, but they cannot be more than an ancillary aid in deciding policy… A major challenge for all authorities charged with managing a pandemic will be how to allot scarce, possibly life-saving medical resources and how to maintain hospitals’ capacity to care for critically ill flu victims while continuing to provide other essential medical services… The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration… Home quarantine also raises ethical questions. Implementation of home quarantine could result in healthy, uninfected people being placed at risk of infection from sick household members. Practices to reduce the chance of transmission (hand-washing, maintaining a distance of 3 feet from+ infected people, etc.) could be recommended, but a policy imposing home quarantine would preclude, for example, sending healthy children to stay with relatives when a family member becomes ill. Such a policy would also be particularly hard on and dangerous to people living in close quarters, where the risk of infection would be heightened… It is reasonable to assume that the economic costs of shutting down air or train travel would be very high, and the societal costs involved in interrupting all air or train travel would be extreme… Implementing such measures would have seriously disruptive consequences for a community if extended through the 8-week period of an epidemic in a municipal area, let alone if it were to be extended through the nation’s experience with a pandemic (perhaps 8 months). In the event of a pandemic, attendance at public events or social gatherings could well decrease because people were fearful of becoming infected, and some events might be cancelled because of local concerns. But a policy calling for community wide cancellation of public events seems inadvisable… Schools are often closed for 1–2 weeks early in the development of seasonal community outbreaks of influenza primarily because of high absentee rates, especially in elementary schools, and because of illness among teachers. This would seem reasonable on practical grounds. However, to close schools for longer periods is not only impracticable but carries the possibility of a serious adverse outcome. For example, for working parents, school serves as a form of day care and, in some areas, a source of nutritional meals for children from lower-income families. In 2005, some 29.5 million children were fed through the National School Lunch Program; 9.3 million children received meals as part of the School Breakfast Program. A portion of America’s workforce would be unable to go to work as long as children were out of schools. Heightened absentee rates could cripple essential service industries. Teachers might not be paid and a great many hourly workers (mall and fast-food employees; school janitorial, security, and kitchen staff; bus drivers) would face particular financial hardship… ... An overriding principle. Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe. (read more) 2020-08-30 c THE COVID-CON - II The Coronavirus lockdown is
one of the biggest mistakes in the history of this
country
As I write this, 1.6% of the U.S. population have tested positive for Coronavirus— 5.2 million out of our 330 million people. This figure probably shocks most people, because the mainstream media has tried as hard as possible to make this pandemic seem far worse than it actually is. Every day there are repeated news reports about passing another “grim milestone”. Over 166,000 have died with their deaths being attributed to the virus. However, there have been numerous reports that many, possibly even most, of these deaths have been with “comorbidities” that could have been the primary cause. Age could also have been the main factor in many of the deaths, with some countries reporting two-thirds of the deceased being over 70 and many over 80. Having had deaths in my own family (although not from the virus), I am certainly not making light of these deaths. Every day, in the U.S., approximately 8,000 people die, and every death is sad, tragic, or even horrible. Yet the best news about this virus is that well over 90% who have tested positive recover without medicines designed to treat it (or a vaccine designed to prevent it). In the 1957-58 flu season, when I was 10 years old, the world was hit by another pandemic which also originated in China. It was called the Asian Flu, and 1.1 million died from it, with 116,000 of those deaths being in the U.S. That would be the equivalent of 220,000 U.S. deaths now due to or much higher current population. Nothing was shut down then. No mayors or governors were holding daily Asian Flu news conferences. There were not constant, 24-hour news reports about the numbers dying or testing positive. The news readers on MSNBC and CNN can barely suppress their glee at reporting new hotspots and big increases in the numbers dying or testing positive, especially if they are in so-called red states with Republican governors. Because of their absolute virulent hatred for President Trump, they are also eager to report bad economic news and seemingly grimace when they have to report that the stock market has gone up once again. Blue state governors and mayors are doing as much as they can to keep things shut down and acting very heroic or holier than thou in doing so. It is pretty obvious, though, that almost all who want to keep businesses closed and schools shut are people who are still drawing their paychecks or pensions. They don’t seem to realize that this can’t go on much longer without even those checks or pensions cut back or stopped altogether. And if the Congress keeps voting to spend money like the worst drunken sailors in history, inflation will just about wipe out those checks and pensions anyway. The saddest thing about this virus, without question, is the number of people who have died and who have become seriously ill. However, it is also very sad that so many thousands of small businesses have been forced to shut down, a very significant number of which will never be able to re-open. And it is especially unfair that so many big giants have been allowed to stay open, even seeing big increases in business they have gotten from the little guys that are no longer open. All businesses, large and small, should have been allowed to stay open. Were it not for the fact that history is often written by the victors, this shutdown would soon be looked back upon as one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. Unfortunately, though, the losers in this situation are clearly those who have been made to close. (read more) 2020-08-30 b THE COVID-CON - I The West's response to Covid
shows we have succumbed to a Medieval mass neurosis
Throughout 2020, we have become a society enraptured by medieval superstitions Can this really be happening? The British are famously – and proudly – the most difficult people in the world to terrorise or bully. The population that stood with tireless phlegm and humour against relentless bombardment, that made its historical mark with an unflinching rationality which never permits hysteria to sweep the public discourse – must now be chivied into leaving the confines of their own homes or the safe harbours of their immediate neighbourhoods. Where did this come from? Well, on the one hand, it is perfectly clear: with an official government campaign deliberately designed not only to inculcate fear but to suggest that protection against the great threat was simple and clear-cut. And furthermore, obeying the “stay home” edict would not just protect you and your immediate family but the rest of society as well. So locking yourself away was a moral obligation as well as an insurance against personal danger. The combination of anxiety and appeal to conscience was unbeatable – even when it involved deprivations of liberty which would once have been unconscionable. So where are we now? Trapped in a state of what appears to be a spiral of fear so profound that it has become a permanent condition. ... In moments of despair it had occurred to me that there was something of a medieval Dark Age about the current mood: Extinction Rebellion with its child saints and the self-flagellating Woke culture. Being given an apparently sound reason to disable the most notable manifestations of that historical tradition which we are now being encouraged to denounce: what could be better suited to the weird, vaguely hysterical, fashion of the times? Fear may be the most dangerous contagion but I am coming around to the view that this is not simple fear. It is a mass neurosis of which irrational and prolonged anxiety is a symptom: a corrosive loss of confidence and understanding of one’s role and identity which will, if it prevails, ultimately undermine the quality of modern life more irrevocably than any virus. It is not only our official cultural institutions that are at risk here. One of the most fundamental principles of post-war liberal democracy is on trial – or, at least, coming up for examination. The pandemic has been a moral predicament at least as much as a health crisis. When this whole bizarre chapter is finally over, the questions that needed to be put, but for which there was no time, will be luminously clear. How much should we have asked the general populace to sacrifice in order to protect what we knew, almost from the start, would be a quite small, vulnerable minority? Is personal liberty – normally of unquestionable value in a democracy during peacetime – expendable when healthcare systems are under sufficient strain? Where exactly do we draw the line on the right of governments to dictate the terms of personal relations? (read more) 2020-08-30 a “To whom should propaganda be addressed? To the scientifically trained intelligentsia or the less educated masses? It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses.” Adolf Hitler 2020-08-29 f SELF DEFENSE III Rittenhouse Lawyers Say Video
Evidence Proves Kenosha Shootings Were "Acts Of
Self-Defense"
A couple of days ago, we reported that conservative attorney Lin Wood has taken on the case of Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who has been hit with 6 charges stemming from a Tuesday night bloodbath where he shot three men, killing two, during a night of chaos, anarchy and looting. As the lawyer goes about shaping and implementing his legal strategy, Wood told reporters that he plans to argue his client acted in self-defense during the fatal shootings. Wood, who is based in Atlanta but will be arguing the case in Wisconsin, where his client is set to be extradited, told reporters that video footage of the altercation would vindicate Rittenhouse. He also slammed the mainstream media for spreading "misinformation" about his client. (read more) 2020-08-29 e National Propaganda Radio Is a Riot NPR Claims That Calling A Riot
A "Riot" Is Racist
NPR published an article claiming that calling a riot a “riot” is offensive because it’s “rooted in racism.” Yes, really. The article was written by Jonathan Levinson for Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Portland NPR affiliate. Portland has experienced 93 days of continuous rioting – last night was the first time in that entire period that the city has not seen unrest – but according to Levinson, merely calling a spade a spade is a racist dog whistle. Levinson’s argument for this position is vague to the point of being non-existent. He appears upset that police are able to declare a riot and use crowd control measures to disperse violent BLM mobs. (read more) 2020-08-29 d SELF DEFENSE II Kenosha: All Three Anarchist
Rioters Shot Have Violent Criminal Histories
A 17-year-old boy was charged with murder in the first degree after opening fire on three anarchist rioters in two seperate incidents. The accused, Kyle Rittenhouse, is from Antioch, Illinois, just 21 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha with his AR-15 in order to protect small business owners and citizens who were being victimized after being abandoned by their state government and police. Footage obtained by anti-extremism watchdog AntifaWatch shows the first shooting. In the video, a masked man named Joseph D. Rosenbaum is shown chasing Rittenhouse and throwing what some have claimed may have been an improvised explosive, but this has not yet been confirmed. Rittenhouse then shot Rosenbaum in the head as he charged and tried to take his rifle, an injury the attacker later died of. Earlier in the night, Rosenbaum, who is Jewish, was shown violently antagonizing the armed men, shouting “Shoot me, Nigga!” After Rosenbaum was shot, a mob of anarchists pursued Rittenhouse as he attempted to flee. The young man then fell to the ground as the “antifa” members began attacking him. Rittenhouse opened fire against two of the attackers, one who was armed with a handgun. One member of the gang, Anthony W. Huber, died after being shot in the chest. The armed assailant, Gaige Paul Grosskreutz, suffered a gruesome gunshot wound to the arm but survived. The media has jumped into action to paint Rittenhouse as a white supremacist domestic terrorist and the anarchists who were shot as innocent “peaceful protesters.” But the facts bring this narrative into question. (read more) 2020-08-29 c SELF DEFENSE I Rittenhouse
Kyle Rittenhouse didn’t go to Kenosha to shoot protestors; he went to protect the property and lives of the people who were threatened by a rampaging mob that had already destroyed large parts of the city. That’s why he was there. He went to fill the security vacuum the Democrat governor and mayor created when they failed to perform their sworn obligation to protect the people in their charge. They didn’t do that, they left the city and its merchants exposed to the erratic and violent behavior of looters, vandals and arsonists. Which is why Rittenhouse showed up. He was there to stop the criminal gangs from doing more damage than they’d already done. ... Unfortunately, Rittenhouse was attacked by a crowd on the property he was protecting, and a man was shot in the head. The man who was killed appears to be Joseph Rosenbaum, “a registered sex offender for a crime involving a minor.” Videos of the victim have popped up on Twitter but we have no way of verifying them at this time. What we know for certain is that Rittenhouse is responsible for the shooting deaths of two men and another who was wounded. There is also evidence that one of the men who attacked Rittenhouse was carrying a gun. In a video that has been widely circulated on the internet, Rittenhouse is seen running away from an angry group of protestors who trip him from behind and send him sprawling to the ground. While lying on the street, Rittenhouse quickly grabbed his assault rifle and shot an assailant who had hit him on the head with his skateboard. He then slowly rose to one knee and shot another attacker who was preparing to deliver a blow. The bloody clash scattered the other 15 or 20 potential assailants who quickly did a U-Turn and fled in the opposite direction. (read more) 2020-08-29 b Black LIES Matter BLM’s Perpetual Fake Outrage
Cycle
Here we go again: Manufacture. Rinse. Repeat. Everyone knows the cycle. Everyone knows it ends with false and incomplete narratives eventually being debunked by actual facts. Everyone knows that the racial myth-makers and political opportunists end up with fame, wealth and glory—but never any criminal punishments or moral accountability. Everyone knows, yet on and on and on it goes. Step 1: Spread
out-of-context video clip of Black man subdued or
shot by white cops across national media airwaves
and social media platforms.
