I’m always amazed at how messy the microscopic world appears. Every surface seems to be awash with little bits of detritus and greebles. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised since the macroscopic world is pretty messy too. But when we’re learning about really small stuff is school, we’re often presented idealized diagrams, models, and art with clean edges and surfaces. So you end up with this impression of a world made up of platonic solids and other idealized structures even though rationally you may know it isn’t likely to be so.
They’re screwing with the data again. The only covid updates on Monday are on national level as states take the weekend off. Yesterday, the reported national total active cases was around 23million…completely consistent with previous data. This morning suddenly it is 17million; a 25% decrease. I’ve seen this before where there’s a entry error that affects that one day and is soon corrected. But, in this case the decrease has been applied retroactively for at least 3 months. I’ve contacted WoM about this, will have to see what they say. The change is not a straight 6million decrease. At the peak of the omicron 60 days ago the change is about 1 million and then goes down to zero about 90 days past. Maybe this is the now admitted CDC PCR correction?? Interestingly, the serious cases data was not affected at all. Who knows, but once again trust is lost.
On the video: electron microscopy is really amazing. For anyone who doubts quantum mechanics is not a valid, those pictures are totally due to the electron’s wave nature.
To go down even smaller in scale to atom size, the scanning tunneling microscope exploits the QM reality of particle being able to “tunnel” through barriers. These are now so commonplace that you could buy a basic one for about $30k. Much of our current electronic technology advancements are due to the use of the STM.
Richard Feynman wrote a fascinating and quite prescient essay in 1960 titled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” about, among other things, electron microscopes:
__________________________________
What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale.
As soon as I mention this, people tell me about miniaturization, and how far it has
progressed today. They tell me about electric motors that are the size of the nail on your small finger. And there is a device on the market, they tell me, by which you can write the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin. But that’s nothing; that’s the most primitive, halting step in the direction I intend to discuss. It is a staggeringly small world that is below. In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direction.
Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?
p-guy: “in this case the decrease has been applied retroactively for at least 3 months”
I realize this is an unrelated data repository but didn’t the count of US Deaths recently go down tens of thousands? Perhaps they have time to validate the data and found some rough spots.
Maybe they’re no longer dependent (as much) on having the population-at-large in hysteria over Covid.
Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?
The raw text of Wikipedia (which is almost certainly far larger than Brittanica) is in the neighborhood of 60GB, uncompressed. And you can currently buy a 512GB micro SD card the size of your fingernail, so we’ve long surpased that level of areal density.
I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m tempted to call someone a “pinhead”…
Our fellow citizens that voted in this Administration because they were embarrassed by Trump have a lot to answer for. This man doesn’t appear to possess any of the necessary skills to be an Ambassador of anything. It seems we haven’t kept the foolish and incompetent stateside alone.
Another open-thread comment about something I read.
At his substack site, Richard Hanania has provided a transcript of a podcast interview he did with Stephen Hsu. Whether or not you agree with him, Hsu is both very smart and well informed. Basic biographical information is included in the interview. The whole transcript is worth reading, but I’ve copied below a section that’s relevant to some of Neo’s recent posts and the comments that ensued.
Richard: I agree with all that. You mentioned… I read a little bit about this, about the Russians and the Chinese. I think a lot of people know the Chinese are good technologically, but as far as the Russians, they have some developments in missile technology that, from what I understand, some people say that they’ve just completely obviated the use of missile defense that we have in Europe. Do you know anything about this and the actual Russian… Because it could be very relevant given the current geopolitical situation.
Steve: Yes. I’ve been following this pretty carefully because, well, I have a technical background so I’m able to follow it somewhat carefully. And the real issue is that the technology is now mature for hypersonic weapons. So both in terms of guidance systems, sensors, and also the basic aerodynamics material science to protect the missile or the device, as it’s moving at a hypersonic speed through what could be actually a plasma that’s created in the atmosphere. And then also even things like scramjets, which are sustained propulsion systems for things that might be moving at Mach 5 or Mach 10.
The Russians have continued to develop that technology, the Chinese have also developed that technology. The US just dropped the ball and stopped being interested in it over the last, at least 20 years, I would roughly say. So we’re in a situation now where the Russians and the Chinese have missile systems that, my personal opinion is we do not have good defensive countermeasures against. So the moment things go hot in Europe, I think NATO headquarters, I don’t think there’s any way they’re going to defend NATO headquarters. If the Russians want to take it out with a missile – conventional missile, just a completely conventional missile – they can take it out.
And same thing with supply and fuel stockpiles in Western Europe, the main ports by which the US would try to reinforce Western Europe, they’ll be taken out very quickly at the beginning of the war. I think it’s amazing the people in the State Department or even the top political leaders in the US just have no appreciation of what even conventional, even if like hypothetically, which I don’t believe we could keep it from going nuclear, if it were just a purely conventional war with either peer competitor, China or Russia, the US is just not prepared for… it could be many thousands of casualties on the first day. And that would happen even if the Russians wanted to minimize casualties. Suppose they just said, “We want to kill as few American soldiers as possible, but there are just a bunch of systems that we want to take out on the first day when it goes hot.”
Thus we are forewarned and therefore presumably protected much more than had that genius not released those furies… (or are we?)
Yesterday was technically the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere (11:33 a.m. on the East Coast, to be precise), but I always associate the vernal equinox with Bach’s birthday, which is today. So, in honor of JSB’s 337th birthday, here is his Bourrée (BWV 996), performed on a baroque lute:
A sprightly dance rhythm to welcome in the Spring!
p-guy – my state (OK) is now reporting on Thursdays, so I check the local school district reports to gauge the levels of illness. They also changed the weekly epidemiology reports to show 2022 case, hospitalization, and death data instead 2020-current data.
The only people I see wearing masks are older people that probably have medical issues. I’m keeping one available for the upcoming pollen season.
But, I wonder if some states are revising their death counts to avoid the count reaching 1,000,000 under Biden. I also think the increase in reporting from China about their cases is to set up another crisis for the midterms.
JimNorCal,
I’m hoping that’s the case, but will wait for a response, which will probably never come. Then I have a few hours of corrections to put in by hand.
liz: we went Lowes yesterday (Florida!) and the check out lady in the garden section had goggles, double mask, and nitrile gloves on. This in the open air, essentially outside behind a plexiglass shield. Can’t fix stupid.
Cornflour:
Good stuff on Russian and Chinese hypersonics!
I don’t need to sleep at nights anyway.
Something that is not being widely talked about in the media is how the war in Ukraine is going to effect not just the cost of wheat, but the actual supply. Ukraine having been previously called the bread basket of Europe.
