Links 11/19/2021

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Longest partial lunar eclipse of the CENTURY will take place tomorrow morning, making the moon appear red for around 3.5 hours, NASA says Daily Mail

How Australia’s Eastern Barred Bandicoot Came Back From Extinction Smithsonian

Fannie Mae Issues Billions Of Mortgage-Backed NFTs The Onion

The SEC Crackdown on DeFi is Imminent Doomberg

Amazon’s Dark Secret: It Has Failed to Protect Your Data Wired

COP26/Cllmate

The Wall Street Consensus at COP26 Phenomenal World

Brazilian Amazon endures fastest rate of deforestation in 15 years FT

#COVID19

Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan Science. Important. The Abstract: “Elucidating the origin of the pandemic requires understanding of the Wuhan outbreak.” Read carefully, because the conventional timeline is said to be wrong (including on the index case). Handy map:

Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Astral Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten. Layperson’s (exhaustive) review of studies at ivmmeta.com.

Doctor Sues Hospital Over Ivermectin Ban Amid Journal Article Retraction MedPage Today

Across the Globe, Rates of Vaccine Skepticism Have Stalled Morning Consult

China?

China tells Japan to put ties with neighbours before alliance with US South China Morning Post. That should do it.

People’s Financial Review: Why is China’s economy strong and vigorous? What China Reads

WTA threatens to pull tournaments out of China over Peng Reuters

Great Power Competitions The Baffler. The deck: “How ping-pong redirected diplomacy between the United States and China.”

Myanmar

Myanmar Coup Leader Min Aung Hlaing Barred From China-ASEAN The Irrawaddy. Ouch.

Myanmar military uses systematic torture across country AP. Clearance operations continue:

The open-source investigators trying to bring justice to Myanmar FT. Hopefully not “open source” like Bellingcat.

Vietnam reconsiders methane-emitting rice amid climate crisis Al Jazeera

After Each Flood, Hoi An Picks Itself up, Just Like It Has Always Done (gallery) Saigoneer. Just like Manhattan!

The Koreas

Manufacturing Carries South Korea Through the Pandemic The Blue Roof

South Korea rations urea supply amid shortage, leading drivers to panic buy Straits Times

India

PM Modi says Centre will repeal three new farm laws, urges protestors to return home Scroll

Reactions to India’s decision to repeal farm laws Reuters

Syraqistan

Turkic States Support Opening of Zangazur Corridor Caspian News

In Afghanistan, Climate Change Drives an Uptick in Child Marriage Undark

Supply Chain

Truckers Steer Clear of 24-Hour Operations at Southern California Ports Hellenic Shipping News. Hard to see why waiting for eight unpaid hours at night isn’t more attractive than waiting for eight unpaid hours during the day. Maybe they should put Kamala on this. Pete doesn’t seem equal to it.

UK/EU

Explained: What is Article 16 and will it be triggered? The Telegraph

Risk, aggression, Brexit and Article 16 Dominic Cummings. This is wild stuff. I can’t parse it, but Cummings seems to have it in for Johnson, for some reason. Excerpt:

It wasn’t until 25 September 2020 that [Johnson] finally understood even vaguely what leaving the Customs Union meant. I will never forget the look on his face when, after listening to Frost in a meeting on the final stage of the negotiation, he said, ‘No no no Frosty, fuck this, what happens with a deal?’ And Frost looked up from his paper and said, ‘PM, this is what happens with a deal, that’s what leaving the Customs Union means.’ The PM’s face was priceless. He sat back in his chair and looked around the room with appalled disbelief and shook his head. Horrified officials’ phones pinged around the Cabinet table. One very senior official texted me, ‘Now I realise how you managed to get Brexit done 😂’. As Hunter S Thompson said, humour in politics is usually dark.

I thought I knew my Hunter Thompson, but I can’t recall this quote. Readers?

‘Poop tomatoes’ found growing on shore of Kent coast where sewage pumped into sea Independent (dk). Don’t say the Tories never did anything for you!

MILLIONS of asylum seekers from Middle East could come to Europe through Belarus under Lukashenko’s ‘weaponisation’ of migrants if he is not stopped, warns Poland Daily Mail. Millions, I tell ya!

New Cold War

Putin vows to maintain ‘tension’ with west over Ukraine FT

Mexico’s army stands between gangs, enforcing turf divisions AP

Realignment and Legitimacy

Breaking Up Is Bad for the United States Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy

Rittenhouse Trial

Rittenhouse jury deliberates for third day without a verdict AP

EXPLAINER: What charges does Kyle Rittenhouse face? AP

MSNBC banned from Rittenhouse trial after bus incident AP

A Horrible Stink In Bristol The Brockovich Report. Toxic landfill.

Health Care

The Other Epidemic: Fentanyl Is Killing People in Nashville at a Staggering Rate Nashville Scene

Our Famously Free Press

Na ga happen:

Zeitgeist Watch

WWF Fighter-Turned-Evangelist Embezzles Millions With Sons — And Brett Favre The Roys Report

Binge Drinking Among Adults, by Select Characteristics and State — United States, 2018 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC

Black Injustice Tipping Point

‘Fundamental justice:’ Judge clears 2 in Malcolm X slaying ABC and J. Edgar Hoover hid that some witnesses to Malcolm X’s murder were F.B.I. informants. NYT

Class Warfare

Teamsters United Takes the Wheel Labor Notes. Defeat for the Hoffa slate.

John Deere employees approve third contract proposal, ending their five-week strike and Following John Deere contract ratification, Des Moines UAW bargaining chair dies of COVID-19
Des Moines Register

Physicists create discrete time crystals in a programmable quantum simulator Physics World

Lust for life immortal Times Literary Supplement. Bezos and Thiel.

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

176 comments

  1. zagonostra

    >The Steele dossier: A reckoning – CNN Politics

    When I saw this headline and realized it was CNN I had to do a double take. I thought, finally a mia culpa would be given. But after a lengthy chronological, and selective, review of the Russiagate affair (hoax doesn’t do justice, conspiracy?, to laden a term) they end at this conclusion which restores my faith in the MSM.

    Trump and his team systematically lied about almost every aspect of the Russia probe. (At the start, they falsely denied any contacts with Russians.) After so many of their denials were disproved, they repeatedly shifted their story. Trump repeatedly undermined and obstructed Mueller’s investigation.

    All the while, Trump heaped praise on Putin. He infamously took Putin’s side at the 2018 Helsinki summit by agreeing with Putin’s lie that Russia didn’t try to help Trump win in 2016, leading many to wonder if Trump was compromised after all.

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html

    1. fresno dan

      zagonostra
      November 19, 2021 at 7:42 am
      https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/19/there_will_be_no_media_reckoning_over_the_steele_dossier_146763.html
      FROM the ARTICLE: While the Washington Post “corrected” some of its discredited reporting on the dossier, removing portions of reporting connecting former President Donald Trump to Russia, there has been virtually no other accountability. And, really, it’s become modus operandi for the news organizations to “correct” stories in which the entire premise is false. Any sort of “reckoning” would mean a retraction, followed by investigative deep dives, not only reporting the problems with the story themselves but outing the fraudulent sources who participated in the deception. Perhaps that’s going on as we speak, but it’s highly doubtful.
      ….
      What difference, at this point, does it make? Well, for one thing, the full truth is opaque, and the historical record has yet to be corrected. It still says that “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops,” a story that spawned from the environment created by the Steele dossier, on the New York Times website. This piece, like so many others, is incorrect. The “intelligence officials” who spread that story were running what amounted to a shadow government using a partisan concoction, illegal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests and a pliant media to sink the foreign policy of the elected president. It’s one of the least democratic things I can think of.

      It’s worth knowing how it happened — yet the public gets no explanation.

      1. Geo

        And it’s mostly ignored by the mainstream. Was watching some late night comedy to unwind last night and Kimmel made a Trump/Russia joke.

        They should be fined by the FCC for this misinfo. But, I guess wardrobe malfunctions and bad words are more dangerous to the system than Cold War propaganda.

        1. zagonostra

          Your comment on Kimmel is very interesting. How would you characterize the “information” that comedians like Kimmel and Colbert disseminate? Propaganda? Mis/dis information? How much of it is due to ignorance and how much is with intent to deceive? I know that friends who actually watch these shows like them and feel that in the process of being entertained they are receiving the “truth.” Most of them still have it all wrong on Russiagate based on recent reporting.

          I need to revisit Michael Paranti’s “Inventing Reality” which came out 2 years before Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent.”

  2. zagonostra

    >Mandatory Vaccination and the Failure of Modern Constitutional Law

    A very lengthy article from a source, that given my “progressive” political leanings, I normally would not have stumbled on. Nevertheless, with courts suspending Biden’s mandate, a legal analysis and a review of historical context of the law i think would be useful. And, given the reporting on Austria, it might be well to familiarize myself with a deeper understanding of the law governing mandatory vaccination in this country.

    Justice Gorsuch launched a fusillade at those judges who relied on Jacobson to defer to COVID measures. He asked, “Why have some mistaken this Court’s modest decision in Jacobson for a towering authority that overshadows the Constitution during a pandemic?”

    Justice Gorsuch concluded that “things never go well” when judges “shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack.” He added, “Jacobson hardly supports cutting the Constitution loose during a pandemic.”

    Jacobson proved to be a useful prop for judges who otherwise sought to exercise judicial minimalism. Its use of terms such a deference, the common good and fundamental rights and its historical origins as a case that arose during a virus outbreak was the ideal case through which judges could refract their own passive virtue was reason enough to waste no time and exercise no caution to elevate this case to the apotheosis of constitutional law.

    https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/mandatory-vaccination-and-the-failure-of-modern-constitutional-law/

    1. Carolinian

      Thanks for the link. There does seem to be a kind of knee jerk attitude held by some lefty commentators toward libertarians, with the assumption that it’s all just a front for the business versus government tug of war. And to be sure it often is.