Step 2: Riot. Step 3: Accuse law enforcement and America of “systemic racism,” decry police brutality and demand “justice” for fill-in-the-blank “victim.” Step 4: Riot. Step 5. Enter Al Sharpton, Benjamin Crump, Black Lives Matter chief propagandist Shaun King, and the rest of the racial hoax crime brigade. Step 6: Persecute and prosecute involved police officers. Step 7: Burn, loot and maraud nationwide. Step 8: Demand more funding for “restorative justice,” “alternative” policing, sensitivity training and “anti-racism” programs. Step 9: Bury all evidence of justified police action while screaming, “Racism!” ever louder. Step 10: Lie in wait for the next opportunity to return to Step 1. I’ve been covering this self-destructive ritual in American life since the very beginning of my journalism career in 1992, when the Rodney King beating video led to the acquittal of four Los Angeles police department officers, which led to the L.A. riots (60 killed, 2,000 injured, $1 billion in damage s, $700 million in federal aid), which led to a federal civil rights settlement for King worth $4 million and prison sentences for two of the cops despite their previous acquittals. On Sunday night, Jacob Blake became the latest overnight cause celebre of the Black Lives Matter brigade. He’s black. The cops, captured on video shooting him in the back seven times after arriving at the scene of a domestic incident, were white. Like the cops in the Rodney King case, Kenosha, Wisconsin, officers were dealing with a career criminal who was young, strong and troubled. Blake’s name, age and neighborhood match court records of a Jacob Blake who had an outstanding warrant for misdemeanor criminal trespass, felony third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanor disorderly assault associated with domestic abuse charges. Like the cops in the Rodney King case, Kenosha cops were confronted with a suspect who brazenly resisted arrest. At least four officers can be seen trying to subdue him. Blake continues to evade arrest and climb into his vehicle, where his children were. At least seven shots rang out. The rest is a re-re-re-re-re-repeat of social justice history. “Hands up, don’t shoot” was the foundational lie of the Michael Brown fatal cop encounter, as even the Obama Justice Department was forced to acknowledge. The primary perpetrator of that deception? Benjamin Crump. The Trayvon Martin hoax, as exposed by investigative documentarian Joel Gilbert, was built on an astonishing key prosecution witness switch-a-roo involving Martin’s real girlfriend, Brittany Diamond Eugene (who was on the phone with Martin before he assaulted George Zimmerman) and a ridiculous impostor, Rachael Jeantel, who was barely literate and apparently manipulated into coached testimony by none other than Benjamin Crump. Three months after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, we now know this career criminal—who robbed and beat a pregnant woman in a brutal home invasion—refused to comply with police officers from initial contact. He acted erratically, invoked common “please don’t shoot me” and “I can’t breathe” excuses before was put on the ground, lied about being claustrophobic and was told by one of his own passengers to stop resisting. We now also know that officers believed Floyd was on drugs and swallowed a fatal overdose of fentanyl, compounding his preexisting heart conditions and positive COVID results. Benjamin Crump, who filed multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the city of Minneapolis on behalf of the Floyd family last month, is now also the lawyer for Jacob Blake. BLM leaders say what’s left of Kenosha after the weekend’s riots will burn to the ground unless cops are fired and arrested. Al Sharpton, Shaun King, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, LeBron James, NASCAR race agitator Bubba (Fake Noose) Wallace, Cardi B and Demi Lovato all immediately piled on as well, demanding “justice” and condemning police instead of the perps. I’m reminded of what a black activist in Phoenix confessed to a local news station in 2015 upon seeing what it’s like to be an officer’s shoes. Jarrett Maupin ended up being shot point-blank by one suspect and shooting another in the chest when both ignored his orders in life-or-death use-of-force scenarios. Maupin’s takeaway? “I didn’t understand how important compliance was, but after going through this, yeah, my attitude has changed. This is all unfolding in ten to fifteen seconds. People need to comply with the orders of law enforcement officers for their own safety.” (read more) 2020-08-29 a “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” Francois Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire 2020-08-28 d The Ministry of Truth Caught Lying - II CNN Has Turned Itself Into
America's "Baghdad Bob"
On Tuesday, with its reporter standing in front of a raging fire, CNN ran a ludicrous chyron stating, “fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.” Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be worthy of reporting three days later. However, for some reason, this chyron was a bridge too far for many people, and the internet is still flooded with memes. It’s apparent that, with this latest denial of objective reality, CNN has finally completed its transformation into Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, whom many Americans remember almost fondly as Baghdad Bob, the Hussein regime propagandist who insisted that Saddam was winning even as U.S. troops entered Baghdad. In 2003, when our military successfully invaded Iraq and quickly captured Baghdad, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhafk, aka Baghdad Bob, was Saddam Hussein’s Minister of Information. As troops neared and then entered Baghdad, al-Sahhaf gave daily press briefings during which he announced the most outrageous lies about the wars. For example, Baghdad Bob insisted that American troops were committing suicide “by the hundreds” and that none had entered Baghdad. Meanwhile, Americans were a few hundred yards away from him, and the audience could hear the sounds of their fighting. On April 8, four days before Americans captured Baghdad, al-Sahhaf was still insisting that U.S. troops “are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender. It is they who will surrender.” Baghdad Bob was last heard from some years ago living in the United Arab Emirates. However, it’s entirely possible that he’s currently working for CNN, a former news network, and now a sloppy propaganda outlet for the Anarcho-Marxists of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Obviously, things are a bit different here for Bob. Last time, American troops were closing in on Baghdad as Bob spun manifest lies about events. This time, American anarchists and communists are closing in on an American city as CNN spins manifest lies about events. But aside from the details, that chyron running across the bottom of the CNN screen is vintage Baghdad Bob: (read more) 2020-08-28 c The Ministry of Truth Caught Lying - I How a false hydroxychloroquine
narrative was created, and more
It is remarkable that a large series of events taking place over the past 3 months produced a unified false message about hydroxychloroquine, and produced similar policies about the drug in the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and western Europe\ This unique, revealing compilation of history and data by Dr. Meryl Nass, board-certified in Internal Medicine, is essential reading. The medication concerned is without doubt a key to ending the terrible loss of life and social and economic devastation caused by the unnecessary lockdowns and other harmful mitigation policies imposed by government and health authorities during this pandemic. Some have now been saying that the true death statistics for this disease, as opposed to the likely hugely inflated real numbers, are just below the statistics of what can legitimately be called a pandemic and the disease is now so mild that lockdowns and masking are completely unnecessary. The heroic Front Line Doctors group was formed to try to counter a “massive disinformation campaign” against the highly effective, safe and inexpensive Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) medication for the treatment and prevention of Wuhan/COVID-19 virus infection. In this document, Dr. Nass verifies the many serious concerns of the Front Line Doctors, Dr. Harvey Risch, French Professor and Dr. Didier Raoult, Bio medicine scientist Dolores Cahill and numerous other physicians and scientists around the world, about the suppression of the use of HCQ. Let me put it to you bluntly. Most of the people who have died from Wuhan virus infection would not have died if they had been treated at an early stage of infection with the proper HCQ protocol. For that reason, many of the above-mentioned doctors are calling for criminal investigations over what has been happening during the past several months regarding HCQ and insisting that it has exhibited true Crimes Against Humanity given the large, unnecessary loss of life and other enormous harm that has resulted from it. (read more) 2020-08-28 b Berliners Fed Up With COVID Con German Court Overturns Protest
Ban - Tomorrow's Massive Anti-Lockdown March To
Go-Ahead
Earlier in the week, we reported that authorities in Berlin had banned a series of planned demonstrations against the country's COVID-19 lockdown measures - claiming they were organized by "right-wing extremists" and would lead to the spread of the virus. The city said it would deploy several thousand police around the German capital this weekend, citing threats. Notably, the German city did not ban a June Black Lives Matter protest in which approximately 15,000 people turned out. Meanwhile, the Assembly for Freedom had 17,000 registered demonstrators for the August 29 event before Berlin shut it down. (read more) 2020-08-28 a “Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?” Francois Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire 2020-08-27 d SELF DEFENSE II New York Times’ Reporting
Confirms Revolver’s Analysis of the Kyle Rittenhouse
Shootings: Open-and-Shut Case of Self-Defense
In a surprising turn of events, the New York Times has done some actual, real investigative reporting and confirmed Revolver’s conclusion that the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting is an open-and-shut case of self-defense. Shockingly, the evidence turned up by the New York Times actually strengthens the case for self-defense. It turns out that, before the first shooting, Rittenhouse was being chased by a gunman who actually fired a shot into the air. This little detail was actually missed by Revolver News in our initial review of the evidence. We did not realize that, in the first shooting, Rittenhouse was being chased by a gunman. ... Only in a truly clownish world can a man who is being chased by an armed mob not fire a gun in self-defense after exhausting his duty to retreat. Revolver News completely agrees with the New York Times analysis of the first shooting. All three shooting victims, in addition to being affiliated with the notorious Black Lives Matter and Antifa gangs, have criminal records. (read more) 2020-08-27 c SELF DEFENSE I 17-Year-Old Kyle Rittenhouse
Shot ANTIFA Pedophile and Domestic Abuser Dead in
Kenosha
