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David Mitchell

Mary Margaret,

As for your "5 mniutes" of reading material - which would take an old man like me closer to an hour or more to read.  I couldn't read even a favorite novel for more that 20 minutes without falling asleep - let alone 6 hours!  Suffice it to say I disagree with most of what I read. It seems heavily weighted toward Dr. Malone's opinions rather than factual evidence - especially his reference to Nazi Germany's "mass psychosis". 

It would be a further waste of time to leave my entire original text here.

3 paragraphs deleted

But how does he explain the lopsided variance in the death rates of Vacccinated vs. Unvaccinated? Is it not about 7 unvaccinated deaths to every one vaccinated? 

Haven't we been flogging this topic long enough?

John Jackson

MM, thanks as always for bringing us up to date on the latest in the world of conspiracy theories.   I accept that, after two years of experience with this virus, it has become apparent that many of the masks  Americans wear (and the way they wear them) are only modestly effective compared to N95’s or KN95’s.   This is not some secret discovery of the far right but has been amply reported in the mainstream media long before the Leana Wen (who I respect) interview.

Dave, the 7:1 ratio you mentioned is the NUMBER of deaths of the unvaccinated compared to the vaccinated.  Because most Americans have the good sense to get vaccinated, there are roughly twice as many vaccinated as unvaccinated.  So Covid has twice as many chances to infect and kill the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.  Since there are twice as many vaccinated, your 7:1 ratio of raw deaths is equivalent to a 14:1 chance of dying.

Regarding  Dr.  Malone, he needs to explain why the unvaccinated are 14 times more likely to die than the vaccinated.  Until he does that, despite his resume, I say he’s a crackpot.

Dr. Jim, as the class medical adviser, you've been oddly silent on the subject of vaccine misinformation - care to weigh in?

Michael McLeod

I will briefly emerge from my retirement from debate club to state the obvious.

That the demonization of Fauchi (and the scientific method, in general) and the mischaracterization of critical race theory (and scholarly debate, in general) by the coldly calculating smearmongers of the right have been incredibly successful boogie man campaigns. And that rather than being drawn together by an astonishing, calculated attack on our democracy, the country is more divided than ever.

Divide and conquer. It's as fashionable and effective as ever.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/01/05/cdc-dodges-questions-on-why-the-fda-went-around-regular-procedure-to-boost-kids-n2601446

John Jackson

You may not have noticed, but for quite some time, on political subjects I’ve decided to be only a “reactive” poster, writing only in response to what seems to me to be serious misinformation offered by others.  But on this anniversary of last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the capital by an angry mob who tried, with the approval and support of our sociopathic former president and zero evidence supporting their case, to overturn the results of the 2020 election, I’m going to offer something.

However horrendous the invasion of the Capital was (including threats to “hang Mike Pence”), I think our 230+ year old democracy can easily survive that attack.  But the attack that is unfolding now in red and swing state legislatures makes me pessimistic that the democracy we have known all our lives can survive.

As has been widely reported, the attack involves systematic attempts to suppress voting by people of color or really any groups that don’t support Republican candidates - this is all done under the guise of promoting “election integrity”.  This includes making it difficult to register, reducing voting hours (including early voting), reducing the number of polling places (or ballot drop boxes) in predominantly Democratic districts, and gerrymandering - of course Democrats gerrymander but Republicans gerrymander on steroids.

But even worse are the attempts by Republican legislatures in virtually every swing state to interfere in the counting or certification of votes such as removing secretaries of state (like Georgia’s Brad Raffensburger, a Republican, who refused to come up with the 11,780 votes Trump demanded that he “find”).  Arizona is now advancing a bill that allows its legislature to “decertify” federal electors.

But the truly nightmare scenario revolves around a little known provision in the Constitution that allows each state to specify how its electors are chosen.  It just so happens that all 50 states now choose their electors based on popular vote.  But individual state legislatures, if they so desire, can decide to choose the electors themselves and it would not surprise me if one or more red or swing states opt for this.

If you’re a Republican and you believe in small government and conservative ideas (for example, that government programs to help the disadvantaged do more harm than good by destroying individual initiative), then I would disagree with you but this debate has been going on in American politics for all of our lives and as far as I can tell neither side has conclusively proved its case.  So debates like that should continue and each side should continue to try to make its best case. But democracy and democratic debate can’t continue in this country when Republican officeholders refuse to defend the most basic of democratic norms.

Have a nice day!

