Big tsimmis – Page 31

Rooster tale

Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Mike

The part of this one that’s most worthy of note isn’t in the news article itself, for a change.

Irish rooster with a violent past kills man with attack to the back of his leg, court says
An Irish inquest found that a man who died in April 2022, was attacked by a rooster with a history of attacking people, according to reports.

The Irish Examiner in Cork, Ireland, reported that Jasper Kraus was allegedly attacked by a Brahma chicken that was moved to his property in Ballinasloe after it attacked a child.

Garda Eoine Browne said during the judicial inquiry that he responded to reports of a sudden death on April 28, 2022, and when he arrived, he spoke to paramedics who said CPR attempts to revive the victim were unsuccessful.

Brown said the man, later identified as Kraus, was on the ground in the kitchen in a pool of blood, with a wound on the back of one of his legs.

A gruesome story, sure enough. But the real action, as is so often the case, is to be found in the comments section, kicking off thusly:

chieftain79
1 day ago
This whole thing could have been prevented with flour, hot grease, and a plate of biscuits.

And with that tasty quip we’re off and running, each commenter outdoing the one before with recipe suggestions, useful ideas for how excessively aggressive roosters might be made to calm the fuck down (with a hammer handle or an axe, natch), and such-like ribaldry. Be prepared to laugh until your face feels like it might crack down the middle from the strain, it’s that hilarious. Good, good stuff, no doubt about it.

“Presidents Day” questions

Posted on February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Mike

Dave Renegade has a few most (im)pertinent ones to ask.

I will confess that I do not like “Presidents’ Day”. Coupling George Washington with Abraham Lincoln is secular blasphemy (although we are told that this day celebrates “all” US Presidents).

So the questions on this auspicious day are:

1. Is the valid President of the United States in East Palestine, Ohio or is he in Kiev, Ukraine?

2. Is the valid President working to help US citizens who are in the midst of a chemical crisis or is he in Ukraine trying to initiate WWIII?

3. Is the valid President sapient or is he cognitively impaired?

4. Do you want a President who puts America first or one who puts America last?

The office of the Presidency has become the seat for global terrorism. Many would disagree but the pandemic, J6 political prisoner incarcerations, Nord Stream bombing, election theft of political offices at every level and the bankruptcy of the nation to fund their power and slush funds are a few examples.

Not even a tithe of ‘em, alas for us all. As for Question #4, it’s not as if it matters a single whit what we might want, seeing as how we have no real say in that anymore. Assuming we ever really did, that is.

Update! About that above-referenced Real Presidential visit to East Palestine.

Trump to visit East Palestine in wake of train derailment

Former President Trump plans to visit the town of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment led to the release of toxic chemicals, next week.

Trump posted on Truth Social in response to a report that he was planning to make the trip that the residents of East Palestine are “Great people who need help, NOW!” He later posted that he will visit on Wednesday.

The 2024 presidential candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on Twitter that his father will visit the town.

“If our ‘leaders’ are too afraid to actually lead real leaders will step up and fill the void,” Trump Jr. said.

Heh. Well said, young feller. But don’t think for a moment that our “leaders” are afraid of it, or much of anything else. They just don’t give a moist fart, that’s all, and want us all to know they don’t too. Unless and until they’ve been forcefully reminded that there’s a damned good reason that they ought to be, their disdainful contempt for the wishes of We The People will continue as before. Worst part of all is, that contempt will be justified.

4

Buttplug in absentia

Posted on February 19, 2023February 19, 2023 by Mike

Gee, who woulda ever thunk that two disastrous terms as the fumbling, bumbling mayor of a small-ish Indiana town might not turn out to be preparation aplenty for the job of US Secretary of Transportation?

Pete Buttigieg fails the Woody Allen test

He’s been called the future of the Democratic Party, and the smartest man in the swamp. Pete Buttigieg serves as transportation secretary in the Biden Administration. And one could argue that, outside of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, there isn’t anyone in the administration who has performed as poorly as the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

This perspective comes after Buttigieg was once again several days late and many dollars short in his response to a 50-car train derailment on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, that resulted in four kinds of cancer-causing chemicals being released into the area’s air and water. Fish and poultry have died as a result, while frightened residents are complaining of nausea, headaches and respiratory issues.

