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Watch: a pair of bald eagles are entangled on a Minnesota street Boing Boing (resilc)
The Story of One Whale Who Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Animals and Humans Smithsonian (Chuck L)
Scientists Used AI to Track Spiders Building Webs in The Dark in Unprecedented Detail Science Alert (David L)
Try, try and try again: why did modern humans take so long to settle in Europe? Guardian (Kevin W)
The Science Museum Wants Their Plastic Samples. They Refused Wired (David L)
Can Feminist Robots Challenge Our Biases? IEEE Spectrum (Chuck L)
The Early History of Human Excreta JSTOR (Micael T)
This is Some Good Shit Nautilus (Micael T)
Is it time to stop demonising dairy? For years we’ve been warned that the fat in cheese and milk is bad for our health. Yet new studies suggest dairy may actually be GOOD for us… and even help prevent disease Daily Mail. My about to be 94 year old mother thinks butter is a food group…
#COVID-19
The Coronavirus Pandemic: A Key to Solving Social Problems or a Catalyst for Them? Valdai Discussion Club (Micael T)
Science/Medicine
Is vaccine efficacy a statistical illusion? Probability & Law (Chuck L)
BREAKING: Pfizer will allow generic-drug manufacturers to produce inexpensive versions of its Covid-19 pill, following a similar move by Merck https://t.co/URvcntBCLx pic.twitter.com/ux90fjzSms
— Bloomberg (@business) November 16, 2021
Neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants secondary to in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection: A national prospective study in Kuwait MedRxIv. Preprint. N=298
Long Covid: new wine in need of new bottles BMJ (Basil Pesto)
The impact of public health interventions in the Nordic countries during the first year of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and evolution Eurosurveillance (Micael T)
The Plexiglass Barrier Problem MacLeans (Basil Pesto)
More than 10,000 Australians have filed coronavirus vaccine injury claims Sydney Morning Herald
COVID-19 Forecast for the Holidays and Beyond C-SPAN (Kevin W)
UK/Europe
39705 Covid cases in the UK yesterday ??
3241 in France ?? 3266 in Spain ??5144 in Italy??.Yet our media allows Johnson to talk about a covid wave sweeping over Europe that may impact on us… What a joke.
— Bradley Wall ?️? ????? (@BWallArthur) November 16, 2021
BJ- 'we can't rule out Christmas lockdown because of the Europe wave!'. We've had eye watering case rates for months- *>4 million* confirmed cases since 'freedom day' and excess deaths every single week since July – >20,000 since July. This isn't on Europe. It's on him.
— Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1) November 16, 2021
Germany Plans Curbs for Unvaccinated as Europe Battles Spike Bloomberg
US
What’s Stopping So Many Parents From Giving Their Kids the COVID Vaccine? Slate (Kevin W)
COP26/Climate Change
COP26: China defends its decision of joining India on phasing down instead of eliminating coal The Scroll (J-LS)
Barely a cloud in the sky and Portland, Maine, is flooding PBS (David L) :-(
India’s Top Court Orders ‘Work From Home’ Over Pollution in Capital The Wire (J-LS)
This Colorado ‘solar garden’ is literally a farm under solar panels MPR News (Chuck L)
China?
China’s burned-out tech workers are fighting back against long hours MIT Technology Review (Kevin W). Workers of the world, unite! Or at least rebel in parallel.
Biden’s China policy still hard to pin down Asia Times (Kevin W)
Xi’s new Communist Manifesto Asia Times (resilc)
Canadian city EVACUATED after flood-induced sewage failure RT. Kevin W: “EEwwwww!” Moi: Connected to spate of scatalogical stories above?
Jair Bolsonaro, guns and rising violence in Brazil BBC
New Cold War
Germany suspends certification of Nord Stream 2 pipeline Financial Times. A big reversal. What sexual favors were exchanged for this to transpire?
The Tripartite World Order and the Hybrid World War Dmitry Orlov, The Saker (Kevin W)
The War of Nerves on Europe’s Border Could Turn Hot Bloomberg
EU War Coalitions of the Willing (II) German Foreign Policy (Micael T). Did they not get the memo as to how well the infamous “coalition of the willing” worked?
Syraqistan
Nasrallah: Israel in deep existential crisis, Yemen victory to have huge regional effects The Saker. Chuck L: “Excerpts from a speech delivered by Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on November the 11th, 2021.”
Biden
Gasoline prices are surging. Can Biden actually do something about it? NPR (Kevin W)
Here’s how you know the White House is worried about Kamala Harris CNN (J-LS)
Biden and Harris walk out of the White House together and hug amid claims of a rift Daily Mail (J-LS). Trust me, this is worse than the ritual expression of confidence in an official as they are twisting the the wind. The only difference here is Kamala can’t be ousted.
Buttigieg’s star rises as $1T Biden agenda shifts toward him Associated Press. Resilc: “These crackheads are dreaming if they think he can get elected.”
The ONLY thing to Kamala Harris’ credit is giving Porter national profile by making her the California foreclosure settlement monitor:
On-time mail delivery has plummeted under Postmaster Louis DeJoy—forcing veterans to wait longer for prescriptions, seniors to scramble to pay bills without their Social Security checks, and communities to feel less connected.
Postmaster DeJoy needs to go. pic.twitter.com/NxVivkOQZt
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) November 16, 2021
Feckless Democrats
It’s Not Just White People: Democrats Are Losing Normal Voters of All Races Ryan Grim, Intercept
Dems Are Giving The GOP Another Political Bailout David Sirota
‘Glad you finally came out of the closet’: Gov. Abbott on Texas Rep. Ryan Guillen switching parties KXAN (Kevin W)
Elon Musk targets Bernie Sanders over tax: ‘I keep forgetting you’re still alive’ Guardian (Kevin W)
Supply Chain
MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence AIS Marine Traffic. Resilc: “What isnt clogged, see Savannah GA.”
Gunz
Who bought firearms during 2020 purchasing surge? PhysOrg (Dr. Kevin)
People who purchased guns during buying surge more likely to have suicidal thoughts MedicalXpress (Dr. Kevin)
Police State Watch
Cops probe school board head over eerie ‘dossier’ on parents RT (Kevin W)
Our Famously Free Press
Revealed: Documents Show Bill Gates Has Given $319 Million to Media Outlets Mint Press (Micael T). Quelle surprise!
‘The unknown is scary’: why young women on social media are developing Tourette’s-like tics Guardian. Resilc: “Start the AA programs for smartphones asap.” Moi: Surely with all the proof that Facebook knowingly manipulates user emotions, sets out to create anxiety, and is indifferent to depression, now we have evidence of actual harm. Ambulance chasers to the courtesy phone….
CalPERS
Largest U.S. Pension Bought Palantir, Snowflake, and Berkshire Hathaway Stock Barrons (Kevin W)
Retirement Fund Giant Calpers Votes to Use Leverage, More Alternative Assets Wall Street Journal (Joseph R)
America’s largest Catholic hospital system is moonlighting as a private equity firm STAT. Kill me now. My mother spent a week plus at St. Vincent’s, an Ascension Hospital. The worst. She came back all bruised up, nurses and MDs lied about what was up with her (we had eyes on her pretty much all day via heavy-duty aide coverage), nurses would not answer calls and they weren’t busy (there were always several nurses hanging out at the station doing their nails or fooling with their phones).
Shell plans to move headquarters to the UK BBC (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
Amazon liable for crash because software “micromanages” delivery drivers, victim says ars technica
Amazon’s Spinmasters: Behind the Internet Giant’s Battle With the Press The Information (resilc)
Would You Manage 70 Children And A 15-Ton Vehicle For $18 An Hour? FiveThirtyEight (resilc)
How To Pass A Weed Drug Test: Marijuana Testing Tips Vice. For truck drivers….
Wall Street bankers and traders are set for biggest bonuses since Great Recession CNBC
Antidote du jour. Antoine:
Hi NC team, happy fundraising week!
Attached is an antidote very personal: those are the two donkeys belonging to me and my wife. On the left is Havane, on the right is Cézanne (âne means donkey in french). I’m a IT professional an she was a literature teacher that retired to become farmer, with a duck breeding accent. The donkeys will be used as herd guardians against the many predators living in rural Quebec. The long-term goal is to prepare for The Fall by investing in resilient agriculture and breeding.
Live long and prosper!
And a bonus (furzy):
That cat on the right ??? pic.twitter.com/unTZJJs9xp
— The Feel Good Page ❤️ (@natureheel) November 15, 2021
And a departure from our usual sort of antidote, courtesy Kevin W:
A magical sunset over a sea of clouds filmed in timelapse by Tristan Heth. pic.twitter.com/LSlZfpIMYx
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) November 15, 2021
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
191 comments
Comments are closed.
Re: Rep Katie Porter
The honorable congresswoman rocks her presentations. Vibes of Ross Perot.
She is 100% correct with regards to the post office. I’m seeing checks from customers who I am sure mailed them delayed all the time.
It’s almost as if it was deliberate in order to give a boost to all the new electronic payment processing companies out there looking to take their cut on every exchange…
Unfortunately her district is being radically altered in the just released draft reapportionment plan and she is expected to have a tough reelection. I will be sending her a donation from afar.
What’s Stopping So Many Parents From Giving Their Kids the COVID Vaccine? – Slate
Slate never disappoints:
…we won’t get all the way there without mandates… You need these to become so expected that the school system’s requiring it. The default has to be “vaccinated,” so that most people will do it.
