tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-252552712024-03-19T05:37:59.658-04:00oyvayblogJewish conservative commenting on what makes news each day, and on the stories that catch my fancyOxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.comBlogger9765125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-30968524252914466052024-03-18T13:53:00.000-04:002024-03-18T13:53:22.529-04:00Joshua Namm on Democrat Antipathy Towards IsraelHere's an excerpt from Joshua Namm's Substack column titled <b><a href="https://joshuanamm.substack.com/p/hard-facts-about-tough-love">Hard Facts About "Tough Love";<br />What part of "sovereign nation" do Democrats not understand?</a></b><p></p><p><span>"One of the most frustrating aspects of Joe Biden’s Israel
rhetoric, continually regurgitated by his administration, has been <b>the
effort to cartoonishly portray Benjamin Netanyahu, and not Hamas, as the
villain in Israel’s war in Gaza</b>. A key element of that propagandistic
fantasy is that the Israeli people do not support Netanyahu, or his
policies, and that that he alone, not Israel’s three-member war cabinet,
is the sole decision maker. </span><br /><br /><span>"The administration,
media, and other Democrats have dutifully behaved in every way possible
to attempt to portray the propaganda as truth. For ridiculously
hyperbolic media headlines on the subject, you can go </span><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-biden-can-get-tough-netanyahu" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">here</a><span>, </span><a href="https://time.com/6952900/us-israel-gaza-standoff-schumer-netanyahu/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">here</a><span>, and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/13/samantha-power-israel-netanyahu-gaza-international-law-00146790" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">here</a><span>.
Each portrays Israel not as a sovereign nation, and a partner equal to
America (or any other Western nation), but instead as a recalcitrant
child who must be disciplined. The most common, and patronizing, phrase
used to describe this attitude is “</span><a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rjievvpst" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">tough love</a><span>.”
<b> In other words, Israel is a problem child, and not a highly
sophisticated, modern, Western democracy that was savagely attacked</b>.<b> It
is a wayward teen, not the planet’s only Jewish state whose people were
barbarically murdered, raped, and mutilated in a one-day genocide that
represented the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. </b></span><b><s><br /></s></b><br /><span>"One
of the more hypocritical aspects of all of this is the calls from
Democrats for “regime change” in Israel. <b>Late last week, many of us were
shocked by the news that Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, also a
Democrat, not only called for the removal of the democratically elected
Netanyahu government, but also compared Bibi to Hamas itself and to
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. Schumer’s attack included a
fourth prong to his so called “obstacles to peace”: right wing, meaning
mostly observant, Jews. </b></span><br /><br /><span>"<b>So religious Jews, and the
Jewish prime minister of Israel, are equivalent to the terrorists who
carried out the 10/7 attacks, and the leader of Fatah, who would like to
carry out (G-d forbid), another 10/7, and spent much of the first
several decades of his life helping to murder Jews.</b> Schumer also
referred to members of Netanyahu’s cabinet as “bigots” and “extremists.”
Maybe he thought that Jonathan Glazer wasn’t embarrassing us enough and
felt inspired to adopt a similar vibe. In retrospect, this should not
have been that surprising coming from a man who once </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/schumer-roberts-threats-supreme-court/index.html" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">directly threated</a><span>
Justices of the Supreme Court. Fortunately, there are indications that
the strategy backfired, at least in Schumer’s case, as more liberal
Jewish organizations, and some Democrats </span><a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2024/03/schumers-call-for-netanyahus-ouster-meets-chilly-reception-in-pro-israel-community/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">criticized</a><span> the speech.</span><br /><br /><span>"Schumer, like the media, and like lesser Democrats, was echoing Biden’s talking points, many of which </span><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/jonathan-capehart/watch/exclusive-interview-with-president-biden-following-state-of-the-union-address-206036549772" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">were expressed</a><span> during a March 10 MSNBC </span><s>sycophantic fawn-fest</s><span>
interview with human water droplet Jonathan Capehart. For context, this
is the same interview in which El Presidente apologized for calling an
illegal immigrant murderer “illegal,” and claimed that illegal
immigrants “built the country.” (It is truly amazing how many “did I
just read that correctly???” moments this man inspires)</span><br /><br /><span>"He
also bizarrely claimed that he has known Bibi “for fifty years.” They
must have met during Biden’s, a junior senator at the time,
super-secret, and also imaginary, trip to Israel in 1974 (where
twenty-five-year-old Netanyahu was living at the time). <b>More heinously,
he said that “In my view, “(Netanyahu) is hurting Israel more than
helping Israel </b>by making the rest of the world—it’s contrary to what
Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake.” The “it” being
Netanyahu not paying enough “attention to the innocent lives being lost
as a consequence of the actions taken.” </span><br /><br /><span>"The reality: protecting Jewish life is </span><i>exactly</i><span>
what Israel stands for. He is obviously setting up a false dichotomy
with Bibi and the reality of Israel on one side, and the leftist,
fantasy version of Israel on the other. </span><br /><br /><span>"To end things on a low note, Biden once again quoted, as he had during the State of the Union, Hamas’ </span><a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">FALSE</a><span> casualty numbers.</span></p><p><span>.....</span></p><p>"<span>What’s behind their enthusiasm for attempting to meddle in the
internal affairs of another nation? On March 10, an Israel expert </span><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/white-house-exploring-how-to-force-netanyahu-out-report/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">claimed</a><span>
that he had been asked by a “serious administration figure“ about “what
"it is that will force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse.” In what
universe does the democratically elected leader of the world’s largest
democracy seek to topple the government of the Middle East’s only
democracy? Apparently, anything is on the table as a campaign strategy
for an incumbent president who knows that he is in deep trouble and is
trying desperately to please his antisemitic far-left base, while also
simultaneously trying to retain whatever loyalty to the party remains
among pro-Israel Democrat voters and mega-donors.</span></p><p><span>======================</span></p><p>I loathe Biden, Blinken, and now Schumer along with the "Squad" and other Dems, with their anti-Israel,
anti-Netanyahu rhetoric and their demands and insults. So I was glad to
read this excellent article on the subject. Make sure you read the whole thing.</p><p>Let's hope Biden doesn't get re-elected, because he will continue destroying Israel in the process of destroying everything else.<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-35384936926346543542024-03-18T13:21:00.000-04:002024-03-18T13:21:04.190-04:00Julia Doubleday on Long COVID Awareness DayActually, March 15 should have been called Long COVID <u>Denial </u>Day due to all the desperate attempts to downplay the seriousness of this disease.<p>------------------------- <br /></p><p></p><p>Here's Julia Doubleday's March 18 column at The Gauntlet: <a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/media-celebrated-long-covid-awareness"><b>Media celebrated Long COVID Awareness Day by denying its existence; Long COVID is a thorn in the side of "back to normal." Attempts to silence patients are intensifying.<br /></b></a></p><p><span>"Just a week ago, in response to an </span><i>NPR </i><span>piece that framed a disabled man’s existence in an inaccessible society as a burden to those around him, </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/disabled-peoples-exclusion-from-indoor" rel="">I wrote</a><span>:</span></p><blockquote><p>"Long
COVID is the faulty, load-bearing beam in the rickety pandemic denial
superstructure. Were the public to grasp how common and how severe it
is, the entire post-pandemic facade would come crumbling down.</p><p>"Therefore,
as Long COVID patients become louder, as their presence becomes more
undeniable, as their numbers grow, the COVID normalization project must
pivot from attempting to disappear these victims to steadily
stigmatizing them.</p></blockquote><p>"<b>Four days later, on March 15 aka
Long COVID Awareness Day, outlets across the globe chose to elevate an
unpublished, un-peer-reviewed, observational text-message based “study,”
and its absurd claim that Long COVID is nothing new and everyone should
stop talking about it. </b></p>"This
political choice- elevating a single unpublished study which examined a
total of zero patients and ran a total of zero tests- when tens of
thousands of others contradict its findings, is unsurprising. The
political choice to do so on a day intended to draw attention to the
suffering of tens of millions of people is cruel in the extreme. <p>"Long
COVID Awareness Day intended to do just that; create awareness through
organized actions, many of them put on by disabled people struggling
with day-to-day activities. <b>Major media outlets ensured that the top
“Long COVID” results on Google that day would be minimizing,
unscientific propaganda instead of news about activists, their work,
their message, and their illness. </b></p><p><span>"<b>It feels tiresome to
continually relitigate those tens of thousands, if not hundreds of
thousands, of studies demonstrating the existence of post-COVID health
impacts and in particular the cluster of symptoms known as Long COVID</b>. </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-023-01601-2" rel="">Viral persistence</a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8883497/" rel="">microclots in the blood</a><span> and endothelial dysfunction, </span><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7942" rel="">immune system dysregulation</a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240104/Study-identifies-mitochondrial-dysfunction-as-cause-of-long-COVID-fatigue.aspx" rel="">mitochondrial damage</a><span> leading to severe fatigue and exercise intolerance, </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01576-9" rel="">blood-brain barrier disruption</a><span> have all been documented in Long COVID patients. The CDC’s most recent data found that </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/long-covid.htm" rel="">6.8% of Americans are currently suffering from Long COVID</a><span>, or approximately 24 million people. There is no legitimate scientific debate, whatsoever, about whether Long COVID “exists.” </span></p><p>"If
it feels like a waste of time to debate every minimizer and grifter
popping up to proclaim COVID, a novel virus that has killed tens of
millions of people since 2020 in one of the deadliest pandemics in human
history, can’t possibly harm “healthy” people (whatever that means), it
is. It is the same propaganda playbook used by Big Tobacco and Big Oil.
Deny, deny, deny. Get people arguing with you about their very
existence; they won’t have time to argue about their rights. </p><p><span>"While we might expect the </span><i>NYPost </i><span>to
run such propaganda- in their case under the disgusting headline, “On
Long COVID Awareness Day, Remember This: Long COVID is Fake!”, more
respected outlets like </span><i>The Guardian</i><span> ran the same
story with the same message, albeit under the more liberal-friendly
“Time to stop using term ‘long COVID’ as symptoms no worse than those
after flu.” The average person is infected with COVID 5-10 times more
frequently than flu, for the record. So even if post-COVID effects were
comparable to post-flu effects (they aren’t), we’d still have a public
health issue 5-10 times as large, on top of the pre-existing burden of
flu. </span></p><p><span>"None of this is about evidence, papers, studies, charts, or data. If it were, media would splash “</span><a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189" rel="">Long Covid and Impaired Cognition</a><span>”, the self-explanatory title of a recent article in the </span><i>New England Journal of Medicine</i><span>,
across their front pages. Is it not front-page news that a disease
we’ve all been encouraged to repeatedly contract, for the rest of our
lives, causes cognitive damage? Aren’t there some concerning
implications to the scientific finding that people are losing cognitive
ability with every infection, and the entire public is being repeatedly
infected with no end in sight? </span></p><p>"Media outlets, their
corporate owners and their editors have one view of COVID-19: the crisis
is over. Therefore, any evidence that might indicate otherwise is
presented quietly, if at all. Evidence that confirms their pre-conceived
notions- notions which just happen to align with the worldview that all
is well, and our beneficent capitalist overlords are ruling wisely-
will be loud and unavoidable. </p><p>"We see the same phenomenon with
climate reporting, for the same reasons; although there is more coverage
now of the looming catastrophe, it has never been presented with the
urgency merited. The people behind these publications do not understand
the true nature of the climate emergency, because they still believe in
the “meritocracy” they sit atop. To question its doings, to ask aloud if
this system might just kill us all in the end, is to question their own
identity and sense of superiority. In other words, they simply cannot
believe that those in charge could be so stupid and so wrong, to take us
down a path so destructive and so irrational. It’s important to
internalize that those in charge have done so with climate and are doing
so with COVID; there are no adults taking care of us, only oligarchs
squeezing profit from us. </p><p><span>"<b>The dehumanizing debate over the
existence of Long COVID patients assumes, first and foremost, that Long
COVID patients cannot and should not speak to their own experiences.</b> </span><i>The Guardian</i><span>’s
piece does quote a dissenting doctor, toward the end of its article. It
does not quote a single patient living with this disease that they are
once again encouraging people to ignore, dismiss, and doubt. Articles
like these aren’t simply insulting or offensive; they have material
impacts. Every suffering patient going to the ends of the Earth to
convince their family members, friends, and even doctors that yes, they
have a real disease, is set back by these articles. They are materially
and violently harmed by such pieces. </span></p><p><span>"<b>Many people living with Long COVID cohabit with people who do not understand or believe in it</b>; the wife from </span><i>NPR</i><span>’s
article is one relatively benign example. Although she does want to
force her husband to risk lifelong disability to eat in the inside part
of the restaurant, she does at least still mask in many places. She does
not believe Long COVID is “fake,” but also does not seem to fully
internalize the risk of exposure. Other patients deal with angry,
mocking family members who refuse to test or mask at all, who purposely
expose them, who believe they are lying or malingering. Articles like
this reinforce their beliefs and behavior. </span></p><p><span>"Additionally,
such misinformation harms those who do not yet have Long COVID. Most
Long COVID patients will tell you that they did not know that COVID
could leave them long-term ill or disabled when they got sick. Four
years into the crisis, that’s not an oversight. <b>There is a deliberate,
highly successful effort to misinform the public that COVID </b></span><b><i>cannot </i><span>harm
them. President Biden has mentioned the words Long COVID aloud once or
twice. A quick search of his twitter account reveals it has never been
mentioned there. To this administration, the inconvenient victims of
“letting COVID rip” with zero mitigations in place simply do not exist.