During any catastrophe, leaders must get out of their offices and travel to the disaster site to assess the damage, weigh what resources can be utilized and show solidarity with the affected people.

Buttigieg has done no such thing, perhaps taking his cues from President Biden, who also has avoided any public acknowledgment of the situation. It’s a head-in-the-sand approach that has many Ohio residents angry.

“Where’s Pete Buttigieg? Where’s he at?” one resident asked East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway.

Now on the defensive, Buttigieg has resorted to blaming (you guessed it) former President Trump for what is happening in Ohio.

“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe,” Buttigieg tweeted. “And of course, I’m always ready to work with Congress on furthering (or in some cases, restoring) our capacity to address rail safety issues.”

So, despite Democrats having controlled the House, Senate and White House for two years, Buttigieg claims his hands are tied because of the administration that has been gone for 25 months.

A supply chain crisis; baby formula shortages; a U.S. commercial airline industry in chaos. And now evacuations, a federal investigation and a cancer-causing chemical scare that continues to stress residents in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Woody Allen said that 90 percent of success in life is just showing up. On that front, Pete Buttigieg continues to fail.

If he wants to be president one day, Buttigieg must show more effort, urgency and competency than what the country has witnessed so far.

He won’t, and nobody with a lick of sense ought to be expecting he ever will. Truth is, being an incompetent boob cut from the same raggedy, moldy cloth as his (titular) boss, he CAN’T. He was manifestly a Bribem junta diversity-hire, brought in exclusively due to being a loud-and-proud homosexual and no other reason whatsoever. As they say in Texas, Pete Buttplug is all hat, no cattle. If Affirmative Action were ever to be put on trial, he’d be Exhibit A for the prosecution.

3

Sad news

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Mike

Awwww, no.

Bruce Willis’s Family Shares Major Update on Actor’s Health

Bruce Willis’s family announced Thursday that the “Die Hard” actor was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, confirming that his condition “progressed” after he stepped away from acting last year.

In March 2022, his family said Willis, 67, was diagnosed with aphasia and was “stepping away” from acting.

His ex-wife, actress Demi Moore, confirmed the frontotemporal dementia diagnosis in an Instagram post on Thursday. Some health authorities say the condition is an “uncommon type of dementia” that can lead to problems with language and behavior.

“Our family wanted to start by expressing our deepest gratitude for the incredible outpouring of love, support and wonderful stories we have all received since sharing Bruce’s original diagnosis,” Moore, who shares three children with Willis, wrote on behalf of the family. “In the spirit of that, we wanted to give you an update about our beloved husband, father and friend since we now have a deeper understanding of what he is experiencing.”

“Bruce has always found joy in life—and has helped everyone he knows to do the same. It has meant the world to see that sense of care echoed back to him and to all of us,” Thursday’s statement added. “We have been so moved by the love you have all shared for our dear husband, father, and friend during this difficult time. Your continued compassion, understanding, and respect will enable us to help Bruce live as full a life as possible.”

Damn, I really do hate to hear this. All best wishes to Bruce, Demi, and his family.

More Hersh debunkery

Posted on February 18, 2023February 18, 2023 by Mike

As promised earlier in the comments, I present Lee Smith’s analysis. I must say, he makes a good case.

Sy Hersh Swings and Misses Big

Careless claims that the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipelines cover for the real scandals of the Biden administration

The most astounding claim in the blockbuster new article from Seymour Hersh alleging that the U.S. is responsible for sabotaging two of Russia’s natural gas pipelines is that the Biden administration is led by a no-nonsense crew of highly capable tacticians. Forget what you’ve heard about secret classified documents turning up in various Biden residences; in Hersh’s telling the Biden White House practices exceptional operational security.

And it would need to, because according to the single anonymous source on whom Hersh bases his piece, the Russians have “superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea.” Pulling off a plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines between Germany and Russia would require not only vision and leadership, but sophisticated cover. So what kind of highly advanced stealth technology did the Biden team employ to cloak the underwater operation? In fact, they did just the opposite. They hid the plot to start World War III in plain sight.

