A COVID Mystery Solved

We're still learning about COVID four years after it first appeared in the United States.

From News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site: "Zombie" viral fragments trigger inflammation to cause serious COVID-19 outcomes

"There are many lingering mysteries from the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, why does SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the disease, cause severe symptoms in some patients, while many other coronaviruses don't? And what causes strange symptoms to persist even after the infection has been cleared from a person's system?

"The world may now have the beginning of answers. In a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a UCLA-led multidisciplinary research team explores one way that COVID-19 turns the immune system -- which is crucial for keeping people alive -- against the body itself, with potentially deadly results.

"Using an artificial intelligence system they developed, the study authors scanned the entire collection of proteins produced by SARS-CoV-2 and then performed an exhaustive series of validation experiments. The scientists found that certain viral protein fragments, generated after the SARS-CoV-2 virus is broken down into pieces, can mimic a key component of the body's machinery for amplifying immune signals. Their discoveries suggest that some of the most serious COVID-19 outcomes can result from these fragments overstimulating the immune system, thereby causing rampant inflammation in widely different contexts such as cytokine storms and lethal blood coagulation.

"The study was led by corresponding author Gerard Wong, a professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and in the UCLA College's chemistry and biochemistry department and microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics department.

"'What we found deviates from the standard picture of viral infection,' said Wong, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.  'The textbooks tell us that after the virus is destroyed, the sick host 'wins,' and different pieces of virus can be used to train the immune system for future recognition. COVID-19 reminds us that it's not this simple.'

"The findings could influence treatment for COVID-19 and efforts to identify and surveil future coronaviruses capable of causing pandemics."

Another Reason to Close the Borden

Besides the fact that illegal aliens are a burden on our hardworking taxpayers; get everything for free; bring in drugs; spread diseases; and are helping Biden make our country unrecognizable -- they also commit crimes.

Like this:

Migrant ‘cowards’ who beat cops near Times Square should be locked up, NYPD chief says as 3 more suspects sought

"The migrant 'cowards' who allegedly ganged up on a pair of cops near Times Square should be jailed, an NYPD official said Wednesday — as cops continued to hunt for three more suspects in the caught-on-camera beating.

"Four of the accused thugs were arrested immediately after the shocking weekend attack, and then released without bail by a Manhattan judge.

"A fifth suspect was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Wednesday.

"'Reprehensible,' a disgusted NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters.

"'You have eight people attacking a lieutenant and a cop. The four that were arrested should be sitting in Rikers [Island] right now on bail,' the chief said."

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The headline should say "Violent illegal alien criminals who beat cop..."

Look at the video and explain why any of these animals should have been released. They should be jailed, and then deported.  We don't need or want more criminals here.

Any American citizens who vote for four more years of the lawless Biden administration are just as guilty.

The Answer Should Be NO!

Are they kidding? From The Times of Israel: Potential deal would reportedly see 6-week pause, release of all civilian hostages. Washington Post says framework would require Israel to pull army out of Gaza cities and release security inmates in 3-1 ratio, also provides for release of soldiers, dead abductees

"A barebones framework for a deal with Hamas would see all civilian hostages held by the Palestinian terror group in Gaza freed over a six-week pause in fighting, in exchange for three times as many Palestinian security prisoners released from Israeli jails, the Washington Post reported Wednesday."

A six week pause? That means Hamas would be able to re-arm, and Israel would be at the mercy of another October 7-style attack.

In return for three times as many "Palestinian" "prisoners"?  They'd go right back to the fight.

You can't negotiate with terrorists who want all Jews dead and Israel eliminated.  But I'm sure Biden and Blinken are pushing for this disastrous "deal".

The answer should be a firm and final NO!

Captain Kirk: A Real MAN

The Western Journal reports that William Shatner Levels Government Censors Trying to Ban Iconic 'Star Trek' Line

"The European Union has just run crosswise with Captain James T. Kirk, and by any measure the Captain is right to blast Europe’s left-wing, nanny state, cancel culture, loons for their latest 'diversity' move.

"This week, news broke that the EU — which apparently stands for Entirely Useless — is looking to make the world safe from evil 'gendered' words, like man, male, guys, and anything testosterone related, The Telegraph reported.

"This impinges directly on one of Captain Kirk’s most famous lines, the one that serves as the opening monologue to the famed 1966 series, 'Star Trek.'

"TV viewers and sci fi fans everywhere will recall that the iconic TV series starts out with views of the Starship Enterprise zooming across the screen as Captain Kirk intones 'Space, the final frontier,' and ends his soliloquy with 'to boldly go where no man has gone before.'

"But the EU is suddenly all shook up over that evil word “man” and is now sending out its royal edict that the word should henceforth be banned from use.

"According to the Telegraph, “The classic ”Star Trek’ line, ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before,’ is also cited as an example where ‘women may be subject to invisibility or omission.'

"William Shatner, who briefly actually reached space during a Blue Origin flight in 2021, is the man who so ably portrayed Captain James T. Kirk, and he is not amused.

"With news of the new authoritarian mandate, Shatner, who often blasts the childish, left-wing, social justice warrior trolls online, jumped to his X account to blast the legislators.

“'Presentism at work yet again,' he said in his Monday post.

“'Why start at Trek? Isn’t it better to start at the beginning and redo foundation material such as the Magna Carta, religious writings, works of Shakespeare before worrying about a silly TV show opening that reflects social commentary of the time?' he asked as logically as any Vulcan would.

"'If people are offended by 6 seconds of dialogue recorded in 1966 without a modicum of understanding of the social issues at the time there’s bigger issues that they need to deal with first — like educating themselves,'  Shatner pointedly concluded."

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'Hooray for him and for common sense!

The way I see it, if  you want to change your own language,  go right ahead. But don't tell the rest of us what words to use, and stop censoring books and entertainment just because you are "offended" by inoffensive words.

And again I have to wonder: Doesn't the EU and these annoying language police have anything better to do with their time?

Another Article About Masks

These excerpts are from Time Magazine: Some Hospitals Are Requiring Masks Again. Will Other Public Places Be Next?

"'Masks work,' says Dr. Robert Murphy, professor of medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. 'If you’re interested in public health, requiring masks in places like hospitals is what we need to do. If everybody is wearing a mask, it works even better to prevent transmission of disease.'

"Hospitals aren't the only places vulnerable people gather, so Murphy suggests mask mandates could be extended to long-term care facilities and assisted living spaces. He also believes mask requirements in these settings should become a regular feature every year during respiratory season. 'It’s probably a very good idea, from a public health standpoint, to say that this is something that happens every winter from December to February,' he says. 'It just makes common sense. If universal masking is never going to be accepted at this point, let’s protect the most vulnerable, and hospitals are places where there are a lot of vulnerable people.'

And yet, he also says this:

"Don't bet on a return to restrictions

"Murphy is also aware that 'people in the U.S. are very nervous about getting into wider mask mandates.' While masks make sense in the health care setting, public health experts aren’t naïve enough to believe that they will return to other public places. 'People are fed up,' says Torriani. 'And we have to ask, ‘What’s the bang for the buck?’ In settings where there might not be as many vulnerable people, the payback for the inconvenience of wearing a mask is likely much lower."

