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Good picked eore
Good picking cap
Thanks mick
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/what-did-pelosi-know-about-january-6th/
Congressman Scott Perry — “What did Speaker Pelosi know? The FBI knew about individuals that were planning an attack on the Capitol, and they shared the information with Congress but nothing happened. How does the President incite an attack that was pre-planned and already underway before his speech was concluded?”
Thanks fuagf
Thanks capgain
The Guy Who Built The World Wide Web Is Building A 'New Internet', Where You Control Your Data
643.6 K Shares
Gwyn D'Mello
Gwyn D'Mello
Updated on Oct 01, 2018, 16:55 IST
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know Tim Berners-Lee is a pretty important dude in the technology world. He's the father of the Internet, responsible for the birth of the World Wide Web as we know it.
And he hates what it has become. So he's taking some action to fix it.
Tim- Berners-Lee
Reuters
You see, for years now Berners-Lee has expressed his distaste at how major corporations have taken what was supposed to be a free environment and placed restrictions on it. He doesn’t like how groups like Facebook, Google, and Amazon have effectively centralized the Internet, nor how they control people’s data. So he’s instead working on a new platform and startup that’s declaring war on Big Tech.
Also Read: 50 Million Facebook Accounts Got Hacked & Data Stolen, In Social Giant's Worst Security Breach
Inrupt is a startup that Berners-Lee has been working on in stealth for about nine months. He’s even taken a sabbatical from his prestigious position teaching at MIT’s CSAIL labs in order to work full time. And Inrupt will finally launch to the world this week, Berners-Lee told Fast Company in an exclusive interview.
“The intent is world domination,” he says.
Inrupt is built on the ‘Solid’ platform, something he and others at MIT have been working on for years. Solid is basically designed to be like the early days of the Internet, wild and free, and Inrupt will be the way to access it, at least to start. In a demonstration for the piece, he pulled up what looked like a very basic browser page, completely barebones. Part of an app built for his personal use, it displays his calendar, address book, chats, his music etc. It’s like if you combined Google Drive with WhatsApp, Spotify, and pretty much every piece of cloud storage and online connectivity you use today, all in one place. The difference here is that all the information is under his control.
Inrupt
Image courtesy: Tim Berners Lee/Inrupt
Taking back the Internet
The basic idea is that each user is assigned a Solid ID and Solid pod when they first come online on the platform, that can be hosted wherever you want. Pod here stands for personal data store, which is what it does. Instead of apps like Google Drive, where your data is stored on the company’s server and therefore subject to their data harvesting. On Solid however, all your data exists in your Solid pod. When an app requests access, Solid will authenticate and then you can choose to give it access to your pod.
Also Read: Dear Facebook, I Hate To Do This But There Are Some Things We Need To Talk About
Using Solid is how Berners-Lee believes people can escape the data monopoly he feels companies like Google and Facebook are trying to create. Inrupt then, is just a way for developers to build their own apps for the platform. And just like he did with the Internet, Berners-Lee has no plans to make a huge profit. Instead, he’s making the platform open source, and plans to tour across the globe over the next few months, tutoring developers on how to build their own decentralized apps using Inrupt.
Internet freedom
Reuters
Of course, Berners-Lee very aware that what he's trying to do will really upset Big Tech. The thing is, he doesn’t care, and he was very clear about that in the interview.
“We are not talking to Facebook and Google about whether or not to introduce a complete change where all their business models are completely upended overnight,” he declared. “We are not asking their permission.”
https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/tim-berners-lee-wants-to-turn-the-internet-on-its-head-and-decentralize-it-once-more-353998.html
Thanks MasterBlastr, what a close tournament.
I also want to wish everone here a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all!
Congrats to Capgain and Buckeys
Happy Thanksgiving to All
Congrats E-ore!
Jenna Ellis Looks Media In the Eyes and HAMMERS Them for Refusing to Cover Voter Fraud
By Dinesh D'Souza
November 19, 2020
https://rumble.com/vb9d39-jenna-ellis-looks-media-in-the-eyes-and-hammers-them-for-refusing-to-cover-.html
That was great!
Congrats Seminole Red
Nice picken MasterBlaster!
Cantlay, DJ, Dechambeau, Molinari and Spieth 276
thanks
Congrats Tr8dervic!