Despite the strong temptation to swipe more of it, I’ll limit that excerpt to those two introductory ‘graphs; naturally, you’ll want to click over and RTWT. I’ll tell y’all this much: I don’t really know anything at all about this Oliver Alexander fellow whom I quoted last night, but Lee Smith is definitely a wholly trustworthy source as far as I’m concerned, as well as an excellent analyst. I’d be more inclined to take his word on just about anything before I would a whole boatload of others, frankly. His conclusion on this whole Nord Stream shit-circus might be somewhat different than one might expect, seeing as how it’s focused on a larger issue.

Trump is right when he says that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine were he still in the White House, so long as he kept NS2 sanctions in place. Naturally, it would have enraged the Germans, and the U.S. media would’ve blamed Trump for alienating our great ally in Berlin, even if the Germans were plotting with Putin to impoverish the rest of Europe. But all that’s hypothetical. What we know for sure is that Trump was on the mark when he warned the Germans that Nord Stream2 would come back to haunt them. And, thanks to Biden, it has hurt America, too.

There is indeed a scandal that involves Biden and Russian pipelines, but it’s not the one Seymour Hersh wrote about. It’s simply this: a venal and careless old man was so obsessed with undoing his predecessor’s work that he greenlighted a war in Europe with consequences that are likely to impact how Americans live for years to come.

Can’t argue with any of that, and I ain’t gonna try to.

When you’re Right, you’re right

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Mike

Surber runs down a disturbing list of some of the many, many things we foolish, overly-paranoid Reich-wingers had right all along.

Kang and Kodos on The Simpsons say, “Foolish Earthlings.”

Lefties say foolish right-wingers.

Nik Popli of Time magazine wrote, “This isn’t the first time a culture war has targeted a common household appliance (ie, the ongoing crusade to ban gas stoves—M). Republicans have been venting their frustration over federal energy-efficiency standards for more than two decades — including over the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that forced U.S. consumers to switch to more energy-efficient light bulbs.”

Conservatives warned at the time that the replacement — Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs — contained mercury.

On July 31, 2007, Dr. John Balbus, Chief Health Officer at Environmental Defense Fund, assured one and all that there was no problem with CFLs.

He wrote, “Despite some alarming news reports, you don’t have much to worry about. If a CFL breaks, some of the mercury that’s contained in the bulb will evaporate into the air. How much? It’s hard to be certain, but one study looking at long tubular fluorescent bulbs found that over a two-week period, only 17% to 40% of the mercury in the bulb evaporated. The rest remained stuck in the bulb. Roughly one-third of the mercury that evaporated did so in the first eight hours after the breakage; the rest seeped out slowly over the remainder of the study period.”

Foolish right-wingers.

15 years later, lighting manufacturer TCP reported, “You’ve seen the headlines. CFL light bulb bans started making their way through state legislatures last year, and California has become the second state to sign one into law. Vermont’s light bulb ban passed in May, forbidding sales of CFLs as of February 2023. California’s phase-out begins in January 2024.”

Gee, why is that?

TCP reported, “Because CFLs and linear fluorescent lamps — aka those long, slender tubes in overhead fixtures — contain the known toxin mercury, the CFL light bulb ban is framed as a protection for both waste workers and the wider environment.”

So we switched over to LEDs. I cannot wait to find out what the flaw is in LED so lefties can ban them as well and replace them with wax cylinders that provide light as they burn down. Remember, the answer to the question what did socialists use before they used candles is electricity.

Foolish right-wingers keep being right.

Hey, it’s right (ahem) there in the name, and there’s a reason for that.

NYC does not ❤ illegal aliens

Posted on February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 by Mike

Apparently, what’s sauce for the goose is decidedly unappetizing for the gander.

Quebec tells Eric Adams to stop buying NY migrants bus tickets

The government of Canada’s second-most populated province is demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “immediately” stop helping migrants illegally enter the Great White North, as recently revealed by The Post.

“Any form of assistance to migrants crossing the border where it is strictly forbidden to do so should stop immediately,” a spokesperson for Quebec Premier Francois Legault said.