It’s about norms. It’s not you have to opt in, it’s you have to opt out. You can do that even in conversation. If you normalize getting a vaccination, a lot of people, far more than you’d think, will do the default…
…the way to get through to people is to have good messages come from trusted sources. The problem is that one person’s trusted source is another person’s mistrusted source.
As more and more people over time see this as the norm, they will convert… we’ve already got a vaccine and these vaccines are incredible. I do think eventually we’ll get to a better place. I just know that if we would do it faster, we would do it better.
“Bees have to move very fast to stay still.”
— David Foster Wallace
Near the end of that article, the professor says ‘you can’t get unvaccinated.’ Turns out that you can. You just have to wait about six months.
Unless you suffer from “long vaccine”: Neuro disease after vaccine with Nikk – Dr John Campbell
Lovely English(?) lady, btw.
Campbell had an important video the other day that discusses the studies that show the dual methods of action of ivermectin against sars-cov2, including very effective spike protein blocking and high efficacy at blocking the viral enzyme action 3CL protease (>80%) far exceeds the effectiveness of the new pfizer antiviral, and its effective dual method of action means its far less likely for the virus to adapt around it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufy2AweXRkc
and its effective dual method of action means its far less likely for the virus to adapt around it. YankeeFrank
In addition, there’s the person’s own immune system, one might hope, unmolested by the current “vaccines” in the unvaccinated.
It’s almost as if that Pfizer intentionally reduced the blocking method to one (as opposed to IVM’s six) when developing their pfizermectin. Creates an opportunity for many more SKUs.
Good point, I was looking for this quote before my text box time ran out:
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I finally found a good link to VAERS results. Shocking, and not what I expected. More deaths, just in one year, than all the other vaccines combined from 1990 until now. I had both shots, and partner just got the third. I am at a loss, as to what is going on.
https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/11/12/vaers-summary-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-11-05-2021/
Hope it is OK to post this. If not, please remove.
VAERS is self-reported.
It is impossible to know the accuracy of any reported adverse events.
The site you link to is run by an anonymous person or group (ProtonMail account).
In the current politicized environment, buyer beware.
Is this legitimate data selection for the VAERS? I have a lot of trouble negotiating the Vaers data site (is it just clunky? horrible on purpose? healthcare.gov revisited?). Can any data experts comment here? I think those charts, if accurate, are very shocking but I wouldn’t want to disseminate without being sure.
The website claims to be a ‘concerned citizen reporting on overlooked public data regarding adverse reactions’ and claims to have a been a website builder for pharmaceutical companies. Whoever it is, he/she/they seem to be very into it.
@The Rev Kev: my thought, EXACTLY.
What the hell are these people smoking? Does the pediatrician interviewed in that piece even have kids? If I had young children, I would absolutely hesitate about these vaccines that were tested on only 2,268 youngsters aged 5 to 12:
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-positive-topline-results
The doc: “Given how infectious Delta is and other variants, everyone’s eventually going to get vaccinated or COVID.”
NO. Since the vaccines are not sterilizing, everyone is going to get COVID, vaccinated or not. Stop lying, doc.
> . . . everyone is going to get COVID . . .
Not everyone. Careful introverts have good odds of never getting it.
I am coming up to the point of eligibility for the third shot and am leaning very hard toward not getting it. My trust in the lying sacks of shit on TeeVee is zero. Reducing exposure to situations where the odds are not in my favor – ie avoid crowds like the plague, is key. When I travel and need a piss stop and the parking lot has too many vehicles I will just go to the back parking lot and piss in the bushes. Going to mass events is out of the question.
If one does what the greed is god type want, then yes, you will get it.
Good typo – or “typo'” – in your last sentence :-)
It wasn’t a typo.
To many, greed is their god.
Conversation with my daughter (hospital ID pharmacist) at the weekend:
She: When did you have your second COVID shot?
Me: Late August.
She: Nearly eligible for a booster, then.
Me: There are no booster shots available. What’s being offered is just another dose of the original vaccine.
She: There are several vaccination schedules that require three shots; Hep B, for example.
Me: Yes, but those are for viruses that don’t mutate rapidly. When there’s a safe vaccine that covers delta, lambda and mu I’ll probably line up for it.
[Change of subject]
imp, from a moral/utilitarian POV seniors in the developing world should be offered the vaccine before any mandates on kids in the western world. more lives will be saved net.
ymmv.
Slate pediatrician:
FDA voting member–presumably one of those “trusted sources” like Big Bird–in “approving” the “incredible” “vaccine” for emergency use in CHILDREN:
What’s “incredible” is that the slate interviewee is a licensed pediatrician.
PS. How many parents trusted the doctors who said, with authority, that pain is the sixth vital sign, filled the miracle opioid Rx they were given, and had their kids turned into addicts?
Yeah. Incredible.
Funny that some parents don’t want their children in a drug trial.
@zagonostra
Thanks for the David Foster Wallace quote. A great writer, beautiful prose, quirky, sometimes hilariously funny, truly one-of-a-kind. For those unfamiliar with him, he produced two inimitable novels and a clutch of essays and short stories over twenty years, all the while battling depression. In 2008 he committed suicide at the age of 46. A tragedy and an irreplaceable loss to literature.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/09/the-unfinished
Oblivion is incredible.
>Why do you think there’s this disconnect that might exist between what a vaccinated parent is willing to do for themselves and what they might be willing to do for their kid”.
The interviewed pediatrician gets this totally wrong. That “disconnect” can easily be explained by the fact that children face much less risk from the virus and face much higher risk from the vaccines. Fortunately many pediatricians understand this and are not pushing vaccines, which begs the question why is the Slate framing the decision to do so in such a net positive when the science is far from certain
I would add that once you know you are done procreating the calculus changes as well.
I’d agree if that were the case, but (and I’ve made this point in comments before recently) I no longer think it is based on latest evidence. From the New Statesman
It’s a crappy decision to be corralled into having to make (and I don’t think it should be mandated) but I don’t think that we can pretend that Covid doesn’t meaningfully, seriously affect children anymore. ie if you’re going to make a pedophrasty appeal, your info needs to be top notch.
I’m having a hard time corroborating the New Stateman’s claim that there are a thousand children in the hospital per month. Their source just dumps you out here https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/ with no indication of where that data is
Anyway, here’s data from the CDC that shows Covid is less bad for children then adults even if its still bad in absolute terms for them:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html
You’re right, the 1000 number isn’t explicitly shown, which is rather annoying.
What I just did was I took UK population by age data here (a couple of years old, alas) and worked from that, applying it to this dataset (which you can find at the first link provided in the New Statesman) – added the numbers in the group 0-4 (rounded to 1000) – divided that by 100k, then multiplied that number by the admission rates per 100k for 0-4 year olds – result is 111, ie 111 hospitalisations per week for 0-4 year olds.
Doing the same for the 5-14 year old cohort gives 107
107 + 111 = 218 < 15 year olds hospitalised per week
multiplied by 4 = 872 per 4 weeks
and then, though I haven’t calculated this, I am assuming that the extra few days of a given non-February month and the hospitalisations in the 15-18 cohort take the figure to over 1000 per month.
However, maths is definitely not my strong suit so if my method here is completely wrong, please let me know ?
I don’t think there’s any controversy that Covid is, generally speaking, less bad for children than for adults, but using rates/percentages like that would appear to conceal the scale of the problem (like, assuming the +1000 UK kiddies hospitalised per month by covid figure bears out, I don’t see how that’s anything other than a really, really bad development)
I think my favorite quote from the pediatrician in the Slate article is “you either get vaccinated or Covid.’ Ok then! It’s funny though- I have a co-worker who got covid, as did his son and wife. All vaccinated of course.
The messaging is strong in these ones
What can Biden do to lower gasoline prices? The story left out the biggest thing Biden could do, and it wouldn’t require congressional approval — He could end the oil embargoes on Iran and Venezuela. Now why isn’t that an option?
prestige and corporate media embargo on the voices of alternative foreign policy like Ron Paul or tulsi Gabbard + laypersons’ American ignorance of foreign policy + bipartisan DC rabid hatred of anything resembling detente towards Venezula and Iran for the win!
Don’t forget Cuba in this.
And poor little Haiti.
And Puerto Rico…
Strategic reserve too. Now seems like a well, strategic, time to release however many barrels we want to get the price down to whatever level we desire.
that’s best used for temporary tight supplies. what happens when the market sucks that oil right up and the price doesn’t drop? or the price doesn’t stay down? Then don’t you drive prices up when you refill your “strategic” reserve ?
No. The strategic reserve is for genuine shortages or embargoes, not for price manipulation for consumer convenience.
Because he doesn’t want cheap gas, he wants profits for his “base”
Oh noes gas is $3.40. No one has said jack nor shit about housing, health insurance, or education costs on the Right. But gas prices which are like 3% of my budget.. that’s the issue!
re: white people plus.
dems jess cain’t figger out why nobody likes them, except for bougies.
and despite all evidence, the gottheimers and spanbergers of the world are singing the praises of more bland “centrism” and continuing to be repub-lite.
and…i came across this this early morning:
breathless puffery about the ” longtime human rights crusader”(!?) Samantha Power:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/14/samantha-power-usaid-future-515606
the eyelessness in the latter speaks to the eyelessness in the other.
in the same way that cave creatures evolve eyelessness over time(as well as translucence), the demparty has had their heads up their asses for so long…
the recent full court press about how bluedogism is such a winning strategy, and how actual Lefty Policy is a loser(it’s actually the reverse)…has me thinking about the effects of my Bernie sticker at the Feedstore during the last 2 presidential elections: all but hard core gop partisans(essentially, the Bosses) were open to talk of a New New Deal…and it wasn’t hard at all to get well past the “Soshulizm” bugbear, because it had become obvious that the whole shebang had been engineered to punish people who work for a living.
but both times, after dems removed Bernie, local election results indicate that these non-hard-core-partisans didn’t vote in the general…only the hard core partisans did.