The press is doing the necessary ideological and social work of
convincing the public that anyone who claims otherwise is lying or
crazy. </span></b></p><p><b>"It’s hard to think of anything more awful than
attacking people your policies already disabled. But discrediting
victims is the only way to continue to double down on forever COVID
infections. </b></p><p></p><p><span>"If we take a step back- back from the years of blinding,
top-down propaganda, back from the inane questions, back from the social
denial- the absurd basis of the entire push to disappear Long COVID
patients is the idea that a dangerous virus cannot hurt anybody. That
instead of listening to all the millions of patients who’ve been harmed
and are trying to warn us, we should listen to a handful of prominent
minimizers who </span><i>want you infected</i><span>. That is what the
press, in a thousand different ways, with a thousand different tactics,
continually tries to impress upon the public. </span><i>COVID won’t hurt you</i><span>. If it hurt someone else, it’s </span><i>because they’re unlucky, bad, lying, or insane.</i><span>
The political purpose of this is to encourage you to risk COVID, again
and again and again. It is a comforting fantasy; stripping away the
years of unscientific reporting, you should be able to see it for what
it is: a complete absurdity.</span></p><p><b><span>"Never in the history of
public health have citizens been encouraged to contract and spread
disease. Never in the history of viral illnesses, outside of anti-vaxxer
spaces, have people been encouraged to believe that pathogens improve
the immune system (they don’t!). Never in the history of humanity have
societies welcomed disease and disease spread as a good or neutral
event. These outlets are brainwashing you not only to accept COVID, but
to accept that </span><i>nothing can be done about it,</i><span> and
that those who want something to be done about it are bad and crazy.
They are brainwashing you, in fact, to accept and embrace COVID; why
else are those wearing masks treated as freaks for wanting to avoid it? </span></b></p><p><span>"To pretend COVID- like any other disease- cannot be mitigated- is bizarre, unscientific, defeatist logic, and it is, in fact, </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/learning-to-live-with-covid-means" rel="">a lie</a><span>!
We have the technology to drastically reduce airborne disease spread;
we are choosing not to use it because it requires spending money on the
public. After several years of strange, upside-down world messaging in
favor of reinfections, people are siding with a fantasy over the shouts
of the many harmed, and siding with COVID over their own health."</span><b></b></p><p><b>-------------------</b></p><p>If only more people thought the way she does! Instead we have to deal with the "COVID is over", "Long Covid is just another respiratory illness", "Let's just move on" mentality.</p><p>Pass this column on, and make sure you subscribe to this great newsletter as well so that you're always well-informed.<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-72547231902138356622024-03-17T14:19:00.000-04:002024-03-17T14:19:13.882-04:00Dr Ruth's COVID news & more newsletter for 3/16/24<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpvKDR5sGHvVcXND8oNo5ItLT7Lu1k3C7aUD7xLSNEBbHoMeNGz7zdExDW_x7BhURAbdDX0paDZQB4Ldps1CSglSirLqORqgG3iRTPeLGyBgzHX1d-Lg0Q-y1JXU5KHAZMNbYSbfq3DuZAQkwnuO0ufKZ3uVpCIWdKbDZy99KkJBvjgHyH1LM/s1600/Acute%20COVID-19%20consequences.%20Dr%20Ruth%203-16-24.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1339" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpvKDR5sGHvVcXND8oNo5ItLT7Lu1k3C7aUD7xLSNEBbHoMeNGz7zdExDW_x7BhURAbdDX0paDZQB4Ldps1CSglSirLqORqgG3iRTPeLGyBgzHX1d-Lg0Q-y1JXU5KHAZMNbYSbfq3DuZAQkwnuO0ufKZ3uVpCIWdKbDZy99KkJBvjgHyH1LM/w335-h400/Acute%20COVID-19%20consequences.%20Dr%20Ruth%203-16-24.webp" width="335" /></a></div>Here are some excerpts from <b><a href="https://drruth.substack.com/p/covid-news-and-more-31624">the newsletter of the dependable Dr Ruth Ann Crystal</a>:</b><p></p><p>"This week, March 11 marked four years since the WHO declared a global
pandemic for COVID. Remember the run on toilet paper and cleaning
supplies? We have come a long way since then, but COVID is still a
serious disease. </p><p>"<a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" rel="">JN.1</a><span> and its descendants still make up most COVID cases now. </span><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/index.html#datatracker-home" rel="">Emergency department</a><span> visits are down more than 21% this week and </span><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/index.html#datatracker-home" rel="">hospitalizations</a><span>
are down 13.6% from the week prior. The CDC’s wastewater monitoring
shows that the entire United States is down to a “MODERATE” level of
wastewater SARS-CoV-2 virus now. We see from Sara Anne Willette’s
analysis that </span><a href="https://iowacovid19tracker.org/" rel="">Tennessee</a><span>’s wastewater SARS-CoV-2 levels are extremely high, followed by high levels in </span><a href="https://iowacovid19tracker.org/" rel="">Kansas, Virginia and Georgia</a><span>. Here in the Bay Area, levels have come down in most places to a moderate level.</span></p><p><span>"According
to JP Weiland’s March 15th update, COVID infections continue to
decrease significantly to “Medium” levels in most places and he
calculates that about </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1768774655542767937" rel="">1 in every 77</a><span> people is currently infected reflecting </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1768774655542767937" rel="">430,000 new COVID infections</a><span> each day in the United States. </span></p><p><b>Variants</b></p><p><span>"New variant </span><a href="https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/cdc-tracking-ba2871-sars-cov-2-variant" rel="">BA.2.87.1</a><span>
was found in South Africa and Asia, but it does not have the ability to
outcompete dominant variant JN.1. In the future, it may or may not pick
up mutations, but for now it does not appear to be a threat. </span></p><p><span>"There is a new variant called </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1768774655542767937" rel="">KP.2</a><span>
that is JN.1 with an additional “FLiRT” (F456L and R346T) mutation in
its spike protein that is growing exponentially in some places.
According to Mike Honey, “Globally, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Mike_Honey_/status/1767138269622644835" rel="">KP.2 is showing a very strong growth advantage of 14% per day (101% per week)” over JN.1</a><span>
and other Pirola (BA.2.86) descendants. He predicts that KP.2 could
take over as the dominant variant sometime in late March. I am
interested to see if the 2023-2024 XBB.1.5 vaccine will protect against
KP.2 as it does against JN.1. Some seniors are waiting to get their next
booster of the XBB.1.5 COVID vaccine, but it may be wise to get the
booster sooner </span><i>if</i><span> future studies show that it protects against KP.2.</span></p><p><span>"JP Weiland posted yesterday regarding the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1768785704513905147" rel="">evolution of mutations in SARS-CoV-2 variants</a><span>.
He said “What we've seen over the past 2 years is an evolutionary
pattern of big saltations (a new variant appears with many new mutations
all at once) , then a lot of quick convergent evolution to optimize the
new variant. I can't think of another virus that has a similar trend.
Usually they have stepwise mutations.”</span></p><p><span></span></p><p><b>Acute COVID infections, General COVID info</b></p><p><span>"With
the fourth anniversary of COVID being announced as a global pandemic,
some authors have written summary articles of what we have learned over
the last 4 years of the COVID pandemic. In a post titled </span><a href="https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-4-years-on" rel="">“Covid, 4 years on”</a><span>,
Eric Topol MD looked at partisan gaps in COVID death rates, the
evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the fact that vaccines protect
not only against COVID infections, but also against blood clots, heart
attacks, heart failure and strokes in the post-acute phase of the
disease (see below). He also reflected on his disappointment with the
CDC's March 1st recommendations that tell COVID positive people that
they can return to work if they have no fever and have improving
symptoms. I wholeheartedly agree that it makes no sense for people with
COVID to return to work before they are negative on a rapid antigen
test.</span></p><p><span>"COVID infection is known to increase the risk
of heart attack, strokes, blood clots and other cardiovascular
complications acutely and in the long term. Looking at 10 million
vaccinated people vs. 10 million unvaccinated people from the UK, Spain,
Estonia, </span><a href="https://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2024/01/24/heartjnl-2023-323483" rel="">vaccination
was found to significantly reduce (by 45–81% in the acute phase and
24-58% in the post-acute phase) the risk of blood clots and cardiac
events including heart attack, heart failure and stroke</a><span>. “If
you are vaccinated, your risk of having post-Covid cardiovascular and
thromboembolic complications is reduced quite dramatically,”
Prieto-Alhambra said.</span></p><p><span></span></p><p><span>"Yesterday, March 15th, was Long COVID Awareness Day. People
from the Long COVID community posted photos of themselves before and
after they got Long COVID. In Australia, people with Long COVID had a </span><a href="https://twitter.com/MiquetteAbercr2/status/1768485459569868949" rel="">Long COVID Awareness lay down in front of Parliament House</a><span> in Melbourne. People gathered together in many other countries as well. The </span><a href="https://twitter.com/TourCNTower/status/1768623709160362085" rel="">CN Tower</a><span> in Canada and the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/inverclyde/status/1768639597662150666" rel="">Shipbuilders of Port Glasgow sculptures</a><span> in Scotland were lit with </span><a href="https://www.longcovidawareness.life/" rel="">teal, gray and black representing Long COVID’s ribbon</a><span>.
