Yes, it was always pretty clear that people would not feel safe testifying in Chauvin’s defense. That action against the physician who testified is further proof.
A few years ago I mentioned that a couple decades before, as my father somewhat nervously awaited an open heart surgery he had “elected” for instead of incremental treatments, I went off in search of distracting but hopefully “uplifting” media: principally, entertainment videos.
It was then, that I reaIized how deep already was the nihilistic psychological rot that had infected popular culture. Death, mockery, cynicism .. and that was the comedy
With additional perspective I have come to the conclusion that this has probably almost always been the case: That to a greater or lesser degree, approving fictional depictions of homicide, mockery, nihilistic cynicism, vainglory, and expressions of vengeful resentment, have made up much of entertainment culture.
I suppose it is built into what we call “drama” – that somebody or something fights against an antagonist. But it is also the substance of much comedy … the death and destruction or degradation of another.
Redemptive stories, or depictions of everyday struggles in a positive light probably sell less well than orgies and murder and mockery, and hate filled anguish. But that tells us something about “ourselves”, so-called. Or, at least about some of those who make up that ostensible “us”.
There was a famous moment in American TV history that came to mind recently as I cast about for memories of presentations that were less vindictive, viciously mocking, vulgar, and coarse than that which we have now grown to expect.
The moment was the point at which CBS decided to dump its rural themed family programimg as part of what was admittedly a defensibly forward looking economic decision. Most of those shows were probably plenty stale. But at their height and at their best, they provided a form of humane, yet not insipid entertainment for millions.
But apparently for millions of others, if a presentation does not involve feces, death, human degradation, humiliation and orgasms in some combination, it simply does not attract them.
Those of us who have read the intellectuals of that era’s criticism of American optimism, and our lack of both a” tragic sense” and feelings of solidarity instead of individualism, will recognize that there was an ideological dimension to what was being promoted as well.
Probably most cultural production in any era is garbage; either in concept or in imitative execution. The mind dulling Warner Brothers TV series westerns, and the private detective clone shows of that same era, are evidence enough of that.
But occasionally something better comes along and provides both edification and escape.
And sometimes, not.
The present popularity of cooking shows probably tells you something about where – in the main – we are and have been for the last couple decades.
My guess is that any idea of a “common national culture” or sensibility is now dead. Whether we should mourn it or not is an open question in my opinion.
I lean toward the “not” side. It was too much trouble trying to convince the liberals with whom one shared a psychological space to stop sticking turds in their mouths, and asking you to look.
Now, with the Internet, I can cut them out of my psychic life altogether and I don’t even see them doing it.
They only appear in politics, and that is quite enough.
For the medical people here, I have a question about COVID-19 vaccines. As I understand it, most vaccines are killed-virus shots. These are, I think, fairly easy to make and have a long history. Why do we have, instead, the mRNA shots, and then the J&J, which I think is still not a killed virus shot? The shots available for COVID have much higher rates of serious complications and/or death than the annual flu shots, for instance. The rates are still small, but larger than ordinary vaccinations.
I was on pins and needles for the 2021 Oscars … to see how bad the ratings would be.
(I’m still around. I’m lead programmer on the final two “Designing Large Programs” class projects and I’m kinda slammed with work.)
Good luck with your projects, huxley!
Kate:
“As I understand it, most vaccines are killed-virus shots. These are, I think, fairly easy to make and have a long history.”
Killed-virus vaccines are dangerous. To kill a virus means that it is changed chemically. The immunity to killed vaccines tends to activate the eosinophils and can cause severe lung damage. An actual infection with live viruses causes a more balanced immunity in survivors. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5027702/
By using mRNA vaccine the developers have managed to elicit immunity to one specific protein the virus needs to infect people while minimizing the risk for an allergic reaction and a cytokine storm. The spike protein does elicit a mild allergic reaction when the patient is exposed to the wild virus but it is not enough to make the vaccines dangerous.
Kate:
Researchers have been studying and working with mRNA vaccines for decades. Interest has grown in these vaccines because they can be developed in a laboratory using readily available materials. This means the process can be standardized and scaled up, making vaccine development faster than traditional methods of making vaccines.
mRNA vaccines have been studied before for flu, Zika, rabies, and cytomegalovirus (CMV). As soon as the necessary information about the virus that causes COVID-19 was available, scientists began designing the mRNA instructions for cells to build the unique spike protein into an mRNA vaccine.
Also, as far as complications go – I’m not sure what you are referring to. I haven’t read that serious complications such as severe allergic reactions are more common with COVID shots. I have heard that side effects are a bit more intense on average with the COVID shot. But both vaccines commonly have side effects and they are transient and mostly relatively mild.
Steve Sailer has reached into his cluttered attic of mass-entertainment trivia and discovered the man Joe Biden always wanted to be.
Splendid, huxley!