      But to assume the Bill of Rights no longer matters is to deliberately ignore the 20th century which gave us, not only Joe McCarthy but also horrible World Wars and dictators like Mussolini who started out as a communist and then inspired Hitler with his fascism. Clearly ideology is flexible when power is at stake, and the Bill of Rights is all about keeping power in check. Instead we currently have a Bill of Rights turned on its head–protect the rights of corporations and quash the rights of individuals. Benito would approve.

      1. Pate

        Now hold on one minute. Corporations are persons with a growing number of Bill of Rights protections including free speech which allows them to fund our elections with unlimited amounts of money. Just ask Bancroft Davis /s

        “Instead we currently have a Bill of Rights turned on its head–protect the rights of corporations and quash the rights of individuals”.

        A very nice gist; imho you have boxed the compass (hit the nail on it’s head). We are taught the law is not black and white which is another way of saying the jurists (the ”final arbiters”) are allowed to hang their hat on any peg that promotes the protection of property interests. The idea that corporations are persons is a legal fiction. So too is the idea that money is speech. Using one of Yves’ phrases (sorry to drag you into this) “making shit up” has always been companion to the human endeavor. Now let us pray.

  3. PlutoniumKun

    A Horrible Stink In Bristol The Brockovich Report. Toxic landfill.

    This really stood out for me from this article:

    The landfill opened in 1998 and is managed by Bristol, Virginia’s Public Works Department. It’s an unusual location—in an old limestone quarry—which collects water and is not ideal for a huge waste pile.

    I had a quick look at googlemaps, and it clearly is a limestone mine, and practically within the town. This is pretty horrifying – karst limestone is pretty much the worst possible geology for landfilling as there are almost always direct conduits to groundwater with zero attenuation. Even very permeable gravels or chalk provide some level of attenuation of contaminated water. From the google map image, it looks like there is minimal to zero engineering in the pit – its just a hole they are throwing stuff into.

    Even allowing that this may be a 25 year old permit, no waste or geotechnical engineer with even the most basic grasp of landfill design would consider a quarry like this to be suitable. Even inert waste (such as construction materials) would have to be very carefully screened and monitored before being disposed of.

    1. jhallc

      If we had any Karst geology, this landfill would never have been permitted in MA in 1998, maybe 1958. But back then it would have been a burning dump anyway. Double liners, leak detection and leachate collection system would have been mandatory. I’m guessing there are more of these out there in old coal mines/pits in WV as well. Maine even historically used old slate quarries as trash repositories and MA filled up an old granite quarry with “dirt” from the “Big Dig” that is now a golf course.

    2. Wukchumni

      There are a number of areas in LA where new housing developments were built right on top of old dumps. The one in West Covina i’m familiar with and where we went to get rid of stuff when I was a kid, was turned into a housing development in the 80’s.

      Given a chance of buying a new home in the City of Angles on 99% of the land that wasn’t previously a landfill, versus the 1% that was, seems like a no-brainer.

      1. jr

        Bucks County in Pennsylvania was once referred to as the world’s most exclusive landfill by a friend, apparently there are a lot of expensive homes built atop trash heaps there.

        1. Larry Y

          Isn’t most of NY and NJ garbage dumps located in Pennsylvania?

          If I’m right, I’m guessing all those rail lines that brought coal east are now bring other stuff back.

          1. jr

            Yes, I think so, and a lot of dead mobsters too. When I was a kid there, my dad told me a local lake we fished at often was partially drained one summer. A bucket of cement with two femurs jutting out of it was discovered.

        2. Grateful Dude

          lived there in and near the county seat most of my life. My Dad was a prominent conservationist there. Never heard this. No coal, no mines, and nothing visible – trash trucks from out of state, and/or dumps in my lifetime there, ’52 to the present. We had a local landfill or two, but they were small, and in those days, the trash wasn’t nearly so toxic as it has become.

          NYC started dumping in the wetlands and then moved West into Ohio. I don’t know about the vast fields of Pa coal mines, they’re all well North and West of Bucks.

          I’d be very interested in some documentation of this. My family is still there.

          BTW the really nice big homes are 17th and 18th Century stone farmhouses. Die to have one in good shape.

      2. PlutoniumKun

        In the UK in the 20th Century it was quite common practice to just level old colliery spoil, add in some waste, and then build houses on it. In older urban areas in the West Midlands it was a case of finding houses that hadn’t been built on waste, rather than vice versa. Usually, if the waste was old, it has sufficiently degraded that it wasn’t that big a hazard, although you’d often find hotspots. I once discovered a site that had sky high levels of cadmium – turns out it had been raised land which had used spoil from an 18th Century glassworks.

        My sister bought a 1920’s Arts and Crafts style house in South Birmingham (UK) back in the 1990’s. I did a desktop survey for her – I found a 1921 map of the land just before the houses were built, and it was grazing land and a couple of miles from the nearest mine. So I told her it was ok to buy, there would be no problems. Two years later, a surveyor found concrete rot in the basement, and she had a £20,000 bill to fix the problem (fortunately, covered by insurance). Turns out that to make the foundations on what had been quite soft land, they brought in…. cheap colliery spoil. It is very high in sulphur, and this had attacked the concrete over the 70 years or so life of the house.

        1. TimH

          Near where I lived In Southampton, UK, there was a WW1 munitions factory site at Weston that was used for new resi perhaps 25 yrs ago. The soil was so poisoned by the factory (raw material in one end, shells onto ships at t’other) that a layer of concrete was poured to seal the underlying nasty before building.

          No thanks.

    3. The Rev Kev

      I seem to recall that much of Florida rests on Karst geology which means that water spreads through it so that street in Florida suddenly flood though a long way from the ocean.

  4. The Rev Kev

    “Putin vows to maintain ‘tension’ with west over Ukraine”

    ‘Russia’s president complains ‘red lines’ on regional security are being dismissed’

    Those concerns might include the US nuclear weapons being spread across Europe that Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, was boasting about. As for the Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested that the fighting in the east be brought to an end and that the Ukraine sit down and negotiate a peace with the two self-declared breakaway Republics under the terms of the Normandy Format. But it was the French and German foreign ministers that shut down this suggestion and tried to put the blame on the Russians causing the Russians to publish the cables to prove their assertion. The US/EU keep shipping weapons and promises to the Ukraine but if the Ukraine decided to invade, they would be on their own. So in the meantime to ease tensions, two members of Congress have proposed in a draft resolution that if Putin is re-elected for another term in 2024, that the US refuse to recognize him as President. What was it that Forrest Gump said again? Oh, yeah. Stupid is as stupid does-

    https://www.rt.com/russia/540609-france-germany-plan-donbass/

    https://www.rt.com/russia/540722-reaction-us-congress-putin/

      1. ambrit

        We might have tried to kill him and failed. He is a survivor, trained in the old KGB. To say that “we could kill him if we want to” is pure Exceptionalism. I would not be the least surprised to learn that there is an unspoken agreement between the major powers not to try and kill off each other’s senior politicians. Once that gets going, who knows where it would end?

        1. jsn

          True! And if we just missiled him the way we did Soleimani it would definitely start WW3.

          That’s definitely the take away for Iran as it was before for North Korea.

        2. NotTimothyGeithner

          It would be tantamount to a declaration of war. Every expat would be rounded up in response. They wouldn’t be returned without concessions. And the domestic population probably wouldn’t be too keen on that.

          Lines of sight are controlled. The President doesn’t just show up at big events without advance work. Sites get nixed. The President has the Secret Service with its rotations, the Marine Guard, arguably the staff, bunkers, fences, gates, road blocks, the capital police and so forth. You would need a heavily armed group to get in, and they would be noticed before they made it. A crank isn’t getting through anymore. It’s the same with all chief executives. Prime Ministers tend to avoid cranks, so their security is less obvious.

          In the days of regicide, getting the Lord of the privy to knife a king might work if he thought the Baron of Haboken would take power and elevate him, but an assassin of an established state with theoretical democracy isn’t getting that treatment.

          1. Procopius

            I cherish the memory of a slightly blurry photo of a man standing in line at the counter in a 7-11 Store. He was the President of Portugal.

    1. christofay

      Biden wakes up and kicks a box under the bed. “What’s this? Thirty thousand votes all for me? I better notify the brain trust.”

    2. Kouros

      The US has no problem with European countries being nuked.
      The US and its allies have no problem dis-considering the Non Proliferation Treaty.
      The US has huge problems with any of the allies signing the new treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

      And Iran and North Korea are problematic! The hypocrisy!

      In 1980s, millions of people protested in Western Europe against the installation of Pershing nuclear missiles on their soil. Newer generations are too preoccupied looking in their mobile devices for shits and giggles to care about the building of a nice pyre for the next Armageddon (they don’t even know the meaning of the word).

      And they are upset about the changes in the Russian Constitution because that Constitution was drafted in Washington DC by US Lawyers, and the most hated thing by Plutocracy is a Tyrant (I mean it in the old Greek sense)…

    3. chuck roast

      Yes, two anti-Russian blurbs on the front page of today’s pink paper. This followed by semi-hysterical pieces on page two and three including the Russians polluting space for up to 15 years with their recent anti-satellite weapons test. And a letter on the top of the opinion page by an ex- US undersecretary describing how the Russian activity reminds him of their Georgian aggression of a few years past. One would think that the Ukraine was a charter member of Nato.

      All regular fare for the Financial Times. Interesting how a couple of columns of hysteria usually surround sane and reasonable quotes from Lavrov or Putin about how we need to have high level talks, but these never seem to materialize. Of course there is never a mention of the Minsk Protocol which was slagged and ignored by the Ukies. It appears that the ruling class is getting fully primed for the move to the brink. And all for a lot of unreconstructed Nazi footstools. Jesus wept.