In the tricolored Long COVID ribbon, teal represents hope and support,
gray represents loss and grief, and black loneliness and isolation. </span></p><p><span>"In honor of Long COVID Awareness Day, the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1768715314517119259" rel="">CDC posted a message</a><span>
with a photo of able bodied people standing and hugging on a beach
looking at the sun with their backs turned to the viewer. Some Long
COVID folks on Twitter said that the picture reflected the CDC turning
their backs on people with Long COVID. They also commented that people
with Long COVID are not represented by this stock photo as they are at
home in bed, too weak to walk on a sandy beach and they wear eye masks
because light from the sun hurts their eyes and heads.</span></p><p>"<span>On Long COVID Awareness Day, </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-15/long-covid-symptoms-queensland-chief-health-officer-john-gerrard/103587836?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=twitter" rel="">Queensland, Australia’s Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said that the term "Long COVID" is harmful</a><span> and that long term post-COVID viral symptoms are no different than the flu and other respiratory illnesses."</span></p><p><span>------------------------</span></p><p><span>These Long COVID-deniers make me so angry! The term "Long COVID" isn't harmful -- it's the disease of Long COVID that <u>is</u>! </span></p><p><span>I can remember when these LC sufferers, looking for support online early in the pandemic, referred to themselves as Long Haulers and tried to make sense of their symptoms, since they were not believed by doctors. Here it is, 4 years later, and they are still not believed.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-84524889396453709432024-03-17T14:02:00.004-04:002024-03-17T14:02:35.773-04:00Why Doesn't the U.S. Ever Talk About Hamas Like This?From <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/news/galus/schumers-rabbi-rachel-demands-israelis-dump-netanyahu-or-face-the-consequences/2024/03/17/">JewishPress.com</a>: <b>Schumer’s Rabbi Rachel Demands Israelis Dump Netanyahu or Face the Consequences</b><p>"Rachel Timoner, the clergy at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, where Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spends Yom Kippur and
where his daughter got married, on Saturday told <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/16/chuck-schumer-rabbi-israel-remarks-00147416" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Politico</a> that 'In this speech, he said what most of us think.'</p>
<p>"She was referring to the Senate Majority Leader’s call on Israel to
go to new elections ASAP so that they and the Biden administration can
finally rid themselves of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."</p><p>------ <br /></p><p>This is just disgraceful. </p><p>We always used to say that Israel was surrounded by enemies. We meant the Middle East. Now, unfortunately, those enemies include the United States.<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-73921894556805532152024-03-16T15:35:00.000-04:002024-03-16T15:35:11.281-04:00The Next Pandemic? We're Less Ready NOW!We're "less ready" NOW Just look at the immediate negative response to the measles, where so-called doctors like Florida's Ladapo tell kids to go to school sick; where illegal aliens are spreading the disease -- and probably other diseases -- in our country; where vaccination is still a dirty word. Ignorant people who refuse to trust the science are making all contagious diseases even worse, and if we have an even more deadly pandemic that COVID, all bets are off.<br /><p>From Axios:<b> <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/16/covid-political-vaccine-skepticism-misinformation">COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic. </a></b></p><div class="DraftjsBlocks_draftjs__fm3S2"><span data-schema="smart-brevity"><p>"<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/covid-pandemic-march-11" data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="Four years" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/covid-pandemic-march-11" target="_self">Four years</a>
after COVID-19 emerged, the U.S. in many ways is far less ready for the
next major viral threat, despite the pandemic era's significant
scientific advances.</p><p><b>"Why it matters: </b>Key weaknesses in the country's <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/04/25/covid-response-national-incompetence-commission" data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="COVID response" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/04/25/covid-response-national-incompetence-commission" target="_self">COVID response</a>
have only become more glaring, including the politicization of public
health, an understaffed health care workforce and a growing hostility to
science.</p></span><p><b>"The big picture: </b>Experts say it's a matter of when, not if, the world will face another pandemic, and the next one could make the last look mild.</p><ul><li>The U.S. was caught flat-footed by the arrival of the coronavirus in early 2020 and was hit <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html#:~:text=U.S.%20Has%20Far%20Higher%20Covid%20Death%20Rate%20Than%20Other%20Wealthy%20Countries,-By%20Benjamin%20Mueller&text=Two%20years%20into%20the%20pandemic,next%20stages%20of%20the%20pandemic." data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="much harder" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html#:~:text=U.S.%20Has%20Far%20Higher%20Covid%20Death%20Rate%20Than%20Other%20Wealthy%20Countries,-By%20Benjamin%20Mueller&text=Two%20years%20into%20the%20pandemic,next%20stages%20of%20the%20pandemic." target="_blank">much harder</a> than other developed nations.</li><li>The intense backlash against the muddled U.S. response contributed to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/07/trust-in-cdc-public-health-agencies" data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="eroded trust in public health" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/07/trust-in-cdc-public-health-agencies" target="_self">eroded trust in public health</a>, setting back preparedness efforts in important areas.</li><li>In
a "big picture" way, the U.S. is "less prepared, because so much of
this comes down to political will, public trust — public trust in
government institutions, public trust in the media, public trust in one
another," said Céline Gounder, a senior fellow at health policy
nonprofit KFF.</li></ul><p><b>"Yes, but: </b>The country's
early struggles with tracking the virus, testing and supply chains,
along with the rapid development of vaccines through <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/14/covid-vaccines-operation-warp-speed-biden-kessler" data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="Operation Warp Speed" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/14/covid-vaccines-operation-warp-speed-biden-kessler" target="_self">Operation Warp Speed</a>,
yielded important lessons that ultimately have left the U.S. better
off, said former Biden administration COVID response coordinator Ashish
Jha.</p><ul><li>"Right now, if we got a novel agent arriving on our
shores tomorrow, we could probably pretty rapidly figure out where is it
spreading, where is it not," he said, adding that the inability to
track COVID was a major reason for harsher measures like stay-at-home
orders.</li><li>"If you think about medical countermeasures, surveillance, we're clearly in better shape," Jha said.</li></ul><p><b>"The rise of nongovernmental data surveillance efforts </b>also<b> </b>represented
a monumental change in how public health data is handled, and the ease
of at-home testing enabled people to take charge of their own health,
said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University
School of Public Health.</p><ul><li>"We have seen how individuals can take action to protect ourselves," Nuzzo told Axios. "It's not just a matter of government."</li></ul><span data-ad-status="AD" data-ad-type="midStoryAd"><div class="gtmView" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_331="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_333="3456" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_335="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_338="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_344="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_346="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_348="3456" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_350="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_352="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_354="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_356="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_358="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_360="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_362="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_364="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_366="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_378="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_37="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_447="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_454="3310" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_331="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_333="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_335="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_338="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_344="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_346="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_348="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_350="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_352="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_354="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_356="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_358="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_360="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_362="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_364="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_366="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_378="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_37="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_447="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_454="1" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_331="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_333="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_335="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_338="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_344="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_346="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_348="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_350="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_352="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_354="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_356="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_358="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_360="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_362="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_364="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_366="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_378="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_37="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_447="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_454="1000" data-vars-category="cta" data-vars-experiment-variant="ad" data-vars-experiment="mid_story_ad" data-vars-label="cta/view/mid_story_ad/ad"><div class="mt-6 mb-6"><div class="gtmView midStoryAd" data-cy="mid-story-ad" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_331="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_333="3456" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_335="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_338="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_344="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_346="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_348="3456" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_350="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_352="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_354="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_356="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_358="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_360="3473" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_362="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_364="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_366="3458" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_378="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_37="3457" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_447="3459" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_454="3310" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_331="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_333="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_335="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_338="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_344="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_346="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_348="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_350="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_352="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_354="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_356="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_358="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_360="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_362="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_364="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_366="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_378="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_37="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_447="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_454="1" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_331="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_333="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_335="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_338="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_344="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_346="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_348="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_350="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_352="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_354="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_356="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_358="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_360="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_362="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_364="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_366="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_378="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_37="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_447="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_454="1000" data-vars-category="ad" data-vars-sub-category="mid_story"><div class="adunitContainer"><div class="adBox" data-google-query-id="CL3rqNbA-YQDFQ0jswAdANIHVg" id="adSlot-1"><div id="google_ads_iframe_227892952/axios-new-site_1__container__" style="border: 0pt; display: inline-block; height: auto; width: 100%;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></span><p><b>"Still, the public health force is dangerously depleted</b> and burnt out, and growing anti-vaccine sentiment could undercut a key tool for curbing the next pandemic. </p><p><b>"Threat level: </b><b>Resistance
to COVID measures has made it more likely a large segment of the
population will ignore public health recommendations. </b></p><ul><li>It also spurred GOP-led states to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/10/18/32-states-limit-public-health-powers-covid" data-vars-content-id="36026aa0-4b40-4759-920e-a492208c9b64" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="COVID backlash could leave the U.S. less ready for the next pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="curtail public health authorities" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/10/18/32-states-limit-public-health-powers-covid" target="_self">curtail public health authorities</a> in a way that could hamstring future responses.</li><li>"If