Kate, I think the idea of this set of vaccines is that they’re a means of focusing on the parts of the virus which are least susceptible to change: in the case of SARS-Cov2, the notorious ‘spike’ protein. I imagine that if one were to use dead virus for this vaccine, the suspicion was that the immune system would spend a lot of effort reacting to other, more mutable surface proteins, the spike protein being in that scenario merely one possible antigen of many. Since CoV2 is apparently a readily mutable virus, there is a clear advantage to this approach. I suppose another benefit of mRNA vaccines is that there’s low risk of certain types of adverse reactions, since there’s no virus shell to produce those. And in a peripheral way, not being vaccinated with a dead virus shell preparation, it’s impossible for one to test positive by mistake due to lingering vaccine elements in one’s own system.
@ Kate,
That was a good question, given what we have all been taught constituted an actual vaccine.
Thanks for responses on vaccines. I didn’t know, obviously. With respect to serious reactions/deaths, see Alex Berenson’s Twitter on results reported to the VAERS system.
What seems very odd to me is the government’s insistence that immune response from getting the virus, and surviving, is somehow inferior to the immune response from the shots. I know it’s a “novel” virus, but it seems to me that ordinary human immune system response hasn’t changed. If you catch a bug, normally after that you’re immune to getting it again. You can catch flu or colds over and over because those viruses keep mutating.
So, if they’re claiming that the mRNA shots, for instance, will protect better against a slightly mutated virus than the immunity from getting sick, their insistence on continued mask-wearing for the immunized is flatly ridiculous.
Kate:
Actually, my understanding of what they’ve been saying is that they just don’t know for sure how long the immunity from having the infection will last, and so they’re recommending a shot too just to be safer.
Kate:
I agree that mask-wearing for the immunized is ridiculous in the medical sense. But I think they don’t want people to stop wearing masks, and if they give immunized people a pass, then in a store (for example) anyone without a mask can claim they’ve had the vaccine. And some people will be freaked by people not wearing masks.
It makes no sense except political sense.
I’m waiting until I’m forced to get the vaccine. Not any anti vax stuff or anything but as a 52 year old man that had COVID in January (very mild case congested lost smell taste for a few days) I figure I have some level of immunity.
We are reaching the supply outstripping demand phase on the vaccine experiment. There are a ton of celebrity concerts and other stuff coming up the next couple of weeks to urge younger people to get the vaccine.
Comparing the US vs World Covid deaths on Worldometers, it looks like the vaxx is making a substantial difference. As it should, if the vaxx is a real vaxx and I think it’s real enough.
By June the curve should be pretty flat and minor. Democrat politicians hardest hit.
“California will lose a seat in the House of Representatives for the first time in history, the U.S. Census Bureau announced on Monday. The Golden State is one of seven states that will lose a seat in the House based on population shifts, a group that includes New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Meanwhile, Texas will gain two seats and Colorado, Florida, Montana …”
If anyone comes across an analysis of which states would lose, which would gain and how much, IF ILLEGALS WEREN’T COUNTED, please post.
huxley,
Will never be flat enough. WA governor threatening to tighten lockdown next week because of small rise in cases and every blue state will do it again next fall.
I never thought it possible but this entire thing has made even more cynical. California is supposedly going to be mostly open by June 15 but I bet that won’t happen to the degree they are now saying. Seven weeks is a long time to whip up some more cases.
Griffin:
Could be.
OTOH my bet is Americans, even Democrats, are sick and tired of being sick and tired of Covid. Enough already!
“Seven weeks is a long time to whip up some more cases.”
Hey, they’re bussing infected “refugees” everywhere. So we’ve got that going for us.
huxley,
In the Free States yes the people have won but in the states behind the COVID Curtain not so much. Here people quietly complain but never actually do anything when the perpetual lockdown continues or even worse act so thankful when the King grants a morsel of freedom (woo hoo 9,000 fans can go to baseball game in a 45,000 seat stadium thank you King Jay for being so kind).
Shortly after midnight tonight Central European time with be the 106th anniversary of the sinking of the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta, flagship of Contre-Amiral Victor-Baptistin Senès. It was torpedoed and sunk by Austro-Hungarian submarine U 5 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Georg Ritter von Trapp. Senès went down with his ship. Von Trapp went on to have his family’s story made into ‘The Sound of Music’
Griffin:
It now isn’t unusual to see unmasked folks in Big Box stores here on the east side of Jaylandia. Our cowed elders have decided it is safe now to sing in church. Our king is an idiot.
om,
Still very rare on the west side and of course Pierce County has already been rolled back. Do see more of the mask below the nose people of which I am one.
Maybe the most disheartening part of this entire thing has been the lack of any widespread pushback from citizens.
Re: Covid…
What’s the latest buzz from physicsguy? Whose comments I find invariably valuable in this area.
On an entirely different topic Rick Beato just released his latest What Makes This Song Great and it is for my favorite song of all time.
