MOAR Censorship PUH-LEEZ!!!!

taibbi |  Censors have a fantasy that if they get rid of all the Berensons and Mercolas and Malones, and rein in people like Joe Rogan, that all the holdouts will suddenly rush to get vaccinated. The opposite is true. If you wipe out critics, people will immediately default to higher levels of suspicion. They will now be sure there’s something wrong with the vaccine. If you want to convince audiences, you have to allow everyone to talk, even the ones you disagree with. You have to make a better case. The Substack people, thank God, still get this, but the censor’s disease of thinking there are shortcuts to trust is spreading.

Lastly, while the Post certainly has its own problems in this area, the Guardian editors should puke with shame for even thinking about condemning anyone else’s “misinformation,” while their own fake story about Assange’s “secret talks” with Paul Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy remains up. Leaving an obvious hoax uncorrected will tend to create a credibility problem, and you compound it by pointing a finger elsewhere. There is a lesson in this for health authorities, too. Clean your own houses, and maybe you won’t have such a hard time being believed. 

I’ve used Substack to show the amazingly diverse range of speech deemed unallowable on private platforms, from raw footage of both anti-Trump protests and the January 6th riots, to satirical videos no one had even seen yet, to advocates and detractors of the medication Ivermectin, to a Jewish tweeter’s pictorial account of Hitler’s life, to a now proven-true expose about the president’s son. The latter case is on point, because the widely distributed story that the New York Post’s Hunter Biden report was Russian disinformation was the actual disinformation. If the fact-checkers are themselves untrustworthy, and you can’t get around the fact-checkers, that’s when you’re really screwed.

This puts the issue of the reliability of authorities front and center, which is the main problem with pandemic messaging. One does not need to be a medical expert to see that the FDA, CDC, the NIH, as well as the White House (both under Biden and Trump) have all been untruthful, or wrong, or inconsistent, about a spectacular range of issues in the last two years.

 

All One Hundred Seven Chapters Of The Book Of Enoch

The Book Of Enoch REDUX (Originally Posted 9/12/17)

wikipedia |  The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch;^[1] Ge'ez: መጽሐፈ ሄኖክ mätṣḥäfä henok) is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, although modern scholars estimate the older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) to date from about 300 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably to the first century BC.^[2]

It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest, but they generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical or non-inspired.^[3] It is regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, but not by any other Christian groups.

It is wholly extant only in the Ge'ez language, with Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments. For this and other reasons, the traditional Ethiopian belief is that the original language of the work was Ge'ez, whereas non-Ethiopian scholars tend to assert that it was first written in either Aramaic or Hebrew; Ephraim Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew.^[4]:6 No Hebrew version is known to have survived. It is asserted in the book itself that its author was Enoch, before the Biblical Flood.

Some of the authors of the New Testament were familiar with some of the content of the story.^[5] A short section of 1 Enoch (1:9) is cited in the New Testament, Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14–15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8), although this section of 1 Enoch is a midrash on Deuteronomy 33. Several copies of the earlier sections of 1 Enoch were preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

America's Civil War: Provincial Lesser-Rich vs. Urban Mega-Rich

tabletmag | But what of the states and the federal government? These two tiers of the U.S. constitutional order are merely the battlegrounds on which the intra-elite feuds of the American metro areas are fought.

In states like Texas, in which Republicans control the state government while the big cities are controlled by the Democratic hourglass coalition, there is a constant game of cat-and-mouse between progressive city councils that enact left-wing policies and right-wing legislatures passing legislation to overrule them. The Texas state legislature has used state law to annul ordinances of the far-left Austin City Council ranging from plastic bag bans, to enabling an explosion of homeless encampments in public spaces, to declaring Austin a “sanctuary city” whose police officers would be ordered to refuse to collaborate with federal immigration authorities.

The state usually wins, because under our constitutional system the policies of cities, counties, and local governments under most state constitutions can be overruled in many areas by the state government. In this way, metro area conservatives, having lost city councils to progressive Democrats, can use allies in state government to defeat their enemies downtown.

But the downtown Democratic coalition has allies of its own in the federal government. Beginning in the 1960s, Democrats—by then having become the urban party they are today—discovered that by means of federal “grants-in-aid,” they could circumvent state legislatures and go directly to Congress. According to one estimate, in 2018 federal aid to state and local governments, taking the form of grants to specific programs in areas from K-12 education to environmental policy to transportation and infrastructure, amounted to $697 billion, doled out via 1,386 separate programs that bind localities to the federal government.

As a result of all of these targeted federal spending programs, about one-third of state spending actually comes from the federal government.

This in turn means that a substantial number of state and local government employees are in effect paid by the federal government, either to administer grants or to ensure compliance with the many complicated federal regulations attached to the grants.

Many of the “culture war issues” that divide left and right are provoked by the metro area left’s attempt to use federal regulations to impose policies that could not be passed by the city council or the state government. The threat that the federal government would cut off aid to colleges and universities was used to intimidate them into compliance with controversial leftist sexual harassment policies denying due process to the accused under the Obama administration. Also in the Obama years, the federal government used the threat of cutoffs of federal aid and civil rights lawsuits to bully state governments and local school districts into letting biological boys and men compete in female sports teams and use female showers, locker rooms, and restrooms. In the case of the latter controversy, the federal government’s pressure on state legislatures and local school districts was reinforced by extortion from “woke” national and multinational corporations, which fund Democrats.