Michael McLeod

I'm thinking the church needs us to keep on churning out catholics. And dalmatians don't count.

ROME — Pope Francis has not been reluctant to offer his views on polarizing subjects, but on Wednesday, he waded into an issue involving two subjects on which consensus is almost impossible to find.

Pets and kids.

Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, Francis bemoaned the global decline in birthrates — what he described as a “demographic winter” — and was bluntly critical of couples who prefer to have pets rather than children.

People who have pets instead of children, the pope said, were being selfish, exhibiting a “denial of fatherhood or motherhood” that “diminishes us, it takes away our humanity.”

“Yes, dogs and cats take the place of children,” Francis said, laying out the harsh consequences of a childless future, including the inevitable drying up of pension plans. “Yes, it’s funny, I understand, but it is the reality.”

James Hamilton, M. D.

John J.,

I don't think I have been "oddly silent" on anything to do with COVID-19 over the past 20 months or more. I believe I have addressed my thoughts on just about every aspect of this pandemic, but to review, here goes:

In the beginning I stated that in the course of world pandemics the way in which they are terminated is by herd immunity, controlling public health hazards (such as rats and other vectors) and successsful vaccines. Treatments for those with the disease are becoming more important although that is sort of after-the-fact action. Mutations may also help end this pandemic and omicron may be part of that answer. It is of no benefit to a virus if it kills the host. That is one reason mutations occur. Less lethal mutations may well accelerate herd immunity.

I am a strong believer in vaccines including the current ones, especially the mRNA shots. Hopefully at some point in time, these can be improved with adjuvants so as to not only increase their imunogenicity, but also their longevity. Adjuvenated influenza vaccines have been available for many years. I am still very impressed that good vaccines were so quickly developed for this virus. Yes, it would be nice to have had longer time for further testing, but hey folks, this is a pandemic! Although politics and medicine do not often mix well, this marriage of private and government efforts did. 

 I do not like government mandates in the private sector.

Of course there are problems with Big Pharma. Let's face it, they are in the game to make money but they have also advanced therapeutics in many areas over the past century. I have had numerous good encounters with drug reps and educational programs during my career. I do not recall ever having chosen one treatment over another for a patient because a drug rep brought donuts into our clinic!

Masks help, especially protecting those infected from spreading the virus to those who are not. Some are obviously better than others. The N95s are better than the KN95s as they are made to Americam standards and not Chinese standards and are less likely to be knock-offs.

The patient-doctor relationship is sacred. If a patient and doctor agree on an approved (for other use) medicine that is to be given off label and all parties are informed of the risks and benefits, I have no strong objections. If "authorities" want to restrict a drug then it should be through a Risk Management and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program which requires training and a higher level of approval.

Jim

John Jackson

Thanks, Jim.  There is so much misinformation out there that I think it can’t be left unanswered.                

David Mitchell

John,

Your post (#10401) above is well said and had I not been working most of the day until this late hour, I would have spoken similarly. Actually, you put it better than I could have.

But just to focus on one little point of emphasis, I suggest anybody interested should Google up anything to do with the topic of "Voting Locations in Lincoln County Georgia".

Local Republicans (yes, my Republicans) are conducting an utterly egregious betrayral of the Constitution right under everyone's eyes. They are planing to remove 6 of the 7 voting locations in a county that is rural, has no public transportation system, and is approximately one third poor and Black. And they have done so under a new bill that allows almost no questioning - and they have conducted the local public meetings to do so without full public notices. It is such a blatant abuse of power that it is even beginning to gather national attention. (note: Lincoln county GA is near Augusta)

There are more of those stories out there but this one has captured my attention.

-------

And just when you think Kevin McCarthy has a lock on the trophy for political cowardice, up pipes Senator Lindsey Graham and tries to snatch the trophy right out of Kevin's grasp. 

Don'cha just hate when that happens!

David Mitchell

psst ! 