What Makes This Song Great #102 U2 ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’
Caught on video: John Kerry admitted U.S. CO2 emissions cuts are pointless at Joe Biden’s #LeadersClimateSummit. What Kerry said was,
“The fact is that even if every single American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes – if we each planted a dozen trees – if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions – guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. If all the industrialized nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said – all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions, it wouldn’t be enough – not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”
The crisis” and policies are not about controlling the climate. The issue is not the issue. The issue is about control. It’s as David Horowitz says, “How can we use this case to advance our real agenda which is overthrowing the American political and economic system and instituting a totalitarian state?” When the pandemic is no longer useful, the “existential crisis” of climate change will be their next boogeyman. The propaganda program is well advanced. Greta, the MSM, and Warmista climate scientists have been spouting a litany of fear for years now. We have to resist. Knowing what they’re up to is power.
Get your survival supplies and affairs in order, humanity. Your reprieve time is over.
“om on April 26, 2021 at 4:54 pm said:
Griffin:
It now isn’t unusual to see unmasked folks in Big Box stores here on the east side of Jaylandia. Our cowed elders have decided it is safe now to sing in church. Our king is an idiot.”
You can thank me for getting rid of the masks now.
“Maybe the most disheartening part of this entire thing has been the lack of any widespread pushback from citizens.”
Slaves don’t know how to pushback usually.
Yammer on. I might as well thank Yammer for gravity. There is one god, his name isn’t Yammer.
The woman in charge should be demoted to Tea Lady or re-assigned to work in a pet shop.
On second thoughts no; they’d just appoint a Black Tranny in her place.
Shortly after midnight tonight Central European time with be the 106th anniversary of the sinking of the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta,
So what?
Von Trapp went on to have his family’s story made into ‘The Sound of Music’
No, he didn’t. The man died in 1947. His wife published a memoir two years after his death. A mess of Broadway professionals made a musical out of it a decade after that, which was repurposed into a film a half-dozen years later. By some accounts, his family wasn’t keen on the way he was portrayed as they distorted him for dramatic effect.
His “To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander” is worth a look.
Kate,
My understanding is that classic viral vaccines use either killed or attenuated virus. I believe most/all of the current Chinese COVID-19 vaccines are made this way.
It seems that the original measles vaccine, “a killed measles vaccine” was given to preschool kids beginning in 1962-63 and available until 1968. It did prevent measles for about six years. Thereafter, when these kids were exposed to measles they sometimes developed an inverted and much more serious illness. My case was the first that occurred in a young adult 14 years after immunization. The current live virus vaccine is somewhat less likely to lead to atypical measles.
One of the things I like about the mRNA vaccine is that its manufacture should be highly consistent. Is a killed virus killed enough or too much (damaged)? Is an attenuated virus attenuated enough?
The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus exterior as a delivery package for the engineered DNA that only produces the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The J&J is about the same except that they use a human adenovirus package.
A weird documented possibility with vaccines like the J&J system is that it is possible that a vaccine subject may have already contracted that exact human adenovirus previously and recovered from it. Then when vaccinated, the subject’s immune system may destroy the vaccine before it can do its job. You think you’re vaccinated against COVID-19 but you are not. I’ve not heard of any cases of this happening with the actual J&J vaccine. (How would you or they know?)
Thanks, TommyJay. I looked it up and found that the CDC says, indeed, that flu vaccines are either inactivated (killed) virus or attenuated virus:
So, basically, the answer to my question seems to be that researchers have been working on mRNA for a long time and saw this epidemic as a golden opportunity to advance the technology. Well, I hope it works. I finished my two-shot regimen six weeks ago, and so far no neurological ill effects, or any other, have emerged. We’re all an enormous test population. I have more confidence in the Moderna shot than I do in CDC recommendations.
North Carolina gains a congressional seat. I should send a thank-you note to my very leftist California relatives.
Kate,
Today I hit my fully immunized date. Hooray! I had no acute problems with the Moderna vaccine. However, I usually take just a few ibuprofen pills per week to deal with arthritis pain (very effective) and I quit that throughout the immunization period, which was rough.
California Secretary of State Dr. Shirley N. Weber has announced that the threshold of verified signatures reported by counties has been met for the recall of Governor Gavin Newsom. The valid signatures in the 10th report are 1,626,042, which exceeds the total of 1,495,709 signatures required.
I can neither confirm nor deny that my signature appears in the group of 1,626,042.
So if it comes down to Newsom or the Crazed Tranny, which way do you jump?
Kate:
One of the main reasons they used that method was speed. They could develop a vaccine faster that way, and time was very important.
“if it comes down to Newsom or the Crazed Tranny, which way do you jump?”
My take on it is that Newsom only loses if another Dem runs.
Despite the 1.6M signatures, there are too many Dems in CA if it is Newsom vs Any-Repub.
As for Jenner, I doubt that any significant number will vote for him in any event.
Kevin Faulconer or Rich Grenell, but it’s probably more of an exercise of (futilely) messing with the man.
Art+Deco,
Thanks for your comment.
@TommyJay:
Not taking it (Newsom, not the other Thing) lying down is something we can all get on board with. Could do a lot worse than tie up the machinery of misgovernment with recalls and other obstructions.