“We understand that the situation of migrants in New York poses major challenges, but the situation in Quebec and particularly in Montreal is even worse and constitutes an important humanitarian issue.”

Earlier this month, The Post exclusively reported that Adams was using taxpayer funds to get bus tickets for migrants in the Big Apple to travel upstate to Plattsburgh.

From there, migrants take taxis and vans to a cul-de-sac at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, where they walk across the border and surrender to Canadian Mounties to seek asylum, as The Post documented on Feb. 5.

Why, that’s just INHUMAN! SAVAGE!! CRUEL!!! I am gobsmacked by the callous indifference displayed by Adams towards these poor, put-upon fellow hoo-monz. As the mayor of a proudly self-declared Sanctuary City, surely he must realize that No Human Being Is Illegal.

I note also, with intense amusement, that the number of illegals Adams is bitching and moaning about as having “overwhelmed” NYC’s resources over the course of the past several months is probably about the same as the onslaught being dealt with in tiny Texas border towns on a daily basis. And now here he is, in typical smarmy-shitlib fashion, foisting the problem he literally asked for, in so many words, off on much-smaller Montreal.

But while the Big Apple’s population is nearly 8.5 million, Montreal’s is just 1.7 million.

As the saying goes, Eric, one of these things is NOT like the other. Think about it, kwitcherbitchin’, and just suck it UP, buttercup. Mmmmkay?

1

Know thine enemy

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Mike

Our old friend Jeff Goldstein names names.

There’s nothing to be gained by arguing with anarcho-communists

Here’s visual proof. And some harsh words to go along with it.

It’s time we begin thinking of Antifa and those who align with the putative “anti-fascist” movement — themselves the epitome of contemporary fascist brown shirts cosplaying as radical Marxists — as foreign creatures, actual Others whose minds we will not change and whose behavior we should not allow. These people are quite explicitly anti-American in every important sense: they have no regard for the rights of those they oppose; and yet they’d claim every conceivable right for themselves, including their “right” to harm those whose goals don’t comport with theirs. And their true goal — their prime objective — is to cleanse the earth of those who won’t bow to their desires and fill the ranks of their mob.

In the comments to the video from Amagansett Press (link provided in Jeff’s post—M), supporters of the videographer, Jason, laud him for his willingness to stand up to this particular mob, and to argue his case intelligently and thoroughly, with a degree of cultivated calm.

Me, I have a different take — one I may not have had 22 years ago when I started the original protein wisdom website: arguing with committed leftists is useless. They are fixated by ideology, impervious to logic, and dedicated to achieving power any way possible. Grievance politics is just one way of trying to do that, as the victimization gambit has proven profitable to that end.

And so watching this video — watching a sincere citizen committed to the absolute protections of the First Amendment be treated with such disrespect, hostility, belittlement, and utter hatred, no matter how much he pleads his case — at first saddened me, then sickened me, and finally angered me.

But the twist is this: I found myself not angry at the anarcho-communist punks who lie as easily as they breathe. Because I know who and what they are, and I’ve long since learned that those of us who relish our founding ideals cannot peacefully co-exist with them, making some sort of future separation inevitable at this point. Rather, I found myself getting more and more angry at the 1A auditor who so clearly and desperately wants to find common ground with these malicious faux-revolutionaries that he grants them a respect they haven’t earned and gives them plaudits they don’t deserve, however mildly.

It’s admirable that he stood his ground. But as the interaction moved along, it became completely obvious that nothing he argued was going to sway this mob of larping Maoists, who viewed him with utter disdain, and with no intention of considering his positions, however much he pleaded that they intersected with their putative causes. And that’s because violent, committed leftists don’t have any real causes: instead, the causes they adopt at any moment are mere pretexts toward power, control, nihilism, and the complete destruction of the whole of traditional western culture and values.

Annnnd DINGDINGDINGDINGDING we have a winnah, folks!

Read all of it. Provides me with the perfect excuse for re-running one my all-time punk rock faves.

5

Questions, questions Vol XXVLLIII

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Mike

Kunstler has a few.

