"A Hinge Moment of History"

 

That's the title of a long, insightful article by Mark Steyn, a transcript of an address he delivered to the Gatestone Institute earlier this year.  I think it's one of the best-structured and best-argued articles by him I've ever read, and I plan to re-read it more than once.  It's right up there with the best of the late Prof. Andrew Codevilla, whose loss we acknowledged with sadness earlier this morning.

Here are a number of the introductory bullet points from Mr. Steyn's address, plus a few selected paragraphs.

• I have lived in countries that have real domestic terrorism movements.... No country blessed enough not to have a domestic terrorism movement should be inventing one.
• We are living in a blizzard of lies.
• [W]e are more dependent on a handful of woke billionaires to tell us what reality is. They are far more open than ever that they get to determine what are the agreed facts. Google made an explicit announcement about this recently. They said that sometimes they would put warnings on things that are factually accurate because, even though they are true, they do not think it is in society's interest for people to be seeing it.
• [N]ow you will be banned or deleted or blocked or silenced simply for disagreeing with the official version of events. For example, the Great Barrington declaration, which was written by three of the most prominent epidemiologists in the world from Harvard, Oxford, and I think it was Stanford. That was basically deleted from YouTube, banned from Facebook, simply because it contradicted the WHO, CDC official version of events.
• It is just groupthink enforced by a cabal of woke billionaires, who have more power than anyone else on the planet.
• The other thing that emerged during this year very quickly is that we are at a hinge moment of history. We were told a generation or two back that, by doing trade with China, China would become more like us. Instead, on issues such as free speech, we are becoming more like China.
• American companies are afraid of offending China. American officials are afraid of offending China. We are adopting Chinese norms on issues such as free speech and basic disagreements with the government of China.
• We're living in the early stages of a future that is the direct consequence of poor public policy over the last couple of generations. We are not even aware of that...
• Right now, we are witnessing a non‑stop continuous transfer of power to a country that is serious about using that power. This is China's moment. Take it as someone who grew up, in large part, in a great power in decline. There's no real explicit handover day. People, in hindsight, expect to pinpoint the day that the baton was passed.... My great worry is that actually, the transfer to China has already happened. The baton has already been passed. We just haven't formally acknowledged that yet.
• I'll say it straight out loud. I do not think that Joe Biden "won the election." I don't think it is a question of "widespread fraud." I think the way the system works with the Electoral College, you only need actually to spread fraud in six key cities in six key states.
• If you have no basic election integrity, essentially, all the other issues are irrelevant.
• At some point, if we're not prepared to stand up... My whole thing, in all the years, is that Western civilization is sliding off a cliff and most citizens of most Western nations are not even aware of it.
• There is a moral component that we are overlooking. We live in an insane world where moral narcissism attaches to whether or not you rampage around some statue of a Confederate general who died 150 years ago. The fact that you're rampaging around the Confederate general while wearing shoes made by child labor somehow does not impact on your moral virtue at all.

Lord Moulton said that what matters in any healthy society are not the small number of things that one is obliged to do, or, at the other end of the spectrum, the small number of things that one is not permitted to do, but the big chunk in the middle. It is not a question of whether you have to do it, or you are forbidden to do it, but whether we decide for ourselves about those aspects of our lives through what he called the realm of manners. By his estimation, about 80 percent of life should be within the realm of manners rather than within the realm of law.

Now everything is law: How far you have to stand away from people. The realm of manners, in Lord Moulton's phrase -- choice -- has shrunk to nothing.

Everything now, is regulated by the state from above. We are now seeing, for example, influential voices. "The Guardian" newspaper in the UK for example, said the other day that whatever happens to the pandemic, and the COVID, and all the rest of us, they would like us to go into lockdown once every two years. It would supposedly be good for climate change. You do not see this in America, but you quite a lot on overseas news reports. BBC, in the early days of the pandemic was doing all these encouraging reports on how Ireland where it is illegal for you to go more than three miles from your home.

On how Ireland had, fantastically -- and this is really terrific news – they have managed to lower their carbon footprint simply by confining people to their homes and a three‑mile radius. The idea that this is the new normal is deeply disturbing.

At the same time, we have had a serious crackdown on free speech, particularly in America during election year, and culminating on January 20th by the convergence of the Big State and Big Tech.

There's much more at the link.  Recommended reading.

One of the greatest tragedies of the breakdown in the American educational system is that our young people are no longer taught how to think, but rather what to think.  If you ask the average young person today to analyze Mr. Steyn's article, or the article by Prof. Codevilla that we cited earlier this morning, they might mumble and mutter, but they'd find themselves hard-pressed to summarize their main points simply and concisely.  Their analytical abilities have been deliberately suppressed, it seems to me - which may be the entire goal of the progressive-left-dominated educational system in this country.  If future voters don't know how to evaluate the electoral pablum they're being spoon-fed, how will they know whether to support it or not?  Instead, they'll follow the propaganda with which the mainstream news and social media are bombarding them.  It's easier to do that, than to think for themselves.

I suspect the only way we can combat this insidious destruction from within of our society is to try to educate and inform our own young people, and those we meet, to think for themselves.  Discussing worthwhile articles like this one is a good start.

(By the way, having shared a number of experiences similar to Mr. Steyn's, I can confirm from personal experience that many of his comments are entirely correct.  For example, he says "No country blessed enough not to have a domestic terrorism movement should be inventing one".  I couldn't agree more!  Having lived for eighteen years, in uniform and out of uniform, in a terrorism-plagued, civil-unrest-torn society, and seen its worst excesses "up close and personal", allow me to assure you:  we do not, at this time, have a domestic terrorist movement in the United States worthy of the name.  If that ever changes, you'll know about it without needing to be told.  Trust me on this.)