      1. Kouros

        The theory goes that a war with Ukraine is needed, because it will be a victory even if Russia will win the war (which is taken as a given). Ukraine will be able to consolidate its statehood; the political war will be won because doesn’t matter how it will start, Russians will be the bad guys anyways, and the backlash against them will be great. Somehow they imagine that if Russia is removed from SWIFT and other sanctions and blockades, Russia will continue to sell gas, maybe even at discount prices, to Europe.

  5. PlutoniumKun

    ‘Poop tomatoes’ found growing on shore of Kent coast where sewage pumped into sea Independent

    Many years ago I went into a triangle of land formed by the junction of the M6 and M5 highways in England with a keen urban explorer friend. The site had been chosen as a useful place for a sewage treatment plant as it was very inaccessible and well screened from residential areas. The raised highway sections were excellent windbreaks and sun reflectors, so if you ignored the smell it felt quite tropical. I was amazed at the bushes made of ‘poop’ tomatoes, chilis and various other garden plants, all growing happily away around the plant where presumably surplus solid wastes had been ‘applied’ over the years. I’m sure it was quite safe, but I still couldn’t quite bring myself to try any of the fruits growing.

    1. jhallc

      The fruits would probably be quite tasty and you’d be sure to get your daily dose of iron and other heavy metals:)

    2. Mark Gisleson

      My father used to love to talk about when he was a kid and the older couple down the road gave his parents several pounds of asparagus that had been fertilized with horse manure.

      Sewage has to be treated before you can grow produce on it. The asparagus tasted like horse manure.

      1. R

        There’s no intrinsic reason why asparagus grown on horse manure would taste if the manure, any more than rhubarb etc. Even the fresh stuff (which will “burn” the plants, rather than the properly rotted down stuff). I suspect the problem may have been over enthusiastic application of manure to the stalks rather than its roots.

        1. Yves Smith

          The soil here isn’t great, not deep and lots of iron in it. My father would get zoo doo from the Birmingham Zoo for his small organic garden (he would get 3 plantings a year). Not enough sun for good tomatoes but everything else was very tasty.

          You need to work the manure into the soil.

          Birmingham Zoo no longer lets local cart off zoo doo :-(

        2. Raymond Sim

          Growing up in Pennsylvania horse country I heard anecdotes about horse manure being inappropriate for fertilising asparagus on several occasions. I always assumed it was because people just piled it on the beds.

          For some reason I find the flavor combination all too easy to imagine.

    3. jr

      When I lived in Pennsylvania years ago, a sewage line burst under a neighbors property. It was an unbelievable mess that my apartment was very fortunately upwind from. I remember people eagerly collecting the sludge to fertilize their gardens.

  6. Henry Moon Pie

    Relevant to nothing in particular other than life and love, there’s an informative and sympathetic review of my favorite movie, “Harold and Maude.” It tracks how conventional reviewers trashed the movie initially, but it took hold on college campuses (that’s when and how I first saw it) and became a cult movie.

    The reviewer came up with this characterization that I really like:

    Maude operates as a kind of mutual aid for the soul

    It notes Maude’s anarchism along with the movie’s eviscerating satires of the military, church and “experts” in the person of Harold’s psychoanalyst, and includes several clips. It does admit that the movie is a favorite for some people while others are baffled or offended by it, but if you’ve never seen it, this review might help you figure out which you are.

    1. PlutoniumKun

      I can’t recall the details, but the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls quoted someone saying that the treatment of Hal Ashby by Hollywood was particularly shameful, even by that towns standards.

      1. TimH

        The treatment of the E-type by Harold was particularly shameful, even by that towns standards.

        Great film, and Cat Stevens…

    2. Carolinian

      Wish I could agree. I just watched it again a couple of months ago and thought Ruth Gordon’s mugging way too much. But tastes differ.

      Doyenne Pauline Kael was a huge Hal Ashby fan but lukewarm on H &M.

      1. Henry Moon Pie

        Like the article says:

        You’re either a Harold And Maude person or you’re not. And a lot of that boils down to whether you find Maude annoying or endearing.

        The first time I saw it, as the reviewer said:

        College students, however, embraced its sensitive portrait of alienation. The film found a second life in regular rotation at midnight screenings and on college campuses. Over the past five decades, it’s grown from cult favorite to canonized classic. Jason Schwartzman once described Harold And Maude as, “The first time that movies made me feel inside the way records did.”

        A lot of Harold in me back then. But as I’ve grown older, Maude’s (and the movie’s) spit in the eye to the Establishment with a softener of humor is what I love best. Her mere existence is a threat to the status quo.

        Pauline Kael didn’t guide my movie viewing back then, and nothing has changed. It was a movie that people over 30 hated, just as people over 50 hated “The Graduate.”

        1. Mantid

          Henry, I am Harold and Maude, no, I am Harold and Maude ………. loved the movie as well. Thanks for the lively distraction and memory.

    3. Geo

      Love this film. It’s also clearly the film Wes Anderson has tried to make numerous times but never achieved the heart and sincerity of it.

  7. PlutoniumKun

    Risk, aggression, Brexit and Article 16 Dominic Cummings.

    Whatever Cummings is saying, its all in the interest of Dom Cummings. But he does of course know Johnson well and knows where the bodies are buried. Its no surprise of course that Johnson had not the slightest interest in the technical details of Brexit so its entirely possible that this account is true. We know that quite a few Tory Brexiteers were genuinely shocked to discover that Brexit meant the rise of trade barriers by definition.

    I think the question over Article 16 has descended into the usual internal Tory party internecine chaos. It looked certain they were going to invoke it last week, but it seems that they read the pro-Brexit newspapers and got cold feet when it was clear that most of the Tory owned media wasn’t so keen. Its no doubt being argued about intently internally and the final decision will be all about politics and nothing about trade or Northern Ireland. Johnson seems in real political trouble, so he may be tempted to use it as a diversion. But he may also calculate that everyone is sick of the hard line Brexiteers, so he could make yet another 180 degree turn and become the leader of the pragmatists again.

    1. JohnA

      Interestingly this week, the Daily Mail, a staunchly pro Brexit, pro-Tory daily, that had recently been running big splashes about tory corruption and Johnson’s sleeze etc., suddenly sacked its editor who had not been long in the job. Now the Daily Mail is back to running stories about meghan merkel and Russian scare stories, the latest about the F35 that crashed into the Med off the new british aircraft carrier. The pilot safely ejected but the F35 sank to the seabed. Now the Mail paints salvage as a race between britain and the US to keep the wreak and its secret technology out of the hands of dastardly Russian salvage merchants. I imagine the only lessons to learn from the ridiculous F35 is how not to develop combat aircraft.
      Clearly the new editor knows which side his bread is buttered.

      1. PlutoniumKun

        I’m not a follower of the UK media, but it seems to me that the Daily Heil, as Private Eye used to call it, is a bit more independent minded that the Express and Telegraph, both of which pride themselves on toeing the line. The Mail likes to remind Tory leaders that its the editor of the Mail, not the PM, who makes the real policy decisions in Britain.

        Its been suggested that one reason the trigger wasn’t pulled on A.16 last year was that the Tory media, presumably reflecting what its paymasters are saying in the background, have gone cold on the idea. But I think the Express has started pushing it again.

        As for the F-35, I suppose it’ll be fun for them to have a race to see who gets it, although the Russians could just ask the Chinese, who apparently have most of the plans. No other F-35B’s have been grounded, so this probably means its not seen as a design flaw issue. But given how few the Royal Navy have ordered, they can’t afford to lose many of them. They made lots of the old Harriers, because they were somewhat notorious for crashing at a rate you usually associate with wartime – but F-35’s are far too expensive for that.

    2. Dave in Austin

      “We know that quite a few Tory Brexiteers were genuinely shocked to discover that Brexit meant the rise of trade barriers by definition.”

      Not quite. It meant that a new trade agreement would have to be worked out. The Brexireers didn’t consider the possibility that the other side would want to make that hard so as not to encourage others who might want to leave. The Good Friday agreement was a useful way to meet the minimal requirements of GB, the Irish free state, both sides in the north and, above all, the Irish-American-driven Americans. It was always a teetering illogical pile of sticks and now one of the sticks at the bottom has been pulled out and the EU (except for the Irish free state) has no interest in making the jury-rigged pile work.

      1. Yves Smith

        Do not make things up and mislead readers. We followed Brexit closely. The Ultras were all ideology and no brains. And as Chris Grey said from early on, it was the Ultras, who became essential to getting anything done after Theresa May’s botched snap election, who redefined Brexit into a harder and harder Brexit when the voters had approved no such thing.

        The EU had no reason to prefer a hard Brexit and were dumbfounded as the UK moved more and more in that direction.

  8. John

    Certain persons in the US and the EU seem to believe that their words and actions will have no consequences except those they prefer. They seem to believe that Ukraine can be used as a stalking horse, or Judas goat, to achieve a “win” against Russia and more specifically their chosen agent of the devil, Vladimir Putin. They seem to think that distributing nuclear weapons carries no risk that they might be used. They seem to think their actions pass for canny strategy, even statesmanship. They are no longer paying computer war games where getting blown to smithereens means restarting the game, no harm done.

    Certain persons in the US and EU are fools.

    1. zagonostra

      Thanks for making me look up “Judas Goat” I had forgotten its meaning…

      A Judas goat is a trained goat used in general animal herding. The Judas goat is trained to associate with sheep or cattle, leading them to a specific destination. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter,[1] while its own life is spared

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat

      1. TimH

        UK is US’s Judas goat. I argue that if Tony Blair hadn’t helped push for Iraq invasion, EU would have stopped US since it was patently illegal.