Congrats Mick
Thanks midas
Thanks e-ore
Thanks Cap
duplicate
Thanks everyone even an old logger gets lucky once in a while!
DJ, Casey, Cantley, Dechambeau,
and Woods. 274
Thanks
DeChambeau, Mcllrory, Dustin Johnson, Na, Horschel, Palmer, Cantley, Zach Johnson, Fleetwood, and Fowler
Thank You
DJ, Reed, Kuchar, DeChambreau and Cantley. 272
Thank you
On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare
June 29, 2020
The author in Maranhão, Brazil, 1995
THE AUTHOR IN MARANHÃO, BRAZIL, 1995
On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.
I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.
But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.
Here are some facts few people know:
Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s
Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level
We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture
I know that the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.
In reality, the above facts come from the best-available scientific studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other leading scientific bodies.
Some people will, when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s cooperatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.
I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into them. Over the last few years I helped save enough nuclear plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in emissions
But until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that’s because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an “existential” threat to human civilization, and called it a “crisis.”
But mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences. And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.
I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the news media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke, Jr., a lifelong progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favor of carbon regulations. Why did they do that? Because his research proves natural disasters aren’t getting worse.
But then, last year, things spiraled out of control.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “The world is going to end in twelve years if we don’t address climate change.” Britain’s most high-profile environmental group claimed “Climate Change Kills Children.”
The world’s most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called climate change the “greatest challenge humans have ever faced” and said it would “wipe out civilizations.”
Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was “the lungs of the world,” and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off.
As a result, half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. And in January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change.
Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is. I admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter. After we talked about the science she was reassured. But her friends are deeply misinformed and thus, understandably, frightened.
I thus decided I had to speak out. I knew that writing a few articles wouldn’t be enough. I needed a book to properly lay out all of the evidence.
And so my formal apology for our fear-mongering comes in the form of my new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.
It is based on two decades of research and three decades of environmental activism. At 400 pages, with 100 of them endnotes, Apocalypse Never covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste, species extinction, industrialization, meat, nuclear energy, and renewables.
Some highlights from the book:
Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress
The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food, particularly meat, on less land
The most important thing for reducing air pollution and carbon emissions is moving from wood to coal to petroleum to natural gas to uranium
100% renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5% to 50%
We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher, not lower, power densities
Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4%
Greenpeace didn’t save the whales, switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did
“Free-range” beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300% more emissions
Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon
The colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants
Why were we all so misled?
In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial, political, and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests. Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “sustainable.” And status anxiety, depression, and hostility to modern civilization are behind much of the alarmism
Once you realize just how badly misinformed we have been, often by people with plainly unsavory or unhealthy motivations, it is hard not to feel duped.
Will Apocalypse Never make any difference? There are certainly reasons to doubt it.
The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s, and do not seem disposed to stop.
The ideology behind environmental alarmsim — Malthusianism — has been repeatedly debunked for 200 years and yet is more powerful than ever.
But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power.
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, Covid-19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe.
Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicization of science. Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform.
Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications.
Nations are reverting openly to self-interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables.
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilization is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilization that climate alarmists would return us to.
The invitations from IPCC and Congress are signs of a growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment. Another one has been to the response to my book from climate scientists, conservationists, and environmental scholars. "Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book,” writes Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “This may be the most important book on the environment ever written,” says one of the fathers of modern climate science Tom Wigley.
“We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being ignorant of science and susceptible to confirmation bias,” wrote the former head of The Nature Conservancy, Steve McCormick. “But too often we are guilty of the same. Shellenberger offers ‘tough love:’ a challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid, self-defeating mindsets. Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging, but always well-crafted, evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘mental muscle’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful, but an attainable, future.”
That is all I hoped for in writing it. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ll agree that it’s perhaps not as strange as it seems that a lifelong environmentalist, progressive, and climate activist felt the need to speak out against the alarmism.
I further hope that you’ll accept my apology.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare
Good picking BBQ
Loved it
https://www.coreysdigs.com/law-order/protesters-provide-cover-while-the-country-bleeds
Protesters Provide Cover While The Country Bleeds
June 5, 2020 / 15 Comments
Take a step back, now take a look in the mirror – did you fall prey to their game, again? This is it – this is their master class. This is psychological warfare, all rolled out with a grand form of synchronicity, that most didn’t even see coming, or take a breath to see what’s happening before their very eyes. While the country burns, and the country bleeds, thousands are willingly providing cover for those carrying out acts of violence and bloodshed during these protests over George Floyd’s death, and others are succumbing to their pent-up anger as bait is dangled in front of them.