Peter

Why do Amazon's prices change, depending on whether one's logged in or not?

 

I'm finding, more and more often, that when I look up products on Amazon.com, the price advertised will depend on whether or not I'm logged in to the site.  Just yesterday, for example, I looked up a cleaning product, a 10-pack of Chore Boy scourers.  The exact URL used in both cases was this:

https://www.amazon.com/Chore-Boy-Cer-Scouring-Pack/dp/B007VGICGK

When I was not logged in, and using the Brave browser, this is what was returned (clickit to biggit):

When I was logged in, using the Chrome browser but the identical URL, I got a different price:

I contacted Amazon's customer support chat, and asked the lady who responded why I was getting a different price like that.  She could not answer my question, and asked me to submit screenshots of the differences to the customer service department.  I've done so, but haven't yet had any response.

Even more intriguing, when I went to the same URL this morning, one of the prices were different.  "Not logged in" still showed a price of $10.25, but "logged in" showed $11.50.

That's not the only product where I've observed such differences in pricing, depending on whether or not I'm logged in to Amazon's Web site.  Are they assuming that loyal customers can safely be charged more, because we won't actually compare prices?  Are they trying to attract what their algorithm might consider "new" (or at least not-logged-in) customers with lower prices, only to spring a switcheroo on them when they do log in?

Can anyone suggest what's going on with Amazon's pricing algorithm?  Something ain't right, for sure!  If you've noticed anything similar, please let us know about it in Comments, giving the specific product URL if possible.  It'll be interesting to find out how widespread this problem is becoming.

Peter

America has lost one of its most incisive, insightful voices

 

Professor Angelo Codevilla, whom we've met in these pages many times before, has died of injuries he suffered from a vehicle accident.  He was apparently knocked down by a drunk driver.

It may be a measure of the cynicism and suspicion that dominate American politics today that not a few people - including myself - upon hearing the news, instantly harbored dark suspicions that the "establishment", the "ruling class" as he famously dubbed them, had finally had enough of him, and had taken steps to get rid of what they doubtless regarded as his pernicious influence.  That's probably not true (at least, I sincerely hope so) . . . but if anyone did more to expose the malicious, malignant influence of the current powers that be and the oligarchy behind them, I don't know who that might be.

Prof. Codevilla's voice will continue to resound long after his death.  You'll find a fairly comprehensive list of his important essays and articles here.  I very highly recommend that you bookmark it, visit it often, and select - at random, if you prefer - one of his articles to read and ponder.  He's that important a chronicler of our decline and fall as a nation, and offers insights and potential "cures" that few others could match in his lifetime.  A good overview of his thought may be found in this interview, which I recommend to your attention.

As a way to honor this great man, here are excerpts from, and the conclusion to, his most recent article, " Epitaph for the ‘War on Terror’ ", published just six days ago.  I think it's as powerful as any of those that preceded it.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

Progressive thought had always looked away from the reality of war as the midwife of nations and the gravedigger of decadences. Kissinger wrote that America should only fight “wars that it could afford to lose”—as if there were such things. Thus it blurred distinctions between war and peace. Intellectually crippled in this way, U.S. military forces therefore have not aimed for victory.

Instead and because of this, military operations have been planned and executed on the basis of what will fulfill our foreign policy establishment’s personal and institutional interests, as well as its evolving ideological criteria. Contact with reality, having produced results very different from those the ruling class envisions, that class explains defeat in terms of its most fundamental animosities—toward its domestic competitors.

. . .

Treating the American people, especially conservatives, as the main threat results from the growth and clarification of attitudes endemic to Progressivism and already translated into policy and lack thereof ... America’s defeat by foreigners does not threaten these progressives’ prerogatives and identities as do their domestic rivals. 

Blaming domestic rivals to deflect defeat’s consequences in foreign wars is all too usual. Nevertheless, statements by Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley that “domestic extremists,” whom they functionally define as whomever opposes the ruling class, pose the greatest danger of terrorism—especially if they are white—is egregious in history. The official reorientation of the U.S. armed forces’ focus on fighting what is arguably the American people’s majority, is even more so. A grassroots progressive group called the Democratic Coalition leaves no doubt about the ruling class’s 2021 practical agenda: “we cannot rest until all of Trump’s traitorous, insurrectionist foot soldiers face justice.” Insofar as they are serious, and even if they are not, this augurs civil war.

. . .

Estimates of the “War on Terror’s” cost in money start at $8-10 trillion. Cui bono? To whom did that money go? Yes, millions, maybe even billions, went to rent the cooperation of Iraqis, Afghans, etc. But the trillions went chiefly to Americans—to the national security establishment; the armed forces and intelligence community, for enhanced careers and operations, and to their contractors; plus to the horde of civilian specialists employed to improve health, education, welfare, and social practices in foreign lands; our transportation network; and all manner of manufacturing and servicing. The consultant class also took it to the bank, and the people who run the conferences.

Think of all the reputations, careers, retirements on the golf course, second homes, fancy cars and vacations all this made possible. 

Think also of how fast and far the “War on Terror” advanced the ruling class’ perennial objective to limit the freedoms of Americans outside its orbit, and perhaps shut down domestic opposition.

When leftist Americans (alumni of Americans for a Democratic Society, a covert CIA subsidiary) hijacked airliners to Cuba, the ruling class would not hear of ending the problem by forcing Castro to give them up. Instead, they made it a crime for ordinary air travelers to defend themselves. After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security set about establishing a new way of life in America, based on badges and regulations about what clearance would be needed to go where. The ruling class cares nothing of their effect (or, overwhelmingly, the lack thereof) on terrorism, just as it does not care what effect its shifting, contradictory mandates concerning COVID have on public health. And it does not even try to explain how adding minuscule amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere adversely affects the planet’s climate. No. The ruling class takes any and all occasions to advance its overriding objective in its own domination.