When federal grants-in-aid and corporate blackmail are understood as weapons of the downtown Democrats, the power of Republican red state legislatures to override blue city ordinances looks less impressive. While targeted grants-in-aid may benefit only a few state citizens, it is the noisy few who will fill up the phone lines to state legislators if the federal government threatens to cut them off as part of a progressive blackmail campaign. Democratic legislators have also found ways of tying more popular forms of federal aid—for transportation, housing, and schools—to more arcane priorities in cultural areas, forcing localities to choose between embracing Democratic ideas of race, gender, and sexual orientation or risk losing federal funding for schools and highways.

Even more intimidating is extortion by left-leaning corporations. Particularly in poorer, more working-class Republican states, the state economic development strategy often involves luring major national or multinational corporate investment. The socially (though not economically) progressive Democrats and liberal Republicans who run corporate America can insist that the states competing for their money not only shower them with tax breaks but also write New York and Bay Area social values into state law, or suffer an investment boycott.

 

One Little Town, Three Thousand People, Two Starkly Different Realities...,

AP |  The newspaper hit the front porches of the wind-scarred prairie town on a Thursday afternoon: Coronavirus numbers were spiking in the farming communities of western Minnesota.

“Covid-19 cases straining rural clinics, hospitals, staff,” read the front-page headline. Vaccinate to protect yourselves, health officials urged.

But ask around Benson, stroll its three-block business district, and some would tell a different story: The Swift County Monitor-News, the tiny newspaper that’s reported the news here since 1886, is not telling the truth. The vaccine is untested, they say, dangerous. And some will go further: People, they’ll tell you, are being killed by COVID-19 vaccinations.

One little town. Three thousand people. Two starkly different realities.

It’s another measure of how, in an America increasingly split by warring visions of itself, division doesn’t just play out on cable television, or in mayhem at the U.S. Capitol.

It has seeped into the American fabric, all the way to Benson’s 12th Street, where two neighbors -- each in his own well-kept, century-old home -- can live in different worlds. 

In one house is Reed Anfinson, publisher, editor, photographer and reporter for the Monitor-News. Most weeks, he writes every story on the paper’s front page. He wrote that story on clinics struggling with COVID-19.

He’s not the most popular man in the county. Lots of people disagree with his politics. He deals with the occasional veiled threat. Sometimes, he grudgingly worries about his safety.

While his editorials lean left, he works hard to report the news straight. But in an America of competing visions, some here say he has taken sides. 

Nowhere in the Monitor-News, for example, will you find reports that local people are dying because they’ve been inoculated.

“There are no alternative facts,” Anfinson says. “There is just the truth.”

But whose truth?

His neighbor, Jason Wolter, is a thoughtful, broad-shouldered Lutheran pastor who reads widely and measures his words carefully. He also suspects Democrats are using the coronavirus pandemic as a political tool, doubts President Joe Biden was legitimately elected and is certain that COVID-19 vaccines kill people.

He hasn’t seen the death certificates and hasn’t contacted health authorities, but he’s sure the vaccine deaths occurred: “I just know that I’m doing their funerals.”

He’s also certain that information “will never make it into the newspaper.”

Wolter’s frustration boils over during a late breakfast in a town cafe. Seated with a reporter, he starts talking as if Anfinson is there.

“You’re lying to people,” he says. “You flat-out lie about things.”

 

 

 

Corporate Government Mommies And Daddies Aren't Going To Save You

ianwelsh  |  In face of a failed society, trust in leaders is insane. Crazed. They’ve obviously run society off a cliff, and they either are OK with that or are incompetent, or both. (And the smart ones are selling you that everything is OK while they sprint for the lifeboats: aka. New Zealand.)

For over 10 years now I’ve been telling Americans to get out. Oh, it’s not that America’s the only developed nation heading for failed state, for all intents and purposes there are no exceptions, not even Sainted New Zealand, but America’s one of the leaders (Britain’s another) and I have a lot of American readers. If you’re going to have everything go sideways into a propeller, better later than sooner.

But most Americans won’t or can’t get out, and Musk and Bezo’s dreams of escape to space aren’t going to happen for humanity en-masse: not in time.

We’re all in a big ship, it’s going down. Some areas are already underwater, others will be soon and the entire thing is going to sink.

And we have no lifeboats. We could, perhaps,  have built some, if we’d started 30 to 40 years ago with massive investments, but we didn’t, and if our leaders were that able, they’d have been able to save the ship, since that’s when they had to act.

But this article isn’t about “we are fucked”, it’s about “too many of us refuse to admit it and that it means we need radical change.”

And one of the big reasons for this is the need for daddy. One of the big hurdles to radicalization is that it means you can’t trust your leaders at all. That they have fucked up, betrayed, or both. That they are bad, evil people who not only aren’t acting in your interest, but are your enemies.

I’ve been pounding this issue for a couple  years, and some regular readers are probably sick of it. I am.

But it matters. If you don’t accept, psychologically and intellectually, who your enemies are, you can’t protect yourself from them. If you don’t accept, psychologically and intellectually, that your leaders are your enemies, you can’t properly take action on your own, with friends, family and other groups because at some level you’re still thinking that government or corporations will come thru and take care of.