Resident scholars of the Founders’ Intents may enjoy this article:
Being a polite and civilized publication it doesn’t speculate as to why Strauss, Jaffa, and later CivNats twisted things as simple as the Declaration, and the eventual Constitution with the well-known debates around its adoption into an n-Dimensional Hyperspace Propositional Pretzel requiring graduate seminar level exegesis of the inner thought processes of Moses Maimonedes… Oops I mean Saint Abraham Lincoln, heir to a Judaeo-Christian (what, precisely *is* that?) tradition dreamed up out of thin air and manufactured from whole cloth. I’m being a Big Bad Meanie here, no?
Before anyone jumps in I’m on the record as blaming a solid chunk of the troubles on the Puritan Strain Gone Bad –> Rabid Abolitionists –> Wilsonians –> Worse. But, there is a distinct whiff of something needlessly being over-complicated by hereditary scholarly folks who enjoy debating and creating complex arguments upon arguments about pretty damn straight and to the point ur-Texts. Sounds vaguely familiar to anyone? It may have happened with the best of Intentions. I suspect it probably did — there was a huge intellectual push to graft stuff onto the American Trunk after the Late Unpleasantness in Europe so that America would be forevermore a Safe Space ™. But look where we are now. How’s it working out for everyone?
The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.
On the California recall: As I understand it, there will be two questions on the ballot. First is whether Newsom should be recalled. Second is who should replace him if recalled. If a majority voting choose to recall Newsom, then whoever gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. From what I read, Newsom has annoyed so many people that he just might lose on the first question.
I’m guessing Jenner’s candidacy is a PR stunt. Have any Democrats yet announced against him?
Chases Eagles,
Thanks for that historical tidbit. Coincidentally, I recently visited the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia:
Highly recommended for anyone traveling in the area. I was surprised by the scope of submarine operations during the Civil War, including the first-in-history sinking of a ship (the USS Housatonic) by a fully submersible craft (the CSS Hunley) outside Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1864. Trench warfare, ironclad ships, repeating rifles, the Gatling Gun, and submarine operations–the American Civil War was indeed a preview of later conflicts and their unpleasant surprises. Which might not have been surprises if anybody from the real armies had paid close attention to what those former colonials were up to in the Shenandoah Valley and environs. In the Quirks of Military History category, see also: the German OKW paying attention to the Red Army’s performance in the Winter War instead of at Khalkhin-Gol. Might have identified an up-and-comer named Zhukov.
“Highly recommended for anyone traveling in the area. I was surprised by the scope of submarine operations during the Civil War, including the first-in-history sinking of a ship (the USS Housatonic) by a fully submersible craft (the CSS Hunley) outside Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1864. Trench warfare, ironclad ships, repeating rifles, the Gatling Gun, and submarine operations …”
Anyone interested in the development of technology will be fascinated by the developments that took place during the Civil War.
What is most striking to me are two things [ placing aside all moral considerations] :
1. The incredible strategic irresponsibility and sheer vainglorious stupidity of the South Carolinians ( a certain subset of them obviously) in precipitating a wholly unnecessary and ill-advised military conflict. This is what happens when people let their emotions and egos run roughshod over the intellect.
2. The extraordinary lengths to which Southern authorities went to make-shift and make do (scavenging battlefields for dropped weapons, and homesteads for copper and nitrates); with some marginal success on occasion. How they managed to engineer and then produce anything at all given their resources and infrastructure [and the vulnerable areas in which much of it was originally located], is a wonder. They could not even reliably supply gunpowder, or explosive shells that worked.
But given what little industrial type infrastructure or facilities those states did have, it is probably understandable that their more impressive constructive accomplishments were on the larger scale.
A natural result I think of trying to equip a fighting force using locomotive and boiler repair depots, while lacking virtually any tool, die, production, or precision manufacturing capabilities.
The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.
DNW,
“The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.” That’s why they used three-band Enfields. And scavenged Yankee gear. Read “The Black Flower” and other novels by Howard Bahr to get an idea of what a Confederate infantryman’s life was like towards the end of the war. Hunger was the main theme.
Columbus was a major foundry and shipbuilding center, thanks to its location on the Chattahoochee River. The ironclad CSS Muscogee/CSS Jackson was built there. It was burned to the waterline at Columbus in April 1865, raised from the river in the 1960s, and is now on display–the hull, that is–at the museum. It’s a big sucker: over 200 feet long. And broad in the beam.
Selma, Alabama was another military manufacturing center for the CSA. There’s a lathe from the Selma works in front of Samford Hall at Auburn University, symbolizing the mechanical arts leg of the old land-grant university triad (the other two being agriculture and “military science”). Wonder how long its presence there will be tolerated. It would take some industrial-grade commitment to de-pedestal it and haul it off.
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I think there were some questions about why the chauvin defense didn’t have certain expert witnesses. Seems this story answers that
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ag-office-review-20210423-l2oamj3ixnhwznd4545f7pjcau-story.html%3foutputType=amp
Israel:
Yes, it was always pretty clear that people would not feel safe testifying in Chauvin’s defense. That action against the physician who testified is further proof.
