Laura Helmuth on Twitter - "I got another COVID booster shot and the pharmacist said, "you're good now, you don't need any more shots" and I'm like, buddy, I'm going to be back every six months to a year until something else kills me, which is the entire point"
From March 2023. Amazing.
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, India’s pandemic politics - "‘Linguists reckon that German now has 1200 new words thanks to the pandemic. It's all because German nouns are notoriously promiscuous, shamelessly hooking up at the first meeting, Teutonic words just get together. And most shockingly of all, German nouns aren't even shy about multiple partners at the same time. This rather libertine tendency is what gives the German language those uniquely precise compound words. Some of them won’t last though. The word for doing a tour of various outdoor mulled wine stores or *something* became redundant overnight when Angular Merkel closed down the wine stands just before Christmas… In German society, fairness is an overriding principle. Sociologists argue that envy is particularly widespread in societies like Germany, where equality and solidarity are seen as important. So politicians have been terrified of appearing to jump the queue themselves, which is why government leaders here got the vaccine long after politicians in other European countries. It was rumored that German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass kept getting offered the jab at summit by politicians from other countries who felt sorry for him, but he always turned it down, afraid of voter reaction back home"
أبو عمّار on Twitter - "World Economic Forum shill, Yuval Noah Hariri: "Covid is critical because this is what convinces people to accept to legitimize total biometric surveillance. We need to not just monitor people, we need to monitor what’s happening under their skin”"
VIA Rail ordered to rehire engineer terminated over COVID vaccine | Toronto Sun
Vaccine-Card T-Shirt Shows Everyone You're Fully Vaccinated - "Andrew Wyatt was jogging over the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City when he noticed people around him staring. Wyatt, the CEO of Cala, a technology company that connects designers and brands with supply chains, was fully vaccinated and had decided not to wear a mask while running outdoors... On Amazon, a search for "vaccine card holder" returned over 2,000 results, many of them clear sleeves to protect the paper card. On Etsy, a cottage industry has sprung up, with over 4,000 options for sleeves, wallets, and keychains perfectly proportioned to fit your vaccine card."
From 2021
Secret Gyms And The Economics Of Prohibition - "What Evelyn uncovered can only be described as a speakeasy gym. You know, illegal, hush hush, like the underground bars during the Prohibition era. These underground gyms appear to be popping up everywhere, from LA to New Jersey... Miron's research shows that the longer a prohibition goes on, the less effective it is. He and a colleague studied what the federal prohibition of alcohol did to booze consumption, using death rates from cirrhosis of the liver as a proxy to measure it (disturbing, right?). They estimate that at the beginning of Prohibition, alcohol consumption dropped sharply to about 30 percent of what it was before. But within several years, it shot back up to 60-70 percent of pre-Prohibition levels. Suppliers, he says, learned how to make moonshine in bathtubs and smuggle booze from Canada. And consumers got tired of the dry spell."
From 2020
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Tuesday's business with Dominic O'Connell - "‘The problem is we can't just keep opening closing our businesses. We can't just switch the restaurant site. It's not like a light switch and back on and everybody's up and running again. It takes days of preparation.’"
From 2020
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Driverless cars: A loss of human autonomy? - "‘Obviously there is some appeal in being relieved of involvement in, in everyday activities that used to be a part of daily life. You know there's a kind of ideology of freedomism, that we, sort of without thinking, we, we adopt and and the, you know the suggestion seems to be that being relieved of taking care of our own physical environment is a state of higher freedom. But again there's this kind of atrophy of our basic human capacities as embodied beings who do things for ourselves and for one another. And I think people are starting to sort of chafe against this felt imperative to, you know make everything ever more uninvolving and abstract, and people are seeking out more analog kind of relationship to the world...