What has become of humanity that so many could be so blind? The young are out of their minds with boredom and desire to get a little crazy after being in lockdown for nearly three months. Adults want to stick it to the man, stick it to people, and stick it wherever they think their voice will be heard. They say it’s all for a cause, yet they watch buildings burn, the destruction of our cities, and people being murdered, and they have settled into the madness as though it’s their newfound comfort zone. They continue each day, no matter how devastating the night before was, and they amplify their so-called “cause” to convince themselves they are doing something good. Blood is on their hands as much as those committing the acts themselves. And blood is on the hands of all of those encouraging these nighttime protests to continue.
By choosing to carry out nighttime protests, it is providing cover for those whose intentions are destruction and violence, making each person complicit. Some are handed bricks to throw, and some make the choice to do it, because they follow the leader instead of thinking for themselves. Others choose to spit and yell at police officers while throwing projectiles at them, all to be as rebellious as the stranger standing next to them. And young kids are spray painting buildings because they think it’s “cool.” Meanwhile, families across the country continue to suffer because their businesses cannot open after nearly three months of being closed.
Strings of white people are taking a knee, some in crowds by the hundreds, and repeating a script read to them by someone with the Black Lives Matter group. They shame and guilt you to bring you to your knees and demoralize you as though you’ve done something wrong, under the guise of solidarity, when in reality they are controlling you, manipulating you, and getting you to submit while they spread photos of white people on their knees – the very same position a white police officer was in while bringing a black man to his death. You’ve been played. It’s called conditioning people’s mind by use of repeated imagery, to display “the guilty ones.”
The “me too” movement, the “women’s march” and the “no guns” rallies all served as preparations to refine how they would rally, coordinate, and grow their herd. “Their,” being those behind organizing all of these manufactured “movements” so as to build an army of good little soldiers at the right time, the right place, and right stage of their psychological games in order to step up the impact to a level of rage and terror that would escalate to a revolution. Each begins with a single event, an outburst of the same talking points, a label for the movement, an explosion of marketing across all media channels, through hundreds of foundations and organizations, and through celebrities and politicians to carry the message far and wide. This all takes place within 24 hrs of the initial event. Oh yes, they are well organized. It is all followed by mass emails, phone calls, social media posts with schedules, and a call to action to rally all of their lead coordinators, riot factions, and naïve sheep to step into action. That quick, they are off to the races before anyone can blink. It’s their playbook. When a message is flooded through all of those channels, that is when you know it is not a grassroots movement. When they spring the country into action in 48 hrs, it is masterfully organized. This is what they do. Welcome to the master class of psychological warfare.
How well organized was this? They had these protests as cover for riots in locations across multiple countries. Explain that. They operate from the same playbook. A grassroots movement take years to grow this level of momentum, and is not allowed to thrive at this level, unless it is a narrative being pushed by far-left agendas. There have been over 847 arsons, over 17 deaths, hundreds injured, and mass destruction of businesses and cities across America in just one week.
The coordinators running the riots have been planning and training for years. The COVID-19 extended lockdown to build up anger and desire to break free, was part of the plan for this particular agenda. Mandatory masks are part of the plan to provide cover for Antifa and other violent factions, so everyone blends in, making it more difficult for police officers to spot them in crowds. Scheduling all of this to happen the same weekend that businesses are finally opening across the country, was all planned to shut it back down, with curfews put in place. The protests turned riots were all coordinated and planned, knowing full well they would build momentum rapidly after three sheer months of hell that people suffered through, and a lot of pent up anger. The preparations for all of this was funded, equipped with bats, pallets of bricks, Molotov cocktails and all. Every single aspect of this was very well thought out and planned, which raises the question – was the initial event itself planned, premeditated or carried out at a specific time? There is developing information coming to light that is pointing in that direction. Were groups put on alert that a big protest was coming and to be ready for the call? The false flag Jessie Smollett case is a good example of how they manufacture a movement. In that case they used a falsified event carried out by their friend Smollett for Kamal Harris’ political agenda to create an anti-lynching bill, which she is still going on about, despite the fact lynching is already illegal.