A few years ago I mentioned that a couple decades before, as my father somewhat nervously awaited an open heart surgery he had “elected” for instead of incremental treatments, I went off in search of distracting but hopefully “uplifting” media: principally, entertainment videos.
It was then, that I reaIized how deep already was the nihilistic psychological rot that had infected popular culture. Death, mockery, cynicism .. and that was the comedy
With additional perspective I have come to the conclusion that this has probably almost always been the case: That to a greater or lesser degree, approving fictional depictions of homicide, mockery, nihilistic cynicism, vainglory, and expressions of vengeful resentment, have made up much of entertainment culture.
I suppose it is built into what we call “drama” – that somebody or something fights against an antagonist. But it is also the substance of much comedy … the death and destruction or degradation of another.
Redemptive stories, or depictions of everyday struggles in a positive light probably sell less well than orgies and murder and mockery, and hate filled anguish. But that tells us something about “ourselves”, so-called. Or, at least about some of those who make up that ostensible “us”.
There was a famous moment in American TV history that came to mind recently as I cast about for memories of presentations that were less vindictive, viciously mocking, vulgar, and coarse than that which we have now grown to expect.
The moment was the point at which CBS decided to dump its rural themed family programimg as part of what was admittedly a defensibly forward looking economic decision. Most of those shows were probably plenty stale. But at their height and at their best, they provided a form of humane, yet not insipid entertainment for millions.
But apparently for millions of others, if a presentation does not involve feces, death, human degradation, humiliation and orgasms in some combination, it simply does not attract them.
Those of us who have read the intellectuals of that era’s criticism of American optimism, and our lack of both a” tragic sense” and feelings of solidarity instead of individualism, will recognize that there was an ideological dimension to what was being promoted as well.
Probably most cultural production in any era is garbage; either in concept or in imitative execution. The mind dulling Warner Brothers TV series westerns, and the private detective clone shows of that same era, are evidence enough of that.
But occasionally something better comes along and provides both edification and escape.
And sometimes, not.
The present popularity of cooking shows probably tells you something about where – in the main – we are and have been for the last couple decades.
My guess is that any idea of a “common national culture” or sensibility is now dead. Whether we should mourn it or not is an open question in my opinion.
I lean toward the “not” side. It was too much trouble trying to convince the liberals with whom one shared a psychological space to stop sticking turds in their mouths, and asking you to look.
Now, with the Internet, I can cut them out of my psychic life altogether and I don’t even see them doing it.
They only appear in politics, and that is quite enough.
For the medical people here, I have a question about COVID-19 vaccines. As I understand it, most vaccines are killed-virus shots. These are, I think, fairly easy to make and have a long history. Why do we have, instead, the mRNA shots, and then the J&J, which I think is still not a killed virus shot? The shots available for COVID have much higher rates of serious complications and/or death than the annual flu shots, for instance. The rates are still small, but larger than ordinary vaccinations.
I was on pins and needles for the 2021 Oscars … to see how bad the ratings would be.
Dropped over 50%. It was glorious!
https://www.outkick.com/oscars-ratings-tank/
(I’m still around. I’m lead programmer on the final two “Designing Large Programs” class projects and I’m kinda slammed with work.)
Good luck with your projects, huxley!
Kate:
“As I understand it, most vaccines are killed-virus shots. These are, I think, fairly easy to make and have a long history.”
Killed-virus vaccines are dangerous. To kill a virus means that it is changed chemically. The immunity to killed vaccines tends to activate the eosinophils and can cause severe lung damage. An actual infection with live viruses causes a more balanced immunity in survivors.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5027702/
There are two branches to the immune response Th1 and Th2. The trick is to get a balanced response.
https://www.bmj.com/content/321/7258/424.1#:~:text=The%20Th2-type%20cytokines%20include%20interleukins%204%2C%205%2C%20and,responses%20will%20counteract%20the%20Th1%20mediated%20microbicidal%20action.
By using mRNA vaccine the developers have managed to elicit immunity to one specific protein the virus needs to infect people while minimizing the risk for an allergic reaction and a cytokine storm. The spike protein does elicit a mild allergic reaction when the patient is exposed to the wild virus but it is not enough to make the vaccines dangerous.
Kate:
Also, as far as complications go – I’m not sure what you are referring to. I haven’t read that serious complications such as severe allergic reactions are more common with COVID shots. I have heard that side effects are a bit more intense on average with the COVID shot. But both vaccines commonly have side effects and they are transient and mostly relatively mild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtCZ0xssXQ
Steve Sailer has reached into his cluttered attic of mass-entertainment trivia and discovered the man Joe Biden always wanted to be.
Splendid, huxley!
Kate, I think the idea of this set of vaccines is that they’re a means of focusing on the parts of the virus which are least susceptible to change: in the case of SARS-Cov2, the notorious ‘spike’ protein. I imagine that if one were to use dead virus for this vaccine, the suspicion was that the immune system would spend a lot of effort reacting to other, more mutable surface proteins, the spike protein being in that scenario merely one possible antigen of many. Since CoV2 is apparently a readily mutable virus, there is a clear advantage to this approach. I suppose another benefit of mRNA vaccines is that there’s low risk of certain types of adverse reactions, since there’s no virus shell to produce those. And in a peripheral way, not being vaccinated with a dead virus shell preparation, it’s impossible for one to test positive by mistake due to lingering vaccine elements in one’s own system.