you look at some of the revisionist history that's taking hold right
now, in a bipartisan way honestly, it seems the new consensus is we did
too much to protect the elderly and immunocompromised, and I don't know
if we'll have the political will to do that next time around," Gounder
said.</li></ul><p><b>"Though the pandemic-weary public</b> <b>has
long since moved on from COVID</b>, public health experts worry that the
country still hasn't fully grappled with why the U.S. response faltered
despite its many advantages — and how to prevent that from happening
next time.</p><ul><li>"There needs to be an accounting, and audit of the response, because some of it is potentially easily fixable," Nuzzo said.</li></ul></div><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-77295084675433388442024-03-16T15:17:00.002-04:002024-03-16T15:17:59.310-04:00Why Don't You Have Him Stand in The Corner?It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to read the latest news about Biden's Insulting treatment of Israel, because it's so infuriating.<p>Here's the latest example:</p><h4 data-test-locator="headline" id="caas-lead-header-41fbb51d-ae6b-36b9-8a0d-603b2fc0ba7e" style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/amid-deepening-tensions-white-house-130000547.html"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amid deepening tensions, White House weighs how to respond if Israel defies Biden with Rafah invasion</span></a></b></h4><p></p><p>"WASHINGTON — The White House is considering options for how to respond if Israel defies President <span class="caas-xray-inline-tooltip has-tooltip-click has-wafer-click wafer-tooltip-done wafer-loader-success wafer-destroyed" data-wf-local-storage-key="xray-inline-tooltip" data-wf-reset-every="90" data-wf-template-id="caas-xray-inline-wafer-tooltip-template-with-close-41fbb51d-ae6b-36b9-8a0d-603b2fc0ba7e" data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom" data-wf-tooltip-text="Get info without <br/> leaving the page." style="--inline-xray-tooltip-arrow-pseudo-marginleft: auto;"><span aria-haspopup="dialog" class="caas-xray-inline caas-xray-entity caas-xray-pill rapid-nonanchor-lt" data-entity-id="Joe_Biden" data-ylk="cid:Joe_Biden;pos:1;elmt:wiki;sec:pill-inline-entity;elm:pill-inline-text;itc:1;cat:OfficeHolder;" tabindex="0"><a class="link" data-i13n="cid:Joe_Biden;pos:1;elmt:wiki;sec:pill-inline-entity;elm:pill-inline-text;itc:1;cat:OfficeHolder;" data-rapid_p="15" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:Joe Biden;cid:Joe_Biden;pos:1;elmt:wiki;sec:pill-inline-entity;elm:pill-inline-text;itc:1;cat:OfficeHolder;" href="https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Joe%20Biden" tabindex="-1">Joe Biden</a></span></span>’s repeated warnings against launching a <a class="link" data-rapid_p="16" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:military invasion of Rafah;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-conflict" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">military invasion of Rafah</a> without a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians, according to one former and three current U.S. officials.</p><p>"The discussions are taking place amid growing concern in the administration and frustration among <a class="link" data-rapid_p="17" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="slk:congressional Democrats;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">congressional Democrats</a>
that the president’s pleas will simply be ignored. Israel this week
inched closer to initiating an incursion into the southernmost city in
the Gaza Strip.</p><p>“<b>Time and again, President Biden calls upon the
Netanyahu government to take certain actions, and for the most part,
time and again, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ignores the
president of the United States. And so I think that makes the United
States look ineffective,</b>” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., in an
interview."</p><p>----------</p><p>Well, ain't that just too bad! The United States IS ineffective! You think Israel should drop all its plans in order to cave in to Biden and Blinken just so Biden can get the Muslim vote in MN, MI, and elsewhere? Nothing doing. You can't fight a politically correct war -- which, I might remind you, was started by Hamas!<br /></p><p>"Deepening tensions"? Those are caused by Biden's constant interference. Why does he assume that Netanyahu works for him??<br /></p><p>Sit down, shut up, keep out of Israel's business, get out of the way, and let them finish the job of eradicating Hamas once and for all.</p><p>And then we can eliminate Biden's destructive presidency in November.<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-49339871055920178152024-03-15T14:51:00.000-04:002024-03-15T14:51:27.766-04:00How A Presidential Ally Should Act<div style="text-align: left;">By Bassam Tawil at the Gatestone Institute: <b><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20486/biden-should-threaten-qatar">Biden Should be Threatening Qatar and the Terrorists, Not Israel</a></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>* "Biden's reported threat to
halt or suspend US military supplies to Israel if the IDF enters Rafah
is what encourages Hamas to continue fighting and reject every proposal
to release the hostages. <b>When Hamas leaders hear that Biden is
threatening Israel to prevent the IDF from entering Rafah, they must say
to themselves: 'Why should we make any concessions to Israel? America
doesn't want the Israelis to destroy the four remaining battalions. The
US administration is opposed to Israel's plan to eliminate Hamas, so
let's wait!'</b></p><p>* "A total defeat means the elimination of <i>all</i> of Hamas's
battalions. An Israeli victory will never be complete as long as one, or
even half, a Hamas battalion remains intact.</p><p>* "Biden is actually sending a message to Hamas and Iran's other
terror proxies, including Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the
Houthis, that America is about to throw Israel under the bus. Cutting
off US weapons supplies to Israel is the ultimate fantasy of the
terrorists.</p><p>* "The administration could show impressive leadership and in fact 'bring this to an end as quickly as we can' -- not just for Israel but
for all in the region who are seeking peace -- by encouraging Israel to
take out the terrorists in Rafah without delay."</p><p>* "Instead of pressuring Israel, Biden should be pressuring his
friends in Qatar to force their Hamas puppets to hand over the Israeli
hostages and surrender. Instead of threatening to cut off weapons
supplies to Israel, he should be threatening the leaders of Qatar with
the withdrawal of US forces from the country's Al Udeid Air Base and to
officially designate Qatar as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (for its
funding of Hamas, Hizballah, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Al Shabab, Al
Nusra Front, among others).</p><p>* "This is the way – the only way – to end the war quickly, as well
as to send a signal to America's adversaries looking on, that the US is
prepared to uphold the values of civilization, not the values of terror."</p></div>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-34547188500992638332024-03-15T13:10:00.001-04:002024-03-15T13:10:20.696-04:00Nothing to CelebrateI don't think this is anything to celebrate or brag about, and I certainly wouldn't want this "achievement" on <u>my</u> resume:<p><b><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13198205/kamala-harris-vp-minnesota-planned-parenthood.html">Kamala Harris becomes first VP or president to visit an abortion clinic: Slams 'extremist' elected leaders who think they can 'tell women what they need' during tour of Minnesota Planned Parenthood</a> </b><br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-7859284291722530492024-03-14T13:57:00.001-04:002024-03-14T13:57:36.496-04:00Obstacle to Peace<b><a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/schumer-denounces-netanyahu-as-an-obstacle-to-peace-calls-for-new-elections-in-israel/">Schumer Denounces Netanyahu as an ‘Obstacle to Peace’, Calls for New Elections in Israel</a></b><p><b>Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) denounced Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an 'obstacle to peace' </b>in a Thursday floor speech and called on Israel to hold a new election to replace the Netanyahu-led government amid its ongoing war with Hamas</p><p>"'Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,' Schumer said in a 40-minute speech on the Senate floor, suggesting Israel should elect a new leader who, in his view, can better deal with the threat of Hamas."</p><p>--------------<br /></p><p>He's another member of the Biden-Blinken School of Blame Israel.</p><p>The only "obstacle to peace" is violent Jew-haters and murderous terrorists like Hamas. There never can be peace with those who were raised with a goal in life to kill Jews and wipe Israel off the map.<br /></p><p>When you read Schumer's comments, you'd think that no massacre had ever occurred on October 7, and that Israel decided to go to war with Hamas for no reason.</p><p>Israel needs to finish the job of destroying Hamas. Her survival is at stake.</p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-90733588599094967912024-03-14T13:24:00.000-04:002024-03-14T13:24:05.438-04:00 A COVID Recap from Dr TopolAt Ground Truths, Dr Eric Topol has a new column titled <b><a href="https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-4-years-on">Covid, 4 years on</a>.</b><p>Here are some excerpts, minus the charts and graphs, which I've never been able to figure out how to insert, so <b><a href="https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-4-years-on">click here</a></b> to read the entire article.<br /></p><p><b> </b></p><p><span></span><span><b>Impact</b>: The global excess mortality has </span><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-deaths-cumulative-economist-single-entity" rel="">reached about 30 million lost lives</a><span> attributable to Covid, and the </span><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00476-8/fulltext" rel="">Global Burden of Disease published a major paper </a><span>this week in T</span><i>he Lancet</i><span> on the toll it has taken for reducing life expectancy in 204 countries summarized as "</span><a href="https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/library/mortality-life-expectancy-and-population" rel="">The COVID-19 pandemic caused the most severe drops in life expectancy seen in 50+ years."</a><span>
The study did not address disability among survivors, with multiple
concurrent studies reinforcing the prevalence of Long Covid in tens of
millions of people.</span></p><p><span><b>Evolution of the Virus:</b> The JN.1 variant took over globally and a number of subvariants (JN.1.11.1, JN.1.18, </span><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" rel="">JN.1.13, JN.1.18</a><span>)
are showing up with added spike mutations such as R346T and F456L, but
without signs of wastewater levels on the rise or other concerning
metrics. </span></p><p><span>But BA.2.87.1, </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24002925" rel="">as mapped below</a><span>, is the major “Omicron-like” event out there that has been the subject of 5 recent papers/preprints (</span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24002925" rel="">here</a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.11.583978v1" rel="">here</a><span>, </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.27.582254v1" rel="">here, </a><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.07.583823v1" rel="">here </a><span>and </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.10.584306v1" rel="">here</a><span>).
That, in itself, should tell you it’s a variant of interest. It’s chock
full of new mutations compared with the variants that came long
previously, and many of these are deletions <br /></span></p><p><span>In itself, it is not a threat as there’s no sign it is more
immunoevasive or transmissible. In fact, the consensus it that it’s less
evasive of our immune response, the current booster works to achieve
good levels of neutralizing antibodies, and some of the monoclonal
antibodies that were previously found to be resistant to earlier
variants my be effective again. </span><i>That’s great news</i><span>. But as Yunlong Cao and his team appropriately warned us, </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.07.583823v1" rel="">“BA.2.87.1
may not become widespread until it acquires multiple [receptor binding
domain] RBD mutations to achieve sufficient immune evasion comparable to
that of JN.1.”</a></p><p>It’s much too early to know whether (and when)
this will take place, but after 4 years if there’s anything to predict,
it is that the virus will find its way (through selection) to infect
more hosts and repeat human hosts. </p><p><b>One More Thing</b>: <span><b>I remain very disappointed and surprised by the recent change
(1 March) of CDC policy towards isolation, without regard to using rapid
antigen tests</b>. </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/background/index.html" rel="">Their own data shows that at least 1 in 3 people will still be infectious at 5 days after symptom onset! </a><span>That’s
by culturable virus, the gold standard, which tracks very closely with
the rapid tests. To reduce infecting others, especially high risk
vulnerable individuals, no less adding to the toll of Long Covid, rapid
tests should be used before people circulate.</span></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-64028222849164392142024-03-13T14:46:00.000-04:002024-03-13T14:46:33.773-04:00Fighting COVID MisinformationHere's an excerpt from a nice article about Dr. Peter Hotez, one of the developers of the COVID vaccine:<br /><p><b><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4524525-peter-hotez-vaccine-covid-19-misinformation-anti-vaxx/">Peter Hotez finds ‘parallel career’ fighting vaccine misinformation </a></b></p><p>"Peter Hotez has wanted to be a vaccine researcher for as long as he can remember.</p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic presented a once-in-a-lifetime challenge for someone of his skill set, but he never saw himself becoming the target of anti-vaxxers and the face of anti-misinformation in the way that he has the past few years.<br />...<br /></p><p>"Put plainly, Hotez knows infectious diseases. So, when the pandemic started, he felt ready to be a source of expertise amid the widespread confusion and uncertainty. But with this territory came the task of combating misinformation that sprang up as well, crystallizing what Hotez now refers to as his 'parallel career,' which began before COVID-19. </p><p>"'That started because I have four adult kids including Rachel who has autism, intellectual disabilities. And a few years ago, I wrote a book called ‘Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism,’ which made me public enemy No. 1 or 2 with anti-vaccine groups. That’s when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. started attacking me years ago,' Hotez said. </p><p>"This attention spurred threats and intimidation toward him both online and offline. Just last year, Hotez shared on social media that a 'couple of anti-vaxxers' had taunted him outside his home after he turned down a debate with Kennedy, one of the most prominent figures in the anti-vaccine movement and now an Independent presidential candidate.</p><p>"'It’s scary at times, because … I’ve got people like Steve Bannon publicly declaring me a criminal or Roger Stone go after me on social media,' Hotez said. 'And I have, you know, members of the House Freedom Caucus attack me. I have Sen. Rand Paul [R-Ky.] attacking me. So, it’s scary. Puts you in a very dark and scary place.'</p><p>"But he still finds his efforts to combat misinformation to be 'meaningful,' saying pushing back on the anti-vaccine movement is just as important as developing vaccines. Amid the pandemic, Hotez also helped to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, Corbevax, which was licensed and approved for use in India.</p><p>"<b>When asked what he thinks of all the public figures who have attacked or challenged him, Hotez characterizes them as simply 'desperate for relevance.'" </b></p><p><b>--------</b></p><p>A great line, and very true! These<b> </b>antivaxxers are still delusional and only hurting themselves, but the rest of us are grateful for the vaccines that help to keep us safer.<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-15840945302280528922024-03-13T14:23:00.000-04:002024-03-13T14:23:16.584-04:00Waiting for the Next September 11Remember this from January 10 of this year?<p><b><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1643165/white-house-says-biden-has-done-more-than-any-prior-president-to-secure-border/">The White House on Wednesday defended President Joe Biden‘s record on immigration, saying that no president had done more to secure the southern border than him. </a></b><br /></p><p>We all knew that was a lie, and FBI Director Wray told us this just yesterday:</p><div class="vMjAx gjbzK WaKtx eHrJ mTgUP" style="text-align: left;"><span class="gtOSm FbbUW tUtYa vOCwz EQwFq yCufu eEak Qmvg nyTIa SRXVc vzLa jgBfc WXDas CiUCW kqbG zrdEG txGfn ygKVe BbezD UOtxr CVfpq xijV soGRS XgdC sEIlf daWqJ"><b><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-director-warns-dangerous-individuals-coming-southern-border/story?id=108024830">FBI director warns of 'dangerous individuals' coming across southern border</a></b></span></div><div class="vMjAx gjbzK WaKtx eHrJ mTgUP" style="text-align: left;"><span class="gtOSm FbbUW tUtYa vOCwz EQwFq yCufu eEak Qmvg nyTIa SRXVc vzLa jgBfc WXDas CiUCW kqbG zrdEG txGfn ygKVe BbezD UOtxr CVfpq xijV soGRS XgdC sEIlf daWqJ"></span></div><div class="vMjAx gjbzK WaKtx eHrJ mTgUP" style="text-align: left;"><p class="EkqkG nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy"><b>Overall, he said, threats from various groups have reached a 'whole other level.'</b></p><p class="EkqkG nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy">"'Even