On top of that, has the Biden administration raised the amount of acres that can be farmed for wheat, since our stupid system actually regulates certain crops such as cotton and wheat, as to how much can be grown?
What if tiny particles are not the object but part of the thought that is the object?
Some interesting snips:
… quantum theory describes particles with probabilities rather than properties. We tend to think that the sizes, shapes, and locations of physical objects are explained by the locations of their constituent particles. Quantum theory, however, doesn’t attribute such properties to particles, describing them instead in terms of the probabilities that they will appear to have locations if and when they are observed. And yet what “observed” means and what happens during an observation to make properties materialize out of quantum theory’s murk of possibilities and into the solid shapes that objects have in our everyday experience are questions that the theory doesn’t address. Physicists call this gap in quantum theory’s account of explanation the “measurement problem.”
A host of interpretations of quantum theory offer an assortment of stories purporting to solve the measurement problem, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them. QBism’s tale is the latest in a tradition that denies that quantum theory directly describes reality and yet, to hear Fuchs tell it, still offers the possibility of getting some grasp on what “reality” really is. “The world is not made of six flavors of quarks,” he’d written. “It is a world in which even dreams and ambitions have substance.”
Once things are reconceived as bundles of expectations, big ones aren’t made of smaller ones since beliefs don’t work that way. Atoms become instead an aspect of wine glasses rather than their constituents, meaning a concept that encapsulates some of our expectations about them, such as how they will look under an electron microscope. That realization led to another that was even more startling … that to a QBist, physical things are more than just atoms.
My conclusion: We are living in the ultimate virtual reality game, and outside this game we are also players in another virtual reality game, coming and going in and out of this one..
– there are potentially a lot of ways that hypersonic weapons may be defeated
– but all of these potential defenses are not really currently available and need to be developed over the coming years.
physicsguy, liz, et al.: God’s gift to epidemiology is BAAAACK! Fauci went on the Sunday talk shows yesterday to opine that Americans shouldn’t throw away masks and mask mandates just yet. “When asked about the recent BA2 variant of the virus, Fauci suggested that it’s more transmissible than the original virus and if it begins to spread widely, the country may need to return to the previous lockdowns and restrictions that were seen in the early stages of the pandemic. The segment had barely finished airing before Ted Cruz took to Twitter to deliver a very firm ‘hell no’ to the suggestion.”
From wikipedia:
A greeble (/??ri?bli?/ GREE-blee) or “nurnies”, is a part harvested from plastic modeling kits to be applied to an original model as a detail element. The practice of using parts in this manner is called “kit bashing”. Ron Thornton is widely believed to have coined the term “nurnies” …
Yeah, “greebles” and “nurnies” are silly FX model designer nonsense terms which were coined by people working on the original Star Wars movies back in the 70s. When designing spaceships an issue they faced is how do you represent the scale of something with no real world reference. Basically, how do you show that an Imperial Star Destroyer is supposed to be a really, really big thing if you don’t have anything else other than a star field, a planet, and another spaceship in the shot. Well, one way could be to put all sorts of tiny looking bits of stuff all over it that look like machinary. If you look up images of a Star Destroyer you’ll see what I’m describing.
Yeah, “greebles” and “nurnies” are silly FX model designer nonsense terms which were coined by people working on the original Star Wars movies back in the 70s
Nonapod:
Ron Cobb, underground comix artist, did the spaceships for “Dark Star” and the original “Alien.” He was a master at adding all those geegaws and gimcracks for effect.
You might have included a “mature audiences only” warning when you put up that video given the . . . er, ah . . . “biblical” happenings in there. My, my!
Dick Illyes
The QM measurement problem has been around for a long time with no real resolution. To me, it’s the most interesting aspect of QM from a philosophical view. However, with Bell’s Inequality from the early 60s, then numerous experiments since Aspect’s experimental work in the early 80s, it’s a definite feature of QM as Einstein’s objection has been nullified. The real question then becomes, “When/how does the measurement occur?’
The current fashionable solution is the “multiverse” where the measurement just splits the universe into an infinity of multiverses constantly. I prefer the more mystical view expressed by the famous physicist/cosmologist, John Wheeler, who said, “In some strange sense, it’s a participatory universe.” In this case the measurement occurs when consciousness makes the measurement. No hard data for either of those positions.
Regarding the non-pristine electron images of bacteria with geegaws, gimcracks, nurnies and greebles:
Little bugs have littler bugs
Upon their backs to bite ‘em.
And littler bugs have littler bugs
And on, ad infinitum.
There are admittedly many cranks, phonies, and hucksters who could be called part of the “UFO community.”
But, the more I listen to and observe Lou Elizondo and connect the dots of what he says, the more I believe that what he says about the UFO phenomenon–based on the training, access, research, and experiences he has had–is credible and true.
Former head of the DOD’s ATIP UFO investigation program, Lou Elizondo, has expended an enormous amount of time and energy making a daunting number of appearances on various TV programs and podcasts over the last four years, all to spread his conviction—based on what he has seen and discovered–of the reality of UFOs, and in virtually every one of them he leaves a little bit of information—a breadcrumb, a dot—that gives a little bit more information about how he sees the phenomena of UFOs.
Putting these bits of information together–connecting these dots–presents quite an interesting picture of the new and much more complex Reality/world-view that Elizondo, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Chris Mellon, and others with his same convictions now inhabit.
UFOs are a real phenomenon, have increasingly been observed during and since WWII, but what may be each era’s interpretation of what seems to be the same UFO phenomenon has been pictured and written about since the beginning of recorded history, and perhaps extends even further back in the history of our species.
The Universe is unimaginably vast, and it is filled with an unimaginable number—billions, perhaps trillions, or an even greater number, of huge galaxies–each one of these galaxies populated with an unimaginable number of billions of solar systems.
Moreover, it now it appears that most of these solar systems have planets—many in the “Goldilocks zone” favorable to the development of life.
Life is incredibly tough, and as we are increasingly finding out, extremophile life can exist in the harshest conditions imaginable– contemplate, for a minute, the Tardigrade.
Life on Earth is usually DNA and carbon based, but life based on other basic building blocks seems to be possible.
Thus, the Universe may be teeming with life of one sort or the other.
UFOs exhibit “six observable” characteristics which, taken together, are far, far ahead of any current technology possessed by the United States, or by any other of the world’s industrialized nations.
Thus, the obvious conclusion is that these UFOs are not “ours.”