Rittenhouse did nothing wrong. 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is being charged with first-degree murder and being called a racist domestic terrorist by Democrats for defending himself at a Black Lives Matter riot in Kenosha, Wisc. earlier this week. However, the rap sheets of the supposed victims show that Rittenhouse was dealing with seasoned felons, not peace-loving protestors. One man shot to death by Rittenhouse was 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum. Journalist Andy Ngo reports that Rosenbaum had a lengthy rap sheet that included a conviction for sexual acts with a minor before he met his maker. ... Ngo also reported on the other two victims. 26-year-old Anthony Huber was also shot to death by Rittenhouse, and he was a serial domestic abuser. 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz was lucky to survive, having been shot in the arm by Rittenhouse. He is a member of the People’s Revolution Movement whose previous charges have included intoxication and gun possession. ... Despite the fact that Rittenhouse fired at the dregs of society, Democrat politicians are lionizing the ANTIFA cretins and smearing Rittenhouse for defending himself. (read more) 2020-08-27 b Preventing a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight Arrests Made After 'Suspicious
Vehicles With Out-Of-State Plates' Stopped In
Kenosha
Police in Kenosha, Wisconsin arrested nine individuals on Wednesday evening on charges of disorderly conduct after stopping several 'suspicious vehicles with out-of-state plates' and suspecting the occupants of "preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest," according to Fox29 Philadelphia. Several other charges are pending, according to the Kenosha County DA. The suspects were driving three vehicles; a black school bus, a bread truck and a tan minivan. ... Understandably, officers then suspected "that the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest," after which they attempted to make contact and investigate the incident. The police noted that "the officers exited their vehicles, identified themselves, were wearing appropriate identification and then detained the occupants of the bus and bread truck." As officers closed in, the driver of the minivan attempted to pull away, but was stopped by police who forced an entry into the vehicle and arrested the occupants. The vehicles contained helmets, gas masks, protective vests, illegal fireworks and suspected controlled substances, according to the report. Is this the van? If so, it would suggest that the group was part of "Riot Kitchen," a Seattle-based group which operates a food truck (and buys lots of gasoline, allegedly). (read more) 2020-08-27 a “Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison, Federalist Paper 10 2020-08-25 d Mistakes Were Made III - Or, Was This the Plan All Along? New Thinking on Covid
Lockdowns: They’re Overly Blunt and Costly
Blanket business shutdowns—which the U.S. never tried before this pandemic—led to a deep recession. Economists and health experts say there may be a better way. In response to the novel and deadly coronavirus, many governments deployed draconian tactics never used in modern times: severe and broad restrictions on daily activity that helped send the world into its deepest peacetime slump since the Great Depression. The equivalent of 400 million jobs have been lost world-wide, The equivalent of 400 million jobs have been lost world-wide, 13 million in the U.S. alone. Global output is on track to fall 5% this year, (read more) 2020-08-25 c Mistakes Were Made II - Mogadishu on the Mississippi Destroyed by Progressives Before the Storm in
Minneapolis
A needlessly racialized zoning fight offers some cautionary lessons for supporters of housing reform. In the months before the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a small group was doing its best to spread the message that the city was deeply racist. They were not protesters or looters, or the organized African-American community of the city’s soon-to-be-burned North Side, but rather the mayor and city council. Their focus was what might have seemed an obscure and technical topic: zoning. They were led by one-time San Francisco city planner Lisa Bender, president of the city council, a position considered almost as powerful as that of the mayor. “We’ve inherited a system that both for decades has privileged those with the most and forgotten the people that we really have left behind,” Bender said. “And housing is inextricably linked with income, with all these other systems that are failing, especially in Minnesota, people of color.” She put forth a plan to relax single-family zoning and to permit more multifamily home construction in a city that was—at least pre-George Floyd—attracting millennials and increasing its population, anomalously for the Upper Midwest. Mayor Jacob Frey shared Bender’s view. The city, he told Politico, was perpetuating “racist policies implicitly through our zoning code.” What might have been both an effective consensus reform and a change that could inspire other cities and suburbs to follow suit backfired, thanks to being tied—unnecessarily and unjustifiably—to alleged racism. The plan did not originate in the city’s black community, and black leaders in Minneapolis have not even mentioned it as part of what the city must do to expunge racism in the wake of Floyd’s death. It was driven by the city’s white progressive leadership. Yet loosening land-use policy has appeal across the political spectrum, not just among progressive urbanists. Indeed, the Trump administration has committed itself to increasing construction and housing supply by making it easier to build. “Owning a home is an essential component of the American Dream,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson has said. “It is imperative that we remove regulatory barriers that prevent that dream from becoming a reality.” “We’re all hoping for Minneapolis to succeed,” said a representative for the National League of Cities in December, at a Department of Housing and Urban Development conference in Washington. The ingredients to build a coalition for change were in place. Instead of seeking political consensus, those promoting Minneapolis 2040—a “comprehensive plan” that includes both the citywide rezoning and a “mandatory inclusionary-zoning” law, requiring apartment developers to include lower-priced units in every new building of 20 units or more—made the reforms inseparable from racial issues. As a result, the law divided liberals in this deep-blue city, which has been growing for the past decade, though its population remains well short of its 1950s peak; President Trump critiqued the plan as typifying a Democrat plot to destroy suburbs. Opponents of the plan, many of them residents of the relatively few neighborhoods where single-family homes predominate—though not to the exclusion of two and three-family homes—suddenly found themselves attacked as the heirs of Jim Crow, notwithstanding census data that clearly demonstrates significant racial diversity, even in the city’s affluent neighborhoods. Thus, because of how the issue was framed, an inherently good idea—reassessing zoning for its effects in suppressing the housing market—became a hot-button issue. (read more) 2020-08-25 b Mistakes Were Made I - We should have burned the Imperial College modelers, along with Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci. Burning Witches
I have always smiled when I used to hear people laugh at the folly of previous generations and those who lived a long time ago. How foolish were our ancestors in what they believed and in what they did ? Whether it was exchanging houses for tulip bulbs, bleeding people with leeches or burning witches. We now know better. But somewhere in the back of my mind I always wondered if we had really evolved to a higher plane of thinking and interaction to avoid such stupidity. I think I always doubted it. Maybe it was things I learnt in school, like how evolution doesn’t work that quickly. Or maybe a natural appreciation for someone like Einstein who could say: “There are two things which I think may be infinite. The Universe and human stupidity. But I’m not sure about the Universe.” How brilliant is that quote! But my fears have been fully realised by the events of 2020. It appears that human stupidity in the 21st century knows no bounds, and the mass stampede off the cliff that we have all made, with very few exceptions, is a testament to the validity of my concern. I don’t need to describe the absurdity of the world in August 2020, because one just has to open a newspaper to read about the catastrophic damage that has been done by our actions. Totally self-inflicted. All of this has been in response to a fear of death from a viral epidemic which did indeed kill some people, as is usual with viral epidemics. But not many, and the rest of us have survived with a survival rate somewhere between 99.9% and 99.99% depending on demographics, how deaths have been counted (or miscounted), and how effectively we managed to shield the truly vulnerable. But in summary pretty much every country has a survival rate well north of 99.9%. What on earth were we thinking ? Or was it just a case of just not thinking ? At an individual level, of course there were good analyses and examples of critical thought, but the great learning from the last four months is how society can throw rational behaviour out of the window and, in a fit of hysterical panic, just run around like headless chickens. I have three examples of choice. Firstly, our complete inability to put actual data about the virus into any kind of context. Quite simply, numerical illiteracy. There is the total lack of awareness about the ‘normal’ number of deaths in any year, month or week. Over 600,000 people die in the UK every year, and this is entirely normal! Thank God, because without this wonderful natural feature of our time-bound existence, life would quite simply not be worth living. We die from everything, mainly cardiovascular issues (eg. heart attacks and strokes) and cancers, but also a host of other undesirable conditions, and even just old age. In the UK, at a rate of about 1600 per day. We never hear this on the news. We never hear it said that thirty people died from Covid, but this was actually only around 2% of the daily death count. And a slight pause for thought would lead to other observations: such as that if 40,000 people in the UK have died from this virus, then it means 99.94% of us have survived. Or how if we take the gigantic step of looking at the age breakdowns which can be accessed with three clicks from the website of the Office of National Statistics, over 90% of the deaths are from people over 60. And almost all of these people also had serious other diseases. Most of us take far more risk getting into a car, and yet huge numbers of young and middle aged people were genuinely worried for their health. And still are. What were we thinking? Secondly, the way we almost point blank refused to allow any thought or discussion to be made about equivalences between ‘lives’ and ‘livelihoods’. Everyone wanted to save lives (“what if it was your granny?”), but no one seemed able to think about how much saving those lives would cost. It was like the sight of the oncoming tsunami of unemployment, impoverishment, additional deaths due to untreated cancers, and the general deleterious effects of a huge recession were going to happen to somebody else. It was if we just said, “Thanks Rishi, for the free food, now let’s watch some fake footie”. Crikey, we are not a nation of five year olds. What were we thinking? And thirdly, our total inability to see that the lockdown was not a solution, just a delay of the problem. Even Boris told us: we must lockdown to “flatten the curve”. But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see beyond this brilliantly flawed strategy what the problem is. As soon as you release the lockdown, you just revive the problem you were trying to solve. Because it wasn’t a solution, just a delay. And worse, once you have locked down it becomes difficult to admit it was a mistake because, through your own sacrifice, you are now emotionally invested in the enterprise. This is known as the sunk-cost fallacy. I look around the world in amazement and see how everyone was just totally blind to this obvious issue. It’s like a giant psychotic Ponzi scheme, with the hugely sad and final outcome that it will crash. Just look at Australia and New Zealand if you want to watch this tragedy unfold in slow motion. Every attempt to release themselves results in a resurgence of the problem, and, unlike European countries, the problem hasn’t even really started there, so they still have it all to come. It is genuinely tragic to watch these once proud and free nations implode. What on earth were they thinking? Of course, there are many who will point out that we didn’t have the data in March, that we might have overwhelmed ICU capacity, etc. And our response back then could be forgiven, if we had just stuck to the original rationale. But by mid-April it was clear we had over-reacted and we should have changed track. We didn’t. We doubled down, moved the goal posts and four months later this is where we are. Future generations will look back and remark on the illogicalities, the inability to mentally execute simple trade-offs, and the staggering numerical illiteracy of the people of the world in the early 21st century. For all our technological and intellectual prowess, we are no better than those who used to burn witches because the harvest failed. (read more) 2020-08-25 a “The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.” Ludwig von Mises 2020-08-24 d The Coming End-Game "It's Getting Worse With Every
