Home » Open thread 4/29/22

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Open thread 4/29/22 — 49 Comments

  1. And you can see!

    Your three year odyssey has come to a successful conclusion!

  2. Welcome back!

    Just a heads up. You may hear in the MSM, and from the CDC about “Cases!!!” in the next week as they try to ramp up the fear again. Cases are going up nationally and in all the states I track, but not at a high rate. Deaths still remain low, and serious cases nation wide are at about 1500, or 0.0012 of active cases. For comparison, there are about 2500 heart attacks per day in the US, so covid serious cases are 40% less than heart attacks on a daily basis.

  3. Neo, you managed to keep writing while you could barely see, and while traveling to the Left Coast, and now, with better vision, back to the East again. Very impressive!

  4. physicsguy, our lefty local news station reports breathlessly that wastewater studies show COVID is increasing here, and they are very sad that serious cases and death rates are very low.

  5. Just putting this out there in case…you know…Ukrainian troops aren’t marching through Moscow in a couple of weeks.

    Mark Ames
    @MarkAmesExiled
    Over 2 months into this war, and still almost no info on condition of Ukrainian forces, losses, positions etc—despite (what seems to be) deluge of granular info from all the OSINTers, analysts etc. And zero curiosity from western media. Just a kind of heroic abstraction.

    https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1519460157775822850

    Mike

  6. physicsguy and Kate–

    physicsguy used to live in CT, so he won’t be surprised to learn that Yale is tentatively going to hold Commencement outdoors at the end of May– BUT– “All students and guests must be fully vaccinated and boosted to attend university ceremonies and events on Commencement Weekend. . . . The university continues to monitor developments in the COVID-19 pandemic. Plans for Commencement remain subject to change based on developments locally, statewide, and nationally, as well as changes in university policy.” Today’s threat level: “Low to Moderate Risk.”

    Meanwhile, the mayor has used his telephone spam call app to advise us locals that free COVID test kits are available for pickup at various designated locations. physicsguy is so right about “try[ing] to ramp up the fear again.”

    I do hope the School of Medicine isn’t planning to give Fauci an honorary degree.

  7. PA+Cat,

    CT continues to run about 15-20k tests every day, which has not changed too much through the 2 years. So of course, more tests, more cases of which many I’m sure are asymptomatic. Meanwhile CT deaths are now at lowest point of 2/day for a 14 day average with no signs of increasing even though cases in CT up over the last 30 days. Yale is nuts, though I’m sure all the other schools are following suit.

    BTW, I heard a rumor about 2 papers in peer review from Europe and Canada showing in one instance the vaxes are totally useless, and the other that the vaxes actually increase the odds of contracting covid. Will have to wait until the papers get released, if they are not squashed before then.

  8. physicsguy, please post those here if they are ever released. It’s now almost fourteen months since my last Moderna shot, and I’m hoping, if I catch the milder variants going around, I’ll at least develop a full immune reaction, not the partial and short-lived immunity which the shots produce.

  9. Bunge:

    Let us know how the May 9 Victory Parade in Moscow turns out. Regarding Ukrainian casualties, yes, there is not much information, astounding that there is an information war going on as well. There does seem to be a dearth of information regarding Roosian civilian deaths and Roosian cities turned to rubble.

    That is a profound mystery. Maybe you can figure that out.

  10. if it’s practically a hot war, with the us handing weapons out of the back seat, then pointing out they are responsible for targeting generals, if the shambling mess has burped up ‘regime change, well that might explain it, if putin decides to attack the supply lines, don’t be surprised what happens,

  11. physicsguy – Did the purveyor of your rumor know whether “useless” referred to risk of contracting Covid or the severity of infection (or maybe both)? Post Omicron, its pretty clear that the vaccine doesn’t prevent infection. It would be nice to have good quantitative data on whether it actually reduces the severity of infection.

  12. Bauxite:

    We have plenty of data that it reduces the severity of infection. I’ve written quite a bit about that in the past. Don’t have time to locate it now.

  13. Bauxite, No specifics given at all; just wait and see if the papers actually show up. I actually think post alpha the vaxes are useless as they were designed for the alpha spike.

  14. Poor Vlad, his generals keep getting killed in a war he started and his threats to nuke anyone who interferes haven’t cowed everyone. Just some.

  15. we’re emptying our missile stockpiles and ammo, while they are creating an orwellian police state out of terry gilliam’s brazil, with the largest domestic arsenal of ammunition to hunt down the real enemy, are you paying attention yet

  16. Very glad you’re home neo. That alone must feel very good. No hurry, but can’t wait to read Part IV of your story.

  17. “Regarding Ukrainian casualties, yes, there is not much information, astounding that there is an information war going on as well.”

    So, just to be clear…your position is that you’re happy to be lied to, deceived, and manipulated as long as the “good guys” are the ones treating you like the sheep you are? I mean, the Russians aren’t the ones stopping you from getting information on how the war is actually going on Ukraine’s end.