Somebody the other day made a comment that indicated they considered Bernie Sanders to be a social media phenomena that accomplished nothing except clouding the conversation. I have not yet become immune to this. Sometimes I feel the need to point out that for almost every term that Sanders has been in Congress you can find multiple instances where he has managed to get some small nugget of good inside the crap passed by the usual suspects. All done without the support and sometimes with the outright hostility of the rest of Congress.
But in truth, his biggest accomplishment was crafting a message about the real conditions in America that so resonated in the public that they coalesced enough to make him a real threat to the status quo, one they could not entirely ignore like they have for decades. They still had more power and more weapons, but even jerks like Biden and his people recognized they had to do more than mention items of import to the public and drop them after getting elected, especially since that message got a few more harder core advocates elected. They couldn’t actually pass any of these things, hence President Manchin and unlikely gender warrior Sinema, but they actually made it into a bill. Pretty amazing for a guy who, unlike Trump, the media actively ignored.
The old guard, like employers bemoaning workers not eating the dog food, is still confused that their good show didn’t work. That people might blame them for not only not making things better but not stopping them from getting worse. We are rapidly getting to the point where hardcore is all either version of the political koolaid has.
I don’t know that it will be a Bernie and not a Trump, but it won’t be long until another person taps into this and steamrolls the regulars. I have my fingers crossed that we get the humanist and not the sociopathic narcissist we always seem to elect, but the ground is too fertile, something is going to sprout.
Samantha Powers….human rights crusader not destroyer !?! *head pounds on wall*
Bernie and those of us who campaigned for him revitalized the American left. The teacher’s strike in WV,KY, OK, and so much other labor activism, the greatly expanded DSA, all this and more are a direct result from his campaign. We we finally defeat fascism it will be because we all met each other at the Bernie campaign.
He made the introductions all right..
Well, maybe you-all can get a legitimate political party started and grown.
A ‘legitimate’ party might not be a ‘political’ one.
>Bernie Sanders and Plastic Words
Both AOC’s banksy-like graffiti dress and Sander’s “demand” are examples of what Uwe Porkesn’s referred to as “Plastic Words” or in this case phrases. I don’t care much about the back and forth twitter twat, but I am dismayed at the ever expanding universe of plastic, both in its material manifestation in the oceans and in the language used in public forums.
In 1988, the German linguist Uwe Pörksen published his landmark book “Plastikwörter:Die Sprache einer internationalen Diktatur” (literal translation into English: “Plastic words: The language of an international dictatorship“) in which he describes the emergence and steady expansion during the latter half of the 20th century of selected words that are incredibly malleable yet empty when it comes to their actual meaning.
https://thenextregeneration.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/plastic-words-are-hollow-shells-for-rigid-ideas-the-ever-expanding-language-of-tyranny/
I’m delighted to see that someone else remembers “Plastic Words”. I first learned about the book from a CBC Radio doc almost 30 years ago. The radio piece, and an account of its making, are available here: https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2017/2/18/plastic-words There is also a transcript of the doc: https://www.davidcayley.com/s/Plastic_Words.pdf
David Cayley is a Canadian treasure. His programs on CBC, Ideas, was a joy to listen to. He has a very important essay on his blog called Concerning Life. It is a long and well thought out essay on his understanding/interpretation of Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemeses (1975) and how it pertains to various CV19 gov’t policies.
https://www.davidcayley.com/blog
Thanks for this.
The rise of PR politics has greatly increased the proliferation of substance-free language that has no inherent meaning but is designed so the target audience can read their own meaning into the words and phrases being deployed.
I first came across this concept when I was researching NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) in the early 00s. It has since gone mainstream.
Language is flexible of course, to a degree. But when it is used primarily as a tool to manipulate and obfuscate, and words are drained of meaning, people increasingly lose the ability to make sense of the things they read and hear. This of course empowers the elites who control how language is used.
Intellectual self-defence skills have never been more important.
: The Tripartite World Order and the Hybrid World War Dmitry Orlov, The Saker (Kevin W)
> getting ready to fight World War III against both Russia and China.
Woof. Is it even a strikeout if you’re faced the wrong direction?
Look at a globe, we’re out of about a third of the sphere. We’re reorienting for hemispheric dominance, with wings of anglophiles in Oz & Britain. nato, meh. Milley is just mouthing the Establishment story, much as Democratic Party leaders do, that those bad people are forcing our hand. The trajectory is at least a decade old.
Orlov:
Emmanuel Todd dubbed this “theatrical micromilitarism.”
Orlov and others who view geopolitical conflict through a strictly old school militarist lens overlook the effectiveness of economic sanctions, essentially blockade warfare, as a tool to discipline and weaken countries that push back against American and western dominance.
Modern warfare is a hybrid affair and WW2 style regular army versus regular army clashes are a thing of the past. The point is not to destroy a nation militarily or force it to surrender unconditionally, but to cripple it economically and make it pay a heavy price for resisting US hegemony.
Cyberwarfare, sanctions, psyops, funding and supporting of opposition movements, propaganda campaigns etc. all play a role here.
No Orlov and others didn’t overlook economic sanctions. From the same article:
“Thus, all that’s left for the US is hybrid warfare: financial warfare in the form of sanctions, aggressive dollar-printing and large-scale legalized money laundering, informational warfare played out on the internet, medical warfare using novel pathogens, drugs and vaccines, cultural warfare in the form of promoting and defending conflicting systems of values and so on, with military activities limited to the use of proxies, fomenting putsches and civil wars, actions of private military companies and so on.”
Also ” The notion of individual human rights was rather successfully deployed against the USSR, warping the minds of several generations of Russian intelligentsia into being ashamed of their own country (and almost completely unaware of much ghastlier crimes against humanity carried out by the collective West).”
And speaking of Afghanistan, a couple of trillion dollars and a ton of body bags later, the US look more exhausted than the Taliban.
Orlov’s work would be more palatable to me if he were not as caught up in “Russian exceptionalism” as our clowns are in the American variety. Presenting Russia as a veritable earthly paradise, and the “greenest country on earth” is not a bit more plausible than our media’s portrayal of it as the home of nothing but dysfunction and evil. He also takes press releases about all Russian superweapons (which run the gamut from real and demonstrably effective to vaporware) at face value.
Then there’s his characterization of climate change as a non-problem made up by scientists to keep the grants flowing.
“The Early History of Human Excreta”
You would think that crap is just crap, whether it is fresh or a coupla thousand years old. Not so as it turns out that Roman crap is actually a treasure trove of information. Yes, you can find roundworms and parasite remains in it as talked about in this article but there is much more. You can find out for once and for all what people actually ate in their day to day lives which, as it turns out was as varied as it was nutritious. And as for bonus points, there are a whole host of ordinary objects that have been accidentally dropped or thrown down those latrines thus preserving them-
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/110623-ancient-rome-human-waste-herculaneum-science-diet-excrement-italy
Along those lines
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite
Great to see but not new. Milorganite has been around for 100 years and a staple of golf course superintendents as well as savvy homegardeners – the product of 1920’s Wisconsin Progressive/Socialists
What is the level of various PFAS, heavy metals, excreted drugs, etc. in Milorganite? I have never used it, and never will.
I like Katie Porter and have a small quibble with her Social Security check claim. Not sure of the exact year, but receiving a check by mail is something that doesn’t really happen anymore. Wonder why everyone says checks?
Social Security Deposit
Ooof, you are right. That is a bad look.
They do send statements of what you can expect to get.
I am really bothered by the idea of not being able to get a check.
Bank transfers are much cheaper and more reliable than checks.
And, a lot of old people used to get mugged walking home from the bank twice a month.
And… the IRS has to know where to find you :)
The look on Harris’ face when she’s hugging slow Joe reminds me of James Nance Garner’s comment “Like a bucket of warm piss” when he was asked what being VP was like.
So now they are pushing smarmy Pete, the quintessential entitled GUPPY (Gay Urban Professional) who contracted affluenza in utero..
He is the best the Dem’s have to offer…
In his last year in office Trump displayed more empathy for the average American than the Biden administration has to date.
The World has gone totally bonkers.
Well Pete won’t have anything to boast about as far as his job with transportation is concerned. Maybe for 2024 he can resurrect his high hopes dance routine instead-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXTLBhe-ccU (36 secs)
Analysis: U.S. infrastructure bill makes power broker of transportation chief Buttigieg
Mayor Pete has somewhere between $126 to $216 billion (depending on the report) in discretionary spending in the Infrastructure bill. Previous infrastructure authorizations had to follow formula rules in determining total distribution. Pete will personally pick and choose which projects get this discretionary funding. How many political favors will he amass over the next couple of years in dolling out cash?
Bye bye Kamala
“How many political favors will he amass over the next couple of years in dolling out cash?”
First thing that crossed my mind, too.
It’s going to be a crying-so-hard-I-could laugh moment when the Dem fantasy machine starts saying that voting for creepy Pete is the only thing standing between “democracy” and (fill in the blank) world ending opponent or crisis.
Port apostle Pete picked from a pack of paid for promise sorry notes and will be in no pickle possibly?
DNC delegates develop devotedness to delightful dollar doler?