As of now, it is unclear who or what is operating these UFOs–it could be some form of Artificial Intelligence–and since the “six observables” are seen across all sorts of different sizes, shapes, and colors of UFOs–they could all just be different models of UFOs all controlled by one civilization/species, or they could be controlled by a major civilization with subservient alien civilizations/species under them, or they could be vehicles run by several different civilizations or species, and us not just being “visited” by just one species of Aliens, but by several.
In earlier decades the assumption of the origin of these Alien UFOs was that they come from ours or some other solar system.
These days, especially given the new ways of thinking/possibilities opened up by Quantum Mechanics, several other possible origins are also being speculated about.
Thus, while UFOs could be from another solar system, they could also be from another dimension, from another time in the past or future, they could also possibly be a natural, earthly phenomenon which has been around since the dawn of time, but which we have only just recently gained the technical means to notice and record, or they could be something else, something so different that it is currently “unimaginable.”
As for the motives of these UFOs, Elizondo points out that while some think they are benevolent, they have not intervened to benefit us by stopping the deadly Spanish Flu, WWI, or WWII (including not stopping the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki), the Korean War, or Vietnam, not stopped the development and spread of nuclear weapons, not stopped Polio, not stopped terrorist attacks, major natural disasters, not stopped the development of chemical or biological weapons, major diseases including Covid, or the current Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
These UFOs travel with impunity through our skies and oceans (and perhaps in near Earth orbit as well), through restricted military airspace, and are especially attracted to military exercises, installations, and nuclear sites.
In the U.S. they have demonstrated the ability to disable our nuclear armed ICBMs, and in Russia the ability to start their nuclear armed ICBMs on a launch countdown.
In addition, while those who are exposed to UFOs have psychological and measurable physical trauma or changes from these encounters (the most recently added “sixth observable”), this damage may not be deliberately induced with hostile intent, but just be the consequence of being in close proximity to whatever forces power UFOs.
So are UFOs and those who operate them friends or foes, both, or neither?
Given the current focus on the problem of the origin, substance, and functions of “Consciousness,” it is also starting to dawn on some researchers that the UFO phenomenon may just be part of a much broader spectrum of PSI phenomena including poltergeist, remote viewing, and other similar phenomena–all related to human consciousness—and that theories of Quantum Mechanics may be useful in explaining all of these phenomena.
Elizondo emphasizes that any such Aliens– being alien—may live in and perceive their environment and the Universe in such different ways or dimensions, may use such different modes to sense and communicate, may think in such different speeds or ways, may have such different motives–or no apparent motives at all–that finding a way of communicating with them and, then, coming to some possible understanding of them may be very hard indeed.
From some of the things Elizondo has said, it also appears that he thinks that such Aliens are not only demonstrably much more advanced scientifically than we are, but that they also may well be far higher on the scale of evolution than is our human species; superior beings who are higher up on the food chain, thus displacing us from our currently assumed dominant position.
Take all the above as true, compare the resulting world-view with what is considered to be our ordinary “consensus reality,” and you can see that Elizondo, Chris Mellon, and others who believe as they do about the reality of UFOs are living in a far different and much more complex and scary Reality than most of us currently do (and would likely want to, if we had “our druthers”).
While it may be an exciting new adventure for some, if the Reality Lou Elizondo and others working along with him see is true, many in the human species will probably have a very hard time acknowledging, or participating in our likely “great demotion.”
I am back to turtles, turtles all the way down.
P.S.—I don’t speak for Lou Elizondo or for Chris Mellon, and the above is strictly my pretty presumptuous interpretation of what they have said.
I note a news report out today that the Russians have been rounding up thousands of people in Marioupol, putting them in camps, taking their cell phones and passports and, then , shipping them off to remote parts of Russia, including Siberia.
Snow on Pine:
I learned of Elizondo from Leslie Kean’s book:
___________________________
Kean, an independent investigative reporter, spent over ten years studying the still unexplained UFO phenomenon and publishing articles on the topic in mainstream media. She reviewed hundreds of government documents, aviation reports, radar data, and case studies with corroborating physical evidence, and carefully examined scientifically-analyzed photographs. She also interviewed dozens of high-level officials and aviation witnesses from around the world. Kean draws on her research to separate fact from fiction and to lift the veil on decades of U.S. government misinformation.
We know that of all UFO sightings reported, 90 to 95 percent can be explained as ordinary phenomena. However, within that remaining small percentage, spectacular well-documented UFO events have been officially investigated by government agencies around the world, yet no conventional explanations were found. Throughout her book, Kean presents irrefutable evidence that unknown flying objects – metallic, luminous, and seemingly able to maneuver in ways that defy the laws of physics – actually exist.
No one yet knows what these objects are, even though they affect aviation safety and possibly national security. The phenomenon has been officially acknowledged by numerous foreign governments. For these reasons and many others, Kean concludes that the UFO problem must be more widely recognized and ultimately solved through an unbiased scientific investigation. The material presented throughout this landmark book is sobering, unflinching, and undeniably awe inspiring, and moves us towards a goal of properly addressing this worldwide mystery.
I found it a persuasive book, but I was halfway there already.
Snow on Pine:
Yes, I read that too. Who know if it’s true? It’s certainly believable.
Neo—It’s a shame that just at the time when we could use reliable news sources to help us sort out what was fact and what was fiction—was propaganda about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine—our MSM has so destroyed its reputation that anything it reports can not be viewed with anything but the greatest suspicion.
There’s a 22-year-old guy who builds microchips in his parents’ garage…started when he was in high school….he needed an electron microscope, and found a used and broken one for $1000, which he was able to repair.
The COVID scam is on the march again. Fauci is floating masking and lockdowns again because something may, might, should, could restart the pandemic. Meanwhile the CEO of Moderna(?) is calling for a fourth jab. Profits are falling?
I don’t get it. The mRNA “vaccines” are clearly therapy not a real vaccine since they lose usefulness after about 90 days. In addition the virus has mutated several times so that the original design(used in jabs 1,2,3, and now 4) is useless because it’s designed for the first iteration of COVID. In addition there is no work on therapies being discussed. Bleh.
It didn’t use to be the case, but along with our vaunted MSM, our public health/medical experts and officials have also shown themselves to be unreliable and unworthy of our trust.
What the Covid mandates and lockdowns seem to have been mostly about is to instill our obedience to authority, no matter how silly or contrary to common sense and reality their ever changing and contradictory edicts and solutions may have been.
Tangential to the thread on COVID and aging,
Most all of us seem to agree that adversity can accelerate aging. Adversity from illness, or depression, even watching a loved one suffer from illness or pain. Illness, losing a loved one, moving, job loss,
It’s also obvious that medical costs are typically higher the longer something goes undetected. Early treatment is often less expensive treatment.