Shock" - One Bank Turns Apocalyptic On The Coming
End-Game
In what can be described as Bank of America at its most apocalyptic, the bank's currency strategist Athansios Vamvakidis takes us on a tour de force of where we've been, going through what comes next, and which culminates in what may well be the 9th circle of financial hell. Starting with the "three red flags" that have recently emerged across global economies, he then explains why nobody cares and why "markets remain optimistic" - the reason is MMT, in case anyone is confused - as "deflation and not inflation is the risk today." As a result, nothing "prevents more fiscal policy stimulus, funded by more money printing" while "central banks keep policy rates low for as long as necessary, to help governments deal with the massive debts they are accumulating? Effectively, this is what markets are pricing in" as without inflation there is no "budget constraint." Yet stocks at all time high does not mean the situation is sustainable: as Vamvakidis writes next "things could have been different if the pandemic had found the global economy with lower debt and higher interest rates" however, that is a pipe dream as "most countries did not take advantage of the good times in the years before to create enough policy space, just because they thought that these years were not "good enough." In fact, in a complete failure of following Keynesian principles, "macro policies since the late 1990s have been loose in good times and even looser in bad times" as "countries have been converging towards MMT, without even realizing that they do" and the result "is that policies were loose and debt high even before the pandemic." Covid only accelerated this trend. So for now the world is cruising on a debt-fueled autopilot, and "as long as there is no inflation, there is no budget constraint, in MMT and in the current state of the world. For as long as the pandemic lasts, fiscal and monetary policies can provide as much support as necessary and even more." Furthermore, looking ahead in a post-covid world, there will be "no rush to tighten policies, to avoid jeopardizing the recovery, as was also the case in the years following the global financial crisis. After all, Japan has been in this reality for the last 30 years." Of course, eventually these loose macro policies, in both a good and a bad state of the global economy, "will likely lead to inflation. (read more) 2020-08-24 c The Corona Con Save Yourself: Stop Believing
In Lockdown
Storied minds have argued that a failure to critically examine our beliefs makes us culpable for adverse outcomes. Beliefs lead to actions, which impact other people. As Voltaire wrote during the Enlightenment - when society still had time away from the screen to reflect on philosophy, morality, and fundamental truth - “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” This has never been more true than in the age of social media, when information and opinions constantly bombard us from all sides, isolating us from our own thoughts and values. We have a moral duty to critically examine our beliefs — especially our belief in “lockdown,” the most oppressive and universally destructive public policy implemented in our lifetimes. Is it the least-restrictive means available to minimize casualties in this pandemic? Our belief in it was formed when we felt legitimate fear — this can lead to irrationality — so we really cannot answer this question in good conscience unless and until we take the time to conduct a proper, honest examination with the benefit of hindsight. Any number of atrocities can occur when human beings act on unfounded, unexamined beliefs. ... The media cannot do this without our participation. We can stop them immediately by refusing to believe their superstitious, pseudo-scientific proposition that this is the only disease in history that needed a politician-imposed lockdown to abate. They cannot trick us into burning down our own houses once we simply stop believing that politicians have the power to stop death. Standing firmly on this foundation of scientific truth, we will finally be at peace, realizing that COVID-19, like every disease in history, will infect a certain number of people, kill a minute percentage of them, and then move along, lockdown or no lockdown. We really must stop believing otherwise. Our credulity is destroying us. So long as we do believe the myth, we are avoiding the responsibility to manage this virus the way intelligent societies always have, by permitting medical professionals to treat sick people as individuals, one ailment at a time. One cannot merely unleash a total state on the whole of society–even on nearly the entire planet–in a futile effort to scare the virus into going away. (read more) 2020-08-24 b Black Predator Shot Kenosha Man Shot While
Resisting Arrest Was Wanted on Felony Sex Crime
Charge, Has Extensive Criminal History
They’re burning the city over him. The Kenosha, Wisconsin man who was shot in an officer-involved shooting on Sunday has a lengthy criminal history, and it appears that he was wanted by authorities on various arrest warrants, one of them for a felony sex crime, when he was shot by Kenosha police. Jacob Blake was shot while resisting arrest on Sunday. Video of the event shows Blake walking away from a police officer and opening his car door. A police officer shoots him multiple times when it appears he’s retrieving an object, conceivably a weapon. A Kenosha County judge approved an arrest warrant for Blake last month, on the basis of three criminal charges filed against him by the District Attorney. It appears that Blake is currently wanted on the felony charge of 3rd degree sexual assault, domestic abuse, criminal trespassing, and domestic assault. Initial reports had indicated that Blake had been merely “breaking up a fight” before the shooting incident, but it’s more probable that the Kenosha police were executing the warrant for his arrest. (read more) 2020-08-24 a “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire 2020-08-23 d And Who Are The Creators Of That Hysteria? Hysteria is the most dangerous
coronavirus symptom
We need to follow the Swedish example, and keep calm and use our common sense The symptoms of coronavirus should by now be well-known: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough and - in a recent official addition - problems with your sense of taste or smell. But another symptom has reared its head - affecting those who haven’t even been infected - which may be too troubling for authorities to handle. Some bill it as mere public anxiety, but others see the levels of fear as tantamount to full-blown hysteria. The rush back in March among shoppers to stock up on essential goods, with some around the world even coming to blows in the aisles over items as basic as toilet paper, showed how pervasive the panic had become. Four months on, Ipsos MORI found after surveying opinion across 27 countries that the British were more likely to be concerned about Covid (59 per cent) than the global average (43 per cent). Such findings have prompted Tory MPs to wonder whether the Government’s ordering of the public to “stay home” has been too effective, given how embedded the nervousness has become. Research commissioned that July by the firm Kekst CNC showed how far public perceptions about the pandemic had been skewed, finding they were inclined to believe the spread and fatality was more than a hundred times worse than the reality. For example, the average Briton was found last month to estimate that the disease had wiped out as much as 7 per cent of the United Kingdom, which would equate to around 4.6 million people, rather than the actual rate in the tens of thousands. They estimate just over 22 per cent of the population have had Covid-19, which at just over 14.6 million people would be well over the current confirmed case tally of 322,000. “When people estimate risk, they overestimate it massively,” says King College London’s Professor Neil Greenberg, who works with Public Health England as part of the Health Protection Research Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Response. “We are very poor as a public at estimating what risk really means.” (read more) 2020-08-23 c We Hope So Political Scientist Who
Predicted 5 of Last 6 Elections Gives President
Trump 91% Chance of Re-Election
He says the media narrative is wrong. A political science and college professor who studies elections is forecasting that President Donald Trump will win the November election, making his prediction on the basis of a model he has used to successfully forecast five of the last six presidential elections. Helmut Norpoth finalized his electoral prediction earlier this month, predicting that President Trump will have a 91% chance of securing reelection. Norpoth, a professor at Stony Brook University, bases his electoral predictions on the results of the presidential primaries. He is pointing to record-setting turnout for President Trump in the Republican primaries, and pointing to some of Joe Biden’s early struggles in the Democratic primary. The now-Democratic nominee secured only around 8% of the vote in the first-in-the-nation primary, a shocking figure for an eventual nominee. “People have forgotten how Joe Biden did in New Hampshire,” Norpoth added during his interview with Stony Brook News. “He was terrible. He got 8.4 percent of the vote, which is unbelievable for a candidate with any aspirations of being president.” (read more) 2020-08-23 b This Should Have Been Done Last Spring Trump Administration Demands
Records about Coronavirus Origin From Firm
Responsible for Controversial Wuhan Lab Research
The administration wants to get to the bottom of this mystery. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is demanding that the EcoHealth Alliance provide records regarding their controversial research at the China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The NIH cancelled a grant for the EcoHealth Alliance in April, and in order to get their hands on grant money in the future, the firm will have to provide information to the federal government about the origins of their coronavirus research. “NIH’s letter cynically reinstates and instantly suspends EcoHealth Alliance’s funding, then attempts to impose impossible and irrelevant conditions that will effectively block us from continuing this critical work,” the EcoHealth Alliance said in a statement. The Trump administration is demanding that the EcoHealth Alliance “provide a sample of the pandemic coronavirus that WIV used to determine its genetic sequence,” according to ScienceMag, and arrange an independent audit of the WIV and their records to determine if they were in possession of SARS-CoV-2 before Dec. 2019. (read more) 2020-08-23 a “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” C. S. Lewis 2020-08-21 d Pestilence In Literature The Enduring Relevance of The Plague