before October 7, I would have told this committee that we were at a
heightened threat level from a terrorism perspective -- in the sense
that it's the first time I've seen in a long, long time,' he said. '<b>The
threats from homegrown violent extremists that is jihadist-inspired,
extremists, domestic violent extremists, foreign terrorist
organizations, and state-sponsored terrorist organizations all being
elevated at one time since October 7, though, that threat has gone to a
whole other level. And so, this is a time I think for much greater
vigilance, maybe been called upon us,' he said."</b></p><p class="EkqkG nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy"><b>------------</b></p><p class="EkqkG nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy">So don't worry! Biden and Mayorkas have it all under control.<b> </b>And when there's an explosion and shootings in a Mall, or when a jet crashes into a building, you can just blame Trump<b> </b>instead.<b><br /></b></p></div><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-19825489248438394962024-03-13T13:15:00.003-04:002024-03-13T13:15:58.717-04:00We Expect Our Friends to Bring Down Hamas, Not Bring Down IsraelFrom The Times of Israel: <b><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israelis-elect-government-no-one-else-says-senior-official-after-us-report-suggests-pms-coalition-may-be-in-jeopardy/">‘Israelis elect government, no one else,’ says top official, hitting back at US report suggesting PM’s coalition may be in jeopardy</a></b><p>A senior Israeli official hits back at a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-assessment-hamas-likely-to-posed-armed-threat-to-israel-for-years-to-come/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">US intelligence report</a>
overnight that warned Israel will be challenged by Hamas for years to
come, and that the viability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
government “may be in jeopardy” amid criticism over the management of
the war.</p>
<p>“Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of
Israel and no one else,” says the official in a statement issued to the
media, interpreting the intelligence report as an effort to unseat
Netanyahu.</p>
<p>“<b>Israel is not a protectorate of the US </b>but rather an independent and
democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the
government. <b><u>We expect our friends to work to bring down the terror
regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel</u></b>,” the official
says.</p><p>----------------</p><p>Well, it's about time Israel hit back at Biden! A president who advocates for the toppling of Netanyahu because he's not compliant enough for his tastes is NOT a friend but an enemy.</p><p>With his and Blinken's words and insults, all they are doing is giving aid and comfort to Hamas and the "Palestinians", as well as other terrorist groups. Hamas and its supporters need to be destroyed.<br /></p><p>If anyone needs to be removed, it's Biden himself -- hopefully in November.<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-2691808932783198602024-03-12T14:05:00.000-04:002024-03-12T14:05:20.885-04:00Your Local Epidemiologist Dr. Katelyn Jetelina - State of Affairs for March 12Here are some excerpts from Dr. Jetelina's medical <b><a href="https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-march-12">State of Affairs for March 12, 2024</a></b>:<p>"<span>This year’s respiratory season is</span><i> slowly</i><span> fizzling out. But with that, new players have entered the scene. Here is your state of affairs.</span></p><p><span><b>Measles: Increasing</b> <br /></span></p><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><b></b></h4><p>"Measles continues to come in hot. A few things jumping out at me: </p><ul><li><p><i><b>CDC reports we have had 45 cases across 17 states</b></i><span> so far, which almost surpasses last year’s </span><i>total</i><span> of 58 cases across 20 states. </span></p></li><li><p><span>Cases are </span><i><b>driven by lots of little sparks </b></i><span>across
the nation, opposed to one big outbreak like in 2019. The more embers,
the more likely it is that they find unvaccinated pockets and spread
like wildfire.</span></p></li><li><p><i><b>We don’t know much else, </b></i><span>as the CDC website desperately needs a refresh.</span></p></li></ul><p><i><b>"Why is this a problem?</b></i><span> While the raw
number of cases remain low (we aren’t seeing even close to pre-vaccine
era numbers), each outbreak takes a ridiculous amount of resources. For
example, a small outbreak in Tucson in 2011 cost close to </span><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21531693/" rel="">$800,000</a><span>. Moreover, the increase in measles is happening within a concerning </span><i>context:</i><span>
vaccination rates declining due to a rapidly changing information
landscape, decline in trust, and continued individualism. There are very
few signs that this will be changing anytime soon. </span></p><p><span><b>Norovirus: Surging</b></span></p><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>"Norovirus—a virus that causes stomach cramping, intense episodes of vomiting and diarrhea, and sometimes fevers—is </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nrevss/norovirus/natl-trend.html" rel="">taking off</a><span> in the Northern Hemisphere. If we had a storm system for viruses, this might be deemed a shi… you get it. </span></span></h4><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><span style="font-weight: normal;">"<span>Ten percent of the population should expect to get sick. It’s
very tough to protect yourself against this virus, but not impossible. </span><a href="https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/norovirus-has-entered-the-chat?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fnorovirus&utm_medium=reader2" rel="">Here are some pointers from a previous YLE post. </a><span>For example, wash hands (rather than using hand sanitizer) and be sure to use bleach-based products on surfaces.</span></span></h4><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><span>COVID-19:Moderate and declining</span></h4><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><span style="font-weight: normal;">"Covid-19 wastewater levels, for the first time this season, have reached
“moderate” levels. While it remains highest in the South, levels there
are falling too. </span></h4><h4 class="header-with-anchor-widget"><span style="font-weight: normal;">"The biggest concern I have is the suboptimal uptake of Covid-19
vaccines. A new Pew survey showed a sharp decline for Republicans over
the age of 65 years old—an extremely serious problem, and I have yet to
hear that the U.S. has a solution for it. <br /></span></h4><p><span>"<b>The partisan gap on Covid-19 is narrowing as public interest in
Covid-19 overall is waning</b>. Most interesting, though, is bipartisian </span><i>consensus</i><span> for long Covid treatment. This is refreshing and should absolutely be translated into research dollars." </span></p><p><span>----------</span></p><p><span>I'm so grateful for this sort of regular recap. If it weren't for these newsletters by Dr Jetelina, Dr. Ruth Ann Crystal, Dr Caitlin Rivers, Julia Doubleday and others, we'd have no information at all. <br /></span></p><p></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-8534279672752440272024-03-12T13:49:00.002-04:002024-03-12T13:49:24.503-04:00Julia Doubleday on The Deliberate Stigmatization of Long COVID Julia Doubleday at The Gauntlet has an important essay titled <b><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/disabled-peoples-exclusion-from-indoor">Disabled people's exclusion from indoor spaces is a civil rights violation, not an annoyance</a></b><p><b>----------- <br /></b></p><p><b>"</b>Let’s start with the title. </p><p><span>“</span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/11/1236975472/wrestling-with-my-husbands-fear-of-getting-covid-again?fbclid=IwAR2ZAjoo9nXFTxN23oqaTfeFIVvdJ-VNv_OUlmWrSR8y34rUwymFHOVJ7d8" rel="">Wrestling with my husband’s fear of getting Long COVID again</a><span>” at </span><i>NPR </i><span>today <b>right away frames the author’s problem as her “husband’s fear.”</b></span></p><p><b>"Not the unchecked, year-round spread of COVID-19. </b></p><p><b>"Not the national and international abandonment of disabled people and hundreds of millions of people with Long COVID symptoms. </b></p><p><b>"Not
her social milieu, which refuses to understand or acknowledge that
vulnerable people are at significant risk of harm from COVID infection. </b></p><p><b><span>"Not the press, which has </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent" rel="">spent several years manufacturing consent for recurrent, endless COVID infections.</a><span> </span></b></p><p><b>"Not
the rampant ADA violations of a society that has knowingly stripped
millions of their ability to safely enter public spaces. </b></p><p><b><span>"Not the </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/institutional-covid-denial-has-killed" rel="">wholesale destruction of public health</a><span> at the hands of a politically captured CDC. </span></b></p><p><b><span>"No, the </span><i>problem </i><span>she
is struggling with is that her husband, who developed Long COVID
symptoms after a 2022 infection, keeps asking her to take COVID
precautions so he does not get reinfected and potentially become sicker
and long-term disabled. </span></b></p><p>"Long COVID is a serious disease.
Some of the biomarkers (objective measurements in the blood that differ
from a “healthy” person) that researchers have identified include:</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-023-01601-2" rel="">Viral persistence</a><span> (the body is not fully clearing the SARS-COV-2 virus)</span></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8883497/" rel="">Microclots in the blood</a><span> and endothelial dysfunction (leading to vascular problems, organ failure, cardiac events)</span></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7942" rel="">Immune system dysregulation</a></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240104/Study-identifies-mitochondrial-dysfunction-as-cause-of-long-COVID-fatigue.aspx" rel="">Mitochondrial damage</a><span> </span></p></li><li><p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01576-9" rel="">Blood-brain barrier disruption</a></p></li></ul><p><span>"I
cannot know which of these underlying issues may affect her husband,
but this context is critical to any story about the risk assessments
currently being made by Long COVID patients. It is not “fatigue”. It is
not “headaches.” It is a serious, common outcome of COVID-19 infection
that has left </span><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-data-shows-long-covid-is-keeping-as-many-as-4-million-people-out-of-work/" rel="">millions of people in the US alone permanently unable to work. </a><span>The
severity and frequency of Long COVID is purposely obscured from public
discussion as part of a continued political effort to normalize constant
COVID exposure. </span></p><p>"People who take precautions to avoid
COVID are making the wise decision to protect themselves and their
families; they are also safeguarding their ability to work and earn
money in a society that disposes of people who cannot produce. It is a
rational decision; in the case of Long COVID patients, it is a necessary
one. </p><p>"It is also, admittedly, a very difficult lifestyle to adopt
and maintain. Difficult, not because of the precaution of disabled
people, but because of the lack of precaution of the majority, who
refuse to care whether disabled people live or die and refuse to
participate in any mitigation efforts. Difficult because of state
negligence and institutional misinformation. Difficult not only for the
family members of those with Long COVID, but all the more so for those
with Long COVID themselves.</p><p>"Contrary to the othering propaganda,
people with underlying conditions actually do not love being isolated
from public life, being unable to grab drinks in a bar, being unable to
attend concerts, being limited in travel options, being excluded from
conferences, reunions, and family events. Long COVID patients don’t
relish being “locked up at home,” don’t want to “cling to a pandemic
lifestyle,” and don’t enjoy the extreme limits imposed on their
professional and personal lives. </p><p>"Most of all, no one relishes
watching their loved ones react with annoyance and anger rather than
solidarity and empathy as they attempt to survive a new normal designed
to infect them. It is painful beyond imagination that so many- even
close loved ones- are perfectly happy to cosplay normal even if that
normal involves vulnerable groups’ long-term exclusion from public
spaces. It is grief on top of injustice on top of dangerous physical
harm. </p><p><span>"I’m going to draw the lens back and away from this
particular woman who wrote this particular article. Her attitude is far
from unusual and is the result of years of minimizing, pathologizing
propaganda. The focus here should be about </span><i>why </i><span>this attitude is so common, </span><i>what </i><span>this attitude implies, and </span><i>for what reason</i><span> major media outlets choose to platform people complaining about their disabled spouses rather than our ableist society. </span></p><p><i>"NPR’s </i><span>decision to platform a piece about the
difficulty of navigating life with a spouse who can’t dine indoors,
instead of a piece about the difficulty of navigating a society that has
made dining indoors unsafe for vulnerable groups, is just that- a
decision, and a political one. It is part of an ongoing effort to cast
those who cannot play along with the “back to normal” fantasy- those who
are being harmed and killed by it- as weird, paranoid, crazy, annoying,
and “the problem.” </span></p><p><span>"<b>Long COVID is a major thorn in
the side of the “back to normal” approach to COVID</b>. While some people
(appear) to recover well from COVID, many others suffer long-term
post-COVID health problems. Not only that, but risk of Long COVID is
cumulative; the more you are infected with COVID, the more likely you
are to develop it. </span><a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221017/dq221017b-eng.htm" rel="">A recent study in Canada</a><span>
found that while 14.6% of Canadians who contracted COVID developed Long
COVID symptoms (itself a staggeringly high number), that statistic
reached 38% after three or more infections. </span></p><p>"You don’t have
to be a mathematician to add these facts up into a pretty disturbing
picture: people are being reinfected with COVID every year, on average.