One thing that covid did is it kind of revealed to us that this ethic of safetyism can become a kind of extreme and almost totalitarian mindset, you know, because during covid we fixated on a few very narrow metrics. You know case counts and hospitalization rates and stuff like that that, and sort of outside that tunnel vision there was a sort of blindness about the wider field of harms being done by, you know, the lockdowns and all the measures we took to control the virus. So safetyism can I think distort one's vision in that way and I think that's something people have woken up to and are maybe now inclined to be a little more careful, a little more skeptical when there's some entity that's making a claim to keep us safe, which really is kind of the uh the grounds on which, um, you know a power grab is often made... if you question any kind of safety claim you're labeled Pro Death which is not uh a good career move, so there's a kind of moral intimidation that can be accomplished simply by trotting out safety. And uh you know even on its own terms often these safety claims don't quite pan out so I think we all have to be a little more um a little more skeptical about these things’"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, BJP Narendra Taneja on India Covid crisis - "‘There was a problem wasn't there, which some call complacency, others call arrogance, your party, the BJP passed a resolution that said it can be said with pride, India defeated COVID-19. Under the able, sensible, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi, I thought was an absurd thing to say, wasn't it?;
‘India has actually handled the situation. You know, if you look at the picture by that sign and what we had done the past 12 months, remarkably well’"
From 2021
Best of Today: Care Homes: Is it illegal to discriminate by age? (2 Apr 2021)
‘One part of the current guidance is a restriction on people over 65 leaving residential care for visits and that has been challenged by campaigners who believe it's unlawful. What the guidance says is because spending time with others outside the care home increases the risk of exposure to COVID, it should only be considered for those of working age, in exceptional circumstances such as end of life visits should be supported. But it also says that any trips outside should require 14 day isolation for the resident on their return. Well, the legal challenge comes from John's campaign which works on the rights of people with dementia to be supported by their family carers. Julia Jones is its co founder and I asked her first about the basis on which she's challenging the guidance.’
‘Well, I'm going to declare an interest. And I'm going to say that I'm 66. And I'm shocked to find that I've become part of a group that can be discriminated against purely on the grounds of my age. I'm amazed that the Department of Health thinks it's okay to write a bit of guidance that discriminates people, against people purely on grounds of the, of their age. It does make me, it does make me stutter’
‘Even though we know that the risk of being hospitalized with COVID is much higher for older age groups.’
‘Well, actually, we also know that the the BAME community has very great risks in COVID. We also know that men have very great risks, middle aged men have very great risks with COVID. Do you think that we should discriminate against all middle aged men, just because their group has a higher risk? Because I don't. It, we seem to have gotten to a situation where we, not we, the Department of Health, and particularly Public Health England looks at care home residents as if they're a different species.’...
'It's illegal to discriminate. We live in a country, which has the Equality Act, we all which which means that you must take people's individual situations and disabilities into account. We have the Mental Capacity Act, which says if you're depriving somebody of their liberty, because they have a mental condition, there must be safeguards with the government'"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Prue Leith's Today programme - "‘He says he's not afraid of death, but he is worried about what can happen in those moments before it. The point he’s making is that he, as he sees it, has a right to himself be in control in those moments?’
‘Well, it's tricky isn’t it? Because he won't say, Well, I have the right to choose. Well that's not actually worked. Because if our choice puts others at great risk, then we don't allow it. For instance, you know, we are all locked down now, because it's not gonna be safe for some people to go out because they choose. Because it might affect the life of somewhere else. And I feel, and I think rightly so, if we go down this route, then people will feel that they have either a duty to die, because they don't want to be a burden, or because their fear is so great that they’re going to end up in a care home and be treated in not a good way. And that's not what they want.’"
From 2020
China 'began developing two Covid vaccines' before official outbreak - "Chinese researchers may have begun developing two Covid vaccines in November 2019, before the official start of the outbreak, a US senate report has claimed. The claims come in a 300-page document, which concluded that the pandemic most likely came from a lab leak and was the result of a "research-related incident" in Wuhan. It said the theory that Covid-19 jumped from animals to humans in a market no longer deserved the "presumption of accuracy". The report argued that Chinese researchers appeared to begin development of at least two Covid vaccines at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in November 2019, meaning "SARS-CoV-2 would have been present at the WIV before the known outbreak of the pandemic"... The report said there were "anomalies" between Covid-19 and other diseases that have spilled over naturally from animals to humans. And it said, three years on, no critical evidence had been found proving there was a natural spillover. It added that there had not been spillovers of the virus in numerous places at numerous times, as might be expected if that was the cause. The report also noted that the type of bats carrying the closest virus to Covid-19 lived over 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. However, the lab had collected over 200 coronaviruses, and employees had been photographed handling bats with inadequate protective gear, the report said. Scientists there had been involved in research aimed at preventing future pandemics, and had sought funding to engineer coronaviruses, it said... Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, said Covid “most likely” leaked from the Wuhan lab. Mr Wray said: "The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan." The US Department of Energy has also concluded that a lab leak was the most likely cause, although with "low confidence"."