All your life government and corporations have taken care of you. They’ve often been abusive parents, but they have made sure there’s food available to buy, streets to walk and drive on, laws, jobs, etc, etc… They run almost everything and you’re dependent on them for almost everything just like  you were dependent on your parents and teachers when you were a child.

Bad parents still feed and house you. They’re monsters, but monsters who kept you alive. Children love their abusive parents even as they fear and hate them, and the same screwed up psychology pertains to business and government leaders and those they lead.

An entire life’s conditioning works against radicalization in anyone for whom the system has even slightly worked.

But the fact of the matter is that if we want to handle climate change and environmental collapse and all our other problems (handle doesn’t mean stop, but many problems are essentially trivial and can be fixed any time our leadership wants to, like health care or spam calls) means we need radical change. We need to change our system completely and we need to entirely get rid of our current leadership class, who have proved their incompetence and ill will.

That’s radical. That’s a leap.

Since A Good Childhood Is Key To Everything In Life: Matthew 25:40-45 - Or Nah?

annehelen  |  The vast majority of societies on this planet still understand family as their primary, most cherished bond. Blood relation or not, there is an understanding that forsaking these bonds is a form of unforgivable treachery, understandable only in circumstances of abject trauma. Within this paradigm, all parties should do whatever possible to maintain the bonds of family, even if those bonds require continued suffering.

In some societies, this understanding is changing. There are several, overlapping reasons for this change — related to mobility, LGBTQ rights and visibility, access to therapy, and more — yet for people who are estranged, the experience can still feel incredibly solitary. Most people who aren’t estranged are very, very bad at talking about it; in society at large, estrangement remains something to be “sorry” about: a regret, a sorrow, a throbbing absence.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are so many reasons why people cut off contact with close and distant family. Some are immediately legible in description, others are not, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that contact became unendurable, damaging, or, in my case, brought out the very worst in who I was. As you’ll see in the answers below, it is rarely swift. It is rarely without pain. But that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary.

While putting together these responses, I was reading Rin Reczek and Emmy Bosley-Smith’s Families We Keep, forthcoming this May, which surveys the various negotiations of LGBTQ people who’ve chosen to maintain or cut off ties to family members. It’s a difficult book, filled with rejection and compromise intercut by flashes of stability and support. And their conclusions are bracing: they argue that “compulsory kinship,” in which we work to sustain bonds to family irregardless of the harm those bonds have caused, is at once insidious and deeply damaging.

“The compulsory relationship between parents and children might sound like a great deal to some—especially those with healthy parent-child ties,” Reczek and Bosley-Smith write. “Of course, the parent–adult child tie can result in a life full of positivity, love, and kindness. But for many people this is not the case. We believe if parent-adult child relationships aren’t good for everyone, then parents’ primacy in our social structure and in adult children’s social identities must be questioned. Even though there are some “good” parents, the fact that “bad” ones have so much power should provoke us to radically rethink our societal reliance on this kinship institution.”

Reczek and Bosley-Smith invite us to consider what an “ethic of care” might look like, in which all people, no matter their age or their existing family, could experience “a sense of belong and identity, alongside emotional, practical, and financial help.” That sense can come from community, but it should also come from the safety nets we put in place as a society. Put differently, your safety and nourishment as a child, as a young adult, as a parent, as someone with specific medical or emotional needs, as an aging person — none of it should be wholly contingent on the luck (truly!) of being born into a family that is financially or emotionally able to provide them for you.

All of these stories, as one of the respondents put it, are “beautifully complex.” If you’re estranged, I hope they make you feel less alone in some way. If you’re not, I hope they offer some insight into how to talk with and support those who are estranged — but more importantly, that they push you to think about what’s lost when we rely so fully on family as our primary source of support.

Houston Eviction Courts Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels

houstonpublicmedia |  The state rent relief program is out of money. The national eviction moratorium ended months ago. Pandemic unemployment benefits in Texas expired over the summer. While the pandemic isn’t over, most of the state’s court safety regulations have ended or are set to expire soon.

That means more eviction filings and, in some areas, crowded courtrooms that make it near impossible to stay safely distant indoors: So far this month, more than 4,600 eviction cases have been filed in Harris County as the omicron variant led to climbing case counts and hospitalizations.

During the week of Jan. 10, more than 2,033 cases were filed in Harris County, compared to 693 cases filed during the same period last year, according to Jeff Reichman, principal at the consulting firm January Advisors.

“That’s almost three times as many cases filed this January as there were last January,” Reichman said. “We’re really on trend with pre-pandemic numbers.”

In 2020, 2,180 cases were filed during the same time period.

Earlier this month, during the week of Jan. 10, more than 2,033 cases were filed in Harris County compared to 693 cases filed last year, Reichman said. During the same week of 2020, 2,180 cases were filed.

The increase in eviction cases is hitting some courts more than others: Just as some neighborhoods have far more evictions, certain courts take on far more cases.

Last Tuesday, Harris County Judge Lincoln Goodwin’s court scheduled 275 evictions to be heard on the same day — half of them at 9 a.m. and the other half at 1 p.m.

Every seat in the courtroom was taken. A line stretched down the hallway and into the parking lot. The judge and court staff weren’t wearing masks.

Eric Kwartler, an attorney with South Texas College of Law, said he feels at risk of getting COVID-19 when he’s there representing renters.

“Do I feel safe? No. I never do,” Kwartler said. “I never feel safe when I go into an environment like that.”