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This article starts out well but then gets into the old "people  are fed up with masks" excuse. What people should be fed up with is having COVID, and masks help to protect them.

And exactly what is the "inconvenience of wearing a mask"? I wear one so I won't have the inconvenience of getting sick!

Even after four years of COVID, it appears that people still have their priorities all wrong.

The Long-Term Implications of COVID

Here's Julia Doubleday at The Gauntlet: Germany entered a recession last year because the average worker needed 20 sick days. Pitting public health against economic health is fundamentally wrong and will lead to the utter destruction of both

Here are some excerpts, but make sure you read the whole thing and subscribe to The Gauntlet yourself.

"While the average person- subject as they have been to years of COVID-minimizing propaganda- may not understand that unmitigated disease spread carries a cascade of economic impacts, they can certainly observe those impacts in day-to-day life. People are complaining of being ill, more frequently and for longer periods of time, losing work hours and pay. People are wondering at the pace of reinfections occurring in young children, which also contributes to lost labor hours as parents stay home with sick kids. Teachers are noting that children are falling behind grade level, unable to read, and data confirms that test scores are dropping. People are complaining about bad service, staff shortages, flight delays, tour cancelations. And people are mourning as unusually young friends and family suddenly drop dead.

"What people aren’t doing is wearing masks, demanding clean air, or otherwise mitigating. The relationship between continual, forcible COVID reinfection and long-term social and economic consequences- from the annoying to the tragic to the catastrophic- has been purposely obscured. 

"Since 2020, including during the Trump era when press outlets still challenged policies of abandonment to the virus, media players and politicians have framed public health and economic health as opposing goals. Mitigations and protections were labeled “restrictions” and portrayed as punishments, rather than collective care empowering us to protect and save one another. Republicans, from day one, were on TV encouraging the vulnerable to die for the economy.

"Among them was Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who famously stated that grandparents would happily lay down their lives for the health of the American economy. The problem here isn’t just that it’s morally reprehensible for a society to throw elders in the garbage because money; it’s also that sickening, disabling and killing people at scale will never help the economy. 

..............

"All of the sociopathic calculation behind the idea that “letting it rip” would be “good for the economy” was based on this now obviously false presumption: that herd immunity was achievable. And perhaps if COVID wasn’t an illness people can catch over and over, every few months, the long-term economic outcome might not look so disastrous. But recurrent infections being the reality- and herd immunity being impossible- the mass, unending infection approach carries obvious and compounding economic consequences.

"The anti-science herd immunity strategy began with Republicans under Trump, but it has thrived and been mainstreamed by Democrats under Biden. Optimistic interpretation of initial data led then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to claim that vaccines would provide sterilizing immunity; that a vaccinated person would have long-term immunity and could not spread COVID. (Sidenote: this announcement is often memory-holed by the administration as it is starkly inconvenient to their current claims that sterilizing immunity was never a goal of vaccination.)

"Thus, the vaccination campaign kicked off the Democrats’ pursuit of herd immunity, which bore no more fruit than the Republicans’. Vaccine mandates were not an authoritarian punishment intended to poison anti-vaxxers or turn them into 5G conductors. Vaccination mandates are an integral part of a successful herd immunity strategy. It’s also why you’ll see those mandates begin to relax and unwind; with herd immunity unachievable, the individual vaccination status of others is far less critical to collective health.

"In other words, Democrats are now well aware that the herd immunity strategy via vaccination, like herd immunity via infection, and then the subsequent, short-lived “rich hybrid immunity” strategy- have all failed.

"So now I come to the implications of failed herd immunity, ongoing reinfection, and serious, common, long-term health impacts of COVID, which should strike fear into the heart of every investor, every boss, every landlord, every pundit, and every politician: economic impacts of COVID are only just beginning and will continue to spiral downward. The damage will be cumulative, irreversible, and it will destroy the workforce. 

............

"The libertarians behind our failed COVID approach- the ones that successfully laundered their “let it rip” strategy through media outlets hellbent on supporting Biden’s premature declaration of the end of the pandemic- bet the house on a false hypothesis that can’t but produce recession in the long-term. They went all-in on the gamble that mass infection would lead to mass protection. They lost. The rest of us will be paying the compounding interest on this bet until we finally reject their failed approach and implement mitigations."

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Boy, I wish SHE were the head of the CDC!  If we had more like her, maybe we wouldn't be in this fix!

Dr Ruth's COVID News & More Newsletter for Jan.27, 2024

It's time for the latest issue of Dr Ruth's newsletter full of invaluable information about COVID and other viruses. 

"We have passed the peak of this COVID wave which was the second highest wave of COVID infection during the entire pandemic. Wastewater virus levels in the United States are still “VERY HIGH” though, with JN.1 now causing more than 85% of cases. We are on the downward slope of the wave, but there are still approximately a million new COVID cases in the U.S. every day and about 1 in every 33 people is infected."

Make sure you read the whole newsletter and also take note of the helpful charts and graphs.

I know Americans are extremely apathetic, but think of it: 1 million new COVID cases every day!

All I know is that I will continue to protect myself from becoming one of those cases.  You should, too.

Don't Worry, It's Just COVID

An excellent column from the Iowa Capital Dispatch: Wastewater tests show COVID infections surging, but pandemic fatigue limits precautions

"Although it’s spotty and inconsistent in many places, wastewater testing is pointing to a new wave of COVID-19 infections, with as many as one-third of Americans expected to contract the disease by late February.

"With pandemic fatigue also in full force, and deaths and hospitalizations well down from peaks in 2021 because of high vaccination and immunity rates, many people are inclined to shrug off the new wave, fueled by the JN.1 variant. But COVID-19 continues to take thousands of lives a month. Older, sicker people need to take particular precautions, experts point out, and everybody should think about the debilitating condition known as long COVID that can strike even young, healthy people and last years.

"Wastewater testing indicates the current wave of COVID-19 peaked in late December with 1.9 million daily infections, the highest since the omicron wave of 2021. Iowa’s rate of COVID-19 infections was rated “moderate” during the second week of January, down from a “high” level the week of Dec. 31-Jan. 6, according to Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

"Some experts want to maintain and expand wastewater surveillance to stay on top of future waves at state and local levels, even as the public has wearied of COVID-19 mitigation efforts.

“If you know you are one of the first communities where it’s surging, that could be very helpful,” said Michael Hoerger, a Tulane University School of Medicine assistant professor who made the national estimate about peak infection rates and future infection forecasts.

"Like many experts, Hoerger said everybody should be more aware of the high risk and try to avoid getting infected or reinfected with COVID-19, since every new infection increases the chance of long COVID. He said Americans might be experiencing “descent neglect,” the phenomenon that makes people more careless when things are getting better.

“Everyone is vulnerable in some way. The best way to avoid getting long COVID is to avoid getting COVID,” Hoerger said.