Damn misinformation! Time to ban the US Senate and FBI from Twitter and Facebook and prosecute them for racist hate speech
Michael P Senger on Twitter - "New: Justin Trudeau claims he never “forced” anyone to get vaccinated. “There are potential side effects... While not forcing anyone to get vaccinated, I chose to make sure all the incentives…were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated.”"
The gaslighting continues
Two men were consumed by Covid psychosis. Their wives say one lived and the other died because of how doctors reacted
A covid hystericist cited this as "Evidence of brain damage after COVID-19 infections". So if someone becomes psychotic after getting a covid vaccine...
Home | Free to Fly Canada - "Are you one of the millions of people in Canada who lost access to travel because of their vaccine status? Sign up, and join 2,800 Canadian aviation professionals, and 40,000 passengers, on a mission to make their voices heard in every legislature, court, and board room across Canada. Together, we are a potent force for change."
Liberals love to mock those who still protest covid restrictions, claiming that since they aren't around anymore, protestors are showing they are idiots. Yet they always obsess over wrongs from decades or even centuries ago, like slavery, colonialism and the Crusades
Karl Knights on Twitter - "I don't know if it's just me, but this moment of the pandemic is the most isolated I've felt so far. Virtual events dwindle, week on week. Masks are vanishing, and the pandemic is ignored by friends and the news every single day. A safe future has never felt further away."
From March 2023. Why don't covid hystericists believe the vaccines work?
Meme - Steven Cheah: "Forced to lug this in from New Jersey because my coworkers refuse to get boosted. *tent*"
Imagine being a covid hystericist in April 2023
The Ottawa trucker convoy is rooted in Canada’s settler colonial history - The Washington Post - "The history of Canadian settler colonialism and public health demonstrates how both overt white-supremacist claims and seemingly more inert nationalistic claims about “unity” and “freedom” both enable and erase ongoing harm to marginalized communities... The notion of “freedom” was historically and remains intertwined with Whiteness, as historian Tyler Stovall has argued. The belief that one is entitled to freedom is a key component of white supremacy"
From 2022. Spicy take. So non-white people don't need or want freedom or unity
Comment: "if “a belief in one’s entitlement to freedom is a key component of white supremacy” then why did all the people who were slaves want freedom so much?"
Exact quote from the book: "belief in freedom, specifically in one’s entitlement to freedom, was a key component of white supremacy"
Jordan Peterson hammers ‘totalitarian’ Covid rules - "Controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson has hammered the “totalitarian state” he says has emerged in response to Covid-19, angrily wondering why he ever got vaccinated if the state still won’t leave him in peace. “I thought, all right, I’ll get the damn vaccine. But, here’s the deal, guys: I’ll get the vaccine and you f***ing leave me alone!” Peterson told podcast host Dave Rubin on Wednesday. “And did that work? No. So, stupid me, you know?” he exclaimed. “It’s like, why did I get the vaccine then, if you're not going to leave me alone?”... he was surprised by “how rapidly we stampeded to imitate a totalitarian state in the immediate aftermath of the release of Covid.”"
From 2021. Of course in 2023 people still pretend that all the unvaccinated couldn't do was go to a restaurant
Why Are California's Hospitals So Overwhelmed? - The Atlantic - "perhaps it should be no surprise that California’s hospitals are full to bursting: the state has one of the highest COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the country, and it has relatively fewer hospital beds than most other states—just 1.8 per 1,000 people, compared with 4.8 in South Dakota, which has the most beds in proportion to its population. California’s relatively few hospital beds are attended by relatively few nurses, compared with other states’ staffing levels. Now the state’s hospitals have become overwhelmed, flooded with COVID-19 patients and unable to help them all. The health-care system in California is fraying because the state has tried to run its health system efficiently... “Do you build hospitals with the anticipation of these once-a-century epidemics?” says Ralph Catalano, a professor of public health at UC Berkeley, “or do you build them for 98 percent of the time?”"