The court has cut back on virtual hearings, Kwartler added, only allowing virtual hearings for those who submit proof of a positive COVID test.

“I had a client cough on me at one point and then tell the court that his wife was at home with COVID,” Kwartler said.

Egregores REDUX (Original Post 1-20-08)

"EGREGORE: An engergized astral form produced consciously or unconsciously by human agency. In particular, (a) a strongly characterized form, usually an archetypal image, produced by the imaginative and emotional energies of a religious or magical group collectively, or (b) an astral shape of any kind, deliberately formulated by a magician to carry a specific force. The Aurum Solis "The Kabbalah names 72...national angelic regents, which the Hebrews call Elohim; the metaphysical technical term Egregors is also used for them. Derived from the Greek word egreoros, it means "watcher" or "guardian." The office of a Watcher is to protect from outside pressures a region or ethnic group assigned to its care. The region is always measured off from another posing a threat of some sort to it. A given group of persons (the group of those being protected) is "tied" to a certain area of jurisdiction....Here, too, we meet the "riddle of the founding of cities and states...." What is more, both the ancient Romans, and quite recently the Chinese, have recognized the existence of guardian spirits set over cities. Indeed, one author reports as follows on the occult was wages on enemy cities by ancient Rome: "The Romans, when besieging a city, made a habit of carefullly enquiring the name of the city and of its guardian spirit. When they knew these, they would summon the guardian spirit of the city and its inhabitants, and conquer it. " Willy Schrodter, from: Commentaries on The Occult Philosophy of Agrippa "Originally, it was human beings who, in union with certain spiritual powers, generated the egregors of science, of medicine, and of Canada or any other country. But, then, they lost control of them; and these egregors directed them in such a way as to make them become unconscious and passive. As soon as an egregor causes blood to flow in any manner whatsoever it soils its inner light with an instinctive power and becomes a negative force of domination." "The egregors that are created unconsciously, and in fits of passion, live only to destroy, giving birth to instincts of power and domination inside their members. They are the true cause of war and of the conflicts pitting everyone against everyone else." Olivier Manitara, from: "The Egregor of the Dove and the Triumph of Free Peace" What is an egregore?

Corporate Metabolism

Chasing Egregores

The Corporate Body

The Menticide Manual - Open Thread

thesaker |  Since it is impossible to change the terms of breeding, we must accept there will always be different rules for different classes of humans.

Do not believe in anything they are telling you about equality or democracy. In America and Europe, if you have superior pedigree or test an IQ above 135, you are exempt from homework, tests and schools. Those mindless activities are for the serfs. You get your audition with the master breeders and they’ll make things happen. Think of it as diplomatic clearance. There are no barriers and no checks.

Also, there is less bureaucracy. If a university or school wants you, they will fabricate a reason, don’t worry. Like a sports stipend or a fake prize, a large family donation or a fat recommendation letter. In Chile and Argentina I hear they call this corruption ‘getting a fast-pass’, as in ‘a fast-pass for American Disneyland’. It means that you can skip the lines and that long waiting hours do not apply to you. I like that. I will use ‘fast-pass’ from now on.

In China, there is a fast-pass system called bao-song (package-sent). It means forget school and grades, this kid you must admit. It comes with a minor catch though. The student cannot choose his major, the state does. As if his family cared. But this sounds very British, doesn’t it? In good-old Oxbridge, it doesn’t really matter what subject you master in, as long as you get… your Master. Every nation has its fast-pass lane.

After centuries of selection, most breeders encounter severe defects and inadequacies in their stock. Oh forces of darkness. In one old German castle town’s youth hostel, the masters stop-watched us candidates recite pointless word-lists and tested us for reaction time and unnatural pathology and thought-crime. In a Chinese university, they passed around a tape measure and measured our head circumference, because for some reasons the masters believed that head-size mattered and that 24 5/8 inches meant that you needed your caps custom-made.

Who could forget such an examination? If you stroll the campuses of Todai or Beida,… you have never seen so many large heads in one place. They look like aliens. Can’t be made unseen. This is the result of excessive over-breeding. Same at Harvard University. Have you ever seen the head-sizes of Ted Kennedy or Noam Chomsky?

All our nation‘s top mental clinics and laboratories are adjunct to our top universities. The master breeders suffer from the worst mental abnormalities and defects, from horrible misanthropy to psychopathy. Then there is the plague of schisms with these people. Schismatic persons can easily turn into traitors and backstabbers. Like Leon Trotsky or Leo Tolstoy.

There is also a lot of old money corruption, because degenerates like our Karl-Theodor pay a lot of money to get into top universities, but are unintelligent.

All these details and head-scratching at the top levels goes over the heads of the general population. The general population is abused six ways from Sunday. For example, the elite sociopaths tell the general population through literature and media and the education system that the working and underclasses surely are the most debauched. But that cannot be true, if you really think about it: First, the working classes are too busy working. Next, nine tenths of the general population have only access to one tenth of all females. The rulers may be fewer in numbers, but they own everything, and they are the worst abusers, torturers and tyrants – by far and in between.

The sociopaths that rule us are the most unimaginably cruelest and most abusive towards all human beings, but especially towards women, children and the pure and healthy races, who are completely unaware of the master breeders’ satanic schemes. The majority of the people do not grasp the human hierarchy and their own enslavement. They are stuck in evolution like chimpanzees or zebras. 