Albert Camus’s postwar novel captures the existential dread of contagion. In the late 1940s, Nobel Prize–winning French author Albert Camus saw it all coming: pestilence, quarantine, untreatable illness, a cratering economy, citizens cowering in their homes, and “frontline workers” willing to sacrifice themselves for their neighbors. No, he didn’t predict that a novel coronavirus would leap from bats to humans in the closing days of 2019, but he knew as well as any epidemiologist that terrible diseases periodically explode through human populations, and in his novel The Plague (translated from the French La Peste), he warned his contemporaries about it: “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” Arguably the best work of fiction about a disease nemesis ever written, The Plague describes a fictional outbreak of bubonic plague in the French Algerian city of Oran shortly after World War II. It is a story of a pestilence in a modern European city on the African continent with telephones, cars, and other postwar technologies. Colonial France conquered Algeria in 1830 and ruled it until 1962. Camus was born there to French pieds-noir (“black feet”) parents—citizens who lived in Algeria before independence—in the small coastal town of Dréan (then Mondovi), near the Tunisian border. He studied philosophy at the University of Algiers and joined the French Resistance when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, working primarily as editor-in-chief of the outlawed newspaper Combat. He was an existentialist philosopher as well as an author of fiction, and his novel The Stranger enjoyed a decades-long run as required reading for university students. Some assume that Camus’s plague novel is an allegory of the Nazi occupation. It isn’t, really, though he surely drew from his experience in the Resistance when he wrote it. No, The Plague is precisely what it’s purported to be: the story of a city during a horrific outbreak, as told through the perspective of its narrator, Dr. Bernard Rieux. It’s also a morality tale and a warning to all that the human race is bound to experience something like it again. The Plague sears itself into the mind; hardly anyone who reads it ever forgets it. (read more) 2020-08-21 c New UK Site STOP NEW NORMAL
WE ARE Dedicated to campaigning and uniting-in-action the many groups fighting the Covid Contagion fear measures which have cut living standards, jobs, rights and freedoms. We are coordinating and organising #StopNewNormal, #StopOrGo and #BetterWayCharter campaigns to stop parliament renewing the Covid-19 oppressive legislation. We are fighting against the government's Covid policies which cause illness and death - and fighting for Action to cut claimed virus illness and SAVE LIVES. NO MORE LOCKDOWNS - Restore Jobs, Rights and Freedoms - NO to all Covid Vax programs No to Bill Gates Rule - Stop New Normal and New World Order. Top Professional Doctors, Nurses and Campaigners Speaking Out With Real truth about Covid-19 and the Plandemic (read more) 2020-08-21 b Andrew Cuomo Hates Travelers Pointless Quarantine
New York’s restrictions on interstate travelers are overbroad and punish rather than protect New Yorkers. At the end of March, Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo issued an executive order directing police to pull over cars with New York plates at the state border and order them to quarantine for 14 days or face fines and possible jail time. New Yorkers were outraged. New York governor Andrew Cuomo claimed Rhode Island was motivated by fear and opined, “I don’t think the order was called for, I don’t think it was legal, I don’t think it was neighborly.” He threatened legal action. Rhode Island replaced the order with a new one mandating that all travelers with out-of-state plates undergo a 14-day self-quarantine. Now, Governor Cuomo is doing exactly what he condemned a few months ago. Pursuant to his Executive Order 205, New York has created a list of more than 30 “restricted” states from which travelers must quarantine for 14 days if they enter the Empire State. Violators may be subject to a fine of up to $10,000. These restrictions make little sense, are overbroad, and penalize rather than protect New Yorkers. And they are, as a practical matter, unenforceable. The resulting New York travel advisory—jointly issued with neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut—targets states with ten or more positive Covid tests per 100,000 population, an absurdly low starting point. That means a random traveler from such a state has only a one in 10,000 chance (0.01 percent) of being positive. But a sick person is less likely to be traveling than an asymptomatic person. Since half or more of Covid-19 patients are symptomatic, we could cut these odds by half. The advisory also targets states where 10 percent or more of tests are positive over a seven-day rolling average. But this statistic alone is largely meaningless. It is dependent on the number of tests being performed and why they are performed. If testing is performed only on symptomatic people, or people who have reason to believe they have been exposed or are infected, the positivity rate will be higher. If testing is more general and widespread, the rate will be lower. The data point may indicate high infection rates in the community; more likely, it represents insufficient testing. The advisory does not apply to individuals who spend less than 24 hours in a designated state during their travels—an arbitrary standard. There is nothing magical about a 24-hour period. A traveler to a state with rampant Covid-19 transmission can go to the gym, get a manicure, and top off their evening in a restaurant but be excused as long as they complete their activities and leave the state in under 24 hours. Meantime, someone who spends two days in a remote cabin in Montana must quarantine. (read more) 2020-08-21 a “It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final.” Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, 1962 2020-08-20 d Study Published in Annals of Internal Medicine Concludes COVID-19 Is Not Very Contagious There Is No Scientific Justification for Tyrannies Like: Mask Mandates, Anti-Social Distancing, and the Destruction of the Economy. Contact Settings and Risk for
Transmission in 3410 Close Contacts of Patients With
COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China
Abstract Background: Risk for transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to close contacts of infected persons has not been well estimated. Objective: To evaluate the risk for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to close contacts in different settings. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Close contacts of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Guangzhou, China. Participants: 3410 close contacts of 391 index cases were traced between 13 January and 6 March 2020. Data on the setting of the exposure, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction testing, and clinical characteristics of index and secondary cases were collected. Measurement: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases were confirmed by guidelines issued by China. Secondary attack rates in different settings were calculated. Results: Among 3410 close contacts, 127 (3.7% [95% CI, 3.1% to 4.4%]) were secondarily infected. Of these 127 persons, 8 (6.3% [CI, 2.1% to 10.5%]) were asymptomatic. Of the 119 symptomatic cases, 20 (16.8%) were defined as mild, 87 (73.1%) as moderate, and 12 (10.1%) as severe or critical. Compared with the household setting (10.3%), the secondary attack rate was lower for exposures in healthcare settings (1.0%; odds ratio [OR], 0.09 [CI, 0.04 to 0.20]) and on public transportation (0.1%; OR, 0.01 [CI, 0.00 to 0.08]). The secondary attack rate increased with the severity of index cases, from 0.3% (CI, 0.0 to 1.0%) for asymptomatic to 3.3% (CI, 1.8% to 4.8%) for mild, 5.6% (CI, 4.4% to 6.8%) for moderate, and 6.2% (CI, 3.2% to 9.1%) for severe or critical cases. Index cases with expectoration were associated with higher risk for secondary infection (13.6% vs. 3.0% for index cases without expectoration; OR, 4.81 [CI, 3.35 to 6.93]). Limitation: There was potential recall bias regarding symptom onset among patients with COVID-19, and the symptoms and severity of index cases were not assessed at the time of exposure to contacts. Conclusion: Household contact was the main setting for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and the risk for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among close contacts increased with the severity of index cases. (read more) 2020-08-20 c Ain't Gonna Happen Why Americans Should Adopt the
Sweden Model on Covid-19
... Conclusions The data suggest that lockdowns have not prevented any deaths from covid-19. At best, lockdowns have deferred death for a short time, but they cannot possibly be continued for the long term. It seems likely that one will not have to even compare economic deprivation with loss of life, as the final death toll following authoritarian lockdowns will most likely exceed the deaths from letting people choose how to manage their own risk. After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation. Covid-19 is not going to be defeated; we will have to learn how to coexist with it. The only way we can learn how best to cope with covid-19 is to let individuals manage their own risk, observe the outcomes, and learn from mistakes. The world owes a great debt to Sweden for setting an example that the rest of us can follow. (read more) 2020-08-20 b COVID Kills Fat People The crucial variable with
Covid-19 isn’t ethnicity – it’s fat
In the UK’s capital city, where do the fewest obese people live? North London. The most? East London. The weight disparity between largely white and largely immigrant residents might seem to concern race, but I will argue — against the tide, as right now everything is about race — that, deep down, the fat differential isn’t ethnic. The American and British media have chided for months about higher Covid fatality rates among minorities, and I’ve previously cast medical dubiety on the fashionable claim that these patients are dying of racism. Released last month, a statistically meticulous Columbia University study of some 7,000 cases validates my scepticism. As the New York Times reported: ‘The study did not find race or ethnicity to be an independent risk factor. The researchers did find extreme obesity to be a strong independent risk factor for worse outcomes.’ Indeed, when isolated from conditions like diabetes that corpulence can trigger, obesity alone raises the likelihood of a dire Covid response by fostering inflammation and breathing difficulties. The crucial variable isn’t race. It’s fat. Patients with ‘extreme obesity’ — a BMI of 40 or more — were almost three times more likely to die from Covid than people of normal weight. Those with a BMI of 45 or more were four times more likely to die. And poundage is as perilous for young people as for the over-60s. (read more) 2020-08-20 a “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny;” Thomas Jefferson, 1778 2020-08-19 d THE CORONA-CON III Is there science or fiction
behind the Government’s Covid-19 decisions?