From 2021. Weird. I thought we were told that blue states did better
Covid-19: Greece to Drop Fine for Unvaccinated Seniors
From 2022. Of course, liberals claim this was not coercion, but offering HDB flats in Singapore only to married couples "forces" them to get married and allowing investment property "forces" the poor to rent
The Prime Minister claimed it wasn't a punishment but "the price for health" and "an act of justice for the vaccinated" - which reveals the cruel, spiteful and vindictive nature of vaccine apartheid, which was essentially political
The Outrage Over Letitia Wright Shows Hollywood Only Wants Strong Women Who Agree With Them - "While tabloids and the mainstream media were quick to condemn Letitia Wright for allegedly believing “misinformation,” the better question is, why isn’t a successful young woman allowed to hold different beliefs? It’s not like she’s in a position to be legitimately advising others over matters of health and vaccination... on one hand of the progressive narrative, women are encouraged to have and celebrate their abortions (considered nothing more than a medical procedure by some activists), but if you dare question what’s simply in a vaccine that has just been rolled out not even a year ago (at the time of Wright’s sharing of the controversial video), that’s too far. That’s dangerous. It’s ridiculous for people to claim that someone’s opinion is dangerous. It’s one thing to believe something, and another to act on it. How you do that, should you choose to, is worth pausing and taking a look at. Did Wright hold up a line of individuals waiting to get vaccinated? Did she disguise herself as a nurse and administer saline instead of the vaccine to unsuspecting individuals? With the amount of backlash she received you would think she actually did do something like that: something to hold people back from fulfilling a choice they made for themselves. But Wright did no such thing. She expressed a question, and perhaps some hesitancy, which honestly isn’t an unhealthy thing to do. The government isn’t guaranteed to act in the best interest of any constituent, and this is evident in historical events like the Tuskegee Experiment, where black male patients were thought to be in treatment for syphilis, but instead received placebos for decades so the researchers could study the progression of the disease. Why is there such outrage over her expressing hesitancy or questioning what’s in something that the government wants to inject into everybody – whether it’s in their personal best interest or not? There’s no clear answer. The federal government has been exceedingly passive when it comes to narratives that vilify the unvaccinated. Joe Biden himself has said the pandemic is the fault of every unvaccinated individual – anyone who has had Covid-19 before, anyone who is pregnant and refraining from taking new vaccines, anyone who can’t risk adverse effects from the vaccine lest they lose their career or livelihood, and anyone who may have a medical condition that renders the vaccine risky for them... With all the narratives around black female empowerment – in entertainment, politics, and cultural discussion – it’s strange that both Nicki [Minaj] and Letitia were attacked for expressing a dissenting opinion. It seems as though women should only be empowered to express their beliefs if they align with the mainstream culture. But why? Perhaps mainstream culture doesn’t advocate for women to freely be who they are, as it so adamantly claims. Maybe all they’re searching for is talking heads to push a narrative, an idea, to get what they want... it’s important for young women to note that they will be criticized for any belief that goes against the mainstream"
‘It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables’ - "Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, offered so many stunning and inane observations that there’s little need for further comment:
— On student learning loss because of remote teaching during the pandemic: “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
— On parents who may be upset that teacher unions kept school closed: “You can recall the governor. You can recall the school board. But how are you going to recall me?”
— On fully reopening schools this fall: “We will be going back to the table for that conversation. … Are there broader issues at play? Yes, there are. Education is political. People don’t want to say that, but it is.”
— On various union demands: “It is not radical to ask for ethnic studies. It is not radical to ask for child care. It’s not radical to ask for police-free schools so that students don’t feel criminalized. That is not radical; that’s just fact.”
— On COVID and classrooms: “If this was a rich person’s disease, we would’ve seen a very different response. We would not have the high rates of infections and deaths. Now educators are being asked to sacrifice ourselves, the safety of our students and the safety of our schools.”
— Her response to a Chicago school official who said that parents pushing to get kids back in the classroom were acting on “white-supremacist thinking”: “Right on!”
— On how her tactics may have alienated many parents: “If our union is stigmatized, I’m glad. I will wear that as a badge of honor.”...
Most school closures were a direct result of teacher unions refusing to return to the classroom despite public health advice that reopening schools could be done safely and that the dangers of keeping campuses shuttered exceeded the risks of in-person learning. Because, as Ms. Myart-Cruz highlights, “the children” are at the bottom of the priority list for many teacher union big shots — if they’re even on the list at all."