Risk of Long COVID increases cumulatively across infections. People with
Long COVID are seriously ill with dangerous, biological disease
markers. Put simply: the back-to-normal, ignore-COVID-away approach is a
farce doomed to failure, and the existence of Long COVID patients is
itself a political threat to the status quo.</p><p>"Long COVID is the
faulty, load-bearing beam in the rickety pandemic denial superstructure.
Were the public to grasp how common and how severe it is, the entire
post-pandemic facade would come crumbling down. </p><p>"Therefore,<b> as
Long COVID patients become louder, as their presence becomes more
undeniable, as their numbers grow, the COVID normalization project must
pivot from attempting to disappear these victims to steadily
stigmatizing them. </b></p><p>"<b>This stigma takes many forms, but by and large
it is a project aimed at pathologizing people with post-COVID health
problems, portraying them as “crazy,” and presenting their increasing
difficulties navigating our inaccessible society as an imaginary problem
they made up, rather than an actual threat to their wellbeing in
obvious violation of their basic constitutional rights. </b></p><p><span>"Pathologizing
victims of state harm is nothing new; from the labeling of enslaved
people who attempted escape as suffering from the affliction </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania" rel="">drapetomania</a><span>,
to the invention of hysteria to institutionalize women who defied
strict gender roles, psychology has a long, storied history of being
weaponized to justify oppression. </span></p><p>"While it is a
scientific, documented fact that some people are long-term disabled by
COVID and that COVID is spreading unmitigated in every public space,
this information is conveniently omitted as the media continues to
publish pitying personal essays about the supposed mental issues of
those avoiding COVID. </p><p><span>"Instead of confronting the injustice of a “new normal” that excludes medically vulnerable people, </span><i>NPR </i><span>seeks
to deny that this injustice exists at all. For this reason, they
platform an individual who sees her husbands’ new social limitations as
an irritation he is personally inflicting on her, rather than an
institutional problem being inflicted on all of us. </span></p><p><span>"It is a classically neoliberal world view, one that places the onus of the difficult situation on the </span><i>individual </i><span>over
the collective, that blames the sufferer rather than investigating the
underlying root causes of the suffering. “My husband can’t dine indoors
because every restaurant is currently violating the ADA” is not a piece </span><i>NPR </i><span>will
ever publish; it is, however, both a more accurate summation of the
problem, as well as one that invites action rather than acceptance. </span></p><p>"This
piece builds its discussion atop several political beliefs that it
treats as obvious truths: that everyone will be exposed to COVID in
every public space from now on, that this is a problem disabled people
must learn to navigate by making compromises about being exposed from
time to time, and that the state holds no responsibility for either the
mass disablement of Long COVID patients, nor for making public spaces
accessible to vulnerable people again. </p><p>"All of the above are
political opinions, not facts, and they are conservative, even
libertarian beliefs that inherently deny the rights of disabled people
to safety and accessibility. In other words, NPR is here arguing that
the state should not be responsible for public accessibility, while
encouraging its audience to view the victims of public inaccessibility
as annoying and irrational. </p><p>"<b>This article is not merely an
upsetting look at an individual’s victim-blaming mindset about her
husband’s indefinite exclusion from public spaces. It is a piece of
propaganda intended to further the perception that demands for COVID
mitigation are unreasonable complaints, rather than critical activism
for basic public health infrastructure. </b></p><p><span>"The infrastructure that Long COVID patients desire, need, and indeed demand, like </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/learning-to-live-with-covid-means" rel="">air quality improvements including upgraded ventilation and filtration</a><span>,
will benefit not only the clinically vulnerable, but everybody. The
collective action required to achieve a future where we aren’t all </span><a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/germany-entered-a-recession-last" rel="">slowly becoming sicker</a><span>
and more vulnerable is the same type of action we engage with as we
demand all sorts of long-term changes, from an end to the usage of
fossil fuels, to the end to the extermination of Palestinian children,
to the end of transphobic and gender-based discrimination. </span></p><p><span>"<b>This moment requires solidarity between those who have been affected by COVID normalization and those who have not </b></span><b><i>yet </i><span>been harmed. Instead, </span><i>NPR </i></b><span><b>and
other media outlets encourage us to turn on one another and unleash the
anger we feel at losing basic rights onto those who’ve been even more
harmed than we have</b>. It is not dissimilar to the mainstream efforts to
turn poor native-born Americans against poorer immigrants, to turn
people making minimum wage against people on welfare, to turn ciswomen
against transwomen, to turn Asian Americans against Black Americans. All
of these efforts shield and protect a state that immiserates all
vulnerable groups; broken solidarity, in every case, harms both the
targets and the perpetrators. </span></p><p>"The woman in the story may
get her wish and return to indoor dining. That will not save her from
recurrent COVID reinfections, nor from the eventual health problems that
would surely follow her fifth, tenth, or fifteenth infection. The only
thing that can truly get her what she wants- a world where she and her
husband can safely live their 2019 lifestyles- is collective action,
advocacy, and unwavering solidarity with her husband. We must all of us
seek to address the brutal abandonment of our communities, not cry that
we are less able to participate in it than our friends."</p><p>-----------</p><p>What a great column, and what a vindication to all of us who are COVID-cautious and COVID-affected! <br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-67722248630627878952024-03-11T14:58:00.000-04:002024-03-11T14:58:02.824-04:00Today is the 4th Anniversary of the COVID PandemicFrom Sam Baker at Axios: <b><a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/covid-pandemic-march-11">The day everything changed</a></b><div class="css-53u6y8"></div><div class="css-53u6y8"><span data-schema="smart-brevity"><p>"A new chapter in global history — the <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/06/hospital-infections-covid-pandemic-dropped" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="pandemic era" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/11/06/hospital-infections-covid-pandemic-dropped" target="_self">pandemic era</a> — came crashing into existence four years ago Monday.</p><p><b>"The big picture:</b>
It's pretty rare to be able to point to a single day that transformed
the whole world. But March 11, 2020, is one of those days.</p></span><p><b>"March 11 was, </b>formally, the day the <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-pandemic-world-health-organization-who" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="World Health Organization" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-pandemic-world-health-organization-who" target="_self">World Health Organization</a> declared a pandemic. It was also the beginning of pandemic life as we know it colloquially.</p><ul><li>March
11 was the day Tom Hanks announced he had contracted the virus — a
jarring moment for Americans who had spent the past few weeks not quite
sure how scared they should be.</li><li>It was the day the NBA canceled
the rest of its season. Pretty much every other event that brought
together large numbers of people followed suit shortly thereafter.</li><li>It
was the day then-President Trump imposed a new travel ban from Europe.
Even domestic air travel quickly began to crater, bottoming out later in
the month.</li><li>New York City forced all bars and restaurants to close a few days later, though many of them already had.</li></ul><p><b>"In part because</b> of catastrophic testing failures, there were only <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51846923" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="1,135 confirmed COVID cases" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51846923" target="_blank">1,135 confirmed COVID cases</a> in the U.S. on March 11, 2020, and 38 deaths. COVID has now killed <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths?n=c" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="more than 7 million people" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths?n=c" target="_blank">more than 7 million people</a> worldwide, and more than 1 million people in the U.S.</p><ul><li>The pandemic destroyed entire industries, birthed others, and transformed the rest.</li><li>It
briefly brought Americans together in a moment of shared sacrifice that
might have seemed impossible, only to then rip new holes in the social
and political fabric, some of which have only gotten bigger.</li><li>It exposed and exacerbated <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2020/10/07/unfairness-inequality-coronavirus-pandemic" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="deep inequalities" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2020/10/07/unfairness-inequality-coronavirus-pandemic" target="_self">deep inequalities</a> in health care, the labor force and the broader economy. For the most part, they persist.</li><li>It ushered in <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/08/coronavirus-vaccines-safe-effective-science-immunity" data-vars-content-id="a230ead0-5b04-4428-b07b-0047f2337212" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-headline="The day everything changed" data-vars-item="in_content_link" data-vars-link-text="astounding scientific advances" data-vars-sub-category="story" href="https://www.axios.com/2021/02/08/coronavirus-vaccines-safe-effective-science-immunity" target="_self">astounding scientific advances</a>
— extraordinarily effective vaccines, developed in record time. And yet
the anti-vaccine movement is now as mainstream as it's ever been."</li></ul></div><div class="css-53u6y8"><div class="gtmView" data-cy="social-share-bottom" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_331="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_333="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_335="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_338="4996" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_344="4996" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_346="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_348="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_350="4996" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_352="4992" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_354="4996" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_356="4992" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_358="4993" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_360="4997" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_362="4992" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_364="4997" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_366="4994" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_378="4994" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_37="4996" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_447="4994" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen48430672_454="4997" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_331="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_333="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_335="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_338="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_344="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_346="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_348="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_350="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_352="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_354="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_356="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_358="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_360="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_362="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_364="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_366="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_378="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_37="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_447="1" data-gtm-vis-has-fired48430672_454="1" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_331="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_333="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_335="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_338="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_344="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_346="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_348="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_350="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_352="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_354="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_356="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_358="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_360="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_362="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_364="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_366="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_378="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_37="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_447="1000" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time48430672_454="1000" data-vars-category="social_share_bottom"><div class="space-x-4 leading-0"><div class="inline"></div></div></div><div class="inline"></div><div class="inline">-----------------</div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">You can never forget the applause for the doctors as they went to work; the horrors of the body bags and the overwhelmed hospitals and staff; the families who couldn't visit their dying loved ones or attend their funerals; the constant fear and anxiety before the COVID vaccine became available. </p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">If you can't remember that, then you were never paying attention from the start.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Although we're in better shape than we were, the fact is that COVID is not over, so stay safe.<br /></p></div><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-26835745812944682302024-03-11T14:32:00.000-04:002024-03-11T14:32:09.128-04:00Insidious, Politically Correct AntisemitismFrom the <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/middlebury-students-tried-to-host-a-vigil-for-victims-of-oct-7-attack-administrators-told-them-to-remove-the-word-jewish/">Washington Free Beacon</a>, as seen at <a href="https://www.powerlineblog.com/">Powerline</a>: <b>Middlebury Students Tried To Host a Vigil for Victims of Oct. 7 Attack. Administrators Told Them To Remove the Word ‘Jewish.’ The Department of Education is now investigating Middlebury over anti-Semitism.<br /></b><p>Can you guess why the students were told to remove the word "Jewish"?</p><p>"In an email to students reviewed by the <i>Washington Free Beacon</i>, [Dean] Doucet, who has oversight of student activities, pushed to rename the
vigil and <b>strip it of references to Judaism so as to make it 'as
inclusive as possible.'"</b></p><p>"'Some suggestions that might help are stating that this gathering is to honor ‘<i>all</i> the innocent lives lost,’' Doucet wrote, and including a reference to the 'tragedies that have struck Israel <i>and</i> Gaza." He added that calls for solidarity with Jews could trigger 'unhelpful reactions.'</p><p>"The need to include all groups—in a vigil mourning the losses of one—was