Fist tap Dale.

WaPo Tripling-Down On The Failed Covid Control Narrative

WaPo |  Here’s why I support a vaccine passport: Because it’s time for people who follow best practices and science — a vast majority of our state by any measure — to be able to return to their daily lives and routines. As the coronavirus evolves, so must our strategies.

We cannot continue in this climate where the small percentage of the unvaccinated determine the course of life for the overwhelming majority of people who did the right thing and got vaccinated. We must work collaboratively to find the best solutions that ensure the safety of all Marylanders.

There have been numerous, well-intended campaigns to counter misinformation about vaccines. However, the reality is that even though a small minority of Maryland adults remain unvaccinated, these unvaccinated individuals perpetuate unnecessary challenges and have allowed variants such as omicron to develop at faster rates. To date, these actions have directly contributed to the 938,314 confirmed cases and 12,904 deaths our neighbors have suffered. More than 2,000 Marylanders are hospitalized from the effects of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The overwhelming majority of those hospitalized are unvaccinated patients.

Vaccine passports not only encourage people to do the right thing, but they also could mitigate even more negative impacts to households and Maryland’s economy. Vaccine passports would require people to provide proof of vaccination before entering public spaces such as restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bowling alleys, museums, concert venues and fitness facilities.

Valid credentials that would be recognized as having “passport status” include Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records, a digital photo of CDC documentation or a certificate from MD MyIR (a mobile vaccination record service).

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich’s (D) proposal to make this a requirement comes before the County Council for a vote Tuesday. Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott (D) also is considering vaccine passports. D.C. began requiring proof of vaccine starting Jan. 15. The European Union has even instituted a multinational vaccine passport for its member states. Though I commend the initiative and leadership of Elrich and Scott, this virus knows no borders. Our county leaders deserve the support of a truly statewide effort that can ensure a broad range of access and a streamlined means of verification.

I recognize there are valid logistical concerns, such as the lack of staffing for businesses to enforce passports and the impact on families and children who might not have the proper identification to show with their vaccination passport. As a consistent advocate for keeping Maryland businesses open and safe, I believe this is when it is up to the state to step in to support our businesses and protect our communities, whether by providing subsidies that aid in implementation or allowing businesses to opt-in so that customers can choose to patronize establishments that provide them a comfortable and safe environment. It is critical for our leadership to push to the front and meet the occasion to secure a safer, thriving and equitable future. I am confident we can do so.

 

 

Monkeys? Really!?! - Y'all Jes Phoning Shit In Now....,

dailymail |   A woman who stopped to help after a truck carrying 100 lab monkeys crashed in Pennsylvania fears she's caught an illness after one of the macaques hissed in her face, leaving her with pink eye symptoms.

Michelle Fallon, from Danville near Scranton, was driving directly behind the vehicle when it crashed, throwing animal crates all over the highway and smashing some to pieces.  Three of the macaques escaped and went on the run, but all have since been captured and humanely euthanized. All of the other monkeys - who'd arrived in the US from Mauritius that morning, and were en route to a lab, have been accounted for.

Fallon has now had a rabies shot, and wrote about the symptoms she has since suffered on Facebook - and also told PA Homepage that she'd developed symptoms of pink eye - an inflammation or infection of the eye ball. 

She said: 'I was close to the monkeys, I touched the crates, I walked through their feces so I was very close. So I called (a helpline) to inquire, you know, was I safe?

'Because the monkey did hiss at me and there were feces around, and I did have an open cut, they just want to be precautious.' 

Fallon said she got out to help both the driver and the animals in their cages, initially believing them to be cats. When she approached and put her hand on the cage, she says the monkey hissed at her.

The day following the accident, Fallon suddenly developed a cough and pink eye, which became so bad that she had to visit the emergency room at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville.  Fist tap Dale.

If Not Monkeys, Then Birds GottDammit!!!

wired |   In the first days of the new year, on the marshy coastal edge of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, a hunter shot an American widgeon, a rusty-fronted duck with a pale beak and a brilliant green stripe. This was not a big deal; the state’s duck hunting season runs from Thanksgiving through the end of January. Neither was what happened next: Before taking it home, the hunter let a wildlife biologist affiliated with a government program swab the carcass for lab analysis.

But what happened after that was a big deal indeed. After the sample went through its routine check at Clemson University, it made an unusual second stop at a federal lab halfway across the country, in Iowa. The news of what was in the sample percolated through a pyramid of agencies, and on January 14 the US Department of Agriculture revealed why it had attracted so much scrutiny: The South Carolina duck was carrying the Asian strain of H5N1 avian influenza, the first sighting of that pathogen in the continental US in years.

But not the last. Just a few days later, the USDA disclosed that two more birds shot by hunters also carried the same pathogen: a teal, shot in the same South Carolina county, and a northern shoveler shot in the far northeast corner of North Carolina, about 400 miles away. The virus in all three was what is known as highly pathogenic—meaning it could cause fast-moving, fatal disease in other bird species, such as poultry, though it was not making the ducks ill.

Three birds out of the millions that American hunters shoot each year might seem like nothing—but the findings have sent a ripple of disquiet through the community of scientists who monitor animal diseases. In 2015, that same strain of flu landed in the Midwest’s turkey industry and caused the largest animal-disease outbreak ever seen in the US, killing or causing the destruction of more than 50 million birds and costing the US economy more than $3 billion. Human-health experts are uneasy as well. Since 2003, that flu has sickened at least 863 people across the world and killed more than half of them. Other avian flu strains have made hundreds more people ill. Before Covid arrived, avian flu was considered the disease most likely to cause a transnational outbreak.