"Deaths have declined more slowly in states with older populations such as Vermont, Hawaii and Maine, according to a Stateline analysis of preliminary data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vermont hospital employees started masking again earlier this month amid the new surge.

"Alarm bells are going off in other states as well: Indiana’s most populous county asked residents with mild symptoms to avoid crowded emergency rooms to prioritize care for patients seriously ill with COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. Michigan reported its highest weekly COVID-19 death toll since late 2022, around 156, in mid-January. Illinois saw a 17% jump in COVID-19 hospitalizations in one week earlier this month.

"It can be hard to get a read on local trends, however, when testing is inconsistent and methods of analysis vary.

"The CDC publishes a “current conditions” map based on wastewater analysis that shows “high” or “very high” COVID-19 levels in wastewater for every state with sufficient data. Iowa’s level is currently “very high” based on six sites reporting. The categories are not specific but indicate virus levels that are high compared with the past.

"But at the same time, public patience with masking and other precautions is at a low, making it more likely that infection will spread and claim new victims among the vulnerable.

"In South Carolina, Clemson University got high marks in 2020 for its wastewater surveillance program, earning a congratulatory visit from the White House coronavirus task force. But today the university has lost interest, said David Freedman, an environmental engineering professor who ran surveillance for three sewer plants, including the university’s.

"Today he monitors only one community plant, though he can see that its level of COVID-19 is higher than at any time since 2021 by looking at virus copies detected in tests. Even the university’s plant itself has dropped out of testing, he said.

“The testing is free, but there’s some labor involved in collecting the sample and sending it off, and I haven’t been able to convince the university to keep doing it,” Freedman said. “Interest in this has really fallen off.

“To me it’s almost unethical that we’re not warning people that this highly transmissible virus is still with us and some people should really be taking precautions,” he added. “Some people with higher health risks should really be putting on a mask again.”

"A Clemson spokesperson, Joe Galbraith, said the university considers wastewater testing to be a “valuable tool” but decided recently to rely on individual COVID-19 testing instead to monitor the disease within the university. Clemson is, however, partnering with the state and other South Carolina universities to create a statewide wastewater testing program, Galbraith said.

"There are statewide wastewater testing programs, based on partnerships with academia, in other states such as New York and Oregon.

"Older people and cancer patients make up an increasing proportion of COVID-19 deaths, according to Stateline’s analysis. People 65 or older made up 88% of those deaths last year, compared with 69% in the peak year for deaths, 2021. Cancer patients made up 12% of COVID-19 deaths last year, up from 5% in 2021.

"In some states with older populations, COVID-19 deaths remain stubbornly high compared with other states. Vermont had the lowest COVID-19 death rate in the country in 2021 but now ranks fourth in the number of deaths per capita, behind Kentucky, West Virginia and Mississippi.

"Last year Vermont had 220 deaths related to COVID-19, according to the analysis. That was almost two-thirds of the 2021 total of 331 such deaths.

"No other state had nearly as high a proportion: Hawaii was next with 35% of its peak-level 2021 "COVID-19 death toll happening in 2023. That was followed by Maine (32%), Massachusetts (31%) and New Hampshire (29%), all states with relatively old populations.

"Texas, which is relatively young, last year had 10% of the COVID-19 deaths that it did in 2021, about 4,700 compared with 48,000.

"Vermont has seen increased hospitalizations for COVID-19 this year and has been suggesting that people wear masks if they think they were exposed or have a high risk of serious illness, said Ben Truman, a spokesperson for the state health department. The guidance also applies to the flu and RSV, which are peaking in winter months, he said.

"Residents in Vermont reacted calmly and cooperatively in the early days of the pandemic, saving lives early on compared to other states, said John Davy, an epidemiologist for the state health department.

“It wasn’t divisive. It wasn’t an identity issue here,” Davy said.

"In some areas the latest wave of infections may even be higher than the 2021 omicron wave, which crested at around 6.5 million infections per day, according to Hoerger’s analysis. In Santa Clara County, home of California’s Silicon Valley, wastewater shows some areas reached their highest infection counts ever earlier this month.

"Hospitalizations and deaths in the area remain low, said Sarah Rudman, a deputy health officer at the county health department, but the county is advising vulnerable people to consult with doctors and consider masking. “It’s an individual decision,” she said.

"The county’s wastewater monitoring covers 90% of county residents and has benefited from strong support from local universities. The county uses an advanced form of measurement that can estimate the number of cases in the community without individual testing, Rudman said. It helps that the county started gathering data early and can compare levels from the start of the pandemic, she added.

"Even those without underlying risk factors can get debilitating long COVID.

"Jay Breneman was 39 and athletic, cycling and training for marathons, when he got COVID-19 in the summer of 2022 — too young to qualify for medication such as Paxlovid at the time. He ended up bedridden or in a wheelchair for more than a year.

"Now the president of the Erie, Pennsylvania, school board, Breneman said he masks in public despite heckling, including from a man who told him at the county Democratic Party headquarters on election night that COVID-19 was “a hoax.”

“This has been hell. There’s no other word that describes it,” Breneman said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. And every single person I know is sick with something right now. The last thing I want now is to get sick again.”

==========

In other words, "people find it too exhausting to think about COVID, so they don't bother to protect themselves or others against COVID".  

These people are the problem. They are completely selfish regarding communicable diseases, and their disregard and apathy are what I'm tired of.

I personally would prefer to continue taking precautions than suffer real fatigue from Long COVID.

Get Your Free Stuff Here!

This is so unfair to American citizens, who are forced to go without and pay their own high bills, yet are expected to also pay for the bills illegal aliens ring up. This alone, along with crime and disease, is why the border should be closed immediately.

You'd swear that Biden were President of illegal border-crossers rather than President of the United States!

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch: The Cost of Unchecked Illegal Immigration on Americans—The BorderLine

“'There’s no such thing as a free lunch' used to be American folk wisdom (and inspired a book by economist Milton Friedman). The greatest trick the American Left has played on young people is to convince them that free stuff is actually free. In fact, tax credits, student debt “relief,” COVID-19 stimulus, rent control, and other giveaways simply redistribute existing wealth or borrow money that must be repaid by taxpayers.

"Relative to illegal immigration, it doesn’t matter how much you put aside for a rainy day if the rain never stops. Biden’s policies have locked in an unlimited flow of illegal immigration at the border. Many of those coming now have no U.S. relatives or employment waiting for them. They will continue to head for 'sanctuary' megacities that offer free housing and benefits. Local authorities there seem to only now begin to understand the scale of demand with which they are dealing. Our open borders have resulted in housing shortages, closed schools, commandeered public spaces, and hospitals catering to patients no one voted to admit into the country while everyday taxpaying Americans wait in line.

"It’s not as if all Americans are rich and can absorb the costs of paying for these people who aren’t paying for themselves—particularly in the places where illegal aliens are amassing.

"At James Madison High School, which New York City closed down to house illegal immigrants for a few days due to bad weather, “73% of students are economically disadvantaged.” And as schools in New York and across the country absorb thousands more 'limited English proficiency' students, they must hire more specialist teachers at additional cost."