I have a theory that it will be very common for most 1st world folks to have annual blood urine and stool* samples checked; maybe even more frequent. Just as most of us see a dentist twice a year to make sure nothing is going wrong, most of us will have a blood sample taken and drop off a urine and stool sample at a diagnostic center. Maybe we’ll even do the blood sample ourselves, for drop-off.
I imagine most of us know someone (or this has happened to you) who learned some, essential enzyme, hormone, vitamin… was out of whack in their body. Iodine, potassium, zinc… Not all of our bodies make all essential hormones, enzymes, etc. in sufficient quantities and different folks likely have different ranges they can tolerate.
Imagine if your doctor had a database with analysis of a blood urine and stool sample from you from every single year of your life! You would know your baselines** and you would know with no more than 11 months and 30 days’ notice when something is increasing or decreasing.
*The Japanese are already obsessed with their stools and health. They even make toilets that take and test stool samples.
**I have a friend who learned he did not have a spleen when he was 50 years old. His son was having medical trouble and they learned the son did not have a spleen so they tested Mom and Dad. Turns out Dad didn’t have one, but Dad’s body was fine without one. Son’s was not. Baselines vary a lot across humans.
Maybe wokeness or socialism/communism are actually alien mind diseases.
Tornadoes in Texas tonight.
@ R2L > “Maybe wokeness or socialism/communism are actually alien mind diseases.”
Well, thanks for nothing!
Now they’ll have to kill us for finding out.
Been nice knowing all of you!
@ Snow > “I note a news report out today that the Russians have been rounding up thousands of people in Marioupol”
Heartbreaking first-person testimony and photographs from the last journalists to leave the city. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-edf7240a9d990e7e3e32f82ca351dede
Mstyslav Chernov is a video journalist for The Associated Press. This is his account of the siege of Mariupol, as documented with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and told to correspondent Lori Hinnant.
MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.
We were the only international journalists left in the Ukrainian city, and we had been documenting its siege by Russian troops for more than two weeks. We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage.
Suddenly at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: “Where are the journalists, for fuck’s sake?”
I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians in disguise. I stepped forward to identify myself. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.
The walls of the surgery shook from artillery and machine gun fire outside, and it seemed safer to stay inside. But the Ukrainian soldiers were under orders to take us with them.
@ jon baker > “our stupid system actually regulates certain crops such as cotton and wheat, as to how much can be grown”
It also demands we burn corn in our gas tanks.
@ physicsguy et al > “They’re screwing with the data again.”
I didn’t see any links in the thread, but have read several stories about this today.
The changes are because of a “coding error” that was counting the deaths that were not actually, you know, from Covid.
Whodathunkit?
It just so happens that—on the very day Joe Biden took office—the World Health Organization also released new guidelines ratcheting up the diagnostic criteria for COVID-19…
For some reason, as of today, the organization decided that those tests for the virus we’ve been relentlessly assured are the gold standard for detecting infection are, in reality, just a mere “aid for diagnosis.”
Clinicians now, not only can, but “must” also consider a wide array of other factors, like “timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts,” and even something called “epidemiological information”—whatever that exactly is—before diagnosing anyone with COVID-19.
WHO has also suddenly decided that, if you don’t show any symptoms, you’ll need to get a second test for confirmation as well…
if you look closely, you’ll notice these new tighter guidelines—though released today—were actually all typed up and ready to go on January 13.
Wonder why they waited a week?
This post by Andrea Widburg ties a lot of loose threads together.
I had been thinking somewhat along the same lines, but she knots all the strings into a coherent pattern.
When you look back over the last 60 years and think of anti-war types, they’ve been Democrats and other leftists. Also, when you look back over the last two years and think of pro-lockdown, pro-mask, and pro-vaccine types, they’ve also been Democrats and other leftists. With those two facts in mind (anti-war but pro-totalitarianism), you’ll find as fascinating as I did a poll out of Canada looking at the different responses vaccinated versus unvaccinated people have to the conflict in Ukraine.
Jack Posobiec tweeted out a chart based on data from EKOS Research Associates, a Canadian polling company, showing that the more vaccinated people were (three or more shots) the higher their rates of support for doing anything they could to support Ukraine, including western military involvement:
…
The new Democrats—the people on college campuses like Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn—were not anti-communist. They were very pro-communist. They opposed the Vietnam War for two reasons: (1) As products of American academia they supported the Viet Cong; and (2) also as products of American academia, they opposed anything that would benefit what they were already viewing as an evil, imperialist, racist, sexist nation that did not deserve support.
…
When the next major conflicts rolled around—the Iraq and Afghanistan War—the 1960s war protesters had completed their takeover of academia. They and the generations of students they had raised up opposed the war for two reasons: (1) They supported anyone who attacked America because they were another generation trained in anti-Americanism; and (2) they despised George Bush because he was not a Democrat so his war was automatically bad. (This is separate from whether the wars were wise.)
And then, along came Trump and COVID. The anti-war protesters from the 1960s and the 2000s despised Trump more than any other human being, ever (“worse than Hitler”). Additionally, the young’uns had absorbed the concentrated America-hatred of two to three generations of leftist academics. They embraced COVID, not just because they’re fearful people, but because they saw it as an opportunity to destroy Trump. They also quickly realized that COVID was giving them the political and social power they’d always dreamed of so that they could break down and remake America.
In both Canada and America, the new leftists, the ones who embraced COVID wholeheartedly, have in place hard-left governments that they support with religious fervor for sharing their dream of destroying the western liberal democratic experiment. These governments and their media outlets despise Putin. (Some possible reasons: the Trump Russia hoax; Putin’s hostility to gays; Putin not being a communist.) Conversely, these governments and their media outlets like Ukraine because, at least since 2014, it’s been a money-laundering nation (e.g., Hunter Biden + Burisma), which all corrupt government governments and ruling class people need.
The Canadian and American establishments are therefore propagandizing wildly for Ukraine and seeking to outdo each other in their rhetoric. (This is not to make Putin a hero. He’s bad too. They’re all bad. Only the civilians on the ground getting killed are the innocents in all this.)
Which gets us to the massively vaccinated’s strong support for the war. They trust the establishment figures who shared with them a hatred for the West, pro-Western wars, Putin, and Donald Trump. And if this ruling class says, “War is good,” well, damn! This war must be a good one.
An interesting pattern, AesopFan, and Andrea Widburg is often perceptive. I’m thinking. I’m also not buying other people’s way of thinking about the Ukraine situation without deep consideration.