selective and short-lived. Less than a month later, Doucet’s office
approved a '<a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/events/event/vigil-palestine" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Vigil for Palestine</a>,' hosted by the Muslim Students Association"</p><p>------</p><p>So when Muslim terrorists deliberately massacre, torture, rape, and kidnap Jewish residents of Israel, you should <u>still</u> think about being "inclusive" and mentioning Arabs because otherwise it's not "inclusive"<b>,</b></p><p>I know how angry I've always gotten when, for instance, after the September 11 attacks when they'd almost immediately talk about "Islamophobia"; and how quickly after October 7 they would automatically link antisemitism AND Islamophobia.</p><p>This is not a normal reaction and is just another way to downplay antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence.<b><br /></b></p><p>It's yet another bad side effect of the whole DEI indoctrination scheme. It can't be tolerated, and it must be eliminated.<b><br /></b></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-15482466924030887112024-03-10T11:34:00.002-04:002024-03-10T11:39:05.160-04:00Neither the U.S. nor Israel Can Take 4 More Years of Joe BidenLook at these sickening recent headlines:<p>The Times of Israel: <b><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-says-hes-prepared-to-address-knesset-as-he-urges-israel-to-alter-gaza-strategy/">Sharpening criticism, Biden says Netanyahu ‘hurting Israel more than he’s helping</a>’. </b>US president offers terse ‘yes’ when asked if he would be willing to address Knesset in Israel, says IDF entry into Rafah a ‘red line,’ but won’t abandon ally or cut off weapons</p><p>UK Daily Mail: <b><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13178913/Joe-Biden-remove-Benjamin-Netanyahu-Israel-Gaza-ceasefire-Rafah.html">Biden Administration consulted Israel expert on how to 'force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse' as president accuses the prime minster of 'hurting Israel more than helping' and insists Rafah invasion is 'red line' that must not be crossed<br /></a></b> * President Biden sharpened rhetoric on Israel's Gaza action in recent weeks<br /> * Experts say he's angry with Netanyahu and claimed he asked how to remove him<br /> * US Government starting to imply it supports Israel, but not necessarily its leader </p><p><b>HE</b> has the nerve to accuse <b>Netanyahu</b> of 'hurting Israel more than helping'?! The gall of this man! Just who does Joe Biden think he is? <br /></p><p>It's a deliberate attempt to placate & appease the anti-Israel mob in this country, as well as a desperate attempt to shore up support in MN and MI for his re-election bid.</p><p>Neither the United States nor Israel can afford 4 more years of Biden's destructive policies!<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-30015743447299363732024-03-10T10:54:00.002-04:002024-03-10T10:54:21.272-04:00Dr Ruth's COVID news & more newsletter 3/9/24Here are some excerpts from <b><a href="https://tinyurl.com/yc7pp6y5">Dr Ruth Ann Crystal's helpful newsletter</a></b>: <br /><p><span>"JP Weiland estimates from wastewater viral levels that we are down to about </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1766194632768077937" rel="">520,000 new COVID infections</a><span> each day in the United States with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1766194632768077937" rel="">1 in every 64</a><span>
people currently infected. This is less than half the number of cases
that we were seeing in January. Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 levels are down to
“</span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-nationaltrend.html" rel="">MODERATE</a><span>” levels and </span><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/index.html#datatracker-home" rel="">hospitalizations and deaths</a><span> from COVID have decreased significantly. According to Sara Anne Willette, </span><a href="https://iowacovid19tracker.org/" rel="">Virginia</a><span> has extremely high levels of SARS-CoV-2 in their wastewater now, followed by very high levels found in </span><a href="https://iowacovid19tracker.org/" rel="">Mississippi</a><span> and </span><a href="https://iowacovid19tracker.org/" rel="">Delaware</a><span>.</span></p><p><a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions" rel="">"JN.1</a><span>
and its descendants are the main variants causing COVID infections at
this time. New variant BA.2.87 was initially seen in South Africa and
now has been found in Asia. But, </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.03.07.583823v1" rel="">Yunlong Cao’s lab showed that BA.2.87.1 can be neutralized</a><span>
by antibodies meaning that BA.2.87.1 will not significantly spread
unless it acquires new mutations. For now, we are in a better place.</span></p><p><span>"As discussed last week, on March 1st, the </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p0301-respiratory-virus.html" rel="">CDC recommended</a><span>
that COVID positive people can return to work or school if they do not
have a fever and their symptoms are improving. The CDC’s logic was that
we should treat COVID like other respiratory infections including the
flu and RSV. But, COVID is not only a respiratory disease- it is a
multi-organ infection that also has many long term consequences. </span></p><p><span>"Eric
Topol posted the CDC’s own data showing that 1 in 3 people with a COVID
infection will still be contagious at day 5. He said, “By not strongly
recommending rapid antigen tests, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1766185656974524871" rel="">the CDC's new (1 March) policy is ignoring their own data!</a><span>” Noha Aboelata MD added </span><a href="https://twitter.com/NohaAboelataMD/status/1766514199235043641" rel="">“Enough to detect is enough to infect!”</a><span> If someone is COVID positive on rapid antigen test, they should isolate until they are negative or they will infect others."</span></p><p><span> ----</span><br /></p><p><span>"Next Friday </span><a href="https://www.longcovidawareness.life/" rel="">March 15th is Long COVID Awareness Day</a><span>. The team from </span><a href="https://cure.ncats.io/home" rel="">CureID</a><span> is working with Long COVID patient groups to try to </span><a href="https://twitter.com/id_cure/status/1762141768621903878" rel="">enroll 1,000 people with Long COVID on the CureID website by March 15</a><span>
to answer a survey about which treatments helped and which supplements
or medications were harmful to people with Long COVID. The goal is to
aggregate all of the findings so that the helpful treatments can be
tested in clinical trials. If you know anyone with Long COVID, please
invite them to participate."</span></p><span>What a great idea! Somehow, I think many more than 1,000 LC patients would want to participate in that survey.<br /></span>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-73738249255936279912024-03-09T14:36:00.000-05:002024-03-09T14:36:24.036-05:00About the CDC's New Isolation GuidelinesHere's an excerpt from a good SELF article titled <b><a href="https://www.self.com/story/cdc-new-covid-19-isolation-guidelines">3 COVID Experts on Why the CDC’s Isolation Guidelines Are Bad for Public Health: You can still be contagious if you’re fever-free and feeling bette</a></b>r.<br /><p>"Given that COVID is still very contagious, <a href="https://fxb.harvard.edu/leadership-faculty-staff-fellows/lara-jirmanus/" target="_blank">Lara Jirmanus, MD, MPH</a>,
a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and fellow at the FXB
Center at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, says <b>the
newest guidelines are <i>more</i> confusing—and that they’re even
misleading. She tells SELF that the CDC’s messaging implicitly
communicates two falsehoods: that COVID has 'ceased to be a threat,' and
that it 'stops being transmitted when people stop having a <a href="https://www.self.com/story/at-what-temperature-should-you-actually-start-worrying-about-a-fever" target="_blank">fever</a>.'
</b> According to Dr. Jirmanus, infectiousness has little to do with
specific symptoms, since you can be sick (and contagious) without a
fever and with few, mild, or even no symptoms at all. And if you’re
testing positive on rapid tests, you’re very likely still able to infect
others, even if you feel fine."</p><p>------</p><p>Read it all. We need more exposés like this one, because most people are just hearing what they want to hear.<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-71900896556317952402024-03-08T15:20:00.002-05:002024-03-08T15:20:48.691-05:00Return to the Stone Age I saw too similar stories this week. The Washington Post has <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-centers-power/">Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power; AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up. </a></b><br /><p>The Week has <b><a href="https://theweek.com/environment/electrical-power-risks-grid-america-artificial-intelligence-climate">Is America running out of electrical power? The nation's power grid appears to be reaching critical levels due to emerging technologies</a></b></p><p></p><p>From The Week:</p><p>"The advancement of new technologies appears to have given rise to a
new problem across the United States: a crippling power shortage on the
horizon. The advent of these technologies, such as eco-friendly
factories and data centers, has renewed concerns that America could run
out of electrical power. </p><div class="ad-unit" id="ad-unit-1"></div><p>"These
worries also come at a time when the United States' aging power grid is
in desperate need of repair. Heavily publicized incidents such as the
2021 <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-before-rewrite-localise="https://theweek.com/speedreads/967553/parts-texas-not-ercot-power-grid-appear-have-weathered-freeze-few-outages" data-component="Inline Links" href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/967553/parts-texas-not-ercot-power-grid-appear-have-weathered-freeze-few-outages">Texas power outage</a>, which was partially <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-before-rewrite-localise="https://theweek.com/cryptocurrency/1018718/the-environmental-cost-of-crypto" data-component="Inline Links" href="https://theweek.com/cryptocurrency/1018718/the-environmental-cost-of-crypto">blamed on crypto-farming</a>,
exposed how vulnerable the nation's power supply is, especially during
emergencies. There have also been warnings from tech moguls such as Elon
Musk, who <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-component="Inline Links" data-url="https://newatlas.com/technology/elon-musk-ai/" href="https://newatlas.com/technology/elon-musk-ai/" target="_blank">has stated</a> that the United States is primed to run out of electricity and transformers for <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-before-rewrite-localise="https://theweek.com/tag/artificial-intelligence" data-component="Inline Links" href="https://theweek.com/tag/artificial-intelligence">artificial intelligence</a> in 2025. </p><aside class="hawk-nest hawk-processed" data-render-type="fte" data-result="missing" data-skip="dealsy" data-widget-id="51dc39b4-aa6c-4bd7-a7a6-c1faa9490847" data-widget-type="seasonal"><div class="hawk-master-widget-hawk-wrapper"></div></aside><p class="paywall">"But
the push to extend the life of the nation's power grid, while also
maintaining eco-friendly sustainability, begs the question: Is the
United States really at risk of going dark?</p><p class="paywall">"Climate change is also hurting sustainability efforts. A <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-component="Inline Links" data-url="https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/NERC_LTRA_2023.pdf" href="https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/NERC_LTRA_2023.pdf" target="_blank">recent report</a>
from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation estimated that
more than 300 million people in the U.S. and Canada could face power
shortages in 2024. It also found that electricity demand is rising
faster now than at any time in the past five years. This is partially
because<b> the "push for the electrification of heating and transportation
systems — including electric cars — is also creating new winter peaks in
electricity demand</b>," Jeremy Hsu said for <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-component="Inline Links" data-custom-tracking-id="1324401261493378893" data-google-interstitial="false" data-hawk-tracked="hawklinks" data-hl-processed="skimlinks" data-label="New Scientist" data-merchant-id="undefined" data-merchant-name="SkimLinks - newscientist.com" data-merchant-network="undefined" data-merchant-url="undefined" data-placeholder-url="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X1679923&xcust=hawk-custom-tracking&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2409679-much-of-north-america-may-face-electricity-shortages-starting-in-2024%2F&sref=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Fenvironment%2Felectrical-power-risks-grid-america-artificial-intelligence-climate" data-url="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2409679-much-of-north-america-may-face-electricity-shortages-starting-in-2024/" href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X1679923&xcust=theweekus_us_1324401261493378893&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2409679-much-of-north-america-may-face-electricity-shortages-starting-in-2024%2F&sref=https%3A%2F%2Ftheweek.com%2Fenvironment%2Felectrical-power-risks-grid-america-artificial-intelligence-climate" rel="sponsored noopener" target="_blank">New Scientist</a>. </p>"One of the main issues with these <a class="hawk-link-parsed" data-analytics-id="inline-link" data-before-rewrite-localise="https://theweek.com/energy/1024694/clean-energy-texas-heatwave" data-component="Inline Links" href="https://theweek.com/energy/1024694/clean-energy-texas-heatwave">sustainability efforts</a> is <b>the push to move away from fossil fuels toward renewable power."</b><p class="paywall"> ---------- <br /></p><p class="paywall">I think<b> </b>the "green", climate-change cult wants us to stop exhaling, inhaling, and using any power at all. Forget about "eco-friendly" already. Forget about electric vehicles. Bring back fossil fuels and get us back to normal. Prioritize strengthening the power grid so we can keep our lights on the way we've done for over a century.<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-43265088340061040042024-03-07T15:07:00.001-05:002024-03-07T15:07:15.637-05:00Appeasement at the State of The UnionFrom the AP: <b><a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-gaza-humanitarian-aid-port-us-military-israel-25fb6d71bc951d7491de3ab99733a749">Biden will announce a plan for a temporary port on Gaza’s coast to increase flow of humanitarian aid</a></b><p>As my mother would say in Yiddish, "<i>In mittern drinnen</i>?" <b></b></p><p>This is a desperation move to appease the Muslims, radicals like Rashida Tlaib, and the anti-Israel protesters in the United States.<b></b></p><p>I won't be watching that senile fool's speech tonight, but I can already predict the constant cheering and applause from the Democrats and "The Squad" when he reaches that part.</p><p>And as usual, it's Israel that's the bad guy, the villain, and one starving the "Palestinians" and "committing genocide". </p><p>As usual, the October 7 massacre against Israel has been all but forgotten.</p><p>Melanie Phillips has a column I just saw on the same topic, with the perfect headline:</p><p><b><a href="https://www.jns.org/the-scapegoating-of-israel/">The scapegoating of Israel: Humanitarian aid has become the blood libel of the day. </a></b></p><p>First, she talks about the UK:</p><p>“The U.K. supports Israel’s right to
self-defense,” he began. “But as the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has
a legal responsibility to ensure aid is available for civilians. That
responsibility has consequences, including when we as the U.K. assess
whether Israel is compliant with international humanitarian law.” </p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"What breathtaking arrogance and malice.