... But what is the science? Should we really be treating a small group of Government scientists conclusions as objective truth, when not only are others in stark disagreement, but their own findings are riddled with inconsistencies? ... On 2 June, Professor Ferguson admitted that Sweden had used the same science as the UK, yet unlike us they chose not to lock down, keeping offices, schools, restaurants and bars open. Puzzlingly, their death rate per million is 477, lower than our figure of 608. Belgium, who implemented one of the strictest lockdowns, has suffered 823, the highest in the world. Figures from the Swedish Public Health Agency suggest that applying Ferguson’s modelling to Sweden would have seen 75 times the number of deaths. What I don’t understand is why we put our trust in this mad modeller in the first place? Looking at his track record, he’s been way off the mark on virtually every pandemic he’s meddled in. In 2009 he projected 63,000 UK deaths from Swine Flu, yet the number ended up standing at 457. For the mad cow’s disease (BSE), he cautioned that 136,000 could die, but only 177 did. If this wasn’t enough, he got the whole world in a flap in 2005 when he predicted that 200 million would die. The death toll was 243. I think, perhaps, he must have caught the mad cow’s disease himself and omitted the E in BSE! It’s the only explanation for it. There’s something insidious about the way that the model was cobbled together. Ferguson chose not to release it to the science community until we were on our sixth week of lockdown. With a country scared witless over the virus, this time it was the scientists turn. ... A happy ending? Rather than a soul-sucking dementor or dastardly Dalek, Covid-19 could be nothing more than a Disney dormouse, inhabitting the land of mythical political science. As the scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Michael Levitt muses, exaggerating the impact of a disease ‘poses less risk to professional reputations’ than understating it. The panic created by Professor Ferguson no doubt played an integral part in the hurry to discharge untested hospital patients back to care homes. The epidemic in settings like these has played havoc with the make-believe R number, which the Government and media has gradually socially distanced itself away from. As the businessman Luke Johnson said, ‘Full-blown lockdown has such a vast cost in terms of collateral damage, its promoters among the media, politicians and SAGE will never admit it was a mistake. Their reputations and self esteem would be shredded. So they will defend it despite the great harms’. So when we pull the face masks off, the real villains could turn out to be the same proclaiming to read out of the storybook of science. But unlike a fictitious fantasy, we won’t live happily ever after. The reality and consequences of what we’ve done to our liberty, economy and health will continue for us still living down here on planet Earth. Perhaps then, it’s down to us, and not the Doctor, to lead the way and save the world. (read more) 2020-08-19 c THE CORONA-CON II The Sunday Essay: the sum of
cultural, free speech, health & economic damage
done by the Covid19 caper
Inhuman, unnatural behaviour. Mob obedience. The destruction of Citizen Healthcare. Sovereign fiscal insolvency. Unparalleled job losses. Is anyone still seriously trying to tell me that all this was done with the best intentions to save us from being wiped out by a virus that kills 0.0064% of us? Band together Thinking People: this is nonsense, and we all know it. _____ I have owned one property or another in France for over thirty years. No event has come close to the Coronavirus hype in its quite extraordinary ability to change Gallic culture. There is an overwhelming sense of obedience being the only moral choice for a responsible citizen – the diametric opposite of the normal French attitude, which is to ridicule every politician, evade as much tax as possible, and break every speed limit as a matter of course. One feels the change very keenly: the almost jingoistic tone of regulatory notices – ‘unifié contre le virus’ – the tut-tutting or stony silence if one says anything contrarian, and of course the fear in those eyes above the mask. The habit of kissing on greeting and stopping for a gossip has disappeared. Even when it’s possible to show people with one chart that immunity is growing and deaths are falling sharply, they shrug and say, “I faut rester prudent” – we must remain on our guard. Three months ago, the obligatory wearing of masks in the street was being hotly debated in the media, and largely opposed in Opeds. Today, large areas of Paris have adopted that ridiculous obligation without a murmur….despite the now massively quantified data proving that management drugs are highly effective at dealing with the infected, and 85% of the population has only the tiniest chance of dying from Covid19. De Gaulle said, after his long term in office, that France could not be governed in the accepted libertarian sense of the term. In just four months, Emmanuel Macron has shown that the emerging French generations will applaud the idea of collaboration’s meaning being shifted from a potential insult into some kind of patriotic duty. There is a life-lesson I have relearned over the last five years: that friends from normal cirumstances are largely useless as comrades when malign forces have made them scared. Brexit and Covid19 did that. One has to seek out new colleagues capable, as Kipling put it, “of keeping your head when others are losing theirs”. The ultimate loneliness of Gary Cooper in High Noon is being played out in millions of relationships in the 21st century West. That alone results in disastrous cultural change. It is hard to find a single EU State now – even a single Anglospheric State – that isn’t socially and politically split down the middle on nationalism, blocism, globalism, race, culture, creed, independence….and now, even health is emerging as (despite the surface robotic opinion-forming) yet another canyon of divide. At its core, the divide is about telling the truth come what may, restoring the balance of our natural instincts in the context of society, and opposing both the mendacious censorship and puerile propaganda of the State’s information apertures. A staggering percentage of Western citizens still quietly believe that, as it were, keeping quiet about injustice can somehow be in the common good. An almost equal percentage see opposition to issues like EU practices and Big Pharma’s malign influence on public health as evidence, variously, of igorance, stupidity, racism and the sort of mental derangement that leads “the gullible” to indulge in “silly conspiracy theories”. The disbelief in censorship is, for me, the most incomprehensible given its blatant nature. ... Meanwhile, Governments around the world – including the UK – face a wave of lawsuits from foreign companies who complain that their profits have been hit by the pandemic. Bless. Do they include Sanofi, GSK, Astrazeneka and their fellow travellers, we ask ourselves? If rich globalist companies wish to sue nation States rendered both fiscally and morally bankrupt by the pernicious actions of pharmaceutical giants and their infinite hordes of medical whores, might I make a small suggestion? Would it not be a good idea for those same nation States and hacked off globalists to join forces and sue the collective arses off Megadrug Combines? After all, why sue the pauperised Sovereigns* when the prosperous sociopaths are there for the taking of rich pickings? Don’t chase the ambulance to the publicly-funded hospice, guys – follow the sedan chairs to places like Imperial Private Healthcare. Never heard of IPH? Let me enlighten you: Imperial Private Healthcare is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the largest teaching hospital groups in the UK. You know….the one where Leftwinger Neil Ferguson works. You really could not make this shit up. *I use the term pauperised Sovereigns there without any sense of hyperbole. Here’s an extract from a new Ambrose Evans-Pritchard piece – in my view, AEP is still the most erudite media fiscal economist in Europe: ‘The accumulated loss in GDP has been 22% from peak to trough for the UK’ He’s right. From April and June alone, UK GDP collapsed by 20.4% – the worst three-month fall ever recorded according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), as almost every industry was crushed by the response to the pandemic. There is no way a post-EU economy like ours could ever afford to chuck away a fifth of our net trading volume during what is (if you strip out the bonkers QE element) a global slump likely to exceed that of 1929. That’s simple maths of the kind I have been promoting since this farcical Contrick19 hoodwink got under way. _____ If this post doesn’t convince you of a destructive, anti-social, illiberal and amoral global game in play, then I’m at a loss to know what will. A massive banking, bourse, currency and corporatocracy reset is imminent. You have been warned. (read more) 2020-08-19 b THE CORONA-CON I The Covid Second Wave:
survival advice from Doris Jobsdone
My loyal quasi-Imperial Subjects, Yes, it’s me again – pinning another set of instructions on the notice board. As you can see they are invisible for security reasons, but I can give you the gist in this inclusive column I have graciously agreed to write for Mr Slog, on the grounds that he isn’t Andrew Neill. Now whatever Communist propaganda you have seen put about by the likes of unionised health workers, Didier Raoult and my former ally Donald Trump who has obviously gone mad, let me reassure you here and now that there is going to be a Second Wave of Covid19. I know you’re all looking forward to it, and equally you know I am a good ol boy who fucks everything with a pulse and doesn’t renege on his promises. Why do I know the Second Wave is coming? Well, this is because all our experts whose genius long ago raised them far above all the drones who saved my life three months ago agree that it is….and of course, great minds always think alike. Also, having received their fearlessly honest alarmism, I went to my 1971 Boys Book of Readers Digest Epidemiology and everything they said checked out. The thing that already tells us the Second Wave is imminent is that we are seeing huge rises in cases. Cases are very important, because PHE established some time ago that every case becomes a death, thus giving the lie to Putin-controlled site Worldometer and its ridiculous allegation that 99.1% of Coronavirus cases cause only mild symptoms. There are other agitators who will try and convince you that the increase in recorded cases is nothing more than an increased level of testing. All I can say is, the testing programme instituted by the Trotskyite dingbats who have penetrated the Department of Health is pure poppycock and seems incapable of identifying anyone with one head, let alone Covid19. And so, as we steel ourselves to the task of dealing with this monstrous virus deliberately foisted upon the world by slitty-eyed yellow Maoists whom I once courted with a view to importing G5 stuff, it is my solemn duty and great pleasure to announce the following necessary measures to defend this, our Island Nation, from the ravages of a devious, deadly mass-murderous enemy who must and will be defeated….. 1.In recent weeks, it has become very clear
that the virus only attacks live human beings. We are
therefore going to institute a comprehensive strategy
of reducing its chances of spreading via a sensitively
designed programme of reducing the supply of water to
all those jobless households contributing nothing to
gdp in this our hour of greatest need. That is to say,
cutting off their access to water, and banning them
from supermarkets.