@ Kate,
That was a good question, given what we have all been taught constituted an actual vaccine.
Thanks for responses on vaccines. I didn’t know, obviously. With respect to serious reactions/deaths, see Alex Berenson’s Twitter on results reported to the VAERS system.
What seems very odd to me is the government’s insistence that immune response from getting the virus, and surviving, is somehow inferior to the immune response from the shots. I know it’s a “novel” virus, but it seems to me that ordinary human immune system response hasn’t changed. If you catch a bug, normally after that you’re immune to getting it again. You can catch flu or colds over and over because those viruses keep mutating.
So, if they’re claiming that the mRNA shots, for instance, will protect better against a slightly mutated virus than the immunity from getting sick, their insistence on continued mask-wearing for the immunized is flatly ridiculous.
Kate:
Actually, my understanding of what they’ve been saying is that they just don’t know for sure how long the immunity from having the infection will last, and so they’re recommending a shot too just to be safer.
Kate:
I agree that mask-wearing for the immunized is ridiculous in the medical sense. But I think they don’t want people to stop wearing masks, and if they give immunized people a pass, then in a store (for example) anyone without a mask can claim they’ve had the vaccine. And some people will be freaked by people not wearing masks.
It makes no sense except political sense.
I’m waiting until I’m forced to get the vaccine. Not any anti vax stuff or anything but as a 52 year old man that had COVID in January (very mild case congested lost smell taste for a few days) I figure I have some level of immunity.
We are reaching the supply outstripping demand phase on the vaccine experiment. There are a ton of celebrity concerts and other stuff coming up the next couple of weeks to urge younger people to get the vaccine.
Comparing the US vs World Covid deaths on Worldometers, it looks like the vaxx is making a substantial difference. As it should, if the vaxx is a real vaxx and I think it’s real enough.
By June the curve should be pretty flat and minor. Democrat politicians hardest hit.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/#graph-deaths-daily
“California will lose a seat in the House of Representatives for the first time in history, the U.S. Census Bureau announced on Monday. The Golden State is one of seven states that will lose a seat in the House based on population shifts, a group that includes New York, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Meanwhile, Texas will gain two seats and Colorado, Florida, Montana …”
If anyone comes across an analysis of which states would lose, which would gain and how much, IF ILLEGALS WEREN’T COUNTED, please post.
huxley,
Will never be flat enough. WA governor threatening to tighten lockdown next week because of small rise in cases and every blue state will do it again next fall.
I never thought it possible but this entire thing has made even more cynical. California is supposedly going to be mostly open by June 15 but I bet that won’t happen to the degree they are now saying. Seven weeks is a long time to whip up some more cases.
Griffin:
Could be.
OTOH my bet is Americans, even Democrats, are sick and tired of being sick and tired of Covid. Enough already!
“Seven weeks is a long time to whip up some more cases.”
Hey, they’re bussing infected “refugees” everywhere. So we’ve got that going for us.
huxley,
In the Free States yes the people have won but in the states behind the COVID Curtain not so much. Here people quietly complain but never actually do anything when the perpetual lockdown continues or even worse act so thankful when the King grants a morsel of freedom (woo hoo 9,000 fans can go to baseball game in a 45,000 seat stadium thank you King Jay for being so kind).
Shortly after midnight tonight Central European time with be the 106th anniversary of the sinking of the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta, flagship of Contre-Amiral Victor-Baptistin Senès. It was torpedoed and sunk by Austro-Hungarian submarine U 5 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Georg Ritter von Trapp. Senès went down with his ship. Von Trapp went on to have his family’s story made into ‘The Sound of Music’
Griffin:
It now isn’t unusual to see unmasked folks in Big Box stores here on the east side of Jaylandia. Our cowed elders have decided it is safe now to sing in church. Our king is an idiot.
om,
Still very rare on the west side and of course Pierce County has already been rolled back. Do see more of the mask below the nose people of which I am one.
Maybe the most disheartening part of this entire thing has been the lack of any widespread pushback from citizens.
Re: Covid…
What’s the latest buzz from physicsguy? Whose comments I find invariably valuable in this area.
On an entirely different topic Rick Beato just released his latest What Makes This Song Great and it is for my favorite song of all time.