A Preventable COVID Tragedy

What a disgraceful scandal this is!

"Covid killed 170,000 in nursing homes. Most residents still haven’t gotten the latest shot.

"The Biden administration says the facilities need to do more. Home executives say vaccine hesitancy requires a new government message.

"Fewer than 4 in 10 nursing home residents have received the latest Covid shot — despite the carnage in the facilities since the disease first swept through in 2020.

"The Biden administration and the care industry agree they share responsibility — but that hasn’t stopped them from blaming each other.

"Xavier Becerra, the secretary of Health and Human Services, has held two meetings with representatives of the facilities since Dec. 21 to remind them that they must offer residents the shots. But nursing homes say the federal government needs to pay them more to administer the jabs — and Becerra needs to do a better job persuading people to get vaccinated."

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This is unacceptable.  Since Biden's pronouncement that the pandemic was over, his administration has been largely silent regarding COVID, and the CDC hasn't been much better. And where are the family members? Why are they not making sure their loved ones are boosted?  This is COVID year 4, and this shouldn't be happening.

The neglect of vulnerable senior citizens should be a national disgrace.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024

Obviously, Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel supporters aren't marking this day, or if they are, it's only to celebrate the results of the Holocaust: 6 million Jews systematically  murdered.  Hamas already committed its own Holocaust on October 7, 2023.

The unfortunately remaining Nazis are undoubtedly sorry to hear that almost "80 years after the Holocaust, about 245,000 Jewish survivors are still living across more than 90 countries". This is a tribute to the indomitable courage of the Jewish people. Imagine the trauma they went through under Hitler, then again last October. 

Here's a refresher course about what happened when the Jews reached the gas chambers. Every Jewish child including myself was educated about this and warned that it could happen again.

"SS men escorted the men, women, and children selected for death to the gas chambers—initially to the gas chamber in crematorium I and “bunkers” 1 and 2, and, from the spring of 1943, to the gas chambers in crematoria II, III, IV, and V.

"Trucks carried those too infirm to walk, and the rest marched. These people had to disrobe before entering the gas chambers. In crematorium I, they undressed either in the yard (surrounded by a wall) or in the antechamber. Wooden barracks were erected for this purpose at bunkers 1 and 2. There were special undressing rooms at crematoria II-V.

"When large numbers of transports were arriving in 1944, the people assigned to death in the gas chamber in crematorium V also disrobed in the open air. After the Sonderkommando was quartered in the undressing room in crematorium IV, the people sent to die there undressed in a specially constructed barracks.

"The SS men kept the people fated to die unaware of what awaited them. They were told that they were being sent to the camp, but that they first had to undergo disinfection and bathe. After the victims undressed, they were taken into the gas chamber, locked in, and killed with Zyklon B gas.

"After they were killed, Sonderkommando prisoners dragged the corpses out of the gas chambers. They cut off the women’s hair and removed all metal dental work and jewelry. Then they burned the corpses in pits, on pyres, or in the crematorium furnaces. (Until September 1942, some of the corpses were buried in mass graves; these corpses were burned from September to November 1942.)

"Bones that did not burn completely were ground to powder with pestles and then dumped, along with the ashes, in the rivers Soła and Vistula and in nearby ponds, or strewn in the fields as fertilizer, or used as landfill on uneven ground and in marshes."

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Evil existed then, and it still exists now. "Never Again" is today and every day for the world's Jews.

A Two-State Solution is a Final Solution

From Rabbi Shmuley Boteach:  A Two-State Solution is a Final Solution

"If Israel God forbid ever falls, history will record it was not because it was defeated by a superpower like ancient Rome. Less so will history record that it fell due to some incurable illness, Corona. No, history will record that it was self-inflicted, that Israel fell from the inside due to its people and its leaders being unable to resist external pressures brought to bear to concede more and more land and empower more and more of their enemies.

"Joe Biden deserves immense credit for having Israel’s back since October 7^th. But lately, his and Tony Blinken’s increasing pressure on Israel for a two-state solution will irreversibly damage the state.

"Never in history has one country experienced more self-inflicted wounds on itself than the modern-day State of Israel. Remember, it was not Czechoslovakia that gave itself away to Hitler at Munich in 1938. Indeed, its leaders weren’t even invited by France and Britain to parley with the German Fuhrer. But Israel has now three times given up gigantic tracts of lands to its enemies, and the world is pressuring it to give more. 

"It’s time to say once and for all: No. No more land concessions. Not one millimeter. Not one inch.

"Palestinian state? The original League of Nations Palestine Mandate was 80% Transjordan, given by Winston Churchill the Hashemites as a reward for their support during World War I. That is the actual Palestinian state and it has more than 3.5 million Palestinian citizens. If there is any occupation in the Middle East, it is King Abdullah II’s autocratic rule over millions of Palestinians. And notice, his wife Queen Rania, herself a Palestinian who hates Israel, has not taken in a single Palestinian refugee from Gaza. Not one baby. Not one little girl. Not one family. Not one senior citizen.

"My father taught me to revere Menachem Begin and indeed my father of blessed memory is buried just yards from Begin on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Begin would otherwise be revered as one of the great heroes of modern Jewish history, except for one thing. He gave away all Sinai – territory three times the size of Israel, with its enormous oil reserves – without knowing if Sadat and his regime which guaranteed security would even last. Sadat was assassinated three years later.

"Ah, you say. But the peace has held?

"Has it?

"Nearly all Egyptians loathe Israel to their core. No Israelis in their right mind would ever visit the pyramids open as Israelis in the certainty that it would be a one way trip. If not for the fact that Egypt has a strongman dictator in Sisi who maintains the freezing cold peace, Israel might be at war with Egypt right now. 

"And since October 7^th, what has Egypt done for Israel, after the Jewish state gave them back all of Sinai? Egypt too has taken in no refugees save for a few with medical conditions or foreign passports. Sinai is largely empty, except for the ISIS terrorist who maraud throughout the desert. Why isn’t Egypt taking Palestinian refugees from Hamas?

"Then there is the Oslo catastrophe of 1993, arguably the single dumbest and destructive idea ever practiced by a nation to demolish its own security. Oslo proves why it’s not always wise for generals to become Presidents and Prime Ministers, since they have a vested interest in proving they can make not just war but peace. But was the thoroughly execrable Yasser Arafat ever a partner in peace?

"Sure, why not bring your single greatest enemy and the father of modern terrorism, Yasser Arafat, arm his 40,000 fighters, and expect peace? Is anyone really surprised that some 2000 Israelis – the equivalent of 60,000 Americans, were blown to smithereens in the years following Oslo as Arafat funded the intifadas and suicide bombers, with actual checks linking him to the explosions?

"Then came Israel’s greatest war hero, Ariel Sharon, proving that he could improve even on his predecessor Rabin’s folly by withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza, without getting anything in return from the Palestinians.

"I remember the 2004 and 2005 debates on the Hitnatkut-withdrawal so well. I was at the center of them, visiting the beautiful settlements of Gush Katif over and over again in their terminal months, and even taking my kids to be among the very last Jews to plant trees in the beautiful enclave on Tu B’Shvat of 2005.