Anyone who is against teachers' unions just hates education and teachers
In U.S., 47% Do Not Expect Return to Pre-Pandemic "Normalcy - "33%, say their lives are completely back to normal, and those who say their lives have not yet completely returned to normal are largely pessimistic about it ever happening. Nearly half of U.S. adults, 47%, think pre-pandemic normalcy is not attainable for them, but 20% think their lives will eventually get back to normal... As with many attitudes related to the pandemic, Americans’ views diverge sharply and most significantly by partisanship. Just as Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to perceive the pandemic is over, they are also more likely to say their own lives are completely back to normal... just one-quarter are worried about contracting the disease, and more than six in 10 think the situation is improving. Social distancing behaviors have waned as U.S. adults increasingly report they have either been vaccinated against or infected with COVID-19... The 47% who don’t foresee a return to normalcy may be getting used to a “new normal” that, for some, means occasional mask use, regular COVID-19 vaccines and avoidance of some situations that may put them at greater risk of infection, particularly at times when COVID-19 infections are spiking."
From March. When your life loses meaning
What Has Been the Impact of COVID-19 on Debt? Turning a Wave into a Tsunami - "This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on debt, puts recent debt developments and prospects in historical context, and analyzes new policy challenges associated with debt resolution. The paper reports three main results. First, even before the pandemic, a rapid buildup of debt in emerging market and developing economies—dubbed the “fourth wave” of debt—had been underway. Because of the sharp increase in debt during the pandemic-induced global recession of 2020, the fourth wave of debt has turned into a tsunami and become even more dangerous. Second, five years after past global recessions, global government debt continued to increase. In light of this historical record, and given large financing gaps and significant investment needs in many countries, debt levels will likely continue to rise in the near future. Third, debt resolution has become more complicated because of a highly fragmented creditor base, a lack of transparency in debt reporting, and a legacy stock of government debt without collective action clauses. National policy makers and the global community need to act rapidly and forcefully ensure that the fourth wave does not end with a string of debt crises in emerging market and developing economies as earlier debt waves did."
Prof Paul Tambyah not in list of National Awards (COVID-19) recipients despite contributions towards fight in pandemic - "Singapore Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) announced that more than 100,000 people will receive awards for their contribution to Singapore’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic... It is worth to note that Prof Tambyah had joined alternative political party Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) since 2010, and helm the chairman post of the party and contested in the Singapore General Elections as a candidate."
Why Did YouTube Remove This Reason Video? - "YouTube sent Reason an automated takedown notification for a March 13, 2020, video titled "Biohackers Are on a Secret Hunt for the Coronavirus Vaccine." The message said our video violated the company's spam, deceptive practices, and scams policy. YouTube denied Reason's appeal, informing us that the video violates the company's "medical misinformation policy." Did this 16-month-old video really promote "medical misinformation"? Speaking as the journalist who produced it: absolutely not. While YouTube, as a private company, is within its rights to decide what to carry, the decision to remove this video illustrates a disturbing, censorial trend that has accelerated in the age of COVID... YouTube probably flagged Reason's video as part of its effort to combat misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, which is indeed rampant. This exemplifies the problem with broad, automated content moderation: It creates a chilling effect, creating a de facto prohibition on the legitimate discussion of certain topics. Stanford technologist Daphne Keller has documented this chilling effect in other realms, such as the documentation of war atrocities, calling the imprecision of mass automated moderation the "dolphin in the net" effect. Biohackers like Zayner have been complaining about the problem for a long time. He has seen his company's products removed from Facebook and his livestreams from YouTube. This is bad for free inquiry and for the future of science, as are efforts to suppress discussion of any COVID-19 prevention or treatment besides those explicitly authorized by the FDA."
From 2021. Liberals love censoring the media when it's in their interests
Fake Coronavirus Tests May Have Helped Fuel India Outbreaks - The New York Times - "The Indian authorities launched an investigation after an internal government report concluded that some private agencies responsible for coronavirus testing on pilgrims at a sprawling Hindu festival forged at least 100,000 results. The festival, Kumbh Mela, which ran throughout April, is widely believed to be responsible for a coronavirus surge in many parts of India, as the pilgrims returning from the festival tested positive days after returning to their villages... Dr. Sengar said that out of 251,000 tests in his district, only 2,273 were positive. But health experts questioned those numbers, saying the state government underreported positive cases"
From 2021. Damn racism!