Police officers are told to stand down, and many mayors and governors are complicit in allowing the destruction, not calling on the National Guard, and even encouraging the protests, despite the false narrative of the need for social distancing and not congregating in groups of more than 10 due to COVID-19, that they have been pushing for weeks. Yet, we are on day ten of these riots and hospitals are not overflowing with cases. How could that be? REMOVE YOUR MASKS. Stop hiding Antifa and other terrorist groups causing all of the fires, destruction, looting, and death. The COVID-19 scandal has come to an end, even though they will continue to push the envelope on it so they can get their $75-$100 billion for contact tracing surveillance to spy on the American people, while terrorizing you and keeping you isolated and quarantined.
Ask Yourself These Questions
• How is it that you will be fined or arrested if you dare open your business because they deem it non-essential, but the rioters burning and looting businesses are not being arrested in most cases?
• You cannot gather in groups larger than 10 people, and you are not allowed to have protests that pertain to COVID-19 because it could create more spread, but governors across the country are encouraging thousands of people to protest over George Floyd, as well as hugging protestors. Does that add up?
• Why is Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti hugging hundreds of protestors just days after outlawing people from praying in church together?
• The CDC and Dr. Fauci stated that masks do not protect you efficiently and only the N95 would be effective if sterilized daily, but still insisted you wear them. Then, on May 23rd, just days before the protests and riots began, the CDC changed it to “cloth face masks” should be worn, which ironically is what Antifa members have been sporting for a decade. Notice they say “may protect,” because they’ve already confirmed they won’t. Coincidentally, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton both posted new profile pics of them wearing black face masks that same week. Democrat Governors all imposed a mandatory mask rule, even after coming out of lockdown. In fact, they even state that they need to be worn at the protests. Convenient.
• Why are Joe Biden, politicians, and numerous celebrities and musicians funding the bailout of these rioters who are burning your cities? Their social media is flooded with support while asking donors to help fund the bailouts, making you equally complicit.
• Why are Democrats all calling these “peaceful protests” and alleging that Antifa is not a terrorist organization, when Antifa themselves publicize their agendas? Why would twitter remove their main account which was posting schedule updates of where their riots would take place?
• Why would the media and politicians claim that these are white supremacy groups doing all of the damage, and then fund their bail, when they have always alleged that Trump supporters are white supremacists? Does that make sense?
• Why are CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream news outlets completely downplaying these events and spinning this to be peaceful protests, while subverting footage and information about buildings burning, people being murdered, businesses being destroyed, and even their own headquarters being attacked? Are they not concerned for everyone’s safety?
• Why, on June 1st, did the New York Times publish the headline “As Chaos Spreads, Trump Vows To End It Now” in their early edition, and later change the headline to “Trump Threatens To Send Troops Into States” after Democrats went rabid across social media?
• Why is CBS news running a story with a headline titled “A white bar owner in Omaha shot and killed a black protester. He won’t face charges,” implying this is all about race and the white man won’t be punished, when in fact, it was a physical attack on one man from another man, that resulted in self-defense? Are they stoking racism because the majority of people only read headlines and will never know the full story?
• Why did Nickelodeon, a channel for young children, interrupt shows to air a terrifying eight-minute and forty-five-second segment (the length of time officer Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck), containing the eerie sounds of a man breathing while the screen reads, “I can’t breathe,” concluding with text demands and joining Color of Change, an organization Hillary Clinton promotes regularly? They even tweeted about the rights children have, including “you have a right to a world that is peaceful,” as they induce extreme fear with this advertisement, and don’t denounce all of the violence taking place across the country.
Is this why parents are shaming their own children?
• Why is former President Obama, acting as the shadow government, “speaking to the nation” stating, “let’s be sure we follow through. It’s important to take the momentum that’s been created and use this to have an impact.”
• Why are police officers being told to stand down in most Democrat states? Why won’t Mayor De Blasio bring in the National Guard to assist in NYC, which is being crushed? Why is he lying and suggesting they are not trained for this?
• If this protest is all about “Black Lives Matter,” then why are black business owners being murdered, black police officers shot and killed, and black citizens being beat up on by other blacks? Are the peaceful protestors ok with walking alongside these rioters to be witness and video document these atrocities, rather than not being present to allow for them to happen?