"All of those settlements, homes, businesses, and advanced hydroponics – we were amazed to see cucumbers and tomatoes growing out of the sand – which could have served as a model to Gazans of the economic potential of the territory, were destroyed by Sharon and the IDF.

"And what replaced them? As the New York times reported this week, 350 miles of tunnels, all in an enclave that is only 27 miles long.

"So here we are, four wars and thousands of Israeli dead nearly 25 years later, and the United States and the Biden Administration is now pushing Israel to create a Palestinian state.

"Netanyahu has fiercely resisted and he deserves immense credit for pushing back against Israel’s foremost ally. As much as Bibi will be called upon to address the awful security failures of October 7^th – and he will – he should also receive praise for standing up to unprecedented international pressure to destroy Hamas completely and utterly.

"As an American Jew I will, for the rest of my life, be grateful to Joe Biden for all he has done to support an arm Israel over the last three months. He’s been exemplary. But the very same President has an addiction to funding Iran, the source of all the mayhem. Iran now controls Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. Most of the terrorism comes from the murderous mullahs. I completely understand why Biden doesn’t want a war with Iran. Both parties in the United States are profoundly isolationist and everyone is tired of the endless wars. But what does that have to do with funding the main funder of terrorism?

"We’ll leave that question for another time. For now, let’s be absolutely clear. For Israel a two-state solution is a final solution. There is no possibility of Israel’s continuity with a Palestinian state alongside it. Gaza is in nearly every sense a Palestinian state. They have their own army, foreign policy, economy, police force, and it was all born out of free elections in 2006 that brought Hamas to power. Why would we believe that any Palestinian state will turn out any differently?"

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach served as Rabbi to Oxford University for 11 years when he founded the Oxford L’Chaim Society, which became Oxford’s second largest student group and where Cory Booker served as student President. Rabbi Shmuley is the author of “The Israel Warrior” and “Kosher Hate”. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley

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There IS no two-state solution.  What most people never stop to think about is the fact that just because the "Palestinians" somehow get their own state, they are never going to stop destroying the State of Israel and slaughtering the Jewish people! That's their goal. And endless Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement is ever going to alter that fact.

The only solution is NO.

Bad News From Bidenland

1)  Biden delays decision on massive gas export terminal in Louisiana.  

"The White House reportedly is delaying a decision on whether to approve an enormous natural gas export facility in southern Louisiana. If constructed, it would be the largest terminal of its kind in the United States.

"Climate activists have been doggedly fighting the construction of the facility, known as CP2, saying the environmental impact would obliterate Louisiana’s rapidly eroding coast.

"If the project is scrapped, it would mark the first time the Energy Department has denied a natural gas facility for environmental reasons."

So here we go again. The environmentalist extremists will vote for Biden in November while the average citizen suffers from higher costs and the lack of energy sources.

2)  Biden Complains After Protesters Succeed in Blocking Entry of ‘Humanitarian Aid’ Trucks into Gaza

"Israelis, including the families of hostages being held in Gaza, and of soldiers fighting in the enclave, succeeded on Thursday in blocking all the trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

"While the protests against the deliveries began right after Israel began allowing the trucks in, yesterday the protesters managed to block most of the trucks from getting in for the first time, and following that success more Israeli protesters joined the blockade today. Normally between 70 – 100 trucks cross over.

"According to Kann reporter Amichai Stein, in response to the hostage families blocking the entry of the trucks, the Biden administration informed Israel that the Kerem Shalom crossing must remain open [for humanitarian aid] and operate as usual."

Yes, by all means don't block "aid" to Hamas and their Palestinian supporters.  If only Biden complained about the plight of the Jewish hostages and the murdered Israeli victims as much!

3) International Court of Justice moves against Israel in ‘genocide’ case brought by South Africa

"17-judge International Court of Justice panel orders Israel to provide detailed report in one month, demanding IDF protect Gazans and offer humanitarian assistance.

"A 17-judge panel of United Nations judges at the International Court of Justice ruled Friday to proceed with a genocide case against Israel, refusing the Jewish state’s demands that the allegations be removed from the court’s docket."

You can't tell me that the constant pressure, threats, and anger towards Israel from the Biden Administration didn't affect this "Court's" decision.

Political Correctness: More Important Than Skills!

Read this Miranda Devine opinion column in the New York Post titled DEI hires pushed onto the FBI are putting the country’s safety at risk for the sake of being ‘woke’ 

"An alarming deterioration in recruitment standards for the FBI has been exposed in a report delivered to the House Judiciary Committee by an alliance of retired and active-duty agents and analysts. 

"Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements pushed by FBI Director Chris Wray have degraded recruitment standards in all areas including 'physical fitness, illicit drug use, financial irregularities, mental health, full-time work experience and integrity,'  and pose a threat to the FBI’s ability to protect America from harm, say the authors. 

"The report cites cases of new agents who are so fat and unfit, they can’t even pass the new relaxed standards for fitness; who are illiterate and need remedial English lessons; who don’t want to work weekends or after hours; have serious disabilities or mental-health issues, and 'create drama.' 

"The FBI is no longer recruiting the 'best and brightest' to be special agents, but selecting candidates based on 'race, gender and/or sexual orientation.'"

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They've already ruined our military this way, and now it sounds like the FBI is going downhill quickly as well. The woke mob won't be satisfied until they destroy all our institutions.

So I won't be at all surprised to find out that doctors won't need to go to medical school anymore, And astronauts won't need any flight training at all. The possibilities are endless -- and frightening!

DEI must stand for Dumbing down Effectiveness & Intelligence.

Desperately Shrugging Off COVID

Thank you, Gregg Gonsalves, for your excellent column at The Nation. I am always relieved in a way to read such thorough dismantling of COVID denial from him, Julia Doubleday, Dr Eric Topol, and others.  Their reliable assessments reassure me that I'm not alone in suspecting the truth about COVID despite all the attempts to mimimize the virus and convince us that COVID is over, or mild, and nothing to worrry about.

After Four Years of COVID, We've Still Got Our Heads in The Sand.

"Four years of Covid-19. A total of 1.165 million deaths in the United States. As of December, we were averaging about 1,500 deaths a week from Covid. These numbers may seem abstract to many, but I remember a scientific paper from early in the pandemic that estimated  'for every Covid-19 death, approximately nine surviving Americans will lose a grand­parent, parent, sibling, spouse, or child'—which means 60,000 Americans were left grieving for the holidays.

"Public health is about trade-offs between risks and benefits, just like personal health. Think about your own life: We all weigh the pleasure of that second glass of wine or extra slice of cake against the calories we know that pleasure will bring. And I’m not judging here, as I make these same decisions daily. (Give me that chocolate chip cookie.)

"Yet I am not quite sure we’ve ever had an explicit discussion about the collective trade-offs we’ve made when it comes to Covid. As the physician and scientist Eric Topol said in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, 'SARS-CoV-2 has once again proved to be highly resilient, capable of reinventing itself to infect us. Yet we continue to make-believe that the pandemic is over, that infections have been transformed to common cold status by prior exposure(s), and that life has returned to normal. Sadly, none of this is true.'