    Ukraine, and most of the U.S. media, is waging “information war” on YOU. Not on Russia. YOU.

    Mike

  18. MBunge:

    When you find a propaganda-less war, please let us all know.

    It’s also called “the fog of war” for a reason.

  19. Bunge:

    Just to be clear, Bunge, I know better than to accept at face value what I see and hear in the media. Fog of war.

    I am especially skeptical when I read anything from you.

    As regards sheep and other domesticated animals, you can find yours in the sty or wallow.

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pig+stie&t=brave&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FED8KKW%2Fpig-in-muddy-pigsty-uk-ED8KKW.jpg

    If you have an intelligent point to make, and are minimally competent in expressing yourself, you don’t have to shout.

  20. Now back to an example of an Intelligence Analyst spinning for the Russians. This time an interview on the Federalist Radio Hour podcast from yesterday.
    George Beebe bemoaned conditions in Russia in the early 1990”s after the fall of the USSR and how early 2000s warmer relations between Russia and the USA somehow fell apart post Iraq war. No mention of Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine, or any other Russian actions. He is big into the NATO is the cause of Russian behavior. He said nothing of the Trump administration, except a passing word or two about Russia-gate. He finished with faint praise for Brandon’s approach to Roosia until Vlad invaded. Seems like a usual example of “intelligence” in the Intelligence Community. Not impressed.

    But he has a book to sell. Geoffrey, the link for the book is at the bottom.

    https://ricochet.com/series/federalist-radio-hour/

    Amid Ukraine Crisis, Intelligence Analyst Explains Structural Flaws In U.S. Foreign Policy

    “On this episode of “The Federalist Radio Hour,” George Beebe, former chief of CIA’s Russia analysis and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss the structural flaws in U.S. foreign policy and why it matters now that Russia has invaded Ukraine.

    You can find Beebe’s book “The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe” here:

    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250316622/therussiatrap

  21. I’m glad you made it home safely and with good vision.
    Sadly, your departure from L.A. just drove way down the average level of common sense in my neighborhood.

  22. So glad for the success of your trip, Neo. And thank you for the brief on your experience.

  23. Ah, I see and clicked on om’s link.

    “Every American president since the end of the Cold War has called for better relations with Russia.”

    That Beebe as an expert, presumably intentionally ignores that any politician calling for “better relations” while acting in contradiction to their words invalidates their assertion of sincerity. For an observer to fail to note such a fundamental contradiction is to reveal a biased agenda.

    “George Beebe argues that new game-changing technologies, disappearing rules of the game, and distorted perceptions on both sides are combining to lock Washington and Moscow into an escalatory spiral that they do not recognize.”

    Beebe utterly ignores NATO expansion and Russia’s consistent declaration that it views NATO placing itself upon its borders, as an existential threat.

    Beebe is right in how this could possibly escalate into a nuclear war, yet ignores the primary conditions that have led to the conflict.

    “Ex-U.S. Ambassador to USSR: Ukraine Crisis Stems Directly from Post-Cold War Push to Expand NATO”
    https://youtu.be/e5F0JSy-HHY

  24. Geoffrey:

    Did you listen to the interview?

    Beebe made the claim that NATO “expansion” into Eastern Europe was unacceptable to Russia and a “red line.” He faults the west for that. You may agree if you actually listen.

    I do not find his argument credible; too accomodating to Vlad’s Roosia and its goal to dominate Europe IMO.

  25. this is what the current CIA director william burns, stated in his book, as sundance pointed out, now what is our interest in a conflict that could turn nuclear,

  26. Re: Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled (MBunge)

    Not to say yea or nay, but just FYI…

    I was pretty sure Ames was the Mark Ames who founded and edited, “the eXile,” a free paper for English-speaking expatriates in Moscow after the Soviet Union collapsed. And he was.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ames

    Ames hired Matt Taibbi to work for “the eXile.” Which is where Taibbi go his big first cred as a journalist.

    Everything is deeply intertwingled.

  27. There’s an excellent compilation of “the eXile” magazine, which I highly recommend for its humor, wackiness and particular keyhole into an historical moment.

    https://www.amazon.com/Exile-Sex-Drugs-Libel-Russia/dp/0802136524/ref=sr_1_1

    Or there was. It’s out of print. And now going for $250! Oh, my beating heart…

    I gave my copy away, “Hands across the water” or something, to a Russian expatriate in Silicon Valley.

    She was the one who told me, “You Americans always think things will get better.”

    I still do.

  28. About Disney going woke. I’m sure we could find earlier examples, but here is one.
    Hollywood Consultant Admits ‘Glee’ Started the Wokeness Epidemic
    The theater was for centuries considered a disreputable place, and actors and actresses low-lifes. Now, we revere the utterances which drip from their lips. My grandmother was against the movie industry, and suggested we would end up worshipping the actors and actresses’.

  29. I hope the eyes are doing fine. I’d hate to be in a world without your regular surveys of the world at large.

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