• Innocent people are being murdered. 22-year-old Italia Marie Kelly was murdered by a fellow protester in Iowa. Her sister cries in agony, repeating “my sister is gone because of one of you, a protestor shot my sister, not the police!” in this gut-wrenching video. What are these protests really about?
• Statistic: “A police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.”
If you can rationalize away all of the above, then perhaps it’s far too late for you, and you have already lost the psychological warfare on your mind. If it’s all making sense to you, and you feel played, that’s ok, they’ve managed to dupe thousands of people. It’s time to change your course of action and stop providing cover for these terrorists. There are other ways to fight for what you truly believe in. Violence shouldn’t be one of them, as violence breeds more violence.
We Have Reached A Danger Zone
We have reached the point of danger. If you still can’t see what’s going on, let’s simplify this. Innocent people are dying. Buildings and vehicles are burning and there have already been 847 arsons to date. Businesses are being looted. Cities are being destroyed. Seventeen people have already died. While people were just preparing to finally open their “non-essential” businesses to feed their families, they are now being boarded up and shut down, and as long as protestors continue to protest at night and provide cover for these terrorist groups and other dangerously enraged people, families will continue to suffer. Governors are encouraging this to continue, and people are all jumping on board to watch it happen up close and personal. What is wrong with this picture? Take a good long look in the mirror if you are actively engaging in this, and ask yourself what outcome you believe is going to come from this, what is it going to resolve, and how many people must die or suffer before you conclude that there is blood on your hands and a different approach is the way to go?
GET SMART. FAST. YOUR COUNTRY IS BLEEDING. The goal is to create further division, by fueling anger and rage, to keep people in a state of terror and depression so they will submit and follow whatever outlandish rules are put on them. They are trying to break you. This is psychological warfare. Worn down yet? Brush yourself off, pick yourself up, and start working on building your community, uniting, and loving one another, because THAT is the battle they can’t compete with. Help one another get your businesses back up and running so everyone can care for their families. When we stand united, we thrive. They don’t want that. Will you continue to fall prey to their games, or can you see through the forest now? Stop herding like the sheep they want you to be, and start leading the way through strength, unity, and compassion, before they lead you straight to the slaughterhouse.
Educate yourselves and educate your children because you are the only ones who can prevent future destruction. You cannot blame the police officer, the government, or even the governors for this one. It is the sheep, the herd – those willing to be complicit in all of this that is fueling it and keeping it alive. How much longer are you willing to be a patsy at the expense of your fellow Americans? Go home, love your family, and find a better way.
That was awesome someone has a lot of spare time
On Covid-19, Dallas Clinician Dr. Ivette Lozano says – Stupid is as Stupid Does! Michael Bresciani, May 16, 2020
https://www.americanprophet.org/On-Covid-19-Dallas-Clinician-Dr.-Ivette-Lozano-says-Stupid-is-as-Stupid-Does-Bresciani_3758.htm?utm_source=whatfinger
PANIC REACTION ON A NATIONAL SCALE BY DAVID BURKHEAD
So, for some months now we’ve been engaging in greater or lesser degrees of restrictions in order to “flatten the curve” (although now people are claiming it’s to completely stop–more on that in a moment) of COVID19 (which I like to call “Winnie the Flu”).
Few, if any of these restrictions make a lick of sense.
First off, the models that drove most of the reaction (and, let’s be honest, the panic) were created by Neil Ferguson, a “mathematical epidemiologist” who had previously made such predictions as (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/) …
– 2002: Predicted up to 50,000 in the UK would die form Bovine Spongeaform Encephalitis (“Mad Cow Disease”). To date, there have been 177 deaths from that cause.
– 2005: Predicted that up to 150 million people would die from that year’s Avian Flu. In the end, only 282 people died from that strain.
– 2009: Swine flu this time. Based on Ferguson’s advice a UK government estimate was 65,000 deaths in Great Britain. Actual deaths? 457.
So, given this stellar track record, the real question is: why did anybody give this idiot any credence at all when he admitted using undocumented 13 year old code intended for a then feared flu epidemic and not for coronavirus?
But, governments around the world, including those of the US and its component states, saw those dire predictions and panicked.