It is far too soon to say whether the arrival of this virus in the US is a blip, an imminent danger to agriculture, or a zoonotic pathogen probing for a path to attack humanity. But it is a reminder that Covid is not the only disease with pandemic potential, and of how easy it is to lose focus when it comes to other possible threats. The possibility of a human- or animal-origin strain of flu swamping the world once seemed so imminent that back in 2005 the White House wrote a national strategy for it. But researchers say the surveillance schemes that would pick up its movement have since been allowed to drift.

“In wildlife disease surveillance, we’re always chasing a crisis,” says David Stallknecht, director of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, a research institute housed at the University of Georgia. “And as soon as the crisis is over, the interest goes down. It’s difficult to keep going long-term. People are here to do the work, but the money isn't there to support it.”

Dual Citizens Don't Predicate U.S. National Security Policy On The Interests Of American Citizens

johnhelmer |  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed publicly in Geneva on Friday, January 21, that he will not negotiate a no-war agreement with the Russians because he cannot. This is already understood by the Russians; by the French and Germans; and by several senior officials of the Biden Administration.

The evidence of Blinken’s incapacity is in the words he says.

It was during the last world war, when US policymakers had next to no intelligence on how their German counterparts were thinking and what they were intending, that a group of American sociologists were engaged by the War Department, as the Pentagon was called then, to do what was called content analysis of German propaganda. One of the sociologists, a Russian émigré Nathan Leites, went on to apply the same method to Soviet publications in order to uncover what Leites called the operational code of the Politburo. That was in 1951. It was immediately used by US negotiators during the Korean War armistice negotiations which began in July of that year and ran for two years. By then Leites had produced a sequel, A Study of Bolshevism. Both were paid for and published by RAND, the think-tank created in 1945 by the US Air Force, the Douglas Aircraft Company, and the War Department.

Since then the method has not been used on US Government officials, at least not by RAND nor publicly by any American sociologist.

When the RAND method is used to analyze what Blinken told the US press, following his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, it is revealed that Blinken has no intention whatever of negotiating a non-aggression pact with the Russians on any terms. According to the scientific method devised by the best and brightest Americans for dealing with their enemies, it’s now clear from Blinken’s own words that he is unable to understand what Russians tell him. In the mind behind the words there is only one compulsive idea – attack, punish, destroy Russia.

The State Department has published the transcript of Blinken’s statement and answers to questions at his press conference.

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The late senator John McCain described Blinken as not only unqualified but dangerous to America.

CSPAN – McCain on Blinken nomination fo Deputy Secretary of State.

 

Pine Island Capital Partners.

Blinken directed some of the most murderous initiatives of the Obama era: Libya, Syria, and Gaza. But worse, he then cashed-in with John Thain (of the gold-plated Merrill office with the $90K rug who insisted on $20 billion in bonuses from the government bail-out of the bankrupt firm) on this Private Equity/SPAC designed to cash-in on Blinken and Lloyd Austin’s connections, especially to skim Covid relief monies.

This murderous greed-head is a complete horror-show — emblematic of why the voters have deserted the shamelessly corrupt Democrats in droves. Blinken and Austin are transparently ginning-up this “crisis” in order to personally profit from arms sales by needlessly militarizing Eastern Europe against a non-existant “invasion” threat from Russia — who will act to protect the large Russian populations stranded in the former SSR’s by the disorderly breakup of the Soviet Union from being liquidated.

It’s disgusting, really.

Greed, Ignorance, And Obscenity Has Killed American Popular Music

theatlantic  |  Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: “Why are you playing this old music?” She looked at me in surprise before answering: “Oh, I like these songs.”

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as “new” in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now.

Every week I hear from hundreds of publicists, record labels, band managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new thing. Their livelihoods depend on it. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. As a music writer, I’m expected to do the same, as are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with skin in the game. Yet all the evidence indicates that few listeners are paying attention.

Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn’t encounter a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual event in new music had been put on hold. That’s ominous.

Can you imagine how angry fans would be if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would riot in the streets. But the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices.

Greed Made America A Poor Country

eand.co  |  It is impossible — flatly impossible — for the average American to make ends meet. I can tell you that as an economist, one of the only really good ones America’s ever had. Americans grew poor because their economy failed them. But a poor society can’t afford many things. Things which matter. Like democracy, truth, reason, goodness, decency.

Societies faced with sudden descents into poverty implode into authoritarianism, just the way America is. Greed broke America in this larger, truer sense.

But Americans don’t really understand it yet, I think, just how extreme and out of control greed really is in America — and how, paradoxically, it left society poor. Too poor to afford to even be a functioning country or democracy anymore, in the end, and so America’s just imploding now.

Let’s do a little math first, to prove the point that it’s impossible to make ends meet, and then I’ll teach you a little bit about how what’s normal in America is completely and totally abnormal in the rest of the entire world, more or less.

The median American income is about $35K. That is what millions of Americans earn. For a “household,” meaning in economic statistics, a family of four, it rises to about $60K.

It is impossible, and I mean impossible, to live on that level income. That is a median income more suited to a poor country than a rich one. But let’s prove it.