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          I’m not sure. The equipment was pre-positioned. And we were braced for a certain level casualties, but Shrub wanted it. Rumsfeld was pretty open with Woodward about the need for CNN worthy wins. And Team Blue types didn’t want to vote against a perceived cakewalk. Then there were the Hillary types who love mayhem.

          The Russians had their own issues with Islamic militants and weren’t as aware of the US as they are. China was still working on joining the international structures.

          1. TimH

            Your comments regard US domestic politicking. My point was that the EU may have made the whole thing politically unacceptable if it wasn’t for ‘our Tony’.

            1. Yves Smith

              The US is very inward looking. The tiny number of nations in our “Coalition of the Willing” was an embarrassment but not seen as such here. The objections of the French became a badge of honor. Remember “Freedom fries”? And a lot of very good French restaurants in supposedly cosmopolitan and not at all Republican-leaning Manhattan closed due to loss of traffic over the call to boycott things French.

              I doubt anyone here would have cared.

              And there are enough Euroskeptics in the UK that I doubt a more concerted EU opposition would have stopped the UK. Five Eyes and all that.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Across the Globe, Rates of Vaccine Skepticism Have Stalled”

    Personally I am skeptical of this online survey. With so many people vaccinated, we are still learning what the consequences are of these vaccines. A case in point – A mechanic here in Oz was told that if he wanted to keep his job as a mechanic, that he would have to get a jab. Two days after his second dose of Pfizer, he had a stroke and note that he is only 36 years old. So at the moment, it is not certain if he is eligible for compensation under a government scheme for those effected by a vaccine as ‘Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), does not currently recognise stroke as a known side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.’

    https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/melbourne-mechanic-suffers-stroke-two-days-after-pfizer-vaccine-doctors-say-cause-unknown/news-story/9832c32659dce2118dccfb7d68f8ebbd

    Something else has been forced upon my attention. It may be that the Pfizer vaccine suppresses anti-psychotics administered to people with mental issues. Yeah, it is anecdotal but the correlation is undeniable. This might be something that we may hear of more going forward.

    1. Carolinian

      Very much worth a read.

      https://consortiumnews.com/2021/11/18/covid-19-big-pharmas-obscene-profits/

      Moderna, the world’s hottest new Big Pharma giant, now has four of its top players sitting on the annual Forbes list of America’s 400 richest. In early 2020, Moderna had none.

      Moderna’s Forbes 400 billionaire quartet owes its current good fortune completely to the company’s Covid-19 vaccine. And who made that vaccine possible? U.S. taxpayers. Moderna’s Covid vaccine, as Public Citizen research director Zain Rivzi puts it, “would not exist without the massive contribution of the federal government at every step of the way.”

      Moderna is now in a fight to exclude NIH scientists from their patent because an enormous amount of money is at stake. And for that same reason I think we should all question just how legitimate the vaccines are. What at least seems increasingly true is that they are not solving Covid.

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        The coronavirus vaccine is Moderna’s only product on the market.

        Fun fact: Moderna is a hundred+ billion dollar “big” pharma company that has NEVER had a product fully (not “emergency”) “approved” by the fda.

        Whitney Webb has written an interesting, detailed (and lengthy) two-part (soon to be three?) investigation of how covid-19 saved moderna from financial oblivion:

        https://unlimitedhangout.com/modernas-hail-mary/

        Webb has this to say about moderna’s future:

        While the COVID-19 crisis threw the company a lifeboat, the administration of its COVID-19 vaccine, in which the US government has now invested nearly $6 billion, must continue into the foreseeable future for the bailout to be truly successful. Otherwise, a company now worth $126.7 billion, with major investments from the US government, US military, and ties to the world’s wealthiest individuals, will crumble in short order.

        Maybe that’s why myocarditis and pericarditis have become minor annoyances, requiring “only” a two or three day hospital stay, and from which healthy young men “fully recover.” So far anyway.

        1. Mantid

          Katniss, you beat me to it. Whitney Webb is a true muckracker. In fact, I learned of her through comments in NC. Go team – AKA donate!
          Also see/listen to her podcasts on the history of the Anthrax vaccine and it’s birth via DARPA.

          1. ProudWappie

            She’s getting more and more attention as well, I’ve seen her show up at Jimmy Dore and recently on The Zero Hour as well. On top of the articles on Moderna, she’s been calling out the upcoming medical-security complex.

    2. zagonostra

      Early in the drive to voluntarily “incentivize” adoption of vaccines with free French fries, lottery tickets, cannabis, hamburgers, etc…(I wish I had kept a list) there were many stories on MSM of the unvaccinated on their death beds regretting not having taken the injection. I still see such stories but not as, often. A year and half ago if you had mentioned this anecdote of an adverse reaction, and granted not necessarily causative, you would been met with harsh rebuke for fear mongering and spreading misinformation.

    3. CloverBee

      Heard this ad on the radio. Pfizer has the biggest radio ad buy currently, advertising the symptoms of “atrial fibrillation and deep vein thrombosis”.

      http://www.insideradio.com/free/global-pharma-giant-takes-top-spot-in-latest-radio-spot-tally/article_2b89627a-392f-11eb-82ca-1ba827c47468.html

      Interesting that the article attributes it to pfizer’s investment in treatments, but I was wondering if it was related to the vaccine causing increased incidence the issues in the first place. Maybe both.

    4. anonydoc

      any links to that association. I have observed it in 2 patients but did not make the connection till you mentioned it

      1. The Rev Kev

        There are papers out there talking about this but they are buried pretty deep so sorry. Its like the vaccine blocked those anti-psychotics totally. Can you imagine if this was in fact what is happening and you were in charge of a mental facility?

  10. Wukchumni

    Re: antidote

    The caterfamilias in our kindle is 60 in human years and i’m 11 in cat years, so we’re on the same page. He claims to have gone to a bunch of rock concerts in the 70’s-but ticket stubs or it didn’t happen, my furry friend.

    He’s generous with head butts and i’ve taught him precisely one trick where he’ll head bump my fist if held around my waist level.

    Felines run a few degrees warmer than us, and in our 100 days of 100 degrees they want no part of me while at slumber, although once it turns cooler they station themselves around the periphery of my bedspread like so many Lilliputians. Just had a 4 cat night in our mutual warmth society.

    1. Mildred Montana

      “4 cat night”

      My gawd, that’s COLD! Not sure how cold though. Meteorologists I consulted on the net failed to inform me as to the actual temperature or where it ranks in relation to a 3 dog night. A clear deficit in weather-reporting.

      Btw, a quick Google search tells me “4 cat night” is still available as a band name. A group of aspiring young musicians should snap it up and sell some tunes, even if the only ones they sell are to careless music-buyers who think they’re purchasing something by the ’70s rock band.

      1. jefemt

        We have an outdoor thermometer from Three Dog Down (quilts etc) Polson, MT.

        No way to upload a pic- but here’s a used one on fleabay

        https://www.ebay.com/itm/334004774031?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-213727-13078-0&mkcid=2&itemid=334004774031&targetid=4581183927179143&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=418233787&mkgroupid=1241348861725295&rlsatarget=pla-4581183927179143&abcId=9300542&merchantid=51291&msclkid=f9f46d9d73761338710c0c0aba98d627

        I like the heat index… dead doggie above 90 degrees F (dated, no?)

  11. Tom Stone

    What has happened in Mexico is a direct result of US drug laws and US foreign policy.
    If you wonder where the Cartels get their weapons, one source has been the US DOJ, guns sold by them to the Cartels have been linked to more than 2,000 murders of journalists, cops and public officials.
    Recently the US division of SIG sold 500 high end select fire M16 variants to a newly formed anti drug unit of the Mexican Marine Corps.
    Suppressors and high end optics/thermal sights included, training provided to officers through the “School of the America’s, training for the troops provided by US Special Forces.
    Exactly how “Los Zeta’s” got their start.
    “Silver or Lead” is the choice given officials.
    If you wonder what the US will look like after another 20 years of climate change and corruption…

    1. tegnost

      My tinfoil observation is that we’ve left afghanistan because mexico is getting “airs” and the drug runners have always been our go to partners in the destabilisation game.

    2. MK

      Operation Fast & Furious (thanks O’bummer!) is what is publicly known about USDOJ giving away tons of guns to the cartels “to track them”.

      Wonder what we don’t know publicly . . .

  12. The Rev Kev

    “How Australia’s Eastern Barred Bandicoot Came Back From Extinction”

    A fascinating story but they were lucky with his program. If they had not had member species to draw upon from the island of Tasmania, the lack of genetic diversity would have pushed them into extinction which would have been a tragedy. This article blames foxes for their demise but I am willing to bet that feral cats also played a part here. Using Maremma sheepdogs like they used to save that fairy penguin population was a stroke of genius. The later that even made a comedy film about called ‘Oddball’-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7AV2ZYlxvI (2:01 mins)

    1. lyman alpha blob

      I have an inlaw from Angola who still has lots of family there. Her hot take is that reporting is bad and it’s worse than what we know. I’m not sure that’s accurate though – African officials don’t have the ability to crack down on information leaking out that they don’t like the way China does. If there were bodies piling up in the streets there I would think we’d have seen some evidence by now.

      Then again, maybe not, since the US only cares about Africa when there are resources to steal and/or brown people to bomb.

      It does seem an odd coinky dink though that on the continent where IVM has been used for years, the rona has not taken hold nearly as much as in the rest of the world.

    2. Raymond Sim

      Two articles down from Links on today’s NC:

      https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/11/new-radically-different-covid-variant-getting-footholds-now-as-media-and-officials-remain-complacent.html

      “There is barely any monitoring.