“Keep social distancing, stay at least 6 feet away from other people.” Why six feet? For viruses carried in normal breath it’s dramatic overkill. 3 feet, a fairly comfortable “personal space bubble” for most people in most situations, is plenty. Droplets carried by coughs and sneezes go farther, much farther than 6 feet. So in one situation it’s inadequate. In another it’s overkill. This is a case where “somewhere in the middle” buys nothing. If you’re going to dismiss the sneezing and coughing issue (maybe by expecting people to cover their mouths–which they should be doing anyway) then six feet buys nothing over three feet. If, however, you’re concerned about sneezing and coughing then six feet is as bad as three feet.
“Gatherings of no more than 10 people.” Um, okay. Ten people in the local Petsmart. Then 10 people at the drug store. Ten people at Kroger. Ten people at the local park. Ten people at a blot (call it a “bible study and support group” for those of a Christian persuasion). And so on. One person going from place to place and now all those people are exposed.
And a lot of things just seem to be so arbitrary. Married couple who live together sitting together on a bench? Separate, more than 6 feet, or be ticketed. Really? In what way does that make sense?
Man surfing all by himself. Arrested for violating quarantine orders–and put in a jail where he’ll be in enforced close association with a bunch of other people. How is “in jail” better from a perspective of slowing the spread of disease than is “surfing all alone, not another person in sight”? Boating (so long as no more than 10 people) okay. Drop a baited line off the boat (fishing) and that’s a violation. How does that make sense?
Then there’s New York. New York is a city utterly dependent on mass transit. So, shutdowns reduce the number of people traveling every day? Well and good. But with fewer people using the mass transit, the city reduces the number of subways and buses running, thus ensuring that the remaining ones are every bit as packed as they were before the shutdowns. Packed subway cars, a perfect breeding ground for the spread of disease.
COVID19 is largely harmless to people who do not have serious co-morbidities, to people who aren’t the very old, or with significant heart and lung problems. So, nursing homes are filled with the most vulnerable people. So why require nursing homes to accept COVID19 patients? Yet that was exactly what Cuomo ordered.
There is absolutely no sense to the restrictions being imposed on the American People in the name of COVID19. They range from the useless to the deadly. This does not mean that there are not things that can be done that would actually help the situation:
– Wash your hands.
– If you’re sick, stay home (unless you’re sick enough to need to go to the hospital).
– Isolate those who are most at risk (the elderly, those with significant heart or breathing problems).
Really, you should be doing all of that anyway. If COVID19 gets people actually doing that then that’s a win. Not worth the other nonsense but, “it’s an ill wind” and all that.
But the rest? Not only useless but actively harmful. First, from the way diseases work, you want the low risk people to get the disease. Get it, get over it, and stop being a risk to everyone else. You want it to spread quickly and thoroughly through the low-risk population. By slowing that, you delay when “herd immunity” is able to protect the higher risk people. And then there’s the other effects of all the restrictions, the effects on the economy. People keep trying to dismiss that as “millionaires profits” but economic damage extends far beyond some millionaire having to find a less expensive brand of champagne. It causes suffering and death for real people.
– Because rising unemployment kills people. We’re already, as of the last figures I’ve seen 11% higher unemployment than before this started and it’s going to go a lot higher before we’re through. Another figure I’ve seen is that each 1% of added unemployment leads to 2 additional suicides per 100,000 population. Do the math.
– Because food shortages (which we will have) and outright famine (which, if we don’t have here, other people will because the food we normally export we’ll be keeping to make up the shortages here) kill people.
– Because delaying other medical testing and treatment in fear of “the Rona” will kill people. This is not a hypothetical. A friend of mine had a breast tumor biopsy delayed because “elective procedure” (“elective” in medical terms simply means “can be scheduled” rather than “get him in the OR right now or he’ll be dead right now”).
– Because people going violently “stir crazy” by being cooped up at home and not able to engage in their normal activities kills people.
This “shutdown” that people are trying to call a quarantine (an actual quarantine is where you isolate the sick and known or at least suspected carriers until they’re no longer contagious) also kills people. And nobody, at least not at the decision-making levels, is doing any kind of realistic assessment of the costs (human and otherwise) of the measures being taken vs. the cost of the disease itself. At least then one might be able to chart a course that leads to the least suffering and death.
Instead, we’re getting a panic reaction, people running around with their hair on fire not even realizing that they’re just fanning the flames.
Oh, and those who are beating the panic drums in order to use the “crisis” for their own cynical political ends.