"We’ve told ourselves, or been told by our leaders, that the pandemic is over. And governments have reinforced that idea by jettisoning most mitigation measures, failing to deliver even on ones that would not require individual choice—such as improving ventilation and filtration in our buildings. We’ve also largely stopped tracking the spread of the virus and reporting detailed Covid data.

"This is a way to let ourselves off the hook. It lets us think we’ve gotten something for nothing; that we’ve made no societal trade-offs at all. But, as Topol pointed out, this is a lie. The deaths, the burden on our hospitals, the difficulties that families face when someone is sick at home, and the specter of long Covid for some—those are the trade-offs, the things we have all been conditioned to accept as the price of our return to “normality.”

"Some will say: Well, this isn’t 2020. Deaths and hospitalizations are down, even if infections are surging to their second-highest level since the pandemic began, with some estimates suggesting that one out of three Americans (over 140 million people) could be infected by mid-February. But the comparator shouldn’t be the darkest days of the pandemic thus far. It should be what came before. Each year, we’re adding thousands of preventable deaths to the baseline of what we experienced as a nation in 2019 and calling it quits. This is the trade-off we’ve made. And as a recent report in The Washington Post reminds us, our baseline was far from rosy: We have some of the worst life expectancy among rich nations around the world, but we don’t seem to care much about that either.

"If  'don’t worry, be happy,' is the left-of-center default now, on the right, it’s mayhem. Many are familiar with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s attacks on public health and his surgeon general’s anti-vaccine quackery, but around the nation, Republican legislatures in nearly 30 states have also enacted laws that weaken public health authorities. Less well-known are the attacks on public health from a conservative judiciary. As the legal scholar Wendy Parmet has written, this is making us less safe and leaving us less prepared for new public health threats as they emerge. Meanwhile, emboldened by their support on the right, anti-vaccine activists are targeting standard childhood immunizations as an affront to religious liberty and winning in states like Mississippi. There are also conservative legal challenges to mandates for polio and measles, mumps, and rubella shots in several states, in hopes that the Supreme Court will eventually strike down childhood vaccine mandates across the board.

"Finally, there is the sad revisionism of leaders such as former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, who suggested that concerns about the social and economic impacts of lockdowns were underplayed in 2020—a totally false rewriting of history. (Collins earned a rebuke from Jeremy Konyndyk, the former head of the USAID Covid task force, for undermining “‘public health’ by blaming it for all COVID-related grievances and airbrushing what Trump and other pols actually did,” thus obscuring the actual and difficult trade-offs being made during the early days of the pandemic.)

"Meanwhile, as Collins was being lauded on the right, an 83-year-old former civil servant, Anthony Fauci, who led the nation’s infectious disease response for nearly 40 years, was being grilled for hours by a hostile House committee for his Covid sins. Talk about feeding your colleagues to the lions to save your own skin. Thanks, Francis, for your service.

"So here we are in 2024. Liberals and progressives in a la-la land of denial. Conservatives in a feeding frenzy, ready to tear apart American public health for their own political purposes. And the virus nowhere near under control. This is the state of the pandemic in year four."

How COVID Denial Has Killed Public Health & How To Fix It

Here's another excellent article by Julia Doubleday at The Gauntlet.  We need more people like her to go on TV and tell educate the average American about what's really going on! 

Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress. 

Public health cannot be individualized. Abandoning collective approaches to disease mitigation is a recipe for disaster.

Julia Doubleday, Jan 24, 2024

"If you live in a rich country, you’re probably not going to get cholera from your drinking water. The state accepts the responsibility of waterborne disease elimination as an obvious duty of governance, and the state and the collective then benefit from a healthier population, more able to participate in the economy and work.

"Let’s say tomorrow the US government decided to stop cleaning our water supply. President Joe Biden or one of his minions gets on TV and says “cholera has been defeated, it’s over, and we need to get back to normal. We can’t live in fear of cholera forever- we need to live our lives!” Massive cholera outbreaks ensure, and people are quietly told they can (pay out of pocket) for private water filtration systems. Those who do pay this burdensome individual tax are told they are living in fear and mocked by those who do not. People with cholera are pushed by their employers to come to work anyway, and CDC guidance reduces cholera isolation to one day, whether or not you’re still symptomatic or infectious.

"If this all sound patently ridiculous, like a brutally misguided approach to “protecting the economy,” and like an extremely obvious way for the state to save money and shirk responsibility for collective good, congratulations! You now understand why so many on the left are aghast at the current state of the country and world’s COVID response (there is none.)

"We can’t talk about how we got to total state abandonment on COVID without discussing the billions of dollars that went into disinformation campaigns, pushing people to think of public health as an individual responsibility. Sure, liberals were easily able to call out Trump-era minimizing and their subsequent anti-vaccination rhetoric. But what about the mild-mannered TV news-platformed 'experts' and unqualified reporters who continually pushed lines like 'personal risk tolerance', 'you do you,' 'back to normal,' 'we have to live life,'  'only vulnerable people are at risk,' and that old chestnut, 'we can’t live in fear'? (I truly can’t overstate how much demanding clean air and clean water is not 'living in fear' but simply expecting the bare minimum of a democratic society to which we pay taxes and refusing to be a bootlicker for billionaire talking points.)"

"This propagandist narrative aimed to achieve, not just a practical outcome, but a philosophical, political victory. It aimed to individualize a collective good that has been entrenched as a basic human right in rich societies for at least a century. It aimed to reframe disease control as something that should be a choice for each person, rather than a publicly funded collective effort.

"This victory is so thorough that many prominent leftists and progressive organizations remain silent as workers are continually sickened and disabled with zero legal recourse. Speaking to them, you will often hear the above talking points- which came from shadowy libertarian thinktanks- repeated word for word. It’s as if, in the course of four years, leftists suddenly decided they no longer believed in public transit, public libraries, public welfare programs, or public education. Except it’s, you know, way worse."

"Imagine describing an unprecedented attack on and dismantling of public transit resources and a leftist telling you, “yeah, but what can we do? People can always buy a car.” That’s the situation we find ourselves in with COVID- not only are we not winning, we aren’t even fighting. Not only are we not protecting people, we aren’t even outraged. To engage with the reality of this crisis, we need to understand how adopting an individualist approach to public health is destroying decades of labor activism, human rights progress, and hard-won protections."

"The history of public health in this country and around the world is the history of disease eradication, mitigation, suppression, and prevention. The name of the public health body currently pushing “you do you” as a strategy is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, for God’s sake. It’s not the Center for Diseases Are Fine and Go About Your Day. It was initially founded in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center with a mandate to eliminate malaria. Not ignore. Not “learn to live with.” Eliminate. A word that, four years into the disaster capitalist response that took neoliberal abandonment to new heights, cannot even be uttered aloud anymore."