2, 4, 6, 8
If the Donkey Show can’t win
They can at the very least
Financially ameliorate
Go team!
$200 billion in roads and bridges money spread out over the whole country is not going to buy you anything more than a handful of traffic jams before 2024.
Using the flow of funds to get a few party hacks in your pocket is not going to accomplish anything when nobody likes the party hacks any better than they like Mayo Pete.
Was it Robert Heinlein (in his old-style political manual/memoir “Take Back Your Government”) who pointed out the danger in having patronage to hand out? Namely, that there were always more people(/groups) who believed they deserved it than you could give it to . . . so that, when you didn’t give it to them (or didn’t give them “enough”), you made enemies for yourself. (And of course, all those you did give some to — well, they felt they deserved it, too, so there was no reason to feel thankful to you.)
There are a few exceptions of the usual suspects, but with the “New Democrats” in charge of candidate recruitment, the Democratic bench between the ages of 40 (45) and 60 (65) is simply garbage. It’s why Team Blue has their own version of Palin. They can’t make Spannberger types a thing, so they have to go with a small town mayor under a board of supervisors government.
It’s not really dissimilar to the primary. The other candidates didn’t generate traction because they are losers. Biden had the imaginary pre-Trump golden age and likely appealed to Democratic voters who wanted everyone to get along and know Biden because he was VP, thus not having HRC’s baggage in their minds.
Beta O’Rourke. Remember that Kennedy turd? The Pelosi version of the squad ended with one of that group complaining no one knew her name. Sinema, who has gone quiet. I think she found she wasn’t going to become John McCain. McCain’s “principled stands”, it was a crazy two weeks, as such as they were were time she opposed GOP evil, not paid parental leave. She is quite stupid, even for DC.
When you look at it, Pete Buttigieg is the best the “New Democrats” can offer, but what can you expect from people who became politically active and advanced with patronage starting in the Clinton years? Not much.
West Wing syndrome? Paging Lambert.
While I’ve been corrected here about the origins of neoliberalism, I’d still blame it on Charlie Peters and Washington Monthly which had a big influence on Dem neoliberals and their desire to “reinvent” government. Prob with completely reinventing the wheel is that you get a square wheel.
Too bad the Left does not have a Lewis Powell to articulate the necessary world view and means to get there.
What kind of political economy do the chimerical “we” actually want, hmmm?
Well, when tops of your recruitment wishlist is eager corporate brown nose do nothing it isn’t surprising that you have no bench.
Pete is also helped because he was being pushed by the Obama faction. Much as I hate it, Obama’s appeal has slipped the least of any of the top Democrats. Add to that the Clintonite pick took a position above her top Peter Principal level.
I agree that Pete is seemingly the best they have at the moment (gag), but happily(?) at this point in 2017 most people barely knew of his existence. There are more horrors out there we aren’t even thinking about yet.
” There are more horrors out there we aren’t even thinking about yet.” Well put, Pat.
I await the horrors to come with fascination. Who was it that said “Patience is the benign stage of despair?” Oh, here it is – “Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue” – Ambrose Bierce.
How about these horrors…the myriad plutocrats. The Dems will be begging to give the stage to any number of Tom Steyers, and Howard Schultz’s complete with their wagon-loads of cash. In 2023 they will be buffing up any number of these turds for our review and approval. Who needs a bench when you can roll-out these losers.
“GUPPY” did you say? Charles Dickens’ character Mr. Guppy in the book “Bleak House” ? / ;)
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/bleak-house/characters/mr-guppy
Psaki to me…When the government denies a rumor, that’s positive confirmation…
” ONLY thing to Kamala Harris’ credit is giving Porter national profile by making her the California foreclosure settlement monitor” = Janitor cleaning up the beyond statute of limitations carnage left behind Harris’ deliberately not prosecuting Mnuchin for 80,000 illegal foreclosures?
“…Mnuchin and OneWest Bank claiming they used “potentially illegal tactics to foreclose on as many as 80,000 California homes.”
“Yet despite internal memos explicitly mentioning numerous prosecutable offenses by Mnuchin and co., then California Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to prosecute. She’s never given an explanation for her decision and Mnuchin later donated $2,000.00 to Harris’ campaign. It was his only donation to a democratic candidate.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-has-to-answer-for-not-prosecuting-steve_b_
Nice return on your paltry investment Mr. Mnuchin, no fear of a future senate investigation when your Barbie-bimbo got to the senate?
Who do they think they are fooling with these pictures? Their insincerity goes through the images.
Well, Garner was Speaker of the House before he became VP. (Also broke with Roosevelt during the second term, tried to oppose him for the nomination in 40, got replaced as VP by Wallace). It’s a measure of Harris that she thought of the Veep spot as a step up. If she had intentions of making an impact and developing a base of her own, the California seat she already held would have been a better platform.
Unless one of them suddenly makes a huge quantum leap in both competence and willingness to advocate good things for the hoi polloi, my view is that a ticket led by either Harris or Buttigieg will be a train wreck against any conceivable GOP opponent.
Harris is openly buffoonish and unlikeable. She was a Senator from California. She had ample opportunity to provide leadership. It didn’t happen. She was there long enough to make a point, but she is the Pell Grant forgiveness for people who open up small businesses in disadvantage areas and operate them for three years but not including leap years. The VP slot is the best spot for her aspirations. Her problem is the parliamentarian situation required her to act from an electoral standpoint, and she didn’t. All she had to do was keep walking.
Pete Buttigieg is 5’8″.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_presidents_and_presidential_candidates_of_the_United_States
Lets stop pretending, he’s going to be anything other than a guy who gets a big donor to back him and then backs out before a primary. He will never never win state wide office and won’t ever do the work to win a House seat unless he’s gifted one.
What I find striking about both of them is despite both having been out front in the last primary and both being pushed as the front runners of the next, neither exhibit evidence of having any particular calling to be president. Both are empty suits without Obama’s ability to sell the sizzle. I’m having an even harder time understanding how someone could have strong feelings towards either of them than I did with Biden.
With Pete, there definitely is an aspirational vibe there. With Harris, I think of Bradley Whitford, the actor, and his character in “Get Out.” She gives a get out of jail card where they can go right back to being Karens.
And I also think there is likely an element of finding the next Obama as if no one was aware of a Senator from California. People were pretty enthused back in 2008. The Obama hoopla was out there for a while.
The calling part is a major flaw. Neither can really articulate it. Hillary had this problem too (I actually liked her closing 2008 speech; had she done that earlier, she would have won), but she was an elephant in the room.
I think Harris is to Obama as HRC is to Slick Willie. The two men were masters of the language of politics, adept at both vague inspirational language that people could choose to interpret how they wished, allowing different people to interpret opposite meanings from the same language, and of the slimy ability to say different (opposite) things to different audiences without suffering politically (due in large part to an accommodating press corps). Their actual politics/policies were never subject to serious scrutiny (by insiders) and always accepted as “realistic.”
What I think the mentees have taken from the mentors is a) that political speech is all BS – it doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it, and b) an incremental politics of “better than the R’s” that pleases Dem donors and satisfies (or appears to satisfy) Dem voters is the best politics. This might be the case, indeed would likely surely be the case, for a likable Dem politician. It worked well enough for Biden, who has age into ‘likable’ from the ‘not very bright’ of his earlier presidential runs. (Yes I know the runway was foamed for him but there is no evidence most Dem voters held it against him and he convincingly won in November.)
But, to agree with NTG, neither HRC nor Harris is likable. (There may be more than a hint of misogyny causing this but it doesn’t change the fact.) And pursuing what worked for their mentors makes them even more unlikable, because they are not afforded the benefit of the doubt that their mentors were, and so all the hypocrisy and faux pas come to the fore (despite a compliant MSM).
So I for one look forward to more soaring rhetoric from Mayo Pete. I also predict Cory Booker in for another run in 2024, as he sees the ‘vague soaring rhetoric’ lane of the Dem primaries wide open at this point.
“Soaring rhethoric”
I wouldn’t be surprised if, instead, they start talking like Eric Adams.
Dollars to donuts he’s already high up in the DNC’s possible POTUS category.
Probably not in 2024.
And he does still need to do the right job (≠ a good job) in NYC. If he’s smart he won’t linger there, one and done. (my comment should not be interpreted as an endorsement)
Uh, *John* Nance Garner, lest we forget.
Those antidote names from Antoine reminded me of some word play I heard from French students.
Cézanne may be pronounced somewhat like Seize Ânes, 16 asses or donkeys.
There could be some breeding underway!
funny names, but their owner himself is called Antou’âne
They are German, be careful what you ask for. Some things can’t be unseen.
A very hard working, astute and trustworthy guy I’d got hired by a REAL famous gas company, finally tried CBD (45 years of rolling 13 ton pipe to check the welds meant opioids, steroids or at least trying some damn thing). He’s from CA, so his wife sent CBD a teeny bit TOO full spectrum. Bottom line, he failed a piss-test for a totally legal product, which enabled a legend NDE/ CWI to do the work of 4-5 normal inspectors. We’d started testing in ’92. All the hardest working, motivated, consistent API 5L inspectors, capable of spotting obscure flaws, discontinuities, dimensional non-conformance (a VERY boring, physically taxing job in horrendous conditions were replaced by cranked-up drunks & Quality suffered, more than us old-timers could express. It’s a “people” job, and the best were fired. This guy ended up working out-of-doors at a Russian oligarch owned mill in Portland, infected with COVID in March at 70.
Re: Our famously free press.
Anyone wonder why our famously free press is quietly ignoring the Gates-Epstein connection and focusing on Prince Andrew instead?