      Starting with cases and deaths — based on a few case studies, it appears that most urban areas in Sub-Saharan Africa are at 50-80% serpositivity and have lost 0.2% or more of their population (with median age 20 or so) but official numbers undercount, often by factors of 100x or more.”

      Personally, regarding Ivermectin, I’m in a position to know that I’m in no position to know whether it’s efficacious against Covid. However, this endless ongoing fake debate, this war of unsubstantiated assertions is a pernicious distraction

      1. Basil Pesto

        However, this endless ongoing fake debate, this war of unsubstantiated assertions is a pernicious distraction

        yup, and good to see you back.

    3. Basil Pesto

      That article focuses primarily on Zimbabwe.

      Africa is quite large and encompasses 54 countries.

      If I’m reading this paper correctly (after searching ‘which African countries use Ivermectin as a prophylactic -covid’), Zimbabwe is not one of the countries that has been part of the Ivermectin mass treatment programme in Africa.

      This paper – again, if I’m reading it correctly – suggests that in the parts of Zimbabwe where certain parasites are a problem, other anthelmintics are used.

      A search on ‘Ivermectin in Zimbabwe -covid” turns up results that suggest the primary use there is veterinary.

      Nigeria, on the other hand, has been part of the Ivermectin mass treatment programme – and the abc news article points out they’re doing pretty well (assuming data is reasonable, which it has to be said is a big assumption – see GM’s contribution in the separate post today dealing with the emergence of variants on the continent). It offers some ostensibly plausible explanations as to why.

      Another possibility might be the role of architecture, vis a vis ventilation, but I won’t pretend to be an expert on African architecture.

        1. Basil Pesto

          No contraire, you’ve misread me. I included ‘-covid’ in my search terms specifically to turn up pre-2020 – that is, pre-covid – usage of IVM in Zimbabwe. Ms Stone’s article, while interesting, does not speak to that. Keep in mind the comment I was replying to was:

          IIRC ivermectin is commonly used across Africa for river blindness, yet this isn’t mentioned as a possible factor in that continent’s low covid rates. How strange!/s
          https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/scientists-mystified-wary-africa-avoids-covid-disaster-81271647

          This does not bear out in Zimbabwe from my cursory online research, but Zimbabwe was one of the main focusses of the linked article. The apparently authoritative sarcasm in the original post is misplaced.

          1. Eustachedesaintpierre

            I apologise – rushing as was about to cook a meal for my partners birthday after a day out so therefore late to links.

    4. truly

      As is HCQ. Both possibly having some beneficial result?
      I read the Ivermectin:Much More Than You Wanted To Know article.
      A few counterpoints-
      Author neglects to mention epidemiological evidence- Uttar Pradesh has eliminated Covid with the use of Iv.
      Author points out that most all studies done on Iv are done in the part of the work where parasites abound and that parasites may play a role in helping people not succumb to Covid. But fails to mention that Iv is OTC and very very commonly used in these parts of the world, and would thus lead medical interest in use of Iv for “off label use”.
      As I noted elsewhere yesterday, I would love it if this site posted daily the Uttar Pradesh Covid rate chart, on a daily basis.

      1. Mantid

        Here is an excellent resource on the cases, recovered, and death totals for India in general and broken down via her states, where the real action is. India is like the US in that states really control what’s going on, not so much the “national” government. I’ve followed India quite a bit. Uttar Pradesh has the answer. Zero deaths nearly every day over the last month. Deaths have been declining (as well as cases) like a rock in a pond. Le Link: https://www.ndtv.com/coronavirus/india-covid-19-tracker

        1. Basil Pesto

          Uttar Pradesh has eliminated Covid with the use of Iv.

          Uttar Pradesh has the answer.

          So it’s true believerism, is it? This is exactly the kind of hubristic, unearned certainty that has marred the covid mainstream that runs the ‘horse paste’ meme. Give me a break.

          If some guy with an FDA/CDC pennant on his wall and a Fauci statuette on his desk then turns to this link and says “3.21 crore fully vaccinated in UP plus the huge numbers of infected in the April wave = UP has eliminated Covid with the use of vaccines and the protection afforded by the past infections!!”, how do you factor that into your analysis? Do you just ignore it?

          Moreover, case numbers in UP are on a slow uptick. To claim that UP has ‘eliminated’ covid, and that Ivermectin is the cause, would surely require at least another 6-12 months of data with the trend staying that way for that whole period, as well as meaningful data about the uptake of Ivermectin there to account for confounding factors (not just “doctors use Ivermectin in Uttar Pradesh all the time, look at this video on youtube of this guy saying so!”. we need figures, even imperfect ones). What reason do you have for the certainty you’re projecting that UP isn’t going to experience another growth in cases similar to Israel, Ireland, UK, USA, Portugal, Denmark, etc and so on? It is far too early to be making such bold claims on such weak evidence.

          Maybe IVM has eliminated C19 in Uttar Pradesh, but neither of you have come remotely within spitting distance of showing it.

      2. Ira Leifer

        Skimmed the article and the flippant tone annoyed me (from a psychiatrist at that!) so I just checked if his assessment of one of the linked articles he disliked had the problems he claimed. Specifically, he said he couldn’t tell how many patients. Took me five minutes to determine it was 135.

        Realistically, if he had actually done a meta-analysis (which is what he was claiming to do) instead of a half assed one (with lots of snide comments – again a psychiatrist?), he could have (and should have) submitted it for publication. He did not, which tells volumes.

        Appears to be ignorant of VAERS, too.

    5. Lee

      A possible explanation for this can be found in the article linked above: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted.

      It’s quite long, so here’s the gist. It kills parasitic worms that weaken the immune system and therefore can be helpful in patients that have that comorbidity. If this is the case then it explains the geo-epidemiological differences between the various studies producing very different results. From the article:

      “The Summary

      Ivermectin doesn’t reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount (let’s say d > 0.3) in the absence of comorbid parasites: 85-90% confidence

      Parasitic worms are a significant confounder in some ivermectin studies, such that they made them get a positive result even when honest and methodologically sound: 50% confidence

      Fraud and data processing errors are of similar magnitude to p-hacking and methodological problems in explaining bad studies (95% confidence interval for fraud: between >1% and 5% as important as methodological problems; 95% confidence interval for data processing errors: between 5% and 100% as important)

      Probably “Trust Science” is not the right way to reach proponents of pseudoscientific medicine: ???% confidence”

      1. Mantid

        Lee, that article is hogwash. I broke down why in a comment farther below. Scroll down for Mantid as I’m out to the garden now. If you disagree, and can show the author is unbiased, let me know. If you can, respond to my actual examples. Thanks so much, respectfully yours.

      2. Mantid

        Lee, somehow my comment didn’t come through so I’ll try again. The article is hogwash…… here’s why…… I began reading the “Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know” but couldn’t continue. First few paragraphs sounded pretty even handed. Then the author started in with the distractions, evasions, implications, and started spreading confusion. This quote “But of course we can’t give every study one vote. We’ve got to actually look at these (studies) and see which ones are good and which ones are bad. So, God help us, let’s go over all thirty of the ivermectin studies in this top panel of ivmmeta.com. (the group that posted the metastudy of 30 trials).”

        Then …. The author includes a study that is not one of the 30 studies on the chart. Of course, by chance, it’s a study with many flaws. That’s why ivmeta.com rejected the study and don’t include it in these 30 studies.
        So essentially the author says let’s not cherry pick, then he cherry picks. He may be a high ranking doctor, but a lousy author.

        Then, after he comments on a few studies there’s a picture of meth and drug evidence seized by police and a pile of cash followed by the author’s ….. “I’m not saying this is related, but I’m not saying it *isn’t* related either.” WTFunk???

        What rubbish. Why didn’t the author include a picture of a rusty tractor with a torn tarp top on it? Why not include a picture of a lion sleeping in a zoo cage? Maybe a young girl with a flower in her hand and a nuclear bomb exploding in the background?

        Save yourself some time. Thanks to the NC staff for this link and example of the slow drip of propaganda hidden in a seemingly reasonable essay. Lee, if you want to respond, let me know what you think of my two examples above. Respectfully, thanks – Mantid.

        1. Lee

          I find compelling the proposition that Ivermectin is proving effective in improving outcomes for Covid patients in areas where parasitic worm infections are prevalent. I remain agnostic on its effectiveness absent parasite worm infections. I am frustrated at the noise to signal ratio and am suspicious that the profit motive is interfering with the drug being subject to definitive testing.

          Also, the author is sympathetic to anti-elite sentiment, which is always a winner with me.

          “They have a very reasonable-sounding belief, which is that if dozens of studies all say a drug works really well, then it probably works really well. When they see dozens of studies saying a drug works really well, and the elites saying “no don’t take it!”, their extremely natural conclusion is that it works really well but the elites are covering it up.”

          To which I add, this “extremely natural conclusion” that elites mislead us is prevalent across the political spectrum and not without just cause. My living memory of of elite official deception goes back to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Examples before and since producing horrendous consequences are, to put it mildly, not unheard of.

          1. Yves Smith

            IM Doc has been tracking results his hospital, ivermectin v. non-ivermectin cases. The ivermectin cases show better outcomes. And his community is very wealthy, so the notion that they have worms is not on. In fact, the PMC and billionaires are for the most part the most insistent on taking it.

            As we have said, ivermectin has anti-viral properties. Why it is so hard to accept that is beyond me.

            1. Basil Pesto

              yes, the worm correlation hypothesis (good band name), while academically kinda interesting, speaks to what seems to me to be a blind spot in such analysis – relying exclusively on formalised research of the type discussed and ignoring the cumulative evidence of clinicians, which would seem to be a foolhardy thing to do over the course of a fast-moving pandemic. It strikes me as a victory of the ‘~evidence based~ medicine’ cult, rather than science (in the sense of its etymological root) itself.