Terrorism, however, is especially useful. The premise that since we cannot know who is most likely to pose threats, that hence we must refrain from focusing on (profiling) Muslims and assume that the folks next door are as capable of mayhem as anyone shouting Allahu Akbar, has done much to make America what it is today. Especially because it is an in-your-face lie. The lie serves to free the ruling class to absolve or indict for terrorism whomever it chooses.

Surprise, surprise! Turns out that not everyone is as likely a source of terrorism as anyone else. The real, congenital, terrorists are conservative white folks. U.S intelligence properly profiles them to prevent the worst of them from taking part in society. And if anyone suggests that this relates to the fact that these white folks don’t vote for the Democratic Party, the Wall Street Journal tells us that the U.S. justice system is fair and competent: “The privacy of Americans hasn’t been threatened, while the Patriot Act has provided the feds with tools to break up domestic terror cells.” You must believe that, or else!

That is why the New York Times formulated the “War on Terror’s” official epitaph: “A War on Terror Accounting Since 9/11. The fall of Kabul shouldn’t obscure the successes over 20 years. Experts say it is the success of a multilateral effort that extends to as many as 85 countries.”

Who are you to disagree, white man?

There's more at the link.

We are greatly diminished as a nation by Prof. Codevilla's loss.  May his surviving relatives receive what comfort they may in their loss;  may his sins be forgiven him;  and may his soul, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  He will not be forgotten.

Peter

Well, well, well... FBI agents identified from gay pride parade photographs?

 

As we mentioned earlier, there were an unknown, but large number of FBI agents operating under cover at last Saturday's demonstration in Washington D.C.  This photograph of what are presumed to be some of them was later memed by Lawdog.

One of Michael Yon's legion of supporters has apparently done his homework.  He found a photograph of very similar-looking people participating in what appears to be a gay pride parade, wearing FBI T-shirts.  This morning, the following appeared on Yon's feed.

Found this on Twitter - idk but it's kind of a coincidence.

Click the image for a much larger view, to see the lines connecting individuals in both photographs.

Not proof positive, as far as I'm concerned, but a very strong indicator.

Peter

Well... it's different!

 

I had to laugh at an odd-looking Halloween party product (link goes to Amazon.com) that somebody mentioned on MeWe the other day.

Yes, it's soft drinks of some kind packaged in intravenous infusion containers - or, as the manufacturer calls them, "blood bags".  I understand they're supplied empty, and you fill them with whatever you wish (which gives you plenty of latitude for mischief with adults - not so much with kids, though).

The advertising blurb was clearly written by someone who's not a native English speaker.  As evidence:  "send this to people you love, like friends, classmates, family and so on, making them experience a sense of joy and delight".  Joy and delight???  For a reminder of your last ER visit???

Actually, I think kids would love these as a Halloween trick-or-treat prop, to wheel from house to house on IV stands, trailing IV tubes (to their mouths, of course!) and trying to look as bloodstained as possible.  Of course, it would end up with their parents doing the pushing of the stands, whilst trying to get the kids to stay close enough that they didn't pull the tubes out or the bags off the stands every few seconds.

They might also be a lot of fun to take to hospital with you when you visit sick or injured friends.  If they already have a bag or two of saline solution, or whatever, plumbed into their arms, try adding a couple of bags of brightly-colored drinks in non-medical hues to the same stand, with artistically draped IV tubes leading down to their arms.  The next time the nurse checked on them, she might have a heart attack until she figures out she's been had.  (Perhaps you should fill them with something to help her recover, so she won't be too mad at your friend.  They can drink it together!)

I think these would also be great for a Rocky Horror Picture Show performance party.  Hmmm... I wonder how Old NFO would look with one of these hanging by his side and over his head, filled with puke green crème de menthe?  It would probably remind him of Navy partying days he'd rather forget!  On the other hand, if we sent pictures to his kids and grandkids, they'd never let him live it down...

Peter

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

 

French journalist Jean-Baptiste Karr is known for his aphorism "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" ("The more things change, the more they stay the same").

I was reminded of his well-known saying when I read this article over at Didact's Reach (a blog I recommend highly to those who are willing to take a long, hard, objective, sometimes painful look at reality - which is often very uncomfortable to those who've cocooned themselves in false optimism).

Very few generations, ever, can lay claim to having witnessed two different empires fall. Ours will be among that select group. Within my lifetime, we have seen the Fall of the Soviet Union – with, as it happens, nary a shot fired – and we will almost surely live to see the Fall of the American Empire.

Unfortunately, the latter Fall will likely be bloody, brutal, and barbaric beyond our limited ability to comprehend.

. . .

But it is worth asking what happened to Rome in the years between 120 AD, approximately the high-water mark of the empire itself, and 476 AD. How did Rome go from a city of roughly half a MILLION, that controlled most of the ancient world, and at its peak determined the fortunes of roughly one quarter of that world’s population, end up as a broken backwater town of less than 5,000 inhabitants where wolves roamed what was left of the Forum?!?!

It happened because the Romans lost track of what made them great in the first place.

They allowed for a vast gulf to emerge between their elites and their people. Then they permitted nearly unlimited immigration from barbarian nations into their own territory. They simultaneously embarked on empire-breaking wars of conquest and expansion, taking the Roman Way wherever they went. And they did an amazing job of that, no question – the entire reason why Western civilisation exists as a thing today, is because the Romans exported their engineering, laws, roads, and culture all over Europe.