How and why else has the evidence of those crimes been so sedulously suppressed when it should have been served up to a grand jury post-haste in 2019, as soon as Hunter Biden’s laptop surfaced? The darn thing was absolutely stuffed with a rich documentary record of crime from the lowest (drugs and whores), to the highest (payoffs from foreign actors). The extraordinary lengths that the DOJ and FBI traced to hide it, or pretend to not look inside it, is one of the most transparently degenerate acts ever seen in US history — and continues to this day.

And now, all of it unwinds rapidly, all the organized deception and lying. You could argue, perhaps, that US government agencies, this aggregation of interests we call the Deep State, just went plumb insane from guilt, fear, and shame over its own long-running, rampant criminality, but even that fails to answer how come, for instance, the CDC is still pushing booster shots of a toxic bio-engineered cocktail that maims and kills people. Are they aiming to reduce the US population on-purpose — at the same time that the DHS is ushering millions from other countries across the border illegally? Is the Deep State working China’s will against us and the rest of the West? Did we collaborate with our adversaries in our own collapse?

A: Yes.

2

Where’s Waldo Pete?

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Mike

Buttplug must be on another vacay with “his” “family,” I suppose.

Pete Buttigieg And Chernobyl in Ohio

I guess if you are going to be the worst President in American history you want a Transportation Secretary that is equally bad. Pete Buttigieg, the man who ran for President on a solid record of mediocrity and being gay, certainly fits that bill. Ask the people of East Palestine, Ohio.

Last Friday a train derailed in East Palestine, a small town near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Fifty cars went off the tracks. Ten of those carried various types of hazardous chemicals. Five of those cars were carrying liquid vinyl chloride. That comes out to 1,000,000 pounds of this dangerous toxic substance.

That was bad enough. Then Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation decided to make it much worse. Authorities made the decision to burn the vinyl chloride to prevent derailed tanker cars from exploding.

When vinyl chloride burns it turns into hydrogen chloride. When hydrogen chloride enters the atmosphere it bonds with water vapor and forms hydrochloric acid. That means hundreds of thousands of pounds of acid have now been released into the environment.

There is no precedent for an event of this type on this scale. The only previous similar incident involved the derailment of a single tanker car in New Jersey, but in that case, the authorities did not burn the spilled chemical.

Where is Buttigieg, our Secretary of Transportation? Busy with other matters. In public announcements and comments recently, he has talked about the dangers posed by an excess of white people working in construction. He has also had time to talk about a book called “Song of Achilles,” a gay rewrite of the Iliad. He hasn’t said a word about East Palestine, Ohio.

Well, of course not. He’s completely tied up with what a person of much greater intelligence and competence than Mayor Pete Buttplug can claim once called vital social issues ’n’ stuff.

Lest we forget, Kelly’s show featured a truly great band, too.

Yep, Pete Buttplug has a long, long way to go before he could ever dream of filling dem shoes.

The Forever Plan(demic)

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Mike

More “experts,” God help us.

Are there places you should still mask in, forever? Three experts weigh in

There are still hundreds of thousands of COVID cases reported in the U.S. each week, along with a few thousand deaths related to COVID.

“Cases,” yet. Another word redefined for the convenience of shitlib tyrants and wannabe despots. “Related” to Fauxvid—do I detect the faintest pitter-pat of the wretched orphan Honesty, coming in on its little cat-feet? I mean, they for once didn’t claim these deaths were from Fauxvid, y’know?

But with mask mandates a thing of the past and the national emergency health declaration that will expire in May, we are in a new phase of the pandemic.

No, we are not. There is no longer a “pandemic,” the “pandemic” is over. Even Pedo Jao Bai-Deng said so, back last September. Not exactly a source one would want to count on in the normal run of things, of course. But hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Life looks a little more normal here in the U.S. than it did a few years ago, but decisions on how to deal with the virus aren’t over yet.

And they never will be, not as long as Americans remain tolerant of your precious “experts” making all their decisions for them.

China had a huge increase in cases last month after abandoning its zero COVID policy, and another variant prompted renewed recommendations in some airports. Researchers estimate that more than 65 million people are struggling with the effects of COVID — a disease we still have to learn about.

Speak for yourself, and the rest of the pussified and pusillanimous. The intelligent, observant, and independent of mind know everything about The Virus The Virus The Virus!™ they’ll ever need to, thenksveddymuch.