Nope. The direct funding is one thing, but I’ve thought it was due to Andrew coming from “royalty”. He’s not a classic neoliberal elite. Digging into Epstein’s public dealings of prominent figures opens it up to too many beyond the partisan “Trump/Bill Clinton” (we know they are despicable).
Andrew conjures up naughty royals, not say a Larry Summers, another Epstein associate. Do we need to investigate Harvard and MIT? The connections made.
Even without investigations, Gates won’t be the only divorce in this.
I can see why the OAG is going after Prince Andrew – he’s never going to be prosecuted and going after him makes it looks like the OAG is ‘doing something’, but he was far from the only player. And yes, Prince Andrew is very much one of the elite, and is a quite rich neoliberal. Ever hear of The Firm?
Gates, along with Buffett, has built this ‘kindly and moral billionaire’ image. After all the money Gates has spent on this image, I am sure spending a measly sum on the press is worth it too him..
Don’t be so sure about Andrew. Links yesterday had a piece about a witness to his groping and grinding against 17 year old Virginia Giuffre on Epstein Island. He’s been deposed and will testify.
https://7news.com.au/spotlight/employee-on-jeffrey-epsteins-private-island-delivers-bombshell-evidence-against-prince-andrew–c-4552575
also covered in the nypost:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/epstein-frequented-harvard-office-report-finds-70464320
Very good article by Mintpress on Bill Gates.
What I found interesting is:
Unfortunately, many of these real criticisms of Gates and his network are obscured by wild and untrue conspiracy theories about such things as inserting microchips in vaccines to control the population
It is just too convenient to have the Alex Jones of the world and the Flat Earthers to act as foibles. I almost think that they are an addendum to the CIA’s concoction of the use of the phrase “conspiracy theorist” .
I’ve seen this notion floated in comments here occasionally over the years but the evidence in support of it seems threadbare and tendentious, to say the least (not least because the recorded usage of the term ‘conspiracy theory’ precedes the CIA by several decades).
They didn’t invent the denotative use of the words, just the connotative. I would wager that you’re not a big fan of Abby Martin, but she discusses the term in below interview.
Abby Martin talks to Lance deHaven-Smith, Florida State University professor and author of ‘Conspiracy Theory in America’, about some of the US’ most controversial events and how labeling truth-seekers as ‘conspiracy theorists’ damages democracy.
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/conspiracy-to-tell-the-truth-interview-with-lance-dehavensmith/
Brava!
The two items on ‘processing poop’ (respectively ancient and cutting edge) caught my attention (such things tend to; not sure what that says about me).
I wonder what proportion of the input excreted Pharma products make it all the way into retail-shelf packages of Bloom. Presumably they are checking for that.
It looks (to me) like a good concept. I’ve often wondered whether sawdust toilets could be combined with modern programmable home-scale pressure cookers to do in situ sterilization or, at least, hot composting of the in-home solid waste stream. If that could be done safely, I would imagine that it would be a lot cheaper on a per-home basis than replacing ageing municipal sh!t-handling systems with more of the same (of course, the liquid part of the waste stream would still need to be dealt with and then there’s the issue of large facilities; not sure how well in situ processing would work for those). Perhaps an enterprising university researcher will look in to this. I’m not thrilled with the annual cycle of cold-composting suggested in The Humanure Handbook.
This is actually the achilles heel of composting human waste. The more they test, the more contaminants they are finding in the final compost. A lot of persistent compounds can survive both the journey through our bodies and subsequent composting. Its very bad news.
I respectfully disagree. Are you thinking of composted waste “sludge,” which is the stuff from sewer treatment plants?
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gardening-techniques/human-waste-zmgz11zrog
There’s nothing in either the Nautilus article or the Mother Earth News article that addresses the issue PK brings up. There is more than just bacteria and virions in poop, there are pharmaceuticals and more. People dump all kinds of stuff into the sewers, including metals like chromium, vanadium, zinc, lead, silver (photographic chemicals etc) and others. Plus, of course, the remains of chemotherapy, hormone therapies, antibiotics and and anti-fungals, plain antiseptics like iodine, phenol, chlorhexidine, the list is almost endless.
Some say you are ok if you just use this stuff on the lawn and not in areas where you grow food. I ask: “what happens when you move on and the next guy has no idea what you used? Or what if you discover that you need to expand your food gardens? Or it just runs off?”
This is common knowledge among organic gardeners in my area. The local waste treatment authority offers sludge, yes not as highly processed as the DC facility, and some purveyors of “top soil” take it and mix it into their product. I’m not excited about the prospect. But I’m pleased that local organic farms are aware of the issue and avoid those products, which typically end up in ornamental gardens – for now.
Much more processing will be needed to clean this stuff up properly. Or we can clean up the inputs.
I’ve read that any past trip through Chinese agricultural land includes the odor of “night soil” that would be trucked from the cities. As an Asia guy any thoughts?
To the extent that our life-styles and waste-handling methods are permanently contaminating our “nutrient outflows”, that looks to me to be a significant long-term problem for sustainability of the food system. If we cannot ‘close the nutrient loop’, it seems to me that at some point we will reach ‘peak nutrients output’ and things might be very hard on the other side of that.
In “The Mote in God’s Eye” Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle describe a world that has gone through millenia of industrialization, with the inhabitants having evolved to adapt. Very interesting.
I have used many “outhouses” in my long life, as well as building several. When the poop is contained, it can be emptied into a composting system with the appropriate carbon materials, then after heating up can be applied as fertilizer around fruit trees and other crops. I have experimented with many mixing materials and found peat moss to be the best. For the “peat moss is bad to dig up” crowd, a variety of naturally absobent materials may be substituted.
Flushing poop is a waste of water and loads excess nitrogen as well as chemicals into water bodies even when secondary treatment is employed. Households need to separate pooping from the graywater of showers, washing machines, sinks, etc.
A loss of fear of excrement would help. I’ve cleaned septic tanks too and I can affirm that poop mixed with water is much nastier to deal with than when mixed with peat moss, composted, then added to one’s garden.
hear hear!
since today’s Links is so …ahem…full of shit,lol…I’ll weigh in as an autodidactic expert in composting human waste.
when building this house, there was no room for an ordinary septic system, without getting really creative, which would have meant waivers and exceptions in the permitting(which is a backsheesh-heavy deal out here)…so i studied various alternatives, and settled on the system an old man built for the Az state parks…then did a year of two of tests in the field, with an old chair bottom with a toilet seat on it(including determining how to aim the pee stream of wife—patient woman!(sit upright))
so we have essentially an outhouse in the house…a broad plyboard bench with a toilet seat on it, with a 50 gallon heavy plastic drum under it, with a sort of shroud of shadecloth to keep critters out, and a funnel for pee diversion…down into the growing built-wetland in the gully(cattails, a cypress tree, some willows, and various grass and such dug up at the river).
pine shavings smell better as a carbon additive, but oak leaves work better in turning everything into dirt.
once a month or so, i pull out the half to 3/4 full barrel, replace with a clean one, and haul the full one out to the pasture…where trees will eventually go.
old tires hold down a bit of scrap tin to keep it dry…and there it sits for a year(i have 13 such barrels…one for each month, plus an extra)….then it gets dumped out, to cure some more, and the cycle repeats.
the pasture portion of this process also doubles as a coyote deterrent…who think i’m living out there.
inside…barring excessive rain, or a clogged pee diversion funnel…there’s no smell(i’ve run numerous blind smell tests with unsuspecting visitors, who are all amazed)….and there’s also none of the Plop that wets yer ass.
there’s also no water wasted, save a little from the hose to clear out whatever shavings/leaves get into the pee diversion line.
since my county’s ordinances didn’t contemplate such a system, the regs reverted to state of texas law…which didn’t require a permit at all.
(ie: perfectly legal, at least outside city limits)
even wife now prefers it to flush toilets…although she was very skeptical, at first.
as has been said, so long as the poop is dry…and the pee is kept separate…there’s no smell…and changing the barrels out takes me about 10 minutes…
this system is likely not scalable to cities…at least not without a fundamental change in attitude towards poop.
but it certainly works for us…no more backed up, overflowing toilets…no more wasted water…and no finicky septic systems.
…and i get soil building in the pasture, and that coyote deterrence, too.
Very cool, Amfortas. I spent the summer peeing into a large peanut butter jar, emptying it into the compost bin, until spouse jury rigged parts to mend the ancient downstairs toilet off the mudroom. Spouse did direct deposit.
And, in dry periods (which we did not have here in Western NY this year; I believe our part in Climate Change involves turning into a swamp), spouse rigs up hoses from set tub in basement, into which the washing machine empties, and from bath tub on second floor. When in action, house looks like it is on life support, with hoses coming out of multiple windows.
We are on septic system, installed in the ’60’s and which would never pass inspection today, being right up against the back door, so all our used water (which comes from our well) eventually heads back into the local ground, and down into the back lower meadow, where the skunk cabbage and mint reign.
There’s a lot of nature acres here and everybody I know of the male persuasion tends to pee wherever the gravity of the situation takes you, it isn’t like anybody is watching you on the front porch of the back of beyond.
There aren’t any toilets in the wilderness either, and this is where man is more like an animal in that you dig a little cat-hole and then fill it in after and I always flip a sizable rock on top to dissuade animals from deciphering my doo-doo.