But they forgot that empires destroy nations, by definition. And they forgot that, in order to sustain an empire, you need VAST amounts of military expenditure to make it work. To do that, you need to tax your productive base – or you need to print lots of money. And to do that, you will INEVITABLY impoverish the very people upon which your empire depends to keep everyone fed and warm.

Does any of this sound familiar or applicable to our current pickle? Yeah. I thought so.

The Western world is repeating, almost line for line, every single mistake made by its predecessors among the Romans. With a bit of luck, whatever is left of the shattered remnants of our civilisation will remember what idiots our predecessors were, and will avoid making those same mistakes, at least for a few generations.

For the hard truth is that, as bad as things appear to be right now, humanity never really learns. We are flawed, Fallen, and broken by nature, and as such we are condemned to keep doing the same old stupid **** until we finally pull our collective head out of our collective arse and point ourselves back to the Truth.

There's more at the link.

I wish I didn't have to agree with the author, but it's very hard to find a flaw in his argument.  All the mistakes he identifies, we are indeed making (or, rather, our so-called "leaders" are).  They appear to be oblivious to the consequences of their actions, and utterly ignorant of the lessons of history.  It's as if they think they can decree Utopia, and it'll magically happen.  Sunshine and roses, milk and honey, rainbows and unicorn farts . . . all appearing at their command, pretty as can be.

Oh, boy, are they in for a rude awakening!  Sadly, the rest of us will have no choice but to experience it, too.

Peter

He understands how we feel...

 

Stephan Pastis gets it.  Growing older is just like this!

Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

Peter

A devastating critique of the FBI

 

Sundance offers a long, in-depth article analyzing the FBI's criminal actions and failures over decades, and concludes:

What the Federal Security Service (FSB) is to the internal security of the Russian state; so too is the FBI in performing the same function for the U.S. federal government.

The FBI are a U.S. version of the Russian “State Police”; and the FBI are deployed -almost exclusively- to attack domestic enemies of those who control government; while they protect the interests of the U.S. Fourth Branch of Government.  That is the clear and accurate domestic prism to contextualize their perceived mission: “domestic violent extremists pose the greatest threat” to their objective.

Put another way, “We The People”, who fight against government abuse and usurpation, are the FBI’s actual and literal enemy.

Let me be very clear with another brutally obvious example.  Antifa could not exist as an organization; capable to organize and carry out violent attacks against their targets; without the full support of the FBI.   If the FBI wanted to arrest members of Antifa, who are actually conducting violence, they could do it easily – with little effort.

It is the absence of any action by the FBI toward Antifa, that tells us the FBI is enabling that violent extremist behavior to continue.  Once you accept that transparent point of truth; then, you realize the FBI definition of domestic violent extremism is something else entirely.

The FBI is not a law enforcement or investigative division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  The FBI is a political weapon of a larger institution that is now focused almost entirely toward  supporting a radical communist agenda to destroy civil society in the United States.

There's much more at the link.

It's a truly devastating article, amassing evidence of wrongdoing that's overwhelming in its cumulative damnation of the agency.  I can't possibly reproduce it all here, so I recommend very strongly that you click over to his place and read the whole thing for yourself.

If anyone still needed to be warned not to talk to any Federal law enforcement officer or agency unless in the presence of your lawyer, and with a recorder running, consider this that warning.  Remember, too, that making a false statement - deliberately or inadvertently - to a federal officer is itself a federal offence that can get you up to five years behind bars.  That's why you need your lawyer present, to analyze the questions asked and prevent you from saying something that might be interpreted as misleading or false, even if you didn't mean it that way.

Furthermore, considering their overwhelming presence at last Saturday's "demonstration" in Washington D.C., where police and federal agents appeared to outnumber the demonstrators, you should take it as given that if anyone - or any group - suggests, encourages or proposes anti-government action, the odds are very good indeed that they're federal agents provocateurs.  That applies particularly if they look like this, as photographed at that demonstration and memed by our friend Lawdog:

Kinda obvious, aren't they?

If Sundance is right, I guess "draining the swamp" in Washington D.C. is going to have to include abolishing the FBI as a whole, and probably much of the Justice Department with it.  The rot appears to have set in very deeply there.

Peter

The COVID-19 lies are falling apart before our eyes

 

There's been so much lying, scare-mongering and general propaganda surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic that it's very hard to get to the truth - or, rather, it's been hard until recently.  Inevitably, lies are exposed and liars are found out.  That's happening in an ever-growing cascade right now.  In this post, I'm going to put together a few things to illustrate that point.

To begin with, let's take the massive propaganda campaign against the use of Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.  You've doubtless seen the jokes, memes and official scorn about people treating the disease with "sheep medicine" or "deworming medicine", and claims that Ivermectin can't possibly be of any use against the pandemic.  (The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with a population of well over 200 million, would beg to differ - and that's just one of many success stories.)

To begin with, Ivermectin was developed to deal with parasite infestations, including river blindness (endemic in Africa), scabies, parasitic elephantiasis (also common in parts of Africa), and so on.  It was developed for human use, and later applied to animal use as well.  So successful was it that, as Wikipedia points out:

William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its discovery and applications. The medication is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, and is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an antiparasitic agent.

A Nobel Prize for its discovery?  Designated by the top medical and health organization in the entire world as an "essential medicine"?  Doesn't that sound like just a little bit more than "sheep medicine" or "worm medicine"?  It should!  In Africa, where Ivermectin is available over-the-counter in most countries, it's regarded as a miracle medication.  Nothing else has been so effective in reducing river blindness and other parasite-related infections.  Similarly, hydroxychoroquine is a commonly used prophylactic medication against malaria, which is endemic in Africa.  I used to take hydroxy on a daily basis for months at a time while I was in malaria-infested areas.  Like Ivermectin, it was an over-the-counter medicine that cost pennies per tablet.  It still is, in Africa.