Wondering if and when you should still be masking up? NPR asked some experts.

“Experts,” forsooth.

Said “experts” tell us everything you would expect from them, and nothing you wouldn’t: Be afraid, be very afraid, every minute of every day, for the rest of your micromanaged existence, until you are given permission to do otherwise by Proper Authority. For the Greater Good, as always.

The rest of the NPR piece amounts to a rhetorical firehose-nozzle spraying metric tons more of this patent horseshit over all and sundry, which shouldn’t come as any great surprise to anybody; it is, after all, NPR—Official State Media, the Mouth Of Sauron—we’re talking about here.

I have to confess, I’m beginning to be as pessimistic about the likelihood of Heritage Americans ever rising up to throw off the yoke of this oppression as our good friend Wes usually is.

(Via Ace)

1

The Great Debunkening

Posted on February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 by Mike

Looks like the science is finally settled.

I’m pro-science. That’s why I’m anti-mask

The landmark Cochrane study shows that the mask skeptics were right

I believe in the scientific method: make an observation. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. Listen to the answer. Insisting on the answer before pursuing this methodological approach is not science, it is propaganda.

And “masks work” was never more than propaganda — rooted in mechanical plausibility, not actual science — furthered by public health officials, left-leaning government leaders, the press and the party faithful starting in 2020 and continuing to the present day.

The left is holding fast to the idea that masks do work, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In fact, as of February 6, mask mandates have been reinstated at four elementary schools in Marin County, California.

Will there be redemption for those who had the audacity to challenge authoritarian public health bureaucrats? No, it seems. Will there be a change in policy now that the science is clear? Again, no, it seems.

Will there be a doubling down, with the self-proclaimed pro-“science” crowd continuing to insist masking works despite the scientific evidence showing us that they don’t? Yes. It appears so.

What seems clear is that the enthusiastic, religious devotion to the dogma — “masks work” — signified adherence to a set of beliefs: I mask therefore I am good. I mask my children therefore I am loyal to the Democratic Party and public health diktats. I mask therefore I care. I am a loyal follower of “the Science.” My faith is unwavering.

Those who claim to be on the side of “the Science” will continue to push unscientific policies in order to prove that they were right all along. This is the sunk cost fallacy writ large. Don’t admit mistakes. Ignore the actual science in favor of “the Science.” And continue to punish those who challenge. As well as those most vulnerable who simply aren’t in a position to challenge at all.

“Science” has apparently been rebranded by the left. It is now a slogan — a tagline — shouted at heretics to signify one’s moral superiority and loyalty to the party. What we have now is “science” that ignores the scientific method, which means “the science” is a cult. And a dangerous one at that.

Yes, it most certainly is. That is neither coincidence nor happenstance.

The larger issue here is that Leftists, having by now promoted their misbegotten ideology on up to de facto religious-cult status, while also being constitutionally incapable of leaving anything under the sun imaginable alone and untampered with, must therefore pretzel actual science into “The Science” in order to bring it into compliance with their contradictory catechism.

They’d adamantly deny there’s any religious-cult aspect to their beliefs, natch, particularly as it applies to the Church of the Eternal Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ denomination. But the truth couldn’t be more obvious to any reasonable, thoughtful person.

Which is not to suggest that science and religion are incompatible, mind. It’s just that they’re two very different things, that’s all—distinct modes of thought whose focus is on two separate realms, which we might think of as the practical and the ethereal. Religion is definitionally a matter of faith, and matters of faith are NOT amenable to empirical proof. That built-in contradiction in terms is just another of the myriad reasons why, intellectually speaking, shitlibs can’t help but trip over their own dicks fifty times before lunch every day.

Intellectually speaking.

The aforementioned Cochrane study is here, and says this:

One of the largest and most comprehensive studies on the effectiveness of masks found they do almost nothing to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.

The study reviewed 78 randomized control trials—experiments that have long been considered “the gold standard” for medicine—which assessed the effectiveness of face masks against flu, COVID-19, and similar illnesses. It found that wearing masks “probably makes little or no difference” for the general public, no matter what kind of mask is used. Even N95 masks, considered the most effective at filtering airborne particles, showed no clear benefit for health care workers.