What Makes This Song Great #102 U2 ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT3KjbnGrhw
Caught on video: John Kerry admitted U.S. CO2 emissions cuts are pointless at Joe Biden’s #LeadersClimateSummit. What Kerry said was,
“The fact is that even if every single American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes – if we each planted a dozen trees – if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions – guess what? That still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. If all the industrialized nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said – all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions, it wouldn’t be enough – not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”
He’s right. Check out this graph from WUWT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/john-kerry-bidens-climate-czar-admits-u-s-co2-emission-cuts-are-pointless/graph at WUWT;
The crisis” and policies are not about controlling the climate. The issue is not the issue. The issue is about control. It’s as David Horowitz says, “How can we use this case to advance our real agenda which is overthrowing the American political and economic system and instituting a totalitarian state?” When the pandemic is no longer useful, the “existential crisis” of climate change will be their next boogeyman. The propaganda program is well advanced. Greta, the MSM, and Warmista climate scientists have been spouting a litany of fear for years now. We have to resist. Knowing what they’re up to is power.
Judgment is coming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q5I3G_UrqY
Get your survival supplies and affairs in order, humanity. Your reprieve time is over.
“om on April 26, 2021 at 4:54 pm said:
Griffin:
It now isn’t unusual to see unmasked folks in Big Box stores here on the east side of Jaylandia. Our cowed elders have decided it is safe now to sing in church. Our king is an idiot.”
You can thank me for getting rid of the masks now.
“Maybe the most disheartening part of this entire thing has been the lack of any widespread pushback from citizens.”
Slaves don’t know how to pushback usually.
Yammer on. I might as well thank Yammer for gravity. There is one god, his name isn’t Yammer.
Stupidity at the British Library:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9508897/British-Library-relabel-Chaucers-Canterbury-Tales-include-links-slave-trade.html
The woman in charge should be demoted to Tea Lady or re-assigned to work in a pet shop.
On second thoughts no; they’d just appoint a Black Tranny in her place.
Shortly after midnight tonight Central European time with be the 106th anniversary of the sinking of the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta,
So what?
Von Trapp went on to have his family’s story made into ‘The Sound of Music’
No, he didn’t. The man died in 1947. His wife published a memoir two years after his death. A mess of Broadway professionals made a musical out of it a decade after that, which was repurposed into a film a half-dozen years later. By some accounts, his family wasn’t keen on the way he was portrayed as they distorted him for dramatic effect.
His “To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander” is worth a look.
Kate,
My understanding is that classic viral vaccines use either killed or attenuated virus. I believe most/all of the current Chinese COVID-19 vaccines are made this way.
Dr. Erwin Haas has kept track of the history of vaccine side effects and fiascos and he himself had a bad case of atypical measles after his killed virus vaccine immunity wore off.
One of the things I like about the mRNA vaccine is that its manufacture should be highly consistent. Is a killed virus killed enough or too much (damaged)? Is an attenuated virus attenuated enough?
The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus exterior as a delivery package for the engineered DNA that only produces the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The J&J is about the same except that they use a human adenovirus package.
A weird documented possibility with vaccines like the J&J system is that it is possible that a vaccine subject may have already contracted that exact human adenovirus previously and recovered from it. Then when vaccinated, the subject’s immune system may destroy the vaccine before it can do its job. You think you’re vaccinated against COVID-19 but you are not. I’ve not heard of any cases of this happening with the actual J&J vaccine. (How would you or they know?)
Thanks, TommyJay. I looked it up and found that the CDC says, indeed, that flu vaccines are either inactivated (killed) virus or attenuated virus:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm
So, basically, the answer to my question seems to be that researchers have been working on mRNA for a long time and saw this epidemic as a golden opportunity to advance the technology. Well, I hope it works. I finished my two-shot regimen six weeks ago, and so far no neurological ill effects, or any other, have emerged. We’re all an enormous test population. I have more confidence in the Moderna shot than I do in CDC recommendations.
North Carolina gains a congressional seat. I should send a thank-you note to my very leftist California relatives.
Kate,
Today I hit my fully immunized date. Hooray! I had no acute problems with the Moderna vaccine. However, I usually take just a few ibuprofen pills per week to deal with arthritis pain (very effective) and I quit that throughout the immunization period, which was rough.
I can neither confirm nor deny that my signature appears in the group of 1,626,042.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/26/its-official-signatures-trigger-recall-election-for-california-gov-gavin-newsom/
@TommyJay:
So if it comes down to Newsom or the Crazed Tranny, which way do you jump?
Kate:
One of the main reasons they used that method was speed. They could develop a vaccine faster that way, and time was very important.
“if it comes down to Newsom or the Crazed Tranny, which way do you jump?”
My take on it is that Newsom only loses if another Dem runs.
Despite the 1.6M signatures, there are too many Dems in CA if it is Newsom vs Any-Repub.
As for Jenner, I doubt that any significant number will vote for him in any event.
Kevin Faulconer or Rich Grenell, but it’s probably more of an exercise of (futilely) messing with the man.
Art+Deco,
Thanks for your comment.
@TommyJay:
Not taking it (Newsom, not the other Thing) lying down is something we can all get on board with. Could do a lot worse than tie up the machinery of misgovernment with recalls and other obstructions.