              I’m now beginning to wonder if the are any clinicians, using the medicine regularly and in good faith, who submit outright that ivermectin does nothing at all and is worthless, including (especially) in non-wormy countries. That strikes me as a worthwhile line of inquiry.

              1. Yves Smith

                My suspicions go further than that. This new concession still demonizes possible users. If you say it works, you must be admitting to having terrible hygienic practices.

                1. Basil Pesto

                  ha, I’m perhaps not as jaded as you, though I should probably know better by now.

                  But in conducting such an analysis as Alexander does, his failure to account for the fact that of course countries that have had an endemic worm problem are going to be more likely to produce studies on their widely available, generic anti-worm medicine that they’re already familiar with, for a separate emerging medical threat, is a fairly major shortcoming/blind spot in that part of his analysis. It seems axiomatic.

                  To come back to your point though, you reminded me of something: I remember in primary school, if anyone was caught furtively scratching an itch on their bums, colleagues would immediately cry “ewwwww, so-and-so has worms!!!” (no, this hasn’t scarred me at all). Let’s hope we don’t see some kind of bastardisation of that phenomenon writ large with this potentially ill-conceived hypothesis presented as a conclusion.

                2. Raymond Sim

                  If you say it works, you must be admitting to having terrible hygienic practices.

                  My first thought on reading of the steroids/worms problem was that for large swathes of this country, including California’s Central Valley where I live, Ivermectin prophylaxis might very well be warranted.

              2. SB

                This emphasis on ‘~evidence based~ medicine’ leads to RCTs as the gold standard of evidence. In the case of IVM, we then get RCTs, such as the TOGETHER trial and the in-process Oxford trial, that are based on symptomatic-for-covid subjects. This means the subjects had gone through a virus incubation period of 3-4 days, been symptomatic for possibly several days, gone through however long it takes to be registered for the trial, randomized, and then finally given a treatment. By that time the virus in them may have mostly or completed stopped replicating. We then get a result that an anti-viral is not very effective!

            2. Raymond Sim

              As we have said, ivermectin has anti-viral properties. Why it is so hard to accept that is beyond me.

              It has a whole host of properties and a benign side-effect profile. Meanwhile pathogenesis in Covid is still not well understood. If there was ever an instance where clincians should be given liberty to be right for the wrong reasons, this has got to be it.

              Incredible credulity and credulous incredulity seem to be the Western style in dealing with overwhelming threats. Last year I was astonished by the extent of it. Now I’m just deeply deeply weary.

        2. norm de plume

          Well said.

          I just read another one in a similar vein, adopting that ‘I’m just a scientist who looks only at the data’ schtick:

          https://onepagericu.com/blog/debunking-ivermectin-a-complete-guide

          While these authors zealously search for and even find the odd mote on the other side of the fence, they resolutely refuse to look at the pile of beams in their own back yard. Have any of these guys, who inveigh against ‘low quality data’, weighed in on the news of Pfizer study malfeasance? Is their silence on the studies that buttress the Narrative indicate a belief on their part that such efforts are ‘high quality data’?

          Even its detractors admit IVM has a very good safety profile, which forces them into the efficacy defence. But to me, that is where they go to die. I have now seen so much apparent evidence (some of it personal testimonies of clinicians and recovered patients, so many they can’t all have been bribed as part of some nefarious disinformation campaign) of IVM’s efficacy in remote places where the reach of US interests is perhaps less secure, that my gut tells me there must be fire behind all that smoke.

          It can’t all be fake news served up by Putin, or even by medical spivs after a quick buck fleecing the rubes. Sorry, I don’t buy it. To me there is more ‘misinformation’ being emitted by ‘trusted’ media sources inside the bubble than by the motley crew outside, and the signature whiff that comes off mainstream ‘journalism’ nowadays is a desperation to control a narrative in danger of unravelling. They must look at the literally millions of people protesting worldwide right now and wonder how much longer they can get away with the pretence that the PR they practice can be passed off as journalism.

          More to the point, for a drug whose efficacy is in dispute but which correctly dosed is as safe as houses for humans (many times safer than Tylenol for example and orders of magnitude safer than any of the current vaccines) the provision of that drug to any person who wishes to use it should be a no-brainer. I mean, why not? If these biostatistical boffins actually were as interested in the truth as they appear, surely they might suggest that we run official, transparently reported volunteer trials via our public health systems, to find out once and for all, no? Apparently not.

          Lies, damn lies and statistics. I am now very suspicious of ‘data’ and much prefer ‘information’. Us plebs can’t read data, we need high priests of biostatistics (generally from institutions enjoying the largesse of cashed up Pharma and NGOs) to don their robes and pore over the chicken’s entrails on our behalf and translate the portents into something our poor little brains can handle. Those poo-bahs are all embedded in the medical science industry, but there’s never any question of COI’s or talking their book for them, is there? No, the inference is that the Korys and Mareks are on the take for the paltry sums desperate punters who (with demonstrably good reason) don’t trust the authorities, while a respectful silence surrounds and guards the hundreds of billions the Narrative aims to deliver to a small but very powerful group of people, who will soon be even more powerful thanks partly to this strict and globally enforced omission.

          If we still lived in a world where public health was public this canker could not have grown so life-threatening. It’s like Taibbi’s ‘great vampire squid’ analogy for banking, and for the same reason. Health and finance are essentials which like politics and the media and the law have been suborned to the interests of the few, and they are protected by an armature of enforced consensus and a co-ordinated response to threats to The Narrative.

          To my mind, the twin efforts to encourage, bribe, cajole , threaten or coerce all humans to take an experimental vaccine while simultaneously stamping out any possibility of effective early treatment amounts to a crime.

          Follow the Science, they say. Even though ‘the Science’ has been consistently and often spectacularly wrong over the last two years. Perhaps these high priests of data could look into the whys and wherefores of that, and draw a few lessons from it.

        3. Basil Pesto

          this is ridiculous and unserious quibbling, setting aside the inherent daftness of “the article (that I refused to read in its entirety) is hogwash”

          1. No writer purporting to take a look at the wider Ivermectin story and its history to date, particularly with respect to the ivmmeta data – as Alexander is, can afford to ignore the Elgazzar debacle. To do so would reek of bad faith. If I am a writer and I am trying to explain the debate to my readership as comprehensively and honestly as possible (while acknowledging that in attempting to do so, one can still make mistakes), Elgazzar simply can not be elided, even if it’s no longer part of the meta. To characterise its mention in such an article as ‘cherry picking’ is gobsmacking. Physician, heal thyself and all that. The taking-seriously of Elgazzar was and remains a serious and unignorable fuck-up that reflects poorly on all concerned – if ivm proponents want to be taken seriously by as many people as possible, they need to exercise due diligence. If one is determined to railroad this debate into an ivermectin vs vaccine false dichotomy, one cannot be suitably appalled by the Pfizer whistleblower and Pfizer’s other assorted bullshit, but try to sweep trash like Elgazzar under the rug. Unserious.

          Meanwhile, the salient criticism of the article deals with its conclusion, which is actually a hypothesis, and a pretty flawed one imo. You’ll probably have to read to the end to get a handle on this. A few of us discuss this critically below.

          2. The photograph is ironic, an attempt at levity. This is in line with his writing in this piece and from the odd article or two of his over the years. Humour, of course, can often fall flat, depending on who is reading it (although his caption on the pic of Flavio Cadegiani is pretty damn funny). Having said that, it does not suprise me in the slightest that Ivermectin Monomaniacals have something of a humour bypass when it comes to their fave drug. I recommend lightening up, if for no other reason than it allows one to enjoy delightful memes such as this one.

          It is not alarmism of any description, or an attempt to conflate the drug ivermectin with pernicious illegal drugs. That is, plain and simple, a bad and incorrect reading – albeit perhaps engendered by the author’s somewhat inelegant deployment of humour in this one instance. It is meant to speak to the batshit quality of some of the studies included in the meta, such as Elalfy et al. the meth picture is specifically related to the text, when he writes:

          RCT from Bangladesh. 200 patients received ivermectin plus doxycycline, 200 received placebo. Everything was written up very nicely in real English, by people who were clearly not on 34 lbs of meth at the time.

          regarding a study in the meta that he considers good, in comparison with the examples of some of the bad ones. This comes three paragraphs below the image. Perhaps you needed to read further before firing off your blast?

          All of this raises a genuine concern I have, and have had for a while: that to Ivermectin monomaniacals, anyone who purports to undertake a good faith analysis of the ivermectin question is going to be automatically impugned if their conclusion is not unambiguously, enthusiastically pro-ivermectin as the-road-out-of-the-pandemic. This is bereft thinking. I wouldn’t tolerate that bullshit from the most hopelessly blinkered vaccine enthusiasts and I won’t tolerate it from Ivermectin Monomaniacals either. (for an example of this, recall a few months back shortly after the peak of the stupid ivm cause celebre when this earnest and even-handed article by a clinician, Buzz Hollander, was shared by me in comments and then Lambert on WC, only to have and his analysis and character ridiculously and childishly attacked for being insufficiently pro-ivermectin by some commenters.)

          I can only quote Raymond Sim’s excellent comment above, with which I am in complete agreement:

          Personally, regarding Ivermectin, I’m in a position to know that I’m in no position to know whether it’s efficacious against Covid. However, this endless ongoing fake debate, this war of unsubstantiated assertions is a pernicious distraction

          the desire to claim “no, actually, your miraculous solution to the pandemic is bad. I think you’ll find that mine is the one true miraculous solution to the pandemic instead and, if you disagree, it’s obviously because you’re in league with Big Pharma/Joe Rogan/The Alt Right/Nancy Pelosi or whatever, is stupid and unhelpful beyond belief, as much as I would absolutely bloody love for there to be an actual miracle cure.