(Ever wondered why African nations are reporting COVID-19 infections at a rate 4-5 times lower than other parts of the world?  I suspect it's because so many Africans are already taking Ivermectin and/or hydroxychloroquine to treat other medical issues that COVID-19 finds the continent a hostile environment.  It can't get established, because so many people are already taking medications that inhibit it.  That's my theory, anyway.)

Note, too, the propaganda scare tactics about Ivermectin "poisoning" that have been appearing across US news media.  The Desert Review has an excellent article on the subject.  Here's an excerpt.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

The lesson is not about Ivermectin being poisonous because it isn't, but about the pervasiveness of a type of new internet propaganda termed "informational flooding.”

. . .

Are you kidding me? Nine telephone calls are enough to make the news? We have 2,213 deaths on August 26 from COVID-19, but these nine telephone calls are enough to make the headlines?

We have a media blackout on how India used cheap Ivermectin to obliterate the Delta variant while we struggle unsuccessfully to sell the public on problematic yet profitable vaccines. 

 https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/indias-ivermectin-blackout

. . .

Suddenly we see hundreds of articles on so-called "Ivermectin poisoning.” Indeed, we see more ARTICLES published than there were TELEPHONE CALLS in August on Ivermectin to poison control centers in the ENTIRE NATION.

. . .

Rolling Stone Magazine published an interview with an Oklahoma osteopathic physician, Dr. Jason McElyea, who claimed that Northeastern Hospital System’s emergency departments were overrun with so many Ivermectin overdoses that gunshot victims were having difficulty getting treatment. Dr. McElyea stated,

“The ERs are so backed up that gunshots victims were having a hard time getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated.”

Multiple networks repeated the story, and it went viral ... But the report turned out to be false.

Rolling Stone was forced to publish a retraction of sorts, a correction to their report, wherein they stated the truth of the matter was the opposite ... . Northeastern Hospital System Sequoyah informed them that Dr. Jason McElyea, although affiliated with them, had not worked in the Sallisaw location in the last two months.

Furthermore, in a statement issued September 5, 2021, Northeastern Hospital System Sequoyah reported that no patients had been treated for Ivermectin overdose. Indeed no patients were treated for any complications of taking Ivermectin - and no gunshot wound patients or otherwise had been turned away from seeking emergency care.

It was all untrue. We were all lied to.

There's more at the link.

Please note, I'm not denying that COVID-19 is real, or that it's a health risk.  It's both.  I've so far had two bouts with COVID-19, and neither was fun . . . but I had medication (including both Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine) to deal with it, and they worked as advertised, and I recovered without needing hospitalization or advanced care.  (That's despite being in several high-risk brackets, including age, respiratory impairment, weight and others.)  I have both medications in my medicine cabinet right now, and I'll use them again if I get another dose.  I have no doubts about their effectiveness.

However, I have HUGE doubts about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines on offer.  So does the FDA.  In a mammoth eight-hour virtual meeting last week, the agency analyzed data about the vaccines' effect on patients, and came to some truly horrifying conclusions.  Aesop has listened to the recording of the meeting (which you'll find here), and highlights these points.

This was an FDA livestream of an open virtual meeting their own officials and medical professionals, along with multiple other outside parties, from yesterday. This is a US Government-sponsored meeting:

"Herd immunity using the vaccine is impossible." 4:15:00ff

"The vaccine caused 71x more heart attacks in the vaccinated than any other vaccine." 4:20:00ff

"...vaccines, boosters, and mandates are all nonsensical." 4:21:00

"We killed two people to save one life." 4:21:30

"[The number of deaths per million doses administered - 411:1M] translates into about 150,000 people have died (from receiving the vaccine in just the U.S.)." 4:21:50ff

"The real numbers confirm that we kill more than we save." 4:22:00ff

"In the most optimistic study (for 90-year-olds) it means 50% of the vaccinated died, and 0% of the unvaccinated died." 4:22:20

Most of that was from the presentation of Steve Kirsch, Exec. Director of COVID Early Treatment Fund.

This guy is throwing hand grenades out with the pins pulled, every 5 seconds, the kind of headlines that would get a newsreader from BFEgypt a featured position at 60 Minutes.

Presenter after presenter beat the vaxx pimps over and over about the dearth of proper testing protocols, and utter lack of actual scientific data for any of the claims to date made by them and TPTB.

The entire meeting left the reservation, and stayed there.

There's more at the link, and in the recording of the eight-hour-long discussion.

Let's repeat Aesop's emphasis.  That was an official US government meeting, of an official US government agency, considering official US government statistics about the effectiveness (or otherwise) of COVID-19 vaccines.  Their conclusions were - to put it mildly - catastrophic.

In a comment to a follow-up post, Aesop notes:

At the linked section in the previous post, one of the presenters noted the ratio of deaths to vaccinations was 411:1M.

He goes on to state that would equate to 150K dead from the vaccines.

The US has done 383.5M vaccinations. X 411 = 157,618 deaths.

. . .

And yes, the VAERS reports tally 15K deaths.

And multiple statisticians have pointed out that probably only 1 adverse event in 10 is reported, even deaths.

Which gets us right back to 150K deaths.

What's breathtaking is that there is absolutely NO interest or curiosity in investigating to nail the number down: not officially, not journalistically, not medically.

No one wants to look, because they're afraid of what they might find. Or worse, they already know.

53 vaccine deaths in the '1970s got the Swine Flu vaccine pulled forever.

15,000, or 150,000 deaths now, and no one even wants to look.