"Elimination is not considered a radical goal at all - or wasn’t - in the context of any other virus. Looking at public health projects globally, you will consistently see elimination and eradication listed as the top priorities of governments, NGOs and public health institutions. HIV/AIDS elimination. Malaria elimination. Measles elimination. TB elimination. Zero public health projects in the history of ever have had a stated goal of “ignore it because we have to live life.” It’s fundamentally antithetical to the very concept of public health."

"And look at the way this logic of individualizing and ignoring disease has led to complete disuse of any of the so-called “tools” we supposedly have in our toolkit. We certainly hear the public complaining about illness after illness after illness, taking to twitter and Tiktok to marvel at the “new normal” of constant, lingering sicknesses and new onset health problems, yet they appear completely unaware that there are any measures that could prevent and reduce illness."

"Partly, this is because of several years of misinformation and propaganda demonizing masks and bringing their efficacy into public doubt. Partly, this is because people see the wholesale public abandonment and feel it is pointless for them to individually attempt to reduce their individual risk- a feeling that is, to a degree, correct. Yes, I wear masks indoors and test and ventilate and filtrate. Yes, I still got COVID because a houseguest who stayed with me didn’t take precautions at a work event. Attempting to protect yourself from airborne viruses in a world with zero airborne infection control is as effective as trying to avoid cholera in a world without clean public water. Worth doing? Yes. Carries great financial and social cost and still won’t fully protect you? Also yes."

"That’s why we need a strong, institutional response including new ventilation and filtration standards that would immediately and significantly reduce virus in the air and airborne viral spread generally."

"Let’s talk about the short and long-term social outcomes of COVID normalization. Yes, masks and all other precautions are demonized to the point of being framed as indicative of mental illness, including on the left. But we also see this attitude bleeding into disease control generally. Another reason the public appears more willing- perhaps even eager- to spread disease- has to do with officially sanctioned misinformation being hurled at parents: that your kids are getting sick more often because of the “lockdowns” that occurred in 2020."

"There are layers to how incorrect this talking point, known as “immunity debt”, is. Firstly, your immune system doesn’t need to encounter viruses to get stronger. Pathogenic microbes do not strengthen your immune system. That’s why, instead of giving kids cholera on purpose, we clean the water. Secondly, wearing a mask or doing other forms of disease mitigation does not damage your immune system. Prominent outlets, critical of Trump at the beginning of COVID, we were quick to debunk this lie back in 2020. Now they promote it."

"Worth mentioning that “immunity debt” is a spinoff of the “hygiene hypothesis,” which states that the body needs to encounter beneficial bacteria. It was never intended to encompass pathogenic microbes or viruses. Anti-vaxxers were the first to push the idea that getting sick is healthy for children. Now liberals incorrectly believe it."

"What does damage your immune system is COVID infection."

Persistent complement dysregulation with signs of thromboinflammation in active Long Covid (Science)

Immunological dysfunction persists for 8 months following initial mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection (Nature Immonology) - please note that 8 months was end of the study, not the end of the immune damage

Impaired function and delayed regeneration of dendritic cells in COVID-19 (PLOS Pathogens)
Multimodal Molecular Imaging Reveals Tissue-Based T Cell Activation and Viral RNA Persistence for Up to 2 Years Following COVID-19 (MedRxiv preprint)

"There is still debate about what proportion of people are being affected by post-COVID immune damage and how long it lasts, but what we know indicates that a significant number of people are affected indefinitely. Even minimizers are pivoting from claiming COVID doesn’t impact the immune system to the tautology and logical fallacy “it’s only hurting the immune system in people with Long COVID.” This is akin to saying “COVID only causes long-term harm to people who are long-term harmed by COVID.” It is circular logic."

"For several years, when minimizers downplayed consistent findings of post-COVID immune damage, they stated that were we experiencing large-scale immune dysfunction, we’d expect to see spiking fungal infections, spiking bacterial infections, worsening viral outbreaks, pneumonias and other opportunistic infections. We are now seeing all of these effects internationally, yet minimizers continue to turn a blind eye and the press continues to push “your kid wore masks in 2020” as the explanation."

"We are even beginning to see large resurgences of previously-eliminated-in-rich-countries viruses like measles. Lack of vaccination is a culprit; so is normalizing sending sick kids to schools, telling parents kids need to get sick to be healthy, denying people paid sick leave, and kicking kids’ immune systems in the teeth multiple times a year."

"Suppression of pathogens like measles relies on a herd-immunity strategy. This means a large number of people in the community need to have a good amount of immunity to the pathogen. When kids are unvaccinated, they don’t have any immunity. When they have damaged immune systems or become immunocompromised, they may have weakened immunity or be unable to develop immunity at all. That means that broad-scale suppression of kids’ immune systems multiple times a year is also going to bring down that wall of herd immunity that previously protected the collective from outbreaks. Oh, and telling parents it’s good for their kids to get sick, and they should attend school sick? Yeah, that’s not going to help much either."

"Unless we change course urgently- unless we fight back against the normalization of constant illness and the individualization of a critical public good- we are going to see a long, slow, across-the-board decline in health and life expectancy amid increasingly uncontrollable disease outbreaks and overwhelmed hospital systems. I haven’t even gotten into the damage COVID does to blood vessels, kidneys, livers, brains, and hearts, how it can trigger autoimmune diseases and reactivate latent pathogens; all of that information can be found elsewhere on this site. But the reality is that our kids will be continually reinfected with COVID while navigating the return of measles and other vaccine-controlled diseases, while being told there is zero technology that can protect them and zero reason to protect them, while contracting flu and RSV more frequently and with worse severity."

"This is not 1824. It is 2024. We have the technology and knowledge to mitigate disease spread. Let’s fight for a future that is safer, better, and healthier than the world we grew up in, rather than sicker, crueler, and technologically regressed. If we don’t face reality and understand what we’re sacrificing right now, the next generation certainly will."

Harvard: Bastion of Jew-Hatred

It's truly amazing how a previously classy Ivy League school like Harvard, with a long record of prestige and excellence, has succeeded in destroying its own reputation since October 7, and now has turned into UC Berkeley, with its record of antisemitism and hatred.

For years, an employer seeing Harvard on an applicant's resume would have been impressed. Now, the same employer's first reaction is "We can't hire her. She's an antisemite at Harvard".

Here's the latest obscenity from those once hallowed halls:

"'Evidence Please’ – Posters of Hostages Defaced at Harvard University"

"Jewish Harvard students returned from winter vacation recently only to find that at a large number of posters of hostages on campus have been defaced with antisemitic graffiti.

"This comes after the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, who was widely criticized for her refusal to say in a congressional hearing that calling for the genocide of Jews violated the university’s code of conduct.

"A group of Israeli students are filing a complaint about the antisemitic vandalism.

"On his X account, Jewish student Shabbos Kestenbaum posted a video showing defaced posters of Israelis held in Gaza and posted, 'The night before Harvard begins a new semester, every single Jewish hostage poster on campus has been defaced with vile antisemitism.'

"He added, 'Jews are neither safe nor welcomed at Harvard.'"

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How such people get accepted to Harvard in the first place is a mystery.  They may have the money, but they don't have the character. Anyone who does such an inhumane act should be expelled from school, fired from work, and ostracized -- not celebrated.