    6. tiebie66

      I found the article rather tedious. He first tried to throw out as many as possible of the studies, and when that did not work, took refuge in a conclusion based on much hand waving: “highlight the possible negative interactions between helminth infection and COVID-19”, “It has also been proposed that helminth co-infection may increase the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19” and “treatment and prevention of helminth infections might reduce the negative effect of COVID-19”. Not to mention contradicting himself with “helminths evolved mechanisms suppressing the host immune responses” that ought to be beneficial countering the cytokine storm in acute Covid-19. No? Weak stuff to draw firm conclusions on. And what about France where ivermectin given to residents in care homes had positive effects? (“Oral ivermectin for a scabies outbreak in a long-term care facility: potential value in preventing COVID-19 and associated mortality” and “Ivermectin and COVID-19 in Care Home: Case Report”). It seems likely that these earlier reports encouraged physicians to use ivermectin in countries where it was readily available and its use and side effects were well known. In much of the rest of the world there was a concerted effort to prevent the use of anything except the vaccines (starting with HCQ). In the interests of fairness, he should perhaps also evaluate the Pfizer vaccine trial (BMJ “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial”).

      Well, I’ll be off soon to get my vaccine against “gripe” but will hopefully be able to wait at least a couple more months before getting boosted…

  13. Wukchumni

    Fannie Mae Issues Billions Of Mortgage-Backed NFTs The Onion
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Got rid of all my stocks in 2007 and one of them was Fannie Mae and the price back then in the white heat of housing bubble numero uno was $59.

    Now we’re in the mother of all housing bubbles and it’s worth a measly 94 Cents which is queer considering the housing market.

    Something doesn’t jive.

    1. Mildred Montana

      “Something doesn’t jive.”

      It’s rather simple. Back in 2008 the government took over Fannie Mae and forced it to purchase the bad loans of the largest private banks. And, while refusing to take over said banks, it provided them with generous loans.

      The rule in a corrupt financial system is clear: The government is not allowed to invest in or own anything that is or will be profitable. It is merely a dumping ground for the junk of the banks, of which Fannie Mae presumably is still holding a big stinking pile. Ergo, FNMA at 94¢.

      1. GramSci

        Which, I guess, is why the gov owns most of the non-arable land in the United States? (We like to call them national “parks”, like the Everglades. Ancient practice.

    1. zagonostra

      Glad to see they are now counting “breakthrough cases”

      As part of the update, the state also began reporting COVID-19 cases that occurred after vaccination or prior infection…

      The department also added two new pages to its COVID-19 dashboard: one reporting cases of reinfection, and another reporting cases after vaccination

  14. Mikel

    The fentanyl problem is one that could have been mitigated by legalization of drugs.
    That’s when looking at it from the perspective a street dealers making it more widespread as they began using it as a cutting agent.

    1. LawnDart

      It helps to rid us if the despairing though– fewer to b***h and moan about how crappy things are these days.

  15. Lee

    “Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Astral Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten. Layperson’s (exhaustive) review of studies at ivmmeta.com.”

    I don’t think I’ve read Alexander before. The article is an impressive combination of hard analytical work leavened with humor. I like this style of writing, which is also much in evidence here at NC.

    Particularly fascinating was the bit toward the end (spoiler alert) where it appears, according to the studies discussed and deemed to be valid, that ivermectin displayed effectiveness in reducing morbidity and death from Covid-19 in regions where helminth worm infection is prevalent.

    1. Craig H.

      Interesting use of layperson there. Alexander is a medical doctor, degree and license. Some people who read this ambiguous sentence might think the article is by, not for, layperson.

      A careful reading of this presentation might provide more knowledge on this drug than many doctors possess.

      One of Scott’s good ones for sure!

    1. JBird4049

      They got the oldsters, so going after the youngsters seems par for the course. Of course, murdering children for profit tends to piss off people especially parents. Showing that the officials got the working air purifiers while the children got garbage is just extra. It’s like they want an uprising.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Of course, the major city offices bought themselves high quality air purifiers.

      They did indeed:

      New Yorkers who walk into most city buildings are unlikely to find that brand of purifier humming in the background. City contracts and photos sent to WNYC/Gothamist by city employees across several departments indicate that most offices rely on other brands, all of which use HEPA filters and provide substantially higher ventilation rates compared to the purifiers in city schools. Some were purchased even as the city made new deals with Delos for non-HEPA purifiers, the contracts show.

      This is Third-World stuff.

  16. Michael Fiorillo

    Regarding the coverage of Malcolm X’s assassination, none of the articles I’ve seen mention that Malcolm’s bodyguard and first person at his side after he was shot, Eugene Roberts, was a member of the NYPD Red Squad. Roberts later went on to infiltrate the Black Panthers, and testified for the prosecution in the Panther 21 trial, although journalist Murray Kempton, in his excellent book on the case, The Briar Patch, claimed that Roberts’ testimony undermined the prosecution, which resulted in acquittal after less than an hour of jury deliberation. Anyway, the point is that Malcolm was almost entirely alone and surrounded by enemies, in and outside the Nation of Islam…

    One member of the Panther 21, Afeni Shakur, went on to be the mother of Tupac Shakur.

    1. jsn

      Thank you!

      And everyone wonders why there’s no Left left in the US.

      It’s been systematic and it started even before FDR died.

      1. Michael Fiorillo

        Henry Wallace being replaced by Harry Truman as FDR’s 1944 running mate ranks up there, as well…

        1. John

          Of course; Wallace was fine as long as it looked as if FDR would make it through his term. Truman was a bone to the conservative wing of the Democrats (at least the powers behind the throne spared us Jimmy Byrnes) which in those days meant the oh-so-solid segregationist-south. I am not implying that Harry was on board with the more rabid southerners. He did end segregation in the military in 1948, but the policies that were in place or contemplated when FDR died were shunted onto side tracks and Truman replaced the more left leaning appointees. IIRC, Harry was polling about 20% approval in 1952, but it was the end of a 20 year run for the democrats and the Korean War was dragging on until Stalin’s successors gave the signal for it to end.

          Since then the left has been edging closer and closer to the center even as the center has moved to the right. I never thought I would wax nostalgic for Hubert Humphrey or some of the more colorful and radical union leaders.

      2. Procopius

        Heck, it started back before the end of the Gilded Age. Have you never heard of The Palmer Raids? Sacco and Vanzetti? Joe Hill? Don’t despair. I think the current revival of strikes as a bargaining tool is a hopeful sign. The kids are OK. Listen to Paul Robison sing “I Thought I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.”

  17. Milton

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/19/san-francisco-painted-ladies-victorian-houses-gray

    This jibes with what I’m seeing in my mid-century San Diego suburb. Newly purchased homes, ready for flipping, all painted in various shades of gray with black trim. I wonder what the reasoning for this trend is? Is it simply a case of monkee see monkey do (turbo-charged by home improvement programs on HGTV) or does it mirror the bleakness afforded individuals in our society? Maybe monochromatic paint is just less expensive. Whatever the case, it may be time for this SF block to adopt the moniker “Gray Ladies”.

  18. Henry

    Remember people carrying “I am George Floyd” signs a while ago?

    Another symbol gone wild:

    Yesterday at Home Depot I saw two contractors wearing

    “I Am Kyle” buttons and a truck with a similar magnetic sign on the rear tailgate.

    1. Arizona Slim

      The other day, I saw hand-lettered “[Family Blog] Joe Biden” signage on a car. Middle of Tucson during the daytime.

      1. zagonostra

        You probably saw that yesterday Gov. DeSantis signed an Anti-CV19 Vaccine Mandate Package in, of all places, Brandon, Fla.

  19. Tom Stone

    This is a response to Lambert’s remark that the prosecutor’s in the Rittenhouse case are screwing up.
    Keep in mind that DA’s are political animals and they decide whether or not to bring charges, what the charges are AND who is appointed to prosecute those charges.
    I’m familiar with the laws regarding the use of force in California and given the totality of the circumstances the appropriate charge here would be Voluntary Manslaughter.
    So why charge idiot Kyle with so many charges, enough to keep him prison for centuries?
    Firstly, publicity.
    The DA gets a ton of positive press.
    Secondly,he’s probably hoping for the Jury to convict him of SOMETHING because he did kill several people.
    And when Rittenhouse is either exonerated or convicted of the least serious count the DA and the press will blame the prosecutor’s.
    Not the DA who decided on the charges and decided who would prosecute them.
    It would be illuminating to learn the political leanings of the Prosecutor’s and whether they might have had ambitions to challenge the DA in the next election…
    If you are an assistant DA assigned to a case you can either resign or take the case.

    I see an astute DA who handed off a steaming pile of shit to political rivals or ADA’s with no pull and turned it into a win.
    Cynical?
    No, realistic.
    That’s how things work.

      1. John

        It seemed to me, and I am not a lawyer, that Rittenhouse was overcharged and given his age it would be a heavy lift to convict on the top charge, but he did kill two people because he had some dumb romantic heroic notion of what he was setting out to do and his notion of consequences seems, to me, childish. Suppose he had had a quarterstaff and all other circumstances were the same. Would anyone have died? I think not, but the level of understanding on his part would have been the same.

        People dying in circumstances that appear from afar to merit no more than a rap upside the head or a bloody nose is getting really tiresome.

  20. lyman alpha blob

    RE: John Deere strike

    I’d thought that one of the major sticking points was that management wanted a two-tiered system where new hires would get fewer benefits than current workers. The Des Moines Register article is a little vague on whether the workers were able to overcome that demand. It says the agreement they approved yesterday was largely the same as the one rejected a few weeks earlier, and I believe that last rejected agreement did retain the two tier system.