For instance, Putin’s line that it’s the NATO threat vs. the creation of a new Great Russia. How about both? Putin may very well be worried about a growing alliance to his west, or he may think it’s a good excuse to gobble up land he believes belongs to Russia. The result is the same. He’s invaded what has been a sovereign nation for several decades, with disastrous results for that nation and for his own.
And, is it in America’s interest to become directly involved? I don’t think so; but I do think it’s in our interest to provide what indirect assistance we can. I gather that “globalists” are scheming to get us involved, or that’s what the theory is. What may be happening to “globalists” is that their paradigm is collapsing before their eyes. Nationalism is real, and globalist institutions and their gilded leaders can’t do much about it.
Hi there. If this thread is still considered by anyone, I’d like to point out that yesterday was J. S. Bach’s birthday.
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I’m always amazed at how messy the microscopic world appears. Every surface seems to be awash with little bits of detritus and greebles. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised since the macroscopic world is pretty messy too. But when we’re learning about really small stuff is school, we’re often presented idealized diagrams, models, and art with clean edges and surfaces. So you end up with this impression of a world made up of platonic solids and other idealized structures even though rationally you may know it isn’t likely to be so.
They’re screwing with the data again. The only covid updates on Monday are on national level as states take the weekend off. Yesterday, the reported national total active cases was around 23million…completely consistent with previous data. This morning suddenly it is 17million; a 25% decrease. I’ve seen this before where there’s a entry error that affects that one day and is soon corrected. But, in this case the decrease has been applied retroactively for at least 3 months. I’ve contacted WoM about this, will have to see what they say. The change is not a straight 6million decrease. At the peak of the omicron 60 days ago the change is about 1 million and then goes down to zero about 90 days past. Maybe this is the now admitted CDC PCR correction?? Interestingly, the serious cases data was not affected at all. Who knows, but once again trust is lost.
“Trust is lost…”
But on the plus side, it’s encouraging to see that “Biden” has finally opened up the US to foreign tourists…(i.e., not just illegal aliens)—
‘”Criminal Tourists” Target Wealthy American Neighborhoods’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/criminal-tourists-target-wealthy-american-neighborhoods
On the video: electron microscopy is really amazing. For anyone who doubts quantum mechanics is not a valid, those pictures are totally due to the electron’s wave nature.
To go down even smaller in scale to atom size, the scanning tunneling microscope exploits the QM reality of particle being able to “tunnel” through barriers. These are now so commonplace that you could buy a basic one for about $30k. Much of our current electronic technology advancements are due to the use of the STM.
Richard Feynman wrote a fascinating and quite prescient essay in 1960 titled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” about, among other things, electron microscopes:
__________________________________
What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale.
As soon as I mention this, people tell me about miniaturization, and how far it has
progressed today. They tell me about electric motors that are the size of the nail on your small finger. And there is a device on the market, they tell me, by which you can write the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin. But that’s nothing; that’s the most primitive, halting step in the direction I intend to discuss. It is a staggeringly small world that is below. In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direction.
Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?
–Richard Feynman, “”There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics””
http://nanoparticles.org/pdf/Feynman.pdf
p-guy: “in this case the decrease has been applied retroactively for at least 3 months”
I realize this is an unrelated data repository but didn’t the count of US Deaths recently go down tens of thousands? Perhaps they have time to validate the data and found some rough spots.
Maybe they’re no longer dependent (as much) on having the population-at-large in hysteria over Covid.
Why cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin?
The raw text of Wikipedia (which is almost certainly far larger than Brittanica) is in the neighborhood of 60GB, uncompressed. And you can currently buy a 512GB micro SD card the size of your fingernail, so we’ve long surpased that level of areal density.
I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m tempted to call someone a “pinhead”…
Our fellow citizens that voted in this Administration because they were embarrassed by Trump have a lot to answer for. This man doesn’t appear to possess any of the necessary skills to be an Ambassador of anything. It seems we haven’t kept the foolish and incompetent stateside alone.
https://www.jns.org/us-ambassador-to-israel-calls-settlement-growth-infuriating-backs-a-divided-jerusalem/
Another open-thread comment about something I read.
At his substack site, Richard Hanania has provided a transcript of a podcast interview he did with Stephen Hsu. Whether or not you agree with him, Hsu is both very smart and well informed. Basic biographical information is included in the interview. The whole transcript is worth reading, but I’ve copied below a section that’s relevant to some of Neo’s recent posts and the comments that ensued.
recorded February 1, 2022. https://tinyurl.com/ms43ss3j
Chinese and Russian Military Technology
Richard: I agree with all that. You mentioned… I read a little bit about this, about the Russians and the Chinese. I think a lot of people know the Chinese are good technologically, but as far as the Russians, they have some developments in missile technology that, from what I understand, some people say that they’ve just completely obviated the use of missile defense that we have in Europe. Do you know anything about this and the actual Russian… Because it could be very relevant given the current geopolitical situation.
Steve: Yes. I’ve been following this pretty carefully because, well, I have a technical background so I’m able to follow it somewhat carefully. And the real issue is that the technology is now mature for hypersonic weapons. So both in terms of guidance systems, sensors, and also the basic aerodynamics material science to protect the missile or the device, as it’s moving at a hypersonic speed through what could be actually a plasma that’s created in the atmosphere. And then also even things like scramjets, which are sustained propulsion systems for things that might be moving at Mach 5 or Mach 10.
The Russians have continued to develop that technology, the Chinese have also developed that technology. The US just dropped the ball and stopped being interested in it over the last, at least 20 years, I would roughly say. So we’re in a situation now where the Russians and the Chinese have missile systems that, my personal opinion is we do not have good defensive countermeasures against. So the moment things go hot in Europe, I think NATO headquarters, I don’t think there’s any way they’re going to defend NATO headquarters. If the Russians want to take it out with a missile – conventional missile, just a completely conventional missile – they can take it out.
And same thing with supply and fuel stockpiles in Western Europe, the main ports by which the US would try to reinforce Western Europe, they’ll be taken out very quickly at the beginning of the war. I think it’s amazing the people in the State Department or even the top political leaders in the US just have no appreciation of what even conventional, even if like hypothetically, which I don’t believe we could keep it from going nuclear, if it were just a purely conventional war with either peer competitor, China or Russia, the US is just not prepared for… it could be many thousands of casualties on the first day. And that would happen even if the Russians wanted to minimize casualties. Suppose they just said, “We want to kill as few American soldiers as possible, but there are just a bunch of systems that we want to take out on the first day when it goes hot.”
One of the things for which we have Trudeau to thank (seriously):
Opening this particular variant of Pandora’s Box—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/we-will-delete-you
Thus we are forewarned and therefore presumably protected much more than had that genius not released those furies… (or are we?)