The study was published on January 30 by the Cochrane Library, a world-renowned medical database that is famous for its high-quality evidence reviews. It comes as a battering ram to the recommendations of the U.S. public health establishment, which urged children as young as two to wear masks throughout the pandemic.

“This amounts to the scientific nail in the coffin for mask mandates,” said Kristen Walsh, a clinical professor of pediatrics in Morristown, New Jersey. “I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that some schools are still actively forcing children to wear masks, much less children who need to see faces to learn.”

You shouldn’t try; it makes sense only when you recognize that the Scamdemic entire wasn’t really about health or safety, but about the twin pillars of authoritarian tyranny: power and control.

(Via Ed)

4

Free speech: dead as the dodo

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Mike

The incomparable John Hayward’s latest.

A generation after the supposed triumph of classical liberalism at the “end of history,” free speech exists nowhere on Earth as a matter of principle. Every single tech mogul’s commitment to free speech evaporates when powerful authoritarians demand censorship.

Authoritarian foreign regimes know they only need to threaten blockage of Western social media services to make their management comply with censorship demands. Some push back harder than others, but in the end, they all cave. They can’t afford to lose access to growing markets.

Tech moguls rationalize to themselves that they can still do some good in oppressive countries by complying with some censorship demands – it’s better than being silenced completely. Any way you rationalize it, it’s a power calculation that limits the speech of the powerless.

Domestically, we’ve seen government officials using economic leverage and ideological affinity to limit speech in collusion with their Little Partners in the private sector. The ruling left-wing Party has operatives in tech companies that did much of the dirty work.

The power calculations have shifted a little lately, especially after Musk bought Twitter, but they’re still power calculations, not adamant defenses of free speech as a matter of principle. The variables changed, but the equations remain.

A troubling percentage of the free world’s population evidently believes censorship IS free speech – as though speech were a limited resource that must be allocated by the State with an eye toward “justice” and “equity.” Only by silencing some can others be truly free to speak.

“Hate speech is not free speech!” is a pure power calculation: those with power will decide what constitutes “hate speech.” They invariably rule that disagreement with their ideology and political demands is “hateful” and must be silenced.

How utterly convenient for them.

In America That Was, the very place where such forgetfulness was never supposed to happen, we somehow lost sight of the fact that “offensive” speech is the very embodiment of free speech—that once we’ve allowed TPTB to stifle speech they deem “offensive,” the hourglass has been turned over, the countdown to the inevitable loss of yet another Constitutionally-enumerated right has begun. Thus:

Speech is vital to political organization – in the Internet era, they are nearly synonymous. Twitter mobs have a direct pipeline to real political power via lazy, biased legacy media – provided they agree with the ruling Party. That pipeline is tightly shut against dissidents.

“Disinformation” is also a crude political calculation, not a high-minded and principled commitment to protect the population against fraud. We see examples every single day of disinformation that is tolerated, and boosted, when it comes from members of the ruling Party.

As with hate speech, the powerful decide what constitutes actionable “disinformation,” and they cannot resist the temptation of heavily tilting those scales against dissenters and speakers of forbidden truth. Party apparatchiks are never banned or reprimanded for disinformation.

The “end of history” was actually the triumph of authoritarianism, not classical liberalism – political scientists and commentators were just too giddy over the fall of the Soviet Union to see it. Individual rights, beginning with free speech, have steadily eroded since then.

It’s Doc Zero; reading it all isn’t mandatory, but you’re going to want to nonetheless.

1

It’s settled

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Mike

The Science™ has spoken.

Fauci: now he tells us

Fauci lied, and now he is admitting it. In writing. In a peer-reviewed journal.

To be clear, Fauci is not claiming that the vaccines were utterly worthless. He still maintains that in certain specific cases–atypical, but the ones that generally kill you–the vaccines serve as a sort of pre-treatment. Not a great one, but a somewhat effective one. But he flat out admits that the claims about the vaccine possibly preventing infection and transmission are simply bogus and always were.