This sort of cavalier thinking is mostly verboten in cities, and a friend related that if you were doing your business, you could get arrested for indecent exposure and a conviction for indecent exposure under California law requires the person to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Your effort and innovation is commendable, though I don’t think I’m brave enough to try something like that in my house. But maybe something similar for dog poop, which I feel terrible about tossing into the landfill. I’m wondering now if the solar oven featured in the guerrilla grazer video yesterday could be repurposed to sterilize pet waste for immediate use in the garden.
In rock mountains high in Canada BC we’d poop on an exposed slab then wipe with snow. After a day or two of intense sunlight (yes even in BC) it would completely dessicate and blow away. Of course, there was no one within 30 km, almost 2 of those vertical
Nice. Our version is that I made a simple composting toilet for the “back 40”. A standard toilet seat on a simple wood box with a bucket inside and box of wood chips, dried leaves and sawdust next to it. It never smells bad nor turns into “slime”. No flies, nor other creatures (you may be having lunch) hanging about. We empty the bucket when about 3/4 full into a hole and cover it then sanitize the bucket for another round. I won’t bury it under the tomatoes, but works like a charm. This may be difficult to use in an urban setting, but for a gardener, it save lots of water.
While speaking with a friend of my long time affinity for post apocalyptic sci-fi and the state of the world (in my opinion) I uttered a phrase that gave me pause: “pre-apocalyptic”.
As a recovering optimist I now find myself scanning the horizon for whence those riders, pale, dark and other will arise led by that Charismatic unforeseen as yet.
Ah well, on with the day…Peace
“More than 10,000 Australians have filed coronavirus vaccine injury claims”
Had not heard about this before. Probably because I actually live in Oz and depend on the local media for news who are hopeless about important stories. The doctors that give these vaccines have legal immunity as do the pharma corporations. So that leaves the government holding the bag here though I wonder how easy it is to register an injury via a doctor based on my own experiences. I was surprised to learn that nearly 80,00 have reported adverse events though this article tries to fob them off as sore arms and headaches which is too common to record as adverse. I wonder how many other countries are also setting up a database of people that have adverse effects? Putting on my tin foil cap, I wonder if this was part of the contract that Oz signed with those pharma companies. We still have a good medical system with lots of records so it would be useful to those companies to have a solid database for analysis purposes to see what the effects are of these vaccines.
Rev Kev, I also wonder how many people never reported theirs, especially in the US.
From Minnesota
Alt-Covid sites are saying that it is hugely under reported and perhaps by design.
To be read, I think, in conjunction with the Guardian article about people reporting perfectly genuine Tourette-style symptoms after watching “influencers” on YouTube. I’ve no doubt most of these people in Australia are entirely sincere, and many are actually suffering from something, but previous history suggests that such “sociogenic” illnesses spread with a logic of their own, according to what’s in the media. In the absence of any consensus on what the actual adverse effects of the various different vaccines are, and under what circumstances, this strikes me as a problem without an obvious solution – except, of course, for enterprising personal injury lawyers.
Unfortunately no. The VAERS db contains over 15,000 deaths after the vaxx in the US alone, and many young people are experiencing severe vascular problems, from serious and multiple blood clots to thrombosis and peri/myocarditis. Any 20th century vaxx would’ve been pulled immediately. This virus, which is not very deadly, and would be even far less deadly with widespread earlier use of specific antivirals and monoclonal antibodies, isn’t even a good candidate for vaccine tech because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. On top of that this vaccine isn’t really even a vaccine in that it loads your body with the spike protein rather than inactivated virus, and the spike protein can attack the vascular system, hence the above reactions.
Creeps like Fauci have been salivating for a long time about a mythical “universal vaccine” that they just knew would save humanity… but how to get people to take it when they aren’t afraid enough of the flu?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFJijSgXnQ
15,000 deaths… against how many in a typical year for the same time frame?
These are deaths reported to VAERS as a result of the vaccines. If anything its an undercount, and doesn’t include serious adverse events not resulting in immediate death.
This chart shows how incredibly high the death rate for these vaccines are compared to traditional vaccines:
https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/08/12/annualized-deaths-per-million-doses-traditional-vaccines-vs-covid-19-vaccines/
Is there something that would prevent a single person from submitting 1000 fake entries?
I had never heard of VAERS before Covid and I’m sure it’s the same for others. I think we’ve been conditioned to evaluate deaths in relation to vaccination far more than in the past. A relative of mine recently died of a heart attack, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he had recently gotten a Covid shot. A few years ago, it would have never crossed my mind to question whether he had recently received a flu shot or some other vaccine. Thus, I could very easily see coincidental deaths being reported for Covid vaccines at much higher rates than other vaccines.
I fear the number of injuries and deaths is much, much higher. A study of VAERS found the following:
I seem to always wind up in moderation limbo when I include links, so I suggest using DuckDuckGo on the first sentence if you’d like to read further.
but the underreporting is easily accounted for when you consider that some of the 80,000 adverse reactions reported in the SMH article were minor and predictable like headache, sore arm etc. I had fever for about 24-48 hours after my AZ shot and it didn’t occur to me once to report it because why would I? If, on the other hand, I had died (or got TTS) then I probably would’ve been more inclined to report it (if I could)
The events are reported by medical professionals. And many are not minor, such as coronary thrombosis, pericarditis, myocarditis and blood clots. All vascular ailments caused by the spike protein.
No, the Australian TGA’s (which is what we’re talking about) adverse events service allows for civilian reports.
I know that many reported adverse events are not minor. That has nothing to do with the question of underreporting, which is what I was speaking to. I have no reason to believe that serious adverse events such as you describe are underreported in Australia (especially when there’s a no-fault indemnity scheme!), unless you have evidence to the contrary?
When I reported my adverse reaction to AZ, my doctor lost all interest when I said that I suspected that it was vaccine related. It almost had an undertone of hostility so I am not even convinced that my report became one of those 80,000 incidents. Hard to understand since doctors are not even on the hook legally for any adverse reactions to vaccinations that they give.
I’m sure it didn’t, and doctors are as susceptible to inane consensus thought as anyone. That’s presumably why the TGA allows for direct consumer reports (also probably because, per my supplied link on Long Covid today, quoting Osler, ‘listen to the patient; they’re telling you the diagnosis’ – their rationale is presumably that one shouldn’t have to go to the unnecessary length of making a doctor’s appointment when TGA can provide the means to report adverse reactions at home) You can report your adverse event right now, this is the form, it seems very simple to use. You can also call or email.
Thanks for that Basil. What an age we live in, huh? I wonder how things will go for Scotty by the time of the federal election in a few months time. I see that about a thousand people have died since they decided to open it up and let ‘er rip.
I had thought, rather cynically/conspiratorially I admit, that Morrison was betting on an ‘open for Christmas!!’ strategy which he could market as an ostensible victory in the hope that the covid shit wouldn’t start to well and truly hit the fan in a way that the rank and file can’t ignore until after the next federal election. That’s a pretty risky bet to take, especially when the vaccination campaign here has been spread out over such a long time (started in, what, April? and is still ongoing – I haven’t had my second shot yet).
Like, it’s hard to imagine anyone voting for the liberals, but then it’s also kinda hard to imagine anyone voting for the gaggle of non-entities that is Labor, either (historically, I don’t vote, although I would seriously consider voting for Steve Keen in the senate in the upcoming election).
“We still have a good medical system with lots of records so it would be useful to those companies to have a solid database for analysis purposes to see what the effects are of these vaccines.”
***********
You are on to it now.
There are many captive health databases around the world. The question is can BP/CDC/WHO/etc. access them and, more importantly, access them without anyone being the wiser. Anyone being the likes of Dr. Peter McCulloch, Sens Paul and Johnson, Great Barrington Signatories and numerous other well qualified Covid policy critics.
In the US alone, you have the Military Databases and large databases of HMOs like Kaiser. So, as one example, query the database for code of myocarditis and match against those vaccinated once, twice, when. You can make the queries more specific as you wish. Match any code you wish with time intervals.
It should be kept in mind that this is an Experiment! The purpose of any experiment is to gather Data. So, to believe that BP & Co are not querying these databases, well….As for those who own the databases not doing so, well….
In addition, a very clear reason to vaccinate children is because they have cleaner health records, less static and complications of an older person. Much easier to do analysis with such records.
Lastly, if above is so, it would drastically alter the nature of any future lawsuits.
lol.
I think back decades ago when you had all those troops exposed to atom bomb tests back in the 50s. I sometimes wonder if a reason to expose troops to that radiation was so that they could be followed medically in the years after. Not only the military medical establishment but also in their post military life through veterans health care. I bet that they got a lot of good data through those data bases.
For the Zeitgeist Watch:
Tasers Demand Has ‘Never Been Higher.’ Axon Stock Is Rising. [Marketwatch]
Go long man’s inhumanity to man.
Bad lede: “People who purchased guns during buying surge more likely to have suicidal thoughts”
is not the same as: “the study found that first-time firearm owners who purchased a gun during this period were more likely than established firearm owners to report lifetime and past-year suicidal ideation.”
Yes, first time panic-buyers of firearms won’t be the most emotionally settled!
indeed. as obvious of a conflation between correlation and causality as there is
My local range rents guns (caveat: you must use their ammo), but you have to be a group of 2 or 3 and/or bring a firearm with you (which you need not use). Suicides, apparently…
I’ve noticed that people are very polite in guns stores :)
Deutschland double crossing Russia…w h a t ? ? ? Sure, Gazprom, you can build Nord Stream II but use it? Nein. Du bist krank. — Well that explains the Ukraine border snit, the trashed undersea Norwegian gear, the sudden affinity for OPEC production caps, shooting down the satellite of love (eh, where my Lou Reed fans at?) and general gopnik-tude. Mentioning only in passing given the blog links today.