Resident scholars of the Founders’ Intents may enjoy this article:
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/rejecting-the–proposition-nation-/
Being a polite and civilized publication it doesn’t speculate as to why Strauss, Jaffa, and later CivNats twisted things as simple as the Declaration, and the eventual Constitution with the well-known debates around its adoption into an n-Dimensional Hyperspace Propositional Pretzel requiring graduate seminar level exegesis of the inner thought processes of Moses Maimonedes… Oops I mean Saint Abraham Lincoln, heir to a Judaeo-Christian (what, precisely *is* that?) tradition dreamed up out of thin air and manufactured from whole cloth. I’m being a Big Bad Meanie here, no?
Before anyone jumps in I’m on the record as blaming a solid chunk of the troubles on the Puritan Strain Gone Bad –> Rabid Abolitionists –> Wilsonians –> Worse. But, there is a distinct whiff of something needlessly being over-complicated by hereditary scholarly folks who enjoy debating and creating complex arguments upon arguments about pretty damn straight and to the point ur-Texts. Sounds vaguely familiar to anyone? It may have happened with the best of Intentions. I suspect it probably did — there was a huge intellectual push to graft stuff onto the American Trunk after the Late Unpleasantness in Europe so that America would be forevermore a Safe Space ™. But look where we are now. How’s it working out for everyone?
The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.
On the California recall: As I understand it, there will be two questions on the ballot. First is whether Newsom should be recalled. Second is who should replace him if recalled. If a majority voting choose to recall Newsom, then whoever gets the most votes on the second question becomes governor. From what I read, Newsom has annoyed so many people that he just might lose on the first question.
I’m guessing Jenner’s candidacy is a PR stunt. Have any Democrats yet announced against him?
Chases Eagles,
Thanks for that historical tidbit. Coincidentally, I recently visited the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia:
https://www.portcolumbus.org/
Highly recommended for anyone traveling in the area. I was surprised by the scope of submarine operations during the Civil War, including the first-in-history sinking of a ship (the USS Housatonic) by a fully submersible craft (the CSS Hunley) outside Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1864. Trench warfare, ironclad ships, repeating rifles, the Gatling Gun, and submarine operations–the American Civil War was indeed a preview of later conflicts and their unpleasant surprises. Which might not have been surprises if anybody from the real armies had paid close attention to what those former colonials were up to in the Shenandoah Valley and environs. In the Quirks of Military History category, see also: the German OKW paying attention to the Red Army’s performance in the Winter War instead of at Khalkhin-Gol. Might have identified an up-and-comer named Zhukov.
heres an interesting story. When i originally saw it was basically this https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-officer-killed-alleged-drunk-driver-queens
“He’s dead because he was at an accident where people had driven recklessly also with a suspended license,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “He’s dead because of other people’s negligence.”
But then you read the nypost and theres what seems to be a throwaway line which might put it in a different light, and definitely would if the story was reversed in any way
https://nypost.com/2021/04/27/suspect-in-fatal-nypd-cop-crash-gives-tearful-apology/
“Beauvais’ podcast, posted on Facebook Monday night in the hours before the tragic crash, included anti-police rants and showed her drinking from a small plastic cup.”
https://www.facebook.com/phoenix.michel.9/videos/2567639476872788/
Anyone interested in the development of technology will be fascinated by the developments that took place during the Civil War.
What is most striking to me are two things [ placing aside all moral considerations] :
1. The incredible strategic irresponsibility and sheer vainglorious stupidity of the South Carolinians ( a certain subset of them obviously) in precipitating a wholly unnecessary and ill-advised military conflict. This is what happens when people let their emotions and egos run roughshod over the intellect.
2. The extraordinary lengths to which Southern authorities went to make-shift and make do (scavenging battlefields for dropped weapons, and homesteads for copper and nitrates); with some marginal success on occasion. How they managed to engineer and then produce anything at all given their resources and infrastructure [and the vulnerable areas in which much of it was originally located], is a wonder. They could not even reliably supply gunpowder, or explosive shells that worked.
But given what little industrial type infrastructure or facilities those states did have, it is probably understandable that their more impressive constructive accomplishments were on the larger scale.
A natural result I think of trying to equip a fighting force using locomotive and boiler repair depots, while lacking virtually any tool, die, production, or precision manufacturing capabilities.
The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.
DNW,
“The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.” That’s why they used three-band Enfields. And scavenged Yankee gear. Read “The Black Flower” and other novels by Howard Bahr to get an idea of what a Confederate infantryman’s life was like towards the end of the war. Hunger was the main theme.
Columbus was a major foundry and shipbuilding center, thanks to its location on the Chattahoochee River. The ironclad CSS Muscogee/CSS Jackson was built there. It was burned to the waterline at Columbus in April 1865, raised from the river in the 1960s, and is now on display–the hull, that is–at the museum. It’s a big sucker: over 200 feet long. And broad in the beam.
Selma, Alabama was another military manufacturing center for the CSA. There’s a lathe from the Selma works in front of Samford Hall at Auburn University, symbolizing the mechanical arts leg of the old land-grant university triad (the other two being agriculture and “military science”). Wonder how long its presence there will be tolerated. It would take some industrial-grade commitment to de-pedestal it and haul it off.