No, I am not exaggerating. He even admits that flu vaccines would never meet the standard to pass muster for use if they were for any other virus. Fascinating. And hardly how they are advertised.

Ace follows up.

Here’s one quote from the paper:

As of 2022, after more than 60 years of experience with influenza vaccines, very little improvement in vaccine prevention of infection has been noted. As pointed out decades ago, and still true today, the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases. Even decades-long efforts to develop better, so-called “universal” influenza vaccines–vaccines that would create more broadly protective immunity, preferably lasting over longer time periods–have not yet resulted in next-generation, broadly protective vaccines, although a large number of experimental vaccines are in preclinical or early clinical development.

He writes that the successful true vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella gave rise to hope that similar vaccines could be developed for respiratory viruses.

But he then points out that “Science,” represented in his physical body, has long known that respiratory viruses work differently and could never be truly vaccinated against.

But he then points out that “Science,” represented in his physical body, has long known that respiratory viruses work differently and could never be truly vaccinated against.

In stark contrast, the non-systemic respiratory viruses such as influenza viruses, SARS-CoV-2, and RSV tend to have significantly shorter incubation periods (Table 1) and rapid courses of viral replication. They replicate predominantly in local mucosal tissue, without causing viremia, and do not significantly encounter the systemic immune system or the full force of adaptive immune responses, which take at least 5–7 days to mature, usually well after the peak of viral replication and onward transmission to others.

In other words: Because these viruses incubate in the mucosal tissues (nose, lung tissues) and not the bloodstream or the body as a whole, they do not encounter the body’s immuno defense system until after they’ve already begun sporing off out of the mucosal tissues to infect other people.

So: No vaccine injected into the body will ever be of much use in keeping mucosal viruses from spreading person-to-person.

And he always knew this, he says now.

Just another thing he lied and lied and lied about, in his role as Science Personified, to achieve the political objective of Making People Do What a Power-Mad Bureaucrat wants them to do.

Yep, that’s just about the size of it. The Scamdemic was a political maneuver, a bare-nake power grab, right from the very beginning. The only real surprise here, for those of us who realized that sorry fact early on, is that Fauci is actually ‘fessing up now.

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Cheap shot

Posted on February 8, 2023February 8, 2023 by Mike

Trump steals a page from Florida D卐M☭CRATs to take another wild, pointless, ill-advised swing at Ron DeSantis.

Watch: DeSantis Responds Directly to Trump Sharing Photo Accusing Florida Governor of Being a ‘Groomer’

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis likely is aware of the notable quote by Mark Twain: “Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” Though Trump has already started the mud-slinging, DeSantis has chosen to stay above the fray.

Previously, DeSantis referred to Trump’s attacks as “noise in the background.” Trump’s most recent attacks, which included unsubstantiated claims that DeSantis was guilty of grooming underage females with alcohol, did not seem to rattle the governor.

On Wednesday, DeSantis said: “I face defamatory stuff every single day I’ve been governor, that’s just the nature of it. I’d also just say this. I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden.”

The governor, inferring there is a better way for Trump to spend his time, added: “That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.” The audience erupted in cheers.

As well they should have.

This week, Trump posted a low-resolution photo of a man he alleged was DeSantis, standing next to several young women at a party. Trump captioned the photo:

“Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher.”

Trump added provocatively: “That’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!”

The New York Times reported the photo was originally part of an attack ad published by a Democrat super PAC. The article noted the two females were former students who attended a party where DeSantis happened to be, and that the party “took place after” they had graduated.

Bold mine. With this apparently compulsive harrassment of DeSantis, Trump is allowing his ego and natural combativeness to walk him right into a trap set for him by D卐M☭CRATs, whether he sees it or not. Stooping to recycling old D卐M☭CRAT smear campaigns against somebody who of right ought to be an ally? Puh-leeze.

Love him or hate him, Gov DeSantis is not by any rational calculation the main enemy here; the D卐M☭CRATs are. Trump of all people ought to know that at least as well as anybody by now. It’s a damnable shame, and I for one really wish he’d just knock it the fuck off already with this self-defeating crap and move the fuck on. This sort of blue-on-blue flailing about does nobody any good, up to and including Trump himself.

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