Well that explains the Ukraine border snit, the trashed undersea Norwegian gear, the sudden affinity for OPEC production caps
In what way are they explained…maybe it’s the popular double double cross?
https://www.in-n-out.com/menu/nutrition-info
you’ll see, if you look, in the sidebar that there is a not so secret menu that is clearly meant for russian consumers.
The Nord Stream II is operated by a Swiss consortium who is being required to form a German GmbH to acquire certification. This is something the Kremlin has been aware of for weeks, if not months, given the proximity to the project.
It may not sound huge, but it is. A German company is obligated to submit to German regulators who will judge the commercial conduct of the company’s parent across the entire pipeline network, including Ukraine exchanges. Any attempt to blockade Ukraine from LNG, will jeopardize NS II’s imports. Historically, the GDR was under such trade, I mean, ideological supervision by Moscow. Which means Russia needs to march all the way to Ukraine’s western border to prevent delivery to Kyiv.
They won’t have to. I keep on reading how those gas lines running through the Ukraine are getting old and are in dire need of maintenance. The Ukraine is spending a hefty amount of the GDP on their military so I am guessing that there would not be much money left over for pipeline repairs. Give enough years and those pipelines will have to be shut down one after another.
But as you pointed out, having Germany demand a local company be set up is just a way for Germany to get jurisdiction over Russia’s Gazprom which is changing all the rules after everything has been built and ready to go. Does the EU not consider the point that all that gas could be sent east instead to China if they make it impossible for Russia to send their gas down Nord Stream 2?
I should have guessed. After the EU halted the certification process, the price of gas in Europe shot up 9%. Cynical me wonders how many senior people in the EU suddenly decided to buy gas stocks just before this announcement. At this rate, Europe had better hope for a mild winter or else between sky high gas prices and yet another wave of this virus, we will be seeing a winter of discontent-
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/11/16/germany-halts-nord-stream-2-pipeline-approval-gas-prices-soar
“My about to be 94 year old mother thinks butter is a food group…”
What, you disagree? In this instance, IMHO, Mama knows best.
I love milk and always have. When I long ago took a bicycle trip across France I would practically live on milk and wonderful French bread–in the mornings hot from the oven.
And even better IMHO, raw milk.
Yes, yes, it’s not for everyone, but certainly one of life’s pleasures if you grew up on it or still can get it today.
Also, for people who are not lactose intolerant,skim milk, fat-free yoghurt, and other low or no-fat dairy products have existed for a VERY long time. If you are worried about fat intake, drink skim milk, then.
Unless, the recent wave of anti-dairy sentiment comes from people who are deeply involved in some sort of health and wellness woo cult.
If you are lactose intolerant in France there is abundant goat and sheep cheese that will be perfectly diagestable.
Samos goat cheese in warm puff pastry drenched in honey, true ambrosia
Mais oui! An incredible and common french breakfast is dipping bread (often day old pan or baguette) in a bowl of warm milk while sipping strong café. Nice,simple and hearty. Add a little jam/butter on the bread if one desires.
or day-old croissants or brioches soaked in milk and eggs for pain perdu
A friend who bakes amazing Christmas cookies was asked how her cookies were so good by a vegetarian trying to be vegan friend. The conversation went like this:
“Butter”
“But what about coconut..”
“Butter”
“But maybe…”
“Butter”
“How about…”
“There is no substitute for Butter.”
“Have you…”
“Butter, doesn’t taste as good without butter.”
Not so sure that fat and salt are the only issues with dairy as produced these days for mass consumption.
You’ve got your hormones, antibiotics, and whatever other weirdness comes from the gmo feed on which the animals are raised and factory farm production is goosed to contend with as well.
Just because it looks like milk or cheese or butter…..
That’s what certified organic dairy is designed to let you avoid.
Or homegrown dairy from the home-owned cow or goat or sheep.
It might be survivor bias, but I find that many of the elderly people I know are much healthier than many of the boomer and middle aged people I know. If you ask them what they ate growing up it’s bacon, eggs, butter, cheese. The ‘science’ seems to constantly change on what’s healthy or not. My rule of thumb is try not to stray too far from what people ate a hundred years ago, avoid sugar and pharma products.
“With enough butter, anything is good.”
“If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.”
-Julia Child
> “With enough butter, anything is good.”
Almost anything, perhaps. A former colleague told me of an old Finnish saying, which he translated as follows:
‘A Russian is a Russian, even if fried in butter.’
RE: Dems Are Giving The GOP Another Political Bailout David Sirota
Commonly known as “The Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face Theory” of political “science.”
How deep a hole democrat die-hards are willing to dig for themselves, under the auspices of “getting back at Trump,” is unclear at this point, but party “elders” seem to think that all the way to China is a distinct possibility.
As Matt Taibbi wrote the other day:
And what will they do with all those dimes while the peasantry are fighting? Here’s guessing that life on their remote islands–with no hordes to boss around–will lose much of its zest.
Marine Traffic Ship Tracking
This map is a lot of noise. It includes tugs, yachts, ferries, fish boats, CG vessels and anything with a transponder. Boat tracking, yes. Ship tracking, kinda.
Apropos of almost nothing, except maybe the fundraiser, I want to share that a few weeks ago I repaired my washing machine for the 4th time. It is 27 years old. I have renewed the drive belt twice, the motor brushes once and the most recent fix was a fuse. It’s a good washer, clearly designed among other things for ease of repair. It has a rotary electro-mechanical program controller and there’s a complete wiring diagram inside. We made our donation yesterday and that left me in the mood to share a tiny morsel of good news from the repair beat.
Wonder if some entrepreneur will grab the “pre-Apocalype” opportunity to create washers and dryers that are chip-free? We have mountains of scrap metals here in the States, and a ‘low-tech’ option for household appliances seems like a potential winner. Full disclosure – retired computer repair tech who’s replaced several ‘logic boards’ inside various appliances to restore them to operating condition.
I would love to see this, as an appliance repair guy.
Sadly, there are many rules regarding energy and water consumption along with the the various safety interlocks etc that it probably won’t happen.
There does exist a small community that repairs older machines for resale, although parts availability and pricing has really put the squeeze on this.
The manufacturers *really* want you to buy a new one. This puts me in a bad spot because now I’m the bad guy that declares a 5 year old refrigerator unfixable for lack of a simple part.
Most all of the parts for those great 1970s era units are long gone.
The crapification continues.
Reminds me of using an old hot water heater shell to steam and bend wood in. It can make a great smoker as well for fish or meats. And it’s nice to see the fundraiser doing so well.
So here’s some actual discussion of what the CBO is and where it came from. (Congress is waiting on the CBO for its Build Back Better report – but how did fiscal scorekeepers come to be so powerful in politics?)
(emphasis mine)
Liberal Democrats love them some CBO, that’s for serious.
Not directly related to any link today, but very definitely connected to frequent topics here at NC, there’s a two-week-old discussion with Michael Pollan, focused on psychedelics and animism, but with a lot about food, gardening, regenerative agriculture and climate. Pollan first appears at 17:30 in the video, but the whole thing is a fascinating look into the world of High Church Liberalism, being held at the Harvard Divinity School with two Div School profs as interlocutors.
(Pollan Video)
By modifying the ‘neural correlates of consciousness’ (See for example, John C, Lilly, “Programming and metaprogramming in the human biocomputer theory and experiments”, an oldie but still a goody and available online for free) one individual at a time, the ‘revolution’ will not have to be televised, because it will in a sense be both emergent and self replicating, one individual consciousness at a time, as it should be, because each individual will again, in a sense, be validating the experience for themselves, directly and personally, as a revolution in consciousness and a “revaluation of all values”.
Further valuable hints can be found over here ——->
“Journal of Psychedelic Studies”, with essays such as, “Entheogens in Buddhism” and
“The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name”, for example in Volume 5: Issue 1.
Again, all available online for free for anyone with both the time and interest.
https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/2054-overview.xml
“Programming and metaprogramming in the human biocomputer theory and experiments”, available at
https://archive.org/details/programmingmetap00lill_0/page/n3/mode/2up
So the Slate post ends with the typical misinformation.
Do they? And what of “boosters”, then?
But SARS-COV-2 is not the flu. So using it as a point of reference is dangerous.
We’re almost two years in, so I wish people would get it right.
IM Doc pointed out the Coronavirus that broke out at the end of the 19th century took about 12 years to burn out.
The 1918 “flu” pandemic should not be used as a prognosticator for Covid-(20)19. The 1918 pandemic was mis-characterized by even the premier doctors of that day. Knowledge of viruses was limited to mostly unknown. There was a presumption of “germs” smaller than bacteria at the time (through filtration analysis), but actual virus was not identified until the development of the electron microscope in the early 1930’s.
Today, everyone has seen pictures of the Covid-19 virus. And our current knowledge of DNA has led to the rapid development of “vaccines”. The best hope for discouraging the proliferation of Covid-19 into the next decade is rapid deployment globally of the current vaccines and further discovery of even better methods of control (if possible).
RE: Infrastructure bill and Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety research program (DADSS):
Can’t forget just a few years ago when a friend was stopped at a checkpoint in the Hollywood area. She was fine but found out later that most of the impaired drivers were affected by prescription drugs and assorted pills…not drinking.
Sigh. An opinion piece now up on CNN on how Harris can save her vice presidency.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/opinions/kamala-harris-infrastructure-mitchell/index.html
Note that it doesn’t really involve Harris herself doing something.