This isn't simple bureaucratic inertia or laziness, it's studied indifference to reality.

But it explains why Israel's COVID deaths spiked concurrently with vaccinations, and why ours peaked starting last December, just as we were beginning to vaccinate people here.

You can only look the other way from Mt. Everest for so long, before it becomes too big to not notice.

Carl Bussjaeger highlights another scary figure from that FDA meeting.

Myocarditis affected 1 in 1,000 who took the vaccine.

1 in 1,000

Myocarditis in itself can be lethal. It can lead to cardiomyopathy which is deadly. According to a retired RN, the only “cure” is a heart transplant. According to MDs, the five-year morbidity rate for cardiomyopathy is 66% to 77%.

One in a thousand. In the United States. Globally, the annual myocarditis incidence rate is 1.5 in 100,000. The pseudo-vaxxed are 100 times more likely to experience this than the non-vaxxed.

. . .

I finally found the number of Pfizer doses administered.

218,872,070, as of September 16, 2021. The good slightly less worse news is that isn’t 218,872,070 individuals; mostly that appears to be people who got both jabs. But it’s a minimum of 109,436,035 individuals who got at least one (fairly close to my earlier guesstimate). We’re still looking at the potential need for 10,000 more transplant hearts.

I think we’re gonna need Nivenesque organ banks, stocked with serial speeding ticket offenders.

Again, more at the link.  Since I suffer from a form of cardiomyopathy myself, and am much more intimately familiar with the disease than I'd prefer, I can confirm his comments about its dangers.

I'm sure China, which presented us - one way or another - with the COVID-19 virus in the first place, will be delighted to sell us the human hearts we need to transplant into those ten thousand-odd patients.  After all, they have a long tradition of harvesting organs from executed prisoners to sell to Westerners desperate for replacements . . . and they have all those millions of Uighurs in "re-education camps", just waiting to be exploited.

Another data point:  when the vaccines were tested, there was a vaccinated group of volunteers, and a "control group" who were injected with something innocuous (usually saline solution) rather than the vaccine.  The idea was (as always in such medical studies) to compare one group against the other to assess the efficacy of the vaccines, not just short-term, but long-term as well.  However, the control group were later offered the vaccine, thus wiping out any possibility of testing the vaccine against a known factor.

Dr. Steven Goodman, a clinical trials specialist at Stanford University, says losing those control groups makes it more difficult to answer some important questions about COVID-19 vaccines.

"We don't know how long protections lasts," he says. "We don't know efficacy against variants — for which we definitely need a good control arm — and we also don't know if there are any differences in any of these parameters by age or race or infirmity."

More at the link.

To sum up:  I don't think we should have any faith in official propaganda pressuring us to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or accept "booster shots".  I think the growing body of evidence outlined above suggests very strongly that the risk of adverse side-effects is far greater than official pronouncements will admit.  Yes, the vaccines may provide benefits to a great many people . . . but how do you know that you won't be one of the many people to suffer an adverse reaction?  If the odds of such a reaction were very low - as they are with most other vaccinations - then I think most of us would accept them as worthwhile.  When they're as high as the FDA has just admitted . . . not so much.

I emphasize that none of the evidence provided above is "conspiracy theory" crackpot nonsense.  It comes from the FDA and reputable medical and other sources.

Do your own research (follow the links above for a good start), draw your own conclusions, make up your own mind, and proceed accordingly.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 76

 

Gathered from hither and yon over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

(Car 54)

More next week.

Peter

Sunday morning music

 

Here are some pieces to drive the sleep from your eyes and wake you up properly this Sunday morning.  They're bagpipe renditions (with frequent collaboration from other instruments) of well-known tunes, plus one that's new to me.  A "pop bagpiper" calling herself The Snake Charmer, an Indian lady who taught herself to play the pipes, has an extensive collection of them on her YouTube channel.  She says of herself:

My name is Archy J, i play the Bagpipes, im from India.

Awarded by the President of India as  "India's First Professional Female Bagpiper". I am a self taught musician and hence do not play by any rules ;)

Everything you did not know or see a Bagpipe could do, is here on my channel. I make unique versions of popular songs, movie themes, anime openings, metal songs on the Bagpipes. I play an electronic Bagpipe to be able to transcend over different genres of music & has much less limitations.

Being self taught was one of the toughest thing to do for me, as i didnt have a teacher here but my determination and passion for this instrument sailed me through the impossible.

This is the only "JOB" i do, and i rely on music for my income. So if you'd like to support me please try to buy my songs from iTunes, Google play or Stream it on Spotify.

If you want to get a little more personal with my career, please support me on Patreon -https://www.patreon.com/thesnakecharmer

First, here's a medley of "Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys, and "Enter Sandman" by Metallica.

Next, on bagpipe and cello, one of the theme songs from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.

Here's the 1980's dystopian hit, "The Final Countdown".

And, to conclude, here's a real foot-tapper:  a blend of Irish and Punjabi music, with a little rap thrown in.  Weird, but fun!

You'll find plenty more on The Snake Charmer's YouTube channel.  Her music is also available on Amazon, or through the channels she mentions above.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: Tactically correct love in a combat zone!

 

My wife's latest novel, "Blood, Oil and Love", has just been published.

It's the second in a trilogy that began last year with "Going Ballistic", and will conclude with the publication next month of the third and final book.

I'm really proud of her.  Her first two books, "Scaling the Rim" and "Shattered Under Midnight", were a little tentative:  not bad at all, but short, feeling her way into expressing herself in fiction (rather as I did in my first two books, "Take The Star Road" and "Ride The Rising Tide".  Her third novel, "Going Ballistic", really took off.  It's got plenty of excellent reviews, proving that she can write with broad appeal.  I expect this new book, and the one next month, will be just as successful.