First Case of COVID in United States, 1/20/20

On January 20, 2020, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was found in the United States.

"Following a rapid spread from its origin in Wuhan, China, the first U.S. case of the 2019 novel coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, is confirmed in a man from Washington State on January 20, 2020.

"The virus, which would spark a pandemic, was first reported in China on December 31, 2019. Halfway across the world, on January 19, a man who had returned home to Snohomish County, Washington near Seattle on January 15, after traveling to Wuhan, checked into an urgent care clinic after seeing reports about the outbreak. 

"Experiencing a cough, fever, nausea and vomiting, the Centers for Disease Control announced on January 20 that the 35-year-old had tested positive for COVID-19. He was hospitalized, where his condition grew worse and he developed pneumonia. His symptoms abated 10 days later.

"In the following months, the Seattle area became the epicenter of an early U.S. outbreak. 39 residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, died from complications from the virus in one four-week span. In some cases, people who died from COVID-19 in January 2020, but didn’t know it at the time, had their death certificate amended to show they died from the virus.

"According to the CDC, 14 U.S. coronavirus cases were noted by public health agencies between January 21 and February 23, 2020; all patients had traveled to China. The first non-travel case was confirmed in California on February 26, and the first U.S. death was reported on February 29.

"As the virus quickly marched across the country, businesses, schools and social gatherings were largely shut down, while, by May, unemployment rates reached their highest levels since the Great Depression.

"Spreading to almost every country, more than 662 million people have contracted the virus worldwide, and 6.7 million have died from it. The first U.S. vaccinations for COVID-19 were administered on December 14, 2020. By early 2023, 101 million cases and more than 1 million deaths from the virus had been reported in the U.S. alone."

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Thank goodness there was a quick response to a deadly new virus, or we would have lost even more people than we did. Thank goodness in 2020 we didn't have the reckless "it's only a cold" and "you do you" mentality we have today. Everyone did their part 4 years ago to minimize the death and destruction despite no available vaccines.

The horrible suffering inn nursing homes and hospitals has abated thanks to the vaccines, but unfortunately the public has become more selfish, rude, and apathetic since then.

Keep your guard up -- COVID is still with us in 2024.

A "Two-State Solution" Is No Solution For Israel

Michael Goodwin has a good opinion column in the New York Post titled  Biden’s two-state ‘solution’ would be a disaster for Israel.

We all know this fact already, but the fools in the Biden Administration keep trying to foist this idea on Israel anyway.  I'm sure Biden would like the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas vote in November, and Blinken is probably dreaming of a Nobel Peace Prize.

This pretty much sums it up:

"Undeterred by facts, Secretary of State Tony Blinken took the administration’s loopy fixation to Davos, where he declared that Israel can never achieve 'genuine security' without a pathway to a Palestinian state.

"He would have been closer to the truth if he had also admitted Israel wouldn’t have 'genuine security' with a Palestinian state."

(By now, this fantasy should be more appropriately referred to as a Palestinian terrorist state.)

They will never understand -- or else the DO understand but choose to ignore it -- that Israel can't afford to live with neighbors whose whole life revolves around eradicating their people and their land.

That's what the goal of the Nazis was as well, and you can see how well that worked out for European Jews. After the war, the survivors came to Israel looking for peace and security.  

They are still waiting.

Some Good News From A Terrible Day

All these years later...

Remains of new dad killed in 9/11 attacks identified thanks to DNA breakthrough

"The remains of a new dad killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 have finally been identified more than two decades later — thanks to groundbreaking new DNA technology.

"John Ballantine Niven, 44, of Oyster Bay, Long Island, was on the 105th floor of the South Tower when he was killed on that fateful Tuesday — leaving behind his wife and 18-month-old son.

"The new father was the senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions at Aon Risk Services.

"His remains have been positively identified using breakthrough DNA sequencing technology, along with a mitochondrial DNA analysis and other procedures that have been refined since the 2001 terror attack, New York City officials announced Thursday."

---

The good news is that now Mr. Niven's remains can be laid to rest. Unfortunately, the psychological torture, murder, and horror committed by Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Nazis still reverberate to this day and will never be forgotten -- or forgiven.

How To Persuade People To Get Vaccinated

Here's a good column by Dr Jeffrey Millstein at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is an internist and regional medical director for Penn Primary Care.

Combating ‘No thanks’ replies to respiratory vaccines | Expert Opinion. 

Here's how one Philadelphia doctor responds to patients who are hesitant about vaccines.

“No thanks, not this time.”

“I think I’ll pass on that one.”

“When is this all going to end?”

“I’ve had enough.”

"You would think these are responses to irksome requests for a donation or offering of a second portion of an unsavory entrée. They are actually the common responses I am hearing this year when I recommend seasonal respiratory virus vaccinations (flu, COVID, and RSV) to my primary care patients, and it has me worried.

"This year, more so than any in recent memory, I have observed a very negative way of thinking about adult vaccines, especially the most recent COVID-19 booster. While there has always been some degree of apprehension or vaccine hesitancy, this year it has been replaced by a preponderance of outright rejection. A recent Gallup survey revealed that 51% of adults surveyed did not plan to get the newest COVID booster.

"Why is this so? Studies have sighted a variety of reasons, including lack of trust in the organizations making, promoting, and providing guidance on vaccination, as well as safety concerns. What I have noticed in my practice is more negativity and apathy. Rather than expressing a sense that seasonal vaccines are important and acknowledging their worries about safety or tolerability, many patients are now presenting a hard stop. A firm no. Clinicians may consequently be less motivated to provide a counterpoint.

"My colleagues and I have pondered how to address this heightened resistance to vaccination while we concurrently watch hospitalization rates climb and see our message boxes fill to the brim with requests for appointments and medicines to treat a triple-demic surge of COVID, influenza, and RSV, among other common winter viruses. One approach to those who are refusing vaccines with “absolutely not, no way, no how” ferocity is to return to the basics and review some facts:

"Vaccines are among the most positively impactful health interventions in human history.

"They may not always prevent infection, but significantly reduce their severity and save lives.

"Side effects are usually very mild like arm soreness, fatigue, achiness, or low-grade fever.

"No medical intervention is without some risk. Serious adverse reactions from vaccines are far more rare than severe consequences of the illnesses they mitigate or prevent.

"There is no such thing as 'too many' vaccines. We are fortunate to live in a time when new technology has enabled development of new vaccines faster than ever before. Our immune systems can handle it.

"There are no more adult vaccine mandates. We are back to the fundamental idea that vaccination is one of the most foundational and effective ways to stay alive and well and protect our community.

"Even if you are not concerned for your own health, consider the vulnerable babies, pregnant people, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people you inevitably cross paths with. For reluctant readers, I implore you to reassess your views and consider a more positive mindset on COVID boosters, flu shots and, if you are age 60 and over, RSV vaccine. Now that no one is forcing your hand, make it your own thoughtful and healthy decision."

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Great advice, but, sadly, I don't think anyone is bothering to listen anymore.