2.The Death penalty is to reintroduced for anyone found guilty of helping such people – a sensible measure, in that they too will become dead and thus immune to Covid19. 3.It is predicted by the Imperial College VAXX4all department that the Second Wave will reflect further mutation in the virus involving symptoms that include projectile vomiting over a distance of some 30 metres. Recent seaborne arrivals of migrants having ensured that everyone is within 15 metres of everyone else, it will be necessary – as a precautionary measure – to demolish half of all housing in the country. Not only will this create more space for effective social distancing, it will also result in widespread loss of life for those at home when the demolitions start without warning. This will further depress the number of live citizens open to attack from this appalling viral cul I am sure you will join me in welcoming these measures, and the further evidence they offer all decent voters that Conservatives are committed to saving lives at any cost, including purely material considerations such as the National Debt, gdp, the stock markets, our banking system and social welfare budgets. Thank you and goodnight. Lady Doris of Downing Street (read more) 2020-08-19 a “I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation! Yet it is so common that one must grieve the more and wonder the less at the spectacle of a million men serving in wretchedness, their necks under the yoke, not constrained by a greater multitude than they… Étienne de la Boétie 2020-08-18 d When "Science" Becomes Politicized - Part III COVID Rebellion
The sky is falling The popular narrative is that COVID is in the ascendance. New Zealand with one person in the hospital as per reports a few days back, found that sufficient to shut down yet again, demonstrating their penchant for unmerited economic suicide against the as yet unseen economic, social, and other side effects being stockpiled. The US, though, is the poster child for COVID incompetence. Doubtless some of that is clearly merited, but a sober look at facts does restrain us somewhat. August 13th was day 150 of “15 days to flatten the curve.” As of that day: •Only 3% of ER visits were for COVID symptoms.
•Only 1.9% of active cases were hospitalized. •Only .014% of Americans were hospitalized with COVID. Only 0.7% of Americans were currently a positive case. So, let us at least partially pacify our angst. It’s the Economy, Stupid Economic consequences from the protracted “reality evasion” of perpetual “lockdown” are now starting to be experienced. And the pundits of perpetual lockdown, the smug savants of “lives above economy” (as if the two could be meaningfully detached) are now fulminating in outraged and impotent horror, as the “consequences” are beginning to assert themselves. The blow to numerous economies has been cataclysmic. The UK has experienced the worst recession of any major nation. The drop in output dwarfs the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great Depression of the 1930s (though hopefully, the COVID depression won’t last as long). You have to go back to 1709, before the Industrial Revolution, to what was colorfully described as “the Great Frost” — the coldest winter of the past half-millennium — to find an event which has so devastated economic life. The US GDP collapse has essentially wiped out five years of growth in a matter of months, and using another metric, Yelp estimates that more than 60% of restaurants in the United States have closed or are in the process of doing so. Those who were the most outraged “COVID concentration camp” proponents since the outset are shocked that foisting unscientific remedies through extrapolated panic porn is not the way for a major economy to navigate. The fetishistic “bed wetters” who clanged alarm bells at every semblance of normal life inching back, as if they had been given oracular prescience as to keeping the virus at bay, now are appalled as the purported “infinity stones” of lockdowns, masks and endless stimulus (furlough) checks are faltering and mocking our delusions. The fact that cases are a poor barometer and were not “exploding” as most of the world opened up, and where they “spiked” was partly attributable to a massive surge in testing, and strange protocols of what constituted a “COVID case” (anyone even asymptomatically testing “positive” from PCP tests notorious for considerably less than 100% “sensitivity” or “specificity” was being tagged), counterbalanced by no sustained spike in deaths (which continued by and large to be flat or fall), was steadfastly ignored. Also ignored is that “economy vs lives” does not affect the richest, it is the poor who lose jobs, savings, cannot access medical care or education and more. Big Tech or Amazon or Netflix or even stock speculators are not those who have felt, to date anyway, the impact. Of course, superstition is maintained by asserting nonsense repeatedly. Namely, “if we had moved faster, an earlier, shorter lockdown would have reduced COVID fatalities, and limited the economic pain.” Unfortunately, Belgium, a marvelous exemplar of early, strict lockdown has one of the highest number of per capita COVID deaths, compared certainly to Sweden, or frankly even Brazil (on which more below). Moreover, much of this is retroactive rationalizing. Imperial College, the deranged modeling twats who show how impervious funding and even government backing can be to outright incompetence, were assuming five months of strict shutdown in March. Their enablers were trumpeting “as long as needed.” One wondered which Constitution re the asserted suspension of liberties they were reading, which magical grove of money trees they were going to fund this enterprise from, or the medical statistics they had access to, showing us that far from a bad influenza period we were actually re-experiencing the Plague of Justinian. Alas, clarity was not forthcoming on any of those points. And despite the hissing vitriol targeted towards Sweden by the deranged pro lockdown proponents, there is an eerie silence as it becomes clear Sweden has economically fared better than the rest of Europe, has no out-of-control “waves,” and but for their disastrous handling of nursing homes, still did better than the UK and many other European nations in terms of overall mortality. Sweden’s economic contraction is akin to 1980 rather than the Great Frost, which anyway was a natural disaster, not a calamitous “shutdown” of critical faculties and judgment. (read more) 2020-08-18 c When "Science" Becomes Politicized - Part II MN Governor Quietly Reverses
Course on Hydroxychloroquine
This past week Minnesota became the second state to reject regulations that effectively ban the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for use by COVID-19 patients. The decision, which comes two weeks after the Ohio Board of Pharmacy reversed an effective ban of its own, was rightfully praised by local health care advocates. “We are pleased that Governor [Tim] Walz lifted his March 27 Executive Order 20-23 restrictions on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine,” said Twila Brase, president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom. The reversal by Walz, a first-term Democrat, clears the way for doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine, a drug commonly used to treat malaria and other conditions but one the FDA has declined to recommend for COVID-19 treatment. The decision is the latest development in the weird saga of arguably the most divisive drug in modern history. The acrimony began in March after President Trump tweeted that hydroxychloroquine had the potential to be “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine” as a treatment for the coronavirus. (read more) 2020-08-18 b When "Science" Becomes Politicized - Part I Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality
Tale
A startling investigation into how a cheap, well-known drug became a political football in the midst of a pandemic Early in the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of the world’s frontline physicians showed hydroxychloroquine to be the drug they considered the most effective at treating COVID-19 patients. That was in early April, shortly after a French study showed it was safe and effective in lowering the virus count, at times in combination with azithromycin. Next we were told hydroxychloroquine was likely ineffective, and also dangerous, and that that French study was flawed and the scientist behind it worthy of mockery. More studies followed, with contradictory results, and then out came what was hailed by some as a definitive study of 96,000 patients showing the drug was most certainly dangerous and ineffective, and indeed that it killed 30% more people than those who didn’t take it. Within days, that study was retracted, with the editor of one of the two most respected medical journals in the Western world conceding it was “a monumental fraud.” And on it went. Not only are lay people confused; professionals are. All that seems certain is that there is something disturbing going on in our science, and that if and when the “perfect study” were to ever come along, many won’t know what to believe. We live in a culture that has uncritically accepted that every domain of life is political, and that even things we think are not political are so, that all human enterprises are merely power struggles, that even the idea of “truth” is a fantasy, and really a matter of imposing one’s view on others. For a while, some held out hope that science remained an exception to this. That scientists would not bring their personal political biases into their science, and they would not be mobbed if what they said was unwelcome to one faction or another. But the sordid 2020 drama of hydroxychloroquine—which saw scientists routinely attacked for critically evaluating evidence and coming to politically inconvenient conclusions—has, for many, killed those hopes. Phase 1 of the pandemic saw the near collapse of the credible authority of much of our public health officialdom at the highest levels, led by the exposure of the corruption of the World Health Organization. The crisis was deepened by the numerous reversals on recommendations, which led to the growing belief that too many officials were interpreting, bending, or speaking about the science relevant to the pandemic in a politicized way. Phase 2 is equally dangerous, for it shows that politicization has started to penetrate the peer review process, and how studies are reported in scientific journals, and of course in the press. Those who have their doubts about hydroxychloroquine rightly point out that the public is scared, and we are longing for a magical potion to rescue us. The history of plagues is rife with such potions and the charlatans who sold them were well documented in Daniel Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year. A pandemic is not a remedy for the innate tendency toward wishful thinking. What is unique about the hydroxychloroquine discussion is that it is a story of “unwishful thinking”—to coin a term for the perverse hope that some good outcome that most sane people would earnestly desire, will never come to pass. It’s about how, in the midst of a pandemic, thousands started earnestly hoping—before the science was really in—that a drug, one that might save lives at a comparatively low cost, would not actually do so. Reasonably good studies were depicted as sloppy work, fatally flawed. Many have excelled in making counterfeit bills that look real, but few have excelled at making real bills look counterfeit. As such, as we sort this out, we shall observe not only some “tricks” about how to make bad studies look like good ones, but also how to make good studies look like bad ones. And why should anyone facing a pandemic wish to discredit potentially lifesaving medications? Well, in fact, this ability can come in very handy in this midst of a plague, when many medications and vaccines are competing to Save the World—and for the billions of dollars that will go along with that. So this story is twofold. It’s about the discussion that unfolded (and is still unfolding) around hydroxychloroquine, but if you’re here for a definitive answer to a narrow question about one specific drug (“does hydroxychloroquine work?”), you will be disappointed. Because what our tale is really concerned with is the perilous state of vulnerability of our scientific discourse, models, and institutions—which is arguably a much bigger, and more urgent problem, since there are other drugs that must be tested for safety and effectiveness (most complex illnesses like COVID-19 often require a group of medications) as well as vaccines, which would be slated to be given to billions of people. “This misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence,” Yale professor of epidemiology Harvey A. Risch recently argued. Why not start studying it now? (read more) 2020-08-18 a “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” G. K. Chesterton 2020-08-17 d Diversity Is NOT Our Strength Kenyan Immigrant Who Became