Dorothy writes either in a genre she appears to have invented herself, or has found a niche in an established genre that few others appear to be filling.  I'd call it "tactically correct romances".  Don't let the "romance" fool you:  she's writing about what happens when the right woman meets the right man in a combat situation.  They're hard-edged and very realistic, rather than the usual soppy romance novels one encounters.  Put it this way - we have a number of combat veterans (including yours truly) in our informal North Texas Writers, Shooters and Pilots Association.  All of us enjoy Dorothy's books, and find nothing unmanly or un-combat-veteranly in enjoying a "tactical romance".  They're a lot of fun.

I've enjoyed Dorothy's creative writing process, because she treats me as her first-line subject matter expert when it comes to the nitty-gritty.  (I can't imagine why.)  We also have other experts like Lawdog, Old NFO and others, who've all "been there and done that" on more than one occasion.  When she writes an action sequence and distributes it for comment, boy, does she get comments!  Everyone who's ever done anything vaguely resembling the action in question chimes in with suggestions, advice, "No s*** - there I was" stories, and all the rest.  She enjoys it, and incorporates our responses into her own storyline.  I think the result is outstandingly realistic.

Without further ado, let me throw at you one of the action scenes from "Blood, Love and Oil".  Enjoy!

The Fed plane felt like a hawk about to stoop, circling noisily overhead as they ran like flushed prey beneath it. The sound of its engines hit Lizzes right between the shoulder blades, and she fought not to hunch over so much it affected her speed, nor to look up at it instead of where she needed to keep her attention focused, on where next to put each foot. They’d crossed two creeks, and were working their way out of the trees into the grassland when Mikey fell back next to her.

“What is he waiting for?” She didn’t have to point skyward to explain the question.

“He’s guiding troop transports in.” Mikey paced alongside her, providing a steady, solid presence at her right shoulder. If she could somehow ignore the screaming noise above and the burning exhaustion and chemical energy warring in muscle and bone, she could almost pretend this was one of Twitch’s too-early morning runs at some random crazy place he’d found.

But this wasn’t the empire, and Mikey wasn’t the man she desperately wanted here instead. And the end of this run wasn’t going to be a picnic lunch over the lake or a tiny hole-in-the-wall noodle joint, it was going to be… something bad, but her imagination failed her. Memory only came up with chilling silences in conversation, significant looks that were never explained, and the gory scenes in horror sensies that nobody believed were true. “And when they get here?” she asked.

“If our rendezvous gets here first, no factor. If not, when they get here, we’re going to be in a firefight. This time, don’t stop to shoot back. You need to get off the X, to zig-zag so you’re a harder target to hit. Just keep running. Don’t stop.” His voice dropped, and got harder, commanding. “No matter what else happens, don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” She nodded, and he picked up his pace and moved forward again. The words were the opening lyrics to a song Twitch loved to play, and the beat matched the pace of her feet hitting the earth, making a pounding rhythm to the earworm echoing inside her skull. If Twitch were here, he’d be singing it aloud, and the more she objected, the more deliberately outrageous and off-key he’d get, bouncing around just out of reach and daring her to put on a burst of speed to smack him.

Thinking of him hurt more than her lungs or her legs did. She wanted desperately to believe they had a plan and would survive this, but this wasn’t the way Mikey had been heading before, and she couldn’t see a way out. The ache in her heart made the world blur with tears, and Lizzes put her head down and concentrated on following the feet in front of her, hoping they wouldn’t notice.

As they made it out into the grasslands, the heat of the late afternoon hit like a hammer, and the sun’s glare off waves of dead grasses bleached bone-white beneath the open, cloudless skies above made her eyes ache. The salt pans ahead were blindingly pure white. Even with the sun behind them, the pans ahead were so bright her sunshades couldn’t totally overcome the glare. The land was far less flat than it looked; the rippling waves of grass blended together and hid rises and dips deep enough to lose sight of the trailbreaker in front. It wasn’t all grass, either; they were running through playas with rings of different vegetation by the lingering levels of rainwater. What seemed a straight-line distance turned into a much longer run, and she could have sworn they were on rising terrain. Which made sense; the same brine-laced water from subterranean salt deposits that fed the Saline river had to flow the other way on the far side of the grasslands, to evaporate and trap the salt at the surface in the pans.

She wondered what it’d be like to be caught out on the pan in a storm, and for a moment, thought she could almost hear the thunder. No, it was more engines inbound – two planes still small by distance, but she recognized the bulkier cargo-style, flying together toward them. For a moment, she wondered if they were the rescue Mikey was running for… and then the swearing around her crushed that hope. She’d never felt as alone as she was now, found by the Feds and left with nowhere to go, and no way out.

Penn finished a truly anatomically impossible string of swears with, “Here they come.”

“Run!” Mikey barked. “Get to the salt flats now!”

The command in his voice got her legs pumping before her brain could catch up. It didn’t make sense; they’d be completely open and exposed. Why weren’t they stopping in the grass where at least they had some concealment? Lizzes concentrated on breathing for maximum oxygen without hyperventilating, and opened up her stride as they started downhill, letting her legs fly. Why didn’t matter; like the Landing Day Ball, all that mattered was she had to trust them, and stay as close as she could, and run. And if she had boots instead of running shoes, well, at least it wasn’t fashionable heels this time.

As they hit the shores of the ancient lake, the grass dwindled to little clumps scattered among cracked earth by loose rocks limned with salt. The troop transports grew larger and louder, screaming toward them. Lizzes wondered if the salt sea was still too muddy under a crust of salt for the Feds to land safely, but when they ran out on it, the dirty salt was firm and hard as concrete underfoot. The strange, acrid tang to the dust kicked up ahead of her burned at her nose and coated her mouth and skin as they continued to run across the dead remains of a sea.