It involves-wait for it- BIDEN making her the go-to Admin figure for photo-ops and press conferences at the assorted ribbon-cutting ceremonies related to the infrastructure bill.
Seen as giving her favorable publicity without her actually having to do much of anything.
Right. THAT’ll cause people to start seeing her as presidential timber. How removed from reality does a person have to be to see this as a solution?
Article winds up with some silliness about being unable to replace her due to her “natural” base among black women. (What does “natural” mean here, other than presumed based on tokenism? Such a base certainly wasn’t in evidence during her campaign for the Presidency).
Maybe as a starting point she and Buttigieg could work on getting through a speech without being visibly smarmy and condescending. But I suspect this would deeply violate their natures.
Pour more punch into the mostly empty bowl and no one will notice the turd?
Who cares about CNN? It does not seem to understand that they are losing viewers – not because their reporters are not photogenic but – because more and more people recognize that CNN is a disinformation platform. It doesn’t matter whom they hire. No one believes them.
Barbara Jordan was a ‘badass’ Black woman (Congress person). Kamala not so much.
The “statistical illusion” post has a fatal error. They plot cumulative mortality, not weekly mortality rate. When that error is corrected, the entire argument collapses.
Their charts are labeled “Reported weekly mortality rates”. Did they lie? Or am I missing something?
This is incorrect. The line on the graph is not cumulative mortality. It declines. That’s not possible for a cumulative total.
I will try to explain without graphs.
The problem is that the numerator (deaths) is from a week ago, but the denominator (unvaccinated population) is from now. But as the people become vaccinated over time, the denominator declines.
Say that in Week 1, there are 100,000 people unvaccinated. In Week 2, there are 80,000 unvaccinated people (20,000 having been vaccinated during the intervening week). The death rate of 15/100,000 is the same both weeks: 15 people die in Week 1, 12 die in Week 2.
What happens if death reporting is delayed one week? Then the rate is calculated by dividing the deaths in Week 1 (15) by the population in Week 2 (80,000). That’s 15 per 80,000, or 18.75 per 100,000 – a 25% increase from 15 per 100,000! In fact, the rate of death is unchanged. The apparent surge in unvaccinated deaths is a statistical artefact of the changing population and the delay in death reporting.
The effect accelerates. Say all but one person gets the vaccine. Say that in Week 5 there are still 20,000 people unvaccinated. Three of them die. Over the following seven days, 19,999 people (all but one) get the vaccine. In Week 6, there is only one unvaccinated person left. The numerator is 3 deaths (one week delayed), the denominator is 1 (one person left unvaccinated). The death rate is apparently an impossible 300%!
This statistical error will affect all causes of death. If you chart deaths from car crashes this way, you will find that the rate of car crash deaths among the unvaccinated increases, while among the vaccinated it declines – when in fact the vaccine has no impact on car crashes.
It’s definitely a thing, and can impact stated rates, especially when the vaccine uptake is happening rapidly.
But once it’s in place, the rates go to their “expected” values – I think for COVID we would assume after about a month of stable vaccination rates we should see a discrepancy in the death rates. As far as I’m aware we’re not seeing anything like similar trends in the two population groups. Where I am, there are like 10 COVID deaths a month, and 8 will be unvaccinated, in a population >80% vaccinated (for those eligible).
Yup, remaining population is not calculated in sync with the death rate calculation. The second table has the remaining population values hard-coded from the non-delayed table. Jumps right out at you if you try to reproduce the spreadsheet rationally.
Also Figures 1 and 3 in the article show an incorrect “% Vaccinated” curve topping out at 52.8% when the source data values top out at 99.3%, creating the illusion that the distortion is twice as big as it actually is. It doesn’t take any calculation to see that either, the wrong number is right in your face.
Yes, agreed. It’s an interesting little side analysis but it’s weird to link when the author’s then try to discredit the vaccines as entirely ineffective… Disappointing. The analysis should be used to indicate how the vaccines actually are effective even with some weird methodology in the official stats.
I’ve gone through the example in my own sheet & confirm the effect on the plots of mortality rate as it says in the article.
(Note – there are 2 y-axis labels – left&right, one for mortality % and one for cumulative vax rate; also, the ‘hard-coding’ offset is done as they describe it, no slight of hand; only error in their tables are 2x ‘7.50’ values, I guess a copy paste mistake)
In short, the effect described (a perceived spike in unvax mortality & initially lower vax mortality) before returning to the long-term mean is in essence the derivative (plot of the gradient) of the vaccination speed. The faster the weekly vaccination rate & the longer the death reporting time delay vs. vaccination reporting, the bigger the effect.
Numerical example holds.
Questions are also time definition of when vaccination is complete (1st, 2nd jab, 2 weeks out, etc.) and whether death & likely infection date is better time point comparison.
‘Resetting’ vaccination status (i.e. booster needed), resets starting point for effect as well, i.e. the steady state comparison (mortality vax’d vs. unvax’d) is not visible until vax rate = 0.
The real UK data shown (mortality – covid mortality = all other causes) with the 2x mortality from for unvax’d at start of vax campain is in support of their argument.
Vaccination status in ICU’s (at least as per media, haven’t checked original data) is however disagrees.
This is throwing me off big time, has anyone else seen this? Self reflection? From NYT?
NYT on “Liberal Hypocrisy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw
Watched it and couldn’t believe it was the NYT.
I wonder how long it will stay up before someone at NYT realizes they let some narrative bending truth slip through.
RE: Eagles Entangled
This is most likely a result of territorial confrontation. Eagles cannot easily release the grip of their talons. They must allow their talons to slowly release simply by letting the talon muscle to relax. If these two are agitated it will take some time for their talons to relax and to disentangle.
Bald Eagles are monogamous. They share in building the nest every year (around December in my area). Their brief sexual encounter (cloacal) occurs after the nest is built and usually performed adjacent to the nest. Not while flying (over a suburb).
“This is Some Good Shit Nautilus (Micael T)”
Speaking of, since the metaphorical door has already been opened and since the behavioral continuum is nothing less than fascinating, as the mythical Vulcan would say . . . .
“Though it might sound very unappetizing, many animals eat their own feces (or poop). People have also sometimes taken to this behavior as well. For millennia, the Chinese used dried human feces to treat abdominal diseases, believing that it had medicinal properties. In the recent years this form of traditional medicine resurfaced as a “poo tea” craze, where a slurry of warm pig and goat poop is ingested as a folk remedy for ailments ranging from skin problems to cancer.”
“But, camel dung in its true form would hold a life-saving secret. Soldiers were suffering greatly from dysentery and the Nazi medical corps was brought in to attempt to alleviate the outbreaks. Early on, the local nomads were thought to hold a key to the solution, because they rarely suffered from dysentery. In fact, when an outbreak of dysentery occurred, or even when slight diarrhea was experienced, the nomads would diligently follow their camels around. When a camel defecated, the nomad would quickly scoop up the dung and ingest some while it was still steaming. After close scrutiny of the dung, the corps discovered that the dung was loaded with the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. This species is in the same genus as a terribly pathogenic species, Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax, an often lethal respiratory disease. Bacillus subtilis, however, has since become one of those bacterial species considered “good” for humans.”
“Eat Poop and Live—-Yale University Press Blog—-January 11, 2016—-Susan L. Perkins and Rob DeSalle”
https://blog.yalebooks.com/2016/01/11/eat-poop-and-live/
RE: Antidote
Here’s an informative link about donkeys:
https://www.livescience.com/54258-donkeys.html
Re. feminist robots
A perfect example of tech fetishism that has gone beyond parody. When will we realize that instead of adapting tech to human living, we humans are dumbing ourselves down to the level of machines that “think” only in binary.
I’m shocked that teachers and educators are still enthralled by tech gadgetry and think that using tech devices is in itself a solution to human problems.
Eve, your favorite pension subject, you think this will end well.
About China’s and India’s pose as victims of Western unfairness in being expected to phase out coal along with the rest of us . . . . they have laid down their marker and if we didn’t have Free Trade Treason governments, we would be able to lay down ours.
Which would be . . . okay, we accept your logic literally. We will zero out our coal. Once we have done that, we will ban economic contact with countries which still use coal. We are wise to your tricks and we know you want to keep using coal at our expense forever and forever. And we will not play along.
You want to keep using coal? Fine. Trade with eachother and no one else. We will no longer attend your carbon pity party on your terms.
But we can’t do that until we have exterminated the Fossil Fuel community and the Free Trade community from visible public life.
Until then, the reality will be . . . . Let the Good Times coal.
>>>Try, try and try again: why did modern humans take so long to settle in Europe?
This is just empty man the mighty conqueror BS filler by the Guardian. It is surprising that it took so long? One subspecies of humanity who evolved in Africa couldn’t, or maybe didn’t want to, bulldoze over another subspecies just as smart that had evolved to survive ice age Europe. Both sides using stone tools and living in small family groups or maybe small bands of several families.
Probably too simplistically one can say “modern” humans are a melange of Cro-Magnon from Africa, Neanderthals in Europe, and Denisovans in Siberia being as they all are sub-species of Homo sapiens and interbred. Everyone used tools and had art with the Neanderthals having bigger brains.
Neanderthals lived in Europe for 400,000 and are know to have survived during the ice ages there or longer than the 100,000 to 200,000 Homo sapiens sapiens (that’s us) has been around. So, that is 100,000 to 200,000 years longer than we have been around. If we don’t exterminate ourselves, we might need to evolve into another yet subspecies or even species to survive the mess we created.
Love your take!