    Anybody know if they caved on the two-tiered system? If so this would seem to be a long term win for management despite the pay increases for current workers.

    1. TroyIA

      The company wanted to create a 3rd tier for new employees that denied them a pension. We were able to get the company to give up on a 3rd tier as well as modestly increase the pension for the lower tier post 97 workers.

      The pay scale between the pre and post 97 workers is identical but it is still a lot less than what a worker would make in 1996 when adjusted for inflation. It isn’t a perfect contract but it is the first one I’ve had that doesn’t leave me worse off than the prior one.

      1. flora

        That sounds like a win, beating back the 3rd tier stuff and modest pension increase for the tier2 workers.

  21. zagonostra

    Like the acknowledgment of the gov’t’s involvement in MLK’s assassination (see William Pepper’s legal case 1999 King family vs. Loyd Jowers ) people don’t seem to get too much riled up when information of CIA/FBI involvement in extra legal activities come to light. I think this says something about the res publica.

    1. JBird4049

      It says that not only are the CIA/FBI murderers with no compunction about doing Americans on American soil, everybody already knows this, like with Jeff Epstein being suicided. There is nothing new to get excited about.

      1. zagonostra

        I wish you were right and “everybody knows” (I can hear Leonard Cohen singing in my mind). But unfortunately, that’s not the case. There are people who don’t know who Fred Hampton is or the involvement of their gov’t in too many immoral and illegal actions to list.

        Also brings to mind Gregory Bateson’s famous expression “Every Schoolboy knows”

        1. JBird4049

          Being a child of hippies did help with my education; I grew up being told and later reading about our government’s various misdeeds for decades. “The FBI assassinated someone… News flash: Sun rises in the East and sets in the West.”

    2. drumlin woodchuckles

      It says people have given up on any deep decontamination justice ever being achieved. Younger generations have priced in the existence of stealth omni-coverage of society by the ever-watchful Paperclip Nazi Deep State.

      Back when the Occupy Movement was going on, a few Occupists came to my town. I talked a bit with a few of them and the question came up of why the movement was kept as totally leaderless as possible. They said that one big reason was not to have any leaders subject to assassination to thereby behead the movement. Too many non-leaders to kill them all and no way for the government to know which ones to kill.

  22. Larry Y

    Another article from truck driver Ryan Johnson, on how drivers get paid.

    New acronym: Over the road (OTR).

    Before that, however, I want to make it clear that large amounts of unpaid time for everyone but hourly drivers are not a bug of this system, they are a feature of it. The system encourages drivers to lie about how much time they work for free, by paying them only if they are moving, or a pittance(or nothing)if they are stopped.

    https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/i-am-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-part-2-how-truckers-are-paid-de86ea419f2f

  23. Jade Bones

    Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know…Thanks Lambert, thorough, and entertaining, albeit skimmed most. I was pro Iv but questioned same meta analysis. Have now moved Ivermectin into the effective placebo column. Ergo, won’t be telling friends who still believe.

    1. Lee

      Should probably be recommended to friends who catch Covid and suffer from comorbid parasitic worm infection. The parasites compromise the immune system.

      1. Eustachedesaintpierre

        The names he lists in the article have previous on this issue – Gideon Meyerowitz Katz was the student behind the Guardian’s Right Wing drug article – the Graun later retracted the incorrect DR. bit. He has also been involved in attempts to discredit lockdowns as a tool. He is funded by the commonwealth of Australia & the NSW state government – it is also interesting as listed below what he actually does support like aspartame for kids & chemicals in food.

        As for the rest not including the etc their contribution & who is funding is listed in this article from the BIRD group.

        https://bird-group.org/blog-how-ivermectin-became-a-target-for-the-fraud-detectives/

        1. Basil Pesto

          GM-K also works for the American Council on Science and Health (hat tip to another commenter whose identity I’ve forgotten). I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him, which, if I could, would be straight in the bin.

          But I don’t think Alexander’s inclusion of him in his analysis undermines his own work
          or conclusions

          1. Eustachedesaintpierre

            ” But I don’t think Alexander’s inclusion of him in his analysis undermines his own work
            or conclusions “.

            Last night I realised that I had seen & heard Alexander’s conclusions before in a video on youtube from the health Nerd, but the video now no longer exists. Anyhow I found this authored by the health nerd AKA GM-K which is basically the same as Alexander’s without the psych-babble.

            https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-part-4-f30eeb30d2ff

  24. North Star

    Re: The Great Power Competitions

    The 1972 eight game hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union, in the midst of the cold war, was a historical classic. It was the first time Canadian professionals from the NHL played the ‘amateurs’ from the Red Army. The animosity and rivalry between these two teams increased as the series wore on, almost going nuclear in intensity, and did not appear to help thaw the chilly relationship between the two countries as the ping pong diplomacy did between China and the U.S.

  25. griffen

    Million dollar man becomes million dollar wolf in sheep’s clothing. Nice little gig for one Ted Debiase, a former “champeen rassler” for WWE back in the day. And, of course it was a family business! Good luck to the state authorities in recouping what was pilfered.

    All in the guise of a functional / evangelical ministry. Have they no shame (I know, they do not!).

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Pel grants for everyone who opens and runs a small business in a superfund site for three years!

  26. Tom Collins' Moscow Mule

    “Lust for life immortal: The worlds of Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos”
    By Peter Geoghegan

    Or, how to both prime the pump that is the public consciousness and get in on the ‘ground floor’ . . . .

    The mental gymnastics of the true believer, huckster, proselytizer are a marvel to behold, as one is sometimes reminded of televangelists such as Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker. And the real fun only starts as the rationalizations start rolling out and begin to build up momentum, as is also the case for the immortality industry, as well, apparently. At least it is emphasized that it remains focused as an enterprise for the wealthy class that have large amounts of what is often referred to as surplus ‘discretionary income’, thus far. So . . . .

    “The most extreme of the controversial interventions Asprey has undergone involved having stem cells extracted from his own bone marrow and fat and then injected into hundreds of locations on his body. “Into every joint, between every vertebra and into my cerebrospinal fluid, face and sex organs,” he tells me cheerfully. “For what I spent on that, I could have bought a really nicely appointed Tesla.” And,
    “For a wealthy person, investing in your body should be a major part of your ‘I’m rich’ strategy,” he explains. “Personally, I think you should be spending at least 2 to 3 percent of your net worth on health and longevity. Get a personal chef who can cook you the right food. It’s not that hard.”

    But it is an ethical cause, after all “. . . . he’s jovial and chatty and wants to make it clear that his interest in life extension is much more than financial. “Working to extend life is an ethical cause,” he says. “If we can help people to live healthfully until the end of life, we’ll transform the world completely. We’ll reduce a huge amount of pressure on failing health-care systems, and we’ll have to reimagine pension and life insurance. This should be the number-one tick in anyone’s investment portfolio.”

    Even though, “Mellon, 63, has made his fortune betting on well-timed investment opportunities, and he predicts that a new “stock-market mania” for life extension is just around the corner. “This is like the internet dial-up phase of longevity biotech,” he enthuses. “If you’d invested in the internet in the very early days, you’d be one of the richest people on the planet. We’re at that stage now, so the opportunity for investors is huge.” According to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, he’s not wrong: The market for technologies to increase human life span is projected to grow sixfold to $610 billion in just the next five years.”

    https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/silicon-valleys-tech-elite-is-investing-billions-to-live-longer-2936782/

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > The market for technologies to increase human life span is projected to grow sixfold to $610 billion in just the next five years

      “”Earth’s a sh*thole, Plex. Static f*cking society, hyper-rich, immortal overclass, cowed masses.” –Richard Morgan, Woken Furies

  27. Bazarov

    Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts.

    Anyone who watched the video evidence could see that Rittenhouse’s actions were within the realm of self defense. Rittenhouse ran away, was chased, bludgeoned, had a gun pulled on him, etc.

    Media kept that video evidence obscure, when it should’ve been front and center in coverage.

    Jury made the right call, from what I’ve seen of the evidence.

    1. Lee

      Yeah, but there is the thing of him showing up there in the first place. At the very least he should have been charged under statutes pertaining to “creating an attractive nuisances.” Or maybe that’s the “creating an irresistible target” statute. As for the demonstrators: disorganized violence against superior forces is futile and rarely wins hearts and minds, however sympathetic one might be to the reasons behind it. I say this as a retired politically motivated street fighter who has since grown wiser….or maybe it’s just that I’m too damned old to get up to that sort of thing.

      1. Tom Stone

        Lee, the appropriate charge would have been “Voluntary Manslaughter” based on Rittenhouse’s provocative clothing and display of a firearm.
        And that might not have stuck because he clearly acted in self defense.
        This was grandstanding by the DA.

  28. In Vino Veritas

    Binge Drinking- “Excessive alcohol use includes binge drinking, heavy drinking (i.e., 15 or more drinks per week for men; eight or more drinks per week for women)”

    This seems seriously cray-cray. An adult woman who has a single glass of wine with her daily dinner and once a week, another with lunch once during the week is a “binge drinker”? Who makes this stuff up?

    How can you cast a net this wide and expect your resulting data not to be GIGO?

  29. drumlin woodchuckles

    Bezos and Thiel? Let their life immortal be torture immortal, with no way out and no hope of ending.

    Let their entire consciousness and memory be uploaded into a Singularity Computer. Let them discover that it is a Hell Computer. ” They have no mouths, and they must scream”. Ahhhh . . . . if only.

    1. John

      The Qin emperor died in 210BCE while traveling to a sacred mountain in China in his ongoing quest for life extension. I wonder if Thiel or Bezos will commission a tomb complex as elaborate as that of Shi Huangdi?

Comments are closed.