Rent? The average rent for an apartment was $1124 in 2021. That’s $14,000. That’s half of the average person’s income eaten up by rent alone. Now we have…all the other expenses of life. Let’s start with the other big one in America: healthcare. The average cost for a family paying for healthcare was almost exactly the same: $1152. Bang. Another $14K. That’s the average American’s entire income gone, on just rent and healthcare.

But maybe you object — my employer pays for my healthcare. Or maybe I don’t even want healthcare (LOL, you mean you can’t afford it, I get it, we’ll come back to that). Sure — it’s not going to make much difference in the end. The average American spends about $1200 “out-of-pocket” even if they’re insured by their employer — let’s call it $1500, because that’s surely an underestimate. That leaves us with maybe about 14K of income per year for the average person — and we still haven’t gotten to most bills.

You need a car in America, to get much of anywhere. You need insurance for it. The average monthly car payment is $600. Let’s call insurance another $100. That’s $700…a month. Or $8400 per year. Suddenly, we’re left with about $5K to cover everything else you need in life.

Water, electricity, gas to put in the car. Internet. A mobile phone. The average water bill’s around $100 per month — bang, another $1200 gone — and now we’re down to just about $3800. Internet and a phone? Call them another $100 per month. Now we’re down to $2600. Electricity? Another $100 per month. Now we’re down to just $1400. Average annual cost of gas to put in that car? It’s about $1100.

Now you’ve got just $300 left.

But you still have to feed and clothe yourself. Your kids. Pay for random stuff like maybe a toy here and there, a treat. I’m sure I’ve left plenty of stuff out that isn’t remotely a luxury — like paying off student loans.

The point I’m trying to make should be crystal clear by now — not least because you’re probably living it. Making ends meet in America is flatly impossible. It cannot be done. My lovely wife’s income is so low that it doesn’t even cover her expenses — car, travel, a hotel every now and then because she’s asked to work overtime regularly.

The economic effect of all this is somewhere between a joke and an embarassment. I’m subsidising this world-famous billion dollar institution which pays its “administrators” millions, because my wife isn’t even paid enough to cover her basic living expenses. Think of how ridiculous that is. The reason those administrators earn millions is because I’m effectively paying them to employ my wife — after they get a cut of overcharging Americans for operations and medicine. But this story isn’t personal — it’s social. Those economics — people can’t make ends meet — are absolutely fatal for a society.

Does Mickey D's Still Cook Its Fries In Tallow?

krcgtv  |  A St. Louis woman is jailed after she shot a worker at McDonald’s after a dispute over a discount for french fries, St. Louis County authorities said Friday.

Terika Clay, 30, was charged Thursday with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. She was being held on a $150,00 cash-only bond.

Clay was in a drive-through at a McDonald’s in the St. Louis suburb of Normandy on Wednesday when she argued with an employee over not getting a discount on her fries, according to a probable cause statement from a Normandy detective.

The argument continued when the employee went outside for a smoke break, and Clay struck the employee with her gun and shot her, police said.

The shooting was captured on video, which led to Clay’s arrest, the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office said in a news release.

The victim’s condition was not immediately available Friday.

Online court records don’t list an attorney for Clay.

You Mess With The Kang's Money, You Pay With Your Life!!!

jsonline  |  Last week, the robbery suspect, Antoine Z. Edwards, was charged with felony murder and intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a child with death as a consequence — another felony.

Edwards and his own 16-year-old daughter, who is described as Harris-Brazell’s best friend, told police they coordinated with Harris-Brazell to stage the robbery in order to steal money, according to the criminal complaint.

The document showed no additional evidence Harris-Brazell conspired with the two on the staged robbery, and her family has argued she had no reason to steal money.

Ellis was not in on the staged robbery and fired at the suspect after seeing him leaning into a drive-thru window and waving a gun around in the direction of Harris-Brazell.

Edwards and his daughter did not tell police it was part of the plan for Edwards to lean into the window. Edwards said he did so because Harris-Brazell, who was working the drive-thru register, did not immediately hand over the cash, court documents said.

The incident occurred the evening of Jan. 2, shortly after the restaurant closed.

Ellis and Edwards are in Milwaukee County jail. As of Thursday morning, Ellis did not have a first court appearance scheduled. Edwards’ cash bail was set at $100,000 on Sunday.

According to court records:

Surveillance camera footage shows that as Harris-Brazell alerted other coworkers to the robbery, a manager at the restaurant called out to Ellis, who usually carried a gun with him to work.

Ellis peered around a door into the drive-thru window area as the robbery suspect waived a gun around. From about 20 feet away, Ellis pressed his body against the door and fired one-handed from around the corner of the door.

Harris-Brazell stood in between Ellis and the suspect. She suffered gunshot wounds to her chest.

 

 

Don't Be Stingy With That Dipping Sauce!!!

news4sanantonio |  An argument over barbecue sauce left a teenager in intensive care after being shot in the head at a Wendy's drive-thru.

Now that teenager looks to be out of the woods and is recovering after the horrible ordeal. 

Brian Durham Jr., 16, was rushed to a hospital on Jan. 13 after a dispute in which he was reportedly not involved escalated into gunfire, according to FOX 10 in Phoenix.

The teenage employee at Wendy's in Phoenix was in critical condition after being shot in the head while working the drive-thru.