“Think they’ll airdrop ’em?” AJ spoke up, and she realized she hadn’t heard them communicating by tacnet.

Ryan replied. “Saltpan like this? Probably just land ’em. But if not, you’re welcome to take ’em out on the way down. Just remember you’re fighting gravity with ballistic arc and bullet drop; it’s not like micro-g.”

“I’ll leave that to you. I’m used to close quarters combat, or very long-range shots. Midrange with winds in a gravity well… No point wasting ammo.” His lips were pulled back in a grin, for all he was sucking wind to keep up.

Miguel spoke up, and she could hear his own black humor. “It’s all right. They’ll get on the surface sooner or later, and then there’ll be enough for everybody.”

“If you don’t want to leave any for me, I’m okay with that. Really.” She gasped out, and Ryan laughed.

The troop transports roared overhead, and she instinctively cringed. “Where are they going?”

“Setting up for a landing.” She looked over, and found that AJ had switched from having his gun slung over his back, out of the way, to holding it with the barrel pointed out and low, away from her or Ryan. The others, too, had gotten ready. Her stomach was cramping in fear, as her own hands felt all too empty.

As the transport planes turned around to face the team, their engine’s scream seemed curiously doubled, and she saw the pale flash of a face as Penn looked back above her and burst out, “Oh, thank God!”

“What?” Lizzes looked back, and saw another plane coming in, seeming to barely crawl over the mountains and approach at a snail’s pace. As it slowly, ever so slowly got closer, she could make out the much sleeker shape of a Fed ballistic, all out of place. She’d seen them in sensies and once at the airport, all glossy white curves and looking like they were going a million miles an hour even when parked, but a ticket to the exotic destinations all over the globe had always been far outside of a grad student’s budget.

A hand yanked at her upper arm, and she looked over to find AJ pulling her along, his face flushed red with heat and exertion. “Stop looking back! Slows you down!”

“Why is it flying so slowly? They’re going to get us before it gets here.” She panted, words broken as she tried to match his pace.

AJ still had enough breath for a bark of laughter.”Not slow. It’s that big. Go!”

The surveillance plane stopped circling, blasting them with a deafening roar as it started clawing for altitude, trying to go almost straight up, popping bright points of light in a waterfall of smoke like a tail of some strange fireworks strewn out below and behind. The Fed transports were pulling up sharply, too, from where they’d been coming in to land. Mikey stumbled to a halt, breathing raggedly, and she swung around to see what he was staring at. The ballistic’s wings had changed shape, almost like something had fallen off. Before she could ask, she saw flickering lights under each wing.

There was something there… but she couldn’t track it. Two smoke trails streaked across the sky like lightning, too fast for her to see the source, and she’d barely turned her head when there was a… two slams, like when she’d seen a large lorry barreling full speed into a commuter car that had ignored the lights, sudden and shocking at the violence of it. Only this wasn’t a wreck; these were explosions, and the surveillance plane disintegrated in a fireball and billow of smoke. One moment it was there, and the next the only things left were smoke and fire and metal rain showering down.

The transport was less fireball and more… almost comical. An entire wing had come off and was fluttering, gently drifting down like an autumn leaf. As for the rest of the plane, it was spinning like a pencil being sharpened, while tumbling end over end and flopping in the most amazing way. The nose and tail were bending at the break from the missile, almost folding, and things were falling out of the break. She squinted, and recognized, suddenly, the shapes. The knowledge hit her, freezing her in horror. “Oh, God, those are people!”

She didn’t realize she’d said it out loud, but AJ spun and pulled her into a rough hug, turning her away from the sight as the rest of the team formed up around them. Softly, in a voice so guttural she almost didn’t recognize it, he said, “Sooner them than us.”

The third transport had peeled away, running flat out for the hills and safety far away from the ballistic that passed overhead and came back, pitching up, way too far up compared to what she expected, and landed far enough away it was small enough to cover with her thumb. She wondered why they’d have to walk so far, when she realized it was still slowing down, dust cloud billowing up behind it like a farmer’s flatbed on a dirt road, only so much, much bigger. The closer it came, the larger it got, until it was passing close enough she realized each wheel rolling along dwarfed Twitch’s oversized truck. It passed them and started to turn. Her world disappeared in a dust storm whipping at her clothes as she heard the engines get even louder, vibrating her body and bones and compressing her chest even as she coughed and choked on dust.

There was a bruisingly strong grip on her arm, hauling her forward again, and she looked over through squinting, teary eyes to barely make out AJ, ducking and running. Her brain caught up with their feet, realizing their ride was here, and she needed to get the hell on board before the Feds came back. She ran for all she was worth, but her legs were toast. Her quads were burning, quivering, and she felt like she was tangled in that damned ballroom dress again. Worse, like that dress was soaking wet, making each step start with the intention of a running stride and come out as a shuffling stagger.

Strong hands caught her up, then, and she was upended, lifted and slung over a broad set of shoulders. At first she thought it was AJ, but he was next to her, running head down against the wind and dust. And then the feel of their footfalls thudding into salted dirt changed to metallic slam, as they were running up a loading ramp, into the darkness of the airplane’s cargo bay. She couldn’t hear herself think over the roar of the engines, much less anyone else, and wished again she had a tacnet so she could find out what the hell was going on.

I'll stop at that point, so as not to reveal one of the plot's major turning points.  Suffice it to say that it's a tightly written action novel with a twist, that draws you in and keeps you turning the pages.  Highly recommended.

(Yes, of course I'm a biased reviewer.  I'm her husband, dammit!  What did you expect?)

Peter