Is the main story about U.S. Politics, Covid, or Racism?

or is the scene about to shift to Moscow, Peking and Kazakhstan?

stay tuned boys and girls

David Mitchell

"They call me Mister Tibbs" (has left the building)

Michael McLeod

Dave: I interviewed a lot of celebrities over the years. Wish I'd been cooler and more professional about it but I almost always geeked out, fan-boy style. Thank goodness I only interviewed Sidney Poitier over the phone. This had to have been in the 70s.I was working for the Pensacola Journal and profiling a friend of his who lived there and was calling because of that. I forget who the friend was, and all I remember about the interview is gushingly telling Potier that the biography I had  just read about him had a ring of truth to it. which it did. Which he also always did. If you read the obits you'll see what he had to overcome and how he overcame it. He was black and he was a nobody with a heavy Bahamian accent and when he tried to talk his way into an acting class the teacher told him to get the hell out and get a job washing dishes. He did a hell of a lot better than that. If I had to pick a word, one word for him, here's the one I would offer: nobility.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/covid19-great-reset-gita-gopinath-jennifer-morgan-sharan-burrow-climate/

https://auresnotes.com/klaus-schwabs-the-great-reset/

Michael McLeod

MM Here's a review of that book that leads me to believe that excerpt is misleading.

I'm not saying that scenario isn't scary, or that it isn't a part of the book, or that it isn't, heaven forbid, a possibility. I'm just saying that it would be unfair to judge the book based on that excerpt, which I am going to assume was offered up as a "if we don't do something now, this could happen" example.

COVID-19: The Great Reset" is a guide for anyone who wants to understand how COVID-19 disrupted our social and economic systems, and what changes will be needed to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and Thierry Malleret, founder of the Monthly Barometer, explore what the root causes of these crisis were, and why they lead to a need for a Great Reset.Theirs is a worrying, yet hopeful analysis. COVID-19 has created a great disruptive reset of our global social, economic, and political systems. But the power of human beings lies in being foresighted and having the ingenuity, at least to a certain extent, to take their destiny into their hands and to plan for a better future. This is the purpose of this book: to shake up and to show the deficiencies which were manifest in our global system, even before COVID broke out."Erudite, thought-provoking and plausible" -- Hans van Leeuwen, Australian Financial Review (Australia)"The book looks ahead to what the post-coronavirus world could look like barely four months after the outbreak was first declared a pandemic" -- Sam Meredith, CNBC (USA) "The message that the pandemic is not only a crisis of enormous proportions, but that it also provides an opportunity for humanity to reflect on how it can do things differently, is important and merits reflection"-- Ricardo Avila, Portafolio (Colombia) "A call for political change in the post-pandemic world"-- Ivonne Martinez, La Razon (Mexico)"History has shown, the book argues, that pandemics are a force for radical and lasting change"-- Mustafa Alrawi, The National (UAE)

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

"What we face today is not only the loss of our freedom and the very fabric of our nation, but far worse, the possibility of the loss of our souls. The steady chipping away at the foundation upon which this republic rests has left an empty void, which satanists and cultists are rushing to fill with their synthetic soul material. This truth is difficult to accept and appreciate because there was nothing SUDDEN about these events. If a sudden shock were to hit us, a cultural and religious shock, we would be shaken out of our apathy.

But gradualism--which is what Fabianism is, does nothing to raise the alarm. Because the vast majority of Americans can see no MOTIVATION for the things I have described, they cannot accept it, and so the conspiracy is scorned and often mocked. By creating chaos through presenting hundreds of daily choices our people have to make, we have come down to a position where, unless motivation can be clearly shown, all information is rejected.

This is both the weak and the strong link in the conspiratorial chain. Most thrust aside anything that has no motive, so the conspirators feel safe behind the ridicule poured upon those who point to the coming crisis in our nation and our individual lives. However, if we can get enough people to see the truth, the motivation block gets weaker until it will eventually be forced aside as more and more people become enlightened and the notion that "this cannot happen in America" is dispensed with.

The Committee of 300 is counting on our maladaptive responses to govern our reaction to created events, and it will not be disappointed as long as we as a nation continue in the present way we respond. We must turn responses to created crises into ADAPTIVE responses by identifying the conspirators and ex-posing their plans for us, so that these things become public knowledge."

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/4A/4A92FD2FB4DAE3F773DB0B7742CF0F65_Coleman.-.CONSPIRATORS.HIERARCHY.-.THE.STORY.OF.THE.COMMITTEE.OF.300.R.pdf

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Regarding post #10401

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2022/01/06/who-are-the-real-insurrectionists-n2601486

Michael McLeod

crap. it's the weekend. i come on here to shoot the breeze and mary margaret gives me homework assignments. 

Do yourself a favor:

My favorite composer

My favorite pianist

one of my favorite concertos

You can feel the music just by watching her face

It's broken up by a couple of commercial but they are in strategic places.

At the end I can hardly breathe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxKtkkbE7w

James Hamilton, M. D.