"The customer reportedly walked up to the drive-thru window, pulled out a handgun and fired into the drive-thru window hitting the victim working inside the store," said Sgt. Vincent Cole of the Phoenix Police Department.

The shooter ran off after the incident, but police were able to apprehend him later. He was identified Theotis Polk, 27, according to FOX 10 in Phoenix.

Durham Jr.’s father, Brian Durham Sr., said the incident started when the customer complained the restaurant did not have barbecue sauce, FOX 10 reported.

"My son just stayed quiet and had the guy’s change in his hand," Durham Sr. told the news outlet. "[He] just stayed quiet while the other two was in confrontation."

According to FOX 10, the bullet didn't hit Brian's brain, which helped minimize the potential long-term damage.

 

Defeat The Mandates Gathering In Washington DC - WATCH LIVE NOW

 January 23 March on Washington

  The over 17,000 signers of the declaration will be represented on Sunday, January 23, when Dr. Malone stands with fellow doctors and scientists on stage in Washington DC, as part of the Defeat the Mandates march Sunday, January 23, 2022. At the Lincoln Memorial, they will be joined by a wide range of featured guests for a series of inspiring talks and musical performances. Join us!

 About the Global COVID Summit

 Global Covid Summit is the product of an international alliance of doctors and scientists, committed to speaking truth to power about Covid pandemic research and treatment.

 Thousands have died from Covid as a result of being denied life-saving early treatment. The Declaration is a battle cry from physicians who are daily fighting for the right to treat their patients, and the right of patients to receive those treatments - without fear of interference, retribution or censorship by government, pharmacies, pharmaceutical corporations, and big tech. We demand that these groups step aside and honor the sanctity and integrity of the patient- physician relationship, the fundamental maxim "First Do No Harm", and the freedom of patients and physicians to make informed medical decisions. Lives depend on it. More information here: https://globalCovidSummit.org 

Watch Live Now

Linking "Cannabis" To "Medical" Put Your Dumb Asses To Sleep...,

themarshallproject |  “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence” is an intensively researched and passionate dissent from the now prevailing view that marijuana is relatively harmless. The book is a “bullhorn” (his word) for scientists and physicians whose research has, he argues, been drowned out by the triumphal cheers of the marijuana lobby.

He exchanged emails with TMP’s Bill Keller.

The Marshall Project: Alex, you’re really swimming against the tide. Both public opinion and the law have moved dramatically in favor of marijuana, and you’re arguing that pot is connected to psychosis and violent crime. Before we get to your evidence, what drew you to this subject?

Alex Berenson: My wife Jacqueline is a forensic psychiatrist. She evaluates the criminally mentally ill. She told me that nearly all her patients had used marijuana heavily, many at the times of their crimes. At first I didn't really believe her—stupidly—but she encouraged me to evaluate the evidence myself. And the more I read, the more I realized she was right. Marijuana drives a surprising amount of psychosis, and psychosis—besides being a terrible burden for sufferers and their families—is a shockingly high risk for violent crime.

TMP: Last I checked, 33 states and the District of Columbia had legalized marijuana specifically for medicinal purposes. Doctors are apparently prescribing pot for pain, Parkinson’s, PTSD, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and most recently some forms of autism. Pot has been held out as an answer to the opioid crisis—pain relief without the risk of a lethal overdose. Are you saying all these politicians and doctors are deluded?

AB: This question fundamentally misunderstands medical marijuana. The confusion is not surprising, as the cannabis advocacy community has done everything possible to confuse the way medical legalization works in practice. Marijuana is not "prescribed" for anything. It can't be, because the FDA has never approved it to treat any disease, and there is little evidence that smoked cannabis or THC extracts help any of the diseases you mention, except pain. Physicians "authorize" its use, usually after very short visits by patients who have come to them specifically to receive an authorization card. By far the most common conditions for which medical marijuana is authorized are pain and self-reported psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and insomnia, not diseases such as Parkinson's.

After receiving an authorization card, "patients" can then buy as much marijuana as they like for a year for any reason they choose. Nearly all were recreational users before they became "patients." And there is no difference between medical and recreational marijuana. They are the same drug. Further, the vast majority of physicians will not write authorizations, at least according to the states that keep track of physician authorizations. A tiny number of doctors—so-called "pot doctors"—write nearly all of them.

In other words, in nearly all cases, medical legalization is simply a backdoor way to protect recreational users from arrest. This has been a terrible mistake, mainly because it has further confused the public about marijuana's relative risks and benefits.

TMP: Your other—perhaps more contentious—conclusion is that marijuana may contribute to increases in violent crime. As you know, establishing causal links between crime rates and, well, anything, is extremely tricky. What convinced you that pot is a culprit?

AB: Psychosis is a known factor for violent crime. People with schizophrenia commit violent crime at rates far higher than healthy people - their homicide rates are about 20 times as high. Worse, they commit most of that crime while they are under the influence. Since cannabis causes paranoia—not even advocates dispute that fact—and psychosis, it is not surprising that it would drive violent crime. And in fact there are a number of good studies showing that users have significantly higher violence rates than non-users. Further, in researching the book, I found many, many cases where the causation appeared clear. In some cases it was as simple and obvious as, this person—with no history of violence—smoked, became psychotic, and committed a homicide.

TMP: You write that you don’t believe people should go to prison for using marijuana. How should the law deal with pot? Should it be regulated? Should it carry a warning label?