Yesterday was technically the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere (11:33 a.m. on the East Coast, to be precise), but I always associate the vernal equinox with Bach’s birthday, which is today. So, in honor of JSB’s 337th birthday, here is his Bourrée (BWV 996), performed on a baroque lute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKebYt6m0t0&ab_channel=EdoardoLambertenghi
A sprightly dance rhythm to welcome in the Spring!
p-guy – my state (OK) is now reporting on Thursdays, so I check the local school district reports to gauge the levels of illness. They also changed the weekly epidemiology reports to show 2022 case, hospitalization, and death data instead 2020-current data.
The only people I see wearing masks are older people that probably have medical issues. I’m keeping one available for the upcoming pollen season.
But, I wonder if some states are revising their death counts to avoid the count reaching 1,000,000 under Biden. I also think the increase in reporting from China about their cases is to set up another crisis for the midterms.
JimNorCal,
I’m hoping that’s the case, but will wait for a response, which will probably never come. Then I have a few hours of corrections to put in by hand.
liz: we went Lowes yesterday (Florida!) and the check out lady in the garden section had goggles, double mask, and nitrile gloves on. This in the open air, essentially outside behind a plexiglass shield. Can’t fix stupid.
Cornflour:
Good stuff on Russian and Chinese hypersonics!
I don’t need to sleep at nights anyway.
Something that is not being widely talked about in the media is how the war in Ukraine is going to effect not just the cost of wheat, but the actual supply. Ukraine having been previously called the bread basket of Europe.
On top of that, has the Biden administration raised the amount of acres that can be farmed for wheat, since our stupid system actually regulates certain crops such as cotton and wheat, as to how much can be grown?
Interesting article on Quantum Theory https://nautil.us/my-quantum-leap-14132/
What if tiny particles are not the object but part of the thought that is the object?
Some interesting snips:
… quantum theory describes particles with probabilities rather than properties. We tend to think that the sizes, shapes, and locations of physical objects are explained by the locations of their constituent particles. Quantum theory, however, doesn’t attribute such properties to particles, describing them instead in terms of the probabilities that they will appear to have locations if and when they are observed. And yet what “observed” means and what happens during an observation to make properties materialize out of quantum theory’s murk of possibilities and into the solid shapes that objects have in our everyday experience are questions that the theory doesn’t address. Physicists call this gap in quantum theory’s account of explanation the “measurement problem.”
A host of interpretations of quantum theory offer an assortment of stories purporting to solve the measurement problem, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them. QBism’s tale is the latest in a tradition that denies that quantum theory directly describes reality and yet, to hear Fuchs tell it, still offers the possibility of getting some grasp on what “reality” really is. “The world is not made of six flavors of quarks,” he’d written. “It is a world in which even dreams and ambitions have substance.”
Once things are reconceived as bundles of expectations, big ones aren’t made of smaller ones since beliefs don’t work that way. Atoms become instead an aspect of wine glasses rather than their constituents, meaning a concept that encapsulates some of our expectations about them, such as how they will look under an electron microscope. That realization led to another that was even more startling … that to a QBist, physical things are more than just atoms.
My conclusion: We are living in the ultimate virtual reality game, and outside this game we are also players in another virtual reality game, coming and going in and out of this one..
Don’t worry, be happy.
Regarding hypersonic weapons, here’s text from a recent CSIS presentation regarding options for defense. It’s pretty long, but the takeaways seem to be that:
– there are potentially a lot of ways that hypersonic weapons may be defeated
– but all of these potential defenses are not really currently available and need to be developed over the coming years.
physicsguy, liz, et al.: God’s gift to epidemiology is BAAAACK! Fauci went on the Sunday talk shows yesterday to opine that Americans shouldn’t throw away masks and mask mandates just yet. “When asked about the recent BA2 variant of the virus, Fauci suggested that it’s more transmissible than the original virus and if it begins to spread widely, the country may need to return to the previous lockdowns and restrictions that were seen in the early stages of the pandemic. The segment had barely finished airing before Ted Cruz took to Twitter to deliver a very firm ‘hell no’ to the suggestion.”
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/03/21/fauci-suggests-going-back-to-restrictions-it-doesnt-go-well-n456713
Since nonapod’s word was new to me, I looked.
From wikipedia:
A greeble (/??ri?bli?/ GREE-blee) or “nurnies”, is a part harvested from plastic modeling kits to be applied to an original model as a detail element. The practice of using parts in this manner is called “kit bashing”. Ron Thornton is widely believed to have coined the term “nurnies” …
Yeah, “greebles” and “nurnies” are silly FX model designer nonsense terms which were coined by people working on the original Star Wars movies back in the 70s. When designing spaceships an issue they faced is how do you represent the scale of something with no real world reference. Basically, how do you show that an Imperial Star Destroyer is supposed to be a really, really big thing if you don’t have anything else other than a star field, a planet, and another spaceship in the shot. Well, one way could be to put all sorts of tiny looking bits of stuff all over it that look like machinary. If you look up images of a Star Destroyer you’ll see what I’m describing.
Yeah, “greebles” and “nurnies” are silly FX model designer nonsense terms which were coined by people working on the original Star Wars movies back in the 70s
Nonapod:
Ron Cobb, underground comix artist, did the spaceships for “Dark Star” and the original “Alien.” He was a master at adding all those geegaws and gimcracks for effect.
He died in 2020. RIP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Cobb
You might have included a “mature audiences only” warning when you put up that video given the . . . er, ah . . . “biblical” happenings in there. My, my!
Dick Illyes
The QM measurement problem has been around for a long time with no real resolution. To me, it’s the most interesting aspect of QM from a philosophical view. However, with Bell’s Inequality from the early 60s, then numerous experiments since Aspect’s experimental work in the early 80s, it’s a definite feature of QM as Einstein’s objection has been nullified. The real question then becomes, “When/how does the measurement occur?’
The current fashionable solution is the “multiverse” where the measurement just splits the universe into an infinity of multiverses constantly. I prefer the more mystical view expressed by the famous physicist/cosmologist, John Wheeler, who said, “In some strange sense, it’s a participatory universe.” In this case the measurement occurs when consciousness makes the measurement. No hard data for either of those positions.
Regarding the non-pristine electron images of bacteria with geegaws, gimcracks, nurnies and greebles:
There are admittedly many cranks, phonies, and hucksters who could be called part of the “UFO community.”
But, the more I listen to and observe Lou Elizondo and connect the dots of what he says, the more I believe that what he says about the UFO phenomenon–based on the training, access, research, and experiences he has had–is credible and true.