Endemic Disease 

There have been recent reports in the last few days of this current COVID-19 pandemic becoming an endemic disease. In a recent post I reiterated the ways in which pandemics have historically ended but I did not define what that end would be. Endemic diseases are those that are always with us but are controlled or limited in distribution.

Rarely have pandemics ended with the entire obliteration of the causative pathogen. Smallpox cases have not been reported in the world since 1977 but there are places where the smallpox virus is (hopefully safely) stored. Polio still exists in certain undeveloped areas of the world. We have seen occasional outbreaks of measles even in the USA. 

Bubonic Plague, which devistated much of the population in the Middle Ages, still is with us, fortunately in very limited numbers. Sporadic cases are not uncommon in Colorado and other states in the Southwest transmitted to humans by fleas from infected rabbits, squirrels and prairie dogs.   Influenza is, of course, endemic with yearly outbreaks often limited by seasonal vaccines when there is a good match between the anticipated flu strains and the content of the vaccine.

So, what can we expect to see when this current pandemic "ends"?

Truly, I don't think anyone knows for sure but I suspect it will be somewhat along the lines of influenza. That may mean a yearly injection based on predicted prevalence of mutation(s). It would be nice if that could be included in the flu shot. (I believe the Army is trying to develop such a combination vaccine.) Since about 25% of common colds are caused by coronaviruses such vaccines may actually help decrease their incidence also.

Of course, these are just my thoughts (and hopes) for the future. I do think this omicron variant has decreased the lethality of many cases and, since it has become the predominant strain, may be a part of "ending" this nightmare.

The sooner, the better!

Jim

Michael McLeod

thanks so much Jim.

James Hamilton, M. D.

As evidenced by recent wildfires a large portion of the Southwest remains in drought conditions. Rumor has it that places like Mossy Rock WA are receiving considerable rains. We await a report from our KWHS weather reporter who just happens to reside in that town...

Jim

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/early_outpatient_covid_treatment__why_is_there_still_no_plan.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/the_supreme_court_and_congress_humiliate_themselves.html

David Mitchell

As I mentioned back in post 10362, I keep having having these small world episodes quite often, and in post 10368, Lorraine Heitchue answered back about that episode with her relatives. 

So shortly after i drove that family of Lorraine's relatives, I had four straiaght nights driving someone from Columbus or related to famiy in or nearby central Ohio.

But on the fifth day in that short period I picked up a young lady about 30 or so, going from Hilton Head to Charleston, SC, to visit with old girfriends for a bachelorette party. When she got in the car I asked her where she was from. "I grew up in Columbus Ohio" she said. So I proceded to tell her my story about all the Ohio people lately and went into some detail about driving Lorraine's relatives,  mentioning that one of them went to a "rival Catholic High School of mine" in Columbus. She interrupted me to ask, "rival Catholic High School"? "Could that be DeSales or Watterson?", she asked? I said I went to Bishop Watterson, and she screamed, "OMG, I went to Watterson". When I dropped her in Charleston, I said jokingly, "don't tell your friend where I went to school", and she yelled back, "Oh I already did." and the friend yelled, "Go Eagles!" I yelled back "Gimme and E!" and they both laughed as I drove off.

There is a joke going around my office about me working some sort of rigged game about my driving assignments. Its been going on for several years since I started this job. You cannot imagine how many visitors to Hilton Head that I drive that are from Ohio, or Ohio State (or Denver, or Telluride, or Steamboat, or Vietnam, or some sort of connection)

John Maxwell

Michael McLeod

Dave,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9YqCP_B7EU

Michael McLeod

every now any then my faith in humanity gets a boost. From ny times:

Over a period of five years, James H. Clark, the internet pioneer whose Netscape browser once commanded that market, spent roughly $35 million, he recalled in an interview, to purchase dozens of Cambodian and Southeast Asian antiquities, many of which he used to furnish a penthouse in Miami Beach.

On Tuesday, federal officials announced he had surrendered the collection of 35 items, now valued at much more than he paid, after investigators convinced him that they were all stolen and that he had been duped by a shady antiquities dealer.

A bronze goddess of motherhood with four arms and elongated earlobes. A massive seated elephant deity in stone bearing a crown and an ornamented trunk. A boat prow with a depiction of a half-human bird of prey astride a mythic serpent.

Items he very much appreciated. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Investigators told him, Mr. Clark said, “my doing this might inspire other people to do the same, but I’m not sure — it’s hard for people to give up something they paid for, but for me, why would you want to own something that was stolen?”