How dare Cameron presume to dictate to Israel how to conduct this
desperate war for its survival?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"Israel isn’t “the occupying power” in
Gaza. It is fighting a war there to defend the lives of its people
against a genocidal enemy. How dare Cameron demand Israel take measures
to weaken that defense through allowing in “items for infrastructure
repair”—such as, presumably, the concrete and other building materials
used by Hamas to construct its infernal underground infrastructure of
terror and mass murder?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"And if Israel doesn’t thus sabotage its
attempt to destroy Hamas, the U.K. is threatening to destroy the Jewish
state at the U.N. Cameron himself said at the end of January that the
U.K. was considering recognition of a Palestinian state as a way of
pressuring Israel to accept a “two-state solution” after a ceasefire in
Gaza.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"In other words, unless Israel agrees to
allow Hamas to survive, the U.K. will do two things: It will throw the
Jewish state to the Hamas-supporting wolves at the U.N. and force into
existence a terrorist entity that would put Israel’s heartlands in
danger of Oct. 7-style pogroms on steroids.</p><p>And here's her take on the US:</p><p class="wp-block-paragraph">"Similar pressure on Israel has come from
the Biden administration. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called
the humanitarian situation in Gaza “unacceptable and unsustainable.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"State Department spokesman Matthew Miller
claimed this week that Israeli government ministers were “obstacles” to
aid by blocking the release of flour from the port of Ashdod and
supporting protests that blocked supplies from the Kerem Shalom crossing
point.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><b>'It would seem that Israel’s principal
allies in the U.K. and U.S. are determined to ensure that Israel doesn’t
defeat Hamas, and are actually serving as a megaphone for the terror
group’s distorted and manipulative claims of a humanitarian catastrophe
in Gaza.</b></p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"Certainly, there is death and suffering
among the civilian population. This is horrible and deeply regrettable
as the inevitable consequence of war. But the scale of the crisis is
being hysterically exaggerated.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"On January 30, <i>CNN</i> reported:
“Palestinians are eating grass and drinking polluted water as famine
looms across Gaza.” Yet on the same day, COGAT, which coordinates
Israeli government activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, published a
video of Gazans queuing up at a plentiful shawarma stand in Rafah.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">"Social media footage has shown
well-stocked Rafah markets. There have also been videos of Gazans
contemptuously throwing air-dropped ready-to-eat meals into the trash."</p><p class="wp-block-paragraph">-------------------------</p><p class="wp-block-paragraph">I am sick and tired of the Biden administration vilifying Israel and acting as public relations agency/propagandist for both Gaza and Hamas. </p><p class="wp-block-paragraph">Israel must continue to fight back - unapologetically!<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-86246388487105590952024-03-07T13:42:00.001-05:002024-03-07T13:42:34.208-05:00A Nice Tribute To Trump<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLQ-4iSGSVFjBAOkmk5yeujrwoUIZq3yPqVoX_zyMdH4qnFQXGXnuR5ylDSKkVycWOoaH-esVeVarnHkdI-jrO_HRMKIub8b3BCVi_MPb5eCvEF8rivaEJ24GCzcIh1WNHsqbsfOVH-q2nZz-1VaOawgC6F5r6K6_ktbaSSccf0WObuq-5T4/s550/IHF%20award%20to%20Trump%202-28-24.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="550" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXLQ-4iSGSVFjBAOkmk5yeujrwoUIZq3yPqVoX_zyMdH4qnFQXGXnuR5ylDSKkVycWOoaH-esVeVarnHkdI-jrO_HRMKIub8b3BCVi_MPb5eCvEF8rivaEJ24GCzcIh1WNHsqbsfOVH-q2nZz-1VaOawgC6F5r6K6_ktbaSSccf0WObuq-5T4/s320/IHF%20award%20to%20Trump%202-28-24.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b><a href="https://israelheritagefoundation.org/2024/02/28/ihf-joins-president-trump-at-mar-a-lago/">A nice event at Mar-a-Lago</a></b> on February 28:<br /><p></p><p>"In an expression of gratitude and solidarity, a Jewish delegation,
led by Israel Heritage Foundation, met with President Trump at
Mar-a-Lago this week. The meeting, which took place on Monday, February
26, demonstrates the foundation’s outreach towards those who support the
Jewish people, advocate for Israel and combat antisemitism. </p>
<p>"Israel Heritage Foundation Executive Director Rabbi David Katz and
Executive Vice President Dr. Joseph Frager were joined at Mar-a-Lago by
Executive President Dr. Steven Soloway, Chairman Commissioner of the
Nassau County Bridge Authority Samuel Nahmias, philanthropist Lewis
Topper and Genesis10 CEO Harley Lippman. </p>
<p>"<b>The group presented President Trump with a beautiful silver menorah,
with an attached proclamation that reads, “Hineni nosen lo es brisi
shalom”, “Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace” (Bamidbar 25:12).
They thanked the president for his ongoing and steady support for the
Jewish State and the Jewish people, specifically citing the U.S. embassy
move to Jerusalem, official recognition of the Golan Heights as being
under Israel’s sovereignty, and the creation of the Abraham Accords,
which maintained and strengthened peace in the Middle East and the
world.</b>"</p><p>---------</p><p>Somehow, I doubt that Joe Biden will be given such a gift any time soon.</p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-48700101931546118722024-03-06T13:04:00.001-05:002024-03-06T13:04:08.050-05:00A Callous Disregard for The PublicFrom Helen Branswell at STAT: <b><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/06/florida-measles-outbreak-scact-details/">Florida health officials provide scant details on measles cases, worrying health experts</a></b><p>"On Sunday, public health officials in two Michigan counties warned their residents that they may have been exposed to measles. <a href="https://www.waynecounty.com/departments/hhvs/public-health.aspx" rel="noopener" target="_blank">In Wayne County</a>,
an adult who had contracted the virus abroad had been in health-related
settings in Dearborn on two days last week — two urgent care clinics, a
CVS pharmacy, and a hospital emergency department. Health officials in
neighboring Washtenaw County issued a <a href="https://www.washtenaw.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2669" rel="noopener" target="_blank">similar alert</a>
about a different case — also an adult, also infected abroad — who was
in the emergency department of a hospital in Ypsilanti on March 1.
</p><p>"Both counties urged unvaccinated people who had been in the listed
locations at the listed times to contact public health or their health
care provider, warning them to phone ahead if they needed to seek
in-person care.</p><p>"These kinds of notices are standard public health practice during
measles outbreaks. Alerts of this sort may also warn that someone with
measles had been in a crowded public location — an airport, a shopping
mall, a theme park.</p>
<p>"But in Florida, where 10 residents and at least <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/02/29/orlando-health-confirms-4-measles-cases-but-theres-no-local-spread-state-officials-say/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">four non-residents</a>
have been diagnosed with measles in the past month or so, the
Department of Health has released scant information about those cases.
<b>The seeming reticence to speak openly about measles leaves in the dark
anyone in the public who might be concerned about whether they may have
had an exposure. Likewise, people considering vacations to Florida who
want to avoid measles exposures have almost no information on which to
plan their trips.</b></p><p>....</p><p>"Public health experts elsewhere see all this as of a piece and worry
that the state’s approach could fuel spread of the virus. Part of that
approach involved Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, telling
parents of unvaccinated children that they <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2024/02/22/florida-policy-set-amid-measles-outbreak-alarms-vaccination-proponents/">could choose whether to send their kids to school or not</a>
during the ongoing outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary — a move that has
drawn widespread criticism within the public health sphere.</p>
<p>“Very little information is available,” Scott Rivkees, Florida’s
former surgeon general, told STAT by email, adding it is “very unusual
to have such sparse information for the public, especially when the onus
is being put on parents to make decisions.”</p><p> "Michael Mina, an infectious diseases epidemiologist who has studied
measles extensively, said the state’s approach defies common sense.</p><p> “What’s happening in Florida is sort of breaking all the global
conventions around measles,” said Mina, who formerly taught at the
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “One of the first things that
anyone would normally do, whether it be in Europe or the United States,
is be extremely — almost overly — transparent.”</p>
<p>“They very well might get lucky. The outbreaks might subside. But if
it’s not now, it’s next time,” Mina said, warning that if Florida
mishandles its cases, other states could suffer. “It can light fires
across the whole country.”</p><p>----------------------------------</p><p>Why would you deliberately choose to NOT protect people from contagious diseases? I think that anti-vaxxer "Surgeon General" Ladapo is deliberately trying to prevent people from vaccinating their kids.</p><p>Imagine what's going to happen if the kids who come to Florida for Spring Break end up catching and spreading measles!<br /></p><p></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25255271.post-69632761884690211202024-03-05T15:58:00.001-05:002024-03-05T15:58:42.067-05:00Goodbye to Free COVID Tests - But Not Goodbye to COVIDFrom CBS news: <b><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-free-covid-tests-and-paxlovid-programs-to-end-on-march-8/">USPS will stop accepting orders for free COVID tests on March 8</a></b><p><b>"</b>Two government-run efforts to distribute <span class="link"><a data-invalid-url-rewritten-http="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/free-covid-tests-how-to-order-online/">free COVID-19 tests</a></span> and to offer free courses of Pfizer's <span class="link"><a data-invalid-url-rewritten-http="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfizers-paxlovid-fda-approval-cost/">Paxlovid</a></span> antiviral are set to end Friday, as trends of the <span class="link"><a data-invalid-url-rewritten-http="" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/feature/coronavirus/">virus</a></span> have largely slowed.</p><p>"The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, will stop accepting orders <a href="https://special.usps.com/testkits" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">to ship COVID-19 tests</a>
to all households through the U.S. Postal Service, an agency
spokesperson confirmed, marking an end to this season's round of
shipments.</p><p>"ASPR has delivered over 1.8 billion free COVID-19
tests to the American people through COVIDTests.gov and direct
distribution pathways and will continue distributing millions of tests
per week to long-term care facilities, food banks, health centers, and
schools," the spokesperson said.</p>
<p>"This year's free COVID-19 tests program is coming to a close
earlier than last year. In 2023, orders for tests were accepted through
the end of May. </p><p>"Slowing case rates drove the decision to pause
orders for the sixth round of test shipments, the spokesperson said.
Tests could still be distributed again by ASPR in the future."</p><p>-------</p><p>Well, how stupid is this? Just because you think COVID is over, and because you just got rid of COVID isolation, you think that there's no longer a need for test for it? </p><p>This administration is really jumping the gun and is acting on wishful thinking along. What's going to happen during the next surge? What happens if some newer, stronger variants emerge? What then?</p><p>I think our administration, and the "Centers for Disease" (or Centers for Downplaying COVID), is doing an abysmal job of planning for the next round of COVID, not thinking about the consequences of their actions, and for dealing so badly with public health in general.<br /></p>Oxmyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14570790563048558597noreply@blogger.com0