Former head of the DOD’s ATIP UFO investigation program, Lou Elizondo, has expended an enormous amount of time and energy making a daunting number of appearances on various TV programs and podcasts over the last four years, all to spread his conviction—based on what he has seen and discovered–of the reality of UFOs, and in virtually every one of them he leaves a little bit of information—a breadcrumb, a dot—that gives a little bit more information about how he sees the phenomena of UFOs.
Putting these bits of information together–connecting these dots–presents quite an interesting picture of the new and much more complex Reality/world-view that Elizondo, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Chris Mellon, and others with his same convictions now inhabit.
UFOs are a real phenomenon, have increasingly been observed during and since WWII, but what may be each era’s interpretation of what seems to be the same UFO phenomenon has been pictured and written about since the beginning of recorded history, and perhaps extends even further back in the history of our species.
The Universe is unimaginably vast, and it is filled with an unimaginable number—billions, perhaps trillions, or an even greater number, of huge galaxies–each one of these galaxies populated with an unimaginable number of billions of solar systems.
Moreover, it now it appears that most of these solar systems have planets—many in the “Goldilocks zone” favorable to the development of life.
Life is incredibly tough, and as we are increasingly finding out, extremophile life can exist in the harshest conditions imaginable– contemplate, for a minute, the Tardigrade.
Life on Earth is usually DNA and carbon based, but life based on other basic building blocks seems to be possible.
Thus, the Universe may be teeming with life of one sort or the other.
UFOs exhibit “six observable” characteristics which, taken together, are far, far ahead of any current technology possessed by the United States, or by any other of the world’s industrialized nations.
Thus, the obvious conclusion is that these UFOs are not “ours.”
As of now, it is unclear who or what is operating these UFOs–it could be some form of Artificial Intelligence–and since the “six observables” are seen across all sorts of different sizes, shapes, and colors of UFOs–they could all just be different models of UFOs all controlled by one civilization/species, or they could be controlled by a major civilization with subservient alien civilizations/species under them, or they could be vehicles run by several different civilizations or species, and us not just being “visited” by just one species of Aliens, but by several.
In earlier decades the assumption of the origin of these Alien UFOs was that they come from ours or some other solar system.
These days, especially given the new ways of thinking/possibilities opened up by Quantum Mechanics, several other possible origins are also being speculated about.
Thus, while UFOs could be from another solar system, they could also be from another dimension, from another time in the past or future, they could also possibly be a natural, earthly phenomenon which has been around since the dawn of time, but which we have only just recently gained the technical means to notice and record, or they could be something else, something so different that it is currently “unimaginable.”
As for the motives of these UFOs, Elizondo points out that while some think they are benevolent, they have not intervened to benefit us by stopping the deadly Spanish Flu, WWI, or WWII (including not stopping the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki), the Korean War, or Vietnam, not stopped the development and spread of nuclear weapons, not stopped Polio, not stopped terrorist attacks, major natural disasters, not stopped the development of chemical or biological weapons, major diseases including Covid, or the current Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
These UFOs travel with impunity through our skies and oceans (and perhaps in near Earth orbit as well), through restricted military airspace, and are especially attracted to military exercises, installations, and nuclear sites.
In the U.S. they have demonstrated the ability to disable our nuclear armed ICBMs, and in Russia the ability to start their nuclear armed ICBMs on a launch countdown.
In addition, while those who are exposed to UFOs have psychological and measurable physical trauma or changes from these encounters (the most recently added “sixth observable”), this damage may not be deliberately induced with hostile intent, but just be the consequence of being in close proximity to whatever forces power UFOs.
So are UFOs and those who operate them friends or foes, both, or neither?
Given the current focus on the problem of the origin, substance, and functions of “Consciousness,” it is also starting to dawn on some researchers that the UFO phenomenon may just be part of a much broader spectrum of PSI phenomena including poltergeist, remote viewing, and other similar phenomena–all related to human consciousness—and that theories of Quantum Mechanics may be useful in explaining all of these phenomena.
Elizondo emphasizes that any such Aliens– being alien—may live in and perceive their environment and the Universe in such different ways or dimensions, may use such different modes to sense and communicate, may think in such different speeds or ways, may have such different motives–or no apparent motives at all–that finding a way of communicating with them and, then, coming to some possible understanding of them may be very hard indeed.
From some of the things Elizondo has said, it also appears that he thinks that such Aliens are not only demonstrably much more advanced scientifically than we are, but that they also may well be far higher on the scale of evolution than is our human species; superior beings who are higher up on the food chain, thus displacing us from our currently assumed dominant position.
Take all the above as true, compare the resulting world-view with what is considered to be our ordinary “consensus reality,” and you can see that Elizondo, Chris Mellon, and others who believe as they do about the reality of UFOs are living in a far different and much more complex and scary Reality than most of us currently do (and would likely want to, if we had “our druthers”).
While it may be an exciting new adventure for some, if the Reality Lou Elizondo and others working along with him see is true, many in the human species will probably have a very hard time acknowledging, or participating in our likely “great demotion.”
I am back to turtles, turtles all the way down.
P.S.—I don’t speak for Lou Elizondo or for Chris Mellon, and the above is strictly my pretty presumptuous interpretation of what they have said.
I note a news report out today that the Russians have been rounding up thousands of people in Marioupol, putting them in camps, taking their cell phones and passports and, then , shipping them off to remote parts of Russia, including Siberia.
Snow on Pine:
I learned of Elizondo from Leslie Kean’s book:
___________________________
Kean, an independent investigative reporter, spent over ten years studying the still unexplained UFO phenomenon and publishing articles on the topic in mainstream media. She reviewed hundreds of government documents, aviation reports, radar data, and case studies with corroborating physical evidence, and carefully examined scientifically-analyzed photographs. She also interviewed dozens of high-level officials and aviation witnesses from around the world. Kean draws on her research to separate fact from fiction and to lift the veil on decades of U.S. government misinformation.
We know that of all UFO sightings reported, 90 to 95 percent can be explained as ordinary phenomena. However, within that remaining small percentage, spectacular well-documented UFO events have been officially investigated by government agencies around the world, yet no conventional explanations were found. Throughout her book, Kean presents irrefutable evidence that unknown flying objects – metallic, luminous, and seemingly able to maneuver in ways that defy the laws of physics – actually exist.
No one yet knows what these objects are, even though they affect aviation safety and possibly national security. The phenomenon has been officially acknowledged by numerous foreign governments. For these reasons and many others, Kean concludes that the UFO problem must be more widely recognized and ultimately solved through an unbiased scientific investigation. The material presented throughout this landmark book is sobering, unflinching, and undeniably awe inspiring, and moves us towards a goal of properly addressing this worldwide mystery.
UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record
https://www.lesliekean.com/ufos/
___________________________
I found it a persuasive book, but I was halfway there already.
Snow on Pine:
Yes, I read that too. Who know if it’s true? It’s certainly believable.
Neo—It’s a shame that just at the time when we could use reliable news sources to help us sort out what was fact and what was fiction—was propaganda about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine—our MSM has so destroyed its reputation that anything it reports can not be viewed with anything but the greatest suspicion.
There’s a 22-year-old guy who builds microchips in his parents’ garage…started when he was in high school….he needed an electron microscope, and found a used and broken one for $1000, which he was able to repair.
https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents-garage/
The COVID scam is on the march again. Fauci is floating masking and lockdowns again because something may, might, should, could restart the pandemic. Meanwhile the CEO of Moderna(?) is calling for a fourth jab. Profits are falling?
I don’t get it. The mRNA “vaccines” are clearly therapy not a real vaccine since they lose usefulness after about 90 days. In addition the virus has mutated several times so that the original design(used in jabs 1,2,3, and now 4) is useless because it’s designed for the first iteration of COVID. In addition there is no work on therapies being discussed. Bleh.
It didn’t use to be the case, but along with our vaunted MSM, our public health/medical experts and officials have also shown themselves to be unreliable and unworthy of our trust.
What the Covid mandates and lockdowns seem to have been mostly about is to instill our obedience to authority, no matter how silly or contrary to common sense and reality their ever changing and contradictory edicts and solutions may have been.
Tangential to the thread on COVID and aging,
Most all of us seem to agree that adversity can accelerate aging. Adversity from illness, or depression, even watching a loved one suffer from illness or pain. Illness, losing a loved one, moving, job loss,
It’s also obvious that medical costs are typically higher the longer something goes undetected. Early treatment is often less expensive treatment.
I have a theory that it will be very common for most 1st world folks to have annual blood urine and stool* samples checked; maybe even more frequent. Just as most of us see a dentist twice a year to make sure nothing is going wrong, most of us will have a blood sample taken and drop off a urine and stool sample at a diagnostic center. Maybe we’ll even do the blood sample ourselves, for drop-off.
I imagine most of us know someone (or this has happened to you) who learned some, essential enzyme, hormone, vitamin… was out of whack in their body. Iodine, potassium, zinc… Not all of our bodies make all essential hormones, enzymes, etc. in sufficient quantities and different folks likely have different ranges they can tolerate.
Imagine if your doctor had a database with analysis of a blood urine and stool sample from you from every single year of your life! You would know your baselines** and you would know with no more than 11 months and 30 days’ notice when something is increasing or decreasing.
*The Japanese are already obsessed with their stools and health. They even make toilets that take and test stool samples.
**I have a friend who learned he did not have a spleen when he was 50 years old. His son was having medical trouble and they learned the son did not have a spleen so they tested Mom and Dad. Turns out Dad didn’t have one, but Dad’s body was fine without one. Son’s was not. Baselines vary a lot across humans.
Maybe wokeness or socialism/communism are actually alien mind diseases.
Tornadoes in Texas tonight.
@ R2L > “Maybe wokeness or socialism/communism are actually alien mind diseases.”
Well, thanks for nothing!
Now they’ll have to kill us for finding out.
Been nice knowing all of you!
@ Snow > “I note a news report out today that the Russians have been rounding up thousands of people in Marioupol”
Heartbreaking first-person testimony and photographs from the last journalists to leave the city.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-edf7240a9d990e7e3e32f82ca351dede
Mstyslav Chernov is a video journalist for The Associated Press. This is his account of the siege of Mariupol, as documented with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and told to correspondent Lori Hinnant.
@ jon baker > “our stupid system actually regulates certain crops such as cotton and wheat, as to how much can be grown”
It also demands we burn corn in our gas tanks.
@ physicsguy et al > “They’re screwing with the data again.”
I didn’t see any links in the thread, but have read several stories about this today.
The changes are because of a “coding error” that was counting the deaths that were not actually, you know, from Covid.
Whodathunkit?
https://notthebee.com/article/whoops-the-cdc-just-reduced-how-many-kids-it-says-died-from-covid-by-24-due-to-a-coding-error
There were several stories out, but I want to give NTB the clicks.
“It sure is great that we’re giving all our freedoms up to a bureaucracy that’s so efficient, accurate, and moral, huh???”
I’m with liz on this: “I wonder if some states are revising their death counts to avoid the count reaching 1,000,000 under Biden.”
They already redid the Covid counting protocols early in Brandon’s tenure so that it would look like cases and deaths were decreasing on his watch.
This one is about no longer using the PCR tests with cycles that were over-stating the number of cases — which was recognized as a problem very early in the pandemic.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/right_on_schedule_covid_pivots_for_biden.html
This is about the sudden unexpected (!!) discovery that deaths with covid are not the same as deaths from covid (which apparently are still being miscounted because of a coding error a full year later).
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/will_covid_numbers_now_shift_for_bidens_benefit.html
And I’m sure “Dr” Fauci has absolutely no idea why Senator Cruz is so angry with him.
(h/t PA+Cat)
In fact, this current revelation was deja vu all over again. (From a Red State post.)
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/01/21/obama-may-have-begun-the-lowering-of-the-oceans-but-biden-has-suddenly-vanquished-covid/
This post by Andrea Widburg ties a lot of loose threads together.
I had been thinking somewhat along the same lines, but she knots all the strings into a coherent pattern.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/the_correlation_between_vaccines_and_the_ukrainerussia_war.html
An interesting pattern, AesopFan, and Andrea Widburg is often perceptive. I’m thinking. I’m also not buying other people’s way of thinking about the Ukraine situation without deep consideration.
For instance, Putin’s line that it’s the NATO threat vs. the creation of a new Great Russia. How about both? Putin may very well be worried about a growing alliance to his west, or he may think it’s a good excuse to gobble up land he believes belongs to Russia. The result is the same. He’s invaded what has been a sovereign nation for several decades, with disastrous results for that nation and for his own.
And, is it in America’s interest to become directly involved? I don’t think so; but I do think it’s in our interest to provide what indirect assistance we can. I gather that “globalists” are scheming to get us involved, or that’s what the theory is. What may be happening to “globalists” is that their paradigm is collapsing before their eyes. Nationalism is real, and globalist institutions and their gilded leaders can’t do much about it.
Hi there. If this thread is still considered by anyone, I’d like to point out that yesterday was J. S. Bach’s birthday.