Naval Academy Midshipman Convicted of Sexual
Assault, Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Nixon Keago is a midshipman at the Naval Academy. A midshipman at the U.S Naval Academy was sentenced on two counts of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, burglary and obstruction of justice Wednesday, crimes that occurred in 2018 and 2019 and which targeted female classmates at the Naval Academy. Midshipman Nixon Keago was sentenced to 25 years confinement, which will likely be served within the federal prison system. The Naval Academy student was dismissed from the US Navy and ordered to repay wages. Keago had been convicted of the crimes last month in a Navy court martial. His sentencing was delayed after he tested positive for coronavirus. A psychologist who testified in the trial proceedings emphasized that she believes Keago has a “low rehabilitation potential.” The midshipman was convicted of one attempted home invasion sexual assault after being initially charged with sex crimes, suggesting a psychological propensity to commit the crimes. Keago was convicted and sentenced in the military criminal justice system, which differs considerably from the civilian court system. Navy prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Chris Cox had sought a sentence of 40 years for Keago, citing psychological analysis that suggested he’d be likely to re-offend, and arguing that confinement is the only way to prevent the now-dismissed service member from reoffending. Keago’s defense had sought a sentence of only 5 years. (read more) 2020-08-17 c THE CORONA-CON SCAMDEMIC: Texas Officials
Announce COVID-19 Case Numbers Were Fake Due to
System Upgrades, Coding Errors
The fraud continues. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that the number of new COVID-19 cases was erroneous, with an artificially high number of cases, due to system upgrades and coding errors with their reporting system. Abbott explained that the Texas Department of State Health Services brought in a data team to review the suspect numbers. The positivity rates reached a stunning 24.5 percent last Wednesday, which caused the media alarmists to create more hysteria among the beleaguered masses. DSHS press officer Lara Anton said that this happened because of a computer update that occurred on Aug. 1, resulting in positives being uploaded into the system multiple times. Coding errors were also discovered in one hospital lab and another commercial lab that resulted in additional positives being counted to the total. Dallas County Director of Health and Human Services Dr. Phillip Huang made excuses for the glaring errors which are being used to shutter certain businesses throughout Texas. “We are still dealing with paper faxes of lab data and lab reports – hundreds of those a day that we’re having to deal with,” Huang said. “The systems have not really been designed to handle this many numbers,” he added. “It’s an unprecedented situation we’re dealing with.” While the so-called experts would like to make it appear as if this some kind of honest mistake, irregularities in the reporting have steadily occurred throughout the country. Another supposed COVID-19 hot spot, Florida, is having similar problems with reporting phony numbers. (read more) 2020-08-17 b “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The Babylon Bee Suspended From
Twitter for So-Called ‘Platform Manipulation’
They’re banning satire site. Satirical news website The Babylon Bee was suspended from Twitter on Monday, with the platform’s censorious administrators claiming the parody site had somehow violated site rules against “platform manipulation and spam.” Twitter is literally suspending parody sites now. Babylon Bee was widely known for fictional satirical content. The censorious Big Tech oligarchs who are determined to hand Joe Biden the election can’t even tolerate a joke if it violates their sacrosanct liberal religion. (read more) 2020-08-17 a “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” Francois Marie Arouet, "Voltaire" 2020-08-16 d California Politician of Color Wants Rich People To Leave State California Set To Pass The
Nation's First Wealth Tax Targeting The Ultra Rich
It was about about nine years ago when consulting company BCG first suggested that in a time of out of control spending and soaring debt loads, the only fiscally sustainable "solution" was to implement a wealth tax (see "There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis"). While the idea was well ahead of its time in 2011, and was quickly shut down in the court of public opinion, several years later none other than the IMF resurrected the idea of a wealth tax, which has only gained momentum in recent months, and despite widespread grassroots pushback, the concept of a "wealth tax" has moved front and center and most recently the chairman of Capital Economics, Roger Bootle, said that the world’s wealthiest could be subjected to higher tax rates as governments scramble to fund spending and repair their economies amid the coronavirus crisis. Fast forward to today when the ultra-liberal state of California is now ready to take this "socialist" idea from concept to the implementation phase, with the SF Chronicle reporting that a group of CA state lawmakers on Thursday proposed a first-in-the-nation state wealth tax that would hit about 30,400 California residents and raise an estimated $7.5 billion for the general fund. The proposed tax rate would be 0.4% of net worth (most likely ended up far higher), excluding directly held real estate, that exceeds $30 million for single and joint filers and $15 million for married filing separately. Oakland Democrat Rob Bonta, who is the lead author of the wealth tax proposal AB2008, justified the wealth expropriation by saying that California is facing a big budget deficit because of the health and economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus, and "we can’t simply rely on austerity measures," to close it. It wasn't immediately clear why austerity doesn't work considering that California has never actually tried it, but in any case the Democrat's proposal was clear: "We must consider revenue generation." And in doing that, California will trigger an exodus of billionaires who will be the first to realize which way the wind is blowing, and end up hurting the state far more than helping it as hundreds of ultra wealthy taxpayers leave for places like Florida or - for that matter - any other place in the world. (read more) 2020-08-16 c Eugenics With Guns - In General, It's People of Color Killing Other people of Color 49 People Shot In Last 72
Hours In New York As City Hits Its "Expiration Date"
The gentrified New York City that made the Big Apple the envy of billionaires, oligarchs, child molesters and money laundering criminals from around the world is no more, and in its place is the hellish New York from the 1970s. According to Gothamist, between Thursday and Saturday, 49 people were shot in the largest city in the United States, as the uptick in gun violence continues this summer and is rushing to catch up with that other progressive paradise, Chicago. Putting the surge in context, the number of people shot over the three days is five times more than the eight who were shot during the same days last year according to the Washington Examiner. While most of the shooting victims were merely wounded, at least six people were killed by gunshot wounds over the 3-day interval, compared to three homicides that took place during the same time last year. Year to date, there have been 1,087 shooting victims so far in 888 different incidents throughout the city, roughly double the crime observed in 2019. Last year at this time, there had been 577 shooting victims in 488 incidents in New York City. Among those murdered was an off-duty corrections officer who worked at Rikers Island. John Jeff, 28, had just left a party in Queens at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning when he was shot in the head and chest. (read more) 2020-08-16 b Deep State Must Fear What She Has To Say Conservative Journalist
Arrested & Jailed Ahead Of 'ShadowGate'
Documentary Release
As Peter Bary Chowka detailed earlier at AmericanThinker.com, Millie Weaver, widely known as Millennial Millie, a 29-year old conservative new media video and print journalist with a large following online, was arrested at her home in Ohio on Friday morning. Police officers apparently from a local SWAT team took Weaver to the Portage County Jail in Ravenna, Ohio where she is being held without bail until at least Monday for a “tentative status hearing.” A short video captured on her cell phone as she was being taken away was posted online. Millie Weaver is one of
my favorite independent journalists. She’s also a
young mom. I was shocked to see this heavy-handed
arrest. With her friends’ permission, I have set up
a GoFundMe — please join me in chipping in.
https://t.co/zsWPUMAUee pic.twitter.com/YFUOdvLtPf
— Ezra Levant (@ezralevant) August 14, 2020 The news of Weaver’s arrest was immediately taken note of on social media as the Twitter hashtags #freemillie and #freemillieweaver quickly trended. Talk show host and licensed investigator Doug Hagmann, on whose program Weaver was a guest on July 3, obtained a copy of Weaver’s custody record, which is public information, with additional background from his sources which he cited in an article: According to the
information I obtained through my investigative
inquiries (and partially detailed in the video of
her arrest), she was indicted by a grand jury seated
in Ohio. The indictment was sealed until served. The
nature of her alleged offenses appears to be
“process crimes” (e.g. Obstruction of Justice,
Tampering with Evidence)
In an article Friday at activist post, Spiro Skouras wrote that he also “contacted the Portage County Sheriff’s Office and they confirmed Millie Weaver is in their custody. They also confirmed that she was served a secret indictment. “] The plot, if not the confusion, in this case thickens in light of the fact that Weaver was set to release an 82-minute independent documentary, Shadow Gate, which, as they say, is ripped from the headlines. The two-minute trailer, which Weaver tweeted a link to on August 11, teases the film’s relevance to current events: (read more) 2020-08-16 a "When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say." George R. R. Martin ______________________ Permission is hereby granted to any and all to copy and paste any entry on this page and convey it electronically along with its URL, http://www.usaapay.com/comm.html ______________________ 2020 - August 1 - 15 ARCHIVE 2020 - July 16 - 31 ARCHIVE 2020 - JULY 1 - 15 ARCHIVE 2020 - JUNE 16 - 30 ARCHIVE 2020 - JUNE 1 - 15 ARCHIVE 2020 - MAY 16 - 31 ARCHIVE 2020 - MAY 1 - 15 ARCHIVE 2020 - APRIL 16 - 30 ARCHIVE 2020 - APRIL 1 - 15 ARCHIVE 2020 - MARCH ARCHIVE 2020 - FEBRUARY ARCHIVE 2020 - JANUARY ARCHIVE |
...
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those sick and tired of the National Propaganda Radio
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